Sun, exams and substations

In response to the previous comment, it was the opposite. Everything stepped up a gear in term 3. Also in my defence it was a shorter term and went by in a flash.

So what did I get up to? The whole term sat in the shadow of exams. That doesn’t mean that i didn’t enjoy myself, just always with the nagging thought that I should be revising. I did try out some new techniques. Revising in the sun on the common: doesn’t work. Revising whilst watching a film with friends: doesn’t work. Revising whilst flatmates are playing hilarious things out the window to everyone in Glen: doesn’t work. Revising very early in the morning: doesn’t work. However what does work very well is multi-coloured notes! Teachers at school were always trying to make us make notes, but it always seamed pointless and I never did. Now, however, I’m actually having to learn lots of stuff. It all went fine in the end as these things always do.

There were lots of sunny days

and your never too old to play silly games.

I now totally can’t wait till next year. Living with this set of amazing people is going to be such fun. I get more excited every time I think about it. My future house mates and me at a ball:

This then brings me to my current location. I had to leave uni really early to start work, my summer placement with sponsoring company ABB. (can I call myself a “scholar”, since I have scholarship?) This really sucked at the time. Everyone was finishing exams and loads of nice things were planned. However the two days I had after my last exam I packed so tight and saw as many people as possible to say bye. Packing up my room was very sad. It was wrong seeing so quiet. I miss that place and everyone there so much. It’s weird, I even miss all the hilarious but annoying things my flatmates would do when drunk late at night. They were an amazing bunch. The icing on the cake was when they all helped me move all my stuff outside to the car like one big team.

Anyway, I’m now in Stone, Staffordshire designing electricity substations. It can be a drag sometimes but can also be really interesting. I’ve just got to enjoy where I am now and not just wish it over. But getting home from a long day and having lovely letters from friends waiting for me and all the photos plastered over my wall beats the slight bit if loneliness and puts a huge smile on my face

Where do holidays go?

Possibly to the same place the rest of my time seems to disappear to. I can rule out the possibility of it being the same place as socks, since that turned out to be my holdall travel bag thing. I went on a weekend trip a while back and put dirty socks into the convenient side pocket. Upon return I total forgot this and for some time I was sure I could last much longer before being forced to do laundry. It was a happy day when I discovered them again.

But that’s not where I’m going with this post. If there is one thing that university has opened my eyes to it’s the vast amount of things there are in this world. So much exciting things to experience, discover, learn, read, watch, write, understand see and do. I now fully understand what people mean when they say every second is precious. Plus the fact I’m getting old. Being treated like a proper grown-up no longer a ‘young person’ is a bit weird. And with people getting married and other very grown up things all adds to the oldness feeling. Suddenly life doesn’t seem infinitely long any more. I regret so much the long summers previous where I have done absolutely nothings. Diddly squat. Therefor I pledged to try and make more off my free time. At uni there is so much happening being bombarded with work and socialising and things to go to. That’s all totally great but there’s no time for reading and generally becoming more ‘cultured’. This is where holidays come in.

So where to start in this whole reading adventure. Hmm. This has always been my problem. I enjoy reading, the wonderful vivid and diverse stories, getting you to think about so many things. However what book should I pick up first? I’ve really previously just been contained within the occasional read in my dads collection, mainly science fiction. And very limited at that. So new start, I google “101 books to read before you die” as I vaguely remember my GCSE English teacher producing something along those lines. First result. No idea how well disputable that list is but it’s got a high page rank so it can’t be all bad. Starting off with the ones in the house not read, beginning with animal farm since I’ve always wanted to read that anyway, I’m now working though the list. Should be able to find most of them in Southampton’s library’s but progress will be slower there. Still I’d rather read them slowly and get more out of them.

But I’ve also set myself a ambitious amount of work to do. Somehow the time just slips by with far less done than I’d hoped. And I’m off to go walking in the Brecon Beacons next week, organised along the lines of a similar, see-the-world-not-just-sit-at-home drive. Still, I’m just about managing to get myself out of bed at a non-student time before 12 to waste less time .

Any recommendations for books that a very poorly read but enthusiastic reader should make a priority? That’s if anyone still reads this after my poor effort in terms of blogging recently.

End of term is approaching

This post has been sitting half written for me to finish and publish for a long time now. Since pancake day in fact, but now I finally get round to doing it it’s a bit out of date. I’m currently sat in the ECS undergrad computer lab. Just finished lab prep for tomorrow and some coursework. Wednesdays are pretty productive for me. I have a 9am lecture then just go here and work for the rest of the day until 5ish. Always get loads done. Got half of another piece of coursework and some math to do then I think I’ll call it a day. This term has shot by so fast! I’m coming home on Saturday and have a strange mix of feelings about it. Whilst really looking forward to the break will defiantly miss uni so much.

Now for the pancakes:

At uni I have discovered many wonderful things. One of which is that true pancakes consist of as much sugary goodness you can cram on at once. Yum!

“Next time it will be snatching handbags”

Only students could pull off something like this: http://www.dailyecho.co.uk/news/4144698.Mass_pillow_fight_hits_city_centre/ The comments are priceless, and it was top story for quite a while.

Alas I didn’t take part even though I would have loved to. Been part of the group on facebook but in the end didn’t have the time to go down and join in. I regret it, looks awesome.

It’s been an amazing sunny day full of Frisbee and work for me here.

Toilet Humour

Exams do strange things to people. During exam period the library becomes packed with frantically worried and stressed people, and it can be quite a tense place. Desks are critically short and people prowl the library waiting to pounce on a seat, given up when somebody finally submits to the fate of the examiner overlords and leave. Anyone making the slightest noise will get the stair of death over the desks. Despite this there is always a couple somewhere who seam oblivious to all this and sit next to each other chatting away annoying everyone.

Another fact I have to continually remind myself here is how educated everyone is. At night I can here people getting back in the early hours a little intoxicated, whom you can’t help stereotyping, but then you here them drunkenly discussing Plato. I will sit in the electronics and computer science undergrad computer lab and the people all around me are discussing deeply technical problems, solving incredibly complicated real world problems.

So join these two points and you will find that in the male toilet cubicle in the library has become some vent for people to graffiti over the exam period.

Some are rather crude, however others are more intelligent than your average toilet scribble.

And yes I did take pictures on my phone in the toilet.

“may quietly possess and enjoy the Property”

We have a house! Yep finaly after lots of loosing out on other houses we end up with the best one we’ve seen. It’s really big and has everything we wanted. Plus it’s really close to uni.

Not much of a looker from the outside but in good repair and is very nice on the inside. Nice to have that sorted.

Next Week

The CU events week is coming up and it’s incredibly exciting and a huge event on campus. Going to be mega busy.

A week off

So where did I leave off last. Well exams were looming and we were looking for a house. Still no house but exams are over and forgotten about.

My last exam was last Monday so over the second week of the exam period along with most other first years I had a week off. Lots of people went home but lots of us stayed behind. It has been a really good week. For once everyone has no work to do at all. Some of our adventures include the ones listed below. I actually love Southampton and it’s location. There are also all the little adventures here in Southampton and in kitchens all over but they don’t have lots of pictures.

Wednesday. Venturing to the New Forest.

Plan was to get the train to Beaulieu Road, walk to Ashurst to get the train back. However it was very wet and muddy!

We also evidently lacked the necessary skills as we soon became completely and utterly lost in a forest for 2 hours. I blame it all on the lack of a compass. Later on we also found ourselves not entirely sure of which way to go wading through a bog with it beginning to get dark. Also had to make our way through a very muddy field through which cows had come recently, making it very difficult to extract your feet from the mud. It was all fine though and a thoroughly enjoyable bonding experience if nothing else. Also the New Forest is so beautiful.

Friday. Trip to the beach

Got the train down to Bournemouth. Once again student railcards are amazing. Of course beach in January is cold and windy, but good fun. It didn’t really rain much. Once you loose feeling in your feet the cold doesn’t bother you at all. Activities included paddling, running, fish and chips, sand castle building, long jumping and solving beam-bending problems in the sand.

Then on Monday as I was getting ready for a new semester I awoke to the following out of my window.

The snow really came. Southampton never gets snow. Maybe it was just being in a city when it snowed but it really caused chaos here. I saw cars literally skidding the length of the road to uni.

As students we exploited the opportunity for maximum enjoyment. After my first maths test I headed down to the common and found some friends from CU. The common is huge and one of my many favourite bits of Southampton.

Much fun followed, before I had to head to my boring Analogue electronics lecture. Today I had my first fields lecture which has lifted my hopes for this semester somewhat. Still not convinced about my subject but I’m not the kind of person to give up, its not nearly that bad, I do enjoy lots of it. Anyway all this excitement over I can go back to the student bubble. Every day is different and I love it.

Time to do work

Just a quick “I’m still here post”. Exams are looming and I’ve got several technical reports to write, so of course procrastination is not the increase. Hence the blogging. Another distraction important decision at the moment is finding a house. The 5 others I’m lucky enough to be sharing with are amazing and it’s rather exciting. However its also incredibly frustrating. Every house you like goes before you can even get a viewing and my first experiences with estate agents have not been favourable. Oh well its all good.

Carols by Candlelight

Last night was a lovely icy cold December evening, and the CU put on its annual carol services attend by over 2000 people. It was a great evening.

You may have seen this before but it’s worth watching.