Posted by Martin Orr on
Wednesday, 09 November 2005 at 08:30
I'm pretty busy at the moment, largely due to the fact that I am going to Stockholm at the weekend for the ACM programming contest. This is a competition in which universities send teams of three, broadly similar to the IOI except that you work as a team and the trip is much shorter (only three days). Trinity is sending two teams; the one I'm on also has Paul Jeffreys, UK/GB IMO and IOI medallist, and Mark Thompson, GB IOI medallist and member of the UK IMO squad.
As well as training for the competition itself, it has also meant I have had to reschedule a supervision from Friday to this afternoon. With two supervisions yesterday as well that has meant a lot of work the past few days, but fortunately it is all done now.
What else have I been doing? My parents came to visit Tuesday and Wednesday of last week, which was great. On Sunday there was the Freshers' Concert in the Master's Lodge: anyone in the first year could audition to perform in this, and we had a range of stunning performances on piano, violin, viola, bassoon and voice. The first year choral scholars also did a couple of pieces - Cole Porter and something similar, very different from their usual chapel repertoire!
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Martin
Tags
cambridge, ioi, music, tcms, trinity
Posted by Martin Orr on
Monday, 31 October 2005 at 08:54
Well I will have been here a month tomorrow. I don't have much to write about from this week so I will write a bit about why this is such a great place.
One thing I like is the variety of people I am living with. There are people from all around the world - 30% of Trinity's students are from overseas (a lot from Poland). First there are those whom I see many times a day, who live along my corridor and it's always good to say hello to or have a chat with. A group of us went to see the Wallace and Gromit film last week. Five out of ten are Mathmos and another two Natscis (Natural Science). Then when I go to Hall for a meal, I eat with other people from round the college who are studying lots of different subjects.
It is also a great place to learn. I have written about how useful I find supervisions; and always having another good mathematician to talk to about a problem is helpful. But for me who is interested in everything, there are lots of opportunities to learn about other things as well. For example there are the language courses I am doing, and a good college library. Plus of course you can go to lectures in other subjects - I did Engineering and Politics this week.
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Martin
Tags
cambridge, lectures, supervisions, trinity
Posted by Martin Orr on
Monday, 24 October 2005 at 08:32
On Saturday night we had our Matriculation Dinner. This is a very elaborate (and very nice) dinner in the college Hall, attended by all the freshers as well as the Master and Fellows of the college (who are seated among the students). The catering department failed to put me on the seating plan, but they put me in the seat of someone who didn't turn up and I greatly enjoyed the dinner.
On Friday I started my German class. We had a two-hour class so covered a lot of the basic phrases. I have also been to lectures in Anatomy and Anthropology this week. In two of the three Maths courses, we have reached the end of what I already knew and are starting on new stuff. I have two supervisions on Tuesday so I have had quite a lot of work this weekend (in so far as there is a weekend with lectures on Saturdays - Sunday is the only day which is really different from any other).
Just for you to see where I am living, I have taken a few photos of the college.
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Martin
Tags
cambridge, languages, lectures, trinity, tripos
Posted by Martin Orr on
Tuesday, 04 October 2005 at 17:11
OK, it's ages since I have posted here. I arrived at Trinity College, Cambridge on Saturday. I didn't get my Internet connection until yesterday, and both before and since then I have been very busy. Thanks to Clare and the Bergins for your cards - they are sitting proudly on my mantelpiece.
So far we have had several very packed evenings in the college bar and elsewhere to meet people - there are 210 in the year, including about 40 mathematicians. I also have college parents (two third years) who we met on Sunday evening before the Freshers' Formal. Formal Hall is where you dine in the College Hall (with a giant portrait of Henry VIII at the front) in gowns - some people think it resembles Harry Potter.
On Sunday morning the College Christian Union gave a breakfast where you could find out about the churches members go to. I went to Christ Church, an Anglican church with a fairly modern but simple service. This was good, because it is one of the few times I have spoken to people outside the college. I have also been to the Chaplains' Squash, where all the College societies have stands, and the Freshers' Fair, which is the same thing for the University - we had to queue for 65 minutes for this. This morning I also had a meeting with my Director of Studies.
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Martin
Tags
cambridge, churches, trinity
Posted by Martin Orr on
Sunday, 28 August 2005 at 13:46
In the end I won the top silver medal at the IOI. There was a gap of 14 points above me, so this was definitely the right place to put the boundary. This year, they also had presents for the medallists: silver medallists were all given a digital camera. A few photos from this camera from the IOI can be found at http://www.martinorr.name/2005/IOI.
I returned from the IOI late on Thursday night. The week I was away was almost certainly the week during which I received the greatest volume of post of my life: exam results, a letter from school about re-marks, a letter of congratulation from the headmaster, confirmation of my student loan entitlement, and a large envelope from Trinity (plus the Cambridge Union sent their promotional booklet separately, postmarked a day earlier). The stuff from Trinity weighed in at over 500g and I spent most of Friday reading it.
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Martin
Tags
ioi, trinity