|
|
I moved back to Cardiff last week, and to get my room sorted has taken a few days (between other stuff, obviously). The last thing I needed to get to sort it completely was a decent desk. So, I decided earlier to drive to Ikea to pick one up. Obviously, I looked up where I needed to go. I thought that I’d got it all worked out. That it’d be a simple matter of going left, right, left again and parking up outside the shop to get a shiny new desk. I was wrong. I got lost instead. Initially, I started thinking about Backtrackin’, about trying to work out where I went wrong and how to get back on the right track. In fact, I did get back on the right road fairly quickly, only to make another wrong turning and end up in places I’d never seen before and didn’t know where they were in relation to Ikea (or, indeed, Cardiff). At that point, I decided to rely on the tactic of taking what seemed to be the be the best turnings. I guessed, basically. Now, I have no doubt that some of those decisions made the situation worse. I have no doubt that if I stopped, got a map from somewhere (I only have an A-Z in the car. A Birmingham A-Z…) and worked out what to do, I could’ve probably got back on track much quicker, and at less cost (£1.10! A litre!). But, I carried on. Couldn’t be bothered with stopping. I actually started to enjoy the journey. Sure, I wasn’t getting where I wanted to go. I was getting rather hungry, was using up expensive petrol and probably getting further away from Cardiff; but it was quite enjoyable in a perverse way. I jest kept driving along, taking a turn when I felt like it and hoping that it’d get me to somewhere I at least recognised. Ikea really wasn’t the main objective at this point, just a “it’d be nice if I get there” sort of thing. Eventually, I got somewhere I recognised. And, as somewhat of an aside, I love that feeling of joy when you go from being utterly lost to knowing where you are. Especially when it’s literally a case of turning a corner, you just think “wow, that wasn’t so hard, was it?”. Anyway, once I was somewhere that I recognised, it suddenly becamae a possibility. I started to plan, to hope. Maybe if I try such-and-such instead, I’ll get there. Maybe it’ll be different this time. Only one way to find out! I found what I wanted in the end. I’m glad I didn’t abandon it. Ikea wasn’t bad, either. Posted by Dickie :: 2 Comments
Poor, poor form. But at least I can do something at the train station after missing the train. That said theres some fairly hefty rain falling, which is making me fear for my Notebook’s safety, somewhat. Never mind, plough on. I’m currently listening to the new Sigur Ros album, and have to say it’s fairly stunning. Rather unlike their previous efforts in a lot of ways, but really good nonetheless. I particularly like “Inní mér syngur vitleysingur” (means “within me a lunatic sings”). One of those songs which is just pure, unadulterated joy. OK, so there was just an announcement over the station PA telling everyone to be careful because the platform might be wet. Honestly, if you can’t work that one out by yourself… Anyway, stuff. As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, I’ve been working lately, which is the cause of the lack of blogging. To be honest a lot of the time I’ve not really had anything to say. And then when I have had stuff to say, I’ve just not been awake enough to say it. Pretty frustrating, to be honest. I enjoy working in some ways. Gets me out of the house, gets me money, etc. That said lots of things about this job annoy me, and I really can’t wait to start a “proper” job in September. It might not be immediately clear what I mean by that, but it’s one of the things on my to-do list as far as this thing is concerned. Actually I started writing about it the other day, but… C’est la vie. I was back in Cardiff last week for reasons previously mentioned. Something that annoyed me about that actually is that for the first time I sat the exam, revision was something I didn’t particularly like doing and the material didn’t make all that much sense to me. This time round, I really enjoyed revising (it was like doing a more useful sudoku, if that makes sense), and had no trouble motivating myself. Of course part of that is possibly down to there being no second chances this time, but I dont think it was completely down to that. Irritating. Anyway, Cardiff. I drove there, and it’s the first time that I’ve really driven round there (I drove there once a couple of years ago, but that doesnt count for several reasons). As I was driving around the city, I realised that it felt really alien, as if I hadn’t been there before and didn’t know it that well. Probably because it felt completely different seeing and feeling it from the car. On familiar roads you get used to how they feel; where the bumps are, the texture of the road, how things work etc. It kinda felt nicer from the driver’s seat than it does from the pavement, but thats more down to the quality of the paving in Cardiff… Wow, I’m rambling now. So yeah, as well as that alienness there was also a proper recognition of the place, as you’d expect considering the fact that I’ve (mostly) lived there for a couple of years now. Driving around, seeing lots of different places brought back some of the memories from the last couple of years. Sort of “oh, I remember doing such and such here”. It was nice, if a little weird when combined with the unfamiliarity I was feeling. Still doesn’t feel like home though. When I’m on the motorway and I see a sign for The Midlands, it just feels like “That way be home”. Don’t feel that when I see a sign for Cardiff. Train o’Clock. Bye Posted by Dickie :: 8 Comments
Motorsport is dangerous. If we’re honest with ourselves, that danger is probably part of the reason people like the sport. Everyone involved with it, either directly or as a fan, is aware of the risk and accepts it. If we didn’t accept it, we wouldn’t be involved. You just bury it in the back of your mind; ignore it, pretty much. I’m mostly interested in car racing, so I wasn’t really aware of the World Superbike meeting at Brands Hatch last weekend. To be frank, I was much more interested in the F1 Hungarian Grand Prix, which was an absolutely stonking race. Whilst I was watching it with one of my brothers I remarked that “races like this are why I love this sport”. It was absolutely astounding. But if the Grand Prix is an example of what makes the sport great, the WSBK race serves as a reminder of the darker side of motorsport. As I’m not really interested in bike racing, I’d only vaguely heard of Craig Jones. He was in second place in the race on Sunday, when the back end of the bike just started to slide, as he powered out of a corner. He fell off. He was involved in a fairly tight battle at the time, and so the guy in third place was pretty much right behind him. Right behind him. At about 140-150mph. You can guess the rest (or read the story). Motorsport is dangerous. There are little signs all around race circuits that tell you that, and it’s even printed on the back of the tickets for most things. But it’s something that you’re only dimly aware of. Sure, you know it can happen, but you’re fairly sure that it probably wont. Especially in car racing - I can’t remember the last time I heard of someone being fatally injured in a car, outside of rallying. It’s something that I think I - subconsciously at least - thought belonged in the past, to the Gilles Villeneuves and Stefan Bellofs of the world. Sure, this time it happened in motorbike racing; something which is inherently more dangerous than car racing (you can provide all sorts of crash structures in a car to cushion an impact. You can’t do that in a bike - no matter how hard you try, you can’t stop someone falling off and being hit by another rider). But that doesn’t remove the fact that we’ve been incredibly lucky with car racing lately. Incredibly lucky. I can think offhand of about half a dozen accidents that could have been much worse, had things been ever so slightly different. I still remember the feeling when I watched Kubica’s crash at Canada last year, for instance. The next person to tell me “the accidents are the best bit” is going to get punched in the face. I think part of the reason im so taken aback is that it happened at Brands Hatch. I’ve never been there, but it’s a circuit I’ve seen a fair amount of racing on (BTCC and so on), and it’s actually one of my favourites. I can’t explain why, but that sort of makes it more “real”. I know that the next time I watch a race held there, the image of Jones sliding gently onto the tarmac is going to go through my mind, at least for the first lap. Honestly, I don’t know how people could even watch motorsport back in the 60s - when it was properly dangerous - let alone compete. I think it was 1968, when during the summer one top-line driver died each month. One a month. I can’t even imagine how I’d feel if that happened now. This news has seriously shocked me. Posted by Dickie :: 11 Comments
Tunnel of Love by Dire Straits is the best song ever. Fact. I’ve been through a slight non-blogging phase lately. A few reasons for that. I’ve either wanted to write about something, but not wanted my writings on that something to be available freely on the Internet; or I’ve not had anything to write about; or I’ve wanted to write about things on which I’m more than happy for my writings to be freely available, but I’ve not been able to articulate what I’ve wanted to a sufficiently high standard that I could get my point across well. In summary: Moping, Unimagination and Laziness. Another reason is that I’ve been working for the last week, which is really rather tiring. I’m sure theres something wrong with the fact that I seem to work harder over my summer vacations than I do over the rest of the year, but there you go. I realised the other day that I’ve not had a completely free summer since about 2002. Weird. Working’s been pretty good to me though, to be honest. For those who don’t know, I work in a bank as a cashier. I first did it when I was 16, and looking back now at how I was then and now it’s probably one of the best things I’ve done, for a bunch of reasons. Mostly because the job I do is essentially a proper job that proper people do, rather than a “student” job (and I don’t mean that in a derogatory way towards other stuff btw). I’ve worked with all sorts of people from my age upto 60-odd - and obviously dealt with a nice array of customers - and I think it’s whats largely responsible for turning the shy, nervy 16 year-old I was into the slightly less shy, chilled-out 20 year-old I am now. Theres a few of the customers in the branch I’m in at the moment who can’t work out how to use the front door. This isnt important, but I just felt you ought to know. This is probably the last year I’ll be working in the bank. Next year I’ll be doing proper work, and who knows what I’ll be doing the year after. I’m considering doing an MSc after I graduate, and I was thinking about what sort of course I want to do. Research or taught? What area? Do I wanna do it somewhere other than Cardiff? Lots of choices. I was also thinking about my car the other day. I’ve just got mine back on the road (first time I can drive regularly for a couple of years), and I was thinking of getting a different car in a few months. And then I looked at insurance. It’s frustrating, because I can afford some pretty decent cars, but the insurance is… Well I probably could afford it, but I’m not paying £2500-£5000 for it (admittedly the larger quote was for a Fiat Coupe. With the 20v turbo engine…). Ho hum. Might just keep what I’ve got. I’ve also been thinking about racing a lot lately. Actually, since the British Grand Prix a couple of weeks ago, I’ve been thinking about Lewis Hamilton an awful lot. I’m probably gonna write another entry about that though, so I wont say much for now, other than: wow. Tempted to pay to do a race weekend of some sort in the next year. I was thinking either karting, or possibly car racing in something like a Caterham. I’m almost definitely going to race when I’m in full-time work, because it’s something I love. Then, I’ll probably go karting to start with (cheaper…), but for a one-off I’m tempted to jump in the deep end. We’ll see. Bleh, I’m tired. Should probably sleep. This has been a really awful entry, but as I’ve typed it (and think I should publish something), it’s going up. Sorry. P.S. Theres also a few sites I keep meaning to add to the Blogroll. I’ll get round to it at some point, probably. Posted by Dickie :: 1 Comment
Part I It just seems like such a basic thing, in this always-connected world we live in. That said, there are probably more pressing things to sort out on the rail network… Anyway, I write this en-route from Cardiff to the joy that is Birmingham New Street, which is probably a good example of something that needs sorting, actually. As is the way the train keeps bouncing from side to side, making it bloody hard to type. I digress. Last week was spent in Devon, in a lovely little place called Slapton. There are a couple of interesting things about Slapton. Firstly, it has a big freshwater lake (Slapton Ley) which is separated from the sea by a narrow shingle bar, and the whole site is a SSSI (Site of Special Scientific Interest), because it’s home to some rare birds or something and because it’s a really good example of that sort of habitat. Secondly, during the 1940s, the whole area was evacuated so that the Americans could practise invading it. Apparently it has a lot of similarities to Utah beach (the western-most beach they landed on during Operation Overlord). However, during the exercise (codenamed Exercise Tiger), a bunch of German ships happened to come across the landing craft just as they were about to land and managed to sink a few. As a result, there were about three times as many casualties during Ex. Tiger than there were on Utah during Op. Overlord. Well, I thought that was interesting, anyway. It was a pretty good week, all things considered. True to form the weather was pretty poor (after the weeks of gorgeous sunshine we had during the exam period), but it seemed to stay dry during most of our outdoor stuff, which was good. I quite like the field courses we have, because its a nice to get a chance to spend time with and get to know people that I wouldn’t ordinarily talk to. That said, it also means I had to tolerate some of the people who really irritate me, but gotta take the rough with the smooth and all that. Actually, one of the nights spent down t’pub was somewhat eye-opening. There were a bunch of us in this tiny (usually quiet) pub, being studenty… I noticed after a while that the only people talking were those who were the loudest. There wasn’t really a conversation going, either; they just seemed to say something, then wait for other people to finish talking, and then say something else. We were there for a good few hours, and no-one really said anything. Now I don’t expect every conversation to be deep and meaningful; considering the meaning of life and other worthy questions. But I do think that conversation should be interesting, not just based around “this one time, I was really drunk…”, or whatever…. Eventually they got round to playing drinking games (loudly), which was just embarrassing. OK, drinking games can be fun, but there’s a time and a place. A quiet pub, where you can piss off all the locals, really isn’t it. The next night we all went to Torquay (for a fun night out!), and I spent it with a different bunch of people. We ended up in this cramped little pub, where there was a guy with a guitar playing away in the corner. A guy with a guitar who seemed to be able to play any song you requested. Most people went to a club I think, but all present at the pub were in agreement that they missed out. Horses for courses, I guess. The trip kinda got me thinking about where I’d prefer to live: a small place like Slapton, right next to the sea; or in a city. I really love the sea and being near it, so I think I’d really love to live near it. Cardiff is technically by the sea, but most of the city is a teensy bit inland, so I never really see the sea. So yeh, I’d love to live somewhere in an ickle coastal town, I think, but at the same time I do love cities. I love the atmosphere, and the way there’s always something happening. I think that when I’m rich and successful in years to come, I’ll just buy a house in a city and a place by the sea, and alternate as the mood takes me. Don’t know which city, and which place by the sea though… Part II I had to get off the train, so I had to stop writing. I’m now writing from the sofa at home, a few hours later. Watched the Monaco Grand Prix earlier, which was really very good. I really felt sorry for Sutil (he’s in one of the worst teams, and was in 4th place until the current world champion crashed into him a few laps from the end). Hamilton was bloody lucky – his puncture earlier on in the race gave him a real strategic advantage over Massa and Kubica, and apparently he got a puncture on the slowing down lap after crossing the line. Lucky the race was shortened, then. Speaking of Massa, he’s driving fantastically at the moment. Dare I say it, title hopes? He seems to be doing better than Raikkonen at the moment, it has to be said… Doctor Who the other day was really bloody good. Most of this series has been pretty poor, to be honest. It’s almost as if the writers have tried to make it comic because they’ve got Catherine Tate, but it’s really not worked. It’s been cheesy, almost slaptstick humour. Thinking back to the first “new” series, with Christopher Ecclestone as the Doctor, that was really rather witty and that’s the way it should be. Apart from that, it’s been predictable as well. Like “The Doctor’s Daughter”. Who didn’t foresee her getting shot? And then who didn’t see her re-generating (and keeping her form)? Bad. Just bad. Anyway, the last episode was good. It’s properly dark, and not at all predictable. And I really like the way that it addresses the fact that the Doctor is a time traveller. For those that don’t watch the show, I’ll explain what I mean. One of the characters in the episode knows the Doctor, but first met him at a time later than the meeting we see in the show. So she knows the Doctor and has known him for years, but he has no idea who she is. It’s pretty clever. Can’t wait for Moffat to take over the direction of the show. The Lost season finale came out the other day as well, and I have to say I thought it was pretty good. It did exactly what I expected – answered a few questions, introduced some new ones, and basically revealed a little bit more of the story. I have to say I really like some of the issues and themes that Lost looks at. Things like Good vs Evil, Science vs Faith, Fate or Destiny vs Free Will, and so on. That, and the entire story is pretty magnificent. If you haven’t watched it before, I urge you to acquire it and to spend a few days watching it all from the start. It’s really worth it. Posted by Dickie :: 8 Comments
According to my Mum, in any case. Made me lol for quite a while after she said that to me on the phone earlier today. Anyway, exams are almost over! I’ve almost certainly failed Friday’s though. The paper generally was troubling, but about 5 minutes before the end I realised that I’d done a fairly important part of the first question wrong. The question was basically work out the reactions for this (apologies for quality of drawing):
Working out the vertical reactions is easy, so I got that bit fine (frankly I deserve to be shot if I cocked that bit up, it’s AS-level stuff). But for the horizontal reaction, I got H=P. Which is just wrong, however way you look at it. I’d assumed my mistake was just an algebraic one (cancelling something by accident, or whatever). To work out the force, you assume the horizontal displacement at the supports is zero, and then you equate that with the partial derivative of the strain energy with respect to the force. You get a nice equation, do some whizzy maths stuff, and the force (hopefully!) drops out. One of the terms in the equation is the partial derivative of the moment with respect to force (H, in this case). My error, realised just before the end of the exam, was to differentiate wrt x… Of course, getting that bit wrong meant that my answers for the next bits are wrong too. For the first time in my exam-taking career, I was suitably pissed off that I wrote a note by the side of the mistake. “I realised with about 5 mins before the end of the exam that I should’ve differentiated wrt H, not x. This probably explains the silly answer on the next page…” Bugger. In other news… I think I’ve expressed my displeasure before with the fact that I’m gonna miss the Monaco Grand Prix next weekend, due to a field course. I’ve just come across this, which just annoys me even more. It’s one of the worst races of the season (because apparently it’s hard to overtake cars on a bumpy, twisty, narrow road at 150+mph…), but as a spectacle it’s fantastic, and it’s actually one of my favourites. Fast cars on essentially normal roads is not a sensible idea, for any sane person anyway, and watching the drivers there is just mind-bending: In the wet, it’s something else. I’m gonna get Mum to record it at home, but that means avoiding news for a week (and no-one texting me the result…). Utterly annoying. Posted by Dickie :: 10 Comments
So I’ve spent the last few hours working on, alternately, design and maths coursework. Design coursework doesn’t confuse me at all. I’ve got little bits here and there to tidy up, a report to write, and a drawing to print, and then it’s Done. Maths does. I’ve just got back from the IT room after spending since about half 9 trying to get a bit of Matlab code to work, which is meant to solve the Heat Equation using an implicit finite difference method. I’ve got it working with an explicit method, and that’s all hunky dory, but adapting that code for the implicit method is just confusing. It’s only giving a solution on one row of the matrix; that row being the inital value being fed into the script! The rest of the matrix is just zero, which is less than useful. At one point I commented out about half of the code, to work out what those lines were meant to be doing. No change, whatsoever. Don’t you hate it when that happens? Pretty much all of us in the IT room were trying to crack that thing (well, actually most had given up by the time I left), and all of us had the same problem. I’m not sure if that’s a good or a bad thing. Basically, this is a lesson to not dick about with code if you only have a vague idea what it’s meant to do, and have what can be generously described as a “limited” knowledge of the language… I guess its the same sort of result you’d get if you gave a car to a caveman and told him to make it go. He wouldn’t even know what the damn thing is meant to do, let alone how to make it do it. I imagine he’d just look at it, and maybe bash it with a stick, and then eventually get bored and walk off. That said, I’ve worked out what my code is meant to do, and I kind of know how to do it, but just not enough to actually make Matlab do it. So I’m officially smarter than a Caveman! Not saying much though, is it? Anyway, I should go finish stuff! I’m probably not gonna sleep tonight. It’s gonna take me a couple of hours to finish design, then ages to finish maths, and then tomorrow morning I’ve got to meet the other members of my group for design to finish some stuff off and hand it in, so there’s probably no point sleeping, even if I get chance. Actually, I’m looking forward to that meeting. One of them left me alone, logged on to his uni user account earlier (cos i needed to do battle with the Demon Plotter of Death, and AutoCAD doesnt seem to like to work on my user account. Bizarre, I know). Changed his desktop to say “NASCAR is for gays” (yeah, a form of motorsport I don’t like!), put a nice pink colour scheme on all the windows, and so on. Amused me highly. It’s not big, it’s not clever, and it’s probably highly immature (oh god, that word again…), but who cares? Posted by Dickie :: 9 Comments
This is a continuation of a comment I wrote on one of Flix’s posts. I started to write another comment, but it kinda turned into an essay and got ever so slightly away from the main thrust of the post, so I moved it over here. It’s something that I’ve been sorta thinking about lately anyway, but Flix’s post was sort of a catalyst to this getting written. Hope you don’t mind, Flix :-) So I basically started off on a rant on maturity, and whatnot. The thrust of my initial comments on the post referred to this remark:
That’s fairly true up to a point, but we catch up. Over a certain age (late teens? 20?), I don’t think “maturity” is anything to do with gender, and more to do with a bunch of other factors. Some people just are immature. As I said over there, I’ve met as many (and maybe more) immature gals as I have immature guys. And certainly looking at my circle of friends and most people I know that are of a similar age, no gender is any more or less mature, on the whole. Another thing is that different aspects of people mature at different rates anyway. For instance, looking back at how I was when I started Uni all that time ago, I realise now that although in some ways I was pretty mature, in some other ways I was still relatively naive. And I’m sure that’s still the case (and probably always will be. No-one can ever be completely mature) but I think I’m generally more mature than I am immature. All that said, I’m fairly sure that in a few years I’ll look back at myself now and marvel at my immaturity. I’ve seen the same sort of thing in other people too - just because on the whole someone is mature, doesnt stop them from having immature moments or immature aspects of their personality. And vice-versa, of course. All that said, it’s a weird concept, maturity. I mean, what is “mature”, other than a societal construct defining how we should act? Wikipedia says: “Maturity is a psychological term used to indicate that a person responds to the circumstances or environment in an appropriate manner”, and certainly from that definition it’s a hell of a subjective thing. Define “an appropriate manner”? Everyone’s gonna come up with something different, so how can we definitively say what is or isn’t mature? It’s all about society, innit? That, and our endless need to categorise… And now for something completely different! For anyone who likes free stuff (and thats everyone, surely?), look at this. It’s a seriously good event (I went last year and it was marvellous) and well worth going to. Hell, it’s free, what have you got to lose? Could even camp nearby, and join in with all the beer, burgers, barbeques and beer! Heh, as if :-p Posted by Dickie :: 8 Comments
So it’s just over two weeks before my exams start. I have four spread over a fortnight, before I shuffle off to Devon for a field course for a week (sidebar: who the hell thought it’d be a good idea to go on the same day as the Monaco GP? One of my favourite races on the calendar, and I have to miss it. Or, more to the point, get Mum to record it and then devoutly avoid any news sources for a week. Which shouldn’t be hard - apparently the place we’re going doesnt even have cashpoints…). Anyway, just over two weeks before exams, and we’re still being taught new material, meaning it’s still worth going to some lectures. Oh, and we have a bunch of coursework due in the next two weeks. One is a design module, which we’re yet to start the drawings for. Which means dealing with possibly THE least intuitive piece of software ever. Obviously, one of the things we have to do (by “we”, I mean “me”. Being the resident geek means that getting things out of AutoCAD is my job…) is the FUN task of getting drawings out of AutoCAD. YAY! It’s just like printing a word document, only on A2 paper and so loading the plotter is massively awkward. Oh, and obviously as it’s an engineering drawing it’s pretty much useless if it’s not to scale. But getting things to scale in AutoCAD is a black art; you play around with various options and hope one of them gets the damn thing to the right scale. Otherwise, there’s the risk that it’ll come out at 1:1, which… Well we’re designing a 3-storey office block at the moment, you do the maths… Changing linetype is even more fun. We managed to get dashed lines on the last drawing we did, but I don’t think any of us knows how the hell we did it. Can you tell I hate that software? Also, theres maths to be done. Loads of our calcs (i.e. designing the RC beams and slab so that the thing would stand up, if it were ever built) have gaps, where we’ve started and got bored… Good idea at the time, but bad when it comes to write them up and we find out that we’ve left bits out. And ESPECIALLY bad when you do part of those calcs and find out that your floor slab fails servicability checks… (You basically design for two cases. The ultimate case is the absolute maximum loading that something will take before it fails; in other words “if you exceed this, the thing will fall down”. The other one is the servicability state. If it fails this, then the structure won’t fall down, but it will do something that it shouldnt. So it might crack or bend too much in certain places, or something like that. It’s safe, but isn’t doing its job properly, which means that as a design it’s failed. A perfect example is the Millennium Bridge in London; that wobbled because of the loadings placed upon it and was uncomfortable but not unsafe. But, a bridge that people don’t want to use is pretty useless, so the structure is said to have failed*. In the case of our friend the floor slab, it fails a deflection check, although thinking about it it’s only just over the limit, so we’ll probably be ok. Huzzah for factors of safety!) So yeah, beyond the design module, I’ve also got maths coursework due in next friday. Which I haven’t started yet. That’s on Matlab, and I’m not actually sure what we’ve got to do for it. In fact, all I know is that “it’s solid!”, which doesn’t help… Aaaand on top of that, we have to update our Professional Development folder (think NRA, except that this counts towards a module) for… Well I think that’s in for the week before exams, but to be honest I’m not entirely sure. Hmm. And I found out the other day that because of something I’ve gotta do on Wednesday, I’m going to be missing a guest lecture which we’re expected to write a report on. So I’m gonna have to half-inch someone else’s notes to write some sort of waffle for that. Basically, what I’m trying to say is: my timetable sucks. I’m trying to revise, but between lectures and coursework and other stuff, it doesn’t always happen. That said, I went down to the library a few times this week and got a decent stack of revision notes done, which doesn’t suck. Ideally I want to have all my notes done by a week on Sunday, but after printing out circa 40 pages of notes on Law that I need to learn, I think that target is slightly optimistic… Now I’m sure I’m not the worst affected. I’m sure someone will leave a comment like “well you think that’s bad? I’ve got 100 STRAIGHT hours of exams, a 20,000 word essay due in the week before, and my lectures finish AFTER my exams!”, but damn it, it’s my blog and I’ll moan if I want to :-p. It just seems so silly to still be teaching us stuff and expecting work off us right up to the start of the exam period. This is why I wasn’t looking forward to coming back to Uni after Easter. I still feel far too unstressed though. They haven’t shifted from “too far away to worry about” to “Imminent! You’re bloody screwed!” yet…
*Writing that makes me happy, because it means that I’ve learned something during the last couple of years… Posted by Dickie :: 6 Comments
I’ve had Winamp on shuffle for the last few days, because I couldn’t be bothered picking an album to listen to the other day and I just haven’t changed it since then. It’s a good way of getting myself to listen to something different - I download acquire music quite a bit and just never listen to it, or listen to it once then forget about it. I’ve heard quite a few things that I’ve thought “ooh, this is really good”, which is nice. Anyway something I’ve noticed is that Free is coming up a lot. I’m not sure if this is just perceived or whatever, and it’s not as if I have significantly more Free than anything else. So I’ve decided the the Pixies in my Computer like Free. The Pixies in my Computer clearly have taste. On a similarly musical note, I’m looking for some new headphones at the moment because mine are pretty broken (the cans have kinda fallen off the headband, and I’m fed up of reattaching them). Thing is though that it’s really hard to decide which ones are any good just from the internet; you really need to hear them. But if I go down the road to Maplin and ask to listen to them, that’s no use either because they won’t have been broken in yet. I’ve been poking around on the net and I think I might go for a set of Beyerdynamic DT231s. But then, I could go for another set of Sennheisers… I think not actually - my current ones (different type, admittedly) have only lasted about 14 months, which is fairly poor. But then I don’t know they Beyers will fare any better… Ah, the choices! Anyway, got back to Cardiff the other day. Mixed feelings. On the one hand, it’s nice to be back because I do appreciate the independance thing. But then on the other hand, I’m not exactly reined in at home. I stay up as late as I want (and get up as late as I want), I go out when I want, I do what I want. Much the same as here then, but with the advantage of having food made and washing done for me. And, if I get bored here, I tend to sit in my room and think “hmm, I’m bored”. At home, theres usually someone about (even if its just the dog) to entertain me. Hmm. Also, being back at Uni reminds me that I have a bunch of coursework due in the next few weeks, as well as a load of exams. And I still don’t have a job for next year, so I need to be doing that and chasing people. I think I’m gonna try to head down to the library tomorrow to finish an application and to revise without distraction. I’ve tried to work in my room, but it’s so much easier to do something else, anything else. Like watch all of the first series of Monkey Dust on DVD… I’m loving the weather at the moment though. I hate in winter when it’s only light for about 15 minutes each day. It’s just so much nicer when you leave the house in the morning (I’m awake in the morning sometimes) and it’s nice and bright, instead of it being dark and dreary. Feels so much more pleasant. Anyway, back to exams… Considering their proximity I think I should probably be starting to get a bit more concerned/stressed/whatever. That said, I never get stressed by the damn things. I’d do so much better if I did… This post is probably already sub-par, and I can’t really think of anything else to write. Except that I should probably go to sleep soon, or something. I’ve heard that’s what people do at night, but to be honest I think it’s just an elaborate hoax. You can’t believe everything you read on the net, after all… Posted by Dickie :: 3 Comments
|
|
)
