Archive for the ‘Life’ Category

I think I have found the holy grail – the Bodington Hall ISS cluster is air conditioned! It’s awesome, I can get here from my room including locking it and probably throwing some shoes on in under 2 minutes and just walk in and feel the coolness.

I’m actually in here because I need to use the printers, or at least steal some paper as I forgot to bring my paper this term and never gone home to fetch it so I’ve just been making do with whatever I can find since Easter.

The downside is that in order to blog I have had to use Internet Explorer. I tried to use departmental software to access Firefox but I was lied to, it’s not on there. Opera was though so I could have used that.

I also checked out the ISS notices when logging on an found that there are only 3 24-hour ISS clusters open over summer and they aren’t actually 24 hour at all, but only open between 8 am and 6 pm (and that might be just on weekends), whereas the only time I think I will want to use them is at like 4 in the morning. I need to check the SoC opening times.

Doesn’t look like I will be making it to the Quilted Llama today as that would involve moving and it’s way too hot to move. That means that my grand total for visits in the last week has been 8. That’s quite impressive I think, even if it doesn’t really count for anything.

Everything is falling apart though! I haven’t updated the websites I update every day in days, almost a week in fact! I’ve really let the ball drop, I have emails piling up and loads of website updates to catch up on and yet I still can’t be bothered to do anything. Is xmeltrut.com finally falling apart? I think my whole network is, I’m letting domains go because I’m not on top of my renewals and I don’t seem to be sorting it. What’s going on?

On top of that I really need to get my head around C for our upcoming exam and coursework. I could really use a textbook but that would cost money, money I don’t really have. I have a big decision to make now I think, do I officially stop with the daily website updates on my celeb and gossip sites? Irrelegular work on Particle Soft would suite me a lot better but do I really have a future doing that? I like to think so but I’m not sure, it’s going to be a big challenge to implement a business model for it.

I blame the heat, it’s zapping all of my motivation.

Yesterday we held, C in the park, a day of coding C in Hyde Park (hence the name ;)). Although on saying that we didn’t get started until like 3 and due to the fact that my laptop has a dead battery, I had to rely on Matt’s power pack which got about an hour of power out of before running out. So I got a hello world written in C to test Dev-C++ and that was it.

We ended up (as ever) at the Quilted Llama to test their free wi-fi. I couldn’t get it working on my laptop as it would just keep switching between having a signal and no wireless networks are available but Kieran and Matt managed to get it working.

Then we ended the day going back to Michelle’s for dinner (myself, Kieran and Sophie). We are slowly corrupting Kieran as we got him on a bus for the second time (the first being Maths Chris’s attempt at an Otley Run) although he walked it all the way back from Michelle’s to Clarence Dock which you can only really understand how much of a feat that is after you have felt the weight of his laptop :p.

Time for another rant again. Weirdly enough, Michelle ends up in the firing line again. But this is by no means aimed at anyone, indeed if I was in the same situation I would take advantage of the same opportunities, it would be silly not to. But the overall concept is something I disagree with. Here is my gripe. If you have a disability such as dyslexia you get extra times in exams to compensate. And now I’m going to explain why I don’t like it.

Because this means certain people get more time than other people which helps them do better in exams while those who don’t fit in, don’t do as well. Who decides that someone with dyslexia should be allowed extra time to bring them up to everyone else’s standard whereas someone who has, for example, bad short term memory so can’t revise as well doesn’t get extra help. How about someone who isn’t as bright? What’s the difference between having a lower IQ and being dyslexic? Why should you get help for one and not the other?

It’s also unfair on the rest of us. For example, I write a kick-ass essay in my two hour exam. Someone else with disabilities and therefore extra time writes the same quality essay but it takes them two and a half hours. We have the same quality essay and therefore get the same degree classification. So when an employer looks at our CV they find we have the same quality degree. So are we equally valuable to the employer? No, of course not because I can do work that would take them two and a half hours in only two.

Essentially, disability allowances try to level and unlevel playing field. When really it’s just unlevelling a level playing field. A disability such as dyslexia forms part of you, just as the amount of intelligence or how good your memory is. It’s no real leap to begin calling what is going on here descrimination. If you have a disability aren’t can’t do something as well as other people, it’s just that, people need to face up to that fact. I have to face up to the fact that there are people at better writing essays than me or just have a higher IQ than me. We can’t level everyone and any attempt to try would soon decend into a massive invasion of civil liberties.

Anyway, I would love to get comments and thoughts on the subject. I am sure there is another side of the argument, perhaps one I haven’t considered.

Do I only blog when I’m happy? Although I don’t think my post count has suffered massively, I would have thought it would be down a bit. But I certainly have been feeling less included to blog recently. I get onto my blog as I just do it by default now but I find I have no compulsion to blog.

I have always seen my blog as an emotional outlet where I can pour my heart out and get my feelings in the open. Which I think I do but then I can’t help notice the relationship between the fact that I have not wanted to blog much recently and the fact that with my imenent return home and summer coming up I have begun to feel far more depressed than has become the usual while at uni.

Anyway, todays events consisted of a BBQ in Hyde Park which started at like 3 after we had pretended to do some lab work and we basically stayed there until like 8 then myself, Kieran and Claire headed off to the Quilted Llama (5th time this week :D) and played a lot of pool and had quite a long and inciteful chat about a variety of subjects. I blame the BBQ for our lack of work, hence the title A (all our friends) plus B (BBQ) does not equal any C coding ;).

I hear you calling, voices are here again.

What a song. Anyway, so I’m just sorting out my module enrollment. I’ve made my choices to 110 of the 120 credits I need to make but I still have 10 credits in semester 2. I’ve ruled out doing an elective in another department as I really wanted to do film making but communications don’t offer any electives at all! I also considered thelogy and several other subjects (I even went to english to see if I could do a litery analysis type thing on films – I couldn’t).

So I’m down to three choices in computing…

• Bio-inspired computing
• Principles of corporate strategy
• Ethical issues in computing

The other stuff I’m doing is…

• Speech, audio and image processing
• Fundamentals of AI
• Introduction to computer graphics

Before I start, I just want to say I know that season is American and I really detest the fact they use season instead of series and always use series instead of season, it uses series on TV Forge but for this post I made an exception given that I think it is more appropriate. Anyway…

It occurs to me, that not only are we reaching the end of our first yeat at uni but really we are reaching the season finale for a show about our lives at uni. Not one that is ever broadcast on TV but it has episodes (events), plot arcs, a narrative, it seems to function very much like a TV show. Remember the episode where Fonze pulled, I got drunk or Fran guest starred? Classic memories.

So now the stage is set for the season finale. It has to be a big one, series always finish on a big one. Of which the stage is again set as we are drafting out our massive blow-out end of first year of uni celebration.

Of course what we really need is the will-they won’t-they couple to get together. But who is romance in the air for? Who will it suddenly appear to? Phil and Michelle? Me and Michelle? Me and some random girl? Sarann and Andy/John/Kieran? Becky and Fonze? Claire and Fonze? Claire and me? Maths Chris and B? If ever there was a will-they won’t-they couple I think it would be those two.

What will happen at the end of term? Life has been way to Hollywood for it to go by without any events. Me and some random girl would be great although, despite me having that in the list, there is no way it will happen. Not because I’m jaded or negative (which I am but that’s a different reason) but because it has to be two protagonists to the story. That is part of your basic outline of the teen drama.

Of course it could always be something more dramatic. While DC went the classic route, The O.C. went the still sterotypical but slightly off-track route of ending with a shock, in that case someone getting shot. That typifies the The O.C. for being a more modern teen drama though. Could someone get shot? Or at least beaten up? Confrontations coming to a head? It would have to be something between pre-existing characters. Fonze and Andy P at Wendy House maybe? It would be the very end of our end of year celebrations and so would provide a great last minute shock.

But then, I’m not sure I see this story goint down the route of The O.C., I think it’s far more a classic DC tale. That is what I have had my faith in over the years, I’ve always been a Dawson not a Ryan. Still, it will be interesting to see if anything goes down. Or whether I’m simply a true product of the Hollywood generation. Or perhaps both.

Doing some much needed washing at the moment so I’m probably not going to be in bed until like 2. Probably not good as I have to be up at like 8:30 tomorrow but I figured I was going to be very pushed to get my 8 hours in so if I was going to strain to get up I might as well make the most of it and make it a late night.

After lectures today we went to Hyde Park to hang around for a few hours (of which I took a break from to go into town and look for a job) and eventually we headed into DEC-10 to get some of the lab session done. I only did a bit of it but it’s a start :D. Then I headed back to Bod to get dinner and later returned to The Library for an evening of drinking.

It’s the start of another C lab session and none of the staff seem to be here. Ok, I’ve spotted one happy helper. Maybe the rest got killed, Drew said he would probably working as a happy helper but then Ash finished at 3 yesterday so maybe Drew has done the same thing. Once I get this done there is only another 2 days to go and then we have a whole weekend of partying. Except that there is not much good on this weekend. Although there is Friday Flock. Recent events with Becky mean pre-drinks at Fab may be off though and Janine has gone home today so our lead goth of the group won’t be around either.

I’ve been putting some thought into what I want to do this summer regarding Dawson’s Creek. As I’ve mentioned before I only have a few episodes left to watch and a lot of summer of which it will need to pull me out of bitter depressions. Therefore I think what I am going to do, given the gap since last watching it, is start again from the very beginning.

I was toying with the idea of restarting series 6 anyway as I can’t remember trhe exact context of what was happening (I know pretty much what was happening but not all the fine details) but I think, given I have a three month summer, a total restart would be the best option.

I’m itching to start it now to be honest though. I was about to but I’ve just glanced up at my DVD shelf and realised that I only actually brought series 6 with me. I might watch some X-Files or Scrubs or something tonight, I’m up for a bit of TV even though I have to be up in a little under 8 hours. Actually I might re-watch Pirates of the Caribbean or the Family Guy movie. So many choices.