Day 1452

Played Sim City, watched Star Trek, sent T an e-mail. It's back to Effolk tomorrow. And tomorrow I start revising for the finals. That gives me seven weeks, which should be more than adequate if I apply myself.

Day 1451

Beautiful spring weather with big clouds. Went round to M's to borrow her WinCIM 2 CD. E was on the phone to his mum telling her about the wedding.

Came back, played Sim City, got Flatland up to 1.3 million people. Even a fusion power plant wasn't enough, I had to build another.

Day 1450

Had a great dream last night, all about Sarah Jane Smith. We fled the length of the country from foes and finally escaped, via a snowy jetty, onto a ferry in Scotland. Triffic stuff.

Felt like a change in the morning, so got a lift with C to Dulchester North and got the train from there to the Quay. Walked on to the campus. Cracked the C++ blockage; I've now got a working solution for the assignments, both of them.

Did some surfing in the afternoon, rewrote my Progress Report in the library. Then went back to the lab and hunted down They Might Be Giants material on the WWW.

In the evening downloaded the CompuServe home page uploader. I wish I had the new versh of WinCIM with the integrated Web browser. Watched the last Fast Show. Apparently btw the Dr Who film will be on May 28th.

Day 1449

Rather dismal weather. Rather dismal hangover to match it. But felt OK. Got the 0932, on impulse got off at Dulchester Quay and walked to campus.

Only me and N turned up for the group project, but it was quite useful and we agreed a convention for the pseudo-code. He reported that the supervisor had said the group project was a department-wide disaster, but that he seemed to think ours was OK.

Got some C++ work done, stumbled on yet another blockage. Went in the library and did an overview of the science notes.

In the evening managed to copy PC Netscape - doesn't look as good as on the Suns but it'll be useful. Played Sim City - at pop. 850,000 and (hopefully) heading for my first million.

Day 1448

Beautiful sunny day, Spring at last. Got £20 out of the building society to tide me over till the end of the month. Got a lot of work done on the group project, to my surprise and pleasure.

Day 1447

Felt rather unwell. Did more Xview work, saw my adviser. He criticised my progress report for my project on the grounds my language was imprecise. I told him it was to avoid repeating his words. He said 'without being ironic' that I was very conscientious in not wanting to take the credit for other people's work and that this was a quality sadly lacking among students. Quite a compliment! Actually I was afraid of getting done for plagiarism, but it comes to the same thing doesn't it?

Had an e-mail from M saying did I want to come to the Crown this evening? Gave her a ring on a terrible line from outside the bar, discovered she was on holiday, hence the unusual midweek session suggestion. Agreed to meet at eight.

Came back, cancelled AOL, resumed Compuserve.

Had a great evening. The wedding is set for October. We discussed arrangements at length. It's a Wonderful Life playing. One of those positive moments.

Decided to have tomorrow off and do the group project work. I have gone in every day this term and deserve a break. Also, I want to heed a warning M gave me from her first MSc attempt experience about not paying attention to one's course. With no free Netscape there'll be less distraction.

Day 1446

In for eleven, got some Xview work done, also tracked Doctor Who actors down on the WWW. Left at four (since there are no lectures I've got plenty of terminal time as it is).

Got back, did some database revision, exercised, watched The X-Files.

Day 1445

Gave myself a day off course work, but worked very hard on an index of pictures n Dr Who Monthly. And why not? Read The Sunmakers.

Got those C++ assignments to do tomorrow/next week.

Day 1444

My Justice for Jarvis t-shirt arrived, also a questionnaire for Unison about young workers. Filled it in as best I could!

Got the bus into town, got an X Windows book. M'n'E came round for a chat about one; in the evening went round theirs and watched the whole of Hand of Fear. Sarah in fine form. The leaving scene is very touching. At the very end of the ep there's a freeze-frame on her rueful smile. These things always remind me of the bit in The King of the Copper Mountain where the witch says 'I see you outside time, lion! You're there for ever and ever!'

Day 1443

Raining again. Couple of lectures, copied the new Dr Who stuff onto discs. Took my Effolk library books back.

Home; TSR stuff arrived, excellent value for £7. Gangbusters very good; one of the Immortals modules treats real-world characters in D&D terms - clever and very funny. Creature Crucible good too - powerful monster characters start with negative experience points and need tons of points to gain levels. Well-engineered.

Usual Friday telly: Rimmerworld still not on for some daft censor's reason, still at least they replaced it with another Rimmer ep, Dimension Jump.

Feel quite tired. Might do a little light Dr Who reading. Pleased with myself for keeping the two drink-free days again. Smoking cuts very good too - 25% since I started, the Mugsborough station fag abolished on Monday and the Ferry Farthingale one as of next week. Nice to be making progress again.

Day 1442

Must've been trying so hard to abstain yesterday that I forgot to write. Managed the abstinence though.

The last 9am studies of term. Afterwards downloaded tons of Dr Who sound clips, many from The Pyramids of Mars. Also video files, one with Sarah smiling most engagingly. Had a go at getting M's OS/2 fix stuff but the connection was far too slow.

Missed the xx16 again, home 24 minutes late, no parcels. Solaced myself with that Dr Who documentary on vid.

Day 1440

Had an e-mail from T to say she'd got to the next stage for her PhD, and thanking me for helping her. Sent her big congratulations created with banner.

Saw my adviser, talked for 2 hours about my project. I actually got quite interested in his parallel processing thing, just think, I might be contributing to computer history.

Day 1439

Science lecture finished the course material. Worked on the C++ stuff and found an obscure compiler error, went to see the lecturer about it. He made some experiments and found it was non-trivial. (He was rather short with someone who interrupted and then asked me if I thought he'd been too rude. I did my best to be diplomatic). Anyway, he said a normal array would be OK for assignment 2, so the problem isn't a block on progress.

Looked (successfully) for Dr Who info on the WWW, started adding links to it to my homepage. in the evening trawled old Dr Who Monthlys for pictures, read Planet of the Spiders. Got the science assignment almost ready to print.

Watched a repeat of the first ep of The X-Files.

Day 1438

Up about ten, watched Star Trek. Did a lot of computing, got my own scanner going again with no trouble.

Went round to my parents' and got my Dr Who Monthly collection down from the loft to look for stuff about Sarah Jane Smith, also my collection of books.

De-HTMLised the Hancock episode guide. Really I ought to modernise my Dr Who ep guide too. And I want to list all the companions too, mainly to see which ones I like most - Sarah, Romana II, Leela, Jo Grant I should think.

Day 1437

Did a bit of C++, downloaded a good PC FORTH, went into town. For some reason, probably to do with the Dunblane massacre, Rimmerworld was replaced by the last ep of series 6, which was annoying.
Went round to M's about six to return her C++ discs.

Day 1436

Weather hazy and golden and comparatively warm. On the train on the way in I was thinking about LotR and people running 'off into the Blue' as I looked into the blue spring distance.

Science and C++ lectures; after the latter, the lecturer asked me whether the material was difficult. I said the exception stuff was no problem, it was the assignment that had been difficult.

Finally got an external link to my home page. Did some useful Xview experimentation too in the afternoon.

In the evening met M and E at the Crown. M surprised me by reading Tony Blair's speech in Parliament about that school massacre on Wednesday as hypocritical. I felt it was entirely genuine and quite moving. I agreed to try and download some OS/2 patches for M next week, she was quite helpful over Borland C++ after all.

I have slipped right back to 1985 in waiting impatiently for my TSR 'classics'. Let's hope the stuff's in stock and arrives quickly.

Day 1435

There were actually seats empty on the bus! This cheered me up no end. Went to the studies, then to the software engineering lab where I sorted out the operator >> and operator << blockages. Then the C++, also enlightening.

Then, after some dinner, the group project - got some work done. N. appreciated the Effolk programmed adventure on my home page, and told me who to e-mail to get an external link to it.

After that made an XView template which will speed up the experimenting process.

Anxiety, I realised on the bus in the afternoon, has been absent recently. At Ferry Farthingale station I thought I had actually been quite lucky to go through all the self-doubt stuff early on.

It is still really cold, unreasonably so.

Nine hours in bed in prospect. Good, because I'm really tired.

Day 1434

Up for the new 11am start. Waiting for the bus overheard two girls talking about the (mythical in my opinion) orgasmic side-effects of Prozac in a disgustingly speculative way. Made my hair stand on end.

Overcame C++ blockages, more or less finished the 2nd assignment for it. Worked, with little success, on an Xview interface for my ps monitor prog - it's practice for my project.

Home by 5.09 for a nominal record run of 69 minutes flat. (Second train was 2 minutes early at Mugsborough). Watched ST: TNG, exercised. M came round with the C++ discs but they turned out to be rather too old to be useful. Never mind.

6am start tomorrow, second last of term. It occurs to me that the 3rd C++ assignment could easily be done at home, which'll be a big relief I can tell you.

Day 1433

Saw my supervisor about my project - all going well so far. Got some solid C++ work done.

Came home, instituted a 15-minute limit on weekday Sim City sessions. Did some Linux Xview work.

Having had a TSR catalogue in the morning, sent off for some cheap but nostalgic items. They're end-of-lines so they might not all come, but it'll be nice if some do.

Pris soon. Think I'll start going in for 11 am instead of noon on Wednesdays, since I leave at four instead of five. I'll only lose 25 mins' sleep.

Day 1432

Cold and foggy in the morning. The nutrition woman was on campus again with her questionnaire.

Got my engineering assignment back, got 61% (lots of people got low marks). Went in the lab and made some progress with the C++ assignment. A Chinese girl asked me the command to print from the Suns; obliged. Home 1700/1716; stroked the Ferry Farthingale station cat which jumped on my lap.

Played Sim City, got Flatlands up to arcology status while retaining some undeveloped forest-and-waterfall land. Played it rather too extensively in fact, I meant to go over the science assignment. Better get it done tomorrow.

M rang up and grudgingly agreed to let me copy Borland C++. I'll go round on Wednesday and do it. She was very excited about this Chinese satellite that's going to fall to Earth.

Watched the last Our Friends In The North. Good optimistic ending: 'Why not today?' 'Why not?'

Day 1431

Another stinking hangover which didn't go away till 5pm. Did some work on the science assignment, printed out another group project FRS for the others to copy. I think the g.p.'s going quite well. At first I was afraid I wouldn't be able to work with C, but I was wrong.

Played Sim City extensively.

Day 1430

Rotten hangover this morning. Went to Asda to put that £60 in the building society. Raining heavily too which further increased the miserable mood.

Blundered about with Linux preparing to finish the science assignment, ended up playing Sim City all afternoon. (pop. 21,000 to 67,000, but a large fire occurred which will set me back.)

M rang up about seven to suggest we have a few drinks; went to the Crown. I really do like E, in fact I don't think he's ever said or done anything that annoyed me. (Apart from indirectly ordering me not to smoke round theirs last year, but it's for my own good.)

Day 1429

Last night I had a terrible iterative, circular, nested, recursive dream-within-a-dream nightmare about screaming jets and Pulp Fiction. It went round 3 or 4 times.

Assembled the document, gave it to the supervisor. Arranged to see him next week about my own project. Nice sunny hazy spring-like weather. Added some more stuff to my home page, made Xview notes..

Came home for some much needed rest, had a 2½ hour telly binge. Vastly enjoyed Fist of Fun. I'll do a bit of reading I think now.

Day 1428

Beautiful weather till 7.30am, when suddenly a strong North-east wind blew in a great sheet of grey cloud. Failed to bring me down though. Went to the studies and the C++, then to the group project meeting.

Pleasant lab afternoon. Experimented with Java while K borrowed my HTML book. Various group project people brought me discs with stuff to be printed. I could hear K and P mutinously discussing their group (run by a megalomaniac ex-BT manager). They've done 130 pages for the outline requirements, we've done 25. But the supervisor praised our earlier minimalism, so we'll be OK. We've worked hard enough.

Home by 6.12. Spent five solid hours printing the bloody FRS. C rang up at nine to see how I was getting on.

Day 1427

Sun and the green growing smell in Ferry Farthingale again. Had a group project meeting, got quite a lot sorted. I agreed to print the Full Requirements Specification, and since there was so much to do I got the 3pm bus and was home by 4.12 to do it. Put in a total of 2¼ hours correcting C's spelling by a tiresome graphical cut'n'paste method. I might have to come back early tomorrow as there's a hell of a lot of printing to do - at at least 18 pages and possibly more the printing alone will take an hour. Got it done though.

There was a letter fromD this morning. She likes Czechoslovakia so much she says she might stay! She gave a lyrical description of cross-country skiing across forests and plains and into 'misty bowls', like 'playing partisans'.

I'm quite tired so will go to bed shortly after eleven. 6 am start tomorrow after all.

Day 1426

Went in the Software Engineering lab - my supervisor showed me where it was when I went up to see if he needed to see me about my project this week. Started the C++ 2nd assignment.

Went to the studies lec and the group project meeting; I was chair. Did more HTML, and some Java experimentation - very interesting. Kept the science assignment on the go too. Made a list of when all the PC labs are unbooked, so hopefully I need never be without a terminal.

It's odd but while I continue to feel a bit nervous I am still achieving great things, getting the work done, interacting satisfactorily with the group project people etc. Perhaps my self-image is too negative.

Updated my AOL home pages, read the classical history I got from the book club, typed up the group project minutes. Sent T an e-mail to encourage her for tomorrow's interview.

Day 1425

New policy decision: stay till 5pm except on Wednesdays, as there's a lot of work to be done at the moment.

Added some book and film stuff to my home page, cleaned up my home directory. Went to science lecture and group project meeting. Everyone was pleased by the supervisor's reaction to our Outline Requirements Document, which I typed. C. and K. particularly thanked me - 'we just gave it to you and said "do it".' I was pleased but didn't want to look smug. Besides, I collated the remarks of the group rather than invented anything new. Still, it's nice to be appreciated.

In the evening watched Our Friends In The North. 1987 and rather gloomy, though using the Great Storm was quite good.

Day 1424

Woke up about ten with no hangover. Amazing! Dead pleased with myself. Conversed quietly with T till twelve, gave her a lift to the station, wished her luck with Wednesday's job interview.

In the afternoon watched Ipswich beat Leicester 4-2. We got three in the first 12 minutes, Warky got one.

Feel rather tired after only 6 hours' sleep and all the excitement yesterday. Now I've got to get back into normal mode AQAP. That was a very successful visit.

Day 1423

Wrote a C substring detector that handled ? wildcards. Read a great book about the Ku Klux Klan.

Met T at the station at six, came back here via the Swan and the Cricketers. Watched 5 eps of The X-Files. Went to bed about 3.40 after talking all evening.

Day 1422

First day of Spring! There was a wonderful smell in the air this morning, a sort of green, growing Spring-like smell. It was what I imagine draughts of Entwash would smell like, and I hope it has a similar effect. It was there when I arrived at campus too, took me right back to Lowlands days. I've got a liking for grey windy days provided the grey is varied and dark in parts. In fact I find 'em quite cosy and agreeable.

The group project supervisor thought our Outline Requirements Document was the best; then he appeared impressed in the lab with my Xview Lissajous drawer. (Nothing like a Lissajous figure prog for quick, easy, impressive results).

During the afternoon more Web pages began to appear, one disparaging They Might Be Giants. Had a brief exchange of views.Interesting to see what people are like like this. Some of the spelling is terrible though.

Came home after appreciating that great grey Friday afternoon feeling with a cup of vending machine tea outside the department door.

Watched The Fast Show, Red Dwarf, Fist of Fun.