Revision 2011

It’s that time of year again – May/June is the bane of most students’ lives.

I have 7 exams this year, 2 of which I sat last week: Introduction to Artificial Intelligence, and Continuum Mathematics. The first exam was bearable, the second much less so. Luckily, I had some friends from church who live round the corner from the venue and very kindly invited me for dinner. This gave me a chance to calm down and have a bit of time completely away from work, refreshing me for the revision to begin again on Saturday.

This Tuesday will see me sit exam number 3 – Optimisation Theory and Applications. Really, I should be revising for that now, but the progress seems to be going well enough that I have decided to call today my ‘day of rest’ to attempt to shake this headache in time for a blitz day tomorrow. To be honest, the likelihood is that I will actually return to work later this evening, but for now I’m just focusing on feeling better and not feeling guilty.

If anybody reading this is also going through exams at the minute or in the near future, I wish you all the best.

Quick Competition:
You may just be able to see in the photo that my pen is very kindly being held by a little man. This is my mascot, Dave the Spaceman, and his name has been carefully chosen for two specific reasons – if you can tell me what they both are, there may be a prize. It may possibly something as amazing as the smug feeling that comes from being right – like when you shout at the telly! Or perhaps something more tangible, like chocolate or something…

(More pictures of Dave ‘helping’ with my revision may well follow on Picasa, but for now, if you’re itching for more, you can check out my Facebook album ‘Revision 2011’)

‘Title’ seems to be the hardest phrase…

Howdy folks, it’s been a while.

I won’t bother to explain away my absence, but I can explain my re-emergence: I have a new schedule in place which is aimed at helping me to work more effectively. How does this affect my blogging? Well, part of this attempt to improve the quality of my work involves creating the appropriate ratio between work and breaks – 45 minutes working followed by a 15 minute break, as opposed to spending the whole hour ‘half working’, as well as regular, longer breaks.

As such, I now have specified periods in which to do ‘nothing’. Unfortunately, I don’t like feeling that any time is being completely unproductive, so I plan to use those times to revisit some of my old hobbies. These include things like origami and writing, and the blog seems like a useful place to chronicle the success (or otherwise) of this new schedule – somewhere that I could keep a clear chronology of my own progress, and where other readers could possibly also keep a check and perhaps give me some advice/suggestions to keep it going.

As this explanation has been quite long-winded, I won’t include any additional ramblings, but hopefully I’ll post something equally inane, if somewhat less topical, soon.

Trawling through old material...

... because work and life were getting too much.

I write a lot of random (and quite weird) stuff. Currently I'm writing an exposition about why you shouldn't pretend to be an expert on things which you really don't understand, but that will probably be a bit heavy-going, so before that I thought I'd give you something a little less moody.

This is an introduction to a piece of fiction which I have planned and may or may not write (I have numerous plans for different stories in various stages of development)... It's not very good, but it's certainly not as unpleasant as the essay that's on the go at the minute.

I'd value people's opinions on this as I don't normally share prose (in fact, it's fairly rare for it not to be burned upon completion).

Story Beginnings...

(This links to a Google Docs page, please follow it and take a look)

The last few weeks have not been great...

... and hence the lack of posting - I haven't even had a Word of the Week, let alone a chance to blog about it. Today has also been a bad day, I did almost no work, and the stuff I tried I got wrong.

The worst thing is that yesterday was great, and the weekend coming should be too. I spent the afternoon with friends from church yesterday - lovelier people you couldn't hope to meet - and on Friday one of my all time truest friends is (hopefully) coming to stay for a few days. So, all told, I should be in a good cycle, not a bad one. Unfortunately, if my mental state were that rational then I guess I wouldn't have all the issues that I seem to.

Just in case you were wondering, dear reader (although I doubt you were), here is a rough draft of what it's like to be me today. Caveat - This is only reflective of now, and is not a comprehensive, or even proof-read exposition of myself.

Life is that thing which you and I

Experience before we die.

A cacophony of feeling and thought,

The noise of any place you sit and wait.

To some of us,

THE single thought is thus:

When everything is said and done,

Death comes far too late.

Now They're Famous:

It's pretty cheesy and poorly edited, but here is a Promotional Short for the band Playing in Circles. The song featured is a cut-down version of one of their songs Our Life on CCTV which seemed vaguely appropriate. It's almost completely unauthorised by the band, but I think people should listen to them - I don't know if this will help or hinder that cause, but it's worth a try.