I can’t believe it’s nearly March already, the time seems to be flying by at the moment and I’ve almost lost track of what’s happened the last few weeks. Somewhere along the lines I’ve been running my Dungeons and Dragons campaign with varying degrees of success (it gets rather complicated when I have to create characters that I didn’t know existed and have to effectively talk to myself whenever there’s a conversation between two NPCs), got rather ill, discussed “life stuff” more than I usually would, claimed £160 from the union for the Megalomaniacs’ budget and generally run around like a headless chicken trying to get things sorted. I’d also forgotten how good Stargate the series is, although I probably shouldn’t borrow the boxed sets again because I’ll never get any work done, and what a great song Somebody Told Me by The Killers is, especially for listening to whilst working.
Unbroadcastable Radio
As is being the norm for the third Sunday of the month, I went to see the Unbroadcastable Radio Show at the Comedy Store last weekend. Usually it’s just Justine, Gareth, Graham and I who turn up, but we’ve managed to start dragging along other people as well now. I found out that Hazel, Gareth’s girlfriend, is a big Doctor Who fan, so we had something in common to talk about, although as usual Gareth was foolish enough to argue about obscure points of the series with me. Toby Hadoke, the “main” comic in the show also nodded to me before the show and pointed out our group at one point as the only people who would understand his obscure Doctor Who references.
The next show is on the 19th March if anyone wants to come along – I’ll probably mention it on disc and the Megs list nearer the time. It’s a good laugh and a pleasant way to spend a Sunday evening, although I’d advise against buying any drinks at the bar as they’re ridiculously expensive (three pounds for a pint of coke!).
Third year project
My project is coming along slowly, and I’m confident that I’ll have a working system reading in time for my demonstration on the 21st March (the system doesn’t have to be complete by then, but I need to be able to show off some of the main features). The report has to be between ten and fourteen thousand words, and I’ve written a draft consisting of about three thousand so far so I’m well ahead of schedule to finish by the end of the Easter holidays. I’m aiming to write two thousand words a week at the moment, because if I can manage to achieve that then I’ll finish in time to hand a complete draft report to my supervisor for comments and feedback before I finish for Easter.
Programming wise, I’ve got the login system up and running, and as far as I can tell it appears to work, or at least I can login/logout with a set of credentials and if I enter the wrong username/password the system displays an error. I’ve also got a CSS menu that looks presentable, using the new University colour scheme, and although I prefered the old red logo I think the new one is beginning to grow on me. Writing the login code made me realise just how horrible PHP can be sometimes though, but unfortunately I don’t have time to learn another language to the extent where I could create a functioning system in three weeks. I also want to have a working system that I can demonstrate to my supervisor on Wednesday afternoon, so I’ve been churning out code all afternoon to get something that works.
I’m glad my project is finally coming along though, as I really need to get a first in it to offset my exam results, which haven’t been that good so far. My supervisor is a bit more enthusiastic now and this week’s meeting involved a lot of discussion and ideas, so it’s looking better than the situation a couple of months ago when I just wanted to pack the whole thing in.
Postgraduate study
I thought I’d gone off the idea of postgraduate study (not that I was ever terribly keen on it in the first place), but on Thursday I got an email from Toby Howard, our third year tutor, about the Manchester Science Enterprise Centre. Amongst other things, they offer a Master of Enterprise degree for postgraduates, which is aimed at teaching people the skills required to start their own business. Not only does that sound right up my street (I’ve always wanted to run my own business since I was young – even at seven or eight years old I was already planning out my hotel empire :), but it’s based in Manchester so I don’t have to think about moving and the only entry requirement is a 2(ii) honours degree. I don’t know much about the course yet, but part of my plan for this week coming up is to research it and see what I have to do in order to apply.
I’ve done a lot of other stuff as well, but I’m not sure what’s happening with all that so I will probably write about them at a later date. For now though I’m off to read some more of Angry White Pyjamas and then get some sleep.