Simeon Kesler's Blog

Hello everybody.

I’m typing today’s post all the way from an internet cafe (no accented-e avaliable as fair as I can surmize – no Alternative-Grunt key, and Alternative-Control doesn’t help either), and as the last brackets may have indicated, I prefer the UK/English screen and keyboard layout.  Anywho, the bug that has hit my parents has unfortunately hit me, so if I die mid-sentence I implore your forgiveness.

Back to the past, we (myself, Sam Fryman and Amelia Wiseman) came out on Sunday, and then travelled to Netanya, where we are staying at my grandparent’s flat (although, at the moment, we are all located in Jerusalem – we came out yesterday, and Sam and myself are enjoying the hospitalitiy of Yeshivat Hakotel – Amelia’s staying with friends at a sem).

I was intending to do soem product placemnets (i.e. photos), but the upload speed here is veeeeeerrrrryyyyyyyyy slooooowwwwwwwwwwwwww.  I might do another post while out here, otherwise expect the posting to continue once I get back (25th).

Till next time.

Simeon

Shalom once again.

The blog has now migrated, as you might be able to tell from the weird colour change.  Note:  I don’t really like this theme that much, and will be hunting around soon for a new one (edit:  new one found, for now).

The posts seem to have survived the change pretty well, with one exception:  I have now lost all published photos from the previous 9-10 posts.  I frankly can’t be bothered trying to re-upload pics, so the site will remain picture-less for a couple of days (till my next blog post where pictures and photographs invade).

That’s all for now, so farewell till next time.

Simeon

P.S.  It seems that I’ve also lost my font-size changes on previous posts.  Eh.

Hi all.

I’m transferring the blog today to a proper self-managed system (using WordPress). If you haven’t guessed, I currently use Blogger, which, although is very good at setting up a blog, doesn’t provide all the features that a self-manager, fully customisable blog offers.

Expect weirdness for the most of today and parts of tomorrow.

Its not the end of the world or anything.

Simeon

Bonjour.

I’d like to start with an apology. Sorry.

I never said that the apology would be specific.

The silliness out of the way, I have now arrived back home. The lateness of this post is due to Wednesday seeing me tired after the end of lectures and supervisions; Thursday seeing me pack and attending the TGM (Termly General Meeting) for CUJS (see more later); Friday seeing me travel back to Manchester; Saturday seeing me knackered after the aforementioned journey and Sunday seeing me help the parents’ tidy up the garage in preparation for a new tumble-dryer. Sacré bleu.

Now to return to the fist of those days (nothing really happened of significance during the rest of last week) Wednesday night saw the Fitz CompSci’s meet up at Wilson Court (on Fitz Main Site) with our Director of Studies (DoS), Dr. Pietro Lio, who hails from Italy, and brought back cheeses, which we partook of along with Fitz wine, bread, crackers and fruit (and also non-alcoholic fruit-juices). The older CompSci’s introduced us to some drinking games, including the art of “pennying“, “tennis-elbow-foot” (can’t find a link – ask me for details), “I Never” (you might’ve heard of it from that wonderful TV show, Lost – can I say that the game never, at any point, got perverse, as suggested by the Wiki link) – I’d also like to say that I mainly had fruit-juice (don’t post comments along the lines of “yeah right”).

Back on the laptop, the gar-bouse’s scroll-wheel problem has escalated to the middle button to not functioning properly at all, in that it becomes stuck pressed – at £5.00 though, I’m not complaining that I have to lever the wheel up manually and not use the scroll-wheel full stop anymore, and anyway, I’m now back home, where I can use my powerhouse desktop, with no problems and with a much better performance than the laptop.

Onto Thursday, I’ve had to do that most wonderful of chores: packing. All of my stuff went into either my suitcase or into the over-vacation storage locker in my room (which had thankfully been repaired on Tuesday) – its amazing how much I brought with me (or I had my parents bring down) – but the over-vacation storage locker has room for about my wardrobe again (i.e. no lack of room) – unfortunately, the suitcase didn’t have as much room, and so the cupboard is now home to some DVDs that I would’ve preferred to take back with me.

Thursday evening saw the Termly General Meeting (TGM) at CUJS. For those who don’t know what’s involved at this event (including me till the evening of 29/11) the meeting mainly consists of reports by current the Presidents, Treasurer and Buildings officer. Then comes hustings, that wonderful Cambridge term for the democratic process in societies (i.e. elections). In our society, candidates stand up, wear a silly hat, and say why they want to have that position. All positions are up for grabs, expect that of President. Instead, the position of Presidents-elect is open to a pair of people, who, if they win, are the Presidents for the term following the next one. After the candidate speaks (time-limit of 90 secs for candidates, excepting for President-elects, who get 150 secs), the floor gets the chance to ask questions or raise points of information to the candidate(s). They also have to wear silly hats.

No positions were contested, but they had to do the election anyway, otherwise RON gets mad. You never know what RON might do (RON is what you vote for if you don’t like the choice of candidates). The ballot closed at 21.00, and began at 17.00 – but at 20.00, the assumed new committee went to CUlanu, to decide the fate of next term’s CUJS outcome. Run for the hills.

On Friday, I woke at 5.30, and later departed from college for the only direct train from Cambridge to Manchester, the 7.24. It’s always fun waking up early.

Not much has happened since. Over the next few weeks I’ve got to do an exuberant amount of work – 66 maths tripos questions (each question takes approx. 30 mins, and so I have a working weeks worth of work (9.00 to 17.00, 5 days) – my Maths supervisor says that it’s not that maths people are evil, it’s just that evil people gravitate towards maths); some physics questions (thankfully not much); an ML practical to do (i.e. coding at whatnot); and a physics report to do (a 1000 word report on one of the physics practicals that we’ve already done – this one counts towards my final grade, having as much weight as a single physics practical (not much, but important). In addition, by the way, I’ve got exams in January when I get back. They don’t count towards to the final grade – they’re mainly to see how we’re doing, and to scare the living /¦@# out of us.

That concludes it for now. The forecast for future blog posts include the introduction of a glossary (as recommended by an aforementioned comment), a post about the various wildlife that I’ve noticed around Cambridge, a blog post or two about Israel (when I go out there in two weeks time), and possibly some random posts about some random stuff.

Till next time.

Au révoir.

Simeon

P.S. Nobody said I was good at French

P.P.S. By the way, I was elected Buildings Officer at the TGM for next term. How’s that for a minor post-script.

P.P.P.S Sorry for the lateness of the post, and for the lack of pictures.

HELLLLLLLOOOOOO.The big news this week – the penultimate week has finished, and I depart back home soon. Train goes back on Friday morning (next week), and I plan to spend the next few days either sleeping or just going into a narcotic state.

Following on from the dead mouse, I have now had a case of a Hard Damned Drive (HDD) failure, causing me to lose all the photos that I have taken over the past few weeks (nothing non-salvageable, thankfully). This one requires me to try the joy that is HP support, so we’ll wait and see whether things work out.

Monday saw CUJS invade the hall at Downing College for a Formal Hall meal. The meal started with pre-wrapped bread, with notes inside stating that “We hope you enjoy your journey. Our meals have been specially tailored for flights, while ensuring the strictest Kashrut …”. That aside, the meal was actually okay, and dessert was very good (dessert following the Formal was held at CUlanu, a kind of Hillel house for Cambridge).

The Kosher Formal at Downing – note the presence of gowns on most attendees

In addition, the large matriculation photo that I ordered has finally arrived, and you can see the year in all its glory (the large matric photo is when the whole year of freshers, along with key College members, go outside (here outside the Grove) for a picture on very thin stands – one move and you can potentially kill a pyramid of people – [letting n be the row that you are standing on (counted from the bottom) such that n is a member of the set of natural numbers, and f be the function of n that maps to d, the number of people that you are likely to kill, then:

but that's just the Maths and Discrete Maths talking]). Most of that paragraph was apparently pointless, and I think I’ll end this dire little post here and now.

Byes.

Simeon

P.S. The comments about owning a garb-ouse were well founded, as this mouse from Trust (the company you can depend upon) doesn’t scroll properly when moving the scroll-wheel. Its exactly like the debounced switch we did today in Hardware Labs (or the rotary counter we did two weeks ago).

Hello again.

That’s it for now, so I’ll end it there then.

Bye.

Simeon

I’d like to start by congratulating my Auntie Karin on being the first ever person to post a comment on my blog – I do welcome them despite the moderation rant previously, so please comment, criticise and slander. In response to the aforementioned comment, there may be a picture of me in a gown published soon, along with a picture of the CUJS members (possibly at the same time, in two weeks at the formal hall – if I can find the email address to reply to). And to restate any previous comments, I did have a quilt – I struggled with the stuff sack strapped into the back of one of my backpacks when coming down on the train.

And in response to creating a glossary, you’re not the first who’s asked (I don’t understand it, what’s so weird, for instance, about “the Bubble” or “the splodge”), and so I’ll probably work on a separate page with a permanent link on the side for a glossary – it may come in a post during the Michaelmas-Lent vacation (after Week 8).

That all out of the way, there’s not much to say for the end of Week 5. Thursday saw the CUJS invade “The Anchor”, a split-level pub on the River Cam, near to Queens’, opposite the aforementioned Mathematical Bridge (also see below), for a pub quiz. Our team, of which I cannot remember the name (the only other Jewish person that I’ve met a Fitz, Jason, was on the team and chose the name, which we all hated), came a grand last in the competition. It was a wonderful honour to participate.

Not much else to say, so I’ll finish off with the pictures of Cambridge that I promised last week (I took these photos on Thursday, in the free time between my software practical marking session and my first Discrete Maths lecture).

The Mathematical Bridge, in Queens’. Despite popular believe, not constructed by Newton, and not held together without bolts

Looking down King’s Parade

In Downing Site (looking at a museum – though the name escapes me)

King’s College, for that stereotypical Cambridge image

The Senate House

I had originally planned to include a picture of Fitzwilliam Museum (not affiliated with Fitz – the name similarity is only due to Fitz originally being based on Fitzwilliam Street, opposite Fitzwilliam Museum), but blogger playing up with the image (admittedly, the photo is one of my composite photo-stitches).