(You are viewing the published version of this document.) (You must republish this document for viewers to see the latest version. Republish document.) Esmerelde:: August 2007

Tuesday, 28 August 2007

My time in London coming to an end

After 12 long months in London, it's almost all at an end. I saw my M.Sc classmates for probably the last time last friday when we handed in the final copy of our reports. I'm around this week, and then on Saturday I'm moving all my crap *cough* stuff back to Brum. Well, mom/Fi is driving the van!!

I don't think I'll miss London overly. Had a bit of a rough time of it down here, and I'm still not sure that it was all worth it, but time will tell I think. I did meet some great people, and found myself some more independence, as if I didn't have enough of that already! Ha! well, in more areas than others, but most people will know what I mean.

The main thing I think I'll miss about London is the transport network. The tube may have its problems, but I love it! No need for a car, and easy to get almost anywhere as well as being reasonably quick.

I'm looking forward to being home, but then I've kinda got used to living by myself, and although I found that lonely in London, I think it would be pretty cool back home. Independence as well as having friends near-by. Obviously, that will be a big step (moving out permanently), as well as expensive. It looks like it could be some time til that actually happens as well - not sure mom is gonna appreciate that, but oh well!

If I get a job straight out of this course on the other hand, I could be moving out in less than a month, but that is looking more and more unlikely. One of the real bummers is the fact that I can't drive, so I think that is something i shall have to rectify in the next few months. yet more expensive. Still, should be able to re-coup most of what I've lost in the first year of employment, so enough with the gloomyness already!!

Anyway, I'm sure I'm boring you all to tears, so in summary...I'll be back home Saturday! For good! (I think, lol). Wahey!!!

Shame I still have to pay Septembers rent on my flat :(

Labels:

Posted by Esmerelde at 6:16 PM | | Comments | links to this post

Friday, 24 August 2007

M.Sc completed!

Right at this moment, I feel...empty? One year of hard graft will be over in a few short hours. I have just now printed off 4 final copies of my report (two for UCL, one for Giles and one for me) and ended up feeling like I had killed a small tree!!

In a few short weeks I'll be back home (I'm thinking of volunteering for a few weeks down here with Andy doing some cataloguing - always looks good on the CV, plus I actually enjoy it!) and then I'm not sure what. I still have some applications circulating/some to submit but it unfortunately seems unlikely at this point - this is mainly my fault for being to late I hasten to add.

However, all is not lost, as I am seriously considering applying to study for a PhD at Birmingham. I've already spoken to the guys up there about it, and they seem, well ok with it anyway! (Who really knows?!). Personally I think Paul would be mad to put up with me for another 3/4 years, but I'm not complaining. Ian seems interested as well, so that's really cool. I know I said I'd never stay in education after this, but well, things/circumstances/priorities/interests change...Also, it's not like I'm leaping straight into it. I'll effectively be having a gap year and I think that will do me good. I would have loved to go travelling for that, but lack of funds thanks to the year down here, and the fact that I'd (still) have noone to go with seems to put paid to that. I need to find someone who wants to go to Tunisia, Jordan (and maybe Australia/New Zealand!) and bribe them into going with me! Any takers?? I'm serious people!

To be fair though, the advice from some people since I've been down here of doing in small breaks than doing the "round-the-world" thing seems like a good idea.

Hmm, I'd write more, but lunch is calling to me. So with that, I shall bid you adieu!

Labels:

Posted by Esmerelde at 12:27 PM | | Comments | links to this post

Wednesday, 22 August 2007

Mistress of Science

Yesterday I passed my masters, yay! You may all now call me 'mistress of science', or just mistress will do ;)

I came into the NHM late today, (bit of a sore head!) and I know how 3 copies of my report to read through and make correction, joy of joys. Luckily only one of them seems to have lots of scrawl on.

Flicking through there are some pretty silly mistakes (apparently I can't spell ordnance survey - why the hell isn't there an "i" in there?!) but shouldn't be too bad.

Come friday I will be well and truly finished once I hand in the final copies, so woot to that!

Anyway, this is one happy (but tired) Miss Sunshine signing off.

Posted by Esmerelde at 11:50 AM | | Comments | links to this post

Saturday, 18 August 2007

Oblivion woes

After racking up approximatly 20 hours on Oblivion on the 360 this week, I have come to a premature halt. It gets to a point in the game (nothing specific, but it seems to be triggered by certain things, such as talking to a particular person, going over a type of terrain) and the it either crashes and wont load/continue, or I get an error message saying the disk is un-readable. Upon checking the disk I find some scratches, but lo! They follow the outside edge of the disk...caused by the xbox itself no doubt. I reckon we should send the disk back to microsoft, there were rumours they were replacing games damaged by the consoles themselves, but it's not up to me. Thankfully OB has been out for a while so maybe it will be cheap, but I reckon it will still be over £20. Still, I have to go back to london in the next few days, so maybe I shouldn't worry much. I have bigger fish to fry, ie my presentation.

Speaking of work, I've spend the last hour scouring the internet for jobs. Not fun I can tell you. There are some I am qualified for, and could apply to, but guess what...you need a driving license. How sucky is that?! Gah. Looks like I may be crashing around at home til at least next September. Least I could learn to drive in that time...have to pick up a dumb retail job at Merry Hill or something. Grr - not impressed.

Labels:

Posted by Esmerelde at 11:23 AM | | Comments | links to this post

Wednesday, 15 August 2007

Mind Dump. Random blabber.

Well, it's been a while since I was able to write a decent blog entry, though what I class as decent may not equate with your opinion!

Anyway...I finally handed my dissertation/report in for my masters last week, and I was very happy. I did realise about 2 days later that I had forgotten to say that the scale bars in one of my plates were 200 microns, and that did vex me but nevermind. I can change it in the re-submission next friday. Hopefully they wont knock too many marks for that. I've been relaxing at home for the past week not doing a fat lot except playing on the 360 and doing some hard core gaming. What?! I've got lots of catching up to do! I have to do a presentation next tuesday, so I need to get started on that in the next day or so, but to be honest I can't really face going through it all at the moment. Some of the other guys agree with me that it's just hassel now, but it's ok for Tams and Jamie seeing as they already have jobs lined up. I have a few applications in the pipeline, but we shall have to wait and see. If the worst comes to the worst I shall have to get some kind of crappy job at Merry Hill while I figure out what I'm going to do. The bummer is that there are no jobs anywhere around home, infact, they all seem to be at the four corners of the flippin country! Most unhelpful. It's funny, because I always said that I would always go where the work was, and wasn't to fussed about staying near home. But when push comes to shove, I think it's a little bit harder than you first envisage. Of course, there are persobal issues to do with staying in the area, but that will all have to be figured out. I haven't ruled out the possibility of doing a PhD, and if I did one it would only be if I could do it at Birmingham (with Paul, lol) and if it was fully funded. At least then I have some more options career wise, although my mom always told me not to go into lecturing from personal experience!! If I got a proper job in my field though, I'd leave it for a few years at least. So yeah, as you can tell, it's all a bit up in the air at the moment.

Anyway, enough work talk.

The 360 has been a lot of fun really, and I've really jumped up on the gamer points front. It does vex me that I have so many achievements that are under ste's gamer tag that I have to re-do. But hey, it's all good fun, right? I haven't been playing oblivion much, because I've been finding the controls pretty solid, and aiming my arrows wasn't being particulary efficient, and I do so love to sneak up on the bandits and goblins and sneak attack them for 3x damage and see them drop like a rock!! Yay for multi-stealth kills. But recently I've got the hang of the controls a lot more, and so it's more fun. Besides, the load times on the PC version are annoying as hell. It's a shame as there are some really great mods out there that I want to play with, plus I have my 45 hour save all set up again, but 40 hours of game play isn't that much so I shopuld catch it up fairly soon. Just have to fit it around all the other great 360 games. I am so living for my gamer points at the moment. I know, gamer geek, what can I say? :P

I really wanted to work on my website this week, but seeing as my laptop has been collected for repair it's been a bit of a set back. Added to that the fact I had to wipe my hardrive to re-install a proper version of XP, so I have lots of re-installing to do once I get it back. If I get back, PC World made some stupid cock up with the collection, they had our address correct, but a completly random name, so my mom rang up to sort it out, and they couldn't understand where the error came from. When I told my mom that they wouldn't listen when I called them the other day on top of that (I was trying to explain that my USB ports weren't working and needed replacing and they thought the solution was a system restore. Idiots.) she wrote a letter to complain. Plus it means if they actually lose my laptop we have something in writing. I really love my laptop so I'd rather they repair the overheating and USB problem, but a new laptop would be rather nice. I'd probably get a shitty replacement though, so fingers crossed for repair. Unless they offer to give me £1300 of store credit to chose my new one (what mine is worth). Yeah, not gonna happen, alas. Anyway, what was I saying? Oh yeah, my website. I've had loads of hits lately (as in, my number of unique visitors has shot from an average of say 16 a month, to over 100 per month). To be fair, that is mostly due to me hosting my blog on my own website rather than blogger, but as a knock on effect, google has logged my website so it now comes up in search results which is blatantly cool. It means I really need to do some work on the book review aspect (which is what I primarily set it up for) seeing as I only have one book review on there at the moment. Now that I know people can search and find my site (and are actually clicking onto it!!) makes it seem even more worth while now. So yeah, Jenny's pet personal project is moving all speed ahead, yay. Now I just need ste to help me with the templates so it looks much more pretty!!! Hehe.

Anyway, I have blabbered on for far to long. Dynasty warriors is calling to me...

Ciao f'now <3

Labels:

Posted by Esmerelde at 7:24 PM | | Comments | links to this post

Google Docs -- Web word processing, presentations and spreadsheets. Edit this page (you have permission) Edit this page (if you have permission) | Report spam