Examining things

Quite a lot has happened since my last blog, and as it’s been so long I don’t think that I could even hope to remember it all. To be honest it hasn’t been all that an exciting time.

Now back in aber after the usual stress of packing and finding that your stuff is spread about the house, not something that I ever enjoy. Seemed that I had taken way to much back home with me, mainly because I kept thinking “oh and I’ll need that” “oh and perhaps that…”. Next time I shall just take a small suitcase and computer with me!

Exams are looming and my knack of completely avoiding doing any useful work and faffing around for hours instead has shown itself once again, really need to sort out my time management skills. Been working from home and managed to get a fair amount done over xmas, it being a welcome diversion from everything else that we have been doing.

I have borrowed some wireless network adaptors off a friend (USB and PCMCIA) for server and laptop, getting the USB one working was relatively painless once I realised that I first had to find a card with an identical chipset and THEN search for linux drivers. Went ‘wardriving’ around aber tonight, which was entirely unsuccessful, but on returning I found that we had a setting wrong and it would only find my home network!

As I said before, exams are looming and they start on Thursday with maths, which is one of the modules that I really would like not to be taking. In the next few weeks I also have to sort out housing for next year, which is a real bind and not doing anything for my stress levels.

Learned:
Blog more regularly

Happy New Year

By the time it got to new year time things were much less stressful, and went back to aber on new years eve. Chris, James and a couple of his friends came came up from their relative parts of the country, and while it was not a usual bunch of us really, ended up being an allround good night. Introduced people to Tequila Vodka Redbull, which is quite possibly one of the more foul concoctions that I have been known to drink, possibly scared them :) Only realised it was the new year when I recognised that people were singing some song that I recognised, then I dawned on me it was Auld Lang Syne (spelling of that I haven't got a clue on). Unfortunately I was too drunk to be successful catching up with people from #aber which really annoyed me, I believe we were in the same pub for a time, but I think at opposite ends! Suppose there is always next year.

New years Day was quite possibly one of the most civilised I have had for a long time, dispite dodgy stomach. Met up with some old work colleagues for lunch at Half one, then took them back to the house for coffee, to tell you the truth I felt terribly old!

Set off back home on new years day evening, however once underway I noticed that I only had 1/4 of a tank of fuel, now normally this would have just about done, and I could have picked some up at another garage, but they would definately be shut buy the time I made it accross the border, so I went around all the petrol stations in aber, all shut - damn! Decided to use the WAP "where's my nearest" feature, which was very sucessful in finding me all the open stations within a few miles. Naturally it found all the ones that I had already been around, but there was this one that seemed to be out in some tiny village in the middle of nowhere, so I gave them a ring, and the phone was answered by an oldish sounding woman who said they would be open for the next half hour, I head out in entirely the wrong direction thinking that it was north of aber, but after a bit of aimless driving I realised my mistake, and headed back to aber, at the same time giving them another ring to ask for directions. It turned out that after about 20 minutes of aimlessly driving around a tiny villiage a way off the main road that I didn't even know existed, I just about managed to locate them - phew!

Today my cable arrived to connect the Mp3 player to the head unit, was quite neat, as It has the exact same connector as the transfer tape I was using on the Ford head unit, only problem is I think I need a new audio cable from the boot as all i can hear is bloody alternator! and the sound is a bit "flat" too. Might start looking at some sort of interference filter if a new cable doesn't do the trick.

Current MP3:
Oingo Boingo - Little Girls

Learned
Stock up on fuel early on bank holidays!

Right, it’s been a while since I have blogged, and it’s also been quite an eventful week or so, which means this one is going to be a long and particularly badly structured one :)

Christmas
Christmas day was alright minus the customary family-in-the-same-room-for-too-long stresses that occur every year but were amplified this year for various reasons that I won’t go into. Got some money a few clothes and a few bits, while Christmas will never be as fun and awe-inspiring as it was when I was a child, this year seemed particularly non-christmassy, I was talking to becky (from the US I met online via James) and she said that she felt the same this year, we have provisionally put it down to age. I mean this is my (quickly does sums in his head) 19th Christmas, probably my 10th that I really knew what was going on, suppose it's natural for my view on it to change.

Well, thats the slightly more gloomy part out of the way, otherwise I have been quite busy avoiding all the work I should be doing seeing as the exams are creeping up on me. The Saturday after Christmas, me, pete and few local (ish) friends, a couple of which I haven't seen in ages decided to go to Worcester for a night out. overall it was a reasonable night, managed to randomly meet up with Duncan, a friend I have not really seen properly since the end of Secondary school. The main difference between worcester and aber has to be the fact that Aber is almost always student-friendly no matter what time of year it is, prices in 'The Postal Order' the Wetherspoon in Worcester were comparable to Aber prices, but as soon as we got into the club, the difference hit, THREE pounds for a pint?!! come on, I ususally pay a maximum of that to get into a place yet alone for one drink!


Oli, one of the guys who went with us very kindly gave me some speakers for the car (Sony Xplod 6x9 for those who care), which then enticed me to make the trip into worcester again and buy myself a new head unit to go with them - ended up getting a Blaupunkt one, as they are available with CD and external input for the MP3 Player - more on this later!

It turned out that that Sunday after christmas was an even more expensive flights, as I have booked my flights to America when me and Chris go and sleep on James' floor in Milwaukee for a week. Quite looking forward to it, seems like a trip to Chicago for the weekend is on the cards, and few other things. Flights heathrow - Chicago were only £237 - Bargain!

New years to follow!

Merry? Christmas

Well, its pushing 3am on Christmas day 2003, and I can't say I'm feeling particularly "christmassy", been a bit of a strange week, getting used to being at home again, and I don't really feel like I fit in as I used to , things have changed quite a bit.

Laptop battery died on saturday, swiftly followed by the screen just displaying nothing but white (it seems OK on an external monitor) and I am assured that this is just a problem with either the Inverter or a loose connection somewhere. Scouring ebay for a new battery, it's a shame i never took up those ones i saw for £30 brand new :| Got a reccomendation off a friend of this person who fixed a similar problem on his laptop, so I shall give them a ring on thursday and see if they can get it fixed for me before i go back to uni.

Got loads of revision to do, and i am only 10% of the way through my operating systems book, eep.

Still not decided on what I am going to do about a change of degree scheme, I would like something higher than just a BSc but I don't really want to do ANOTHER year in industry.

Considering going back to aber early to look at houses and things.

Noticed that blog isn't archiving properly on sunday and started fiddling around, now there is no archiving at all :|

Was really tired all weekend as a result of doing an all nighter last week for the group project, and then went out on saturday night, meaning I didn't sleep from 9am on Thursday until 3am on Saturday :S

This week I worked monday - wednesday, was the usual fayre of radio 2 and mince pies, but i managed to finish some tasks that were in need of completion.

I'm finally back at home now for christmas, and am writing this sat in front of the TV... Decided that home needs broadband and might set up a local campaign website there might be more pre-registrations, then at least BT might even look at the exchange.

Just watching bravo, and a bit of a strange quote from come guy who picks up long needles with his eyelids.. "I do it all for god" Where do they find these people?

All finished at last

After working throught the night on thursday (the quality of the work done at 3am is unknown) I finally finished the personal project at 8am on Friday, and exhausted I walked up the hill to hand it in at 9.30, when I returned after saying my goodbyes to a few people on my course, I made the mistake of taking a half-hour "power-nap" before I had to go to work (1PM), however, this made me feel worse :|

Friday night, we went to scholars then up to the union, was generally an alright night, apart from getting quite drunk, as usual, but then again, it was the union. Today I ended up sleeping in until 6pm - eep! Tonight I shall have to fix the MP3 player ready for the journey home on wednesday night, hope it isn't too difficult.

Learned:
Don't take naps during the day :|

This post was actually written on Thursday the 5th of December, but I never got around to sumitting it

Projects

Today and yesterday have quite possibly been the strangest of the last few days. Yesterday I had intentions of doing lots of work, however it turned out that I didn’t… While group project is almost complete, I have done next to nothing on the personal project apart from a class diagram, and learned a bit about the Model View Controller architecture that we are supposed to use (I must have been asleep in the lecture), speaking of being asleep in lectures, I am actually writing this is in a lecture on data structures, suppose really I should listen, but since all the shit that’s happening at the moment, I can’t really be bothered, so I shall do personal project instead.

I spent almost all of yesterday moping around doing nothing, and went to bed quite late having faffed for almost an entire day (minus going to work), however I did one useful thing :- fixed my housemates computer, which for some reason would not access the network. It was a windows ME machine, and I have had problems with network cards before, so I decided after around two hours of uneventful driver updates and reinstalls, I was finally about at my whit’s end, so unplugged the machine from the wall… surprisingly it worked after that !! must have been a fault with the hardware or something. Bizarre.

This morning I woke up late having missed another hardware lecture – joy. But it seems that I got a few jobs around the house sorted and bug will finally clean the bathroom later : )

Learned:
Advent computers sometimes have random hardware faults

Current MP3:
Robert Miles - Children

Organisation

Well, social last night was a bit of a failure, at this late stage in the term I am going to put it down to the stress of projects that all years are under at this moment, maybe that's a good excuse.

Today has been a day of sorting out odds and ends.. I now have a doctor's appointment for tomorrow about my knee, which has annoyed me every winter solid for about the last two years. Also the group project hand in was technically today, and we did indeed have a CD of all the needed files, however, the one that had been burned to CD was the wrong one, due to some sort of general fuckup with versions, and it also turns out that the design spec wasn't to, err, spec, so that all has to be sorted out by Thursday... Unfortunately, I lost my rag in the meeting today and ended up raising my voice to the design team, not something I usually do very often, but I just about think I had good reason. More stress than I can possibly cope with at the moment.

Also today I had a meeting with Lynda, one of the tutors in the department who I was recommended to talk to about my issues with deciding on a course/route to take. She was very helpful, and after explaining my situation (I had not spoken to her of it before), she said it seemed that I had already made up my mind to stick with the BSc and not to an Industrial Year, in a way that was kind of true, all I really was waiting for was a member of staff to agree with me :)

After all the other things today, I phoned work, and sorted out going to see them all on the 20th for a chat about next summer, and going for a meal afterwards, now I have to email people and get them to come :)

Feeling a bit strange again, probably because I have quite a lot of things to sort out, like a house for next year, now I know I am staying in aber next year, but I suppose more importantly, I have to decide who I am living with.

Going home on the 19th, and looking forward to that, surprisingly, but as a back up I am going to spend a tenner or so on getting a GPRS bundle for the “festive” period.

Learned:
Deadlines are something that needs to be enforced with a large gun

Current MP3:
DJ Sammy - Heaven

What happened to this term then?

Well, I seem to have just spent an entire weekend faffing and doing nothing useful at all, so when i finally got to bed tonight, I felt that I should at least blog!

It was again, a busy week, but it was one of getting a few things sorted out, and also one of bringing up more questions that don't really have simple answers. The group project phase I is almost complete, my project plan was completed on tuesday after being too tired to do anything constructive after returning from Durham, it luckily passed QA first time, which was a relief... that shows those many hours of writing reports to company standards have had some positive effect on me. This weekend I intended to get the personal project underway too, but unfortunately that did not happen... On saturday I woke up to reports of the washing machine being broken, which was sort of impled as if it was my fault, hey, I only brought the thing here after repainting the front :) It turned out that me and si got it working again after draining it out, and tightening a few screws... It then seemed to work until today when it broke again... Upon a bit more investigation, it seems that the vibration of the washer shakes it apart, causing the door interlock to shut off the machine... Bring on the duck tape! Bloody hardware!

The big question whirring about my head at the moment is the question of what course I carry on with at Aber, it's vastly complicated and I shan't go into it all here (if you know me, i've probably mentioned it), but if i convert to a course that has a compulsory industrial year, I think that I would be wasting my time doing another year of work (at lower than the rate if i graduate a year earlier)... Until this time last week i was certain that i was going to convert to Meng and do the industrial year... but now i am not so sure... until friday I had more or less decided on sticking with the Bsc, but I don't know... going to speak to some more tutors and things tommorrow, so hopefully they can provide me with some inspiration.

The whole course uncertainty isn't good because I have to sort out accomodation for next year - and SOON!

Current MP3:
Badly Drawn Boy - You Were Right

Learned this week:
Life isn't really all that bad, maybe.

Another thing... Who reads this diary? i'm interested... if you do, drop me a mail on burt@burt.me.uk and tell me a bit about yourself... if i don't already know you that is :)