It seems I have somewhat neglected my blog, my last full non-image post of any real value was back in October – my lovely racism article, if you're lucky you might catch a copy of it by scrolling down this page a little. It seems my time has been spent elsewhere, primarily taken up by my degree; VLSI designs here, Analogue system designs there – an ill fated electronic nose to tout my CV with and a multitude of late nights in the computer room attempting to complete coursework to the best of my abilities. This trend continued right up until last Tuesday when I completed the last exam of my third and penultimate university year. I don't really know what to do with myself and this crazy amount of free time, I am sure it won't last and a bit of sunshine wouldn't go amiss. You see for the last 5 or 6 weeks, following the nerve wracking project presentation to the ever superior dean of engineering and the 16,000 word report associated with it, I have spent each and every day revising—from 9am until 9pm at night, sometimes later, without break or rest. I wrote so much I had RSI before going into the exam hall. Well now those days are over and I am well trained in the arts of digital signal processing, digital and analogue systems design, robotics, finance and accounting, VLSI and digital and analogue communication systems (most of which will be defunct in a few years as the switch to digital is made); or at least I hope the results of the 7 exams will say so. They didn't go as well as I had hoped, you may argue so what, but generally I have been pretty pleased with my exam performance in the past. Maybe it was the change in exam structure that baffled me, this year there's an external examining body coming to check that everything is going well – much like Ofsted but for further education; it is for this reason many lecturers broke out of their well defined mould of predictable exam questions to present confusing and unpolished alternatives in attempts to look good in the eyes of the officials. I shouldn't complain too much, at least the engineers weren't subject to the appalling lecturer strikes that have smitten my friends degrees and graduation – refusing to set exams, mark work or do anything admin related. It's a grave injustice to the hard working student body – the university's customers if you will; months of dissertation struggles traded for an unaccredited degree and covering letter of explanation. It's disgraceful and the university and lecturers ought to settle their battles without involving, disgracing or overly stressing innocent third parties during examination periods.
In other news I have a failed ARM interview and a couple of rejection letters under my belt and still no summer employment, hoorah. Most of my time not spent in education has been devoted to the ongoing and steadily improving indiecult.com website, also mentioned a few posts below and I am off to Venn Festival in Bristol next week in light of that; Vashti Bunyan being a particular highlight for me.
While at home over Easter I made a couple of great discoveries in the attic concerning record players, vinyl, old edition comics and some original D&D. Such beauties include a great electro-jazz 70s piece from Bob Downes and a Morrocan Maghreb at Marrakesh disc, all truly stunning. I'll write a more comprehensive list in the near future but now I must dash to measure my girlfriend's head size and watch X-men 3 at the Apollo.
