Chris Salij's blog

Last night I had my final exam as a first year. I'm now officially finished my first year of college. At this stage I'm sure I could go into a long teary eyed recall of the past year and the various experiences and memories it has brought. Of all the new friends I've made and all the fun I've had. But let's face it, I'm not writing a college prospectus, and so I won't tart it up. This last year has been great! It's been hard work at times and great fun at others. I would say everybody should go to college, though not everyone is cut out for it, at least based on just my first years experience.

My first year in college is nearly over. Only a couple of days ago I had my last lecture of first year and my word how its flown by, especially the second semester. It seems like only a week ago I was returning from my Christmas break. Now I've got three exams left and I'm finished for the summer. It's absolutely insane. However as they say, on with the show.

Only this weekend I realised that theres only two weeks left of term in college. Then I'll be finished first year. Two weeks people! Thats just crazy. My first year has just flown by. And of course what did I do once I realised how close exam time was. I started working on my Website. Forget the study or the panic, I just sat down and spent about 20 hours working on my Website.

    Let me start off by saying sorry for not posting here in what must be about 6 weeks. I won't come out with a list of excuses. I'll just say I was busy with my course/I forgot and by the time I remembered and had enough free time to do it my internet went down at home. Which is only being fixed tomorrow after a gruelling two weeks without it. Anyway on with the show.

    Since its been roughly 6 weeks lets do a quick summary of whats happened in my various subjects:

The fourth week of term is now over and things are really starting to pick up. I've had a few assignments to drop in and more work and study to be done. But overall its been enjoyable. Although if there's one thing I've definitely learned this week its that you shouldn't go out and stay out till 3 in the morning midweek if you have a 10am lecture the next day. On Wednesday I went to The Blizzards in the SU Bar on campus. By the time they'd finished it was about 1.30 or 2, and by the time I got to sleep it was roughly 4.30 or 5. I missed my first lecture at 10. I was half asleep for my lecture at 11 and between the jigs and the reels I didn't manage to go to my lecture at 1. I went home and just fell into bed. Not a smart move at all.

Another week another blog post. Things are really starting to pick up this week. I had my first Computer Architecture assignment due and my first practical in the same subject. The assignment was actually quite interesting and forced me to think about computers a little bit differently. However the wording of the questions was so pants that I had to reread each a good few times. Who uses an ambiguous word like 'applications' when talking about hardware implementations. But anyway.

We've now just finished the second week of term and everything is looking very promising. I've got a number of small little projects and things to get started on. Nothing major so far, just regular coursework, but I can tell already this this term will be a lot busier than the last one.

So the first week back is over already. To be honost by the end of the christmas break I was more than glad to be back. Four weeks is far too long to be off. Though I think I'll regret saying that when it comes to 3rd and 4th year.

This week was like the first week of the first semester. Every lecture was just an introduction to the material we're going to be covering, and a brief outline of the grading of each module. So far so good. It seems like I'm finally going to be doing some computers now. My list of modules this semester is;

• Formal Foundations

Why I love Computers

 I suppose I was one of the lucky ones when it came to filling out my CAO. I always knew what I wanted to do in college. I was always going to do something involving computers. I was never fixed on what or where, but I knew I wanted it to involve computers in some way.

As this is my first post on the UCD:CSI blog I thought I would take some time to introduce myself and tell you a little bit about myself. Consider this a short bio.

About me

Well my name is Chris Salij, I just about to turn 19 and I'm a first year Computer Science student in UCD.
I'm 6"1, weight 75Kg, have electric blue eyes and love long walks on the beach.

I suppose you might be interested in my interests and hobbies and whatnot. Well I'm not your typical (almost) 19 year old college student.  I don't smoke or drink, for no other reason than I don't want to. But that doesn't stop me from going out and having fun. In fact you'll probably find me in the bar with friends about 4 days a week, though I keep to the water. I go rifle shooting every Monday evening with a couple of friends and I spend copious amounts of time in the elements cafe in the science block, just hanging around or studying. I like to stay fit although I don't really use the UCD gym, I just never got into the habit of going. As for actual college work, I'm actually really enjoying my course, though I'll write more about that in the following posts. I've got a passion for science in general but I also like languages. My elective for the first semester was french and next semester is Japanese. I love to read, my current book is The Bourne Supremacy - by Robert Ludlum, and let me tell you, the book and the movie are like night and day, the plots aren't even similar.