Time for a quick update whilst taking a break from my third year project (which is going rather well – 1358 lines of source code and about 3500 words of the report so far).
Vacation work
I finally got round to handing in my application form for vacation work in my department. I don’t know if I’ll get any work, because there’s no indication of which posts you can apply for – there just needs to be a member of staff who wants some work doing that matches up with my skillset. I didn’t get anything when I applied in my first year, but it could be that there’s something for me this time. The pay is reasonable and it will mean keeping in touch with people from CS for a while longer, which is handy if I end up needing a reference from them for anything. In fact, I have an idea – perhaps I can get paid to continue to work on my third year project over the summer to make it interact directly with the central University admissions or implement other improvements? That would presumably be useful for my supervisor and give me something to do for several weeks. I’ll have to remember to suggest it next time I see him.
Dungeons and Dragons
Roleplaying seems to be going alright, although I’m never really sure if it’s working out for everyone else. I managed to let the game overrun far too much this week, mainly because I didn’t know how long several rounds of combat with twelve characters would last. I think I’ll have to introduce fewer bad guys next time, as keeping track of the initiative order, wounds and spell effects gets rather complicated after two or three rounds. Either that or I need to enforce some sort of time limit on people deciding what to do each round of combat.
I also never really know if people are enjoying the sessions, it’s so difficult to tell. I’m not entirely sure what people want from the campaign – it could be anything from building up a really powerful character to just turning up and having a laugh in a social setting with the odd bit of roleplaying on the side. I’ve also given up on detailed campaign plans because trying to predict what the players will do is next to impossible (although that’s a good thing, as it makes the game far more interesting for me, as I need to ad-lib rather than follow a script).
Chateaux pwaring contract
My landlord got round to sending me the contract for next year, so my bachelor pad (as Pete coined it last year) will be staying where it is for another twelve months at least. It’s a big weight of my mind to finally get this sorted, because although I’d agreed in principle to renew the contract that wouldn’t stop my landlord from advertising the property and getting someone else to rent it after June. Although there’s a few people who I wouldn’t mind living with next year, I’m content staying on my own because I have no idea what I’ll be doing in three or four months time and I don’t want the hassle of mixing students with non-students (I could end up being either) if at all possible.
I’ve also managed to somehow bust my right ankle, to the extent where it hurts if I try and do side-to-side lunges (probably my favourite part of the aikido warm-up), so I couldn’t go to the gym today. It’s annoying because on Saturdays we can stay a bit longer as there are no classes after us, but unfortunately I’m just as susceptible to searing pain as the next person so there’s not a lot I can do about it, other than take some ibuprofen and hope it heals quickly. It seems to be a lot better now, but I can’t tell if that’s proper healing or just the painkillers still having an effect. 🙁
Finally, for LiveJournal people who read this via pwaring_feed (including one person who isn’t on my friends list so I have no idea who they are), I’ve made a separate feed and got the support people to change it so hopefully now all posts will be hidden behind a lj-cut and therefore not take up as much space on your friends list. It appears to be working, although it takes a while for changes to push through.
Anyway, back to the grindstone, no rest for the wicked!
Reminder: Unbroadcastable Radio is tomorrow, if you want to join us (not sure who is going this time, I definitely am but I’m not sure about the Megs as some people aren’t finishing work/getting back from Manchester until late) we’ll be at the Comedy Store on Deansgate Locks from 7:30pm.