How to Win Friends - Saturday

Today was results as usual, only we started a little later than usual and finnished early. Anyway, onto today's topic. How to Win Friends and Influence People (HWFIP for short) is a very good book and I'm going to list the three main points that I am trying to adhere to in an effort to have lots of friends. 1 - Don't belittle or insult 2 - Make them feel important 3 - Keep in your own mind that they are important Now, those that know me will know that I do not keep to those 3 as well as I could, but nobody is perfect so I'm going to have a way to go yet. However, today's ponder is, what things would you put into a book about making friends with people? No random item today, too tired.

Math Test - Friday

Sorry about yesterday's short article, not loads happened anyway, I got to the lab, went on the tour, ate food, got paid, talked to Nick Savage about interviews for jobs, went to C practical, went to Alpha, walked home because bus was not running. Now, today. I got up at 0720 and got the 0830 bus, got to the exam room on time. The exam itself wasn't too hard. I think I got the first two questions very right, the third half right and some of the 4th right. After that I sat down, chatted to some people, taught Chris how to fly a helicopter in Battlefield 2. The CU meeting today was quite good, I brought along my book. My book is called "How to Win Friends and Influence People". It got a lot of laughs and people telling me that I had so many friends that I didn't need it. I just told them what I was like before I read it, it's a very good book (Pete's read it too). Upon getting back to halls I sat down and played a lot of Marathon. I then went to dinner, Fish and Chips were excellent and the light entertainment of Duane taking the mickie out of Jack was equally good. I won't put it here as it was rather unsuitable for people such as my sister, suffice to say it was rude (and well timed by Duane). After that there was not a lot done this evening, got a new MSN address (arl AT woarl.com) as the old one is going to run out (I'm not renewing the domain). And generally relaxed. After fixing the next bit of WoA stuff I'll be working on my Othello Project. Random Question of the Day How much do you want to know about my progress on the C porject? I can't give too much away as some other's read this blog and I don't want to help them too much, the team I'm on needs to win ;)

Rushed Entry - Thursday

I'm rushed because it's 2300 and I've got a math test tomorrow. I would have been back an hour ago but the busses were not working so I walked home in the frigid cold. Alpha was good and so was the open day stuff. Night night.

Why Religion? - Wednessday

The non-religious among you are probably sick and tired of me talking about it. If you want that to change, make a load of non-religious stuff happen in my day and I'll see my way to sorting it out. My day started at 0720 or something, when my music came on at a moderate volume. Lucky I wasn't too tired. Recently however I've been waking up with a burning throat. It's dry, very very dry and I don't know why. I did think that my nose blocked up at night and forced me to open my mouth to breathe, die or shoot snot across the room to clear my airway. Seeing as I'm alive and the walls don't look too bad I think I opened my mouth. So, after gargling water in my throat to re-hydrate it I had a fried breakfast in the refectory, got the bus into the Internet Apps lecture that I missed last week. I'm rather glad that I didn't drag myself out of bed last week, I didn't miss much. However, this week's lecture served a very very useful purpose, it woke me up a little for the nice, two hours of math type stuff in an area I'm not good at. Data communications are not my strong point and Misha Filip draws too fast for Omni-Graffle (computer program) or my hand to keep up with. Any attempt at writing just words will provide me with no real notes. I even tried writing some XML in the hope it'd provide a nice structured set of notes, but no. Then, suddenly I hit upon an awsome idea, I could record him. That didn't work either. This week I also sat down the front, it helped me a lot. I also find it easier to ask stuff when at the front, helps me to ignore the people that I don't care about (anybody that'd give me a dirty look, think less of me, heckle and so on). After the lecture I went to see Rinat. Turns out I got a high mark for my presentation (what a surprise). I then explained some stuff about AI to some people. Turns out someone assumed that because I was going for a very complicated AI everyone had to. Now, I've no problem with that, it'd cut the chaff from the wheat pretty fast, but it'd also mean a lot of people fail so I think it's overall a bad idea. After that I had an excellent free lunch (it was great, thank you to the Ladies that cooked it) and an interesting talk. It was about why is Christianity the correct religion. I don't know enough about other religions to actually comment there. However, I feel I can comment on my reasons for people going with Religion in general. 1) They give people a group to belong to 2) They teach good morals, most people wish to live good lives 3) They promise stuff, like an afterlife I won't go into detail but I don't believe in an afterlife, I lead a goodish life as it is but I do like the social side of the CU. They're a group of really nice people and if you look closely, I spend a similar ammount of time with CU related stuff as I do with WoA related stuff. Now, I've got to get up at 0900 tomorrow for a 2 hour lab, then 5 or so hours of being paid to walk slowly and eat food. After that I've got some maths and programming, then some more free food and some stuff about Christianity. Fact of the day (is it Random or is it not?) I've cleaned up my desk (the rooms itself is now a mess, Brierley will back me up there) and put the speaker directly behind the laptop, pointing at my bed. This allows me to get maximum bass into my head while not harming the person below me. Sam is okay with it too, I haven't heard any whacking of shoes on the wall at all (he said he couldn't be bothered to get out of bed, the wuss).

Rushed day - Tuesday

I meant to turn up to my math lecture, I really did. However, lots of late nights are building up and I overslept, I think my music was too quiet too (tough cookies Sam, it's going up). I managed to race at full speed into Uni on my bike. It's back tire is slightly flat and the brakes need some jiggling with a screwdriver but it works and that's the key thing. After the talk from Sir David Brown (chairman of Motorolla) I raced back to halls, grabbed lunch and a breather. Packed up the computer and got the bus into Uni. The B122 lecture wasn't too hard at all, I took notes on the computer and found that the afternoon math lecture was cancelled. I sat with some others and copied out stuff from this morning, while listening to Rick tell us some more stuff (like how easy it is to get into the general Area 51 location). I also made a new, flashy image for my timetable. Now I know what my days look like. Remember that you need to allow a half hour before and after each lecture, sometimes more. And of course, any single squares of grey between two colours I'll be staying in town. David May was somewhat less interesting this time around, not sure why but he was. At the start he asked for someone to say why they were studying Electronic Engineering. I would have happily said yes and done it, but I'd have come across bigheaded. I told Howard after the lecture why and I don't know that he believed my story (about Bill Gates and the free computer). Still, his opinion isn't very important in that area so I'm not losing any sleep over it. After getting back and checking on WoA I got the bus to the Union. I helped set some stuff up and overall a good number of people turned up for the Curry. Maybe a decent number will appear tomorrow lunchtime (Talk on why Christianity is the right Religion). I was surprised that one person who'd said they'd turn up didn't. They know who they are, they read the blog but I'm not embarising them publically (that'd be unhelpful to say the least). Maybe they'll come along to the lunchtime one tomorrow. Free food (it's nice) in the Function room in the Union at 1300. Be there. As for Thursday I won't be there, I'll instead be getting paid to eat food, as I walk around as a tour guide. I like my new timetable, it means I don't miss any lectures (just an hour or setting stuff up for the tour that day). Now, it's late so I'm off to bed. Random fact of the day Why do some people say that they're going to come along to the talks and argue, then not even show up? I'd say fear, but not in the normal sense that you'd think. Anybody that is passionate about something will speak well on it, Sir David Brown said that passion is an important quality in anything you do. No, I feel that it is because they fear their arguments will not stand and they will be left with no choice. To those people, I say, are you really looking, or are you just making a fasion statment?

Long long lab - Monday

I got up and cycled in, was a bit nippy, BUT, I got to use my horn. Some complete moron decided to walk out in front of me and got jumped by the horn. The person behind him was wise enough to NOT walk into my path. The first lab was 3 hours long and a little slow. David and myself were one group and somewhat faster than the others. I would have gone to the lecture but I knew Victor was still on the very very basics and that anything important would be told to me several times. Instead I went to the CU lunchtime talk. I got free food (it was nice, excellent cheffs at the CU) and an interesting talk on suffering. It basically agreed with my thoughts on "Huamns brought it upon themselves" but included God into the equation. After the talk there was another 3 hours of Lab. We were trying to fit stuff onto a PCB, it's very hard but just the sort of thing I'd have spent HOURS on when I was 10 years younger. Thanks to some skill (or maybe luck) on David's side we finnished early enough that I got back for dinner. Dinner was quite fun. Jack has been having someone text him as a prank, and we basically took the mickey out of him pretty well. After dinner I grabbed the laptop and also, "Teifion's big thing". It's not rude, it's a MASSIVE tiger teddybear. Many thanks to Dan for giving it to me after finding it on the roadside (I washed it). It caused a lot of interest, and at the end of the talk I offered it to people. Only Sarah accepted it and calls it "Teigarion". I left the pub early (Dan was losing very slowly at Chess) and headed back to halls. Most of my time was then spent discussing Christianity with Richard. It boiled down to the point that he believes Jesus was both God and a Man. This logically means that as God he is infinite, yet as a man is not. You cannot be both, it's one or the other. In the end it came down to a matter of faith. Richard has faith that what he believes in is true, I don't have faith in it and can't see that I ever will. Tomorrow should be good, there's a Jazz and Curry night at the Union (CO2 at 19:00) and it's free (mmm, free dinner), plus the talk should be interesting. Random fact of the day The best way to give out leaflets? Say "Can I interest you in free food?" to people as they walk past, they almost always take the leaflet and look at it (we are giving out free food).

Bumfluff - Sunday

I got up at 0930 and timed the eating of my breakfast to allow some computer gaming before going to see the others and wait for the car. The morning service was about baptism and not really relevent to me. I'm not quite sure what Johnathan was trying to point out (sadly). After church Sarah, Brierlely, Pete, Lizzie, Siän and myself went to a pub and had lunch. I opted for a delicious English breakfast. During dinner we discussed a lot of funny things, but for reasons that'll be shown later, I'm only posting one. Sarah for some reason admitted that she thought people with bumfluff (it's a really sparse beard for those confused) and thoguht they were cute. She's never going to be able to live it down. After the lunch we went back to Langstone, I did some more WoA stuff and computer gaming (Marathon is old but very good). I then cycled to Eastney Church. It was dark so I wore the cool jacket. However, it was also raining and I didn't have gloves. I was SERIOUSLY tempted to shake hands with Lizzie and Siän who were also doing the tea and biscuits this night, but decided not to. After the service I did loads of washing up while Siän dried up (really really slowly) and Lizzie, well, I'm not sure what, we'll just have to assume it was not too rude (never know with these Bristol people). After the tea and coffee (guess who managed to get their hands on the spare bickies?) we sat down and talked. The afternoon service was again interactive and again very good. I'm taking home three very important lessons from it. 1 - You can't see the bigger picture, act accordingly Hamen (the bad guy in the story) couldn't see the bigger picture, none of the people could. But Hamen lost his life because of it. Looking back, this has been proven in my own life and I'm sure it has in yours. 2 - Patience is very very important At the start of the story Hamen was quite patient, he did well out of it. He managed to get the killing of the Jews past the king. However, in the closing chapters he is rash and pays for it with his life. Again, my life echoes this lesson. 3 - Be very careful about how you treat Ladies This I think is important too. If I'm looking for a Girlfriend I need to be careful. And thinking about how I treat the Ladies at the CU, I need to keep in mind that they're not guys that enjoy rough and tumble frizbee. So that's todays lesson, it makes up for yesterday's lack of a random fact (I hope). Not so Random fact of the day I was told that a joke about my jacket was good (and that the horn IS loud). "I wear this jacket because it's the only way I can say that I look smart" I quite like that one :)