Good book

Finished woken furies yesterday {well Friday now} after reading the last quarter non-stop. I thought it was really good and it's now my favourite of the 3 books with ex-Envoy Takeshi Kovacs. The DeCom command datatech in particular caught my imagination. Though it's definatly not a book for children as it contains lots of violence and swearing. Think I'll give it another read through before the holidays are out :D.


Song of the Day: Original Sin (Meat Loaf)

Wraith 

I was ecstatic on the train home

I'll lick my wounds, could you pass the salt?

Well thats the dealine for the CS practical just ticked by. Everything came together at around 0930 though :) At that point , everything was in the files that they were supposed to be in and the style sheets and xquery progs were running properly. Now all the stress, tension and worry is bleeding out. Adrenaline, endorphins, painkillers and some neural barriers will probably wear out soon, I'll probably need to crash when I get back home.

There 's a few pics and interesting stories I want to {back} post but haven't managed to due to all the time I poured into the CS practical. Should post them up later on today/tomorrow.

Song of the Day: Never Do Anything (Barenaked Ladies)

Power Engineering Lab

Power Engineering Lab

Power Engineering Lab

Maths and labs

Maybe supernoodles for breakfast wasn't such a good idea, I've wanted to be sick ever since. :( Even without that I'm generally feeling ill. :( Forgot to take painkillers before I left the house as well , so that'll help {doh!}.

On the plus side I've actually managed to start the computing practical {finally!}. The written questions and XSLT sections look ok, but the Quip question worries me a bit. Today's plan is to complete the last me4 assignment, fix the total mess up of a EPE2 lab and get as much of the CS practical done as possible {get at least the written and XSLT sections out of the way}. With a bit of luck {read: due care and attention} the lab will hopefully not take too long to put right. It has been a useful learning exerercise, although somewhat depressing. It's usually ok to make mistakes, just as long as you learn from them.


Song of the Day: Letter Never Sent (R.E.M.)

Oh what a great start to the week...

After a restless night with many failed attempts to fall asleep I finally calm down enough to sleep properly at around about 6ish (the joys of circadian rythms). This is brilliant as I normally get up at 7 to go into uni. Luckily it is the final teaching week of uni and so most of the lectures are finished for the semester. Therefore I decide to be lazy {again} and sleep a bit longer as I don't actually have to be at uni til 1110 for CS. What happens, I manage to sleep through a myriad of alarms and sleep in by 30 mins. Resulting in a rush to uni and wondering into the lecture 25 mins late. Not too disaterous I guess, but not a goot start. Still, got to read my book on the train and Woken Furies is shaping up nicley.

Making things a bit worse I wanted to get a lot more work done but just couldn't get myself into a working mentality. So instead I spent most of it sleeping and getting depressed about the failed power lab and getting no work done. Productivity at its best...


Song of the Day: For Me This Is Heaven (Jimmy Eat World)

Tales of My Dark Life {Part 0}

As I said I am going to try and use this blog to get to grips with some of the twists in my mind. To aid in restructuring the neural barriers I have installed in my head. I want to try and be as frank as possible and to allow anyone that is interested a glimpse of my mind. However there are some things I still don’t want to talk about, and some that I certainly don’t want to get into the specifics of. As a result some of my thoughts and memories will not be committed to these pages.


Yet there is so much I have wanted to tell people, but not known how. Therefore some things that should not have been are locked down deep inside. Every so often they break loose and wreck havoc on my mental landscape. I apologise in advance if this post is a bit fragmented or confusing. My English has never really been that good (might explain why in another post) and it’s not an easy subject for me to write about. So to the beginning of it all…


If you want to understand almost anything about me you need to go back 9 years, to when my father died. A Saturday morning in July, dad’s home from the hospital, mum telling us the news, a blood soaked mattress. That was a very large part of my life destroyed. Gone. Although the death was horrible, I am “happy” with this end. Better quick and painless at home than some of the other options. We are defined, one-way or another, by our pasts. It is from here many of my beliefs and outlook on this world stems.


Pain. Fury. Love. Despair. Rage. Relief. Hatred. Sorrow. It took a while to accept, a long while. I did a lot of stupid things. I think I severed a lot of ties in that transitional period. I had stonewalled the event, occasionally thinking it over, but mostly refusing to consider it. It was still too raw and my rationality had torn itself apart. Eventually I found a way to cope, al the pain and emotion was directed to my work. To do well. To understand the world. My work is my life. I didn’t want to do anything else. I didn’t want to think.


This approach has worked quite well. It achieved what it was supposed to do and as a consequence forced me try my best. Everything was going well until 6th year, when another environmental change was on the horizon. Roughly around this point a part of me awoke from its hiding place and started searching. It was what it had been told to do after all. What I think it found threw me. I still have trouble accepting what it found and it is this which is responsible for a lot of emotional tearing and turmoil going on in my life at the moment. Some people have seen its effects; for example the rant on the 3rd March. I am deeply sorry to anyone that has been hurt by such an outburst.


I have no long-term plans; almost everything I have done was planned in second year. People ask me what I plan to do once I leave university. The truth is I haven’t thought that far ahead. Currently I’m leaning more towards doing a postgraduate degree or a doctorate. The career isn’t what is important to me, being absorbed in the work and my other intellectual interests is. Do I want to make a difference? I don’t know if I trust myself to make a beneficial difference. I feel that I am apt at destruction and hurting others, and I have little or no confidence in my abilities to do the opposite.


I cannot recall with absolute certainty what my religious views were back then. But I think they were leaning away from religion. With what happened the balance was tipped fully and since then I have been an Atheist. That is I believe God does not exist. I have faith in science and that it can and will explain most, if not all, of what goes on, has gone on and will go on in the universe. I do not feel the need to invoke a divine Creator to explain our existence. It is still a possibility that some sort of creator exists, but I think it is doubtful they would be as described by any of the holy texts. However the question of whether something is possible is usually not as important as to ask what is it that is probable. I have no problem with other people believing in different things, but when they try and force other people to agree with them, that is when I have an issue.


Song of the Day: If You Never Say Goodbye (P.M. Dawn)

Boneheaded

Ok so I have kind of messed up the power lab today. Too slow. Far far too slow. 3 hours to wire up a switching box, and probably badly. Managed to wire OUT the MCB! Going back in on Tuesday to get it sorted and tested. Probably a good 90 mins of work to do.

So instead of having a nice relaxing weekend and working on CS I'm gonna be kicking myself repeatedly and worrying about this. At the same time stressing about CS, the upcoming exams and other stuff. Great... :(


Song of the Day: Your New Aesthetic (Jimmy Eat Wold)

Tired...

Hmm well the last post was a bit longer than I thought it would be. Just goes to show you can write alot when you put your mind to it. Currently I'm feeling really shattered, spent hours getting the me4 maths questions to work out to something sensible (ish). So hopefully there aint any boneheaded mistakes, though if there is at least its beter to make them now before the exam so I can learn from them.


:) On the way back to the train station I picked up a copy of Richard Morgan's latest book Woken Furies. It furthers the story of the Envoy Kovacs. Should be a good read.


Song of the Day: A Praise Chorus (Jimmy Eat World)

Today was a good day...

Although this is really a double post for both yesterday and today. I was meaning to post something yesterday but it was a pretty busy day and I unfortunately never got round to it {:$ I accidentally fell asleep a bit early :$}

Yesterday, as with most days had good and bad bits. It was mainly good since I finally got my hands on a copy of Werewolf: the Forsaken RPG. :D The concepts seem very cool and interesting so far, the book itself is just awesome. Well worth the wait. All I need to do now is to come up with a few more good plot idea and get on with STing a campaign {something I have been meaning to do since the start of second year. Just not really found the time, oops}.

Unfortunately yesterday also involved going to the dentist. Which was hampered by repeated attempts by fate and the train network to make me late for it {well two, the train didn't want to start and near Dalmany a train broke down in front of us}. Now I don't mind dentists, they are nice people, but I don't like going to the dentist for two main reasons. Firstly it serves as a reminder how strange I am, although I normally take this as a good thing it can sometimes get me a bit wound up and depressed. Secondly I can still remember quite clearly when I decided against getting a local anaesthetic on my teeth when they were doing some drilling work. Never again!!! As much as the anaesthetic was not nice, the pain that drilling caused was severe and the nerves still twinge a bit from time to time.

Another good (and numbing) aspect of going to the dentist for me is the routes I take there and back. For those of you ho don't really know me, I like my walking. Apart from the fact its good for you by keeping you fit, it gives me time to think and listen to music. The thinking time is much appreciated as it gives me time to straighten out some of the twists in my mind, especially of late. It is numbing because I (deliberately) walk past my old secondary school and then take a scenic route back home via the quarry and coastal path {and usually half way round the bay as well}. This brings back all sorts of memories, good and bad. My thoughts usually end up with musing over all the possibilities that could have been. Its a bad habit in some respects, especially when in a depressive context. however when viewed in a constructive context I can find it quite helpful. If we are to even attempt to mould our future, we must understand the past {IMHO}.

Today was nice. Nothing really special about today, apart from being really tired and taking about 4 hours to wake up (:$ fell asleep in CS for 10 mins :$). The tired bit wasn't the nice bit of course, I was just in a happier mood than normal. Getting some study done (maths due in tomorrow, although line integrals and flux integrals are beginning to get slightly frustrating), power lab tomorrow which should be interesting and I aint as angry at this world as I was during the previous two weeks. :) With a bit of luck I will stay in this mental state for a bit longer.

Right that’s enough time deferred, time to finish the maths.


Song of the Day: Daysleeper (R.E.M.)

Cadian Kasrkin with plasma gun {still painting this guy, hope to actually finish it this time...}

Cadian Kasrkin with plasma gun

Phones out :(

Just in case anyone is wanting to contact me though my mobile (unlikely, even more unlikely that they would be reading this post) but my phone battery has died on account of me forgetting to charge it. Ooops.


:D Werewolf: the Forsaken should be out in 4 days :D Given my current mood that will be quite interesting...


Song of the Day: Only Ashes (Something Corporate)

{temp} 

Thinking, that's all - Music List

{Jimmy Eat World}

"Thinking, that's all", rockstar, caveman, robot factory, hear you me, "if you don't, don't", the authority song, salt sweat sugar, a praise chorus, the middle.

{Snow Patrol}

How to be dead, spitting games, chocolate, run, somewhere a clock is ticking.

{Something Corporate}

The astronaut, straw dog, drunk girl, cavanaugh park, globes & maps, konstantine, only ashes, the runaway, watch the sky, break myself.

{Muse}

Time is running out, stockholm syndrome, hysteria, the small print, sunburn, muscle museum, cave, showbiz, escape, overdue, new born, bliss, space dementia, darkshines.

{R.E.M.}

She just wants to be, i've been high, disapper, imitation of life, great beyond, losing my religion, me in honey, harbor coat, so. central rain, driver 8, life and how to live it, the apologist, walk unafraid, daysleeper, parakeet, the one i love, nightswimming, leave, bittersweet me, "so fast, so numb" , monty got a raw deal, try not to breathe, everybody hurts.

{The Zutons}

Pressure point, you will you won't, nightmare part II, don't ever think (too much).

{Greenday}

Good Riddance (Time of Your Life), homecoming, jesus of suberbia, Macy's Day Parade, Boulevard of Broken Dream, Basket Case, Minority.

{Franz Ferdinand}

Auf achse, take me out, michael, this fire.


Song of the Day: So. Central Rain (I'm sorry) {R.E.M.}

{temp} 

{temp} 

{temp} 

{temp} 

{temp} 

Its a light suspended from the sky... 

Recovery...

Well thats the end of what was, on reflection, a nightmareish weekend. A strange week in general really. I might post more when I've had a bit more time to think and figure out what was going on inside my head. {comments on the rant?}

Finally got the java pactical to some sort of completion, still a few annoyences cropping up, but seems to be working ok. However, it is really annoying how, with 28 mins left to the deadline, an email is circulated extending it by 24 hours. Thats good for all the ppl having major problems and needing the extra time to get stuff sorted. Yet for those of us who were working really late ino the morning to get stuff done its a bit of a pain that the email wasn't sent out earlier. I might tinekr with it to fix one of the bugs that have surfaced since I handed it in, but now that i'm absolutly shattered I might just leave it alone. Also code has a tendency to die, tear itself apart and inside ou if your not reall careful when making the last minute changes.

On the plus side my uni email account isn't going to be deleted, a rougue script sent out deletion notices to almost all of students here. The problem has been sorted and an apology issued.

Tutorial time, then home... I need some tea and rest.


Song of the Day: Make It All Ok (R.E.M.)

Its not sad, its useful... 

Skillfully hiding 

Apparently I don't appear very serious in many photographs... 

Shadows...


Song of the Day: Nightswimming (R.E.M.)

Maelstrom

{Ranting}

I'll probably regret posting this in the morning but...

You spend several hours attempting to talk to someone, not really knowing how or what about, and they hardly even acknowldege your existence. Then they just dissapper without a trace. Tis just depressing...


But anyways, there is not much I can do about it now, maths still needs to be finshed off, want to do some blendering but the CS Java practical deadline is looming ever closer.

Current plan: Sort out paperwork for tomorrow, sleep, wake up, goto and do more uni stuff.


Song of the Day: Hear You Me (Jimmy Eat World)

In another one of my thoughtful moods, this pool of water struck me as interesting.

Song of the Day: Driver 8 (R.E.M.)

Just looking throught some of the random pics I've taken recently, it's another sunset.