It's here!
And it's a bit slow. Just a bit.
News Archive for April, 2004
Woah
Well, I've done absolutely nothing. I tried to work, but the lack of a decent desk and that wonderous "Cambridge atmosphere" is preventing me, so I'm going back on Tuesday. I mean, Wednesday (ahem). Therefore I need to complete my things-to-do list for the holiday rather more quickly. Currently, this just involves buying a hat, but I don't like to be rushed in these sorts of important things.
Hopefully, tomorrow I'll get to play with a new bike wheel that turned up the other day. I justified it by claiming my previous back wheel was broken.
Company credit card turns up in a week. Mmmmmmm...........................
Back in Cambridge
There's absolutely nothing to do here either.
Honestly.
I should go and work, but my whats-the-point/can't-be-arsed meter is off the scale. I might actually do something tomorrow, will have to wait and see.Only 8 more weeks until I'm unemployed :)
Saturday Morning
Well, it's afternoon, but that makes little difference. People are turning up today. This has two distinct meanings. People I know are here, and so are their parents. This has the obvious advantages that I can go and talk to the people that I know, and obvious disadvantages in that they're all out to lunch/dinner/shopping with their parents.
I looked through last year's part II exams for my course and discovered that I knew none of it. I was mildly relieved that the amount of information I didn't know was smaller than I had originally thought. I only need to really know about 20 topics in any great detail, as opposed to the 40 or so I had originally thought. This knowledge however, is a bad thing as makes me feel less guilty about not working. Not working is one of those things I've become especially practised at, to the point where I could possibly not work for England. Still, it gives me plenty of opportunity for doing things like applying for jobs, not talking to people, and avoiding welsh cakes.
I was 1p short for the chocolate machine again. If I had a penny for every time that had happened, I'd have a lot of chocolate by now. That bugs me.
I'm aware that my news posts have been slightly lacking in content of late, so my subconscious has apparently taken the task of using this post to make up for it. You've probably stopped reading this mindless inane babble by now, so in fact it doesn't matter how long I ramble on for. The only thing that determines this is how much rambling Notnet can fit on their server which, at the last count, is not very much.
Also, in order to submit this, I need to pick my right hand up and move it over to the mouse in order to press the shiny "Add" button I have sat just beneath this box. I would do you a screenshot, but that'd take effort.
Bleh. Dinnertime.
Oh, forgot to add, there's new photos up. You'll find them in the photos section, which in this hideously easy-to-navigate website is linked to both on the left, and right down at the bottom. Bet you didn't know that.
Common sense
We have this thing, here in England, called common sense. It's a term that refers to the ability of a person to make logical and rational decisions based on easily available evidence and without the need for specialist knowledge.
For example, pretend, for an instant, that you are a member of the very prestigious money-eating club at a particular large academic institution. Being such an institution, you have 3 terms a year and a period in between called a vacation. Now, the money-eating club meet every Thursday evening in term-time and have done without fail every single term for at least the past 2 and a half years as that's how long you have been a member of this club. Common sense would be the thing that kicks in when you have to decide, on returning after a vacation period, if there is a meeting on this particular Thursday. You only have a small number of facts to deal with, but these should be sufficient to make a judgement. The main facts available are threefold:
1: Money-eating club meets on a Thursday in a time of the year which is not a vacation, and has done for the past 2 and a half years.
2: It's not vacation.
3: It's Thursday tomorrow.
These facts should unfailingly point to the conclusion that there is in fact a meeting tomorrow.
I use this example as a representation of real life, with certain names of things (like days of the week) changed to preserve the anonymity of the following described stupid people. In real life, I run and organise the "money-eating club". In real life, I get real people who are apparently incapable of using their common sense in the method described above to calculate the day of the next meeting. I therefore have to conclude myself that they have had their common sense stolen. I pity them.
Of course, it could be perfectly possible that I've had my common sense stolen as well (without my knowledge). In that case I could be drawing wildly irrational conclusions and thus be no better than those I seek to mock, but somehow, I doubt it. If I carry on down this road, I get to "No-one knows what's right or wrong as everything is subjective", and I don't particularly want to go there. If you would like to have that particular argument, please send a SAE to my address (it's out there if you know where to look), and I shall send you a piece of paper stating that whatever you argue, you're wrong, because I'm right.
See? It works.
Anyway, the main point of this is that I don't like stupid people. Some would argue that it's harsh to call people who have had their common sense stolen "stupid", but I don't think name-calling is at the top of their worry list.
Polar bears are really big!!!
No, really, it's true. They've moved our lectures into the (world-famous?) Scott Polar Institute, which means being lectured about polymers whilst surrounded by, among other things, maps of the poles and a giant polar bear rug pinned on the wall. I think it's real as well.
Watching films backwards
Well, I just saw Kill Bill 2. Which was a bit strange seeing as I havn't seen the first one.My advice: go see it. It's good. And even funny.
There was this big rake in the way.....
Good news: I applied for more jobs today.
Bad news: I consequently did no work.
It's 19:01, I have jazz trio music, I'm not going to do any work. Bliss.
Randomness ahoy!
As I was sitting down, spluttering through slightly more than mild illness and trying to do some work, I learned that there was a rather random bunch of people who were going to sing Spem in Alium (by Tallis) in St. Catz college. For those of you who don't know, it's a early english choral piece written for 8 5-part choirs. A bit of maths tells you that you need at least 40 people to do this. On turning up I was assigned a part (Choir 4 baritone for those following my choral career) and found about 60 people, all of whom could sing rather well. Anyway, we rehearsed for an hour, and then sung (just now) at the college, outside which was a rather novel experience to say the least.
Now I have to keep on doing work and wonder why my chest suddenly hurts more than it should.
And W00t! to 30,000 hits. :) My congratulations to host81-133-154-39.in-addr.btopenworld.com who was the 30,000th visitor to the site at 17:36:46 27/4/2004. You get a free trout (the fish, not the music).