Uni

I handed in my Computer Science term project today, which, I suppose means that my academic year is now complete. I’m fairly happy with how the semester’s progressed, every unit that I studied (including the two that I chose on a whim) has been excellent, which is more than I can say for previous semesters. Analysis (Real analysis to be specific) was absolutely fantastic, and I’ll be doing my best to enrol in the follow-up functional analysis unit (I’ve had it suggested to me by several people, and I’m convinced), and it’s certainly made the maths major I’m now enrolled in seem like a very good idea.

As far as I can tell, exams went well, but I won’t know for certain until results are released next week (I’m very confident with my two maths units, Graphics is a different story (though I don’t recall doing as badly as the lecturer claims the class as a whole went)).

TUCS

In other (though slightly Uni-related) news, TUCS (The UTAS Computing Society) had its Annual General Meeting for 2009 last week, and as well as discovering the joy of barbecued* Woolworths’ Quantity Burgers (they’re excellent, really!), I was elected society president for 2009. The rest of the exec are also a truly awesome bunch of people, so the future certainly looks bright.

TUCS has run some excellent events in its inaugural year: our tech talks were, in general, wildly successful, amongst other things. Thanks to that, we’ve become what appears to be one of the most active societies on campus. I’ll be doing my best to make sure that we can replicate, or even better that next year. (If you’re a speaker, or know any good ones, and would like to give a talk, let me know!)

In related news, we also took delivery of some particularly awesome TUCS-Branded T-Shirts just after exams — we’re particularly happy with how that went and will probably do it again next year.

(*I will definitely be approving funding for a new barbecue for the society… the current one is truly dreadful)

LCA

Last week-ish, I had dinner with some members of the Linux.conf.au organising committee. Though much of what was discussed must be kept under wraps (it’s thoroughly exciting, I promise!), I can tell you that the conference is shaping up to be most excellent, and if you haven’t already booked your ticket, I suggest you do so as soon as possible!

That is all for me for now, more news as it comes (I hope!)

And a brief wrap-up of other me-related news:

• Had a nice, short trip to Sydney in early July — I will make it a point of not entering New South Wales when State of Origin is on in the future. Went to the Apple Store on George Street far too many times — free internet is quite enticing when you’re waiting for people.
• Whilst in Sydney, I attempted to catch up with SydneyPython in order to spruik my proposal for a Python Miniconf at LCA2009. Unfortunately, the meeting was cancelled, and so instead the SyPy people went to Beer2.0, where we met a bunch of interesting Web2.0 people.
• Uni exams finished in mid-June, with results being released last week. In short, I had my best semester yet at Uni (straight HDs/nothing below 82), and so I’m certainly not regretting the increased workload as far as maths is concerned.
• Semester 2 of Uni is now underway, I’ve had lectures in all three of my coursework-delivered units (Real and Complex Analysis, Computer Graphics and Animation, Topics in Advanced Mathematics), with only my research project unit to be dealt with. It’s looking like it’ll be a very interesting semester, with some thoroughly difficult units to be dealt with, so I’m happy about that.

That’s all for now. More as it comes.