Easy like Sunday morning

Apathy has set in with my corrections. Have only a few big things left to do, but feels a bit overwhelming, and overwhelming has now progressed to "oh I really can't be bothered."

Am going to try and think about my corrections today, but am also planning on writing a short story as part of my 101 things in a 1001 days challenge. Although I started one a while ago, it kind of lost its way; I think one which just came to me when I woke up yesterday morning has some legs, and I even have a title in mind, again, which just came to me.

But is it any good? Time will tell.

Also need to sit down and sort through things in my room today. Moving out is a while off yet, but need to start lightening the load that I'll be taking with me. Charity shops and eBay will be taking a lot from me over the next few months I think!

What does Sunday hold for you?

"Wordy" Wednesday - Rabbit

This is not going to turn into a blog where I just post links to cool things on Youtube... Well, I'm not actively looking to turn this into that kind of thing!

Instead of a Wordless Wednesday, as I've done a few times in the past, this video is quite wordy - in fact there are words all over the place.

Oh, and it's also (in my opinion) a little disturbing. In a good way.

Very poor choice of words

Sigh. Still over a month until The Dark Knight comes out in the UK...

Sigh...

Two Weeks?! Really?

Kind of surprising to me that it is over two weeks since I last wrote on here (not quite sure why noisms hasn't been writing either). Lots of this and that been happening, so I'll try and fill you in a bit.

(if you're interested that is - if you're reading this then perhaps you are)

Have started work on the corrections for my thesis. Has been going quite well all in all. Had to spend last week at home because the office was getting painted (except that never happened, the painters never turned up, and this being the University of Liverpool no-one is surprised); I got a lot of done in terms of planning my corrections, but not much in the way of actual corrections. Was this because I had ordered the first three seasons of The X-Files on DVD (they were very cheap)?

Maybe.

This week I've got a lot more done; finished most of the corrections in two chapters, updated all of the diagrams that needed changing, and corrected typos and grammar problems that I'd noticed in three other chapters. I spent yesterday working from home, and actually got quite a bit done; I was reworking one of the chapters, and when you get into it you can really let yourself go in thinking about how and why you decided to arrange things the way you did. It's crazy! Everything seemed so straightforward before, but now things are looking so much better in this chapter. It's quite cool to be working on it.

What else? Not having much luck on the job front. Haven't seen anything in the last week or so that I fancy; although I am starting to look further afield and trying to think of things that I could do that are slightly out of my area but I might be suitable for. Am also looking for a holiday this summer - the big debate at the moment is whether or not to consider going abroad as I need to renew my passport. Saw a return flight to Dublin for 2 pence including taxes which was a bit of a bargain. Am looking a bit further afield as well, but waiting to hear back on a few things.

Downloaded Firefox 3 for my laptop yesterday. Shiny. Not sure how the RSS feed stuff works yet - for some reason, despite mastering LaTeX, Maple, understanding the basics of webpage design and so on, I just can't quite figure out how to get RSS feeds to work... Want to set up and configure Thunderbird soon too, get myself ready for the day when I'm kicked out of the office and have to rely on my setup.

And that's about it. Read a few good books. One was Cory Doctorow's "Little Brother" which you can download and read for free under a Creative Commons licence; it's a good near-future thriller with some interesting points about the rights of individuals during times of crisis, and along the way I learned some pretty useful things about the digital world we live in now.

More soon, am trying to get back into a regular updating pattern.

That's It?

I had the viva for my thesis yesterday, and passed.

There was no parade, nor was there a party, an award, a presentation of the key to the city or a clip of me on the evening news.

Not that I was expecting any of that, but I was expecting something. Feels like a bit of an anticlimax. I mean, yes, sure, I've passed my viva and that's great, it really is - but it feels like there should be something more after three and a half years of work.

It's possible that I'm still just too exhausted from spending three hours standing and talking and doing stuff on the blackboard to really appreciate the significance of it all and bask in the knowledge that I have my PhD...

(or will do when I complete my corrections in the next few months and then attend a graduation ceremony in December)

I am happy that it went well! I should be writing a little more frequently in the coming weeks and months now that the pressure is off: my next big challenge is to find a job...

More soon.