People & Planet
I went to my first People & Planet meeting on Wednesday evening, partially to see what it was like and also to give Justine a bit of support because it’s the first time this society has been set up in UMSU. I’ve always had an interest in topics like energy saving and recycling, mainly because my dad was a lecturer in conservation biology and my grandfather worked in a coal power station for over thirty years, so that was my reason for going to check it out.
The meeting itself was interesting and we ended up heading over to the Burlington afterwards for a couple of drinks. I felt a bit out of place because everyone else in the group was talking about the festivals they’d been to this year and in the past, especially Glastonbury. Compare this to my record of festival attendance – I’ve never been to one, the thought of staying a muddy field with 100,000 other people does not really excite me – and it’s easy to feel a bit like you’re in the wrong place. I did manage to talk to most of the people there though and they were all interesting to speak with, although a lot more activisty that I am. I’ll probably go back next week, so long as I can manage not to end up being dragged into dressing up in a costume and protesting outside Shell or anything like that.
Back to work
I’ve agreed to go back to IPEC, the place where I worked over the summer, for a couple of days a week. I’m not sure how long I’ll be staying there, as they’re looking for new full time staff and I expect my third year project to start eating into a lot of my time after a few weeks. However, it’s more experience to add to my CV (which I really need to update again now, especially with graduate recruitment starting) and a bit of extra money in the bank so that’s obviously a good thing.
On the subject of work, I’m also looking for graduate recruitment schemes, so if anyone sees anything relevant to what I’m interested in (mainly computing/politics/business) please let me know. I’m also going to a Capgemini presentation next week to talk to someone there so with any luck I’ll get somewhere with that.
Serenity
Rachel, Kirk, Lewis, Vlad and I all went to see Serenity yesterday afternoon at thefilmworks. For anyone who doesn’t know the background, the film uses the same characters and basic plotline as the Firefly series by Joss Whedon (creator of Buffy and Angel), which was cruelly cancelled part way through its first series by the powers that be at 20th Century Fox. I don’t know the whole story as I’ve only watched one episode of the series when I was at Jon’s house, although I do now have the fourteen episodes that were finished on DVD.
The film itself was hyped up right from the start, and when I first checked IMDB the average rating was something like 9.2/10, which is a bit ridiculous. Unfortunately it failed to live up to the ravings of fans, at least in my opinion. There was a lot of witty dialogue and one liners, but I’d seen most of them in the trailers. The action scenes weren’t too bad, but there wasn’t enough time spent on developing or exploring the relationships between the different members of the crew, so instead everything felt rather rushed towards the end.
Overall, I’d probably give the film six or perhaps seven out of ten. As I was saying to Vlad on the way back, it falls somewhere between the classic Star Wars and the new ones – not something I’d be rushing back to see again, but not so utterly awful that I’d want to stick pins in my eyes if someone asked me to go see it with them sometime in the near future. I think moving to film meant so little time that there wasn’t really chance to develop the characters and their backgrounds, so I’d rather they’d kept the series going instead of moving to the big screen.
Anyway, I’m now off to continue working on my third year project proposal and poster, hopefully I can get the former done by Monday morning and the latter in a draft state that I can then start refining in time to show it to my supervisor next week. I’m trying to be super organised this year and get everything done well ahead of deadlines, and so far I’m managing which is good.
I got my best freshers fayre freebee yesterday from a similar sort of thing to people and planet (I think). They were giving away energy saving lightbulbs, and I managed to get 5!! Ironically when i’m no longer a student 🙂
Was good as i’ve been wanting to introduce energy saving ideas into the flat, particularly after watching “No waste like home”
It seems a bit weird to give out energy saving bulbs at a freshers fair, seeing as most of the first years will be in halls and therefore unable to use the bulbs. Managing to get your hands on five free lightbulbs is pretty good though, I think I only have about six bulbs in my entire flat so that would keep me going for some time.
The problem with Serenity was the fans. It’s awful to see the hardcore fans at work trying to sell it to people – that’s not our job – our job is to cater to their needs.
That really annoyed me tonight – people shouldn’t be allowed to do that.
I think some of the fans were taking it a bit seriously, I mean even if I’d been working on box office when Doctor Who was last at the cinema I wouldn’t have been desperately trying to get everyone to go and see it.
“our job is to cater to their needs”
No, your job is to sell tickets and make profits for UCI. 😛
Well, the same with a Red Dwarf Movie, should it ever get made.
From my experience that day, most people who went into Serenity already knew they wanted to.
What? People go to the cinema and let the ticket sellers influence their decision? What is the world coming to?
Influence, not ram down throat.
😛
I wasn’t being sarcastic. I was really saying “What is the world coming to when they let ticket sellers influence their cinema-going decisions.”
Oh, sorry, yes. You’d be surprised. They’ve stood looking at three massive projection screens for five minutes, and then come and ask me what’s on.
Genius.