What shall one do if his hat is funny

But still, it is different than last year. Everything is familiar, you know almost every squirrel in your garden and in King's college by name, but there is still plenty of new to discover. We shall get to that later.

Last year I was reading mathematics and physics and two computer science subjects. This year it is computer science only – six computer science courses and two practical classes (hardware and software) to accompany them. The schedule is very friendly – lectures every day from 10 to 13 and no lectures on Saturdays, finally!

Moreover, the lectures are all in one place, in the Computer Laboratory in West Cambridge. That is both pleasant and unpleasant. The pleasant part is the comfortable lecture room (much better than 19th century benches we had last year), no need to walk from lecture to lecture as it was last year and nice 20 minute walk to and from the Computer Laboratory every morning and afternoon. The unpleasant part is the walk itself sometimes, especially after a long day in the Lab or if it is raining.

I find the subjects even more exciting then I found them last year. I think, we have got just the right balance between theoretical and practical subjects. The theoretical ones are Logic and Proof where we study techniques used by automated theorem provers and Mathematical Methods for Computer Scientists where we studied probability and Fourier transforms. Then we have a couple of semi-theoretical subjects such as Computer Graphics, Concurrent Systems and Computer Design. And finally the practical ones such as Prolog, C/C++ and Algorithms II. And together with these we have got also practical classes where we do Further Java and ECAD.

The ECAD labs are especially nice, since we got our own device called tPad, which is a device that looks like a fat tablet with a lot of various connectors and has got a universal programmable chip in it which we learn how to program. It might seem funny, but it it unbelievably satisfying when you get it to count in binary on its built-in LEDs. Thanks to these practicals I don't think any more that the processor is some kind of magic or rocket science, in fact, it is quite stupid device, it looks smart only because it can do things damn quick.

However, enough technical details, I would not like to scare you. I mentioned in the first paragraph that I have made a couple of interesting discoveries in this term and shall not keep them secret. My first awesome discovery was that Brits like apple trees. But they only like their blossom, not their apples. Hence there are a lot of apple trees in Cambridge but nobody collects the apples. Which means I can get as many apples as I want. And they are tasty. In fact, much more tasty than bio-apples people buy at Sainsbury's. Well, let's hope Brits won't find out, there would be less apples for me.

My second great discovery was the great amount of plane trees (Platanus) that are all around Cambridge. Plane trees are my favorite and I started counting them all around Cambridge. When the count got over 100, I gave up and now I rather count the amount of places that have plane trees. There are many ancient ones, for instance in Trinity College, in King's or at Jesus Green.

And finally, I must mention my hat. I wear zmijovka, which is a kind of hat that was being worn in the Czech Republic in the 80s. I wear it every day when I go to the lectures. One morning I was walking through the city as usual and I met a group of tourists. European types, I thought. Then I heard them talking. They were from the Czech Republic and they were speaking Czech. I started smiling. In that moment I was passing two girls and I heard them saying: “Oh, look at that guy, how he smiles. And look at his funny hat.” Well, that really made my day. (By the way, I never told them I understood what they were talking about.)