Monday, December 3, 2012

New Beginnings...

I started blogging when I started university on request of my sister, who wanted to know how I was getting on… over the years my blogging habits have gone through many stages: informal, informative, rambling, necessity, diary, reflective…

Read the rest of this post, and get all my new posts, over at the new site for this blog www.thegrayscale.co.uk

This blogger page will no longer be updated with my latest posts, but you can see all my new posts with new photographs and videos over at my new website www.thegrayscale.co.uk

Sunday, May 27, 2012

Another One Bites The Dust

First exam done! Only 1 to go! After next Friday I will have completed all the university exams I will ever have to do in my life! Damn!

The last week has been great! Despite having to revise with the weather like it is can be a distraction, but going down to the lake for a spot of lunch every day is such bliss! It’s such a shame that just as the weather gets good everyone leaves university! Campus looks so beautiful this time of year!

  • Happiness. 7 out of 10
  • Tiredness. 0 out of 5
  • Workload. 7 out of 10 (still revision to go!)
  • Last Meal. I haven’t had breakfast! That’s why I'm so hungry! Damnit!
  • Song of the day. Michael Kiwanuka – I’m Getting Ready
  • Thought for the day. "If you're going through hell. Keep going." - Winston Churchill
  • What I’m Doing Now. Watching the Monaco Grand Prix! Our weather is as good as theirs! Haha!

Saturday, May 19, 2012

That was quick!

I have a house for when I start my PhD! After only a few short days of looking for houses around Guildford Will, Anna and I have found the perfect abode! Let me show you round…

It’s a 3-bedroom place, all the rooms are big enough for double beds, the kitchen is modern and it has a dishwasher! Luxury R’ Us! It’s not far away from my house with the girls last year, except a bit nearer university if anything. Same local pub though :D

I’m snatching up one of the biggest rooms, and since the place is unfurnished I can’t wait to put my stamp on the room and make it mine! Geeky posters and computer parts everywhere!

It’s so exciting to finally have a place sorted, it means I can really get my head straight about how the next few months before my PhD starts are going to play out, and it looks pretty awesome!

  • 26th May. First exam
  • 1st June. Last exam ever
  • 11th June. Project Viva, and the end of university
  • 15th June. Big party
  • 17th June. Boat trip with housemates
  • 25th June. Start summer job at Sony
  • 8th July. Move out of my current house :(
  • 17th July. Graduate
  • 20th July. Graduation Ball
  • 25th July. AMERICA!
  • 15th August. Move in to new place :)
  • 1st October. Start PhD at University of Surrey

And with producing the Fresher’s videos for the student television station and designing a new website for my local church I don’t think I’ll be bored! I can’t wait!

  • Happiness. 7 out of 10
  • Tiredness. 1 out of 5
  • Workload. 7 out of 10 (lots of revision)
  • Last Meal. Good ol’ fish and chips
  • Song of the day. Lenny Kravitz – Fly Away
  • Thought for the day. The meaning of life is to give life a meaning.
  • What I’m Doing Now. In disbelief that I’ll have to leave this house in 7 weeks time… I might cry.

Wednesday, May 16, 2012

New Kindlings

As I always seem to be saying on this blog, new and exciting things are afoot. Lots is happening at the moment, and I don’t just mean revision for my final exams… although I probably should.

No, there is lots to look forward to once this university madness is over. I’m currently in the process of looking for a new abode in Guildford for the coming year, since I seem to be sticking around thanks to my new found PhD position :D I’m hoping to live with Will, my current and ex-housemate, and Anna, my current housemates girlfriend. It’s complicated, ok, but it’s going to be awesome! 3-bedroom places are not all the rage, but there are some out there and we plan to find somewhere to call our own! But we haven’t found anywhere yet, there are a few viewings going on this week though so I’ll keep you informed if anything drastic happens. I promise this time.

What else? Well we’ve been testing the limits of our housemate Mike’s stupidity…

For those of you who don’t know, the Cinnamon challenge is where one attempts to swallow a tablespoon of cinnamon. It’s as simple as that…

If you like that there’s a few more here :D

I’ve also been keeping up my involvement in the student television station, recently put in charge of producing the fresher videos for the new students starting in September. Now isn’t that a shift? Just a few years ago I was the unknowing fresher…

I’d love to go into more detail about some of these things, but it will all be eeked out of me eventually.

Lots of plans, lots of ambition, lots of revision to do…

  • Happiness. 7 out of 10
  • Tiredness. 1 out of 5
  • Workload. 7 out of 10 (revision time!)
  • Last Meal. Chilli without the chilli 
  • Song of the day. Stevie Wonder – Superstition
  • Thought for the day. House times are exciting!
  • What I’m Doing Now. Putting off sleep…

Wednesday, May 9, 2012

Pause for thought

Hello again! My heart is still beating, and I have lots of news you might be interested to hear, but first an explanation.

Since I last wrote here almost 2 months (wow, I’m ashamed of myself), I have been very busy. Busy, you say? What on earth could be more important than writing in your favourite place on the internet? You better have a damn good excuse. Well…

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I’ve been going to a local piano bar quite a lot with the ginger one in this photo. It’s a very civilised place with live music and cocktails.

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Experimenting with banana and choc ice milkshakes.

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Doing some terrible singing at the aforementioned piano bar.

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Covering our kitchen in highlighter fluid and UV ink. The reason behind this will become clear… you just have to be patient.

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Been on a treasure hunt around Weymouth.

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Gone Ape!

So that’s what I’ve been up to! When I haven’t been doing all of those fun things I’ve been working on coursework and my final project – which I finished today! Hence the post :)

So coursework in and final report written, now is a good time to note that there’s only precious few weeks left of my university life before heading out into the world of work… or is it?

I have kind of been keeping some big news from you since the last post 2 months ago, and it’s kind of what the last post was about. When I wrote the last post I was deep in thought about what to do once I graduate, because I’d been given a choice: Work for Sony, or be sponsored by Sony to do a PhD. And I changed my mind. I’ll never know if it was the right choice, but I’m so happy that I’ve decided to do a PhD.

I don’t want to dwell on what the PhD is on right now, that will come in a future post, but needless to say that it is really exciting and I can’t wait to start! My PhD course is 3.5 years long and it’s at the University of Surrey still, starting in October. I’m being sponsored and getting paid tax-free, so it’s not going to get me into any more debt! I do want to go into depth about why I decided to do a PhD, because I found it a hard decision and I want to be able to help other people who might have to make that decision in the future.

This isn’t the end of my links with Sony, in fact it’s only just the beginning. Sony have a big input in my research during the PhD, but I’m also working there over the summer with the team I was in last year. Hopefully the ties can continue because they are amazing people!

So… life turned on it’s head and I don’t really know what to say. This blog will be getting a major overhaul in the late half of this year, to capture more of my personal and professional life as it develops… hopefully!

I feel like my life is going from strength to strength, just got to get through these exams first and then I have a long summer of work, America and a new home to look forward to! I’ll reveal all, just bear with me! And thanks for sticking round this far! As a thank you here’s the link to the rest of the Pound for Food videos I produced with my housemates recently, they are seriously funny: http://bit.ly/poundforfood.

  • Happiness. 7 out of 10
  • Tiredness. 1 out of 5
  • Workload. 5 out of 10 (revision time!)
  • Last Meal. Spaghetti Bolognaise
  • Song of the day. Jason Mraz – Everything is Sound
  • Thought for the day. Dissertation done! Boom! 
  • What I’m Doing Now. Sleep! Then starting revision tomorrow… All will be over in only 5.5 weeks!!!

Monday, March 12, 2012

Only

Only 4 weeks until Easter, when I’ll be writing my final project report and revising for my last exams.

Only 9 weeks until my final project is due, the most important document I will have ever written.

Only 14 weeks until the end of university, after which I’ll have finished the road of education and start my road to finding the meaning of life.

Only 19 weeks until America, another adventure of a lifetime :)

Only one chance to make the right choices in life. Be who you have always wanted to be. Inspire your dreams and make a difference.

  • Happiness. 7 out of 10
  • Tiredness. 1 out of 5
  • Workload. 7 out of 10 (come on motivation, i know there’s some of you left)
  • Last Meal. Lots of chicken
  • Song of the day. Earth, Wind and Fire – September
  • Thought for the day. It’s no big deal. Just the future of humanity.
  • What I’m Doing Now. Breathing.

Saturday, March 3, 2012

Californication

Right now there are thousands of final year students thinking about what to do when they Graduate: Do I live at home or find somewhere to live? Should I take a year out to travel and explore the world or start earning money as fast as I can? Should I do a PhD or work in McDonalds?

I think the answer is to look at the opportunities you have and see which ones you’ll regret not taking 10 years down the line when you’re working 9 to 5 every week. I’m probably going to be going back to Sony once I graduate since my placement year with them was the best year of my life, but there’s still that question of when to start work?

Originally I thought I’d start straight away, after all I loved working there and I’d already been travelling in terms of InterRailling last summer. But then I got an offer. America…

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San Francisco, LA, Vegas and the Grand Canyon. In 20 days. I challenge anyone to say no to that.

For the backstory, basically Charlotte is going to Florida with her dad for a couple of weeks in July, since he has a villa there. I was invited to join them but, unfortunately, that is right about the time of my graduation ceremony and all that jazz, so I couldn’t go :( But then we had a thought. I could go after… And instead of staying in Florida we could go anywhere in America.

After much debate and deliberation, including the idea of going to New York and the east coast, we settled on another plan. California. And the journey was born :)

This week I bought my flights, 25th July to 14th August. From San Francisco to Las Vegas. Can you tell I’m excited?

I have so many ideas of things to do!

ok, so that’s quite a bit, but I’m very excited!!! This is going to be a trip of a lifetime…

  • Happiness. 9 out of 10
  • Tiredness. 0 out of 5
  • Workload. 6 out of 10 (lots of Computer Vision things)
  • Last Meal. Bacon sandwich
  • Song of the day. Phantom Planet – California
  • Thought for the day. Life after university is looking pretty good from where I’m standing.
  • What I’m Doing Now. Getting far to excited about California, Nevada and Arizona :)

Monday, February 27, 2012

Progress is progress…

So since my little excursion to Greenwich, life has been dribbling along very nicely indeed. I’ve got some plans for updating some websites which I currently run, namely moving the www.stmarybalham.org.uk site over to a php server running WordPress… I’m doing it to get more experience running my own server, and writing php; but also because I wrote the code for this website before I came to university and since then I’ve learnt some better techniques for dynamic website building than I used back then. It’ll be a challenge, but something I’m looking forward to digging my teeth into once this whole university thing is over.

My final project is coming along, it now shows a lot more information and I’m in the process of building a test rig that can assess the accuracy and performance of the system so far for benchmarking and to get some pretty graphs to go into my write up :)

And I got my results last week for my exams in January, I did really well! I got a first in all my modules and I’m averaging 82% for my degree :) Only 30% of my degree left! The end is in sight, finally!

And for those of you who are interested, the next video about my stupid housemates who are living off £1 for food for a month is up:

I didn’t think my voice could go that high for “Top tip of the week”… turns out I was wrong.
  • Happiness. 8 out of 10
  • Tiredness. 1 out of 5
  • Workload. 5 out of 10 (but it’s all interesting stuff…)
  • Last Meal. Fish and chips
  • Song of the day. Red Hot Chilli Peppers - Scar Tissue
  • Thought for the day. Don’t know whether giving my housemates a beta version of my app was a good idea… :p 
  • What I’m Doing Now. About to do some more work… after lunch….

Monday, February 20, 2012

Time for Greenwich

This weekend Charlotte and I went to London for a Mr Scruff gig in Camden. During the day we killed time by going to the birthplace of time itself, Greenwich.

Charlotte and I at the Royal Observatory

The royal observatory is definitely one of my favourite places in London, if not my favourite.

Maritime Museum Greenwich

Greenwich is beautiful, situated by the river with the Cutty Sark, a market, park and of course the Maritime museum. From the top of the hill you can see a spectacular view of London, and although it wasn’t the clearest of days for an uninterrupted view, it was still a feast for the eyes.

View from Royal Observatory Greenwich

The museum itself is fascinating, with the four Harrison clocks on display that changed the way we kept time at sea and on land. It is also home to London’s only planetarium, which projects a spectacular show of the universe and it’s mysteries onto a large dome. And also offered a must needed sit down :)

And being that close to the docklands, who wouldn’t sneak a peek at  Canary Wharf on the noddy docklands light railway :)

Canary Wharf

  • Happiness. 8 out of 10
  • Tiredness. 2 out of 5
  • Workload. 3 out of 10
  • Last Meal. Rice.
  • Song of the day. Mr Scruff – Champion NIbble
  • Thought for the day. Which Islay Single Malt to buy…
  • What I’m Doing Now. Thinking of the layout for my new website (oooh, such a tease :P)

Wednesday, February 15, 2012

The final semester begins…

My last semester of lectures started last week and because of my cunning plan to front load my module choices for final year I only have two modules and my project work to do. While I regretted that decision in January, having to sit 4 exams, coursework and write a report for my project it all seems worth it now.

I’ve got a couple of marks back for coursework already, and they are both firsts, so with any luck I should still be on track. I’ll get my exam results before the end of the month and that will be a really good indicator of how I’m doing since I’ve now completed over 70% of my degree…

My new timetable is only 7 hours a week! 3 hours on Tuesday, 3 hours on Thursday and an hour on Friday. This gives me loads of time to work on my project witch is going really well (thanks for asking :P)

My project, ELROND, can now do lots of the things I explained in this diagram a while ago, and there’s still plenty of time for refinements and improvements which should give me lots to talk about in my final report. This makes me happy :)

At the moment my housemates Will and Mike are attempting to eat for a month on only £1 of food a day. I’m helping make a weekly video diary for MADTV:

That’s my voice in the intro :P

What else has been going on? Well I’m starting to think more seriously about life after uni, what to do, where to live, whether to go travelling for a while before starting work and so on… So far I’m planning a couple of weeks in California with Charlotte before starting work for the rest of my life. I’d also like to go on holiday with my housemates, but that’s just an idea at the moment.

It’s all exciting times, and Charlotte and I are off to London this weekend to see Mr Scruff play at Koko. I went last year with Julie and it was AMAZING! I’m really looking forward to round 2!

  • Happiness. 8 out of 10
  • Tiredness. 1 out of 5
  • Workload. 3 out of 10
  • Last Meal. Kung Pao Chicken!
  • Song of the day. Ed Sheeran’s Plus Album, it’s all good :)
  • Thought for the day. I was there when this happened!
  • What I’m Doing Now. Thinking about buying a Linode

Monday, February 6, 2012

Bath Time

So since exams have finished, I’ve spent my time catching up on fresh air. Firstly with a trip to my sisters for grandma’s funeral. It’s never a good reason for seeing someone, but it was really nice to see my sister and James again so soon as I’d kind of resided myself to the fact that I probably wouldn’t see much of them for at least a couple of months.

What else has happened? I’ve bought a new amplifier for my speaker system. It didn’t come cheap, but the idea is that I can eventually buy new speakers and then have a pretty cool sound-system for whatever abode I end up in after university. I have dreams of a cinema projector, blackout curtains and a big comfy sofa… the day will come.

In other news, I have presented another MADTV video! This year we are producing a weekly news show to summarise the interesting goings-on on campus, and I present the 4th episode!

Listen out for my sign off at the end of the video :P

Last weekend Charlotte and I went to Bath, as in the place in Somerset. Despite the bitter cold and occasional snowfall, I fell in love with Bath. It’s such a small city, but packs a lot of character. And the rooftop pool at the Thermae Spa is ideal for washing your stress away after a busy few weeks of exams!

2012.02-Bath1

Today is the start of a new semester, in fact my last ever semester! Only two modules and a dissertation left and then I’m a free man… I’m already planning a holiday once all this university malarkey is over, and after that the world is my oyster :)

Thursday, January 26, 2012

I’ve got 99 problems but exams ain’t one…

Hello! Exams are over until the summer, my 4th and last one was on Wednesday and now I have a week before my new set of lectures start. It’s been a bit non-stop since I last wrote in here at the start of December, the jokes of Christmas and New Year quickly a distant luxury as coursework deadlines and exams loomed. But that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t treat you to some of the photographs from the New Year celebrations…

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The annual gathering of mine and Jake’s friends is fast becoming some sort of tradition, and good thing too because this year did not disappoint! All it takes is two dozen friends, some karaoke, alcohol and Who’s in the Bag to get things going! The cream carpet is still cream, and only one sprained wrist caused by a particularly flowery dance-off containing the “epileptic worm”…

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There was also a bit of typical London touristy things going on during the days before new year with Jake, Sarah and Charlotte about…

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The Science Museum, because there’s nothing wrong with being a geek, Winter Wonderland in Hyde Park, and a secret cocktail bar in Liverpool Street :) good times.

The rest of the time was less interesting, but certainly more productive! With two big essays to write, and four exams to revise for it’s been a busy 3 weeks; but I feel it has paid off as my exams seemed to go well. I should get my results in a few weeks, so only time will tell… But with those done that marks the point of 70%. A whole 70% of my degree is now complete! And only a few months left until that figure goes the full nine yards… scary and exciting times!

I’m genuinely looking forward to my last semester at university. I’m ready to study my final tow modules, and progress further with my final project work.

Job prospects are still up in the air to some degree, but hopefully I won’t have any issues in that department…

So much to look forward too, and so much going on! I’ll aim to keep you guys in the loop with everything from my project, modules, MADTV, holiday plans, work prospects… and I guess I should start thinking about what to do when all this university malarkey is all said and done. Knowing how quickly the last few years have gone it’ll be over before I know it Confused smile

  • Happiness. 8 out of 10
  • Tiredness. 1 out of 5
  • Workload. 5 out of 10
  • Last Meal. Nibbles. 
  • Song of the day. Paolo Nutini -  Last Request Piano Instrumental
  • Thought for the day. 70% of degree done. Damn.
  • What I’m Doing Now. Visiting my sister and then travelling to Weymouth tomorrow… Seems like I spend my life travelling sometimes :)

Sunday, January 15, 2012

InterRail video!

Travelling around Europe by train, summer 2011. Sophie and I visited Copenhagen, Hamburg, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Split, Dubrovnik, Rome and Venice in a month!

I know I’ve been all up on the radio silence recently, exam season is upon us! I have devised my top 40 moments of 2011 that we have to count down together when these exams are over, and start talking about my final semester at university! It’s the beginning of the end!!!