Reaching Out

Friday 21st January 2011

Had a full day of presentations today. All the masters students had to give one so we were in there from 9am to almost 5pm. My presentation wasn't until 4.15pm. Loooooong day! But it went well (I think). We kept to time and had no major issues.

Went to the pub briefly afterwards before heading home. Cooked with housemates and sister.

Sunshine

Thursday 20th January 2011

Today was the first sunny day we've had in a long time! Lovely. I spent it writing my presentation and then having a group meeting to practice it. Fun times.

Didn't train tonight. Really bad *girl issues*. Not that people need to know that. :-P

Zen Dog

Wednesday 19th January 2011

Went shopping with sister today and bought some new denim shorts and tights. Nothing exciting. Had to see the council to try and sort out my council tax, but silly housemates haven't done theirs yet so until they do it I can't sort mine out. Grrrr. The annoyance of being a part-time student - having to work to pay my way through but still have to pay council tax. Plus, even if I live in one room in a four-bedroomed house and the other three people don't have to pay tax, I only get 25% off... How unfair is that? I don't think I'm earning enough to justify me paying everything though so hopefully we'll see.

Today's photo is of my passport cover. My sister bought it for me before I went travelling and i love it!

Quote of the Day:

See the photo! Zen Dog rules!

Marathon Exam

Tuesday 18th January 2011

Today I had a mammoth marathon exam to scribe for! I met my student at 9.15am and we didn't get out of the exam room until 2.45pm. Whew! It was a three hour exam, she got an hour and a half extra time, plus two ten minute breaks, but then there was a mess up with the cd so we had twenty minutes to wait for that to be fixed... I felt so sorry for her. Exams are hard enough but to dictate essays to someone else, especially for that length of time... I couldn't have done it. She gave me Maltesers at the end which was lovely!

I was so tired that instead of working on my presentation that afternoon I read a book my friend had lent me - Brandon Sanderson's "The Final Empire" and already I am addicted. I love fantasy, but this one is so different it's fantastic! Really recommend to anyone!

Went to yoga that evening which was such a relief. Very relaxing.

Quote of the Day:

Taken from this website: http://www.tomscott.com/warnings/ Journalist Warning labels:

"Warning: Medical claims in this article have not been confirmed by peer-reviewed research."

"Warning: Journalist hiding their own opinions by using phrases like 'some people claim'."

And for Daily Mail readers: "Warning: Includes content written by Richard Littlejohn."

Presentation Plans

Monday 17th January 2011

Today's photo shows my plan for the week to write my presentation. It's due on Friday and I haven't started it yet! It's all on Augmented Reality however, which is fascinating.

I had an hours work today meeting with the student I am exam-scribing for tomorrow morning, and then spent the rest of the day reading the articles I needed to read and making notes on them.

In the evening I went training and then pub. Nice nice.

Hamster Outing

Sunday 16th January 2011

Training as usual this morning. Then pub lunch om nom nom! Sunday's a notoriously lazy day (after the three hours of martial arts that is!).

Cleaned out Mindy-hamster's cage for the first time. She seems to like her ball which is good but is still very gah! around people. Ah well, she'll get better.

30th Birthday Shenanigans

Saturday 15th January 2011

Mum and Dad came down to visit today, although they were later than they said they'd be! We went for a walk to the local shops and had lunch in a cafe which was lovely. Said goodbye to them and then had to get ready to go out.

It was the celebration of my friend's 30th birthday so we went around his first for drinks (champagne!) and food, then went to the largest club on the south coast (and possibly in England, though I might be wrong) called Oceana. It was actually quite funny. The bar area was lovely for sitting and chatting, and then we hit up the dance floors. The first was rubbish (though a drunk guy did insist on trying to teach me salsa to Rhianna!) while another drunk guy (a marine) looked like he was hitting on the guys in the group. But all was saved when we found the Disco room. Cheesy 90s pop? Ooh yes please! Left around 1am shattered but happy.

End of Semester One

Friday 14th January 2011

Morning was spent tweaking assignment (double checking word limit and finding places where I hadn't made any sense last night!). Then off to lectures and to hand in assignment. Research Skills was all about how to give a good presentation, and my last Core Computing lecture ended up in the pub because no one could be bothered! No more of these lectures now - my first semester as a Masters student has officially ended!

After pub went home to cook for housemates, sister and friend. Nice evening in.

Report Writing

Thursday 13th January 2011

Spent the day working on my assignment. Finally got the database together in what I think'll be a suitable working order so had to begin the write up. 2000 words. And yes, I realised it was in for tomorrow. Ah well.

Didn't train in the evening but met everyone in the pub because we needed to have a committee meeting. Was very organised - did an agenda and made minutes. Woop. Then it was back home for the long night of writing up. Finished at about 2am, but brain was too tired to reread. Difficult part was attempting to cut down the word limits. Will complete it in the morning.

Photo is of Mindy-hamster. In her wheel. She's still terrified of people, but loves her wheel.

Fire! Fire!

Wednesday 12th January 2011

Busy day today. Went to my own lecture to work on my database assignment. It's going... ok I guess. Got really annoyed trying to get the queries to concatenate (used the same code everyone else did and it didn't work - tried someone elses' and that didn't work so have had to do some serious editing). But finally success! Yay! Now am making forms to make it pretty. Have to start write up sometime soon but forms really need doing first. Thank goodness lecturer was actually there today. Woop!

This evening we (housemates and friend) burned stuff in the garden. Fun times.

Quote of the Day:

"... has done EXACTLY what two different people have done on their databases and yet hers still won't f-ing concatenate. Unless she can get this to work, she can't do ANYTHING else. *sob*"

- frustration apparent on Facebook status after failing at concatenation. It worked eventually.

Organisation

Tuesday 11th January 2011

Today's photo show's my white board that I use to try and keep myself organised! Lots of work! Though not at the moment. Only had my 9am NOC work today. But then I headed to labs to work on my database assignment. Frustration abounds as my concatenation for queries has massive fail. Did what everyone else in the class has done, practically word-for-word, and yet it hates me. Gah! Been given another way to try tomorrow from someone who did the course last year. Will see how it goes. Considered yoga in the evening but everyone dropped out so didn't go in the end. Next week definitely.

Housemate Love

Monday 10th January 2011

Today's photo shows my two housemates lounging on my bed. No, I didn't join them.

Had work down at the NOC at 9am again this morning. Ugh, not fun getting up but it's money so I can't complain too much. Training in the evening and just had a catch up with everyone.

Hamster!

Sunday 9th January 2011

So I did it... Today I got a hamster. And isn't she just adorable?! At the moment she is very tiny, and quite scared, but found her food bowl alright so that's ok!

Went training this morning - I took the session and it went a lot better than Thursday. Admittedly there wasn't that many of us, but I had one of the brown belts take warm up and pad word, and I did the rest. The warm-down worked particularly well! Pub for lunch and then went on an adventure to the petshop and to collect the hamster cage (I got it off ebay). Fun fun.

Clean Bathroom

Saturday 8th January 2011

Instead of going to the Saturday morning training I cleaned the bathroom. It was disgusting and required rubber gloves and scrubbing. Took me ages but by the end I was quite proud of it!

Friend's came over in the afternoon to go through a little bit of lesson-planning with me for tomorrow and apart from that didn't do very much at all. Oh how exciting my life is!

Willy Wars

Friday 7th January 2011

Today's photo show's my housemate's blow up penis. Before anyone panics or gets weirded out... it's a game he was given for Christmas. There's two of them, you blow them up, attach them to a belt around your waist (heh, I resisted the urge to say 'strap them on'!!) and then try and knock the other person's off. It's called, unsurprisingly, 'Willy Wars'.

For the rest of the day I had a work meeting/training morning getting us prepared for exam invigilation. At least I get paid for attending!

A Sheepish Gift

Thursday 6th January 2011

Decided to leave the sheep "waiting" outside my other housemate's room for when he returns. Just hope his parents don't walk in first!

In other news... spent most of the day in labs working on my assignment. Grrr. Stupid thing. It's going slowly. Pssh. Still, am getting there. I had to teach the kempo class in the evening and it didn't go well. I hate teaching in front of the class but I'd have probably been alright if the 3rd dan hadn't been there. Imagine trying to teach someone who not only has been doing it a helluva lot longer and knows what he's doing, but who is very good at what he does. Doh! I had him take the basics and I got the brown belt to take a warm down. It could have been worse, but it wasn't a great session. Ah well, I have Sunday's to do as well. I will actually try and plan it better.

Afternoon Tea

Wednesday 5th January 2010

Spent the morning working on my assignment. Then in the afternoon I went around my friends for a real afternoon tea, complete with tea, scones, jam and clotted cream. Very yummy!

Sheep Blowing

Tuesday 4th January 2011

Did very little today. Went to the petshop to have a look at the animals and fell in love with a rat. Sadly, they need a huge cage and I can't provide them with that at the moment. Might get a hamster though!

Today's photo is my housemate blowing up my other housemate's sheep. We were considering putting chilli or itching powder in the, erm, well, there's no polite way to really put this but in the... hole. Just in case he... Yeah, do I need to finish?!

Uni-bound

Monday 3rd January 2011

Travelled back down to university today. This photo was taken while waiting for the bus, of an abandoned factory near the stop. It was the smiley face at the end of the graffiti that made me laugh.

Back at my house I unpacked and then some friends came over for food and drinks. A nice catch-up night.

Bourton-on-the-Water

Sunday 2nd January 2011

A lovely day out to Bourton-on-the-Water in the Cotswolds for tea and scones, followed in the afternoon by a visit to the next door neighbours for tea, port and biscuits.

... And the First of 2011

Saturday 1st January 2011

New Years Day. This morning we went for a walk to the local town, across the fields. It was nice, if muddy. I really do love the English countryside!

We had a lovely New Years dinner - proper English roast with beef. Home-made tomato soup for starters and my sister had made a lemon tart for pudding. Yum!

We spent the evening watching the 1976 Morecambe and Wise Show (despite having seen it so many times, it's always hilarious. As much as I love today's stand-up comedians, nothing can beat the old stuff) followed by Victoria Woods' docudrama on the life of Eric Morecambe and Ernie Wise (strangely enough titled "Eric and Ernie"!) on BBC 2. It was really really well done, very interesting to see how they started off together as child stage stars during World War II, and of course it was very funny!

A good start to 2011.

Quote of the Day

"I am playing all the right notes, but not necessarily in the right order."

- Eric Morecambe.

"We took the whole thing far too seriously. After all, those were the early days of television."

- Ernie Wise.