Back in Action!

Long time no proper blog. Here I am once again, using up my free time in college to type up blogs... Day 3 of a long semester and my judgement is: good. My timetable is pretty damn good this year, with 3 o'clock finishes every Monday, and 1 o'clock finishes every Thursday and Friday!!! Wednesdays - today - are a little strange since I don't have to be in here till 2 for a tutorial (which right now I'm not even sure if it's even going to be on) and then I have a lecture in one module, an hour break, and then another lecture in the same module in a different freakin' place?!?! Like, what's that all about??? Tuesdays are easily the worst, 9-6 every Tuesday... :(

Anyway so the modules this year...

Theory & Design of Structures III - with only a 3 hour lecture Monday mornings I've enjoyed the past two modules in this and when I found out it is an open book exam AND that we will get about 60% in the final exam without even using a calculator you know you're on a winner!

Design of Structures - strangely this module is feeling like Theory & Design II and after looking at the book of notes I can see the exact same examples used last year!! Easy module perhaps....

Maths for Engineers VI - more bleedin' calculus, all about solving ODE's (Ordinary Differential Equations) and Partial Differential Calculus....*snore*

Professional Engineering Finance - speaks for itself really, basically business studies from an Engineering perspective.

Continuum Mechanics (Elective) - fluids, soils, solids and how they react to forces, shears and god knows what else. I smell the brother of the dreaded Mechanics of Solids I...

Design and Project - this one goes on for the full year and it probably the one I'm anticipating most. We will have companies working on projects coming into us asking us to come up with a solution to their task, then our solutions will be compared to theirs. This will also include site visits, YAY! The other half involves project work - in pairs - under the guidance of a senior student/member of staff. I'm also assuming that we'll have to write some sort of formal report like we did in Design and Communications...

History and Theory of Architecture IV - no, just no, I'm not going to ramble on about how f'n much I hate this subject. Last semester was so great with no History of Architecture and now...guess what...this module goes right back to the START!!!!!

That's all for now, stay tuned!

~The Damo

News, Ramblings, Frustrations, Glasses and a Sorry Funeral

Long time no blog, but I've been VERY busy you see, particularly with college work. You see, not only do I have an assignment for Design and Communications every week, but I also have an 8-page report on top of that too, and given that last Thursday I had to prepare a short presentation for my group on Environmental Ethics in Practice in the same module, it kindof has taken priority over all my blog writing and time on the computer.

If that wasn't enough, I have a huge 2 and a half hour assignment for Mechanics of Solids next week and a test in Statistics for Engineers the next week too! On the plus side though I do get my official academic scroll/diploma/thingy for my scholarship on March 7th!

Recently, we started our sessions with the Architects for our studio work on Monday's, and I must say, it was the most awful psycho-blabble I've ever had to endure. I mean 3 hours of drawing with charcoal on butter paper! To make matters worse, I was drawing a shot glass! How many ways can you draw a glass? Answer: Not many. Nonetheless I had to spend all that time drawing! We were encouraged to ponder on our "discoveries" after the drawing and discuss it with our classmates. We also now have to keep a diary notebook, and draw things we see. That wouldn't be so bad if the damn thing didn't so inconveniently not fit in my pocket!!!!

Now that that rubbish is out of the way I can get onto some of the more hardcore stuff - most notably the fact that the Cork county players are still allowed to play in the National Leagues. If the GAA had any balls they'd have kicked Cork out. I mean, it's not even like they deserve to be in ANY position to argue. They didn't even give Kerry a game in last year's All-Ireland Final. The likes of Roy Keane and Stephen Ireland further enforce the argument that Cork are the England of GAA. WHO DO THEY THINK THEY ARE? One man seems more concerned about having a go at the FAI rather than keeping his own team in the Premiership, the other is a little shit of thinks that he can leave the Irish squad and then come back when he pleases. If Trappatoni has the balls - which most Italians do - he will leave Stephen Ireland out of the squad indefinitely.

On that note - hats off to FAI for pulling a wild card out of deck in snatching up "Il Trap". What a proud day it was to see the FAI reel in one of the masters of the game to lead our country for the next two years! Admittedly I was one of many who voiced their frustration at the time taken to find a successor to the Gaffer, but now that we can see the pedigree of the man chosen...it was worth the wait!

And lastly, before I sign off....a moment's silence.

Ladies and Gentlemen....HD-DVD's are dead. Blu-Ray is king. YAY! A turbulent week in the electronics world has seen HD-DVD crash out in incredible style. Big retailers and manufacturers announced the drop of HD-DVD's one after the other, until eventually Toshiba threw in the towel. Now with Sony's Blu-Ray the supreme winner, all those suckers who bought HD-DVD players...and even more so those who bought the add-on for the Xbox own something that literally has NO value whatsoever. Given now that the best Blu-Ray players are in excessive of €1000, a 40GB PS3 seems the way to go!

Oh yeah, and HAZE is coming out real soon!!!!

Fight the good fight...and win!

~The Damo

Oh Those Dreary Days

The struggle to coach 12 hyper 12 year olds on Wednesday and the stress of taking home a little sister and a younger brother on the bus home yesterday has left me somewhat worse for the wear. Barely able to speak (I can manage the odd croak) and a bleedin' cold have me down in the dumps. Not even the great news from earlier in the week could pick me up now.

First class today - Fluid Mechanics....boooooorrrrrring as ever. I wanted to do some last minute revision for my Environmental Engineering test at 11.00am but with that guy there was no chance of me getting a look in.

Maths - didn't have the foggiest idea what the hell was going on...at all in fact. Enough said.

The test, not a disaster, but could have been a bit better so we'll just see. Coming up is Building Construction (hopefully the results of our project) and then another Environmental lecture :(

On the plus side I met Brendan Kelly today for this first time in ages, just coming out of his lecture as I was heading in. And tomorrow I start my grinds with an enforced rate of €20 per hour....the mother said that, not me, I was happy with €10!!! If I end up with grinds with another girl and maybe another bloke across the road...time will tell...then I'll be absolutely raking it in on Saturdays!

After flicking through the papers today and from what I read online, I'm pretty pissed off at the latest story from Madeleine McCann's parents, where Kate describes how she spends everyday crying. Seriously, I could go on for ages over that alone, not something which would make me feel any better. There was the usual bull about Britney Spears and other celeb gossip. Probably the thing I enjoyed reading most was about The Playboy of the Western World in the Abbey, definitely going to try and see that next Saturday.

Other than that there isn't much else to say, so I thought I'd give you's an idea of what blogs are on the way:

"What I'm Looking Forward To" A kindof synopsis of stuff I plan to buy/do/see between now and Christmas

"Grinds My Gears!! - Issue 12" The Leaving Cert, there's a lot to go on so at the moment I'm just trying to work out what direction I'm going to go with it

"More Postulations" Just like all the previous blogs, those kindof things which boggle the mind

What's the point in raising the shields when the ship is already docked in starbase????

~The Damo

Back to College

My first week back in UCD has passed, and after sitting in each one of my subjects lectures and getting back into the groove of 6.30am starts, I can once again give my analysis on the semester to come.

Looking strictly at my timetable, I can already see that Thursday will be exclusively my absolute favourite day, starting at 11.00am (which means I get a lie on till about 8.30) and finishing at 1.00pm (which means I get home early before rush hours). In second place then we have Monday and Wednesday sharing the slot. Both days I would normally finish at 12.00pm and 1.00pm respectively, starting at 9.00am both days, but on 3/12 weeks in the year, I will have late finishes these days due to laboratories. Next comes Friday, albeit that its 9.00-3.00, I only have lectures and the 18 bus leaves at 3.00 which means I have easy access getting to Walkinstown for Johns Ambulance. And then in last place comes Tuesday. While it is an 11.00-4.00 job, the history of architecture for two hours in the afternoon pretty much kills the day.

History of Architecture III
This picked up right where it left off last semester. Shoot me please. It's no so much the lecturer, he's quite interesting himself, but the content is just *ugh*. It's as though the staff made no real attempt to make the module interesting or exciting, other modules have practicals and field trips to vary the course but this is just the same thing week in week out, sit down, listen, take notes, learn notes. What's worse? We've History of Architecture IV next year!!!

Maths for Engineers IV
We've the same guy that we had for Maths 2 and 3 in first year. The content is pretty heavy, continuing on from Maths 3 but at this stage we've come to expect it. His methods are good and thanks to History of Architecture it's not the worst one out there.

Mechanics of Fluids I
This is probably shaking up to be the toughest module this semester. The content of the labs looks to be pretty tricky (that's what I'm waiting for now as I write this!) and the lectures look set to take up stuff we learned this time last year to a whole other level. Thankfully the lecturer seems quite capable, leaving gaps in the notes (which are excellent so far) for us to fill in and help keep us paying attention.

Environmental Engineering Fundamentals
I took this as an elective and the course is being given by my in-campus mentor Bill Magette. At the moment we're just dealing with ethics, and the processes involved in the Engineering Design phases, though with interesting reading assignments, in-lecture notes like the class above and an interesting lecturer in Bill himself, this looks to be going in the right direction.

Construction Materials
It's somewhat of a relief after last year that we're finally starting to do stuff specific to Structural and Civil engineering (which as you may have guessed are the students attending this module). Realisitically the course seems a little dull at the moment, as quite frankly the intricate details of concrete manufacturing don't quite tickle my pickle, but the content on soil mechanics aswell as a look back at metals which we covered in Material Science last year suggests that this module won't be too bad.

Building Construcion
I knew from lecture 1 that this would be my favourite module. It is what it says it is. Here we're looking at everything that goes into the design process aswell as identifying and categorizing building types and components, not to mention in depth analysis of the construction of the building components themselves and absolutely anything and everything that goes into buildings is being discussed. With an exciting lecturer who involves the class and encourages a weekly learning programme in the online assignment quizes, this one is certainly looking up.

Back to you in the studio!

~The Damo

Gods of War, Football and Back To College

I don't usually do these kinda posts, but I'm in an unusual good mood today, so I'm going to try hit this one out of the ball park, you diggin what I'm laying down? I knew you could, slide me some skin soul brother!

Anyway, earlier this year, Forgeworld (a sister company of Games Workshop) released the Eldar Avatar, pictured below.

Forgeworld tend to make resin models of the stuff GW only touches on, stuff that would perhaps be too big for regular games of WH and what not. The original GW Avatar is pictured on the right. Needless to say, the Forgeworld one is vastly superior. Since I recognised the talent at Forgeworld, I had aspired to eventually purchase something from them, to add a kindof 'final touch' to my army. And about 3 weeks ago, I did just that. I purchased the above Avatar to replace the crappy one. It arrived about a week and a half ago and is currently sitting -unpainted- in front of me here as we speak, fully assembled. Hopefully when I catch, torture and kill the gremlin hiding away in my digital camera, I'll start up some sortof 'Project Log' or something here on blogger.

As a follow up, I decided that this year I would save up to buy one of Forgeworlds 'Mega' kits, this being the Eldar Revenant, pictured below. At €250 this is certainly going to rape my wallet, but given the complexity of the build, not to mention the vast painting time that will go into it, I'm just relishing the challenge.

The footy season is back in business, not just the Premiership but also my youth team playing again in Division 1 after finishing 4th last year, though there was only about 3-4 points between the top 4 teams. This day last week we had a friendly against Iveagh Trust, and I was pretty satisfied after about 50mins, given that we were 5-1 up.... Unfortunately, we ended up losing the game 6-5. I still don't know what exactly went wrong..... But today we've a friendly against Esker Celtic, the very club that play in the park just beside my house, hence how we got the friendly, so we had better win, if not, its back on the rack!!!

Finally, today I managed to enrol for all my modules for this and the next semester. It's looking really promising as at the moment, I will finish at 12pm most Mondays, 1pm most Wednesdays, 1pm every Thursday (and starting at 11am), and 3pm every Friday!! Yippee!!!

That's all folks!!!!

~The Damo