An Awsome Read - Saturday

Yes, today was results day in WoA so I've instead done something else. About 3-4 months ago Scott Adams put his God's Debris book out on the web for free. It's an awsome read for anybody with active brain cells. If you don't want your religion challanged, don't read it. So go read it and tell me what you think. Not so Random fact of the day No random facts today sorry

I have a house - Friday

I got up at the early early time of 0720. No, that's a lie, my music came on then and I turned it down, lest I wake Sam. Sam had a late night last night, and the night before. Listening to neighbours. My cold is much better today, it's just a light cough. I cycled in to talk to a lecutrer about a mark, maths. I found that he'd gotten it wrong and I did indeed pass (but not by very much). My Web Design and Programming modules were both over 70 so I'm not doing THAT badly, just need to wait for my other modules to come back. I cycled back to halls and did some WoA stuff (notice how now it isn't bright blue? Thants because I don't want to annoy people, but I will still get page links :) ). But not for long, Lauren found she'd read her timetable wrong and we met early. Lauren is from the CU and is now sharing a house with Peter, Gareth and Myself. The really good one Brierley suggested had been taken but we found one which has (as far as I could tell) an identical blueprint design and is closer to Uni. It's on Lawrence road for those who want to know where it is, that's pretty much an extension of Fawcett Road. Now, bad news time. I have not had a chance to use my Alarm. I'm very very unhappy that my bright yellow jacket and aggressive riding posture (compared with the old one anyway) means people think twice before walking at me. Looks like I'll have to find a new use for it... Dinner was good excellent, fish and chips. I'm also cutting down on the Ketchup, apparently it'll make my skin better (well, healthy eating in general) so I figured I'd go for it. I walked a long way today, yesterday I walked at least 4 miles, probably 5 or 6. I also cycled 12 yesterday, 6 with a heavy bag. Today I cycled 6 with a medium weight bag and walked about 6 in total. I'm aching a little, but it'll build good strong muscles so I'm not complaining, just commenting. Of interest today was also Lorna comming on MSN as her boyfriend and asking to be complimented. As far as I can tell Greg was in the same room as her and watching the screen, they're a strange pair. I am however rather happy that I'm so good at it that it's now being requested of me. Heck, I'm taking it as a compliment :) Not so Random fact of the day For some reason the post yesterday sparked some 'aggressive' comments. I don't want people to get too invovled in it. I know that at the moment it's okay, but I've seen how fast these things develop.

A little poorley - Thursday

I woke at about 0500 or so with a sore throat. Not good news. But there was no lab in week #1 so I wasn't getting up too early. I got a drink of water and lay in bed, half asleep for the next few hours. I got up and skipped breakfast, wasn't feeling hungry. Gareth and I found the house we were looking for and we're going to go for it. We just need a 4th housemate. Gareth and I tried to find Peter but we couldn't so he'll have to either take our word that it's a good house or go see it himself. This afternoon involved going to the C practical and starting on a card shuffling thingie. Aaron drove in and on the way back pointed out that his rear window ALWAYS mists up, he's no idea why. All of the windows mist up until you wind the windows down. After getting back I cycled into the city. I wore my flash-and-go jacket and looked awsome. I've gotten a battery for my bike horn, you step out in front of me and you get a fright, trust me, it's loud and piercing. I'm just wondering if you can hear it in a car... I got to Abi's house and was told that I needed gloves (sort of) because my hands were too cold. One massive mug of tea soon solved that. We walked to St Luke's and had a nice dinner of Spaghetti and for pudding, chocolate cake. I got seconds :) Today's talk was about Jesus and proving his existance. I have to say that it appears beyond doubt that he does exist and that he was supernatural. Yet for some reason I don't actually feel mentally different about this, maybe it's because I've been brought up in a Christian household? The talk veered completely off Jesus, there was no room for debate on the subject. Instead we gave the leader a hard time with Gensis and timescales. While walking back to Abi and Leanne's house to get my bike we made a lot of jokes at Abi's expense, but she doesn't read the blog so it's all okay. The cycle back was good fun, I got pretty wet (the jacket is very very waterproof and also warm) but a shower and sit down solved that. Now, some very very good news. Charlotte may have found me a housemate, excellent. Also, I'm not feeling so poorly, I ate loads of Garlic bread so will feel less so tomorrow :) Not so Random fact of the day I thought I'd evaluate the new bike. The new bike is 20 years old (ish) and almost twice as heavy. It's brakes are also not as good as the old bike. It is however very fast. It's got a different seating position and old style (i.e. reliable) gears so I can get some good speed going. Overall, I'm very happy with it and can see myself covering a lot of miles on it.

Parents come to Visit - Wednessday

I slept through my alarm and as such couldn't get to the 0900 lecture. I managed to get to the 1000 lecture on time, alert and awake. I was prepared for something deadly boring. Instead I was delighted by stickmen and crude diagrams for the first hour. It was hard to pay attention for a whole two hours (even with a short break). However, I've got two tactics to employ. Drink water, it keeps you awake Secondly, sit at the front. Then you'll be forced to stay awake (note: don't do this if you're already half asleep). After the lecture I went to re-freshers fayre. I had brought with me a litre of water for this. I gave it to the CU table for when they got thirsty (see, I'm a lovely guy at heart) and got lots of free stuff from various places. I got back to Langstone and prepared to tidy up, but no, my parents had to arrive a half hour early and so I had no time to do that. We had lunch in the refectory and I was told why I should eat healthily. Because it'll make my skin better and solve the spots problem (or at least help to). So I'm not going to give up the cheap coke and just bring massive tubs of water around instead. After lunch we got a massive load of shopping from Asda and then I said farewell to my parents. I did some WoA stuff but it was almost 1700 so I didn't get much done. After dinner I played some time splitters with Gareth and then went to the CU pre-toasties meeting. The CU toasties was good fun, we had cheese toasties and sweets etc etc. Not as many people turned up as we'd hoped but those that did appeared to like the toasties. The toasties thing finnished at about 2230 and I'm going house-hunting with Gareth tomorrow. We've agreed that Ben would be a good 4th housemate and a good house was suggested to us (thanks Brierley). Just hope that it's still there. Top Ten Dating Tips #4 Sarah (Lawrence's Sarah) has been providing me with tips for dealing with ladies. Today's excellent tip is. Chocolate, flowers and rubbish films are often useful in terms of peace-keeping. Keep a small supply for those emergency moments. Gifts should only, however, be given in moderation. A bunch of flowers is good, but every day when not officially an item has stalker connotations. Alos gifts should be appropriate for the target. Chocolates for someone on a diet or lactose intolerant may seem a tad inconsiderate. Thanks Sarah, I'll keep it in mind :)

B101, part 2 (B102) - Tuesday

Today was a busy busy day. Ignoring Sam's whinging that yesterday my music is too loud in the mornings I set it to wake me up. It's that or a buzzing noise that goes off constantly until I get up, your choice Sam. That said, he dug himself a hole tonight when he said he can just drown it out with neighbours. I got the 0830 bus into Uni and turned up for my Maths lecture (Engineering Analasis). It didn't help that I was very tired and had had less than 7 hours sleep. The room was warm and despite a lot of effort, I yawned a lot. I know that on the time table it says I have another Maths lecture there, that's only if I've got a specific problem with the work. It was also not on this week. Myself and Sam (not from the CU) walked around and chatted about Othello. I had a mug of squash at James Watson halls, they're BIG. Apparently you can have something close to 700 people in them. The Computing Lecture (programming C) was not really very intersting. Brian Dyer went over how we were meant to do stuff in the test and pretty much taught me nothing new. Though it was probably useful for a lot of people so I'm not saying it was a bad idea. Two things of interest, next week the Chairman of Motorolla will be speaking for the first half hour. He asked particuarly to speak to the students on his visit to Portsmouth University. I also found that the Othello project is a group project. Myself, David, Peter and Gareth are forming a team and this means it can only be easier to write the AI. After Computing there was another hour before a nice block of lectures. Myself, David, Peter, Aaron and Carlos all got lunch and chatted to each other. We met Rick and talked to him about the army and suchlike. He's quite interesting and tells stories well. Now, for the very astute of you you'll have noticed that the time table says I have 4 hours in A2.6. Yes, I had four hours in one room. The first was with Branislav. He's quite an interesting lecturer, and for some reason none of the staff could spell his name so that gave him the email bob@uni-email-address (I'm not giving out his actual email here). Right after that was more maths. I was somewhat more awake and so could actually help out Chris and Rick with some problems they had. Though I did need to ask the lecturer several things first. For those that are not in the know, B101 was THE most pathetic subject, it was a waste of time and University resources. So finding that I had a 2 hour lecture on B102 (B101 for semester 2) at this time urged me to sit near the door. If it was really a waste of time I could leave early and get to dinner at 1700. The speaker was David May. He's been in lots of companies and was an excellent speaker. He stopped the lecture half an hour early (probably realised how exhausted everyone was). I went up to him at the end of the lecture and said that I'd really enjoyed it and would be sitting in the front row next week. I meant every word of it. Gareth and Myself decided to run to the first stop on the bus return. It was further away and a risk, but it would garuntee us seats. We managed it (by about 10 or so seconds) and grinned at the faces of our classmates who had no idea of how we were already on. (Well, they figured out after a second, but the initial reaction is what counts). Dinner was not as good as I'd have liked. Marissa noticed that my hair was spiked up and asked if I'd somehow gelled it and somehow made the gell not visible. After confirming from her that the hair was better (I'd have been happy with any honest answer) I explained my cunning plan. After washing, just rub the towel all over the hair and it sticks up for the rest of the day. Now I just need a way to remove the spots. After dinner I played with and against Gareth on Time Splitters, Area 51 and also Splinter Cell. Then went back and went to bed. Not sure if it's worth going to the 0900 lecture tomorrow. I've got a very very good idea of what's in the course and not going will mean I'm more awake for the 1000-1200 lecture. Misha Filip is the head of Department (Or it's head of School) and from what I've seen of him he's a very serious sort of person. I've also got a lot of respect for him already, at the SSCC meeting he was very much on the student's side when it came to our needs. Random Item of the Day Tom has gotten worse since last semester. He's still asking stupid questions (so far I've not had a chance to ask any questions myself) and also turning up late for lectures. I'm wondering what his odds of passing this semester by very much are.

Normally I've got more to put here - Monday

I got up at 0900 and did mostly WoA stuff. I was a bit confused about my time table but I think it's correct now. Victor is a good lecturer and makes lots of jokes so I'm looking forwards to his lectures. I've realised that since my Parents are comming down on Wednessday I can't turn up to the SSCC meeting (and as one person on the ECE forum put it, "stock up on cookies"). This means that tomorrow I've gotta go see Martin Cripps, Branislav Vuksanovic and someone called Gemma (the secretary I think). After the lecture I went to Tesco with Peter. I talked to him about housing. So far he and Gareth have said yes to sharing a house with me, both are fairly tidy and we all get on. Just gotta make sure that both Peter and Gareth are happy to share a house with eachother (I can't see why not). CU tonight was okay, I drunk almost 2 litres of excellent Coke and found that in two weeks time neither Sam or Sam will be there. So it'll be up to Sam and myself to manage. As you can tell, three of us are called Sam to save confusion. We went down the pub, I managed to lose every single game of Chess I played. After that we went back to Langstone, where, despite my best efforts, I still didn't catch a rabbit. They're very very fast and I almost fell over when I ran through a massively slippery patch of mud on the field. Random Fact of the Day I realised today that I've never actually asked anybody in the CU why they are a christian, or more specifically, their testimony. I think I might ask (the more intersting ones) about it.

Balderdash - Sunday

I was woken by some semi-drunks at about 0300. I then lay half asleep for the rest of the morning. This gave me time to think slowly about something. Halls. So far nobody has said anything good about staying in halls and I've head LOADS of good stuff about not living in halls. Therefore I'm going to go with a house, probably with people from the CU, will work more out on Monday. Church was interesting, Johnathan talked about sincerity. As usual I'm going to sum it up. Sceptic: God, what should I do to please you? God: Feed the hungry, home the homeless, give what you do not need Sceptic: Uhh, I was just testing... God: Me too Pretty good message, don't fake being a Christian, it's not cool. After church we went around to Sue and Nick's house. I played with the 5 year old son (we think he's five, sorry if I'm wrong) a lot. I used to be just like him. The lunch was amazing and a good time was had by all. During lunch Steve showed how not to compliment a lady. He called Lorna (he meant good) a "Heavy-Weight Eater". We all laughed quite a lot at that one. After the most excellent pudding we played Balderdash. For those not cool enough to know what it is, the basic idea is that you make up meanings for words. I'm very good at it and came about 3rd (I was pretty much on my own too). It all went pretty well, until of coruse the very very last item. Lizzie (another name I didn't spell correctly) managed to get it round the wrong way and was the source of much much amusement. Apparently Lizzie has a friend who is just like me, a female friend. This is worrying, is there actually a female version of me? She's apparently 26 so "too old" for me, could be right, could be wrong. Lizzie for some reason didn't give me contact details... The evening service was very enjoyable and interesting. Not only are we going through a very good story (Ester) but Johnathan has also decided that making the evening services interactive is a good idea. I particuarly liked my answer to the question "What symptons would you get from a complete fast for 3 days?". My answer was "A rumbly tummy". Sarah and Brierley have apparently started to watch what they say around me a lot more carefully as I'm liable to put it on the blog, can't hurt them, it's a skill. After church something worrying happened. Lorna and Lizzie for some reason wanted to see Chris' six-pack and told him to flash it. Maybe I should get a six-pack? Random Fact of the Day If I do get a haircut I should (apparently) get a 3 on top and 2 on the side, Chris volunteered to cut my hair, I may take him up on it. However, I have the opinion of a nice lady that I would look better with long hair. This isn't going to be easy...