Archive for the Category »Studies «
I was up all night last night doing my Java coursework to reach a deadline, and I didn’t manage to complete it all. It just didn’t work! Very annoying, and a long day it has been. I’m looking forward to June and having my exams, and then taking six months off from Open University. I’m hoping that’ll help with the whole Stress thing…
One of my friends is talking to me a lot on IM about The General Stuff and it’s really helping. Today I managed to call a friend or two on my mobile (no one picked up though!) and even arranged for a social gaming weekend with a buddy next week. Yeah, it’ll be at home and I’m likely to be in my jammies, but it’s baby steps.
I’m also very lucky in that I work in a very supportive environment where no one makes me feel like my Particular Situation is a problem. In fact, I’ve never felt so looked after in a job before. My manager and my close colleagues are very helpful and make it easier to come to work on days where I’d much rather hide in the closet.
I did that once, hide in the closet. It was about two years ago and I was freaking out after I came home from work, so I went into the closet and sat there until Mr Pharmacist came home to find me. It felt safe in there, in the dark.
So I’m downloading some meditation/new age hippy crap sort of music to play when I’m freaking out or stressing out. The key to life for me is to find methods to cope, and find what relaxes me. I really think those sort of cds are really stupid but they remind me of spas and I love spas. A bit too touchy-feely sometimes but I won’t deny it’s really relaxing.
Spa weekend booked for the weekend after I finish this Java course. Carrot dangling in front of me to make it to the other side. I will cope. I fill find methods of relaxation. I will reduce the noise. I will not be broken down any further.
Now off to bed and the final pages of book six of the Morganville Vampires, a deliciously silly vampire series that stars a Very Nerdy Smart Girl who went to college early and is a wiz in physics and that kinda stuff. Gotta love it! As I said to my colleague Stephen: “It’s about a big nerd and there are vampires!” Then I hugged the book, and all the guys around me laughed at me. I redeemed myself in their eyes by linking them to the new awesome Old Spice advert.
Fantastic punch line. Great delivery. Someone put this man in a comedy, stat!
I had a funny conversation in the work lift with a colleague as I was leaving the office today.
Him: Any big plans for the weekend?
Me: Nothing much, studying and playing the piano, that’s all.
Him: Oh, what do you study?
Me: Java.
Him: Yeah? I did a module of that in uni and I really hated it.
Me: I’m actually really enjoying it.
Him: I never did understand it, so I cheated.
Me: …okay.
It’s Friday night, and I’m at home reading about constructors, subclasses and inheritance, and really enjoying myself. And I’m listening to the score to Wall-E. I’m so far away from cool, hip and happening that I don’t even know what terms best describe those type of people these days, but I doubt hip and happening are in use now. I’m okay with that.
I was still a bit migraine prone this morning, and after taking a pill I grabbed my iPhone to check my email, and lo and behold, there was an email from Open University saying that the assignment I handed in on Thursday was marked and ready for collection. My tutor is an efficient man! I logged in, and saw immediately that my score was 89%! Big shot of adrenaline, jumping around happily and calling parental unit to get parental praise ensued. Good times.
I’m listening to Frank Sinatra while organising some things in My Room, while Mr Pharmacist and his father are sorting out bits and bobs around the house. Christmas starts this weekend for me, and I am in a blissfully good mood. Life is pretty good, to be honest.
Life goes on, and I keep doing what I do, which is learning as much as possible.
At the moment I’m playing with this book:
which is so far dead easy, almost a bit too easy.
It helps that
a) I already know HTML pretty well
and
b) I also happen to know a fair bit of VBA, and this one uses VBA rather than C#, which is pretty good for me actually, I’m totally understanding what’s happening here so far. This is cool.
In lamer news, I appear to be reading Twilight, mainly because my flist keeps going on about it. Don’t get me wrong, no one has said it is good, and I can’t argue with that. There’s something compelling about the way it’s written, even though I hate Bella with all my heart. Girlfriend, if it was me who moved to a smaller place at 17 to go to a new school and all the boys fell over me and I’d never even had a boyfriend before, I’d be stoked. OHWAIT – I did move at 17 to go to a new school, but I remained as undesirable as ever. Funny that!
I want to smack her over the head so much for being so arrogant, so self-involved, so Poor Little Me! Oh Bella, such a special snowflake that vampires can’t even read her mind! If I was Lauren, I’d hate Bella’s guts too. Ugh. I put it down yesterday intending to leave it for a while, but felt compelled to continue today after all. It is very likely because when I picture Edward, I can’t help but picture Robert Pattison, which I quite enjoy doing.
*wibble*
I guess it’s a love/hate sort of thing. I’m being punished for reading it by the pure undiluted disgust I’m feeling towards the main character, but I just can’t help myself. I think someone put something in the Internet Water recently, there is no escape from this Twilight Madness.
It’s much better written than A Devil Wears Prada, I’ll give it that. It doesn’t hurt me to read it because of the writing, just because Bella Swan is a bloody moron. I hear she doesn’t improve with time, either. I hope Edward eats her in the end, and then hooks up with someone better, and Bella gets a reality check. That’s be awesome. Somehow I doubt my wish will come true!
There. I feel better now.
My JavaScript slideshow works!!!
…well, apart from that the stop button isn’t stopping it for any other reason than it’s breaking the code, and the ‘previous’ button has to be clicked twice before doing anything, but I’m sure I can figure it out.
Next: add google map thingy and validate a form.. and then I am done with the coding for this project exam.
Oh, wait. 1800 words to write, too. Guess what I’m doing this weekend!
…if you guessed “seeing Wall-E”, you are CORRECT.
Note: The term instance has a specific technical meaning in class-based languages. In these languages, an instance is an individual member of a class and is fundamentally different from a class. In JavaScript, “instance” does not have this technical meaning because JavaScript does not have this difference between classes and instances. However, in talking about JavaScript, “instance” can be used informally to mean an object created using a particular constructor function. So, in this example, you could informally say that jane is an instance of Engineer. Similarly, although the terms parent, child, ancestor, and descendant do not have formal meanings in JavaScript; you can use them informally to refer to objects higher or lower in the prototype chain.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH
HELP
I actually get what they’re saying in that paragraph, but seriously. This manual is driving me nuts.
We’ve just watched Battlestar Galactica: Razor, which was awesome and then some. Man, that’s some cool stuff. The DVD had a trailer for season 4, which looks cool as hell, and had the tag line “the final season”. I hope that’s true. I love this show, but it really isn’t the kind of show they can drag on for too long without ruining it. I want April to be tomorrow.
Yesterday, I had my hair cut at Toni & Guys. The prize was a bit high (but around the same price I was accustomed to pay in Norway, so I didn’t blink), but I do look rather smashing if I do have to say so myself. It was mental, though. The chair I sat in when I had my hair washed was something else. It sort of folded so my legs were raised, and the back of the chair moved in a massaging way down my back the entire time I sat in it. I very nearly fell asleep! My hairdresser was a total weirdo from Lithuania who had recently come back to the UK from Dubai. He was funny, though. We talked about The World, gun crime, he told me his brother back home had just gotten a gun, what the Nordic countries where like and he informed me that the guy who had washed my hair was totally hungover. Dude was in agony, and my hairdresser thought it was about the funniest thing ever. Heh.
Saturday night: Smashing Pumpkins.
About 1/3 of it was pretty good, but a lot of it was just dull, I’m sad to say. The sound was bloody terrible, but what was worse was the band, who were not on top form at all. What I love the most about them is the tenderness of their slow songs, and let me tell you, when you play them too fast, it totally doesn’t work. The version of Adore was more annoying than anything. And no Disarm, no Zero.. And they played the 12 min wankfest from the new album, which I hate. The encore was only one song, and it was an Echo & the Bunnymen cover, actually! I thought that was pretty cool, but not cool enough to make up for the fact that I just went to see one of my favourite bands, and they bored me. Sniff.
Today I’ve spent most of the day in my Photoshop class. Going somewhere before 11am on a Sunday is not quite me. I’m surprised I managed to stay awake! Fun though.
[Currently listening to: Massive Attack – Risingson]
It’s raining in Oslo tonight. As I was walking home from a Gotham Nights committee meeting, it was dark and the cold water was hitting against my forehead, I was shivering all the way home. The rain was more like autumn rain, harsh and unfriendly, a far cry from the soft summer rain that I love so much. I was listening to Bis on my ipod and smoking a cigarette that became wetter by each drag.
My mind is in a fairly chaotic state, trying to assemble my research onto paper, creating a product that must be handed over in order to be scrutinized in the very near future. Writing your finishing paper is not like writing a term paper. You can’t throw something together and hope for the best. I’ve put three years of work and thought into this one document, and I feel myself not being far enough removed from my work. There is no such thing as free time. Whenever I try to take time off and do something else, I find myself stressing over the fact that I’m not at home, slaving over it. I envy the people who are in full employment, when they go home they are away from their work, it doesn’t haunt them like it haunts me. I cannot get away.
But I will complete it, and I will move on. It’s a petrifying thought, to let my work leave my hands to stand on its own. Finalizing my education has felt like a utopia for so long, but the time has finally come. A couple of months from now, I will no longer be a post grad student. But then what? What will I be? What will I do? I honestly haven’t got the slightest idea. Unemployment looms in the distance. The thought makes me feel my stress level rising even more.
My eyebrow has been twitching the last two nights whilst working. It’s both uncomfortable and distracting.
But there are nice things in the future, and that keeps my spirits up. In a few short weeks I’ll be going to the Coachella festival In Los Angeles, US. It’s what keeps me working at the moment; I know I get a week of sun, fun and brilliant music very soon. Bands I’m looking forward to seeing include Nine Inch Nails, Weezer, Miss Kittin, Bauhaus, New Order, Blood Brothers and Kasabian. That should give me the boost I need for the last couple of weeks of work.
Then as soon as I’m done, it’s off to Hultsfred in Sweden, which has a lineup so amazing I almost chocked when I read it. I can’t really afford to go, but I have to. System of a down, Nine inch nails, Snoop Dogg, The Hives, Slayer, Mars Volta, Le Tigre, Tori Amos. Unbelievable good booking, and nothing is going to stop me from being there.
And just in – Duran Duran are coming to Rockefeller on June 27th. I just found that out a couple of minutes ago, and I’m thrilled beyond compare. I’ve been a fan since I was about 8.
Add to this that I saw Rufus Wainwright last week, and this is the best season of concerts I’ve ever experienced. I’m going to take this as a sign that the universe is trying to give me a break and show me that whilst I’m working myself into my body falling to pieces, that things aren’t so bad. This spring is going to be a special one in my life. Finishing my education in musicology, seeing a bunch of bands I adore, and perhaps growing up. Things couldn’t be better, really. This is a turning point, I can feel it. If I was also to suddenly fall into mutual love with someone for the first time in three years, I think it’d be too much good at once, I might just spontaneously combust.
But universe? Feel free to try it, just to see. If I do spontaneously combust, it’d at least make a damn good story. Can’t you picture the headlines? “Woman experiences too much happiness at once – dies of shock.” Hell, it’d be worth it.
