And back - Wednesday

Monday involved getting up and opening presents. I've read one of the books already. I slept on some of the trip down to Somerset, we got there and had a very nice lunch which scored something unimpressive on the vegetable scoring system. We stayed overnight at my Nan's and left the next day, but not before one of her cats had set fire to a tea towel. While there, we mocked my Nan a lot (such as complaining that the Christmas decorations were too low, then lowering them before we left so even my Nan had to duck). Anybody that's met me knows I will mock people, well, this is where I get it from. It's always like this and my Dad is the worst. Getting home I was quite tired and so forgot all about blogging. Today I had a lie in while my brothers went to Marks and Spencer's sale. Over the course of the day I WoAed quite a bit, played a lot of Counter Strike Source and worked on my Java Chess Game that I've got plenty of time left to do it in. I played a semi-competitive Counter Strike game which I ended up not letting the team down TOO badly.

Ill Divo - Sunday

I got up a little later than would have been best but got to Church quite on time. The service was about the attitudes towards Jesus of the Magi, Herod and also the Pharisees. I had cycled in and my hands were very very cold, cycling back more slowly they were not as cold. I was wearing gloves both ways which leads me to believe that the wind chilled the blood in my arms then was very cold by the time it got to my hands. I got home and did some WoA stuff, more WoA stuff, some programming and then Aunties, Uncles and Grandma came over. We had a massive lasagna meal which had some vegetables in it, about 7 cubic cm by my guess. We opened some presents as tomorrow we're going down to Somerset and so would not be able to do it. In the evening I cycled into Ammanford again for a Carol service, I put on a jumper and it was much better for my hands. The service was very good, especially the male choir. Afterwards was a hot chocolate and then a long and slow cycle home where I browsed the net, blogged and bedded. I will not be blogging for a day, maybe two, possibly three as I will be away in Somerset.

What a day - Saturday

Well, I had a nice lie in, did some WoA, did some more WoA and had lunch. Around 1500 or 1600 we found that Brecon had still not actually washed that day and I promised I would blog it. Dinner was a very tasty Torta - Lee - Nee (hey, I can't spell it) with almost no vegetables. Yeah, I need a new scoring system.

Fun times - Friday

For the most part, I programmed and played games. I also worked on a website. Dinner was a very tasty pasta thing with some Garlic in it. Yeah, the veggie score falls down very easily and I need a new scoring system. After dinner I sent off a job application form and started on two others (online ones you can save). Then, I went over to Sam's house and had a great time. First off, it's actually Gareth's house, Sam just likes to say it's his. Gareth's house is very nice and so is the Wii. It's great fun to use and very different to the usual mouse orientated system of a PC or Mac. We played bowling ,4 players, I came second last first time and last the second. After bowling we played some game where you shot at baloons. I played against Gwen (I think that was her name, she didn't talk to me much) and thrashed her because I hit on the simple tactic of clicking the tigger constantly and having some semblance of skill at hitting the targets. In fact, I might have gotten the highest score of all three rounds (we played three rounds of two). The final Wii game was a spot the doubles thing. Emma beat me by 7 points because she kept telling me I was blocking the screen. Apparently I was also very energetic in my bowling actions, though to be fair I was spurred on by Sam leaping across the room, I felt I had to prove I could bound better. We watched Elf, it was most amusing and I liked it quite a lot, though as my Mum said, it might be because of the company. After Elf Jonathan + Becca and Gavin + Gwen went home leaving myself, Sam, Gareth and Emma to wait for Emma to be picked up by her parents. Gareth is a real geek and has read a lot of books that I have too, this gives him a "cool" score almost as high as if he played WoA. Sam played some Coheed and Cambria and we watched some funny videos on the net. Gareth gave me a lift home, I got home, blogged and went to bed. If it snows tomorrow (it might well) then I'll be postponing results a little as I will be "otherwise engaged".

Games games and more games - Thursday

Shortly after I got up, James came over and for the rest of the morning/early afternoon we played games. Myself, Coel and James had a Mc Donalds for lunch and then played more games in the evening. Actually, I played games pretty much all day. Dinner tonight was a very very tasty roast dinner, however, it only scored 1 brussel sprout and 3 cubic cm of carrot. I'm beginning to wonder if the Veggie score is still the best system to use...

Still not amazing - Wednesday

I had less of a lie in and spent more time playing games than yesterday. On the plus side the programming went well. I would like to take the time to write that it's very nice being home, I get lots of free food and there's also my cat whom pretty much falls asleep anywhere. Dinner was a very nice curry, I ate something I can't remember the name of (it began with an S) but otherwise I don't recall any veggies. Friday I'll be going to the party thingie in Ammanford (I think it's at Jonathan's house) which will be fun.

Under the weather - Tuesday

I had a lie in, got up and spent the rest of the day programming. Really, I pretty much programmed for the entire day. It was good fun. In the evening I had Spaghetti Bolognese, it scores a small lump of tomato because that's all I ate (though my Mum and Dad strongly hinted that there was some stuff cut up to quite a small size). And that is what happened today. Oh, and I might not be going to get that free stuff anymore (believe me, I'm not happy either). On the plus side something is happening somewhere on Friday!

Very nice being home - Monday

I had a lie in until about 0915, got up and noticed how it's slightly colder here in Wales. Of course, with a complete lack of wind inside the house I saw no reason not to wear shorts. The morning involved WoA and then computer gaming. Lots of computer gaming. Later there was some programming (you can rarely have too much programming), more gaming, more programming and then some dinner. It was a very nice but only scored a quarter of a small tomato because the rest of the vegetables were not so nice, still I really liked the dinner and ate all of it. After dinner there was (shock horror) more programming, some gaming but before those my parents told me that Cerys was really good at getting free stuff (being a very young lady she apparently looks cute). Apparently Cerys went around some shops somewhere and got a load of free samples for purfume and stuff, at some point myself and Cerys are going to Swansea and having a competition over it. Of course, this means I need to find someone to give said stuff to... Who remembers this? (part 2 of that is here). Also, Sam, if you're reading this, are there housegroups on this week?

Nice being home - Sunday

I didn't sleep amazingly well but well enough that I got out of bed and got a lift to Church from Gethin (he's learning to drive and is doing very well). The service was about the Geaneology of Jesus, about how his ancestors were really not that great, some of them were, some of them were not. Even the great ones had their problems. After the service I got a lift back via Gethin again and at home I did various things such as WoA and programming. I also played Stepmania with Cerys a little. Dinner was a delicious roast dinner which earns a whole Brussel sprout and a slice of carrot for it's score (hey, if you put few vegetables on the plater you're going to get a low score). In the evening I cycled to a carol service. I got there and apparently I wasn't meant to wear shorts, it was "cold" or some such rubbish like that. Bah, I felt fine (okay, my ears were freezing but I didn't bring my hat with me). The carols were okay, I sat at the back with Becca (no, completely different one from the CU, this Becca is the wife of Jonathan from Wales). I meant to ask about housegroups while there but forgot. Sam, I know you read this, so here's your mention, are housegroups still on? I cycled back, WoAed some more, laughed at Emma (with the aid of Huw) and went to bed.

Homeward Bound - Saturday

I got up, packed some final things into my bag and then myself and Lauren went to the station. Lauren's train was an hour before mine but I knew that if I were at home I'd be doing nothing but pacing around for a while waiting impatiently, might as well be at the station. I'm glad I did because Lorna got on a train half an hour after Lauren and so half of my wait was spent talking to her. When my train arrived I boarded it and started to read a book lent to me by Huw, I can't recall the name and it's not here in front of me so I can't tell you the name. However, due to lack of sleep my eyes were tired and instead I spent the journey up to Newport listening to a web design podcast, it was quite interesting. At newport I had to wait half an hour for my connection, Coel was on the train and didn't talk to me at all during the journey so I instead continued to listen to the podcast. We got to Port Talbort where my parents were waiting and we drove home. Shortly after getting home we went over to my Grans for my Uncles birthday. It was really nice to meet all my family again and exchange witty comments again. After the very tasty dinner we sat around exchanging more witty remarks and then all left. Getting home I WoAed and MSNd to some friends. It was also very nice to see my cat again, he's like a lump of fur that lets you do pretty much anything to him, even poke him while he's sleeping (it's like he's on drugs, it's amazing).

Much better day - Friday

I awoke and didn't enjoy the day until after my exam. The exam itself went okay, I don't think I failed it but I don't forsee a really high mark either. Still, the exam was over and I went home where I napped, relaxed, packed for tomorrow and fixed that WoA problem I mentioned yesterday. I backed up the most important files on my computer and was happy to see that in total they were not very big. Kinda handy with a USB 1 connection... During dinner we watched Grosse Point Blank, it's a very funny film and I enjoyed it a lot. Sorry John, you're not mentioned in such a way you can sue me, pity that...

Bad day - Thursday

I got up after a nice lie in, went to the lab and got some more done. I went home and did some revision, however, some of the players on WoA are starting to really annoy me and get all uppity when I disagree with them. The whole thing is making me terse and irritated and thus it's not easy to revise, most irritating. On the plus side if they carry on much longer either they will be out of the game or I will, if the first happens I'll be my usual happy self and if the second happens I'll have a load more free time. Both sound good to me!

Ice Skating - Wednesday

I got up nice and early for me Java lecture. Almost nobody turned up for the Java lecture but that's their problem not mine, I had a great time and the code that Ionnais gave us is pretty much the last of what I need to know how to do some parts of the program. This means that shortly into the Christmas holidays I should have a basic Chess game running. After the lecture myself and Chris handed in our UML coursework and I went home to study for my Friday exam. There was no Prayer Lunch today but there was Ice Skating! I walked India there, though on the way we collected Siän and Jo, then Helen and Leanne. When we got to the Union I was told that there might be a problem with me wearing shorts. Apparently it'd be cold, I began to think that telling Siän she was welcome to wear my gloves might have been a mistake. We got to the Ice Rink and in short order I found that my hands were going to be fine at such a low temperature, better yet, my legs were warmer than most people's hands, are you surprised? Last year I spent the first half clutching the side for dear dignity, the second half was spent wobbling near the side and falling onto the ice or getting to the side in time. In the last five or so minutes last year I was able to roughly skate, though I did fall flat on my bum at the last moment in front of a load of little people (I think they might have been children). This year I spent the first 5 minutes hobbling along the sides getting the hang of how to move on skates, more importantly, how to move without falling over. I then slowly got better, after skating around clutching Sarah's hand (she's got quite good balance) I managed to get the hang of it and started to help others around the Ice rink. I didn't fall over once and got so hot that I actually took off my jacket (several other people did too). The funniest part of the evening however was when I was sitting on some benches waiting for the 2nd load of the CU to arrive at the Ice Rink and was watching people skate around. One young lady stopped momentarily in front of me and I smiled nicely at her, she smiled in return, then her eyes moved down slightly and noticed that I was wearing shorts and she promptly moved on. I laughed quite a lot and so did Sarah, though I don't know (or care) if it was with me or at me. After Ice Skating we went to the pub (again, what a surprise) and I taught Gareth some chess strategies. Gareth only knows how the pieces move because he's already completed his Java Chess game. During a 2nd game he came very close to getting me in checkmate and proved to be a very very quick learner. I got home and talked to Lauren about all the times Lorna had tried to set me up with various ladies and we laughed quite a lot about it. Pete got home and we talked about random and various things, including a muppet that's angry someone makes a better site than himself. This one had me laughing so hard Pete and Lauren asked what was wrong.

Much better - Tuesday

I deliberately missed my Java lecture so as to get more sleep, I didn't get much more sleep but I've been praying for some help and it's currently my bed-time and I've not tired all day. After getting up I tidied my room because the house was being inspected today, I then packed my stuff and went to Uni. After the Software systems lecture I sat down with Chris to complete the last bit of the corusework but my powersupply randomly failed on me. I went to the technicians and asked for some help. First they tested the plug to make sure it'd not come loose at all, then they tried finding out where the current was going missing. In the end they managed to drop the power supply block onto a desk by mistake (it was very short fall) and it worked. They hit it a few more times to "make sure it was fixed" and gave it back to me. I laughed quite a lot about it and it's been fine since. We got some work done before the rest of the lectures, we went to those then went home. Not too long after getting home I went over to Chris' house and we finnished off the work, I went home and went to bed.

Problem located and partially solved - Monday

I awoke and made it to my Java lab. It was raining quite a lot for Portsmouth and I got some funny looks about wearing shorts. I returned them by grinning at people's trousers as they sucked up water from the floor and remained sodden throughout the day. On my way home it poured with rain in a very real way, enough rain to be worthy of it being Welsh! I was drenched right through and got home, had a shower and warmed up. It's quite interesting how freezing cold winds will not chill me much when compared to a lot of rain. I didn't do anything very productive after lectures and so decided to have a nap. After the nap I felt a lot better, combined with a suggestion from my ever-nagging but always-helpful Mum I think I need more sleep. Thanks to some advice from Lorna, myself and Becca managed to get to the Cathedral somewhat early, though to be fair to Lorna it did fill up very fast last year. Annoyingly the person I wanted to drag along wasn't on MSN at all today, Katherine, if you're reading this you need to start attending social events, I know where you live! The University Carol service was very good, I particularly enjoyed the choir, they sung half of the songs on their own. As the service was multi-cultural there were some not so traditional hymns, the first one sounded a lot like Therion and it was pretty good, in-fact, I was disappointed at the lack of other hymns like it. However, aside the message and the music, the best part of the evening was that before the service I got a free mince-pie (they offered it to me when I asked for a drink) and also got two candles when everybody else got one. There was a downside to having two candles, I had to hold them both in one hand so I could use my other hand to read the words. This meant that they were slanted in such a way the wax did not drip onto some special plastic holders, instead some of it went onto my leg. Not to worry, it didn't hurt and I can now technically claim I have waxed my legs (well, leg, it only fell on one of them). After the service we went to the Pub where I sort of beat, sort of lost to Phil at Chess, he knocked over his King and claimed that it was an accident... At the pub I also had fun talking to Richard and also Becky, Becky reads my blog and apparently all this stuff about Java is really boring. So I responded by quoting several things she'd said but taking them completely out of context and then sitting on one side of her while Richard sat on the other, then we talked about Java and .net2 (another programming language). After the pub I walked home, plain and simple. I apologise in advance for missing my Java lecture tomorrow, I want to ensure I get enough sleep, I also plan to have an early night tomorrow.

Not as good as normal - Sunday

I woke up as planned, snoozed, got up somewhat later than planned. To my credit, I got from my front door to outside Harry Law hall (to collect Becca) in just over 10 minutes, it involved quite a lot of running but I managed it. We collected Siän and Ceryn on the way and got to Church as some of the first students (we really were not surprised). The service was about Mary and her role in the Nativity Story. Jonathan did some interesting research and found that there are more references to Mary online than there are to Jesus. Though, I do feel this result is skewed somewhat by the name Mary being in use today while I've yet to meet anybody in the flesh called Jesus. The message I took away was that Mary was important, yet not in any way nearly as important as Jesus. After the service the students went to Amanda's for lunch, and by "the students" I don't mean that She chose 4 or 5 of us, I mean 16 of us were invited along and had a great lunch, it was totally awesome! After lunch I walked Siän home and then went home myself (I had nothing better to do and even Ceryn will say that Siän's sense of direction is atrocious). Sadly while at home I felt mildly depressed and couldn't even be bothered to play games or even do anything. Kinda annoying so I went over to Lorna's an hour before Church and watched the last half hour of the Little Mermaid. Lorna, Becca, Phil and myself then walked to church and I felt stupidly tired throughout the evening service. However, unlike normal I managed to take some notes and know that the service was about Love. Not the squishy, emotional, romantic stuff that I don't understand and makes very little sense to me, but the love that God is. For God defines what love is by saying He is love, it is a selfless process where you seek to give, not to take. After the service I walked Becca home (like I said last week, Male escort) and then went home to watch some action film while still feeling tired. It's irritating, yesterday it was affecting just my work, now it's stopping me from doing anything involving energy. I plan to see if it's improved by tomorrow, chances are high as I'll be praying for it and we all know that Prayer Works. Before going to bed, I was linked to a YouTube Video made by some people from the CU. I know Will and Kate from it and have offered to be in number two.

Louder than thee - Saturday

I got up, spent most of the day WoAing and then in the evening wound down a little by playing some Halo with Gareth. Better yet, our neighbors were making rather large amounts of very unpleasant noise. I screeched a few random things but that didn't deter them so I stopped (mostly because my throat was a little sore). A bit later they made a sort of yelling noise and so I responded in kind (only somewhat louder) and followed it with something asking them to be a bit louder. They got the hint and were quieter.

Party! - Friday

Lectures = Boring. I did however learn what would be in my exam next friday so that was boring but useful. After the lectures I walked back with Gareth where we talked about various geeky things and how when Windows Vista comes out nobody's computer is going to be able to run it because they'll all be too slow. I got back and tried to do some work but again felt really tired. It's very annoying as the work must be in on Wednesday, on the plus side I've already done half of what I need to do, on the downside the weekend might not be full of free time to do it and I've got an exam on Friday. In the evening I walked Siän from her house to a party at India's house. The party was good and I enjoyed it a lot, though there were not many games organised. Myself and Graham walked Siän and Becca to their homes and then walked home ourselves. I got home, had a sandwich and went to bed after blogging.

Carols - Thursday

I had a nice lie in and was quite awake for my Lab. In the lab we found that our solution would not meet the marking criteria since it was too simple (we however are convinced it would actually work, we've worked through all the logic a few times now) but Hassan did point us in the correct direction. After the lab I went home and annoyingly felt very lethargic. However, I managed to pull myself into doing some more of the UML report. Between getting home and going to the CU Carol service I managed to get 7 pages done, a lot of it was diagrams but they required work too. Myself, Pete and Lauren went to the Carol service, it was good, I performed a reading (Matthew 2:1-12) and apparently had the mic turned right down for me because I had such a booming voice. After the Carol service we went to the pub where I found I was too tired to win a game of chess. I left the pub shortly after Emma told me to take drugs (it makes somewhat more sense in context). At home I talked to a Lady in Sheffield Uni and talked to her a little about cookies and how to make friends before going to bed.

Free Money and Food! - Wednesday

I got up nice and early, took my time getting ready for the Java lecture and walked at a slightly slower than usual pace next to Gareth. We got to the lecture, I answered questions and then started "work". The day was pretty good, most of it involved talking to people about what I studied and how good the uni was. When I applied I only looked at one other Uni, some of these people looked at three or four and they all seemed really impressed with Portsmouth, particularly with the Problem/Project Based Learning. I had to take a one hour break to attend the SSCC meeting where I made a small contribution of showing support for several thing and having to leave before the two interesting items came up. Ah well, the rest of the day was good as it involved free food and best of all, a few little goodies, specifically 5 Litres of Orange Juice, a double handful of sugar in sachets, enough tea-bags to last me two or three weeks, twenty-ish biscuits and some of those piddly milk carton things. Tom and Richard got some Orange Juice, some sandwiches and I think a few biscuits too. Tom gave me a lift home (it was most appreciated as my bin-bag of stuff was quite heavy), once home I had some dinner and then worked on a UML diagram for the UML project thingie that's due in in (now) just under a week. I also did some WoA stuff (what a surprise).

Mediocre Day - Tuesday

Yeah, I didn't turn up to the Java lecture (are you really that surprised?) and it was cancelled anyway. I did go to the group tutorial, which was cancelled so that serves me right. As per usual on a Tuesday, lectures were boring. After lectures myself, Gareth and Peter went to Tesco where I bought the food (it's my turn), on the way back they decided to let me walk on ahead and wonder where they were. I've played this sort of joke on people before and I know that if you go back to look for them, it's probably not going to work. However, if you walk off and leave them behind it's much better. It took then about ten or fifteen minutes longer than me to get home, I thought it was quite funny. I spent the evening writing stuff for WoA, talking to some people about WoA and working on the Java project. Tomorrow I get paid to walk around in a stupid looking t-shirt (I'll see what I can do about a picture) and tell them how great the uni is, I'll get paid enough money to pay for my server rental for WoA, that's not too bad in my opinion. I also get free food (yeah, you knew it was coming didn't you?). I also get to attend an SSCC meeting thing, yeah, that's got free food too (you must have seen that coming). Incidentally I uploaded a video from the CU weekend away of some people mud-sliding. I'm not sure who the first person to speak is. Brierley is the second when she yells "Mud Wrestling" (yes, for Brierley that is yelling), I don't know who yells takedown, I have a sneaking feeling it's Pete, Becca mentions that she's filming it, Jo laughs and agrees that it should go on the site.

A day late! - Monday

Firstly, sorry for the late post. I did have an internet connection (normally a lack thereof is the reason for a missed post). I was simply very very tired. My day started with me getting up at 0730, this was planned and meant that when I got to my Java lab, rather than be a little tired I was fully awake, it also meant I could take my time getting ready. The Java lab wasn't overly amazing, I got some good stuff done and I believe Chris did too. After the lab we had the joy (or, lack thereof) that is Formal Computing. It's getting very boring (it's not the lecturer's fault, he tries his best but it's a bit of a boring subject). After that I walked home with Ryan, got home, wrote some of a report for the UML project. As per usual I was helping with the sound system and so at 1630 Steve and myself collected it and arrived at the Union. Sam wanted to use the sound desk (simply controls volume of all our inputs and then the volume of them all going out), so, he'll be the one turning up nice and early. The talk was by Mike Mellor who gave the talks at the Mission Week last year, he was very happy to hear I'd become a Christian seeing as he remembered me from last year. After CU I went with Steve, Sïän and Jo to the "international Cafe". It's an event (weekly) where foreign students come and sit down (have some free food) and talk to British Christians. There isn't an overriding theme of Christianity, just of friendship. We arrived after the food but that didn't stop me getting a bag of crisps, lemonade and some sort of juice thing that didn't taste quite so nice this morning (forgot to put it in the fridge). After the cafe Steve went to the pub so I waLked Jo and Siän home, then went home myself. I got to bed at 0100 (not too unusual) and was very tired, hence the lack of blog.

Yeah, a lot better - Sunday

I got up in time to meet Becca outside her halls and then walked her to Church. On the way we stopped at Siän's house to drag her along, she knew we were coming but assumed we'd be 15 minutes later than we were so we had to wait for five minutes for her to get ready. We were the first students there so it wasn't a problem. The service was about the Nativity story, in particular about Joseph and how he dealt with Mary becoming pregnant. Jonathan covered four points about Joseph, they were that he is a good example of self-restraint and faithfulness, he had a high view of marriage, compassion was more important to him than justice also that he valued commitment to God over personal honour (in a day when honour was everything this was quite a big thing). After the service I talked to a new guy called Leo and for lunch I was happy to be invited to the Mitchells. Lunch was awesome, it was a full on Roast dinner. Earlier that morning I had been wondering if missing out on breakfast was a good idea, well, when I dug into this meal I was sure it'd been a great plan. Incidentally the meal filled me so well that the only other thing I've had today was a lump of bread and I'm not hungry! We also played some video games there before I went back to my house. At home I filled in a CRB form for Church (Sarah suggested volunteering for the Discoverers group thingie and Sarah's the sort of person who'd know who was good at that), I also WoAed a little. I got to church before all other students (to be fair, I was quite early) and so managed to help set some stuff up. The service was about friendships and the question was "Have we got Jesus at the center of our friendships?". Challenging. After the service the students were in-charge of tea and coffee. Sadly I'd forgotten to start the water heater so it was just coffee for a while (it doesn't require the water to be as hot). After Tea and Coffee we washed up, had a very small soap-suds fight. Sarah gave myself a lift home along with Becca and Siän (saves me walking them home). I went online and did various things before blogging. Incidentally I've now linked to Sarah's blog on the right-hand-side. While doing the tea and coffee (or more accurately, coffee and coffee) Andy asked me to explain what I mean by "blogged", "blogging" and various other terms used. So, I will. Blog - Noun (I think) A blog is an online diary/story/news page/something-like-that. Simply put, you're reading one right now. It can be used as "to blog" which means to write a blog or blog entry about something. Blogged is simply a past tense of the phrase "to blog". Example: "I blogged about the Spanish Inquisition" Blogging - Verb Blogging is the process where you record events on a blog. I blog my life, some people blog software updates, some people blog other things. Creating a blog Goto blogger.com and click "create account", from there the process should be explained by blogger.com.

Somewhat better - Saturday

I got up and WoAed pretty much all day. In the evening however Huw came over and we had a laugh (mostly at the expense of some WoA players). Yeah, not a very blog-worthy day... Maybe tomorrow will be better?

A boring day - Friday

Got up, had lectures, went back home, played Wingnuts (awesome game by freeverse, Mac only). I did some WoA stuff then more Wingnuts, more WoA then bed. Yeah, very blog-worthy day...

A manly day! - Thursday

Lab in the morning was boring but productive. I then went Christmas Shopping. Yeah, that's rather boring for a blog too. I got home, WoAed, made a voting system for the CU (to elect a new Leadership Team) in the space of an hour and a quarter. I also watched this, it gets good about 40 seconds in. Towards the night, I figured that rather than turning off the heating all the time, I should just walk around the house without a t-shirt on. Sorry for the boring blog :(

Paid for Nothing, awesome! - Wednesday

I got up, managed to get into Uni in time for 0900. This was very useful because I was being paid for it. No, not paid to sit in a Java lecture, paid to sit down and listen to a lady tell me how the tour guides are different this year. It seems that the Tour Guides are getting better each year and I'm happy to see improvements like this (we go up the Spinnaker tower!). More importantly I was paid £6.68 or so an hour for one and a half hours, equates to a tenner. A tenner for sitting down, listening and then drinking a free cup of tea, three cups of Orange Juice and six biscuits (they were really nice ones). Yes, I am looking forwards to "working". I sat down in Anglesea for an hour doing various web things then went to my Digital Coms lecture. It was dull. After this the day got a lot better. If you've been paying attention you'll probably remember that last week and the week before I've had some charming female company on the way to the Prayer Lunch. Today was no exception with Lizzie, then Becca then Hannah joining me on my way. I'm not complaining. Prayer Lunch was good, the food itself was pretty nice, I ate almost all the Scotch Eggs myself. After the Prayer Lunch I went home, did some Web Stuff for WoA and then later went over to see Huw. We did some WoA stuff, we did some stuff for a thing he's doing called "Being a Geek for God" and then played a strategy game called Mac Fungus that I don't have time to explain.

Up in time - Tuesday

I awoke, lay down a bit and got up in time to leave the house at 0830. I got to the lecture on time and sat through it as Ionnais started on GUIs. After that I sat down for two hours in the Anglesea building using a fast internet connection to download any more Mac Freeware I could get my mouse pointer on. The Software systems lecture wasn't amazing nor was the rest of the day Lecture wise. In fact, the rest of the day was mostly naff. On the plus side I now have 27 friends on my MySpace and Lizzie has only 18 so I think that I have sort of proved her incorrect in her slightly impolite insult the other evening in the pub. Tomorrow I have training for my Student Tour guide thing or something or other. Basically it involves me turning up, sitting down, being told not to yell at people or be rude. I am then given some free drinks, a short quiz on Portsmouth (which I'll fail because I am rubbish) and then told that they'd like me to work for them because I'm such a nice person (well, that's what I predict will happen, we'll soon find out if I am accurate or not).

Now with MySpace - Monday

I awoke very tired at 0700. I lay down till 0730 when my loud alarm forced me out of bed. I was however overcome by sleep and tiredness and fell back into bed. I re-awoke at 0830. Interestingly I still managed to wash, dress and pack my bag so as to get to the lab for 0905ish. Java and Formal Computing both make for poor blogging. Again I was required to help move sound stuff. This was harder than normal as I was still aching from the weekend, I reckon I need to do more exercise. Maybe I should pack my bag full of really heavy stuff each day and carry that, walking really fast. Anyhoo, we got the sound stuff there and I went to Tesco to get some food for myself and Steve Haskew. On the way I found a homeless guy under the bridge by the station and made a note to get him some bread. In Tesco I completely forgot about the bread and halfway back I remembered about the man. I ummed and arrred about what to do when it struck me that Jesus would want me to give him something. At Tesco I had bought a pair of Cheese and Ham slices (they're really nice and only a quid) along with two litres of lemonade. Then I remembered, I had 200g of chocolate in my pocket. I ummed and arred even more about this, it's fun to share chocolate with my friends, but again, Jesus would want me to give him something and I soon discovered that it was for the best. I gave him the chocolate and he was overcome with thanks. In retrospect he needed it more than anybody else I talked to tonight and really was very happy with it. CU tonight was slightly different. We had a special speaker called Rico Tice (or Tyce, can't remember the spelling) speak. It was an evangelistic talk and centered a lot on Hell. He was a very good speaker and really funny. He's also the guy from the Christianity Explored DVDs so I told him he did a good job on them. After the meeting we packed up and Sarah drove the stuff back. We made very good time and got to the Pub midway through people arriving which I was rather impressed with. In the Pub I talked to Rob about his weekend and beat Dan in a very hard game of Chess. Despite making a silly mistake and losing his Queen Dan still played a good game and I was wondering if he was going to win for a while. I walked Siän home (along with a lady called Sarah who's not appeared here before, she's visiting Siän) and then went home. In the pub Lizzie had said that I don't have enough friends to get many friends on MySpace. I created a MySpace profile and at the time of writing have 9 friends. If you've got a MySpace account, add me! I am going to try and get to my 0900 Java lecture tomorrow, I'm getting annoyed about missing them all the time.

End of Houseparty - Sunday

I didn't manage to awake quite so fast today, and it was a smidgin later. Still, I woke up at about 0750 and was out of bed in 60 seconds. I showered and went to the prayer meeting. Everybody wondered why I was so dry, I was rather confused until I was told that Colin had stolen somebody's towel while they were in the shower, they thought it was mine (and were hoping it was). Turns out it was Justin's. I informed them that if they stole my towel while I was in the shower I'd get out of the shower dripping went, throw on my shorts and turn up to the prayer meeting like that. I got the impression they won't be taking my towel next houseparty. After the prayer meeting Ceryn gave myself and Colin a very good idea, throw cold water over someone in a shower. Steve La P was having a shower very soon and didn't hear this idea. I threw a jug of cold water first and since I didn't hear anything, Colin did so too a minute later. This prompted a response of "Thanks Colin, I just hope that wasn't toilet water". It was of course just tap water and Colin could not actually be seen by Steve as there was a wall in the way, as you might have guessed, Colin plays lots of jokes on people. Steve Haskew had a cunning plan to add to the joke, turn out all the lights in the bathroom. Then we decided to tie the door to a wall too. Then we scrapped the string idea and instead duct-taped bin bags across the doorway, Steve managed to punch through them in moments and it was quite funny. Strangely enough nobody else had a shower after that... The Morning talk was a conclusion to the weekend and explained to be gentle and not force Christianity onto people. After the talk we had lunch, it was very very tasty. This weekend, due to the additional energy expended, I've been eating twice what I normally eat (meaning I eat roughly what a normal person eats), this meant I could enjoy more food than normal. Woo! After lunch we all started to clean up and pack our bags. The hovercraft back was a lot smoother than the way there and because I'd gone to bed earlier each day, I wasn't quite as tired this year as I was the last. This meant I was able to walk home, upon getting home I sat down for a while, had a big mug of tea and tried to work out if I was going to Church or not. I decided to see who else might come, Siän and Ceryn were not online. I started talking to Becca, she'd mentioned that she'd like to come to Eastney and so I asked her if she'd like to come tonight. In retrospect that might have not been the best plan ever. Becca lives near the Union, Eastney Evangelical Free Church is a half hour walk away by my speed. This equates to approx a 2.5 mile walk from one to the other. In total I walked 1.25 miles to the Union, 2.5 to Eastney, 2.5 back, 1.25 to my house. That's 7.5 miles for those that can't be bothered to count. Surprisingly enough I don't feel knackered from that. My upper body is worn out, but that was the case before the hovercraft trip, my legs if anything feel better for the walk! After getting back I WoAed a little, blogged and went to bed. There will be pictures up at a later time, for now I have 350mb of photos and other people are giving me theirs too! That's a lot to sort through.

Houseparty Day 2 - Saturday

I awoke to my watch alarm, after a single bleep I was fully away (I had been semi-awake before that). The current time was 0700 which meant I was the first guy up and quite possibly up before any of the ladies. At 0800, Colin and myself woke everybody up for the prayer meeting. Normally Collin does it himself alone and uses a bell. Steve Haskew had however removed the ball and chain part of the bell from the bell itself. Apparently my voice is louder than the bell. Yay! After the Prayer Meeting (not too many were so tired as to be unable to attend) we had a quiet time until breakfast. Breakfast itself was really good, the fact that my table was last to be called up was all due to Becca (she laughed at me) but it didn't spoil the food at all. After breakfast we had a talk, the theme for this weekend is Evangelism. This talk was about leading a Godly life, one that'd speak to those around you about the change that Jesus has made in your life. After that we had some games, then we had Lunch. Lunch was pretty nice (again, my table was one of the last to be served). After lunch we played some wide games. These were great fun and I enjoyed them a lot. Chris and Emma have organised all the games played so far and they've done a wonderful job of it too. Incidentally, I got Becca back for deliberately choosing my table last (she laughed at me) by throwing some water at her. I really don't think it bothered her as she joined in with a massive mud fight (which I managed to avoid). While some people got themselves covered in mud, myself and a group of others played Leg Wrestling. I am not very good at it, I believe that having some weight would really help me to be better at it, looks like I need to grow a bigger stomach if that's to happen. After the games we had some seminars where we discussed what we'd been told by the speaker. It was good (we split into men and ladies) and we covered some good topics. After the seminars we had some dinner and then watched some fireworks. The fireworks were fairly impressive, impressive seeing as Steve was the only one lighting them, had 12ish rockets and only two tubes to launch them from. I had offered to help but Sam Groves was meant to be helping, he just didn't go down and help Steve, I was most confused. After the fireworks we had an evening talk about how to make the most of opportunities and how to engineer them, namely by living that life. For the Evening-Night some of us watched Napoleon Dynamite, a strange yet funny and interesting film. I blogged and went to bed.

Houseparty Night 1 - Friday

Lectures are boring, I got up on time and attended them. End of story. After my Digital Coms lecture I met Becca outside Harry Law hall and walked her to the Hovercraft terminal as she wasn't sure where it was. Stephanie came some of the way but then had to wait for a friend. The hovercraft trip was bumpy, probably because of the bad weather. Once we got off the Hovercraft we went by road to Crusader House where I started to dump stuff in my room and generally make myself at home (while offering to carry stuff in as people arrived). We played some games, most were rather "different". The funny parts of the games were some things people said. For instance, in one game it involved people moving over and maybe sitting on each other. Lizzie decided that it'd be really funny to insult me (no idea why, must be she's jealous of my legs), Helen was sitting on me so Lizzie made the all time witty comment of "I bet you never thought you'd have a woman sit on your lap". Now, Lizzie missed the fact that some time in the past while playing Honey I love you (I could find the date if push came to shove) she sat on my lap. Now, I simply replied "No, I simply never thought I'd have an attractive lady sit on me". I felt that was quite a good retort :) After games we did some worship (the band were quite loud) and then our speaker gave his first speak? Speach? Speil? WhatDoIPutHere? Shortly after that, Sarah complimented my feet ("they're not too big, not too small, just about right for guys feet"). I thought this was really nice. The fact that I had my laptop to hand meant I could record it in text, moments after the event. Most people then went down to the beach where we spun glow sticks around and I wore sun-glasses to complete the shorts and T-Shirt look. We got back, had some hot chocolate. Languages Jo (she was the one bragging about frisbees wednesday, we'll have a picture up soon) told us how Young British Men are cute while Old ones are not. She then elaborated that Older French Men are attractive while the Young ones are not. I blogged and went to bed.

Not so free (or attractive) - Thursday

Well, the earlier night and moving of the volume control paid off. Of course, it would pay off today as it was the one day of the week I had an 1100 start rather than an 0900 start. Still, I'll keep using it and report on the success. My 1100 lab went fairly well, not as well as last week but still, we made some solid progress. Afterwards we (myself and Chris) made a short trip to Tesco for lunch and then went to a three hour lab on Digital Comms. Suffice to say it's not our strong point and we were really happy with an 8/10 for the lab (on a side note, guessed what I prayed for on my way to uni...). After the lab we went home, I browsed the internet, ate a pasta/tuna mix and watched Moonraker. After that I WoAed, wrote some WoA pages for my possible teams for next world. Specifically I'm re-doing two of them and making a completely new one. I finished both the re-doos but didn't start on the new nation. If I don't blog tomorrow, it's because I'm on the Isle of Wight and the internet connection that was there last year isn't there this year. Don't expect a massively wordy blog either, I'll likely just upload 20 or so pictures and stick captions on them, better yet, I might get someone else to write the captions. Either way, it'll likely not be up to the normal standards you're so used to viewing. I also think I need some sort of a title like "CU Escort Man" or somesuch thing. I'm constantly walking ladies home (that's not a bad thing, it's nice to help people and reassuring to know they're safe) and showing them the way to places. Tomorrow I'll be showing Becca the way to the hovercraft terminal (hey, I've not a vast amount to do instead and it's not actually that much of a detour).

Free Stuff (and some attractive company) - Wednesday

I managed to miss my Java lecture (not by much). I've now determined that I should have my volume control the other side of the room. I will be doing this tomorrow and make sure I'm in bed by midnight. So, with that in mind I got up shortly after waking up and looked at some Java stuff to make up for missing the lecture. I went to my Digital Coms lecture, it was quite boring. However, I discovered that there was a "graduates fair" on for 3rd years and that it closed at 3, sadly the Prayer Lunch would likely run long enough I'd not be able to go and filch free stuff. Luke said he'd gotten a free frisbee! Luckily for me the day got better quite fast. I met Becca and Katherine outside the Richmond building and was going to show them the way to the prayer lunch. Justin was going to be meeting some course-mates but it was called off so he walked with us. It started to rain. In short order, Becca and Katherine were complaining about wet feet. This stopped right after I said that the next person to complain would be carried. Becca now showed a remarkable degree of "Knowing how to deal with Teifion". She told Justin to complain about wet feet. True to my word I carried him, well, some of the way before we got bored waiting for the others to catch up. At the prayer lunch we prayed mostly about the Houseparty weekend, it should be really good fun. Jo had been to the Graduates Fair thingy and gotten a frisbee. I decided I'd see what I could do about going to the fair, I couldn't let Jo win... Also, everybody really liked the toffee squares, apparently they're the nicest thing there. The prayer lunch ended and Siän said that she should probably go to the fair but wasn't really feeling like it. Well, "there we go", thought I. I can go to the fair, AND help Siän by "motivating" her. After telling Siän in no uncertain terms she was going, we all headed out. Becca and Katherine walked with us as they lived just round the corner from the fair. At the fair the first thing I did was turn on my free stuff finding abilities (of course, if I saw anything the Siän might be interested in I'd tell her, but lets not forget the free stuff here). First stall was the NHS, and what'd my eye spy on it in a fraction of a second? FRISBEE! Actually, I saw the frisbees before anything else on the stand, that's how toned my sense of free stuff is. Here is what happened in my attempt to get free stuff. Me: Can I have a frisbee? NHS: You have to win one, here's a sponge ball and here's a basket ball hoop, get the ball through the hoop for a frisbee *Teifion walks around the table and puts it through the hoop by hand* NHS: No, that's cheating, you have to be behind the table Me: No problem *Teifion walks back behind the table, he then picks up the table with ease* NHS: No, you can't move the table, that's also cheating *Teifion puts the table down, then throws the ball through the hoop without any difficulty what-so-ever NHS: Well done, have a frisbee, you were allowed three goes but you only needed one Me: Can I try to win a 2nd then? I do have two goes left... NHS: No, you only get one frisbee Me: Okay, can I win one for the lady? *Teifion points to Siän *Siän looks confused, wondering why Teifion is referring to Her as if she were "with him" or in any way connected with someone so embarrassing NHS: Sure *Teifion wins a second Frisbee with an equal amount of ease as the first That pretty much set the tone for the rest of the twenty minutes I was there. Siän walked around looking for stalls that looked like they might have an opening for people studying languages, I "acquired" various pens and in total, three more frisbees! The best part of the "collection" however was as all the stands began to pack up and Siän began to get strange ideas that she was meant to leave, I walked over to a stall. On said stall was a 1.4Kg plastic tub of sherbet lemons. I simply asked if I could have them, they said "yes". Here is what I managed to get in the end. On the way back, Siän told me I was really cheeky, I promptly said that with enough cheek I could blag anything. I think Siän was a little light headed because she then said that I'd also been rather charming to the people. I'm surprised it's the first time I've been called that, I've been getting lots of free stuff since I got to Portsmouth, why would someone only mention it now? Anyhoo, I got back, WoAed and looked at more Java. Sun make some good java tutorials (not too much of a surprise seeing as they make the language), so I used them. During dinner we watched Pirates of the Caribbean 2. I wasn't massively impressed with it but it wasn't as rubbish as some people have told me. In the evening myself and Gareth (okay, mostly Gareth) found out that for our afternoon lab tomorrow, we have some prep work, so we did that. It's 2150 and I'm blogging early to make sure I get an early night. Hopefully today was interesting enough for you all ;)

Lie In - Tuesday

Yeah, I missed the Java lecture. On the plus side, he was talking about Arrays, which I've done in other languages and even in Java, I thought he'd covered it. To be honest, I'm very glad I didn't go. In fact, the lectures today were all boring so we'll jump right to dinner. Dinner was good (no vegetables), we watched James Bond: License to Kill, I've not seen it before and I liked it quite a lot. After that I watched something with Bronx in the title which was okay but not amazing. I also WoAed, signed Lauren up for a blog. Right, early night time, missing lectures is all well and good until you actually need to know stuff. Besides, Ryan told me he'd fixed the bugs in his code and I can't let him get ahead of me in the Java project ;)

A most interesting day - Monday

Firstly, I went to my Java lab, nothing special there. Though the guy sitting next to me (Ryan) bragged how he had 500 lines of source code while I had 200. The key difference being his had over 100 errors and mine had none. After Java I had Formal Computing where I came very close to falling asleep! After Formal Computing I bought some food for the house and went home. At home I talked to Katharine over Skype while performing some WoA house-keeping tasks. I later collected the PA stuff with Sarah. It occoured to us as we were getting the stuff that Steve Haskew is a bit of a wuss. Sarah carried more stuff than he does (she even had a try at Mr Hefty but wisely decided not to carry him). We got the PA stuff to CU and Steve arrived not too long afterwards. Steve promptly panicked because though there were all the Uni speakers, we had no cables for them. We managed to bodge something together and it worked quite well enough for me, I get the feeling Steve wasn't impressed. Ah well. We didn't have a speaker this week, instead there was a lot more singing, prayer and both myself and Emma gave short Testimonys. Emma was baptised yesterday but I didn't find out until too late where. After the meeting myself and Sarah took the sound stuff back to Immanual Church and then went to the Pub. At the pub I discovered that Becca and Katharine very much liked Chocolate and that when combined with Jo and Hannah it could vanish quite fast. Still, there's only so much I can eat. Rob (though it might be Ross, I can never remember) and myself played many silly games with the ladies, including but not limited to me complimenting one half of them and insulting the other half and Rob reversing that role. After the pub, myself and Justin walked Becky to the Gosport ferry and then walked home ourselves, it was quite a distance but it was worth it, there were a lot of drunks around and about. I'm doing better than yesterday, I have a whole eight hours until my Java lecture, plus it's not compulsory and after the lecture there's a two hour gap. I'm tempted to lie in...

Baptism - Sunday

I awoke nicely at some time around 0700, I got up, washed, did some WoA, told Coel to get up, waited half an hour and told him to get up again. My parents then arrived, they brought with them a Baptism present of a hard copy of the ESV Bible, it's really snazzy! They also brought along my sister Cerys and a lot of Toffee Squares (a lot of them have mysteriously vanished since then...). We arrived at Church rather early which meant we got the best parking space going and had plenty of time to talk to Jonathan and Andy (who was leading the service). The Baptism itself was caught on camera, I must say that I'm really glad at the number of friends and family that came to support me. My Mum, Dad and Sister came from South Wales (they left at 0600), Pete comes from whoknowswhere and has never met me in person before, Coel came from London, some came from Reading and in general, the Church was full. I recieved a lot of cards too, it was almost like my birthday all over again! After the service, my family, some of the students and Pete went to the Thatched House/Cottage (apparently I might have the name wrong). There we had lunch and Cerys really impressed me by getting 6 sachets of mayonays (I'm training her). Actually, after the service I managed to get her to play a joke on Ceryn. Cerys went up to Ceryn and gave her an empty cup of tea saying "Can you hold this for me please", then walked off while I laughed. Huw, Coel and Pete also laughed quite a lot too. Ceryn laughed but not quite as hard. After lunch my family, me and Pete went to my house for a cup of tea before my family left. Myself, Pete and Huw then recorded a podcast before playing some Halo. I went to the Evening service at Eastney while they went to Huw's house. The service focused on the Resurrection of Christ but I was really really tired so didn't take it in very well. After the service myself and Phil served Tea and Coffee, we then washed up. At 2020 we left the building, my housemates were expecting me back by 2005 so we could go to see Casino Royale. Seeing as I was staying behind Church late for God, I figured I'd just trust God to make it all work. Unsurprisingly, when you honour God, He honours you. Phil and myself met my housemates on the way and got there in time to just about miss the titles, we somehow managed to get what I think were great seats. We were at the front but the screen was low enough my neck didn't start to ache. The film itself was really very good and to quote Coel "has restored my faith in the Bond series". Lauren was away for the weekend for her Birthday party so we sung happy birthday to her and took pictures, she had her hair done really nicely, sadly all the nice pictures of her have red-eye and I deleted iPhoto a while back because it was really annoying me with how it popped up all the time. So they'll be up some other time. In other news I have a Java lab in seven hours, time for some sleep.

World of Arl with a difference - Saturday

I got up, knackered and aching. I managed to not fall asleep again during the WoA results. We were a man down for one half but managed to move quickly because there were fewer wars than normal. Huw came over my house to write a load of the story for WoA, then we went and picked up Pete W from the station. We had a cup of tea and then went back to the station to pick up Coel. Due to Coel being delayed, we couldn't go where we planned, so we ordered a pizza instead. The group of us (along with Pete from my house) played Halo, watched Hitch and talked about WoA. All in all it was a good day but I think I went to bed too late :(

PLAYZONE!!! - Friday

Lectures = Eugh. Right, now that's out of the way, the afternoon! I programmed and WoAed. Okay, evening! Playzone, but first, I spent an hour or two talking to a fresher (while WoAing). Katharine was feeling unwell, specifically She was unwell enough to come to Playzone. Of course, I am not going to let a bit of a bunged up nose stop stop me from getting a Fresher to Playzone! After roughly an hour Katharine had agreed to meet me at the bottom of James Watson hall whereupon d make sure she got the Union without collapsing. I prayed for half an hour. I got to James Watson hall, she was there and feeling fine. Turns out it had been slightly more than a blocked up nose but again, do I look like I care? I've got God on my side. Prayer Works. So, we went to playzone, it was really really good fun. As with last year, people have no idea how "skilled" I am at not getting friction burns. People kept telling me I'd burn my leg hair off or set fire to my legs (okay, not the second one but it'd have been funny if someone had said it). Suffice to say, the only injuries sustained were on my right elbow where I banged it going down a slide, my left knee bumping into a pole and my left big toe stubbing on a step. By the end of Playzone I was so worn out that Sarah started to worry I might be ill. I soon recovered and though not quite as energetic as usual, walked Siän home and then walked back myself. There I had a short shower, WoA'd a little and blogged. Overall it's been a good day and I really enjoyed it.

I like days with only two hours of work - Thursday

I had a very nice lie in and turned up to my 1100 lab. In it myself and Chris did a lot of thinking, bounced a lot of ideas off of each other and as a result got a lot done. Chris estimates we're halfway to solving the problem, I'm not quite so optimistic but I know we did a good bit of work. The lab also went very fast, we were very engrossed in our work. After the lab I went home, there I WoAed and then programmed Phil the Database. I went to see Jonathan for a final Baptism Session where we discussed Prayer quite a lot. It was good and I learnt from it. When I got back I pretty much programmed for the rest of the evening, it's now 2300 (I got back about 1700ish), lets call it five and a half hours, all programming. The time just flew by as I started work on Phil's sister database, Maggie. Of interest to Mac users might be what happens if you push Command (often called Apple), Option, Control and 8. No, I've not broken your computer, it's just inverted the screen. It's designed for people who have trouble viewing the screen as it is normally, I personally find it very relaxing on the eyes, particularly if I'm in a darkish room. Tomorrow is PLAYZONE! I also added to my Christmas List, adding a Delirious? album and Warcraft 3 the Frozen Throne complete with Expansion Pack. It's a good game and I know it's got a lot of life left in it.

Somewhat better - Wednesday

I got up quite on time for my 0900 Java lecture. I went to the Java lecture and learnt some new stuff about Java. After the lecture I sat down for some WoA and then some programming in the area of WoA. I enjoyed it but for some reason it just doesn't make good blog material. Salem's lecture wasn't incredible, I found I got 47% in the test, I thought I'd done better than that, ah well, just means I know I need to put more work in for future tests. After the lecture I met Becca and showed her the way to the Prayer Lunch. I had an awesomely cool joke planned but it failed. Siän's house (where we have the prayer lunches) has a short extension to the hallway beyond the door, this means I can wall-climb up it and sit above the door. Sadly there's a massive pane of glass there, rather than in the front room they were all in the kitchen so saw me. The joke was going to be that I'd let go of the wall, fall down quietly and say "Mind if I drop in?". Becca, Siän, Graham, Brierley and Ceryn didn't laugh much either. We prayed for the issues concerning the CU, everybody but myself, Siän and Becca left. We washed up and I went home. There I checked my email and found that to follow a certain link I had to go see someone at Uni. I got to the Connect Up shop and spent about three quarters of an hour talking to the guy there about Macs and whatnot. I got home, had dinner (it scored a single handful of vegetables today, though to be fair the waffles were replaced by mashed potato). I then did some Java, got totally confused when it didn't work. Gareth knows the niggling details of Java somewhat better than me and quite easily pointed out the keywords I'd missed out. I did not "roll out of bed" this morning. The reason being I had an idea that my head my connect with something solid very fast, possibly achieving the reverse effect to what was intended. Thanks all the same for the suggestion.

Gaaah - Tuesday

Well, when I looked at my watch this morning it said 0845. So, I stayed in bed until about 1100, then went to the Software Systems lecture. After that I sat down with Chris, I did some Java stuff, he did some Digital Electronics stuff and we occasionally helped each other. After that we went to our evening lectures and I went home. At home I did some WoA, ate dinner, played a lot of Halo 2, more WoA, some Java and an early night. On the plus side tomorrow I only have two lectures, will try out Wulfbanes suggestion of waking up (cleared my floor specially for it) and quite possibly will be run on a good night of sleep.

Tired? - Monday

I awoke gently at 07somethingorother. I fell asleep shortly after resetting my alarm. I looked at my watch. 0830. This was "not good". I had a lab at 0900 that I had to attend, my current fastest at walking was 18:33 and I had to get washed, dressed and pack some stuff into my bag. 0905 I was in the lab, 0910 the lecturer turned up. It was Ionnais so we traded jokes. He's cool. Myself and Chris got to work on the Java project, we figured out what we each needed to do to get it off the ground. After the lecture I got some cornish pasties (Tesco Value). I wish I'd gone for the Sausage rolls, I think the pasties disagreed with my digestive system a little. Formal computing was very very boring (sadly) and I walked home after it. I napped for a while (I was still very tired) and then went to setup sound. We got it all almost working before Steve returned from dinner. Today I wasn't running sound, Sam wants to get more involved, the problem is I'm still somehow involved in carry the heavy stuff, I wasn't feeling overly well before having to carry it, now my arms hurt even more. I've decided that next week I'll have to see what I can do about not being involved in sound if I can help it. CU tonight was about Prayer, it's importance and how it's a great privilege. It really challenged my thinking and I think I should read more of the Old Testament. After CU I was somehow again required to carry heavy stuff, though Steve carried more than usual because I wasn't up to it. I went home (though I did talk to Andrew and Simon a bit before they left) and MSNd to WoA players and also Becca from the CU. Tomorrow will be a good day (I think). I've got Java in the morning, a two hour break, an hour of software systems, two hour break, digital electronics, software systems then no Data Coms tutorial, it's been cancelled this week. That is good. I also uploaded another picture of myself. It's quite impressive I weigh little enough to be able to stand on Pete like that and for him to be quite okay.

Free Lunch! - Sunday

I got up, walked some of the way to Church, saw Sarah and got a lift with her to the Church Search. The bad news was that there were not enough car spaces for the ride back, so I walked. I got half way there before Sarah picked me up and drove me the rest of the way. We got in ten minutes late but didn't miss anything beyond the initial hymns. Jonathan was talking today about Eternal Life, the key message of the Bible. It made me think about a conversation I'd had with a friend the other day about Baptism. He believed one thing and I believed another. They key thing was that though it's important, it's not something that should detract from the main message. For lunch all the ladies went around to the Mitchell's and the guys went around to the Hackers. There we had a most excellent Curry. As a new method of defining how good the food is I will add a value of what vegetables I ate with it, the better the food the more vegetables I will manage to eat with it. This curry scored 4 Cabbage leaves (technically three but one was twice the size of the others) a mushroom and I think three chunks of carrot. If I'm ill we know why. For the rest of the day we watched a Delirious DVD and went for a walk. The Hackers gave us afternoon tea which was very nice (I had a decent sized tomato slice). We then went to the afternoon service. It was about the Futility of Wars, how they don't server anything in the long run and that rather than saying it's the government's fault, we need to first look to ourselves. Specifically that we need to "Look to the needs of others". After the service I walked Lorna and Faye (I think that's how it's spelt) home and then sat around talking to them. Sarah's blog had a special thing about me, specifically she's going to start using paragraphs now. I got home, WoAed and checked the sites I check. On the ECE Forum there has been an interesting thread about the Mac Adverts ditching the "cool" guy. More importantly I quite like my response to them trying to imply I look stupid. However, after that they simply started trying to find a picture of me. PeteA is Pete from my house and we got this and this as examples of what I look like. The first picture of me being a giant isn't photoshopped in any way, it just came out like that because of the position of the camera (was standing on these small rails that are just below shoulder height, I don't know what they're called).

Interesting Saturday? - Saturday

No, not THAT interesting. I slept in till 0800 (I meant to get up for 0530), still, all the results got completed on time and I still had time to chat to loads of people on our IRC channel. World of Arl has gotten somewhat more violent and competitive since last world. We've already had four teams nearly die. This world might be one of the shorter ones... Ummm, yeah, that's about it as far as if you're not a player. Ooh, there are two new blogs I visit. Sam from the youth group in Wales and also The Common Sense Marketer. Next Saturday I'm meeting Coel and hopefully also a guy from WoA, myself Coel, Huw and this other guy (Pete) will go out for a meal, possibly with Lorna's household, because they'd like to meet Coel (I think).

Textmate - Friday

I got up and went to the Digital Electronics lecture. It turns out there's a little bit more to the coursework than we thought. On the plus side it's totally hardware based so Chris will like it. After the digital lecture I had 15 minutes of Professional Practice before we were told we could go. Awesome. I walked home in 18 minutes 33 seconds, my legs ached quite a bit after that. I WoAed, napped and did various geeky things such as play around with Textmate. Textmate is an application I stuck on my Christmas List. Compared to BBEdit (which is what I normally use) it's massively better. I walked to my Data Comms lecture, and just before I got there I saw David Ndzi, the lecturer that last year ran the ECE KTG. He was pleased to hear I now write PHP for a hobby. He's going to try to start up the ECE KTG again this year. After the lecture I noticed that someone had left something out. The box was left on a table with this Sign on it, this is what it looked like when I got it back. Originally I was only taking one, but Aaron was giving me a lift home so I just took the box. For some time I worked on Phil the Database, I then went to see Jonathan about Baptism. After that I returned to programming and also had some fun with IRC. WoA has an IRC channel irc://uk.quakenet.org/#woarl. Now, I have to go to bed.

Easy Digital - Thursday

I had a nice lie in and then attended my Digital Lab. I think I might start timing myself walking into Uni, I am wondering how fast I can manaage it. Of course, the downside to walking so fast is that it causes my legs to ache, on the plus side once I get to Uni I'm sitting down so that sort of nullifies the problem. The Digital Lab went well, it started with myself and Chris talking about what we'd do, then Chris told me what part of it he wanted me to do, so I did it (specifically it involved writing C Code). I finished it, turned to him to ask if he thought it was okay and found he'd written more than me! I was impressed, firstly that Chris had been typing faster than me and also that he'd figured out what to write faster than myself. Chris doesn't program as a hobby. It got better, for the rest of the lab Chris worked very fast, he made few mistakes and we have almost completed the project, that said, some other people have also come a long way, I'm almost worried that the project is going to be so easy to complete. We'll likely have it working next week. For lunch myself and Chris went to Tesco. I got my usual cheap food there while Chris went to a Pastie Shop and bought a single pastie for almost the same ammount I managed 8 sausage rolls and 6 scotched eggs. I've still got 6 Sausage rolls left, those Scotched eggs were tasty. In the afternoon we had a three hour lab. Chris and myself worked together for it, it's the Software Systems lab (unmarked) and will help us design our Java program. I am not overly keen on the Togethersoft package (which is what we used). It seems unweildy and hard to use. Still, we've got to create some stuff with it so that's what we're going to do. I walked home with Chris, Ryan and for some of the way, Luke. I got home, napped, WoAed and then worked some more on Phil the Database. We're just about ready to start using it! I had a nice long talk with my Dad via Skype about making a website which we decided would take too long. I also made my Christmas List. So all those people that really really like me yet have never had the courage to leave a comment on the blog, you're welcome to just get me a present instead :D Of immense amusement to myself was this.

Exam! - Wednesday

Up early for my 0900 Java lecture. No problems there, in fact, it got better. I talked to Ioannis after the lecture and told him that if he wanted me to answer all questions I was quite happy to, the reason most of them slip by me is that I just assume them to be obvious to everybody, apparently so do most of the class. I think that some of the class are able to understand the concepts really well, the rest just don't care and it's quite frankly. Pathetic. After the lecture I did some revision for my exam. The exam itself wasn't too bad and I feel I got most of it correct. I'm sure that with time I'll soon find out that I got 50% or less (I just tend to feel good about most things). I managed to get to the Prayer Lunch in 7 minutes, not bad considering that most people would take 15. To be fair, my shins were aching quite a lot when I got there and I had to point my toes towards myself to avoid getting cramp while sitting down. I left the Prayer Lunch early for Christianity Explored, sadly nobody turned up so we're going to postpone it for some time in the future. I now had some time free, however, I for some reason felt a wee bit lethargic and so didn't do a vast ammount. I think I might have been tired. In the evening we had fireworks at Cosham! I got the train there along with everybody else and it was really good fun. IBM pays for the fireworks and they're let off very near to their head office. They were very impressive and I got the distinct feeling that IBM spent quite a lot of money on them. I thought that was very nice of them. I didn't go on any rides but followed a group of Ladies around (okay, there were some guys too) and made sure they didn't all get split up. I really had nothing much else to do. At some point there was a fight somewhere between what we suspect were two gangs of chavs. The police escorted them away and a HUGE crowd followed. I got the train home, walked India and her housemates home (they live round the corner from me) and we watched Hitch. It was very funny and I enjoyed it quite a lot.

Better day! - Tuesday

Well, as planned I had to miss the Java lecture because I was simply too tired. I will however ensure I get to the one tomorrow. I got to my tutorial group fine and on time, talked about Java and then checked Email etc etc. I attended Software Systems and had my thinking challenged. I'm wondering if my current plan for the Java Project is really as object orientated as it should be, I was going with the common programming approach of saving memory with a "cunning plan" that'd work fine, now I'm wondering about a more obtuse one that'd fullfill the requirements of the coursework better. I walked home, WoAed, lunched, drank tea and went back to uni (not all at the same time). Digital Electronics was good, at the end of the last lecture I wasn't 100% sure about what he meant but it was all cleared up this lecture and I understood it very well. I should sleep in more often. Software Systems in the evening wasn't quite as easy to understand as in the morning but it'll be going hand in hand with the java project so I'm sure I'll manage something. The coursework (worth 50% of the marks) is due in in 5 weeks (we got it today). The Data Coms tutorial wasn't amazingly useful, I've got an exam tomorrow (worth 10% of the unit marks I think) so I studied for it. After the tutorial, myself and Ryan went to Tesco where I learnt how to use the self service till. I also bought some food. Ryan lives a few doors down for me which was handy, we took my route home but Ryan thinks his is faster, I think he might well be right so plan to try and measure them some time. At home I watched "Gone in 60 Seconds", did some work on Phil the Database and also studied for my exam tomorrow. I did some washing and got some crazy advice from Lauren about clearing the plastic bags out of my room; "smash them [plastic bags]" I think she's going crazy. In other news, I dropped the computer today. Specifically it fell out of my bag right outside Uni. I'd walked all the way in and somehow not only forgot to put it in the strap that's in the pocket it's in, but also not completely done up the zipper. I'd done it almost all the way up because it didn't fall out until then. The computer itself is almost undamaged, despite falling onto solid stone from a height of about a meter. Physically there are some small scratches on the front two underside corners and the front casing on the right side is slightly loose. Work wise it's just as it was before. I'm now being very careful to put it in the strap and zip it all the way up. In other other news, with help from Lauren (though Emma also gave me some advice, I've not had time to put it into practice). Most of my spots have cleared up.

Tired - Monday

I'm tired, I stayed at the pub too long and got back rather late. I am considering missing my Java lecture tomorrow so that I can get some extra sleep. Interesting things that happened today involved umm, okay, only one thing but you'll like it (I think). Lauren told me to use a Moisturising Spot cream, apparently they're better. I somehow only heard the Moisturising part and put cocoa butter on my face. I now have a few more spots. Well, night night.

Better? - Sunday

Woke up at 0630, turned alarm off at 0700 and fell asleep sometime not long after that. Woke up again at 0930 as Huw rang my doorbell. I got washed and dressed in the space of 5 minutes, grabbed a cup of tea and the two of us went to Church. Rather than Jonathan leading the service we had a friend of Jonathan who normally speaks at a different Church. He did an interesting service on substitutes and how Jesus was a substitute for our sins. However, I didn't feel he explained it very well and don't feel I know anything more after the service than I did before. For lunch, myself, Huw, Phil and Siän were invited to the Hackers for lunch. It was, as it always is, most delicious and I am glad I got to Church early. There are so many students at Eastney that none of the families can manage all of the students at once. After lunch myself, Phil and Huw went back to my house where we played Halo 2. Huw also showed me some bugs he'd found in Phil the Database. Phil the person somehow got into his head that we'd named the database after him and was quite happy until I told him that the Database was quite stupid and not very competant and that in fact we should have named it after him. Huw later went to Victory Church for the evening and myself and Phil went back to Eastney. At the evening Service I forgot to take notes (silly me) but I believe the service featured about how Paul was in prison yet still joyful, how he would have been happy to die, such was his conviction and faith. After the service I tidied away the chairs with some of the Ladies from the church, while I did it I made loud and audable comments about lazy students (Steve was the only other one that helped). Sarah gave me a lift home, I found that my net connection was acting up (it's much better now). I had some food, blogged and looked at WoA a little before going to bed.

Guess What! - Saturday

That's right! Today was REALLY dull. Now, I know how annyoing it is to see a title like that so I've got a cunning plan. I'll say what I wish had happened today. In my mind this would have been a great day if... I woke up this morning at 0730 as planned (that's acutally what I did). It was very cold (hang on, this is rather real so far), getting washed was only plesent when hot water was involved. Still I was very much awake very fast. I grabbed a mug of tea, a sandwich and began working on WoA. Due to the multiple Database Systems I'd created it ran all the caclulations for me, I spent a whole hour and it'd done everything I needed it to for 40 different teams (we currently have 24 teams, 12 teams to a Custodian). Well, it was now very early in the morning, perfect time for a little Bible study. An hour later I understood more about what I'd been reading today and I'm really glad I spent the time to look at it and think about it. After that I decided to have a short nap. I was awoken from my nap by my phone, on the other end of the phone was this really nice Lady I've not told you about. She invted me over to her house to watch the Rugby (okay I admit, I have no clue what time it was meant to be on TV). I went over there and she cooked me food. Awesome. After the Rugby Match (do I look like I care who won?) I went back to my house and worked on my latest Database Idea for WoA. It works really well, we're going to call it Ermantrude, the last one was called Smythe. In the evening that Lady I watched Rugby with earlier came over because she was bored, we played computer games and it was really good fun. We then went for a walk on the beach, I found a crab and caught it (yeah, it doesn't take a lot to please me), I promptly ran after the lady while holding the crab. I found it really funny. After walking said Lady home I went back onto WoA to find everything ticking over smoothly, the automatic systems working like a charm. Someone had also emailed me asking if they could buy a copy of some of the stuff I'd written. W00t. As you can see, there are some slight differences between what actually happens and what really happens, yet, they're not all that different are they! I hope that made visiting my blog worthwhile for you, maybe next Saturday will be somewhat more realistic yet just as interesting.

Ultra Rubbish - Friday

Morning lectures were overall, boring. Moving on, I got home and carried on working on Phil the Database. I did some WoA stuff and then played Halo 2 with Huw. In accordance with the wishes of Zorg, I killed Huw (ingame, not in real life), despite the fact that we were playing co-op. Yes, Huw was a little confused but I had a tank and he didn't so it was okay (for me anyway). I installed some new extensions for Firefox and they broke it. This meant that I had to download Firefox 2, it's had a lot of bad reviews but so far it's not been too bad, though, it is a little slower than Firefox 1. Apparently it causes iTunes to skip, it's happened once with me. I later went to see Jonathan and talked to him about Baptism (it's on the 19th for sure now), about what it means and why. We had some interesting tangents (it's like hall group all over again) but for the most part they were good and I'm glad I talked to him. After that I had a light dinner and went over to Richard's house. We chatted about various geeky things before going to blockbuster. Richard's housemate Jimmy came with us as did Ryo (actually called Richard but normally called Ryo). We rented a film called "Ultraviolet". It is basically rubbish. The plot was clearly written by an inebriated 3 year old. I also suspect that while said 3 year old was writing the script, they were snorting hamsters up their nose. After 5 minutes of it we just started to mock it which it turns out was most amusing. Jimmy can be quite witty and both Richard and Ryo at least tried. I'm sorry that today was so boring. I'm not overly expectant that tomorrow will be a whole lot better.

Cold - Thursday

Yes, it was a bit of a chilly day today. That is, until I walked more than 100m, at that point my circulation kicked in and by the time I was almost at Uni I had taken off my coat and was walking around in shorts and t-shirt. I saw two ladies walking along in coats, scarves and trousers, shivering and there was me carrying my coat and actually feeling very warm. One of them spotted me and gave me a look that plainly said "you must be joking". I of course grinned back. The lab went well, afterwards I saw the people about placements, filled in some form I was apparently meant to fill in a while ago and sorted out a few details. I then walked back and continued work on Phil the Database for WoA. In fact, I did that for most of the day, over dinner we watched V for Vendetta, I think it might be my new favourite film. Sure, it's not one that's worth watching all the time but I like it a lot and rate it very highly. In the evening I carried on with Phil the Database. In total today I quite possibly spent 7 hours programming, maybe only 6. I think that any placement involving programming will suit me nicely. Now for the title, I sit here at 2315 and my toes are cold. I think my window isn't overly heat retentive, is this a problem? No, I am very very good at living in low tempreatures, I just need to make sure that I move around a little more than at present.

Time to shine! - Wednesday

First of all, I laughed at Gareth because he had an 0900 start, my meeting thing was at 0930. I left at 0845 to get there for 0915, I somehow got there at 0900, odd, I somehow shaved 10 minutes off an already tight 25 minute walk. Ah well, I sat in the boardroom for half an hour alone but with an internet connection. I even WoAed. When everybody arrived I noticed I was the only student, I think there were meant to be other students but they were not there. Did that bother me? No. Overall most of the meeting didn't concern me, we had a big talk about the website which was re-done and by majority agreement, is rubbish. It was re-written to meet web-standards, unsurprisingly it failed validation so I'm unimpressed. I've emailed the lady incharge but have had no response yet. After the meeting I sat in the Anglesea building and did some programming of "Phil" (yes, that's the name that won). I plan to give similar names to other parts of the database as they're created. I then attended Salem's lecture, he said he'd updated the slides from last week, never actually mentioning that he'd made a mistake. Anyhoo, I then went to the Prayer Lunch. I brought some Toffee Squares as created by my Mum, they went down well. In fact, everybody wants my Mum to make some more in time for my Baptism (19th), my parents are going to come down for it (it was postponed because they were on Holiday last time). Should be fun. After the Prayer Lunch I walked home and did more database stuff, I also did some more of the PHP 2nd Example and thought about what I'd need to do for the Tutorial on it. All in all it was time well spent. At 1915 I met Justin and Ceryn for Christianity Explored training. We went around to Matt's house (he's a member of Solent Church) and we watched the Alpha Course training video (it told us how to deal with small group discussions) and was not only informative but funny. It has been quite cold today but that didn't stop me wearing shorts in the evening, (trousers in the morning because I thought I should look "normal" for the board meeting) apparently I should have been cold. After the video I walked Ceryn home, we had an interesting talk about the muggers and how to deal with them. I got back, found some nice Emails in my inbox (nothing from the person incharge of the Uni website), chatted to some people over MSN, carried on work on Phil the Database. It's not working as well as I'd like (specifically there's one part of one page that just doesn't seem to work). It's most odd but it's also 0042 which may be impeding my ability to program, you never know.

Jesus: 1 - Hallow's Eve: 0 - Tuesday

Up early, got to Java lecture, sat through Java lecture listening to something I learnt when I was about 16 (if you want to think more of me, I taught myself this part from books, not taught by a person). Overall not at good as normal but it's gotta be covered. Surprisingly enough, most of the class don't care. I've managed to identify at least 12 people that do care, they're all in the same lab as me which is rather handy. After the lecture I sat down in the Anglesea buidling for an hour before going to see my tutor. After seeing him (he said I can use him as a reference which is kinda neat) I carried on sitting down. While sitting down I did of course peruse WoA and spent my time very well making an extended Timetable. There's a slightly higherquality version here for those with a nicer connection (might not display as nicely in IE either, it's a .png). As there's currently no key for it, the yellow going to red gradients represent when I anticipate travelling, the yellow to green is also travel. One is to Uni, the other is from, you can work out which direction is which. Also note that the Tutor session is every other week (I missed it last week so went this one to catch up). Also, I have this semester 2 or 3 labs sometime in Thursday afternoon, they're one off but quite long. For those that think this is really snazzy and want a version for their timetable, I'll happily make one for free. There's one problem. I will know your timetable and can ambush you as you walk around Portsmouth (assuming you live here). After the Tutorial/WoA session I went to Software Systems, we're learning about UML and it's not making a vast ammount of sense. By that I don't mean that I can't understand the language, no, I just find it hard to see where I will use it. I somehow come to a conlcusion without using it and it all works nicely. Still, if I'm going to get a placement next year it might be worth putting in the extra effort here. As clearly labeled on the timetable I walked home and umm, did a lot. By "a lot" I mean that I had a nap. Walking back in I attended Digital Electronics. Last year this was a subject that I struggled with a fair bit, it's not my strong point. Today we were doing diagrams on the board, seeing as I use a text editor you'd think this was a problem. Not so! I found a solution (based off of my experiance of programming languages) that allowed me to represent the diagram in text. After Digital I attended more Software Systems but by the end was too tired to to go to the Data Coms tutorial so instead walked home. I walked home with a gentleman called Mathew whom I met last year at Langstone, it was quite nice (he's still living in Langstone so was happy to have company for the first half of the walk). Getting home I had a delicious and nutritious pot noodle dinner (nutritious for a programmer anyway) and spent the evening working on my PHP tutorials for the denezins of WoAm, though, the tutorials are open to all and apparently easy to understand. If you're interested, go to here to see them, you don't have to register to read them, though if you want to post replies to a topic you will, we've had problems with spam bots and this was the only way to solve it (combined with a custom Spambot blocker I wrote). Now for why the title says that Jesus is beating Hallow's Eve. Very simply, my housemates said that I could deal with Trick or Treaters. A sum total of one group turned up but I enjoyed it. The two girls (yes, girls not ladies) were dressed as something meant to be scary, the parents stood at the edge of the path to our door keeping a watchful eye on them. Out of the house came something that actually was scary (me in shorts, t-shirt and no shoes or socks). Rather than give them sweets I asked them about why they were supporting Evil and started to talk to them about Jesus. Sadly the children were too high on sugar to understand any of it but the parents both heard it all. They felt they'd met a weirdo and took their children away. Strange that, I didn't realise they wanted sweets until they told me, I just assumed they wanted to hear the good news. Well, maybe that's just me being optimistic. I didn't give them any sweets (they walked off before I could think of anything, that and I wasn't finnished talking about the Gospel). Tomorrow will hopefully be a fun day, I've got a special Faculty of Technology meeting, the one that I'm the rep for that I got voted for. Better yet, I get to miss a lecture for it (and they'll have free food there!!!).

Title not thought of - Monday

I got up, got washed had no or little breakfast and left for my Java lab. There I compelted the work, so did Chris and Gareth. Ionnais came around and saw us sitting around doing nothing. He found it hard to believe that we'd finnished it, well, the three of us program for hobbies and so after being called "sad" we were allowed to leave early. It's okay, I called Ionnais ugly earlier in the lab (he had a very good comeback). We went to Tesco where I spent a whole £1.75 on some food, said food also included my dinner. After two hours of Formal Computing, I was almost asleep and had to leave (along with Chris and Gareth) because I am sure I would have actually fallen asleep in the lecture. It's strange, the first two lectures were quite good. Getting back I did a little work on my CV and continued working on my HTML tutorial, I'm explaining how to create Forms, after that I'll improve the PHP tutorial. Setting up sound tonight was "fun". Steve missed his lecture because he was late returning from Reading. We got the stuff from Immanual and got the Union, after setting up we discovered we still had a fair bit of time so Steve explained what the sound equipment actually does and how it works. Give it a few more weeks and I can set it up myself! After CU we took the sound stuff back (it's impressive how heavy that stuff is) and went to the Pub. I played a game of Chess against Richard Priddy, he's not quite as good as me and lost but we had fun so it doesn't matter who won. Afterwards we had random conversations, I explained the Cookie Theory to a Fresher who was confused and possibly scared by it. After that I walked Siän, Helen and Abi home, just ahead of us were Claire and Liz, they didn't once look behind themselves and were a fair distance ahead of us. They were rather apathetic when I walked up behind them and told them to look behind themselves a little more often. The fact that I can walk very quietly rather fast does help. I got back home, talked to my housemates, got some funny photos of me in a box, blogged and went to bed. Also, my baptism might be taking place on the 19th, I'm sorting out the details with Jonathan, I'm not sure if I'm allowed to tell the whole CU on the basis that the Church is of a limited size and I know a lot of people.

No, I do NOT have a sensitive side - Sunday

I got up, went to Church, well, started going to Church and instead went to #10 to get a lift from Steve. I could not be bothered to walk today, I was slightly worn out from yesterday. While the rest of them dawdled about where to sit I simply went and say near the other students (coincidentally all ladies). For some odd reason nobody came and sat in the two spaces next to me, Ceryn said this might be because I smell, acutally that's not the full story, I said it might be because I smell and she agreed it was probably that. The service was on Bible Translations. Specifically about the TNIV and NIV. The TNIV's main failing is that it replaces almost every single masculine reference (such as "man", "brother", "father") with something neutral (such as "person", "friend", "parent"). This may not sound that bad until you take into account that it doesn't do it to all of them, thus creating some confusion. Worse yet, in the New Testement, several of the writers quote the Old Testement. In the TNIV they quote the NIV reference, thus making the Bible inconsistent. It gets worse, due to the wording in Hebrews 2:17 of the TNIV it's possible to say that Jesus was bisexual. I don't really think I'll be getting a TNIV, infact, a lot of book stores have refused to sell it! If you want to see more about it, Jonathan gave us the links http://www.genderneutralbibles.com/seven.php and http://www.phoenixseminary.edu/Default.aspx?tabid=223. After the service we went to the Thatched House and had some food outside in the sun. It was very nice and after the meal we tried to put ice-cubes down each other's backs. It was good fun. I got back home and spent a very little while working on WoA and then had to see some people about Christianity Explored. I got there early to help setup but there really was nothing to setup, so I sat and talked to Richard Priddy. He is enjoying his placement and it was nice to talk to someone who is as interested in programming as me. There was free food (I was there to help spread the gospel, honest!) and I had my fair share. As we drew the meal part to a close, the following happened. Matt: If anybody wants to get any more food, there's still some left Me: Can I take some home in a doggy bag? *lots of laughter* Matt: If you can find one, yes So, I went up to the counter, got Richard a pint of water and asked for a doggy bag. I later (to much laughter) emptied a decent ammount of food into it. There was no pudding, which means I really should have brought Toffee Squares along. My Mum made some for me and I was given them yesterday (I'm sorry, I forgot to mention them on the blog) and they'd really have been very nice (there were some nice Christian ladies there too, Toffee Squares are better than Chocolate by a long way!), however, this does mean I can save them for the Prayer Lunch on Wednessday. Linvoy Primus gave his testimony which I found inspiring and good to hear. It's a pity Peter and Gareth decided not to come (that and they had to pay for their dinners). Anyhoo, aftet Linvoy's talk I walked back home, for some of the way Ceryn and Andrew walked with us, after that I walked Emma and Cilla home. While walking home on my own, holding my coat in one arm and the bag of free stuff in the other, looking behind me incase there were people running after me again. I saw a man. I saw lots of people that night but there was something different about him, he was holding a shopping bag and walking very slowly, looking at walls a lot. He reminded me of when I was in year 7 at school and had nothing better to do with my time than hunt for pennies. I suddenly realised that he was probably not doing overly well. I stopped next to him and asked "Are youy hungry sir?". With a slightly depressive and gruff voice, likely from sleeping outside a lot he repled "Stavin'". He was not aggressive, he was not mean, he was just a poor old man who had probably eaten less than me today. I handed him the bag and bade him farewell. I sadly did not have a Christian tract to put in the bag and for some reason, words escaped me (yeah, we all know how rare an occurrence that is) and I walked off. I hope he does okay, the bag contained 4 or so bits of bread (quite nice bread) and about 8 kebab sticks of Chicken (though apparently they had fish in them too but I never tasted that). I think that's probably the best used Free Food I was ever given. I got home and began updating my CV. The Filemaker group emailed me saying they would like a copy of my CV. This is all well and good but my CV isn't really geared towards a programming job, for some reason places like Asda and Tesco are not impressed by the ability to program in 9 different languages or any abilities I might have at designing Database systems. Hang on, wasn't the title of the entry something about a sensetive side? Well, I didn't give the guy the food because of emotional reasons, he logically needs it more than me, I still have stuff left over from Freshers Fayre!