British Student .ca

Last Wednesday was eventful, being a lecturer, using my medical cover/insurance, some geography fun, and ending the night with some chain metal dancing girls.

I’ve mentioned that in my geography GIS class we’ve been ending the year on OpenStreetMap and Neogeography. My lecturer has become aware that I’m really obsessed with OpenStreetMap and so asked me the take half of the Wednesday lecture showing my stuff. I showed how to edit OSM and why it’s cool and got a little bit of feedback on how it went. There are mixed opinions on if I was too complicated or not, but it seems it was interesting either way and hopefully my passion came out.

From about Monday night my little finger had been a bit swollen. After the lecture I took of a plaster that I slept with to at least keep it clean and it looked like it might explode with puss. So I went to the pharmacist in the village to ask what cream I should put on it. He said it had got to the point I needed to see a doctor for antibiotics. So I went above Staples stationary shop to a walk in medical clinic. I never wanted to be in medical trouble abroad, but at least I now have my (required) medical insurance paid to date I just had to show my Care Card and not worry about it. The doctor stabbed my finger and pushed the goo out. A little bit of squirming (I would have been fine doing it myself) and a plaster, then I was on my way. He didn’t even give my jip for biting my hang nails. When I got back to my room, Steph was there to be house mum and hug it better.

Later that day I was lying on my bed thinking I should go out and enjoy the sun and grass in some summery way. Oh, it was the GSA(Geography Students’ Association) last Bzzr Garden and BBQ. I went to that, the burgers were delicious, as was the beer. Chatting to folks was fun (you could call it networking practice), and OpenStreetMap is really known these days. I even spoke to someone in my class who said she did an assignment on my Living With Dragons blog, apparently it’s the top search result for GIS neogeography blog or some set of terms.

Later that evening I went downtown to The Media Club for the CD release of Scythia. They had a cage with some dancing ladies wearing (not much) chain metal, but more importantly the music was great and a good end to the day. Me and my sensitive injured finger decided to avoid the mosh pit, despite one guy repeatedly trying to get me to start it with him. I’ve done enough anger-release moshing in my younger years.

This is my one class this year outside of the Computer Science department. I was egar to take it as I’m already a ‘neogeographer’ meaning I go out surveying roads adding them to a copyright-free map database, OpenStreetMap.org, as a hobby using volunteer created programs and systems. Now I’ve joined a class to learn how the professional geographers do it.

Immeditetly I noticed a difference in the people in the room and being a Computer Science student I only have the ability to interact with other Computer Scientists. The first lecturer the instructor, Jose Aparicio, asked a number of hand-up questions which included “Who’s used GIS before?”. I’m pretty sure I’m the only person who raised my hand. In the first lab a shocking number of students struggled with following the instructions to zoom in and out of the map in ArcGIS (click the plus magnafying glass icon, click the map with it). Points to me for being ahead of the class already.

I finished the first assignment in that 2 hour lab, although we had been given next week’s lab and our own time until the 3rd lab to complete it. Since then I’ve always tried to complete the assignments in the lab time. The 3rd assignment I needed an extra half hour. Currently I’m on the 4th assignment and I didn’t finish the last page, but then I did turn up about 25 minutes late because I was decorating a dinning hall. Perhaps I should be using some of the time to make friends in my lab class, as apparently there will be a group project.

Two weeks ago I went to a Geography Students Association(GSA) social with Sam the 5th floor RA and final year geography student. I had a good evening out of Totem Park for a change, sang a little bit of karaoke, and my team did terrible in the quiz. This night also came with the discovery that geography students are known for being the ones that know how to party/drink! I may or may not have been drinking beer in a lecture hall.

The lectures are interesting, especially as I relate most topics to discussions (and arguments) I’ve had amongst OpenStreetMappers. As I don’t need to fully concentrate on the lectures, I now make use of the time by editing OpenStreetMap and uploading the data I collected at the weekend. Switching between my neogeographer’s GIS program (called JOSM) and note typing. I’ll have to be ready to pay more attention at the end of term when there will be a lecture(s?) on data sources and I can make sure OpenStreetMap is accurately represented.

Yesterday I sat down close to someone I briefly met at the GSA social, and she remembered me enough to say hi. Yay I have a friend, I think she’s even in my lab class, which could prove nice come project time!

I’m putting together my initial thoughts on my classes this semester, ordered by the timetable. It’s strange here that everyone refers to class by the code, e.g. “are you in econ 102?” rather than “are you taking micro econ?“.

This semester I’ve also seen a lot of photos of timetables added to facebook. The idea is you tag you tag your friends as the classes, or they add the tag of them, and then everyone knows who’s in the class so they can walk there or do homeworks together. I good idea you may think, unless your an exchange student living in accommodation of first years, so I have no friends in my classes.

CPSC 313 – Computer Hardware and Operating Systems
This is more about the operating system than the hardware, and writing programs that know a lot about how it works. I’m not really sure how this class is going to go, perhaps I will after I’ve had the first tutorial next week.

GEOB 270 – Geographic Information Science(aka -Systems, or -Software)
My one class not in computer science, and something that I have an interest in as a hobby. The first lecture he asked lots of ‘raise your hand’ questions and I was the only person who did so for “if you’ve used GIS before”. I was looking for any chance to mention OpenStreetMap(what wikipedia is to librarians, this is to geographers) or Neogeography(a term for what us OpenStreetMap volunteers do, possibly deogatary), but there wasn’t a great oppportunity. It will be fun learning to use ArcGIS (the software of paleogeographers).

CPSC 304 – Introduction to Relational Databases
Yay, I know two people(Louise and Lance) in this class from my HCI lab last year. The professor shouts everything because she wants to make it so exciting, this gives me a headache. It’s the only class I need an iClicker for ($43.20/£26.12 remote control that each student buys to vote on polls in class) and she loves putting up polls in the lectures. I’ve done lots of database stuff before so I think it’s good to get a full class about them ticked off, but hopefully I won’t lose interest due to half doing a lot of the stuff already. Plus I have to forget UML and Crow’s Foot notation and learn a notation similar to that of Bachman (it’s a UK-US difference apparently), pity anyone who understands what I just said.

CPSC 301 – Computing in the Life Sciences
How to deal with lots of big data of scientific results or use computers to help with fly swarm studies. The lecture side tracked a lot on the grounds of biology and DNA. The first tutorial/lab we got to play with Scratch, a programming tool that can be used by any age. Then we each said our names and course program, I was surround by every subject but compsci. I was registered on a 3rd year course teaching programming for those that have no idea, this would be easier than a walk in the park for me. Unfortunatly (thankfully really) the professor was there and caught on to me at the same time as I realised. I’ve de/un-registered from it, but it’s a good course if you want a science credit and think programming is about 0s and 1s. I’ve already recommended it to someone.

CPSC 422 – Intelligent Systems
This is the class I found to replace 301. It’s an advanced Artificial Intelligence course and the description includes the word ‘applications’ so it might be more interesting than binary search trees of AI. It’s the first level 4 (generally 4th year) course I’m taking but I think they should have encouraged me to take some at the start. It has no timetabled labs so my Thursdays are down to just an hour and a half.

Last Friday, my morning lecture seemed normal. Except, was there a banana sitting a few spaces along from me, and was the grim reaper in the row in front? Is Software Engineering in Canada that boring that I’m half asleep in a dream lecture? The lecture finished and I went to my Human Computer Interaction (HCI) tutorial/lab. One of the project groups are dicussing their work around a table, but Louise really looks like a turtle. I can’t be dreaming in all my classes of the day.

Ah, it was Halloween Friday, and a few people go to their classes dressed up. In the UK Halloween has always been a poor excuse for teenagers to throw eggs at houses. Nobody has ‘candy’ or sweets ready for children, and you don’t see anyone dressed up as scary disney princesses wondering the streets. In the UK you could sit in a university bar most nights and see various theme-dressed groups pass by on a bar crawl and guess what the title of their social event is.

That hasn’t happened here so I was excited to see everyone dress up. I haven’t yet found good places to buy cheap clothes to mess up (although I made a trip to British Columbia’s biggest shopping mall, the contents not so impressive and size smaller than in Newcastle). On Friday I shaved my lack of facial hair, except my moustache, and put on my one smart (button and collar) shirt. I was a generic John Cleese character. At moments of the night I was either part of the Ministry of Silly Walks, flailing my legs everywhere, or I would yell for Manuel as Basil Fawlty.

On Saturday I went Trick or Eat-ing. A change from Trick or Treating, small groups of university students were assigned two blocks or so and at each door asked for non-perishable food (tins & cans) for the Vancouver Food Bank. Not only good for those who stuggle to afford food, it was great fun and I got to know some people of the other Haida House floors. Everybody was really friendly, especially the one person who said he didn’t want to, and we got quite a few chocolate bars for ourselves. It seemed like a big operation to cover Vancouver from this university, but 362 volunteers turned up and collected 9488 lbs of food, which is about 7590 meals.

I’m now told that it’s Movember, Moustache-November, and I’m not allowed to shave until December. This is the scary part the post title refers to, not Louise dressed up as a turtle. The girls in Haida think I’ll have a massive moustache, but I think they’re going to be greatly disapointed. Let’s see how it goes and I’ll try and get someone to take photos so we can all track progress, my attempts at mirror photography were terrible.

Yes yes, next post after this one will have photos and be more original, I promise. I just thought you would like the rest of the updates from facebook so your fully up to date on what’s been happening.

• will survive another week without a mobile phone?
• is skyping the stupid bank.
• has sent a postcard to the bank manager.
• s mini mouse has broken, I didnt even get a chance to show SteveC its bright blue light. For some unknown whenever I type an apostrophe or forward slash in the web browser it triggers the search. Im running out of irreplaceable money\beer. Life in amazing Vancouver has now hit a big low, I think its time to resort to emergency plan code named “Tim Horton doughnut” to cheer me up.
  • Tom: Hey – keep your chin up. I know times can get low when you’re abroad – being away from home makes all those little things which normally don’t matter all the harder. But I’m living proof it just takes a few weeks and you’ll start to have an epic time x
  • Gregory: cheers Tom, it’s not really that low and I just went and got some English tea, solves all problems!
• ’s amazing printer fixing skills require me to be fast at running, from guys who want to kiss me with thanks.
• likes Old Dutch Creamy Dill flavoured potato crisps, but has got used to calling such things chips.
  • Steven: as long as you still like tea, your national identity is safe
• knows the party is always on his floor, but it must be hiding from me tonight. Come out, I need a distraction!
  • Bob: i’m coming out!!
  • Gregory: Bob that’s an English term to say your admitting your gay.
  • Taylor: no that works here too
• tastes the chocolate… its edible, but not the same.
• fears asking if they have “Freshers Flu” over here, too much talk about the certaintiy everyone is going to get H1N1!
  • Jo: You’re a brit – you’ve probably already had it!
• is facebooking in a lecture, being an innocent studious fresher has ended again. Well they encoouraged it with their network\power sockets at each chair and wifi point in every lecture hall!