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Saturday, March 04, 2006

We're Getting Faster - Saturday

I got woken at 0200 this morning. Duane, Sam and Jack were drunk and making lots of noise. Duane in particular kept banging on my door. So, when I woke up at 0700 I put my music on nice and loud, speakers right up to Sam's wall. Apparently that didn't wake Sam up, I bang on his door next time, and Duane'll get something similar. Brierley wanted to start jogging and I needed to get used to having large ammounts of cold air in my lungs, so we had decided to go jogging at about 0815. It was a bit nippy and Brierley did quite well. I'd already had some breakfast but also managed a full fry-up from the refectory. Then WoA results time. Fast forward to the evening, a couple of interesting things. Firstly I told Lorna on MSN that I've got a surprise for Church tomorrow. I drove her crazy by not telling her but giving hints that implied a lot of tantalisingly interesting secrets. I also had a chat with Duane. He said that he didn't like my loud music and I told him I didn't like being woken at 0200. His response? To tell me that my head was so far up my backside it was unbelievable. I've no sympathy for him. Results were finnished a lot faster today, there were two wars (they take the longest to do) and they were both straight forward. There's going to be no WoA next week, I've got a CU football match. Yes, I am taking time off to do something other than WoA!

Tip of the day When you've got a runny nose and you're not doing much, if it's just one nostril (I find they alternate) stick a bit of tissue up there and it'll stop leaking. I spent most of the day with a bit of loo roll sticking out my right nostil, must have looked amusing :)

Friday, March 03, 2006

What a dull day - Friday

I got up very late (the maths thing is only if you don't understand what he's given you so far, and I understand partial differentiation). The whole day was spent on C programming, PHP programming, Marathon and obviosuly, WoA. I'm sorry for the dull day, but nothing very interesting happened and I can't give away what I'm doing for tomorrows blog ;)

Most interesting thing today I am comming down with a light cold, I think it's caused by too much sleep and eating some vegetables.

Odummo away! - Thursday

The 0900 lab wasn't overly taxing so I'll ignore that. Of interest is that I've been calling a guy John, when all this time his name is Richard. Well, Richard, you shouldn't have acknowledged me when I said "Hi John". Lunch was nice, I had a tuna sandwich and did a some WoA stuff as usual. I could have stayed in my nice, quiet and comfy room, but instead I left to turn up to a C practical. This paid off as my C programming group now know exactly what we're doing and have it all planned out. I'm expecting to complete my part rather fast as I've already done it once in REALBasic, just need to port it. After writing I'm going to see if we can get extra marks for putting in a Neural Network. You never know :) This afternoon was Christianity Explored. I figured that I'd go there this night as I didn't know that many people from Alpha and I wouldn't know what CE was like until I tried it. It was okay, I knew the people better and it's easier to talk to them so I'll probably go next week.

Giving stuff up for Lent? Apparently, for lent I'm meant to give something up. I think that's a load of old tosh and so I'll be ignoring it. If I want to give something up I won't wait until lent to do so...

Wednesday, March 01, 2006

Snowballs - Wednessday

I was going to be woken gently by the Russian Red Army chior at 0720 today. That is until the Firebell went at 0710 for our drill. I didn't find it that cold but lots of other people did, pity. I got back to my room and found that because of this I was actually up and about much earlier. For the rest of the day I actually felt well rested (once I got over the initial legarthy). This means I'll be changing my wake up music to not gradually increase in volume. The Internet Apps lecture was pointless for me, and Misha Filip's lecture was quite hard to follow. I felt very very tired for the first hour. However, maybe it was the mince pies or some people a few seats back calling all 55Kg of me a "fatty" I will not know. But I felt awake. That was my lecture plan for the day so I went to Tesco, got a LOT of cookies. On the way back there were some people handing out "118" t-shirts. Not sure why but I've now got a rag for when I need one. The BoS meeting had food and drinks there, it was a lot less monotonous than I expected and I presented what little backup the students had given me. The motion was passed, it won't affect me, but it will affect the next year. After the BoS meeting I got the bus back, chatted to two people about the fire alarm today and random other things. During dinner I managed to snort some Jelly (I had finnished, Gareth couldn't do it properly and Brierley actually said I should). When we left, it was snowing. Comming from Zimbabwe; Brierly had never seen snow before. Her attempts to get snow down my shirt failed horribly, but then again, I managed to miss with all three of my snowballs. I played a lot of Marathon before the CU hall group. We had pancakes and played lots of games and had lots of fun. Now it's 2350 and I've got an 0900 lab tomorrow. Night Night.

Tip #6 The three R's. Reassure, Resist, Reassure. She is gorgeous (even when she looks like a hippo wrapped in bacofoil), she is a nice person (even when she criticises everything you do), she is a good cook (even when it's somehow frozen and burnt at the same time, even if this applies to cornflakes), she can do it, whatever 'it' is. But she is not perfect, that is creepy and it will look like you're lying.

Tuesday, February 28, 2006

No more Neural Network! - Tuesday

After a good four or so hours sleep I got up and managed to get into Uni on the 0830 bus. The maths wasn't too bad and I understood it all so didn't stay for the second hour (only turn up if you've got a problem). I got 6 marks for the last test, that's not as good as I'd have liked so I'm really going to try a lot harder for this one and revise a little each night. It appears that the C project will not require an AI. Therefore I will have to do it as an extra curricular thingamie. With an luck the team I'm a part of will be able to get everything working nice and quickly. I was even more devastated when Chi didn't let any of us play him at Reversi. Lunch was quite nice, I walked around talking to Peter. After lunch was the B122 lecture (digital clock thing). Bransilav teaches C for microprocessors, it wasn't very hard for me to follow. Afternoon maths was a continuation of the morning one and basically reinforced what I already knew which is good. We've got 3 weeks until this test, with a bit of work I can get over 10. The real joy? Gareth managed to crash his nice, several GHz computer running microsoft word in the B122 lecture. I was right behind him so that can't of helped. He spent about 5 minutes trying to fix it before giving up and shutting it down. In the meantime, the 5 year old, 400mhz Mac behind him was proving it's worth with an uptime of 33 and a half days. The B102 lecture was very very boring, the guy has stopped teaching the syllabus and moved onto reading from his book. It's a pity because the first lecture he did was so good. Dinner wasn't overly amazing, except for the blizzard. We actually had a very thin layer of snow settle! The evening was taken up with WoA stuff and also preparing for the Board of Studies meeting tomorrow. I was hoping that I'd get a little more feedback from the students, instead I've got 6 or so people acutally post something on the departmental forum and some come and talk to me in person. Looks like I'll have to pick my words carefully, don't want to lie, yet don't want the suggestions of the students to be ignored.

Cookies Apparently at the last meeting (I missed it because my Mum and Dad were down) there were no cookies and no cups of tea. I'm going to be taking measures, namely, buying a pack or two of cookies from Tesco and bringing my water bottle. If there are no cookies then I get seen as a prepared person (who shares cookies) and if there are cookies there, I have more than anyone else. It's a win-win situation :D

It works! - Monday

I got up at the lovely and late time of half ten. Got a bowl of ceral, did the standard WoA stuff and got the bus in for my lecture. There is a Board of Studies meeting on Wednessday, so as to get the students feedback on something I gave a quick talk. Most of them were sensible about it. One guy called Howard (he reads the blog, those four comments yesterday were probably all his) tried heckling me. I can't remember what I said but after it he stopped, must have been quite snappy... The rest of the group were somewhat more inteligent and presented some opinions, if they'll actually post on the ECE forum what those opinions are. If nobody posts much I won't be doing anything about it. Apathetic students get apathetic reps. The lecture itself was quite interesting. Toward the end the lecturer said that something was different. Having not correctly understood him I asked why and said that I disagreed. He proved me wrong and Howard decided that it'd be a funny idea to laugh at me, for some reason he can't take being patronised. Meh... I went to Tesco, got cookies, bread and washing up tablets (no, they're not for offering around). Got the bus back, did some more WoA stuff, made some jam sandwiches, ate dinner and got the bus in. I waited for a little while for Sarah to arrive. Tonight it was Sam Wiles and myself doing the sound, Sarah had very kindly volunteered/agreed to use her car to transport the sound stuff (I made the sandwiches because she was missing dinner to do this). Taking less time than I thought we got the stuff to the Union and started setting it up. Normally the night starts at 1900. 1920 and we had managed to actually get it working and it all worked (sort of). Packing up was much easier, though I'm aching from carying all the heavy stuff. I'd also brought along some crusts. About a week ago, something possessed Lizzie to sprout, then support the fact that eating crusts makes you grow a beard. So far, afting eating a lot of crusts I've no more beard, maybe it'll take a little more time... Joe and myself played chess against Emma and Dan. As Dan so well put it, Joe's cool headedness counteracted my rashness and we trounced them. It was a good game and the best part in my opinion was teaching Joe and Emma how to play the game. Now, it's late, I've had one reply to my post.

Acting confident In my opinion, it's half of any psychological battle or contest. When I do anything I try to think about why I'm doing it. If I don't know, I generally stop doing it. That's probably why I always walk around with a smile, I'm always doing what I should be.

Monday, February 27, 2006

Knackered - Sunday

I got up in time to walk to church. I then got a phone call at about 0950. Hello this is Teifion speaking, how can I help yoy? Errr, Ti... I won't be able to make it this morning... Brierley, get up, get washed, get dressed and phone in 10 minutes when you're read Okay... 12 minutes later Brierley was ready. I was most impressed with her. However, it got better, without realising I walked at my usual fast pace, unkown to me, Brierley had gone to bed about 7 hours before this. When I realised my pace of walking and how tired Brierley was I was very impressed. Because Johnathan was on Holiday Nick Roberts (I think that's his surname) was taking the service. It was aimed at saying how to preach the gospel and also that if you were not a christian yet there (I think I was the only one, but you never know) why you should be one. It didn't bring me any new information but it was nice that the service was aimed like that. After the service I walked back with Lawrence and Brierley. Lawrence and myself both walked a little too fast for Brierley so she was rather worn out. I had a nice brunch with Jack and Brierley, then went and cleared up some loose ends on WoA. Today was CU football practice, we've got a match week saturday. The practise told me a lot. 1 - I'm rather unfit 2 - I need to get used to running and such in the cold for more than 15 minutes 3 - I'm a very violent footballer (hey, my shin was there before his knee, it's not like I aimed at him...) 4 - I'm very good tackler if they're a little worn out, I'm agile and fast. All we need to do is put me on after about 30 minutes and I'll be rather useful I got back and decided that I would go to the evening service. I started walking then Sarah and Lorna drove past and gave me a lift. The service was not overly amazing and I couldn't pull a message out of it except that sin is very important. After getting back I spent some time helping to fix Brierley's internet connection (it was slightly more complicated than just pulling the wire out and pushing it in again). After that, well, I'm tired so I just went straight to bed. I've got one lecture tomorrow so that'll be quite good. I'm going to be making a sort of announcement at the start of said lecture about a Board of Studies meeting.

Tip for dealing with ladies #5 Lawrence delivered it today. It's a little shortened as it's a long tip. Don't think of her as a lad, don't call her anything like that. Trying to get her to come to anything remotly like a 'lads night' is a very bad idea.