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.

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.

More productive than Lectures - Friday

I got up, went to my lecture and took some notes. The next lecture was B201. For those that missed last year, B101 (B201 = B101 for year 2) was a complete and utter waste of our time. B201 really does so far appear to be no different. It was a two hour lecture and when the break arrived, 70% of the class (me included), left. I made very good use of the rest of the hour by sitting down with Chris and planning the Java application. I got the bus home with Chris (The timetable said it was Salem lecturing but it was an hour's wait and to be honest, I've had enough of him for a week). Once home I did some WoA, tried some Java stuff out but it wasn't playing nicely so I gave it up and played Halo 2 with Pete. In the evening I played more Halo, had dinner and wrote some more of my Web Design tutorial stuff. Overall quite a quiet day, nothing big going on. Tomorrow I'm getting up at the crack of dawn (0600 or 0630) to get a train to London for the Mac Expo (and likely getting that new Laptop I wanted).

Oh what fun! - Thursday

Nothing in particular today that was fun, just feeling good in general, though I think it's just normal for me. Firstly I got to have a lie in! My 1100 lab went well, Chris my lab partner is much better than myself at hardware (hence why we partnered up, I'm moderately competent at Java). After the lab I went to Tesco for lunch and then went to get my NUS card. After getting that I went to the Union and found that the guy incharge of student rep stuff was away. I went to see John Geddes who is also going to this meeting thingie I've (well, we've got) on Wednesday. He had some interesting things to say. After that I went to see Ionnais but he wasn't there. Noting the time I dashed for the bus, got there quite on time and then got home quite okay. Once home I alternated between WoA, sleeping and also some Java. The other day we badgered Ionnais about our Java project and he informed us it'd be a Chess game. Here's the kicker, two years ago it was a Chess game, only 3 groups completed it. Why did only three complete it? I reckon it's because we have to handle everything ourselves, I think it'll be fun and I've already started reading ahead :) I played some Halo 2 after dinner (Tesco Value Pot Noodles do not taste nice). Also, after posting on this page of Marcia's Blog I remembered the old cookie story. Well, I say remembered, I doubt I'll ever forget it. Anyhoo, the thing is, I read over it and it was LORNA that suggested I get a Lady. If you were (un)fortunate enough miss the whole Cookie and "getting a Lady" event, the two key days are located here and here. In the evening I carried on some work on my Web Design tutorials. Also, I might be cooking a little more now! Yes, my Uncle sent me a Birthday present entitled "Student Grub" (the post here of late has been terrible, my Train Tickets for Saturday didn't arrive until today!) and contains info on how to cook stuff if you're a student. I've not had a chance to look indepth but I've seen an awful lot in the way of vegitables. However, it does tell you how to do everything and assumes that you have no common sense (so tells you how to whisk eggs). In my case I'm sure I have common sense, I just have no idea how to cook (you ever seen a geek cook stuff?).

I win! - Wednesday

Early morning lecture was nothing special. I noticed today that REALBasic the language that I learnt first took loads of stuff from Java. So to recap, Java has syntax similar to C which I learnt last year, it's also similar to PHP which I do as a hobby. Java works in a way similar to REALBasic which I can still remember really easily and therefore, Java becomes pretty simple for me to understand. After the lecture I got some stuff from Tesco and sat down in the Anglesea building and wrote some more of the database for WoA, currently the name that's winning the vote is "Phil". Yeah, you can tell we're a mature and serious bunch of people. The midday lecture was much much better than the last, infact, it was the best lecture of the day. No, it wasn't cancelled, don't be silly, that'd not make it better than a Java lecture. No, the lecturer is not overly good at explaining himself. Those who were reading last year might recall me not being happy about a certain lecturer in a lab, well, he's lecturing me and made a rather serious mistake on one of his slides. Here's roughly how it went. Lect: And that's the answer to that Chris: How did he do that, I think he made a mistake Me (Mubling to myself): Chris, I think you're right, that's the wrong answer, Gareth, Chris, what'd you get? Gareth: I think he might be wrong Chris: He's wrong Lect: And on this slide we have *insert stuff about Digital Communications here* *I raise my hand* Lect: Yes, what is your question? Me: Could you go back a slide, there's something I really don't understand *Lecturer goes back a slide to what is basically a tree diagram, most of the class sigh because they think I'm being stupid* Me: That there, that's not meant to be "11111", it should be "01111" by my reasoning, how did you get "11111"? Lect: You follow this green line I put on it Me: But that green line is wrong, it can't move there because that's not actually a connection Lect: I have answered your question, onto the next slide *Class mumbles some more, they have noticed I was right* I didn't push it any further because it'd have been rude and maybe the lecturer was impatient to get on with the lecture. Seeing as we finished 5 minutes early I decided to ask again at which point he said "It is up to you to see if there is a mistake, if there is a mistake it's for you to find out." Now, it might just be me but I'm pretty sure he should tell us if his lecture slides contain mistakes, they are something we're meant to use for revision. However, I'm not actually going to take it anywhere as it's quite possibly a one off, I don't think it is but I belive in giving the benefit of the doubt. After this I walked over to Siän and Ceryn's house (no, I did not take any flowers, do I look/sound/read like the sort of person who'd buy flowers?) for the Prayer Meeting. I got there a little early but it was okay, I talked to Siän and Ceryn while drinking Lemonade and eating cookies (all of which I'd brought). Justin, Steve, Jo and Lizzie arrived later. Jo brought a new Lady called Celestia. We had some pringles and cookies along with some tea and did some praying. After the Prayer Lunch I walked Celstia to her halls (she didn't know the way back), Siän was going to the library so came along too. I didn't think that maybe it was a waste of time me going too seeing as Siän could have just walked Celestia back, I like to think that it was because Ladies like following me around but some small voice in my mind tells me otherwise. I got back home and did some Java and WoA stuff. Mostly WoA stuff. I messed around with Xcode a bit more, I looked at how to make a screensaver. I came up with the idea for a screensaver that scrolls lines of computer code across the screen, after a search revealed there wasn't one I looked into how hard it would be to create one. I don't know how to make it yet but I think I have what I need to learn how to. I also got a rather nice email from one of the lecturers about the SSCC meeting we had a while back and the rep for the department. There are 5 departments on this page, each gets a special rep that meets in the next level of SSCC meetings. I was one of three people up for voting, the other two are 3rd year, one Guy, one Lady. I won the vote, why? Well, that's just what happens when you pray for stuff. If God agrees with it, it's going to happen one way or another, take Sunday Night Live for example. Overall, it's been a good day. And yes, I am being careful about what I put up on my blog about the lecturer, due to copyright reasons I'd not be able to show you the slide that was used and I take care not to mention the lecturer by name so only people inside the Uni will know who it is. More importantly, I don't distort the truth or in any way say something false.

Annoying Day - Tuesday

It's more the timetable of today than anything. Up early early early for my 0900 Java lecture. The class is either not paying attention to what the lecturer says, sleepier than last time or just stupider (likely a combination of the first two). Long story short, I answered 70% of the questions myself, the room had approximately 100 students in it. I think it'll be quite interesting to see what happens to most of them when they realise that the basics we are going over really are cruical to what they need to do. After the lecture I went to the library with Luke and we both got a book out on Java. Specifically it's the book that the lecturer recomends and there were only two of them. That's the reward for being proactive and going to the library right after the lecture it's mentioned. Like Chris, Luke is not overly keen on programming but is eager to learn, thus more than making up for a lack of present knowledge, I find it so much nicer talking to people who care. I went home and did some more database stuff for WoA, currently we're thinking of calling the DB "Phil", there's a competition going on but if you're not a registered member you can't vote and at the end I will look to see who voted so as to watch for people trying to cheat the system. Talking about cheating, if I had cheated the Google Ads by clicking them myself I'd still have them, as it was I apparently generated too few clicks and have been removed from the system. So, no more Google Ads, they were not making me a lot of money ($3 on average for the last few days). I went in for the Software Systems lecture and it was okay. Then I went home again. I did some more WoA stuff and went back into Uni for my Digital Electronics lecture, then, right after that was another Software Systems lecture. At the start of it, Tom came up to me and asked if he'd missed anything important, I told him no, then told him to go away. Cruel? Not when you take into account that he constantly asks stupid questions of the lecturer and is not fun to sit next to in a lecture. For instance, in the Software Systems lecture we were told specifically that the system we were looking at would not touch the payroll. Tom suggested things that were payroll based three times. After the lecture I went to Tesco and splashed out nearly no money by buying Tesco value Dolphi... I mean, Tesco Value Tuna. I also got some Tesco value Pot Noodles (they're 30p a pack, so I got one of each of the two flavours I thought I'd like) to see what they're like. Then I noticed that they were selling massive scotched eggs at two for 19p, the only catch being they were a day away from going out of date. On the way back home I met some Lady in the street from Sightsavers, she spent a while talking to me about sightsavers and the amazing stuff they do. I informed her that a student is a bad choice of target as they're actually in debt and not normally up for giving to charities. Sadly, I only realised after it was too late what I should have said...           What I should have said... How long will this take? 5 Minutes? In that case I will give you 5 minutes of my time for you to tell me about Sightsavers if you will give me 5 minutes of your time for me to tell you about the Lord Jesus Christ and how he can save your soul. Once I got back, had dinner and watched some American Dad with my housemates. I then messed around with WoA and PHP. I spent a while getting it to work but I now use a new program to edit PHP files (of which I use a lot of). Apple have their own programming suite called Xcode, it's pretty spiffy but doesn't help with PHP. Well, with a plugin it does. It's what I'll be using to write my Java in (because it's got autocompletion and likely some other helpful features). In other good news, the computer I'm planning on getting just had it's performance power increased by up to 39%, basically I'll be getting more than I first thought, not at all bad! PS. Sorry for the late post, I saved it as a draft by mistake.

Google are going to give me money! - Tuesday

I awoke at 0810, not good, I was leaving the house in 20 minutes! Luckily, I was fine and even met Huw on the way. The Java lecture was "Interesting" in that we covered basic data structures such as While Loops, If statements and other such basic things I was sure we were taught last year. I answered questions when nobody else would. After the lecture I got the bus back with Aaron and enjoyed a nice rest. I was meant to have a single 1 hour lecture in the middle of the day with a two hour break either side of it. I managed to remember it 10 minutes before it started and therefore could not go. At best I'd have arrived a quarter of an hour late :( On the plus side, Google now owe me money. At the time of writing it's only £12.14 ($22.75 for you Ladies and Gents over the pond) but that's after 12 hours of the ads being on my site. The ads are also on the blog and are very simple, if at the end of a month I have $100 or more in my "account", it's sent to me, if I have less then it rolls over till next month. I stuck the ads on WoA and assuming I make £10 a day from them, after a month I'll have approx £300 (I forsee a lot less ad activity after the initial burst). In the afternoon I went to the Digital Electronics lecture that doesn't appear on my timetable and then to the 2nd lecture of Software Systems (I missed the first) and am glad I missed the first and instead put ads on my site, it's stuff I'm still familiar with (taking a problem and turning it into a computer program). After that lecture we had a lecture on Networking which wasn't overly riviting :( Aaron gave me a lift home (which was rather nice of him) and I did some WoA stuff. Dinner was chips and gammon and we watched 4 episodes of "American Dad" during dinner, it's very very funny and similar in nature to Family Guy (I think it's done by the same people).