JFox (jfox) wrote, @ 2005-06-03 15:23:00

Current mood:	good
Current music:	Nine Inch Nails - No, You Don't

Don't worry Blurty, I still love you. Even though everyone (including me) has jumped ship to lj and my friends list has only one or two people on it I'll still keep cross-posting to you as well...

A few items of note:

* Was my 23rd birthday last Saturday. Didn't really impinge on me much, and I was entirely happy for it to be Dodge's day, who's surprise birthday party went off well. My birthdays of late have felt a lot less significant than they used to be. I suppose this could be because I don't feel like another year has really made much difference to me. As Glorgana said, I'm pretty much just as she left me. Should I be worried that my personality is not evolving, or should I be grateful that my sense of self is stable? The me that is now and the me that once was both agree on the latter.
Also, considering that perceptions of the passage of time decrease when you get older, this it probably another reason that birthdays, and christmas, etc, feel less significant as time goes on. There must be some way of working out meaningful markings of how much life you've lived... I'll work it out and get back to y'all.

* Had to present then defend my project this week. That was a pile of fun. On Tuesday we had the fun of the fourth year mini-conference, where I talked through the latter half (more like latter quarter) of the project. Even then, there wasn't time for anything other than an overview, and I even managed to slightly overrun just with that. I felt my slides where a little slapdash (there is no easy way of turning a latex-typeset document into a decent-looking presentation) and I was a little flustered in my performance, but the grades I caught sight of over the markers shoulder (accidentaly!) were pretty good.
The next day was my project viva day. This, I must point out, is not the grade boundary deciding viva that may or may not happen in June, but the equivalent of a proper PhD viva, where the supervisor and the second examiner sit back and watch you fudge and fumble your way through your reasoning. The whole process is the accademic equivalent of being ganged up apon and jabbed with cattle prods. Having said that, I don't think it went all that badly. I did however, end up goading Falko into continuing the questioning, something like
Him: "Okay, I think you've been tortured enough now"
Me: "Oh, don't let me stop you, if you're having fun"
They obviously were.

* Went to Preston yesterday to spend some birthday money. Shopping trips are so much more fun when you actually have money to spend on things...
Walked away with a big bagful of presents for myself (including a new bag, as the one I was using decided to stop working), including various cds and dvd sets. Sadly the market was dissapointing; none of the stalls I was particularly looking for were there, and I was unable to pick up a power cable for the gamecube I picked up off Adam. Turns out a gamecude power lead is not an easy item to come by, as they are not shipped as components, so the only way one might become free is when a camecube breaks down. Which happens never. Stupid reliable console.

	gigglessots 2005-06-03 19:58 (link)
	I still read Blurty. I just dont update coz Livejournal is better. I added you to my Livejournal friends list. Youre moving to Newcastle right? Just out of curiousity, whereabouts you gonna be living? We (Steve, Jay and myself) are gonna live in Walker if you know where that is (Reply to this) (Thread)

	jfox 2005-06-04 11:20 (link)
	Er. Argh. Um. I'm sure we'd feel a lot better about the whole thing if we knew that, but as it stands we're not even entirely sure which end of summer we'll be escaping in. Much confusion and fretting abounds. I feel fairly sure that, when things get sorted, there will be an entry obviously titled "We have a house!" or something, containing the details. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

galen 2005-06-06 06:28 (link)

well done on the defense and the viva. For future reference, there is a LaTeX type/package for slides; one of our more sadistic lecturers used to make all his slides on LaTeX, and then print them out about 10 slides to a page... fun. anyway, as I say - LaTeX slides are possible to produce, and not too complicated [i]couldn't post on livejournal because it's friends-only-comments[/i] (Reply to this) (Thread)

jfox 2005-06-06 12:33 (link)

I knopw there are packages out there, and last year I even tried using a number of them. Trouble is, as is the nature of programs like LaTeX, there appears to be no concensus as to The Best Way to get results, leading to confusion. > [i]couldn't post on livejournal because it's friends-only-comments[/i] Aaargh. I cannot seem to be able to fix the comment options correctly! I'll try and fix it now... right, should work now. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

galen 2005-06-06 17:53 (link)

Let me let you into a secret; :shakes head to get Shania Twain's voice out of it: with both computers and academia there is seldom one "The Best Way to get results" - if you start looking you'll never get anywhere; just find one way that works and stick to it until you stumble across something better, or you *need* something different. just my bleary tuppence. And I've never taken my own advice, no earthly reason anyone else should... (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)