Angry Scousers.

I didn't have chance to write a blog yesterday because of lectures and writing up the neat copy of my homework in the morning, helping people with the homework around noon, and then walking three or four thousand steps to The Plough so that Liz and I could be picked up to go to my Grandad's for his 80th birthday celebration. 

There was some nice food on the buffet and five big cakes including the birthday cake.  I only had formidable slices of lemon cheesecake and carrot cake to get my 5-a-day, leaving the chocolate cake for other people.  I wanted to eat all the continental meats too but of course I had to leave some for other people.  We got back to Lancaster well after bed time and, after collecting Liz's moistifying cream, soon fell asleep. 

I had my usual 9 and 10 o'clock lectures this morning and I could barely keep my eyes open.  It didn't help that the first half hour of Statistics was just the lecturer going through the homework questions at great length.  When we finally got onto the "new" (we've seen most of it in A-Level F.Maths) material we sat for the remaining twenty minutes on page 26.  It was time to go before we turned over. One page per lecture isn't going to be enough to finish the module on time at all. 

The lecture on Series wasn't so bad but I'll have to go back through the notes and try to absorb the information more when I'm not so tired.  I spent half the lecture distracted by Adam and Alex's game of 3D noughts and crosses. 

We might finally get our results for the test we did before Easter in the workshop later. 

"I'm going to stop standing up now."

This morning Liz and I got up nice and early so that we could go for a healthy jog before lectures started.  I was quite surprised that Liz was up for it and didn't just insist on having a big lie in. 

It started off well and Elizabeth looked like she might even make it the whole way around campus, as long as we kept at a slow pace.  However, by the time we got past the roundabout there was some deep panting and gasping for air going on beside me and we had to walk to the corner of campus near County college.  We ran down that side of campus before a bit more walking and so the loop continued. 

When we were almost on the final straight Liz was very itchy and her skin had come up all bumpy like it does on her face when she's cold; just a lot worse and without the chill.  We walked back to Bowland with her making sounds that suggested she was struggling to breathe, and then she collapsed onto the bed.  After a while she tried to have a shower but it didn't go well and she ended up collapsing onto the bed again and, this time, making it rather wet.  I decided it would be best to stay with her to make sure she recovered and I ended up missing a lecture that I wouldn't have been able to concentrate in at all and, according to Adam, was mostly just a recap of what we went through on Friday.  I also missed my Universe as an Art seminar in which we were supposed to practice our presentation, but the story goes that the first group to go took so long that three groups, including ours, didn't have time to perform anyway.  We'll meet up this weekend and have a run through then instead.  I sort of wish those from my group who went to the seminar today had had to do the presentation without me.  I'd have liked them to have been asked questions about the project to see if they knew what was going on.  I've explained it to them a few times and I'm sure it isn't that complicated but if a tutor asks about it when I'm there they all insist that they've got no idea and hand over to me. 

I went to everything else today and spent the three hours I have off between two and five getting on with my maths homework.  My Rcode for MATH105 is amazing and I'm rather proud of it.  It does all things that are much more advanced than we should be expected to know.  If I don't get full marks for it I'll be very annoyed. 
The MATH115 homework isn't quite as good but it's out of 30 and capped at 25 so I can afford to lose 5 marks and still get 100%.  It takes some high level mathematics to work that one out. 

Common People

Despite starting the lecture with an announcement about the fact that there will be no lecture on the upcoming bank holiday, Alex Belton still gave us a short break about 25 minutes into the hour. 

That was my only lecture for today so I'm going to have dinner with Liz now and then afterwards I shall try to get my homework done. 

I was training my Scizor on Pokémon before and I got a +10 speed on level up.  Twice.  It was epic.  Now I just need a swarm of Luvdisc so I can get some decent moves for it. 

Meanwhile, Lucy was on MSN telling me that she was going to vote Tory in the upcoming election, and that I'd jumped on the bandwagon for intending to vote LibDem.  Yes Lucy, of course I have...

Around the Roses.

I finished my UAAA essay/story at 1:10am today.  I'm happy with it as a story but I'm not sure I've got enough sciencey bits in it to get a decent mark.  I hope I've done OK though.  Fingers crossed.  I'll post it as a blog after I get the result back in a few weeks. 

I only managed to squeeze in about five hours of sleep last night so I'm most likely going to fall asleep in my last lecture of the week.  I'm still going to go though.  I had a look at the past exam papers for UAAA and the questions look quite difficult.  So much for it being a doss subject.  I might even start revising for it as early as next week.  I should start looking over the old maths modules soon too because I think I've forgotten quite a lot of it by now.  I miss the days when I could learn something once in about five minutes and it would be in my brain forever. 

We're supposed to have picked our modules for the next two or three years of our time at university, but I've ran into a couple of problems.
Firstly, most of the second year modules are compulsory so we only have to choose what we do the third and fourth years.  How were supposed to decide what we want to do in the third year I don't know.  Would I like learning about groups and rings to such a high level?  I won't even find out what they are at a low level until this time next year.  So that's silly.  Even if I did some research into what groups and rings were, maybe I'd be able to decide if the first, introductory lecture of 100 lectures was going to be interesting.  The calculations that followed might be horrible and not what I want to be spending my time on at all. 
The second problem is that I can't find any fourth year modules to enrol on.  Even the compulsory dissertation isn't showing up so I have no idea what I'm supposed to do about that. 

My MATH105 lecturer is in hospital today for a check up on the leg he ruined skiing over Easter.  This means we're going to have Amanda Turner giving the lecture instead.  Oh joy.  In case you've forgotten, or I haven't mentioned it before (but I'm sure it's something that would have made its way into a blog), she is the one who stutters a lot. 

All these numbers are numbers.

My UAAA story is 2344 words at the moment.  I like it but the science has only just come into it so I hope the person marking it enjoys it enough to keep their attention focussed on it long enough to get to the clever bit.  I'm up to chapter 10 at the moment and that's where I'll stop until tomorrow.  It will probably end up being about 3500-4000 words.  Fortunately there is no upper limit on the word count as long as it's interesting so fingers crossed that it is.  I might post it as a blog when it's done so all the hundreds of people who read my blog can have a look.  No promises though. 

We had the first Math105 lecture today.  It was extremely boring.  The guy taught us how to use the maths program 'R'.  The same maths program we've been using for the last five weeks. 

In the UAAA seminar our group decided on who was doing what for the presentation and also when we were going to meet up in the library to make the PowerPoint or whatever.  That took three 50 minutes.  Productive. 

Pizzetta for tea because Liz was going on the SSAGO social so we didn't really have time to cook. 

Sir, Yes Sir!

I've finally started my coursework for UAAA.  The sheet that had the essay titles on suggested I "weave a creative story", so I've decided to do that.  I'm not 100% convinced it's going to be any good as a piece of coursework and I'm not totally sure I know where I'm going to put the science in.  If I had another week I'd finish the story and then decide if it's good enough, and if not I'd do a boring essay instead.  I don't have another week though so the story had better turn out great. 
It's set in a distant future where Humans have expanded into the local super cluster of galaxies and are the dominant race over all the aliens.  They're a bit evil, even if they don't realise it, and the main characters in the story have stolen a spaceship and are trying to find proof that Humans aren't as amazing as they say they are.  The plan is that that proof will be the sciencey bit that I get the marks for.  It'll have to be a fair chunk and I don't know how interesting it's going to be as a sci-fi storey but I'm running out of time and I need to get something done and hopefully it will be fun to write.  If I'm lucky I'll get a lot done tomorrow night when Liz is at her SSAGO social. 

Today was the first day of lectures after the Easter holiday.  I only had one maths lecture and half of that was taken up by people giving a short sales pitch on the Student Associates Scheme (SAS) which is basically three weeks working in a local high school / 6th form.  Also you get a £600 tax free bursary if you complete it.  The money isn't as valuable as the work experience will be though.  Becoming a teacher has always been the plan B of what to do when I finish my degree and I've never been able to come up with a plan A.  Would I like teaching?  Maybe, maybe not.  Hopefully I'll be accepted for the SAS project and be able to find out. 

For tea we had duck and bacon cooked in 1½ cups a whole bottle of wine.  The duck bit was very nice and so was the rest, even if the rest did taste quite wine-like.  Maybe next time Liz's will stick a bit closer to the recipe.  Then again, it would have been a waste of most of a bottle of wine because we wouldn't have had it otherwise.  

¬(Yatta!)

I ended up not doing any of my Universe as an Art essay.  I did, however, get some good Pokémon so it wasn't all bad. 

We didn't walk into town on Thursday either; instead we went yesterday.  My parents put some money into my bank account before we did any shopping but I ended up spending more than double the amount.  I'll have to get that back at some point.  When we were looking for the recycling bin for Elizabeth's can of Vimto we stumbled upon Waterstones and I decided to go in and see if the new Halo book was in.  It wasn't.  Not that I'd have bought the look-at-the-pages-to-read version but it would have been nice to see the front cover and read the synopsis. 

Last night, just before we came to mine, we bumped into Alex from Liz's corridor.  Turns out he's been playing the new Pokémon game too and his mind looked like it was going to blow when I told him about my sneaky way of... acquiring... certain Pokémon.  It won't work at uni though so he was rather disappointed.  As was I when I found out. 

After hatching a few (hundred, or so it seemed) Eevee eggs we watched Doctor Who and then Russell Howard's Good News.  Heroes would be saved for this morning. 

So we woke up this morning ready to watch Heroes but for some reason it wasn't on iPlayer.  It still isn't.  Why?  Was it even on TV?  Two different pages on the iPlayer website contradicted each other as to what was actually on BBC2 last night so I'm very confused about the whole situation. 

Cutting corners.

Yesterday I decided to be fit and go for a jog around campus. It was much harder than I remember it being last time I did it (about 18 weeks ago back when I was still part of the rowing society). 

I have just woken up.  I was considering another run this morning but now I'm actually awake enough to think about it logically I've changed my mind.  I'll sit down on my comfortable chair instead.  Maybe I'll start my Universe as an Art essay/poem.  Maybe.  Of course, that's only if I can't find anything else to do instead. 

Liz and I might walk into town after to do some shopping for snack type things.  I might even do a big shop and just get the money off my parents at the weekend if they come and visit. 

I can't feel my torso!

I've had a brilliant week staying at Liz's house.  As always I was made to feel very welcome and at home and all the other things which make staying at someone's house an enjoyable experience.

I travelled down by train on Thursday.  I left my house, big bag in hand, at about 14:35 and arrived in Durham at 19:50.  I spent most of the journey listening to Halo: The Fall of Reach but I didn't quite finish it because I decided to pay closer attention to the stations we were passing through when I got closer to my destination.

Liz and I went into town to meet up with Caitlin on the Friday.  We also bumped into Ross and, later, Hazel; albeit for a short time only. 

On Saturday Elizabeth went out for a meal with Rangers Hazel, Caitlin, Jen and baby Sam; and I was left in the house to watch the new Doctor Who with Liz's parents.

We were supposed to meet up with Maddy and Jen for all-you-can-eat Chinese food on Sunday but Jen was ill so it was just the three of us.  The food was great and I wish I could have eaten more but I was quite full by the end of it and decided it was sensible to stop.  I didn't want a repeat of the time I had all-you-can-eat pizza after college back in L6...

Yesterday was Monday and Monday was the day we came back to uni.  It was also the day that I finally finished Halo: The Fall of Reach.  We went to Morecambe beforehand and had a picnic on the path that runs along the beach, and then we looked around the shops and walked to the end of the pier and back.  The sun was shining and it was lovely. 

We all went to Bella Italia for tea and I had a Pepperoni Pizza and a Banoffee Italiano pudding.  Both were fantastic.  Elizabeth had a little complain because she seemed to feel that all her family was being rude to her or making fun at her expense and then Hazel burst out laughing. 

I wish the next 10 weeks could be as good as the last few days but I'm sure they'll go downhill as soon as lectures begin, and then again even more-so when the lectures end, because that signals the start of the examination period.

Hut moy with yor ruthum stuck.

I was just listening to MJOLNIR Mix from the Halo 2 soundtrack and it's such an epic track.  It made me wonder if I think it's epic because of the actual music, or if it's just because I subconsciously associate it with big battle moments on the game.  Would someone who hasn't played the game feel the same level of excitement?  Would they feel the adrenaline?  Or is that adrenaline boost akin to Pavlov's dog's salvations after hearing the ding of a bell? 

As a matter of fact it does say Colonel on my uniform!

I had my hair cut today so now it's really quite short.  I like it though and it should be short enough to last another three months at uni. 
I also went to the dentist even though I didn't have an appointment or my exemption certificate that means I don't have to pay.  I tried to explain to my mum that it was all going to go wrong if I just turned up but she wouldn't listen because she knows best.  She does not know best.  She said that I'd just have to say I don't pay and they'd tick a box and it would be fine.  However, there are about 10 boxes on the form all for similar things and, even though I narrowed it down to two possibilities, I didn't know which box it was.  Eventually my mum came in after parking the car and she said it was whichever but the receptionist only ticked that box grudgingly, and I can't blame her - I didn't have any proof of what I was claiming.  Just another example of my mother not knowing anything.  Another example is the banabarna cake she made.  It didn't contain a single Mars Bar!  Ruined. 

I was supposed to meet Lucy for a catch up after the dentist but two texts have been sent from my phone and no replies have been received, she's not on MSN or Facebook and that means there's pretty much no way to contact her.  Oh well, I tried.  I suppose I'll just start packing for tomorrow while my mum is home to tell me where she has hidden my things. 

This morning I read an article on the Halo Wiki about contradictions and discrepancies in the Halo universe, paying special attention to the discrepancies in Fall of Reach, the book I've been listening to lately.  There are so many it's quite unbelievable.  They range from things like 75 children fitting in a 12 person dropship, to people who have lost their left arm later saluting with it, to male crew members becoming female crew members further on in the chapter, to peoples names changing, to ranks changing, and so on.  But it's still a great book; the errors just mean it's pretty much essential to listen to it rather than read it so you aren't tempted to turn back a few pages and check up on things you think aren't quite right.  Honestly, I hadn't even noticed any of the mistakes until I read the article. 

That's a lot of tissue

Kick Ass was amazing.  Mike and I got the train to St Helens today to watch it and have a bit of a catch up.  That was nice considering I haven't seen him since before we started uni. 

We both very much enjoyed the film, laughing out loud on more than a few occasions and, I think, both secretly knowing exactly what was going on in Dave's mind during most of his scenes in the first half of the film.

I had half a pizza for tea because I wasn't too hungry after all the sweets I'd eaten in the cinema, and then I fell asleep listening to my book - Halo: The fall of Reach by Eric Nylund.  I've read it before though so I won't need to go through the faff of going back through the last chapter trying to find where it was up to when I dozed off.  But don't let my tiredness fool you, it's a really good book and I would highly recommend it to anyone interested in futuristic battles with an invading alien army.  Listening to the audiobook is much better than actually reading it though because you get Todd McLaren telling you the fine details, such as file locations (of the H:\\UNSCSecCom\CP\ScavVir\SysDOC6\Station:Cradle variety) that you would normally skim past because you don't care where it's stored in the Iroquois' memory banks; after all it's just jargon, read out to you. 
Listening to the events unfold above Sigma-Octanus IV before the fleet arrived would have had me on the edge of my seat had I been sat down, and when they executed what became known later on as the Keyes' Loop, it made me want to cheer; I had to fight to keep my enthusiasm inside or else I'd have looked like a lunatic.  I've got just over a couple of hours left so I'll get that listened to on the train to Durham on Thursday.  I just hope the next book in the series, Halo: The Flood by William C. Dietz, is as good as this one.

Loading Windows XP

Good day today.  I found a way to get the event only Pokémon off the internet for free so now I have those.  I also helped myself to a second and third copy of some for Liz and Mike. 

Not much else went on.  I've been asked to set up the old computer again but I refuse.  My parents don't seem to understand that it won't do anything because it's a load of ancient rubbish.  Just because it was expensive and top-notch back in the day doesn't mean it's worth a penny now.  I don't think all the wires are in the box anyway and now that the router is downstairs it wouldn't have internet.  So I'm not doing it.  I'll have to be very busy between now and Thursday so I can avoid the grumpy moaning and "I'll remember this when you want me to do something for you!" lectures. 

Chevron 7 : LOCKED!

Went to my grandad's today and took him to the cemetery to see my nan's grave for Easter.  I had a caramel magnum and it was amazing, even if it did taste more like coffee than caramel. 

When I got back I decided to have a strum on my guitar for the first time in ages and, although it was good fun, I have forgotten how to play most of the songs I knew due to having gone for so long without practice.  After getting through Generator, Sorrow, Dearly Beloved, Skyscraper and Reach For The Sky, I had run out of ideas and had to find something else to do.  That something else was watch the new episode of Stargate: Universe.  It was OK but I miss the old days with the Goa'uld and the cheesey made up technical jargon. 

Now I'm going to watch Heroes because I forgot it was on last night. 

If you're out of options then you're using the wrong tactics

We went for another walk today and Ma came too.  She complained that no one was talking to each other but refused to walk close enough to my dad to have a conversation with him.  She said he was going too fast but really he was going at the same speed as us but 10 yards ahead.  I was listening to the Halo: The Fall of Reach audiobook on my iPod so there was no chitchat with me either - just the was I like it.

We ended up at a pub we haven't been in for years because it was always dead and apparently the beer wasn't the best.  I don't know about the beer today but we were the only people in there besides two staff.  The lemonade was very lemony though. 

The rest of my day included sorting out when I'm going to meet up with friend s  next week before I go away for another three months, and Pokémon.  As soon as I'd worked out when I'd meet up with people I was told about a dentist check-up appointment that had been made and it ruined things a bit but hopefully it won't take too long and I'll be able to squeeze everything in.

I'm quite happy at the moment because I just caught Entei and Raikou on Pokémon.  They're a pain to catch because of reasons that I won't go into because either you already know or you don't really care.

Now it's time to watch the new Doctor Who.  Let's hope it doesn't ruin a good day.

Blastoise used bubblebeam!

I haven't written a blog since last week!

Here's what you've missed:

• Today we played Pokémon. 
• Today we went to Liverpool, looked at sculptures in the Tate, bought Pokémon Heart Gold and then went home and played Pokémon.
• Today we walked around Haigh Hall and then went home and played Pokémon.  
• Today we played Pokémon and watched Heroes, QI, The Bubble and South Park. Me and Elizabeth have been together for six months tonight!
• Today we played Pokémon and watched FlashForward. 
• Today we played Pokémon.
• Today we played Pokémon and then Liz went home.   
• Today I played Pokémon. 

Scatter "we watched Flight of the Concords" around a bit and you're all caught up with what I've been up to over the last week. 

There was some worry as to whether or not I'd be able to go and see Liz next week as was the plan because my journey was very much reliant on trains and there was talk of a strike.  It seemed like I'd have to stay home and just see her back at uni a few days later.  The strike is off though so it's all fine and dandy. 

Today I went for a walk with my dad.  We ended up in the pub (unsurprisingly) but it was OK because I was hungry and I like the baguettes.  We caught a bus back because the old man was tired.  My shoes are muddy.  The walk was great; it had it all - hills, roads, footpaths, mud, wind, rain, sun, warm, cold, blue, green, orange, talking, silence, and so on.  I'm going to try and persuade both my parents to get some similar exercise tomorrow. 
When I got in after the walk I asked my mum about the exercise she claims to do and she proceeded to demonstrate.  She put on an ancient exercise video and completed the "Yellow block".  It's the kind of thing we did at rowing to cool down and stretch off after circuits.  Suffice it to say she won't lose any weight if she does the Yellow block three times a week.