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A Typical Day Two Weeks Before Uni’s End

Byrichard

Just put on some music and now I’ll tell you about a typical day, just two weeks before the end of uni life for me. My phone is set so that it rings every morning at 9 am and the reason it gives me is “catch a flight” because I had set that particular alarm to wake me up before one of my numerous flights.

It doesn’t often get me out of bed, I usually snooze till about 11 am and that’s when there’s noise from the cleaners. I open up the laptop and I start surfing around the world wide web syncing up with what’s happened whilst I was sleeping. It’s not until about two hours later than I do something productive like get out of bed, take a shower, and then get on with the public phase of my day.

a few times I’ve woken up and got straight into one of the three assignments that are due within the next three weeks. I stop working when either it’s at least an hour later or I’ve run out knowledge and because it requires research I decide it’s easier to get sidetracked by something else.

Around 2 pm I go for a walk, as an excuse to listen to a podcast. I get myself what is required for a sandwich and get some ice tea. Time to relax whilst eating.

Until this point there’s a chance I haven’t been sociable so I walk over to the uni library, it’s only 5 minutes away so it’s no struggle. As I arrive there I go from one friend to another, getting a little insight into how well they’re doing with assignments.

With certain people you find that they’re halfway through the dissertation, others are finished. Some were working on their advertising module course work and others claim not to have started writing. I’m glad I have. (slight understatement)

There are a few groups of people I hang around with. Sometimes I go to a venue and I film a friend’s gig, as happened or I go to the SU bar (which hasn’t happened for the past two weeks and won’t happen before next Monday. The third option is to hang out with more friends in halls.

Once I get home I do some more work, sometimes another two or three hours. I found that at one point I was so anxious and worried about my work that I couldn’t go to sleep before I had progressed with my dissertation.  I’m lucky that way. My mind has become the perfect nag. I’m grateful for this.

Sleep is easy, I lie down, pull the laptop screen down and see that it latches. Listen to my ipod and fall asleep.

My Dislike Of Cleaners

Byrichard

Several times I have had to clean the exterior of Airbus 320 and similiarly sized aircraft. You get some really long brushes and firehoses and you spray the plane before you clean it. it’s hard physical work and it’s done between midnight and five am. It’s not a pleasant job.

Now that you know the type of cleaning I’ve done I want to express my deep dislike of cleaners and why. Every single day they pass in the halls and bang around, speaking at the top of their voices when students are in need of sleep. We’re also in need of a feeling of privacy in the form of silence. Every time some idiot walks by talking loud it’s annoying.

Then you’ve got the blocked doors and rooms. They’ve been polishing every floor over the past week so that when everyone who’s had the luxury of going home over the holiday comes home to a clean building. I have to put up with the chemical smells and the blocked paths. Imagine going to a door and waiting for three or four people to finish their work. Others polish the floor and you have to go another way.

Today I’m angry because of the cleaners. They decided to polish the floor whilst I’m doing my laundry. The clothes have finished being washed and they’re currently waiting to go into the dryer but that can’t happen until the floor dries, in two hours.

Why can’t they carry a warning, why can’t they do it at the time when the laundry room is closed. It annoys me that everything has too be done during the day when it’s most inconvenient rather than at night when out of service. I hate the 9 to 5 mentality whereby convenience is destroyed for the everyday user.

Why today, why now?

Tired of communal life.

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A Larger Readership Than The Student Newspaper

Byrichard

A few days ago I was with a friend discussing the student media within my university. I’m not speaking about the content created by those in the various courses but rather about the student newspaper and television channel. It’s gone downhill over the past year.

In my first year at uni although people poked fun at the student magazine they used to get it in order to get all the events listing. It meant that you knew a month in advance what was going on what night and so university spirit was stronger. At the same time, some second-year students of the time decided to create a student television program in which they got up and running external to the student union. In so doing they guaranteed success. Last year the student magazine coasted along and the first discussions about it becoming a newspaper happened.

Since then it’s been downhill. We’ve gone from having a glossy magazine coming out once a month with all events listed to having recycled paper as a newspaper. Rather than having people fighting to get their articles published an apathy seems to have formed around the project. There is no features editor, no listings editor, no main editor, and no layout person. This is a uni with 23,000+ students of which 10,000 full time. You’d be led to believe that they could produce some content without too much difficulty.

The one thing that’s doing relatively well is the student radio but it’s not independent of the Student Union, therefore, it seems to run better. If they had kept podcasting as they were doing last year then I’d still be downloading and listening to those programs as I walk around London.

I’m ready to leave university and get on with other more interesting projects. I’m ready to get back to the world of work. I only have about three weeks left of work.

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Three Thousand To Go

Byrichard

In three thousand words my first dissertation draft will be ready. This evening I may be able to get up to ten thousand words and from that point on it will be about the re-writing of one section after another until I am happy that I have fit in as much relevant information as possible into the dissertation.

It’s been great weather in London over the past two days especially. Far fewer planes were flying yesterday, therefore, there were far fewer contrails than usual. It’s another beautiful day today and everyone’s going to take advantage of this. It’s too nice to sit indoors in front of the dissertation when the sun is out. Summer is teasing us too effectively.

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Barbeque Sunrise – A Student excentricity.

Byrichard

There are many things I have done in the past but having a barbeque at five am whilst the birds are tweeting and the sun is rising is not within my normal realm of experiences. It was nice, felt more like the end of a festival night than anything else.

The party took place at a friend’s place along the Metropolitan line. We arrived at about 7 pm and that moment everything about the party was normal, all the usual features, barbeques, people, drinks and more. Not that many people ate much at the beginning of the night, preferring to socialise instead.

At the end of the night when most people were responsibly going to bed we decided to have a barbeque. It was a mission at first. We had to find out how to open the garden door. It had been locked therefore we could not go out through one door and had to get another one. After this, we had to struggle to find the fire lighting blocks. Finally, we lit the blocks and now it was time to wait for the fire to be warm enough.

By this point, the birds were tweeting more and more excitedly as the sun was rising. As the blue of the sky started to appear our fire was warm enough for the steaks. It took a little time to cook with improvised tools. The food was finally ready and those steaks were good. It doesn’t end there

A popular phrase was “there’s plenty of meat left in the fridge”, resulting in some turkey being fetched and cooked. The pieces were thicker so aluminium helped speed up the cooking process Once we had eaten this it was time for bed for my friends whilst I decided to go home on the tube.

There was just one problem, the tube station was closed and there was no indication of when it’d open. You can imagine my joy at the thought of waiting for them to open. It didn’t matter though, I walked back. It was actually a nice walk. No one in the streets except the occasional post worker. The air was nice, felt like a proper summer morning.

Finally, I was home, having no special need to go to sleep quite yet I stayed up for a little longer. By around 8 am I was asleep. It had been an interesting night.

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An academic fox for university

Byrichard

When you’re s student normal clocks no longer have any relevance to the way you live your life. Sometimes you go to sleep three hours after the sun rose and other times you have a nap at three in the afternoon. Occasionally you sleep from ten at night till 6 am. That’s extra ordinarily rare.

When you’re in halls this is particularly true. You’ve got an entire ethnic group in university that takes the university to be the same as school. They come in at 8 am and leave on the dot at 1900 hrs. That’s because they’re still at home and they live according to their parent’s cooking schedule. They love to play during the day.

Most of the people I know are of the night disposition. They will party all night and pull all-nighters to get work done rather than get up early in the morning to do things the way non-students do. It’s a great way of life. You might not see the sun in winter but in Summer there’s a chance you’ll be sitting in the sun soaking in the rays whilst office workers are slaving away.

It doesn’t matter, in three to four years most students will experience the same so it’s only a question of time.

Anyway, the point of this post is that I was leaving the library after doing some work on my dissertation when I spotted an orange fox lurking around. it was looking for food and that’s not hard to find where students have been. I thought that I should scare it off by hissing and stamping my foot but it remained oblivious. I decided to walk up the stairs and turned around. It was heading towards the turnstiles to get into university. Did I meet one of the rare academic foxes in North West London? Let’s see whether I see it at my graduation.

How many of you have had such encounters with nocturnal creatures?

Dissertation feedback

Byrichard

Yesterday I went for some dissertation feedback and heard that some people have not yet been to see their dissertation and if these people have seen no one then I am quite surprised. The reason for which I am surprised about this is that it’s a new form of writing which involves getting a good knowledge of certain rules.

One of these rules was never written “Should”. Your dissertation is meant to be based on fact, on what has been documented. Anything within the speculative realm is worthless. You might as well take those sentences and write an article about them for pleasure.

The second rule is simplicity. If you’re writing a dissertation you’re writing for people who have never heard about the subject before. What this means is that if you use a technical term you must make sure to explain what it means and why it’s relevant. Assume your audience is off the street rather than some well-informed individual. In some ways getting someone to read your dissertation who knows nothing about the topic is great because they’ll point to you the error of your ways in assuming that everyone knows something. I’m going to have to elaborate on those points.

Language is an essential part of the writing process. Did you mean channels or outlets? Are you speaking about perceptions or opinions and do you know the difference. Remember that words are the only method by which to get your point across. If you use a word make sure that it is used in the right context. If you don’t you may confuse your reader but more importantly, you may set out that you are going to do one thing but due to an error in language you’re doing something which does not link directly to this.

Overall dissertation writing should be a pleasure to write and to read. It’s about taking a subject that you’re really interested in and sharing it with your audience.  Over time it comes naturally but if you’re like me it’s a question of experience.

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On studying what you love

Byrichard

I love technology, especially in the form of online communities. I’ve been part of so many online communities I have some degree of expertise. I’ve seen the birth of the chatroom and it’s evolution, the popularisation of instant messaging and through flipside and nochicktrix I’ve seen the forming of virtual communities.

More recently I’ve seen the increase from virtual communities to real communities. Over the past two years, almost everyone I know has created a myspace account and for a while, this was the best place for people to be. More recently though people have moved to Facebook. Having more than 140 friends, of which only three I do not know, is a sign of how times have changed. It’s actually fashionable to be part of an online/offline community.

All the parties I’ve recently been to have been advertised on Facebook among other places and it’s become the social networking site of choice. If you’re not there you don’t know what’s going on anymore. It’s a great shift. It’s also replacing e-mail.

Why e-mail people when all your friends are on Facebook. Why not take advantage of unlimited photo uploads to Facebook to add all those past nights for everyone to enjoy.

I love the way technology is going. It’s sociable.

On a night at Swankey’s

Byrichard

Having the dissertation hanging over me is unpleasant. I often spend a few hours a day doing research which is divided between books and documentary films. Over time I organised all these ideas and I’m ready to start writing. I want to finish the first draft by Saturday. i.e. the day before april fool’s

On Saturday I went out to four parties. The first party was a nice mauritian buffet to celebrate a friend turning 25 and joining the generation old club. I was there for two or three hours before moving on.

The second party was a small affair although the participants were not university students therefore I left for the next venue.

It was the SU bar, busy on a Saturday night, something which is not that normal. It’s usually deserted but due to a person having their birthday there it was better.

The fourth party was the best part. Everyone from the bar got into 7-10 taxies and headed down to a house party. The house is in the middle of the suburbs, has two living rooms although one of these is half kitchen/half living room. Maybe it’d be called a dining room.

Many friends were there and there was a live dj to add to the ambiance. At the beginning there was no sound because they were lacking a cable or two to plug the speakers in. The issue was quickly resolved and sound began.

The party would involve the taking of 100 pictures, chatting to many people about many things. One of these people was glad to practice her french. Others shared drinks and such.

Saturday started around 7pm and ended 12hrs later with me walking a road I had walked many many times in the past. It was a really good night and I hope to have more like it.

Last night was tame in contrast