Home! - Saturday

Up in time for the brunch in the refectory. After brunch I packed what little I needed and set off for the station. I got there with about 10 minutes to spare (as planned) and talked to Alan. He had brought his laptop and was going as far as Southampton so we played Worms against each other. He won the first game, I muffed up the second so well that he died first, then a computer, then me (leaving a computer to win). After Southampton I wrote some WoA stuff and then when the battery got low, dimmed the screen and used it as an mp3 player while I planned other WoA stuff on paper. About Bristol a Dad and two children got on and sat around me. Within 30 seconds I'd made a joke and we were all talking. This made the journey go so much faster. After switching at Cardiff to a train that was late I got to my destination and met my Mum, Dad and Sister. It's been really good to see my Family again. I finnished the WoA stuff I'd started in the evening and chatted to Coel about World Domination after he'd finnished revising. Dinner was excellent, Gethin cooked Totalini (okay, I can't hope to spell it) and after that I played Deimos rising. I even got onto the last level! Boordem What do you do when you're on a long train journey to amuse yourself?

I made a new friend - Friday

Yay, no lectures. I had breakfast in the refectory at about 1000 ish and met a random person (called Claire) who has a Mac. I also chatted to Aaron and some of his friends before spending the next few hours playing Deimos Rising and doing very little else. In the afternoon I cycled into town to see a guy, he wasn't there but had already told me he might not be, still, I needed to go to Tesco anyway to get something to drink and something to eat (okay, I got some coke and polos, I've already got chocolate, peanuts and will make some sandwhiches). Dinner was nothing amazing, though not long before it I did get onto the second last level of Deimos Rising. I also got offered a lift home from Siän in the CU (well, by her parents through her) but turned it down as it'd be much later than the train and I have never met her parents before. In the evening I did more Deimos Rising and WoA stuff (who'd a thought I'd do some of that?) thne went to bed. Still feeling un-motivated. You are what you eat? Would having a fried breakfast have a de-motivating effect on my state of mind, even if I did exercise and other such stuff during the day?

Phase 2 of my experiment - Thursday

Up nice and early for my 0900 lab. In it myself and David got some work done (good work too) and combined with some stuff I'll be doing over the holidays, we're doing well. I remembered that the busses were timed so that I'd have to wait around or walk home. I brought the bike. It' basically got a tyre that takes two days to go down, it's really really weird. Getting back I played Deimos Rising a little, did WoA stuff and still felt tired (but not nearly as tired as recently). Acutally, I think tired is the wrong word. Apathetic would be more apt, I can do stuff, I just can't be bothered. Hope it goes away soon. In the evening I went to my C lab then to Christianity Explored. Tonight was about judgement, Heaven and Hell. We had some interesting talks and I am certanly feeling more and more like becomming a Christian is a good idea, it's all making sense and fits together perfectly. After getting back I did more WoA stuff, this time on the PHP side of things and failed to fix a bug that's been on the site for a while (to do with text-encoding). I also played Deimos Rising. I've found that a different combination of controls results in me being able to hold down about 4 (that's all I can hold down). It appears the problem lies in the arrow keys. The experiment Before Tuesday, I'd not used shampoo on my hair for maybe a month or two. This resulted in it being a little oily (but not that bad at all). Now, I used a small ammount of shampoo on it and it's now oil free. The reason? I think that the reason is that if you wash your hair with shampoo everyday your body feels the need to create lots of oil to keep it clean, if you don't use shampoo your body stops needing to make bucket loads of oil and maintains a good balance. Either way, it'll be interesting to see how long my hair stays like this. So far nobody has been able to tell the difference by look, even when asked, so it can't have looked too bad before (or it just looks atrocious now...)

I like Chocolate - Wednessday

I had an 0900 lecture, but he's not talking about stuff I need to know so I didn't go. The two hour lecture frim Misha Filip was cancelled because he's at a telecomunications conferance. Therefore I didn't need to get there until about 1200 for the ECEKTG. I spent the morning working on the website. At the ECEKTG thing David Ndzi looked at the website I'd done so far and said he liked it. He phoned up the guy to ask for his opinion and I spent the next 20 minutes altering small parts of the site at high speed. Well, I thought it was "standard" speed, but David Ndzi seems to think I'm fast. After the ECEKTG there was the SSCC (Staff Student Committee Council). There was a shortage of cakes, lucky I brought chocolate (but I'd eaten most of it before I got there...) The reason I'd gone around collecting ECFs was because Rick brought up a point about how the Admin office in Anglesea hands them out. There was no need for me to show them and it was all resolved quietly which was good. Yes it'd have been interesting to see an argument develop, but overall I think it's for the best that one didn't. After the SSCC meeting I cycled back, tripled my best high-score on Deimos rising and did the WoA rounds. Dinner was excellent and I really liked it. After dinner I did more Deimos rising, sadly the lethargy hasn't improved by much. The evening was taken up by Hall Group. Instead of sitting in a room, we sat outside the refectory and had chocolate fondue. I'm feeling ever so slightly sick. Laying down the law Recently someone on WoA has done something truly stupid and has had to be banned (temporarily) for it. They appear to not truly be sorry but are very very upset about it. Considering that I've already let them off some stuff before (lightly according to some people) should I have really gone the whole hog and done the temporary ban? I'm standing by my choice but I'd be interested to know what you think.

Still lethargic - Tuesday

Up in time for my 0900 lecture. It was maths and we're doing Matracies which'll be fun (and we have 6 weeks to revise). After maths I did some WoA stuff and also played Deimos Rising (it doesn't help that the computer won't register more than two keys being held down). The computing lecture was nothing I didn't know. Though going by what some other people are saying it's proving helpful to them, or would if they had paid more attention in Semester 1. After Computing Gareth, Henry and myself were going to play a joke on someone. Last week their lecture finnished at the same time and they were miffed nobody said hello. So to compensate for last week we were going to follow them as a "fan club". Sadly they either finnished well before us or didn't have the lecture again. We walked to Greg's to get lunch which was quite tasty. Branislav's lecture was not overly interesting either and the afternoon maths went right over me. Today and yesterday I've been feeling really lethargic and found it very hard to motivate myself to do anything. Sadly I don't know why I'm lethargic. Dinner was fairly nice and afterwards I went over to Nathan's room to help himself and Tom with some C programming. After spending some time with them and laughing about stuff (such as some of the jokes I made at other people's expense) I went back to my room and played Deimos Rising. I talked to several people from WoA about Christianity. It turns out that there are more of them that are Christians than I first thought. Also, one of the people from the CU has expressed an interest in it and posted a resume for himself, his main reason for "employability" as part of a team is... Today I hurt Teifion using nothing more than just my thumb, I believe that alone should be enough for anybody to accept me I'll get him some time I'm sure. I did that for most of the night. Halfway through blogging I heard some people talking to Sam outside my room and went out to laugh at Sam. It turned out that Sam, Dominique and Emma were talking. After finding out that Sam was being as slow as last time Dominique decided to try a few verbal jousts, too bad I've had much more practice and wasn't half inebriated. Punching Pillows I tried the exercise AJ suggested today and it seems to be quite a good "light" exercise. I think I need to do more situps and generally eat more food.

Unenergetic - Monday

Only one lecture today at 1300. So I was up at about 1000. On WoA the opinions about the way I run it have no reversed. As soon as I suggested that I go beyond what they thought (I'm an all or nothing person) I should they promptly changed their tune and said "no no, do it like you were before". Actually, that's not all true. For a start some agree with my idea and not all suggested the change in the first place. After browsing the web a little I got the bus into Uni. I sat next to Sarah (the one that's getting married) and talked about random stuff. She's feeling better which is really really good. I went to Tesco and got loads of Chocolate. Then I went around buildings and got ECFs (Extenuating Circumstances Form), I'll tell you why on my Wednessday blog ;) The lecture was good. Victor noticed that there were not many people there so passed around a register. Sadly, we had to write our HEMIS number on it, so no rude names. Or so you'd think. Myself and some friends quietly added close to 20 onto the list on the right. We don't know what Victor did when he saw it as he didn't notice the names while in the lecture. After the lecture I got the bus back to Langstone and played a lot of Deimos Rising. It's an old old Arcade style game that's good fun. I wanted to do more stuff, but I just felt so lethargic and tired. I don't like it and tried doing exercises, they didn't help a lot (though my stomach ached for the rest of the day if I used the muscles a lot). This evening we went bowling. It was delayed because one of the ladies dislocated her knee when she fell over! I don't know if she's okay but I'm sure that the presence of Greg helped. Greg is studying Radography (or similar) and therefore rather knowing about injuries. In my lane was Gareth, Chris from Eastney and Emma from Eastney. Chris was very good and trounced us all. I managed to bowl appalinglingly. Round 2 was interesting. Lizzie was in the lane next to me and decided to boast that she beat my score. Every time she went to take a shot myself and Gareth put her off. We were both soon ahead and then told that actually we were all booked for only one round. We were gutted (I'm counting it as a win). Chris was very very impressive, he got a LOT of strikes as did Steve La P (otherwise known as stuffedpig, nobody uses these nicknames). After bowling we went to the pub where I played a game of Chess against Jo and Graham. Well, it was Jo with Graham giving advice but not telling her what to actually move. Jo won. I talked to Andrew about his testimoney. He too grew up in a Christian family, went to Sunday School, got told about Jesus, the Bible, God, etc. He too wondered how on Earth it was all connected to him. Then he went to a Christian camp over a summer and they studied Revelations (the last book of the Bible, I find it quite interesting) and after that he gradually became a Christian. Gareth and I got the bus back as we both are going in early tomorrow. My manly physique Other than push-ups, sit-ups, pull-ups and the one where you lie down and raise your legs in the air (does the lower abs). What exercises can you think of that require no apparatus and can be done in a small-ish room.

What a day - Sunday

I was up for my prelim checking of WoA in the morning. Normally I don't come back for the entire day and there are usually complaints and questions about stuff. I also had breakfast before going to Eastney Church for the morning service. Johnathan talked about the fact that Jesus healing people was only a short term thing, it served no long lasting use, they will still die. I think that it can be summed up as "Look to the long term, not the short term". After the service we (Andrew, Lorna, Sarah, Siän, Lizzie, Jo and Brierly along with the Hacker children Tim and Abigail and of course, me) sat around and chatted, then went to the Hacker's for lunch. And what a lunch it was! It was excellent. I really really liked it (curry). After lunch we played games such as the Animal Game, Mrs Mumble and G'day Bruce. After games we went for a walk along the seafront. I found a kite plane that'd been abandonded, it's broken but Duct Tape will solve any problem such as something broken. I also threw lots of stones in the sea. We got back to the Hackers and had dinner there, it was also excellent (sandwiches, choose your filling from a large selection). The evening service made me think a lot. Recently on WoA there has been a debate on how we run the game and how much we should participate in the game itself. After Johanathan talked more about how Jesus was a Servant Leader and I thought more about it, I decided to follow his example. The evening service was really good and I talked to Johnathan about how him being a preacher it must be hard to never be able to recieve a service except while on holiday. Getting back I did some WoA stuff. We've lost a Custodian (he has his final exams of Uni, we're all agreed that he needs time off) so there's just me and the new guy (who is EXCELLENT). As such we've had to add a limit to the number of teams, we've not wanted to but it had to be done. Over today I've had a "different" feeling. Almost as if things were just "happening". I didn't notice this until I got back this evening and read some of the comments about the way I run WoA. These made me feel disheartened and I realise that this "feeling" was one of no stress whatsoever. Normally I'm not very stressed but I feel that today was even less stressfull and I enjoyed it. Lorna's Cool Hobby I fail to remember how we got onto the subject of it, but apparently I have very very good veins for looking at. My arms are muscle and bone. For some reason Lorna really wanted to poke the veins. I think she's trying to compete to see how weird she can be compared to me. Lorna, you don't have a chance ;)