Just over a week ago I was given the result of all this hard work – a Master of Engineering in Computing with Upper Second Class Honours (a 2:1).  I’m absolutely amazed that I manged to get a 2:1, especially when you consider all the additional extra-curricular activities I’ve undertaken during the last few years (my freelance work, the waterfront, etc.).  Its been a really difficult 4 years, and I’m glad its finally finished, but it was definitely worth it!

Of course, this doesn’t mean I’m a graduate – for that I’ll have to wait for my degree ceremony on July 18th!

Since getting my results, we’ve all packed up and moved back to our respective homes.  I’ve spent the last few days helping everyone clear up the house to make room for the huge amount of stuff I’ve accumulated while living in Swansea (its amazing really how much stuff I have).

Today was the last day of freedom – tomorrow I start my job as a full time developer at a web design company in Cardiff.

Now that my time in education is finally over (and partially because we found this while tidying up the study at home), I thought it would be nice to look back at when I started school for the first time.  Below is a scan of the front cover of my very first school report from June 1991 (when I was just 4 years old).  Even back then I obviously knew that I wanted to work in IT!

Had a really good day, tried out some new rides that weren’t there last time I went or didn’t have the courage to go on. Their brand new ride – Speed – drops you vertically down (in fact, it curls back on itself so its more than vertical), spins you around upside down etc (photo on the left). Normally this wouldn’t be my kind of thing, but I decided to go on it. Absolutely fantastic – loved the adrenaline rush! Also had a go on Hydro – got absolutely drenched.

Anyway, lots more to do over the next few days – got Sarah’s goodbye party tomorrow (Friday), SUCS beach party (Saturday), a meeting on with Crickhowell Resource & Information Centre about a new website (Monday) and the 2007 Summer Ball (Wednesday).

The last one went really well I think. Despite there being a fantastic mistake in the paper.

Got a very busy week ahead.  work leaving party for Mark Overy on Wednesday, trip to Oakwood on Thursday, Sarah’s “last supper” party on Friday and SUCS beach party on Saturday.  Then the week after that we’ve got the Summer Ball again.  Should be a fun end of term.

Charlie’s headed to Plymouth for a few days to take the first batch of her stuff home.  I think I need to spend a bit of time having a clear out and sort out the mountains of unopened post thats sitting in my draws.  Oh well, I will get round to that soon.

Back to revision I think.

Dai

Of course, you can always tell when I am supposed to be revising for exams, my website gets a makeover.  I’ve also split the media section into Photos and Music, just because the section was getting rather large.  This is only stage 1 of my plans for this site though.  The next stage involves: a better homepage that includes the blog and latest photos; refreshed content in the links / feeds sections; and actually adding content to the current projects areas.  After this is done, I am planning on converting the website to ASP.NET.

Anyway, should really get back to revision, well, maybe later.

The last few weeks have literally been non-stop work.  The beginning of January was taken up with working on my dissertation for the testing module that I took in November.  Once this was in, I had exam revision and exams to contend with.  Luckily all my exams were quite well spread out this year – four exams in two weeks, so at least 2 days between each exam.

After the exams were over, James and I put together a huge update to the Waterfront website (full details here).  This was finally released about two weeks ago.

“So, if you finished that two weeks ago, what have you been doing since?” I hear you ask.  Well OK, I don’t, but I’m going to answer it anyway.  I’ve been working (procrastinating) on the next stage of my course dissertation – the Interim Report.  A report that explains what progress I’ve made on my dissertation since October.  To do this report though, I’ve actually had to make some progress on it!

So, that brings me up to today.  I submitted a draft copy this morning and am currently waiting for feedback.  The final version is due in on Friday.  After this, we have the next issue of the Waterfront to load to the website, and after all of that, I’m spending the weekend in Plymouth meeting Charlie’s family.

It’s been a packed few weeks, but hopefully things will settle down at bit now.  Well, for a bit at least!

Dafydd

I don’t know anything

I’m sooo screwed

Help!

I had my first exam yesterday (Friday) so only got another 5 to go.  Luckily the exam went really well – it was a nice paper, with some very understandable questions.  I managed to answer all 3 questions (even though we only have to do 2 of them).  All the revision I put into the exam was well worth it.  Hopefully that exam will make up for the poor marks I’m bound to get in computability theory.

I am now busy revising for the next set of exams (Monday and Tuesday) which are Graphics and System Specification.  I don’t think they will go too badly, I’ve understood the notes so I think it should be ok.  We will have to see though.

Anyway, I better get back to it, but before I go, I’d like to point you all in the direction of Scary Biscuits – the personal blog of one of my flatmates.  He has recently started doing an audio version of his blog that you can download in iTunes (or other similar program) as a podcast.  Well worth a listen.  I might be back to do a bit more moaning later on.

In what I am aiming to be a new tradition, I have decided that at the end of every month to write a “This Month in Review” blog entry. This entry will review most interesting things and events that have happened over the previous 4 weeks.

What’s happened this month?

Like last month, May turned out to be extremely busy – with the final deadlines for our coursework and the build up to the start of our summer exams. The first two weeks of May was spent working on our computer science group project and the many pieces of coursework we had remaining. Unfortunately the AUT Industrial Action had forced the deadlines of all the pieces of coursework together, meaning we had way too much work to get through before the deadline – approximately 8 pieces within a week.

The rest of the month hasn’t been so busy, with the AUT action causing havoc with exams; we had a bit of time to enjoy ourselves. In mid-May I spent the night in Hereford for Dan’s Birthday and visited a host of pubs / nightclubs for the next few nights as well. This was nicely followed by a midnight trip to see The Da Vinci Code and X Men 3 a few days later.

Bringing us towards the end of the month, we started to organise our summer, with an invitation to The Whyley BBQ taking pride of place. We’ve also started to cancel various services provided to us at our flat here in 83 Brynymor Road – such as our screwed up internet service. Within a few weeks we will have finished exams (hopefully), and be moving out for the summer.

Overall, May hasn’t been a bad month, busy yes, but definitely not bad. We’ve had fun chasing the Student Union and University for information on the strike, watched a few new film releases and generally had a good time.

Bring on June!

Despite all my moaning, this flat hasn’t been a bad place to live.  It’s been perfectly located, with town only 5 minutes walk away and uni not much further.  Once we got over the problems with the heating, and realised how annoying our landlord was, things have settled down quite nicely.  Unfortunately, our original aspirations to stay here for 2 years haven’t gone to plan, and so next year we will be moving to a new flat in the Uplands – closer to the university.

Before all of that though, we have the hell of exams.  With the AUT strike still to be resolved, the threat of no results is still hanging over us, however all but 1 of our exams are set to go ahead as planned.  This unfortunately means lots of attempts at revision and a lack of anything remotely interesting to talk about on my blog.  So this is where I’ll leave it for now.