All Done

Today should have been a much needed - and I think much deserved - day off in preparation for the never ending day that is tomorrow's Summer Social. Instead, I have been stuck in the physics computer lab from 10am until 5:30pm finisheing of this final assignment. It can be very frustrating sometimes working in groups when the skill level is so very different. Working with two non computer science students is hard enough but at least they have an excuse for their ignorance of the more technical elements to the assignment.

The problem with the other computer science student in our group is the language barrier. She is from Libya and whilst she speaks enough English to get by, having a conversation and trying to explain things is very difficult and more so when she is trying to explain something to me. Understanding a foreign language is much easier than making yourself understood in a foreign language. As such, we decided to split the work so that the two less technical people got on with the wordy background research stuff whilst we ran the experiments. I dropped in yesterday with a macro I had written to vastly speed up the process of analysing the results of the experiments which I reckon saved several hours hard graft repetitively typing formulae into Excel.

I came in today expecting to stay for a couple of hours to write a conclusion and finish off what I had failed to do yesterday because of work overrunning what I had been expecting only to find that no one had done even half what I had hoped they would have. Not only that but the bits they had done were all presented so differently that it was almost easier to start again from scratch rather than adjust the presentation to match each other.

I ended up redoing three experiment analyses on top of my own allocated set and then writing up the results for twelve experiments whilst the other computer science girl wrote just six in the same time. Whilst all of this was happening, one member managed to write up a list of references of which there were only about ten and the other one continued to try and write two pages of the research which they had been working on for two weeks!

By this point, I was so fed up that I asked if I could leave. I felt I'd contributed more than my fair share - a sentiment echoed by the group when we realised I had to sign a piece of paper with my contribution on it before I left. They agreed that I could go and I'm glad I did because they were there for another hour and a half finishing everything off.

I have designed a new Summer Social themed background for Freestyler which I will be using to op the lights tomorrow and I have discovered why very few of the buttons on the touchscreen interface weren't working yesterday because I hadn't taken the move buttons function off which meant clicking them wasn't activating them. Silly mistake but at least now I know.

Tonight was also a celebration evening because not only was it my housemate's birthday but it was also the last night in Sheffield for one of my friends who is graduating. We decided to go to Wetherspoons for dinner and then out for some drinks afterwards. This was the first time I have ever (knowingly) been to a Wetherspoons and I can't see myself rushing back given the quality of the food. I could probably have done better myself and it wasn't especially cheap either. Still, a good time was had by all which is the most important thing.

Before I end, here is this week's track for you to enjoy. You have probably all heard it by now although I have opted to go with the album version that I much prefer to the single version that was released last week. I have included both for you to choose so here they are, Alphabeat's latest single DJ.

And the album verion from We7

Free music - DJ