If you read this you’ve probably heard already, but for the record I’ve now been offered funding for my PhD at the maths institute next year! (I think this is ultimately ace.)
Now, back to the revision I guess…
11:42 pm | Posted in Academia, Maths, University | 3 Comments » | Show comments »
Logged on to the online module registration today, and am really, really glad I did. Had I not done, I would be taking an unexpected exam in the summer. Almost a complete disaster, but not quite.
11:11 pm | Posted in Exams, University | 2 Comments » | Show comments »
So, it’s referendum time at the Student’s Union. I severely dislike our Students’ Union (mainly because of their obscene drinks prices and general “let’s have an AGM about what type of teabags we should all use” attitude), but this year, an interesting motion has come up:
Lack of Confidence in the Students’ Union
The Students’ Union does not have the confidence of its members, and should regain their confidence.
I happily voted for this motion. Take that.
Back to programming then. Sigh.
7:28 pm | Posted in Politics, University, Whining | 2 Comments » | Show comments »
Firstly, I’m sorry about the lack of updates. I’ve been really up to my neck in work and preparations for various things and university. I will at least try to post some kind of rubbish at some point.
Anyway. Moved into Claycroft on Sunday, but I’m already starting to regret doing so really. It’s exceptionally quiet – on my corridor of eight, I’ve only met 2 other people so far. It’s somewhat depressing really, as it’s would be quite nice to be able to talk to somebody before going completely insane from lack of contact. I’m going to give it a couple of weeks, but if things continue the way they are, then I might move out. I’m not sure yet. The major plan at the moment is to spend as much time as possible in the maths department so that I can avoid the complete silence of Claycroft.
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Continue reading “Not the best start to term”…
6:11 pm | Posted in Maths, University, Whining | 1 Comment » | Show comment »
Well, after the complete downer at the end of term, things are looking up. I’m spending a week down in Plymouth with Sarah, and it’s been nice and relaxing so far. I’ve spent quite a few hours coding on the website tonight, trying to get things done by the end of the week. When I get back on Saturday, I’m going to have an awful lot of revision to do and not a whole load of time, so for the main part I will probably not be blogging or doing much else than revision.
My first four exams are at the beginning of April, and I’m not looking forward to them that much.
Anyway, this is all worrying about nothing at the moment. I’ll worry more when I get back to Coventry and get going on the actual revision. For the time being, I’m going to drink some tea and enjoy myself here (as much as I can).
On the website front, I’ve finally got the “proper” CSS coding in place which means user-selectable themes! I know that’s what you’ve all been begging me for in a completely silent fashion. But yes, I have three CSS templates for the new (WB) theme, the default theme and also the old theme which did mainly suck. But there we go. Just need to write the appropriate bits for password changing, selecting themes, profile information perhaps and a couple other things, then I’ll have something that closely resembles a proper website.
I’m also going to make a distinct effort when I get back to catalogue all of my loose pieces of code here and there that do minorly useful things. I really want to put them on the web, since at least some people might e-mail me. I like e-mails, after all.
On top of that, I hope to accomplish the image catalogue as well as putting the photo galleries back online. I’d also quite like to optimize the scripting so that it all runs a lot faster and uses less SQL queries. Also, the CSS could, as always, need some work but I think I’ll leave that for the time being.
I can’t wait to get this thing finished. It’s been a long time coming and, considering the amount of work I’ve put into it, I’ve not had a lot to show for it. Certainly the coding will be most of the work, but I must sit down and actually write some content, otherwise this place will be nothing more than a skeleton. I’m more determined than ever that during this exam period I will blog more than I have done before. I need somewhere that I can vent my frustrations and not bombard my poor Sarah with rambling maths questions.
Anyway, I must stop writing now as it is certainly time for bed. Tomorrow, I think I’ll mainly concentrate on the user control panel and get that out of the way. Once I get that done, I can move on to sort out the other bits and pieces that are more shiny.
Not been a great day, when all’s said and done. A friend of mine has, frankly, shown his true colours this afternoon and to be honest I’m quite annoyed about it all. I don’t think he reads this blog, but in case you do; I don’t consider you as a friend any longer. Don’t expect anything from me in the future, because you’re not going to get it. Grow up.
Basically that’s spoiled my day up until now. We had Pizza Hut tonight, which was nice, but honestly I’ve never been quite this angry with anyone before and I don’t particularly like it. I just find it hard to believe that anybody could be quite so immature and idiotic, but there we go.
So, I’ve decided to come back to Coventry tonight instead of doing the usual Maths-fest. I have to pick Sarah up later, but I do have two episodes of Ramsey’s Kitchen Nightmares to catch up on and I would really like to work some more on the website tonight. I’ve patched up most of it to use my new templating system, and it seems to work a treat. I’m still not 100% sure about the performance, but I reckon I can get away with it pretty easily. Perhaps if I do some database work and tidy the OOP code a little, it can be enhanced a bit more.
Still, load times of about ~0.01 seconds per page aren’t too bad. I just want it to be able to process the databases efficiently. I’d better get on with it then, I suppose. Bleh.
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.
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 »
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…
Got a 1st, with a Seymore average of 75%. Here’s a breakdown:
Hurrah and all that. Off to get drinks. Be back later.
5:56 pm | Posted in Exams, Maths, University | 3 Comments » | Show comments »
