19 July, 2010 in Engineering, University by Aonghas

Full Steam Ahead

After finding out that I managed to pass all my papers last semester (what a relief!), it was back to business at Uni today. I was getting worried for a while after my exams because the thought of failing any of my exams meant that I would not be allowed to enrol in one of my second semester courses. I really didn’t want to become a split-year student because that could just get messy so I was considering taking a break from Uni if I did fail any papers and finding an Engineering job for the rest of the year instead. As luck would have it though, I can put that past me – for now.

My first class today wasn’t until 1pm so I had a bit of free time in the morning… well, to sleep in! On the way to Uni Jesse and Luke Dickinson caught the same bus, though we only started talking after we had got off the bus behind the Aotea Centre. My 1pm lecture was Object Oriented Design (COMPSYS 202), which is pretty much a programming paper. We were introduced to the Linux operating system and were told that we would be learning how to program in the C++ language this semester. Straight after our first lecture, the second class was in the same lecture theatre so I didn’t have to move. Dr. Chris Smaill, who taught us for ELECTENG 101 last year, returned to introduce himself again for this semester’s Engineering Electromagnetics (ELECTENG 204). The introduction and course overview was pretty brief and we were already into the course material in the second half of the lecture!

Finally today, I had my first tutorial for my Technical Communication for Engineers paper (ENGGEN 204). We were welcomed by our teaching assistant Vicky, who gave an overview of the course and outlined the different modules we will be covering in the next 12 weeks. The first module is working in Microsoft Excel and Word, learning how to use the different functions and tools that are available. Although there were a couple of things that were slightly new to me, some parts of the tutorial seemed rather trivial, especially such things as “navigating around a spreadsheet using the scroll bars”. I would have thought that was implicit. Then again, if I can gain marks for simple things like that then I’m not complaining!

The first day back at Uni wasn’t too bad all in all. I’d give it about a 7/10 in terms of excitement. And for once I’m on top of all my course work now, I just need to keep this up for the next 12 weeks and I should be fine!

19 April, 2010 in Engineering, University by Aonghas

Metal Milling

First day back at Uni after the break. My first class was MM2 (maths) and we had a new lecturer. Well, it turns out he wasn’t actually “new” to most of us because he lectured us last year in our programming course, Peter Bier. This time though he was going to be teaching us Multi-variable Calculus, whatever that is. The thing I really enjoy about Peter Bier is that he makes lectures interesting by entertaining us mid-lecture. Last year he showed us his prowess at uni-cycling as well as impressive juggling tricks, so I was excited to see what he had in store for us this time round. Half way through the lecture he showed us how to juggle – with one ball. But it wasn’t your usual juggling. It was more like ball rolling from hand to hand. I think it’s called “contact juggling”. It took him 3 months to learn apparently, and it looks pretty cool too!

The milling machine looked pretty complicated at first

Tonight I continued my workshop practice at AUT. I had already spent two sessions previously on bench work and ended up constructing a dill gauge. Today it was time to change over, so our group moved to milling and lathe workshop. We were split up into two groups; half on the milling machines and half on the lathe machines. I had never used a milling machine before so everything looked pretty complicated to me at first. Our teaching assistant Paul showed us how to assemble and attach a drill bit to the milling machine, which required multiple pieces. He then showed us the basic controls of a milling machine and demonstrated how to shave off some metal to make it smooth. It was a very slow process but it didn’t look too hard.

All the pieces needed just to assemble the drill bit

We were then sent away to our own machines to begin our project. The people on the milling machine, like me, are making a level (you know, one of those things you put up against an edge and it has the little bubble to tell you if it’s properly horizontal etc.) We were given a metal bar an we had to mill it down to the right width and height (25mm square) before we could continue. As we were milling the bar, we had to constantly spray this watery/milky stuff on the drill to help keep the metal cool (I think?). As you can see below, milling a piece of metal takes ages, especially if the bar is moving past the drill very slowly!

 

It took nearly two hours, but eventually my metal bar was pretty close to being 25mm square, given the fact we were only taking off fractional millimetres at a time! Next week I think we’ll be adding the little level bubble to complete our project. Exciting stuff!

1 April, 2010 in University by Aonghas

A Week of Tests

I’ve been pretty slack posting for the last week because I’ve been pretty bogged down trying to study/cram for all the tests that seemed to have sprung up on me out of nowhere. My first test was last Friday night – the test I was probably least prepared for. More than half the content was about semiconductors and conduction while the rest of the test was about diodes. I managed to wade my way through most of the questions and I was glad to see the end of that test. After that test I had to rush back to church for youth group because they were watching the movie “Up” tonight. I walked in halfway through the movie so I didn’t really know what was going on, but I kind of picked up a few things along the way.

In some ways I looking forward to this week, but in other ways I was waiting for it to be over. The last week was supposed to be a way for me to cool down and get ready for the mid-semester break, but instead my week was plagued with three more tests… on consecutive days too! Computer Systems on Tuesday, Mathematical Modelling on Wednesday and Electronic Circuits today. Overall they didn’t go too badly (fingers crossed!) but I don’t want to think about them anymore because it’s mid-semester break now. This year is just going by faster and faster everyday I swear!

15 March, 2010 in Engineering, University by Aonghas

The Art of Filing

Fire drill at the gym

When I got to Uni, I met up with Rose and Angie at the gym to play squash. It was the first time I had played squash for the year so I was understandably a little rusty. Not long into our squash sesh, we heard a continuous alarm ringing. Initially we just ignored it but after ringing for more than ten seconds, we assumed it was a fire drill. Sure enough, all the people down in the gym were also heading up the stairs as we shuffled outside in a big mob of sweat. It was a relief to get some fresh air once we made it outside; I’m sure the others felt like they could do with a bit of a cool-down too. Luckily we didn’t have to wait too long before we were allowed back in, and we continued playing squash until nearly half-past eleven. 

I played squash with Rose and Angie at the Uni gym

The workshop is located on St Pauls Street

There wasn’t much time to get ready after my last lecture finished at 5pm. I had to go upstairs to my locker to get my gear before making my way across the road to find out where this workshop was being held at AUT. It wasn’t that much of a mission to find actually; the small lecture room was nearly full by the time I arrived. We were introduced to the University before being given an outline of what we’re going to do over the 9-week course. We were then split into three groups and sent to different workshops. I was put into Group 1 with our teaching assistant being Paul, this guy who looks a lot like the main character in the Eddie Murphy film The Nutty Professor. For the first three weeks our group is going to be doing “bench” work. Our project is to contruct a drill gauge with a piece of metal. The first task we were assigned to do was to file the edge of the piece of metal. You’d think it’s simple but as I found out, it’s actually really hard to get the surface completely flat. I spent the better part of 40 minutes just filing this darn piece of metal trying to even out the surface.

My first workshop was spent filing a piece of metal

Even when I thought it was straight enough, the flatness test we used didn’t agree with my judgement! I should probably explain what I mean by the “flatness test”. There was this metal table with ink on its surface and we had to rub the edge of our piece of metal we were filing on to this table. If the edge of the metal was flat, the whole edge would be painted blue by the ink, otherwise the gaps indicated where the lower sections were on the piece of metal. 

Finally when I managed to get the edge straight, I had to do the same for the adjacent side and file it flat… at right angles! I thought it would take forever, but surprising it didn’t take too long; maybe I was beginning to master the technique of filing. Next thing to do was mark out where to drill the different sized holes on piece of metal. We had space to drill holes ranging from 3-10mm with 1mm increments. I got all my holes drilled by the end of the workshop so next week I’ll only have to do a few finishing touches before I’ll have my very own drill gauge!

11 March, 2010 in Engineering, University by Aonghas

First SSCC Meeting

I was so used to catching the bus at 11am to get into town by midday that it felt weird getting ready one hour earlier today. Our Circuits and Systems lecture got shifted from 1pm to 11am on Thursdays because of the Electrical and Computer Engineering Staff Student Consultative Committee (SSCC) Meetings (that’s a mouthful) that were scheduled at the same time. The meeting was my first responsibility as Student Rep for Year 2 Computer Systems so I was pretty excited to see what I was in for. I read the email with the meeting’s agenda earlier in the day but when the time was approaching, I realised I didn’t even know where the “briefing room” was. Thank goodness for the campus map though, I managed to navigate my way to the Science building across the road and up the stairs. A knowledgeable-looking young man directed me the rest of the way down the hallway where everyone was already seated around tables in the briefing room. Dr. Oliver Sinnen, the chairman of the committee, introduced us all to the department managers also present. We then went around the table introducing ourselves before Oliver got into the agenda matters. I probably shouldn’t say too much about what we talked about (I don’t know if I’m allowed to say…?) but it was a pretty interesting meeting and a great chance to see how the department runs and the clockwork that ticks behind the scenes. At the end of the meeting we had a group photo before we left. The copy of the photo we got sent had numbers on all the people though, because Oliver wanted to know which person in the photo we were.

Electrical and Computer Engineering Student Reps 2010

My first Uni locker!

Another exciting event that happened today was finally getting a padlock for my locker. Yesterday I hired a locker in the Engineering building so I could leave my gym gear in it during the day. By the time I realised we could actually hire lockers, the only ones still vacant were either up on the 5th floor or down on the 2nd floor. I haven’t used it yet but there is now a padlock on my locker so that’s a start. Here it is in all its glory…

10 March, 2010 in Engineering, University by Aonghas

Test Number One: Basic Skills

HAPPY BIRTHDAY STEPHANIE GATES! (her actual birthday day was today)

The thought of my first test this year at Uni hadn’t dawned on my mind until last night when I realised how much I still had left to revise. Although the topic of the test was “Basic Skills”, there wasn’t a lot that looked very basic to me when I went through the practice questions online. Feeling unprepared I decided to do some good ol’ last minute cramming. Fortunately enough, some stuff started coming back to me from last year as I was reading through the notes, namely things like Gaussian Elimination and matrix multiplication. By the end of the night I felt like I had a lot of it downpacked, though some of the integration questions still looked a bit dodgy.

This morning the plan was to get up early and study the rest of the topics for the test tonight. Well, that plan kind of fizzled. I did wake up and stagger to the lounge, but then I thought I’d take a “short rest” on the sofa. Which turned into another half an hour. There wasn’t much time for study by the time I had a shower and got my gear ready; I had to walk to the bus stop myself. Rose was on the bus when I hopped on at Te Atatu Road. I told her about my test tonight and got out some practice questions I had printed earlier. Luckily for me, Rose is the whiz kid at maths and she talked me through some of the integration questions I had question-marked. Phew! That was a relief, thanks Rose

It was the first time this year I had caught up with Rose on the bus today, but the reunions didn’t stop there. While I was studying at the Engineering cafe after my lecture, Ethan and Emily (from Robotics) spotted me at the table and came to join me. It’s been ages since I’ve seen Emily and it was great to find out she’s studying Engineering and Commerce. While I’m on the topic, I must also mention that I bumped into Toni (from Robotics) yesterday on the staircase too! She’s ALSO doing Engineering this year, so hopefully I’ll be bumping into them a lot more often this year.

Also today I met up with a guy from Student Life called Chris. Student Life is “a movement of university students who believe that every student at uni in New Zealand should have at least one opportunity to hear and respond to Jesus Christ”. During Orientation Week I indicated on a survey that I’d like to hear more about their group, so today’s meeting was about getting to know what they do around campus and seeing how I can get involved. Chris talked me through one of their magazine/booklets which had articles about God, successful studying, life’s big questions, etc. He told me about the weekly meetings they have and it was quite a good chat. It’s a pity their meetings are on at the same time as my lecture on Friday, but I’m sure there’ll be other ways I can meet other Christians on campus.

I attended my last two lectures for the day but I was thinking about the test the whole time. When my lectures finished at 5pm, I went to join Luke and Jesse who were studying up on level 5 in the Engineering building. It’s always great studying with those two before an Engineering test or exam, because I always learn heaps in such a short amount of time. I mentioned it to them while I was with them and I was saying how we’d be soo much smarter if we crammed hard like that every day!

Luke was in the same room as me for the test, 060-298 in the OGG Building. Not knowing if I was fully prepared or not, I was a bit weary at first going into the exam room. To my surprise however, the test turned out to be easier than I thought. There were a couple of questions there that were a bit iffy, but overall I reckon it wasn’t too bad. Luke’s mum took me home afterwards and I managed to make it home before anyone else. It was such a lonely place with nobody at home for an hour; only the TV and the cat were there to keep me company. I’m glad the first test is done and dusted, but when I think about the cramming that went on before the test tonight, I have to remind myself again that it was just Basic Skills. Please let the rest of the year not get too much harder!

8 March, 2010 in Engineering, University by Aonghas

Soldering 101

The back of my board showing the soldered components

Today I had my second induction lab in the Engineering workshop. Last week we learned how to construct a circuit on a breadboard and today’s lab was all about the art of soldering. Again my session was scheduled for 10am and I made it just on time before the lab started. The teaching assistant who was leading the workshop was a Chinese man (I didn’t catch his name) who, from the sounds of it, has been running these labs for quite some time. He gave us a demonstrated tour around the soldering workshop and explained all the different machines. He then sat down at one of the tables and taught us how to solder a component to a circuit board. The brief instructions can be summarised in a few steps:

How to solder a component to a circuit board:

1. Insert the legs of the component (eg. resistor) into the holes of the circuit board.
2. Place the tip of the hot soldering iron so that it touches one of the component legs and the copper track on the circuit board and hold for a couple of seconds.
3. Using your free hand, move the end of the solder coil towards the tip of the soldering iron and gently press in until the solder melts.
4. Allow the molten solder to fill the hole and encompass the component leg before removing the coil of solder.
5. Leave the tip of the soldering iron in place for another couple of seconds before removing.

Don't I look groovy with my safety glasses on!

At each of our workstations, we had a coil of solder (with its own flux), a Weller solding iron with a temperature display, a magnification overhead lamp, a fume extractor, a box of tools (that we didn’t end up using) and a metal sponge to clean the soldering iron tip. We got to solder random resistors and capacitors to a holed circuit board just to practise, as well as solder an IC chip to the board as well. We also learned the different ways to remove solder, including the copper wick and the suction pen tool thing. Overall it was a pretty fun lab and I’m looking forward to designing and soldering real circuit boards that actually do something!

5 March, 2010 in Engineering, University by Aonghas

Breadboard

As part of Second Year Electrical and Computer Engineering, students have to attend an induction tutorial in the lab to get familiar with some of the devices and materials that will be used throughout the course. This morning I had my induction lab at 10am in Undergraduate Lab 3 (UG3). To begin with, we were given a talk by a guy named Rogan (I think?) about the Regulations for use of IT Equipment within the ECE Department. He basically outlined the rules of computer use, and told us not to play games online, look at porn or download any movies/television programmes etc. Pretty self-explanatory really. He told us about one time when a student was caught downloading a Harry Potter movie and tried to justify the download by explaining how it related to his coursework. Although that seemed funny to me at the time, Rogan spoke with a serious tone so I refrained myself from making any comical gestures.

We had quite a few things connected to our breadboard.

The crux of the lab was spent using these things called “breadboards”. I hadn’t seen anything like it before but apparently they’re quite common. We worked in pairs and my partner was a girl called Reya (sorry if I got that wrong!). She’s another student doing Computer Systems like me – I’m slowly meeting more people who are in Computer Systems which is reassuring. The basic outline of the lab was to get familiar with using a breadboard and connecting components to make a circuit. We got given a lab manual with detailed instructions, but there was a lot of background reading at the beginning which we just glossed over. Mr. Rob Champion was supervising us for today’s lab, along with several teaching assistants who floated around to help us when we needed it.

The lab induction tutorial detailed instructions to design an RC band-pass filter and amplifier. The circuit was split up into four sections, each section building on the one previous. The first section of the tutorial was the Current Amplifier. We had to play around with the function generator, multimeter and oscilloscope to get the correct readings of voltages and currents, but first we had to plug in all the resistors the BC639 transistor to the breadboard (don’t worry, I don’t even know what a BC639 transistor is either). It took a bit of time to get used to using the breadboard but after a while I became more comfortable with it. By the end of the tutorial we had only completed nearly two of the four sections, but they weren’t expecting us to finish everything and I think we put in a pretty solid effort!

A bit of a blurry photo of me and our breadboard.

There were only three lectures for me after the lab today, everything except MM2. Just quietly, I think MM2 is my least favourite paper right now. I don’t know if it’s just because we’re doing statistical analysis at the moment, but hopefully once we get into some REAL maths it’ll be more enjoyable. On the flip side, my most favourite paper would have to be COMPSYS201 (Computer Engineering) because our lecturer is quite funny (the Elmo T-shirt guy!) and I really like the content in the course. Computer Engineering was our last lecture for the day and afterwards I went to the gym since I missed it yesterday.

Tonight at youth group Calum led worship with the song Indescribable. I played the accompaniment on the piano, well tried to! Tonight’s topic was Bible Study and it was Fiona who led the lesson. We read out of Philippians chapter 2 – looking at Jesus’ humility and how we should be like Him. During our sharing time, we talked about our experiences with being humble, and putting others first before ourselves.

Week one of Uni is over already. Time just goes way too fast.

1 March, 2010 in Engineering, University by Aonghas

First Day Back

Today was the first day of lectures for me back at Uni. Luckily for me, my first class wasn’t until 12pm so I got to sleep for a little bit longer in the morning. After a shower and a bowl of noodles, my mum dropped me off at the bus stop down by the shops. I didn’t have to wait long for the bus to come as I sat there making sure in my mind that I had everything I needed in my bag. When we stopped at the bus stop down Flanshaw Road, I was surprised to see Jesse and Luke get on the bus together. They sat with me and we were like the three Engineering musketeers from Rutherford. They’re both specialising in Civil Engineering this year and we shared timetables as we journeyed into town.

My first lecture was Mathematical Modelling 2 (ENGSCI 211). On the way to class I bumped into Rebecca Cunniffe, who had a lecture in the room nextdoor to me. We walked down the stairs into the library basement passing Ethan and Sue in the process. It was like a Rutherford reunion that lasted a few seconds. The lecture room was already quite full when I arrived so I sat in the second row down at the front. I met a new guy who was sitting next to me called Nick – he’s specialising in Biomedical Engineering this year. I didn’t talk to the girl sitting on my other side though, not for any particular reason, just because the window of opportunity for introductions passed and then it would be awkward if I introduced myself half-way through the lecture. Our lecturer’s name is Dr. Cameron Walker. I remembered him from my Advanced Mechanics (ENGGEN 150) paper last year. After he introduced himself, Cameron told us that he didn’t have any idea what the time was (the clock on the wall wasn’t working and there was no time shown in the corner on his computer screen) so he went on the internet and searched “current auckland time” on Google. For the entire lecture, he had a window open on the projector with a large display of the time (this one) so he wouldn’t go over time. I thought that was pretty ingenious!

After our Mathematical Modelling lecture, I thought I’d head for the gym since I had a 2-hour gap before my next class. As I walking through the Informations Commons though, I met up with Menglu. She was waiting for her twin sister Mengyun to get out of class. Then I found out that Mengyun was actually in the lecture that I just came out of! She’s doing Electrical Engineering this year while Menglu is doing Civil. They introduced me to one of their friends called Manu, who’s doing Computer Systems Engineering just like me. I was glad to have finally found someone else doing the same specialisation as me! Together we all went to the office of one of our lecturers so he could give us our course notes.

Menglu had to go to one of her lectures, so Mengyun and I went to the Engineering library to do some study for our Basic Skills test next week. On the way into the library I bumped into Clinton who was coming out of the library and he told me that he had a test on his first day! Looks like he got dunked straight into the thick of Engineering. Reading over the practice questions for the test made me realise that I had forgotten a lot of what I had learnt last year. I think I’m going to have to cram for the next week to make sure I’m ready!

My second lecture of the day was Circuits and Systems (ELECTENG 202). After a few introductory messages from the course co-ordinator, our first lecturer took over the class, Dr. Waleed Abdulla. He’s actually quite a funny guy. He gave us a brief introduction of what Electrical Engineering is all about, including a slide about Biometrics, which I thought was pretty interesting. He told us that you can tell the difference between a male and a female by the way they walk, demonstrating for us in front of the class. At the end of the lecture, he left us with this quote regarding study (I’m not sure if he made it up himself or not):

An hour a day keeps the failure away.

Straight after that lecture, I had my last class for the day: Electronics 1 (ELECTENG 210). Our lecture’s name was Dr. Mark Andrews, a name that sounded familiar to me yet I didn’t know where from. His introduction lecture was quite entertaining too. He gave us a bit of a shock when he told us there was no coursebook OR lecture slides for the course, and that we’d have to take notes every lecture. I don’t even remember how to take notes properly since we’ve had coursebooks for every other Engineering course so far! He told us that we have a test tomorrow morning to evaluate the level we’re at with Electronics. I hope it’s not too hard because I’ve forgotten a lot of the stuff we learned in Electronics last year as well.

After my last lecture, I decided I’d go to the gym since I didn’t get to go earlier in the day. Being back at the gym for the first time in a couple of months brought back memories, though several of the exercise machines are now in different positions to how I remember them last year. I didn’t stay at the gym for too long because by that time I was getting a bit tired, but I definitely noticed the effect of not going to the gym for so long. This year hopefully I’ll get into a good routine to go so I can get into shape! This time next year I’ll be a changed man!

My first day back at Uni was pretty good overall. So far I’m not behind in any of my coursework (mainly because we haven’t really done anything yet!) but I’m not sure how long that will last. I better get studying for that test tomorrow morning.

2 March, 2009 in Engineering, University by Aonghas

And So It Begins…

I woke up this morning feeling energised and ready to start my University journey! (Well, I did go to sleep before midnight last night so maybe that’s why I felt energised…). I wanted to start things right, have a clear mind and get into a good routine of sleeping earlier to wake up earlier, so this morning was definitely a promising sign of good things to come! Dad dropped me off at the bus stop up the road with Calum and we waited for the 7 o’clock bus to arrive. We arrived in the city at around 7:45am, so I had a bit of time to find out where my first class was. I thought I might ask at the Student Services reception office in the Engineering building but when I got there it was closed! I searched around frantically trying to find someone who looked knowledgeable and luckily a guy told me where Eng3401 was. When I walked through the door I was surprised to see how many people were already sitting in the lecture theatre, ready to start. The only seats left were down the sides by the aisles, so I sat next to an Asian guy near the front.

We were introduced to our first lecture, “ENGGEN 150 – Advanced Mechanics” by Andy Philpott. He told us that he would be lecturing us in the second half of the semester. Our lecturer for the first half of the semester is Addie Pujii, the same guy who took a few of the lectures last week at the Superstart Maths course I did! Addie’s introduction didn’t last long; he pretty much got straight into the course material about the process of Mathematical Modelling. I followed most of what he said and made a few notes in the margins of my handout, but I think I’ll need to re-read some of it tonight!

The next class I had was “ENGGEN 115 – Intro to Engineering Design”. This lecture was held in one of the huge lecture theatres in the Owen G Glenn building across the road. Again, this lecture theatre was pretty much packed by the time I got there. I managed to find a seat down the left-hand side of the theatre and I sat next to another random guy (that’s two new people in one day!). He told me his name was Braam. The lecture wasn’t too strenuous; most of it was just introductory information and course outline stuff. Our lecturer’s name is Richard Lin, I think he might be Malaysian.

The next class packed the entrance outside our lecture theatre

When we got out of the lecture at 10am, there was another huge crowd of people waiting eagerly to get in to the theatre after us. Out in the open area outside the Owen Glenn building I met up with Luke and Matt (I actually forgot Matt’s name and I had to ask him again – he was one of the guys on the Maths course). We decided to head to the university bookshop (UBS) to see if our coursebooks were available yet. We found the Engineering coursebook table downstairs and, luckily for Matt, he managed to grab the last ENGSCI 111 coursebook. It was a huge book, nearly the thickness of a 500-page pack of A4 paper! The line of people waiting to buy their coursebooks was ridiculously long – the queue for the upstairs counters was going down the stairs, and the queue for the downstairs counters trailed the length of the bookshop and around the corner! I was going to wait with Matt and Luke in the queue but I had to leave early because I had my Diagnostic English Language Needs Assessment (DELNA) test at 11am in one of the Engineering computer labs.

The DELNA test is this assessment that every new student at Auckland University has to take. It is designed to identify students’ strengths and weaknesses in English, supposedly. Initially everyone just takes the screening test (which is around 17 minutes long) and if they pass with a satisfactory competency level in English, then that’s it – done. If they do not pass a satisfactory standard however, they must attend a two-hour workshop to help improve their English skills, and if they do not pass the workshop, then they have to attend a two-week course in English, and so on. Knowing all this before I took the DELNA test made me a bit worried because I didn’t really want to have to come back for the workshop etc. I got through the first half of the test okay; it was just a multi-choice quiz matching word meanings. The second part of the test required a bit more brain work though. We had to read paragraphs of prose text and click on one word per line that was out of place or incorrectly used. It sounds easy, but a few of them were tricky to pick out, simply because of the way the sentences were structured. In total there were around eight paragraphs to read but I didn’t get to the end – I missed the last paragraph. At first I was a bit worried about not finishing, but afterwards I heard that my friend didn’t finish either but he still passed. Tonight I got an email from DELNA telling me that I passed as well, so that was a relief. Phew!

I met up with Craig and Caleb and we decided to catch the bus home just after 1pm. On the way to the bus stop we passed the Westpac Bank stall and they were advertising their tertiary bank account. $40 bank credit and a Debit Plus card with no first year fees, I was keen. I filled out one of the application forms and as a result I got a free bottle of ginger beer, PLUS I went into the draw to win a car! Wasn’t it just my lucky day huh

While we sat waiting for the bus to come at Skycity, I heard a voice that sounded familiar. I turned around and saw the host from the Sunday programme on TV1  talking on his cell phone. Well, at least I’m pretty sure it was him. I tried to whip out my cell phone and get a photo of him but all I got was his back. Caleb took a photo too, but his was from behind as well (closer though). I think his name is Cameron Bennett. Have a look and see what you think…

Cameron Bennett? I'm sure it was him!

Originally I was going to get off the bus just after the Te Atatu off-ramp with Craig and Caleb and walk to Rutherford, but I decided that I would just go home instead, since I was pretty tired from the early start this morning. Phoebe was on our bus too, she was sitting behind us.

Well my first day at uni wasn’t too strenuous and I am keeping on top of all my work so far (a course outline handout…), which is good. I’m hopeful that the rest of the week will go smoothly too! My journey to becoming a professional engineer has officially begun!