I’m a bit annoyed at the moment. I filled in the form to become an Analysis peer tutor again this year, and forgot to fill in the bottom of the form saying whether I could attend the meeting today or not – probably because I’m stupid. Got an e-mail yesterday at 2pm asking me whether I could attend, but I didn’t see it until 6pm when I got home – by which time, he wouldn’t get the e-mail until the following morning, making it too late for me to get in.

I got a rather apologetic e-mail saying they’d filled the groups and would e-mail me if someone doesn’t turn up, so I guess I’ll just have to wait and see. I doubt it’ll happen though. Quite annoying, really, since I enjoyed doing it last year and was very much hoping to do it this year. However, it’s out of my hands now and I suppose I’ll wait and see.

On the good side, I dropped Continuum Mechanics, since the lecturer obviously hasn’t learnt anything from Differential Equations in the first year. I’ll just sign up for something else instead – with over 100 CATS left to play with, I’m sure I’ll cope.

12:11 pm | Posted in Maths, University, Warwick Blogs | No Comments »

We had a good one today. Sat around for 20 minutes waiting for a lecturer to turn up to Groups and Representations. Another lecturer comes in, saying that the lecturer for this course decided that he didn’t want to do the course this year – as you do – so he’s going to run the Representation Theory module this term instead of next. As I was undecided about taking the module, I suppose it’s a good thing really since I don’t have to make a decision.

For those that care (regarding my previous entry), I decided to take Dynamical Systems and Manifolds, since Lie Groups isn’t running this year. Also, did anybody actually understand the notes written in Rings and Modules this afternoon? I have no clue whatsoever.

I’m signed up for a stupid amount of modules, but I’m thinking that it’s probably going to be a good idea to drop most of them in favour of taking some 3rd year modules next year. Having multiple clashes everywhere with everything just isn’t good – inevitably I have to write the notes up. Also considering dropping Continuum Mechanics (because it sucks) and the aforementioned module (because… it sucks).

In other, less maths related news, went out the other night to The Bar with Sarah Helen and Griff to karaoke night. Much fun was had by all, although I could only have a pint through the need to drive cars afterwards. That’s about it on the social front – I’m just too busy with lectures and other things to summon the energy to go out, which is a pain.

Anyway, I’m going to write a poster now. Going to be selling my copy of “Numbers and Functions” (RP Burn). If anyone’s interested, e-mail me or something.

7:04 pm | Posted in Maths, Personal, Warwick Blogs, Whining | No Comments »

So, back to maths and another year. Kind of looking forward to it, but there’s a lot of stuff to do this year, and I haven’t really got back into the swing of things yet. At the moment, I’m trying to prove a set is open, but I can’t get my head around it for the life of me. Considering this is one of the easier things to do, I should be able to do it – but never mind.

Spent most of last night playing around with the CSS and getting everything working again. I noticed Mark has used the same layout, so I’m a little chuffed about that. But no, apart from that, it’s been a pretty boring day. San Andreas has been a constant source of amusement; mainly finding new and more inventive ways to kill the main character. For instance, jumping out of the a military jet and landing without a parachute, or cycling off of the edge of a mountain. Ouch.

Currenly trying to get some work done, but a couple of my friends who are joining this year (to do Computer Science) have arrived on campus and want to say hi. It’s all rather depressing really, since I really want to get back on campus, even though I do enjoy living off-campus. Having a car helps, but it’s still a pain.

Anyway, I’m going to go to the Piazza now and force myself to have a pint. Oh, the hardship.

1:46 pm | Posted in Maths, Site Development, Warwick Blogs, XHTML/CSS | 3 Comments » | Show comments » | Hide comments » |

So, with less than a week before I go back, I have precisely no idea what modules I want to do at all. In a vague attempt to make a timetable, I’ve now got a list consisting of 223.5 CATS. Go me.

I suppose I just need to actually start going to some of the courses and sorting out in my head what I want to do. There’s no way I’m overloading much over 150, because there’s just too much work, but likewise I don’t want to drop too many and lose the added multiplier.

To make matters a little worse, I also got a nice e-mail today from the maths department:

According to OMR you have registered for MA458 Mathematical Recipes. I have been asked to inform you that this module is not, at the moment, going to be run. You should take this off your registrations.

Considering that was one of my two sole choices (the other being Manifolds), I now have to find another 4th year module to sign up for. So, in a word: screwed. Bah, humbug.

2:45 pm | Posted in Maths, University, Warwick Blogs | 1 Comment » | Show comment » | Hide comment » |

Well, that’s another year over. Sarah left yesterday which sucked as usual, but she’s coming back up a week on Saturday. Hence that isn’t too bad, but I still miss her.

Missed Alex’s barbeque today due to silly work-related badness, so I must apologise for that.

I shall be all over the country in the next few days, so don’t expect too many updates. I’m back home atm though if anyone wants to go out for a drink or something. Just give me a call or send an e-mail - I’d love to hear from anyone.

Until then…

8:21 pm | Posted in Personal, University | No Comments »

Got a 1st, with a Seymore average of 75%. Here’s a breakdown:

• Analysis III: 55%
• Algebra I: 68%
• Mathematical Methods II: 97%
• Partial Differential Equations: 74%
• Modelling Nature’s Non-linearity: 79%
• Algebra II: 58%
• Vector Analysis: 60%
• Metric Spaces: 75%
• Differentiation: 59%
• Essay: 78%
• Variational Principles: 88%
• Numerical Analysis: 99%
• Number Theory: 77%
• Introduction to Fluids: 61%
• Fortran for Scientists: 85%

Hurrah and all that. Off to get drinks. Be back later.

5:56 pm | Posted in Exams, Maths, University | 3 Comments » | Show comments » | Hide comments » |

Sitting the maths department, waiting for my results. Haven’t been quite this nervous in a while.

Crap.

2:25 pm | Posted in Exams, Maths | No Comments »

I could’ve sworn that I’d blogged yesterday. Oh well.

In site-related news, I’ve begun doing the changes I stated in my previous post. However, for the time being, they’re on hiatus - I’m not planning on doing any major projects any time in the next six months or so, hence I just got the feeling: “I can do this, but not just yet.” Too much going on at the moment for me to concentrate, really, and I don’t want programming to take up my entire life.

It’s results day tomorrow; I’m both dreading it and looking forward to it. At least I’ll know where I stand tomorrow, and that can only be a good thing. Checked my pigeon hole today, and got the new booklet entitled “Are you ready for Term 1?” Basically, it’s a list of introductory questions for a variety of courses taken in Term 1. Measure Theory has the delightfully named section “High-School Horrors”, doing integrals like:

I find it all rather intriguing really, since I’ve been wondering about these integrals ever since lower sixth form. But yes, I’m quite looking forward to the third year. I feel that I’m really going to get my teeth stuck into some interesting maths.

Interestingly, there’s a great big open outdoor Gala concert right outside maths which I’m planning on going and watching in a few minutes from the comfort of maths (there’s no chairs outside). Should be good fun, and there must be a thousand people all crammed onto the maths lawn. Brass Band, Wind Orchestra and the Symphony Orchestra are all playing - I feel that I should really re-join the Wind Orchestra since it was quite good fun. But we shall see how much time I have next year.

Anyway, time to go and beat some servers. I shall be back later.

9:24 pm | Posted in Exams, Maths, Personal, University | No Comments »

I’ve not added anything new today (yet). There’s an annoying bug I have to fix with the logout function, but that should hopefully be a reasonably simple fix. In other news, I’ve coded a small bit of JavaScript that I think is quite funky. Whilst I usually loathe JavaScript to the extreme, I’m coming to see that small bits are quite useful when used properly. The problem is, loads of kids abuse it and have multiple flying things everywhere whilst saying “omg look aet teh c00lness!!!!112″ Basically, this bit of code fades out the sidebar and extends the content to the full width of the box. Yes, it’s a bit useless but it looks cool and allows for easier viewing. I might add it tonight if I can be arsed, and I can find a place to put the checkbox.

In other news, the Wing Wa meal was completed successfully today, with multiple fun and food had by all. It’s actually very reasonably priced; £5.80 for lunch, all you can eat and there’s absolutely loads of food to choose from. List of people: myself and Sarah, Alan, Emma, Alex and Katie, Helen and Dan, Lewis and finally Mark. Mo couldn’t make it, but that’s okay since he’s going to come around tomorrow to collect his present.

Anyway, I’m going to go off and post some stuff on SFN. Have fun.

5:17 pm | Posted in Personal, Site Development, University, XHTML/CSS | No Comments »

Forgot to post for the past couple of days. However, I do have rather a good reason for it. In fact, I have a very good reason for it: namely GTA: San Andreas which has just been released for PC. It’s rather a good game, and has taken up pretty much two entire days of my existance to get somewhere near completion. The map is so incredibly large, and there are so many things to do that I think I may have to spend at least the next week or two trying to get to the coveted 100% mark. Oh, what a hardship.

In other news, I get my exam results on Friday which I’m currently not looking forward to. So, in order to keep my mind off it I’m going to work on the site a bit (as well as playing GTA). I haven’t got around to doing anything yet, but I’m going to try and get the Mandelbrot set generator up and running in the Projects section today. It’s a pretty cool program, but I need to optimize it and generally get it to work better. I do have a minor problem in that I forgot to set the precision of cout and cin; by default, it only reads in numbers up to about 7 decimal places, so you can’t get most of the interesting shots.

I’m also not sure as to whether I should get the Photos section back up or not. There are a lot of photos - last count, over 500 - and although I have more than sufficient bandwidth for now, I can’t help but wonder what will happen if the site takes off a bit. I’m also considering putting some kind of Google AdWords on here, but at the moment the pendulum swings towards “no”. For starters, not enough people visit the site to make it worthwile, and I’m not sure that I could get them to blend in properly. I will only put them on if it doesn’t compromise the layout of the site.

The world of maths is looking quite diverse for next year. I’m considering what modules to do for next year, and this is quite a hefty challenge - the sheer number of courses on offer makes it quite hard to make my mind up. Like most other universities, we’re allowed to choose a variety of modules in the third year, totalling 120 CATS (module points) or more if we desire. Most of the third year modules are worth 15 CATS each, and the fourth year modules 18 CATS. Now, assuming that I actually get on the MMath course - which I really hope I do - I have to take two courses from the fourth year modules. At the moment, this is looking like it’s going to be Manifolds, since it’s needed for so many other 4th year modules and a choice of either Lie Groups (taught my my tutor) or Mathematical Recipies, which is more of an applied module.

My worry at the moment is that I’m not sure which “route” I should be taking. This year, I pretty much took a 50/50 pure/applied route. However, I’m finding myself inextricably drawn towards courses that concentrate mainly on the pure. I find that they’re extremely interesting and, for the most part, make me work harder on them. Metric Spaces went really well for me - it was a really nice exam, and although it didn’t have the same insane marking that it usually does for definitions, it had interesting questions that made you think, but were still managable. I have to also admit that the applied courses are also interesting, but my concern is that I’m going to screw them up, and I don’t quite have the same understanding that I do for the pure.

Of course, the other issue here is my postgraduate opportunities. Again, assuming I get onto the MMath and I’m finding the 4th year work enjoyable and I can cope with it, then I’d quite like to do a PhD. Even if I didn’t actually go on to do research and other insane mathematics then it would greatly increase my job opportunities. However, that’s a good two years away yet; not to mention that if I don’t get on the MMath, all of this talk is a complete waste of time.

Anyway, I think that’s enough for now. I’m going to concentrate on SFN now, and try and catch up on the backlog of posts that I have to moderate. Woo. See you all later.

3:13 pm | Posted in Computing, Maths, Personal, SFN, Site Development, University | No Comments »