I've been accepted into University and have finally got all the paperwork sorted... it only came through four days before the term start as well as half the site crashing, along with them repeatedly asking for a form I ended up sending off three times, as well as some angry rants from Dad, far too much stress, and a general bucketload of idle parahpenalia which has no point but hey they want it in anyway...

 

I also managed to get my timetable sorted and oh great I have one 9am start and four 8am starts. As I have to commute into Uni, this means I have to be up at 6am. I'll survive

 

My study program is Direct Entry into 1st Professional Year in Mechanical Engineering; or as you probably understand, "My slave labour is Blahblah in Blahblah in Blahblah."

Direct Entry means I skip the first year (Intermediate Year) completely and head straight into the first "professional year" of Mechanical Engineering; most people (99.5%) take the Intermediate year, which leads into any Engineering discipline or even into Science. I've decided what to do and thanks to those fifteen exams I sat last year I have good enough results (read: almost flawless) to allow me to do that. Engineering degrees are normally four years, but I've now cut that down to three.

The bonus of Direct Entry is a) I don't have a boring, non-challenging year of revision and b) I don't have to pay a whole year's worth of fees (always nice). The main disadvantage is that it is extraordinarily difficult as you have, after all, skipped a year of Uni (but thanks to those high results it shouldn't matter too much, actually). I'm confident I'll cope.

 

Mechanical Engineering is... well... a lot of things. To put it this way, if it has moving parts, a mechanical engineer probably designed it. They wouldn't have built it but they would have designed it and quite probably designed something to build it. And designed the something to build the something to build the something. It's kinda like an "inventor" in modern-day, fiddling with gears, belts, engines, and all sorts of moving parts. The electronics we usually leave to the Mechatronic Engineers. Or, ya know, just use Google.

 

As an added bonus, those fifteen exams I sat last year have so far managed to net $23 000 in scholarships and counting, which is very useful However, due to aforementioned paraphenalia most of that only comes through later; all the way in March, August, or even in a year's time. But coming through nevertheless (One year's fees is $6000-9000. Mechanical Engineering sits a little above the $8000 mark) With a bit of luck, this means I'll get enough scholarships to fund my entire undergraduate degree  

 

As another added bonus, those fifteen exams got me Dux. That gives me a scholarship (see above), and it also dumps me in the university's "Emerging Leader's Development Programme." That, insofar as I can judge, is a collection of the brightest of the best (it's 120 people across University), and the progamme is not only a motivational "How 2 Lead In Twenty-Six Difficult Steps" but also a programme to get the typically-unsocial academic elite to actually talk and socialize. So far I've had two days of this progamme and it is amazing. For the first time in my entire life, I am enjoying socializing. Normally it's just me sitting with a textbook saying "oh look your day was nice thank you Captain Obvious I can see the weather even when I turtle inside" *turns page*.... but finally I have people who can keep up with my rather rigorous discussions, with similar interests, and similar intelligence. I haven't mixed around a lot so far, but what I have I've thoroughly enjoyed. It is just such a totally novel feeling, actually wanting  to talk to people with the end goal of talking. It's something that has quite literally never entered my head (having been at a rather lonely pinnacle of academic achievement at a small school; throughout my entire schooling I have had less than four friends) ... the context is important. I now have, to be blatant, other academic elite I can socialize with. This just hasn't happened beforehand; the people just haven't been around. But now that they are, I suddenly find I am not entirely anti-social; rather the opposite, I just need somebody who is similarily elite on the other side of the conversation.

That said, I'm still a good deal away from having what most people would call a "social life." This is the beginning; and to be fair I can't have a huge social life as Direct Entry will put a lot of pressure on me to study, so I can't afford to be that sociable. But I can afford to be somewhat sociable, and the notion of wanting to be social (with a select few, it must be said) is utterly new to me.

 

The disadvantage of this all is that I'll be on RRU less, but given that RRU's post rate is such that you can come on once a week and not miss anything, there will really be no change Just less frequent tongue-spams in the Shoutbox.

 

 

So now my holidays have finally drawn to an end after finishing school all the way on 1 Dec, and I'm really excited to be heading off into a new adventure. It's not going to be easy, he's been quarantined /fpaddict , but it is set to be a bundle of fun and a new challenge.

 

 

So... uh... why am I posting all of this on an obscure Lego gaming forum? Because I want y'all to know what I'm up to, even if none of you actually care This forum is a special place for me; always nice, always forgiving, always something new, and I thought I'd tell you what I'm up to.