A Very Busy Day

Today has been one of the busiest days of my university life and it seems to be setting the trend for the rest of this semester. I don't know whether I am just being too ambitious, trying to fit two and a half years worth of missed opportunities and activities into one semester or whether things will all work out okay and although I will have to put a lot of effort in, the rewards will more than make up for it. I certainly hope that is the case.

It all began with a meeting with my dissertation tutor to discuss my plans for the rest of the year and to show him my prototype design and get the feedback and the mark for my interim report. It didn't get off to a brilliant start because he was unable to get the program working on his computer - something I feared would be the case as I had only used it on my PC and some of the components could be machine specific. With hindsight, perhaps I should have tested it first but I can remember that for next time. He seemed to think it was a good idea anyway and thought that the other ideas I had showed promise but he wanted to see the program in action before he passed judgement. Thankfully he did manage to get it to work after I had left so I will see what he really thinks of it next week when he has had a chance to have a better look at it. On the plus side, I somehow managed a first on the report, something I never dreamed would happen. I was optimistically hoping for a 2:1 so this came as a bit of a shock. I have never been too good at reports and essays but I seem to have a knack for critical analysis which gave me the foundations for the higher mark. With a bit of luck I can carry that through to the final piece and come out with a similar score.

Just the one lecture filled the gap in between the other activities and then it was off to a meeting with the TSC (Technical Services Committee) who are the technical crew behind all of the union events organising the lighting, sound and suchlike. I ended up going to two meetings with them, their regular meeting at lunchtime which wasn't especially useful and was more focused on allocating the available jobs to the current members but they held a second meeting at the end of the day for the new recruits which was far more productive. After being drowned out of two venues, first by tap dancers and then by an over enthusiastic man with a hammer we ended up in the interval bar and sat chatting for a couple of hours. One of my course mates has also signed up and ended up convincing me to go out with the CSS (Computer Science Society) for their Monday Night social. With that on the cards, there was just about time to dash home, scoff some food and get ready before heading back down to the union again.

After the first TSC lunchtime meeting, it was off to the SmartFixIT office for some job shadowing. I will now be helping to fix student and staff computers in my (very limited) spare time but the guy in charge is pretty laid back about it and is following the principle that because he cannot afford to pay us, we should at least enjoy what we are doing. If nothing else, it will be another tick on the CV front and can kill the time in between spaced out lectures when they all start up in a couple of weeks.

On the whole, a thoroughly knackering but enjoyable day and possibly one of many to come!