All entries for March 2006

Frustration of work

Such a nice day and I'm stuck in the engineering building doing project work!! Arghh!! So much to do, and so little motivation time.

Oh well, hopefully Vikki will leave school early and I can have a valid reason to stop working! Awesome!

: 31 Mar 2006 11:24 |  Tags: Engineering |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Ireland!

Last weekend was the trip to Ireland briefly mentioned in the last entry. Was a very comedy filled weekend, resulting in some good stories to tell people in the future. Mainly to embarass people that went.

So, friday I left cov at around 10am and headed home to Kent. I detoured to Billericy (Essex) to my grandparents for lunch on the way. Arriving about 12 and getting lunch half an hour later! Ham, egg and chips! Yum! So leaving there around 2 I headed over the Dartford bridge to bluewater to meet my sister on her break at work and buy some Krispy Kreme doughnuts!! I even managed to resist eating any of the dozen I bought.

3pm I leave there and head back to my house, only about 10 minutes away, so get some time to chill at home and watch tv. No-one in, so after finding my bottle of rum from barbados and packing that into my bag, I went to the pub down the road to 5:30pm and aimed for Gatwick! The journey however was much quicker than anticipated and I arrived at 6:20pm. So had to wait around the airport until 7 for chrisi to arrive, and then viks, emma and nikki. (The doughnuts were much appreciated by all!) So general airport waiting drinking guiness and checking in (with the doughnuts making it through customs too). Arrived in Cork at about 1030 and got taken to Tesco's to load up with food for the weekend. Load up we did! With 7 of us in a 7 seater car, all our luggage and all the shopping…. Was an interesting journey for 2 hours to the cottage in Adrigol were we stated!

Saturday was a general day of relaxing and drinking and eating. We went for a kind of walk/climb up a nearby mountain type thing… I ended up falling flat on my ass! Completely covered in mud in my new coat too! But was comical indeed! The evening entailed a drinking game of watching titanic…. interesting to say the least! But really the only way to watch titanic!

Sunday a few of us took viks and emma back to the airport as they had work monday, the journey was long and the amount of rain made it funny to try and corner on Irish roads at crazy speeds! (Wish I was driving at points!) Was sad to drop them at the airport and head back to the cottage, but we still had another day of crazyness!

After we ate when we returned we played 'pass-out' the drinking game, and a kind of very very wrong version of spin the bottle involving dares, truths and various other rules (who says we are too old!) Thankfully I was exempt from most of it!!! (Thanks Vikki :-) Phew!) What happened during the drunkeness should probably not be repeated here! Or anywhere the matter! lol.

Up monday morning at 630, this was after no 3 hours sleep. We had to pack and get the cottage clean. Then try and leave for our flight. The problem here however was there were 8 of us to fit in the 7 seater.... Was a little bit of a squash with all our stuff in the car too! Ended up nearly dying being a lot of pain all the way to the airport.

The flight back was a good one, apart from the amount of turbulence during takeoff and landing!! Was fun though I guess! Played Badminton in the evening for a couple of hours, did the rag quiz and then finally ate around midnight! Then collapsed!! lol. Was a good weekend, but a long and drunken one!

Was good fun, but next time would like to look around more of Ireland! Planning a road trip there in the summer (possibly with Viks) to just drive around and see where the roads take us! Hopefully can relax more then than this weekend!!

Back to work/recovering for me….....

: 29 Mar 2006 16:00 |  Tags: Adrigol Guiness Ireland |  Comments (3) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Two entries in a day! Must be bored!

Ok, so I'm working in F211 (which is the engineering computer room). It's not a bad place to work really. It's warm, has a nice bright red paint theme going on, and has lots of computers/printers/and power for my laptop. So why does it seem to be difficult to focus on work!?

I have probably checked my email several times by now whilst doing my report. Done around 600 words this morning in the last hour and a bit on it, but mind keeps drifting to other things. Pretty much anything else, like food. Or wondering what the high pitched noise in my car is!? Or even wondering how Vikki's getting on in school (teaching, not learning…well may be learning, but learning how to teach I guess…)

Lots of wondering, now wondering how I can get my report moving past the stage i'm stuck on now. Its got to the point where I may need to actually start calculating things and writing about the answers. Up til now I have been writing the introduction and theory sections, with a massive literature review in there too. Must start being organised and working through it. Only a few weeks left!

Although looking forward to having another weekend off this weekend. Ireland here we come!

My experiment! Looking back this picture was the first instability I recorded! It seems so long ago now, and yet strangely the maths of it still screws with my head!!

: 21 Mar 2006 11:59 |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Early is good!

9am and I've been up for almost two and a half hours! This whole getting up early thing is good! It means the days are really long so technically a lot of work can be done! Although the chance I'm going to use it to it's maximum potential is quite low. That would mean spending all day on campus again. Did that yesterday, and did a fair amount of work. But had to get some Redbull to keep me going!

The good point of being up so early though is that I'm feeling more awake during the day, and getting into the routine of being up for a long time. That worked well in the summer (4hours sleep a night for around a month) and I felt more awake then having more than 8 hours per night! Thats crazy though! I must be slightly weird! lol.

So I guess I should get to campus soon, and carry on with project work. There seems so much to do, and with other coursework to do soon and WiM straight in the middle of it all I better get on with it. Today is going to be a boring day I can tell. Maybe I should rethink my first statement, if I hadn't got up until 10 or 11am the day would be so much easier to fill!

Oh well! I should stop procrastinating, good though it is. Maybe I will write again later during times of bordem!

: 21 Mar 2006 09:08 |  Comments (2) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Yey no more buses!

I finally decided to take my car and get it fixed this morning. I think I was given enough signs during the week. For example standing in the rain for half an hour for a bus yesterday, then while on the bus the last two days I kept seeing a van parked near sainsburys in tile hill. Now this seemingly innocent van had alternator repairs/replacements slapped all over it in big black and orange writing. Why it was parked randomly in tile hill is probably a good advertisement. It obviously worked though. So I started my car after a brief time of coughing and complaining (well it has been sitting in the same place for three weeks now and not moved once!) So after a trip back to Earlsdon they fit a new alternator for me in twenty minutes! Legends!

The newfound happiness of having my car back forced me to get a car wash, some petrol, oil and I even fixed the radio so that I can now pick up radio stations! (It has only been able to play CDs since I bought the car two years ago!) So all in all has been a good day. Sunshine too for a brief while!

So while its going well, I'm in the engineering dept attempting to do some project work! After little sleep in not sure how long I will last, but I guess all I can do is have a go!

: 15 Mar 2006 12:11 |  Tags: Alternator Car Engineering |  Comments (4) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Pre–WiM

Writing about web page http://www.rev.org.uk

Pre-Wim…. Crazy time in the revelation calender. It's a weekend designed with the purpose of getting the ball rolling on organising WiM (Week in March, although this year in april. Strange I know!). WiM is essentially where over 100 people meet up for a week, learn around 15 songs in that week from scratch (band too) and then put on a concert at the end of the week.

So pre-WiM is where all the people that have some kind of role in the organisation and running of the week meet up to.. umm.. organise I guess. So my 'job' is media coordinator. I think this means I have to make sure the t-shirts for the week are designed and ordered and ready to take there on time. I have to organise the publicity of the concert during the week. Such as designing and printing posters and flyers to hand out during the week, as well as printing programmes/tickets for the concert. This seems a lot to do really, what with my third year to hand in the week after and other work to do too. should be ok if I organise and delegate well.

So the weekend involved a late night in the pub on friday night, always a good thing by the way! Then up early saturday to learn a couple of songs to sing during the weekend, all day organising stuff and thinking of a theme for the week. Then another later night in the pub saturday, preceeded however by some…umm.. bastards let call them, stealing someones laptop, and Vikki's phone/purse and (brandnew) satnav from one of the rooms we were staying in!

So kind of had to go for a walk for 45mins to just chill (freeze in the cold more like!) and not get angery. Although was feeling very angery that just a few yards away from where I was cooking dinner they stole stuff from friends!

Sunday was another early start (8am ish) and then singing in the morning, followed by a massive roast dinner on the way home (thanks Chrisi's mum! legend!). so now a little shattered and a bit of winding down with little to do… Hence the blog methinks!

: 12 Mar 2006 20:22 |  Tags: Music Rev Revelation Rock-Gospel Choir |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Thursday evening…

To add to my evening of general bordom and randomness I thought I should write an entry here, while my laptop still has charger, to make people like Thor and Ali happy. Just sitting here watching 'My Name is Earl' on E4.

(by the way, my laptop is very annoying – with random crashing/slow start-up from complete shutdown/random turning off. But it does have amazing battery power. It must have lasted 6 hours today!)

Well, there's not a lot to write about really with it being the end of term and all. A lot of work has been done recently, which makes a change! But I wish they wouldn't given me a 5000 word report at the same time as final year project!

Looking forward to the holidays though. With a weekend away this weekend in Newmarket, and meeting up with some good friends too! Should be fun. So at least that comes before the crazy amount of project work and presentation preparation to do over easter!

Although the comedy of 'My Name is Earl' is funny, I think I will try to stay up and watch 'Supernatural' over on ITV2. Although thats not for another hour, and with a dead car I need to get up early to head to campus…

Hmm… Oh well.

: 09 Mar 2006 22:28 |  Comments (3) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

randomness again…

Ok, so bored of doing work for the moment so will procrastinate with a bit of blogging…

I have not only got a huge third year project looming over everything, but we have a lovely 5000 word report to do for the end of term too. So that measn a trip to the library! (Shocking I know, being an engineer and all!) After a trip there and a cold walk back to my laptop with a heavy book all about high-performance racing engine design I now have to have a break.

Also another exciting point to add the the week, my car has decided to have a little battery light turn on all the time, and a high pitched noise now comes out of it when driven. Now after looking at the fan belt (nope, not slipping or broken) it must be either the alternator or the battery itself. So at the moment it seems I'm just running on the remains of whatever the battery has left. Which makes it interesting, as i don't think its a good idea to use any electronics if possible so that I may still have some lights if I need to drive at night. The problem stopping me from fixing it is that alternators are pretty expensive, and it's the end of an expensive term, so I may have to find a way to steal some money from somewhere.

At least I don't really need my car till next weekend. (althought getting the bus maybe a cold and depressing act! Sorry to all those who take the bus, but I do like my car!)

There is also an insane crazy busy exciting weekend ahead. It's "Raise the Roof". The Rev spring concert. Which is going to be good! Sold many tickets already, but there will be many on the door too. So come along saturday at 7pm in Methodist central hall, coventry. I will be there from 9am to help set up lighting and sound stuff, so although no doubt will be shattered it's still going to be amazing! lol.

I best get to working again, or now as Rich is here I may be able to finally finish the programmes for the concert if we are going to get them printed by saturday.

(And the sun is kind of shining on my screen which makes it very hard to type!)

: 01 Mar 2006 15:07 |  Tags: Car Concert Engineering Music Report Rev Revelation Rock-Gospel Choir |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem