Desmond

I am now Lucy Deas BSc hons.

Isn’t that cool? I got a 2:2 in my degree. It was only 2% off being a 2:1 which is a bit annoying but good mark anyway so can’t complain. Everyone else I’ve spoken to did very well too so I’m pleased for them.

That’s it now. We don’t graduate till September. I can’t wait really to get my gown and hat and all that. Feel like it’s all been worth it. Apparently I’m the first one in my family – well second to my cousins a few years ago but im my immediate family to get a degree. My dad left school when he was 16, mum went to college and started uni but then dropped out. She told me last night that’s she’s never told either me or my sister that because she thought she might influence us and might have the wrong effect. I told her that would have made me more determined not to end up like her.

Among my morning net surfing I came across this video by a internet friend of mine. Check it out – it’s really very funny. They deserve some publicity.

I’m off to apply for more jobs.

TTFN

The end.. or the beginning?

So. That’s it. I’ve finished Uni. I’m moving out of my house tomorrow and back to Bristol with the old parentals.
It’s been an eventful last term. Well – mainly revision and getting stressed out and sick to death of exams and never-ending notes but nice bits in between. It’s sods law, or murphy’s law or something that there was a lot of lovely weather, baking hot sunny days during the exam period. Longing for barbecues or lounging around in the park became a constant urge but the fear of not doing enough work was scarier and the last push for the finish line carried on throughout. However, after we were all done with exams, chilling out and ready to spend lpng hours doing nothing, it’s been rainy, colder, and cloudy. Thats british weather for you.
So.. for the last week it’s been getting emptier in our house. Rich has left as he’s going away for the summer, Anna has gone on holiday as well and me and my best girlies have been spending some quality last time with each other. We all went to the Uni end of year ball on wednesday. I even bought a proper dress and nice girly shoes. Most people I knew expressed disbelief at that thought. I am not the most girly of people and I rarely wear low cup tops or anything remotely pretty but yes I did wear a dress and actually felt comfortable in it. Go me!
We had a lazy day thursday. The 3 of us girls and luke spent most of the day watching dvd’s whilst eating chocolate coated rice krispies and curry. Was definitely needed.
Today – been packing up my room. I have chucked quite a lot of stuff and am still wondering how I seem to have accumulated so much stuff in my room. Since my room at home is much smaller than my nice big student room, I have nowhere to put any of it so I’ll be living out of boxes for a bit at home until I can sort it all.
I feel quite sad to be leaving Plymouth. The nice bits anyway. I walked down to the Hoe earlier on and took some photos. It was quite quiet and calm around the harbour and across the water. I was thinking how as much as I sometimes dispise some bits of the city, or the people, or the main roads and lack of cycle routes, there are some lovely places to go and walk. Especially as it’s by the sea.
Bristol may be a port and a coastal city but it doesn’t have sea in it. Just some nice muddy docks.Just as I was walking back down towards the Barbican and boat float, it started to piss it down with rain. I’m not really complaining because it wasn’t cold, but nice wet summery rain. It also meant that anyone walking about suddenly rushed for cover which left the pavements quite empty. I was a little disappointed because I had wanted to sit and look at the water a bit longer and take lots of pictures but I took some of some raincovered swans and then walked home.
Jess and Luke have gone this evening so we said bye to them. Esther’s parents are staying over till tomorrow when she’s leaving, as am I. I’m looking forward to getting home now.
I can’t wait to be in a kitchen which is not constantly covered in grease or crumbs. I’m looking forward to sitting in my bedroom and not being able to hear buses outside the window. I’m looking forward to sitting watching the tv and my cat coming to sit on me and claw me. I’m looking forward to having a garden again.
I’m not looking forward to the cut-off-ness in Bristol, that I live a bit further away from the main shops and pubs that I often go to, nowhere really close to go for a nice walk around and the whole feeling of everything being right there.
I’m not looking forward to my sister’s noisy music, constant social life inside the house and having to put up with sharing things with other people.
I’m not looking forward to the lack of social life, random studenty things like sitting up watching dvd’s, making weird food, bitching about other people in the house, watching tv in the kitchen, playing piggy in the middle up the stairs, txting each other from our bedrooms, rendezvous-ing in the kitchen for tea/toast/cake.
Oh well – I’m not classed as a student anymore. I’m no longer at uni, back home for the holidays. I’m just living there and now going to find a job.
That was a bit of a long post there – I wonder if anyone reads this random bloggeration. If you do – thank you, you’re very kind and must be either mad or both.
I bid you goodnight and very sweet dreams.

Done… tick

Well I have officially finished my degree! All exams, work – done.

Don’t actually graduate till September so I’m still an undergraduate but no longer a student.

Hmm… what shall I do now?

Which type of student are you?

I went to my third uni exam this morning. They don’t hold the exams in the Uni cus there’s nowhere big enough so we have to walk down to Plymouth Pavilions – sort of big entertainment centre with an arena in the middle because it has more room.

Walking down there I was surrounded by other students. Watching them, I decided on 3 categories.

There are the one’s who are totally cool about it, “yeh exams, who cares really, I only revised a bit, let’s go smoke a spliff”. This category tends to be mostly guys.

Then there are the ones who are still reading their notes while walking into the exam hall, cramming in, wondering if they read enough shelves of the library, and who get really annoyed when you say the word ‘fail’, ‘work’, ‘essay’ or ‘who cares’.

Then there are the people like me. I’m in the middle of these. I like to call it rational. They know that they need to work. They tend to have an ambition, or a grade in mind that they want to work to, but they don’t over work, and try and memorise absolutely everything. They will rationalise the workload and be slightly risk taking but the stuff that needs to be learnt will be learnt properly.

I like being that category. I like to think I’m clever and quite good at exams but I’ve never been a swot and never will be. Saying that I’m not really a rebel either. I am reasonably good academically. I want the grade enough, and know I have to work for it. I don’t go all out try and learn that much and do loads of extra reading – I feel it’s a waste of my time and it won’t be worth the effort. No-one cares that much whether you get a 1st degree or a 2:1 especially if the degree is unrelated to the job you’re applying for anyway. I just like knowing things. Learning things and impressing people. That’s what I strive on.

Photos

Nearly the end of term – wahey. I can’t wait till easter – hopefully I’ll be able to get out and take lots of piccies amongst other things. I’ve got 2 essays to write as well.

What else have I been doing…? – Not a lot worth writing about. I’m going swimming tomorrow morning first thing. It mite be quiet at 8.30 in the morning. I will definitely benefit from the exercise. I’ve got rather unfit this last year with my only real exercise being walking. Ok it’s fair to say I do a lot of walking but less lectures meant less going into uni and I haven’t been doing much else outside uni stuff this year. I always wondered as a child how adults managed to sit around for hours on end chatting and drinking tea etc. I now realise it’s really very easy. I almost miss the days of having go and run somewhere or climb a tree or play football when we went out or even days at home during the holidays but it’s nice being more chilled and in control of your own energy levels.

I’ve also updated the photo page of this blog with a link to my new gallery.

I’ve decided there’s much more space on there and it’s so much easier to put most of my photos on there rather than putting them straight onto pages in wordpress.

Feel free to check them out. As I love wildlife photography and naturey greeny stuff in general there is a lot of that but a few other things as well. Comments greatly appreciated.

Stats

Has anyone ever used the stats package SPSS? Or even got into doing many statistical tests on data….

DONT!!

IT’S EVIL!!!!

I did a simple correlation test on my data for my experiment which made sense when I got the results. They were what I expected and the graphs showed results which were basically quite simple. However, I have now found out that because my data was not normally distributed I have to do a different test on it which I have no idea how to do.

What the hell is the difference really? It’s the same relationship whether they are of a normal distribution or not… and actually the results are not supposed to be. They are measuring handedness for gods sake – most of the population are right handed so there is a big skew to the right anyway.

I’m not behind where I should be in the whole dissertation writing thing but I want to just get the results done and I thought it was simple but it’s not.

I better get a mark I feckin deserve!

Haribo

Don’t ya just love them. I saw them in the shop while I was buying a paper and had to have them. They aren’t lasting very long tho.

Ok I’ve done a fair amount of work for the minute. I’m going for a short walk down the road to the postbox and then maybe round the park, take a picture or two and come back. I need to stretch my legs.

My workspace is currently my bed. Comfy but not too much so I just doze off. I can sit on my bed at my laptop which is on the chest of drawers and then spread my books out around me. Something I can’t do in the uni library. I’m doing better on the distraction front but maybe it’s just that I have 6 weeks to finish my dissertation so I can’t afford to be distracted.

Such is life… and I’ve just found my graduation is now September rather than July. July was early tho but September is quite late so its rather annoying.

Busy bee

Good afternoon bloggers.

Had a busy week so haven’t blogged. Actually I have had lots of time but writing blogs is quite far down my list of ‘things to be getting on with’. Mainly it’s coursework, dissertation stuff, or sorting out uni stuff which is why I seem to put off the less important things.

So we’re half way thru the term now.. ish. Less lectures but technically the same amount of work. 6 weeks till dissertation due. Wooer.

Several of us have been chatting about the end of this year and not being students anymore. Altho most people I know are either staying down next year because they won’t be finished yet, or they are carrying on and doing a Masters.

Personally I can’t be bloggered. After nearly 18 years in education, I think I need to have new experiences and just do other things. I’d love to have a job which pays ok and which I enjoy but which I don’t have to take home with me. Outside work hours, I can do what I want. I seem to have lists of things building up which I want to do as soon as I finish uni.

Firstly to catch up on reading. I really like getting into a good book but I have about a shelf of them I haven’t read yet. Either I’ve bought and started reading immediately but then found something else to do, or I’ve been given books and not even started them. I’m not very good at sitting down and concentrating on a book for more than 10 minutes. I’m much too easily distracted especially when I have the internet. I’ll just sit down and say ‘I’ll read this chapter and try and remember what’s going on in this book’, read a page or so and then a car will go past outside and the noise will annoy me or another noise in the house will distract me and I’ll just sit and listen to that.

On holiday is the best time to read a book – I’m usually in the countryside or by the sea so less noise and no internet, tv, or many other people so I can get absorbed in a book. Bring on the summer!

Another thing I’m going to do this summer is actually learn to drive. I had a few lessons a couple of summers ago and had a bit of a practice in mum’s car. But going back to uni got in the way and I’d rather have lessons when I’m home because I know Bristol better and it’s nicer for driving. As soon as I pass my test, I’ll get insured on mum’s car so at least I can go places by myself a bit more rather than relying on other people.

When I’m able to drive, I really want to go away more with friends, maybe taking our campervan and going to places just for a weekend. I like the sound of that….

I’m keeping that thought… it’s motivation to get me to 23rd May.

Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans

Hello everyone in blogland. A cheery hello to everyone who’s feeling down, sad, bored or just a bit mondayish today. Stick a smile on your face and thank god it’s nearly over.

I slept ok last night. I went to bed about 11.30 which is my usual “bedtime”, altho I don’t like that word. It sounds like I’m my own parent or something.

I had to get up for 9.00 this morning which I did. I don’t like the monday morning lecture. It’s a rather boring topic but I went anyway as usual. I came back to the house straight after, did some notes on dissertation and transferred bits of journals and bits of my own experimental design onto one document. Twiddled about on t’internet for a bit and procrastinated. Yes.. Facebook – how did you guess?

I had a lecture at 4.00 so wandered back over, I actually almost look forward to this one because it’s a quite simple but interesting topic with a lecturer who knows his stuff and is quite interesting. However, I walked into the lecture theatre and glancing at a sign on the board found that the lecture was cancelled due to illness. How annoying!

I didn’t really have any other plans so slowly meandered back through the park taking some pictures. I found one daffodil out plus some small yellow flowers which were pretty. Despite them looking very pretty sticking up out of the grass, the pictures didn’t come out that well – I think because it was windy and they were moving.

This whole 365 – one picture each day of the year lark is quite difficult sometimes. Now and again I’ll go out for a walk or something happens where I can lots of pictures which I think are really good. The problem is I run out of inspiration. I want every picture I take to be the best one like it but sometimes nothing out of the ordinary happens, and on the route between uni and my house, I feel there is nothing that interesting to make a good photo. I need to get into a more picture taking mindset where I can see photo opportunities in more than just plants, animals, sea, views, sunsets. Although some of the best photos are sometimes down to a fluke. Maybe I need more confidence in myself.

Friday’s theme

Hey hey – who likes the new theme? I fancied a change again. The green of this page was getting a bit weird so this is more 2008.

Ok – did a few things today. Went to a lecture on tool use in animals. Quite an interesting subject. Most of it we covered in the animal behaviour module last term but it’s not exactly taxing and we have a good lecturer so can’t complain.

Got some books out of the library – am determined to read several chapters worth before taking them back. One of them is useful for dissertation so I made some notes from that. The other one is vaguely related to consciousness module. The kind of core book recommended for the topic had none left in the library so got a different one but it looks like a good introduction.

I went for a short walk (ie down to the side of the plym and back) just as it was getting dark. It had stopped raining and being so cold and windy so I made the most of it and took some pictures of the sunset.

Just watched Jamie’s Fowl Dinners. Jamie Oliver really is my hero. He’s so passionate about things that are right. He made such good points about the fact that 90% of the population are happy to eat exceedingly cheaply produced meat and eggs and many of them have no idea where it comes from. Even if they make that decision to spend less on it, at least they should be told what conditions the chickens have been in. And it’s not just chicken. Anything like pies or quiches or mayonnaise with eggs in uses battery eggs which I didnt know and therefore even if I always buy free-range organic eggs and free-range chicken, I’m missing a few things.

Anyway I’m glad the message is out a bit more. Most supermarkets (altho not Tesco or Asda so much) are quite up on phasing out the battery chickens and eggs. Good.