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.

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…

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!

• See the Golden Gate Bridge
• Go to Alcatraz
• Drive down the West coast in a convertible
• See the Hollywood sign
• Drive Sunset Boulevard
• See the view from Mulholland Drive
• Walk the walk of fame
• Go to Six Flags Magic Mountain
• Walk down the Las Vegas strip
• Ride The Big Shot at the top of the Stratosphere Tower
• Visit the Hoover Dam
• Raft through the Grand Canyon

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 :)

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….

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.

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

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.

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 :)

• 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)

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…

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!

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 :)

• Happiness. 9 out of 10
• Tiredness. 1 out of 5
• Workload. 3 out of 10
• Last Meal. Soup and fish
• Song of the day. Civil Sound – More Than I Could Say
• Thought for the day. Nostalgic times…
• What I’m Doing Now. Getting food, because I have none :(

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…

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”…

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

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

• 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 :)