Blog Archive — Page 78
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The Looming Doom of Doom Looms Doomfully Over Me.
In other words: In nine hours’ time, I have an Oscillations and Waves exam. I’m still completely unsure of what we need to know for it. There’s tons of formulae and I could never hope to be able to remember them all. On the other hand they are all derivable from a fairly simple set of basic formulae, but doing so will take up lots of time in the exam.
Anyway, having spent most of today messing around with 2.6-series kernels rather than doing any work, and having spent this evening at the karaoke at the Union pub rather than doing any work as well, I’m not in a good position. I guess… I’m going to wake up a bit early tomorrow, and do half an hour’s worth of last-minute revision before I sit the exam. With luck there’ll be lots of explanation-type questions rather than mathematical ones, but I wouldn’t bet on it - it’s pretty much maths all the way from this module.
Well… I guess there’s nothing I can do about it now. Just gotta try my best tomorrow morning.
Countdowns
34 hours until DDRFUK London meet
60 hours until LAC
8 days until I lose my internet access for three and a half months.
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A Learning Experience
First up: My computer finally has a GUI again! Six days of console-based IRC clients and text-only web browsers have been quite annoying… But finally, not only do I have an OS that I’m pretty much happy with, I’ve learnt a hell of a lot about it in the process!
My Physics of the Solar System exam today went pretty well - lots of explanation questions with not a lot of formulae, so good for me! In the afternoon I went to see the new Harry Potter film, which is really rather good! And as usual, people have been telling me that I should read the books ^_^ One day I shall, when I have enough time to get through them all!
My final exam, Oscillations & Waves, is coming up on Friday. Although I’ve been to the least lectures for this compared to my other modules, I’m pretty confident - it all boils down to basic trigonometry really, with the addition of forced oscillations and Fourier series.
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Bank Holiday Boredom
Yet another catching-up post for what’s been going on this weekend. Basically, it’s not a lot ^_^
On Saturday night I went to see the Reduced Shakespeare Company’s “All the Great Books - Abridged” which, as I was expecting, was brilliantly funny! Student price was only £6, and definitely worth the money!
Two new discoveries on Sunday night, due to the fact I was at my parents’ house where such wonders as “television” exist. First up, Kingdom Hospital. Rather dark, amusing in places, and really rather good! I definitely need to see more of this. And secondly, yet more radio comedies that I used to listen to are making television appearances! The Mighty Boosh (BBC3 only at the moment I think) is just as wonderfully silly as the original, but unfortunately Sunday night’s episode of 15 Storeys High was cancelled, so I didn’t get to see how the TV incarnation of that one turned out.
And now I’m back in Southampton. I think I’ve done all the revision I can usefully do for my Physics of the Solar System exam tomorrow morning, so right now I’m just sitting here being bored. For company I have my copy of The Science of Discword II (which I’ve read before), a screenful of things that presumably make sense to a compiler but none at all to me (been going for 5 hours so far, estimated three hours to go) and an IRC channel full of people discussing how bored we all are. Boredom must be infectious, huh? ^_^;
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Just catching up...
Yesterday
My second exam, Energy and Matter, went astonishingly well considering I didn’t do as much revision as I think I should have done… I think Rhiannon was pretty worried about that one - but since I’m such an idiot, I forgot to wait around afterwards to find out how it went… I hope you did well!
After the exam, I hung around and chatted to people at Gamesoc, then went back to Eric’s and watched a film.
After that… went home, and continued with reinstalling stuff on my computer. Unfortunately I forgot that I could have been using IRC at the same time, so I was stuck watching scrolling code for five hours, before I finally went to bed. However, for some unexplained reason, I felt really good and really happy all evening.
Today
Went up to Uni soon after I woke up to pick up my lab notebook from Pascalius, who’d been borrowing it. I need it to write my essay, which - scarily, now - has to be in for tomorrow! But rather than going straight home to write, Pascalius and I wandered around town instead. Whilst in Forbidden Planet, I saw a manga I’d never even heard of before - but now own ^_^ It’s called “Tsubasa”, and it seems to be an odd alternate reality to the main storyline of Cardcaptor Sakura, so it should be good! (After all, CLAMP can do no wrong =p)
FInally my computer is up and working again. The process was long and pretty tough, but I really did feel like I was learning something while doing it. And I love the way I can now type “emerge mozilla-firefox” and it’ll automatically go off and download, compile and install Firefox with all its dependancies too.
Only problem is… I still have to do that essay sometime soon… I guess I should get started really.
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Ebb and Flow
So… an interesting day by all accounts. I intended to spend all day revising for my Energy & Matter exam, and I did get quite a bit of revision done this morning. In the afternoon, Eric invited myself, Nick and Fez to have a picnic on the Common - which was awesome. We went into town later and played some DDR, which was also awesome, and I found out that Fez is friends with Myst, and he also knows about IIDX and stuff as well! So strike three for the Southampton Bemani community - yep, that’s right, there’s a whole three of us that I know of ^_^; Whilst in Sega Park, we met another person, John, who bought us all drinks at Shakeaway! So… whoa. Today’s been absolutely awesome…
Except for Linux is pissing me off right now. Ah, I’m not even going to get started on this particular rant here. Suffice to say I’m currently running in an OS with no support for MP3s, no way of accessing the other partition with all my stuff on it, and no OpenGL support. So I’m off to go and burn yet more CDs in an attempt to get an OS I can actually stand to work with. On the plus side, it’s keeping my busy ^_^ And of course I can revise while waiting for the install…
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Tomorrow's Super Fun Schedule
MATH1007: Mathematical Methods for Physical Sciences, 14:30 - 16:45, Stoneham Dining Hall
Why do I have to have an exam in Stoneham? ;;_;;
Also, before the exam, I’ll need to go up to Uni… I decided it might be a good idea to have a calculator when sitting a maths exam…
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Leaving...
“Hello, little star
Are you doing fine?
I’m lonely as everything in birth
Sometimes in the dark
When I close my eyes
I dream of you, the planet Earth
If I could fly across this night
Faster than the speed of light
I would spread these wings of mine…“
~ Hoshi no Koe (Voices of a Distant Star) - Through the Years and Far AwaySay… we haven’t got long left here, have we…? I always though I just tolerated living here in halls, and that I’d be glad to leave. But I’ve realised now… there’s only two or three weeks left now, and people are going to start drifting away. I’m going to miss this place, after it’s faded away…
On the subject of which, it’ll be odd leaving here for other reasons too. For the last eight months I’ve come to pretty much rely on the internet to stay in contact with people, and I’ve met lots of new people that I can only speak to online. And ahead of me stretches three months with no internet access at all. It’ll be odd.. kind of like feeling that I’m on my own, rather than constantly surrounded by IRC channels full of people… No Livejournal posts for three months, either. Another thing I’ve got very attached to over the last year…
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Bleh
So much for getting my laundry done, finishing watching Scrapped Princess and doing a ton of revision today… when I wake up at 2pm, I’ve got no chance of doing anything productive.
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An Ending
I wonder… how did a mere forty-eight hours become long enough for a chapter to be a story in its own right?
I guess the feeling that all our experiences are woven together in some story, somewhere… I guess it takes over, sometimes. When the wind blows, and the pages flick past faster and faster…
I suppose we all need things like this sometimes, to open our eyes… But as yet, they’re open just a fraction, the eyes of a daydreamer in the sunlight.
One day perhaps, they’ll be open wide. And then the sunlight will sparkle in them, a shine beyond beauty…
So how does this chapter end - a happy ending? I hope so… But if that’s not it, even if it takes all the energy I have, I’ll make it a happy ending. Because that’s what any story, no matter how short, deserves.
The future is full of soft grass, and pure sky, and sunlight…
Y’know… it kinda’ feels good to write this kind of entry, like I always used to, rather than just writing down what I did each day… I’m sure my random spouting of pseudo-poetry probably annoys people reading the journal though, so my apologies for today’s entry!
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Dreaming of the Calm
Friendship, and…
…a promise…
…A decision, for the first time…
…Worry? Yes, there’s worry…
…lots of possible futures branch out from today.
Calm, and simplicity…
Something I will myself toward,
but seem forever beaten back from.
A cryptic diary entry, of course…
…some things need to be resolved face-to-face, first.
Bleh… I used to think I wasn’t afraid of anything, but it turns out I’m afraid of telling a friend how I feel…