Thought Saturation

I have been trying a lot of things lately to try not to think about my impending exam results. Today I was editing and finishing off an essay that I started a while ago. This particular piece was tricky to finish for reasons which will become clear if you read it as the subject matter is somewhat self-explanatory.

As always with my writing, it was a difficult decision upon completion as to whether to publish or burn the piece. Two times out of three I will opt for burning (or in some way seeking to destroy), but this time I thought it might be interesting to publish and gauge opinions.

So, if you fancy taking a look, please click the following link: THIS IS THE LINK.

If you do decide to read it, please let me know what you think. This is still a relatively early draft, but without having an English teacher anymore, it's hard for me to look at it objectively to see where to improve.

Have Stamps, Will Write…

I am an amateur writer. I’m not particularly fussy about what I write, I have tried my hand at poetry, fiction and letter-writing, and am even an occasional essayist.

Obviously, there is also this ‘blog, although I will admit that I am unsure as to the classification of this particular type of word-play. I suppose that it has become a class of its own over the years, but it must have developed from something previously established. The derivation of the term (originally web-log) is, of course, from logging in the way that Sea Captains and the like would chronicle events of a certain period of time. As such, my instinct would be to assume that it is a type of mongrel literary species, primarily from the journal genus, which is itself a combination of letter-writing and essaying. However, I digress.

Essentially, the purpose of this post is to tout for “custom”. If you are the sort of person who likes to receive random ramblings through the post, then let me know.

I like to write to people: There’s generally a letter involved, but often I am prone to include things such as snippets of poetry; whole stories, or excerpts from a longer one; essays on random topics, or little origami models.

If you’d like to know more, or are willing to take a punt in the dark and see what inanities I can come up with, send me a message, with your address, and keep an eye on the letter-/inbox!

Help! On The Threshold of Geek Surfeit

My geekery seems to be expanding in unpredictable and unhelpful ways. Today this was highlighted by watching the first three editions of this year’s Springwatch. It started with getting the quiz on the first show right (as per my tweet) by recognising a Red Kite feather, but I was able to dismiss this on the grounds that that particular bird has always been my favourite raptor. However, things began mounting when I correctly identified a blurred photograph of a fish as being a trout – something even Chris Packham wasn’t able to do! A number of other niggling things kept cropping up, but then, still on the same program I realised my potential to recognise songs by the Manic Street Preachers…

Mr Packham has a tendency to try and sneak a song title into his script at least once an episode – most notably when he focussed on songs by The Smiths and scandalised the unwitting Kate Humble with the title “You Just Haven’t Earned It Yet Baby”. This season it would appear that he is using the MSPs, and I can only hope that it’s his lack of subtlety, leading to odd sounding grammar, which is bringing his references to my attention – not some creepy subconscious knowledge of the MSPs’ discography!

Now, don’t get me wrong, I like the fact that my brain still has the capacity to retain bizarre little bits of information, but currently this skill is not what I need. In the middle of the exam period, what I could really do with is the ability to retain less bizarre, more topical, nuggets. Any suggestions as to how I can fix this would be greatly appreciated.

Really, please help me, before my mind explodes.

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.