Day 1624

Woke up worried about five, couldn't get back to sleep, got up at 7.30. It was actually thundering and there was some heavyish rain. Finalised my presentation/diss arrangements, went to Dulchester.

Had a bit of luck - found a machine in the lab that runs Windows 95, on which my prog did not crash. Exchanged words with another person waiting to do a demo, in an encouraging way.

Presentation went not too badly, except I was so nervous I kept losing my thread. Mind you, I talked for 14 minutes without noticing. Once they started asking questions it was OK. The demo went well too, my prog proved pleasingly robust under vigorous testing. My supervisor said to come and see him next week (informally).

Moved all vital material off my disc area, had a cuppa in the coffee shop, left at 4.30. Back through rain. C came round in the evening, talked and watched an old Alan Partridge.

Jo J rang; Alison the bridesmaid's schemes have become even more expensive. Tried to ring M about it but she wasn't in - discussed it with E instead. Also invited them both to celebrate the end of my course - E said tomorrow would probably be okay.

Not bad X-Files. Now Krycek hates Smoking Man, things could get interesting.

So. End of the course. Must keep major marketable projects on the boil. What now, little woman?

Day 1623

I went into town in the morning to get my diss bound. It took a long time and the girl cut herself and dripped blood all over the cover. Luckily I'd specified plastic covers, so she could wipe it off. She was so embarrassed, that I didn't say anything. Hope it's not a bad omen though!

Read careers books in the libe. Walked home feeling very low. When I got home, read the front page of the copy of Computer Weekly I'd bought in town: apparently IT graduates are in great demand and it's the hardest sector to recruit people in. Cheered up immensely, then spotted a great blue gap in the flowing grey clouds, just like on the cover of The Sun And The Rain.

Prepared my presentation. It won't be very long but I hope it convinces. It's not being marked anyway. I'll hand my disses in tomorrow - I could wait till Friday but what's the point, now I've printed 'em? And that'll be the end of the course.
I'll probably go up next Thursday to salvage files etc, get my padlock off my locker, and so on.

Currently trying to decide how much to drink tonight - it's anti-boredom vs. hangover. Who'll win?

Day 1622

Got a solid 9 hours' sleep, still felt a bit tired though. Went up to Dulchester via the new back route I discovered yesterday. Discussed the presentation with my supervisor, gave him back those papers I've been using as references since March.

Came back, watched depressing item on the news about graduate unemployment. How do they expect people to get experience if they won't employ inexperienced people?

Nevertheless managed to compose a better introduction for the diss; inserted it into both copies, which I'll get bound tomorrow morning (that'll leave me the afternoon to write the presentation).

This is nearly the end of the course you know. Soon I'll have to go back to being unemployed again. Hopefully this time it won't go on so long.

Day 1621

Went into town and made a new claim appointment for next week. Depressing I know but currently I've got no other choice. Good 'New Labour New Prosperity' sign outside the job centre though.

Came back, made a final revision of the thesis, printed out 1½ copies so far. Takes a hell of a long time I tell you. I'll do the Introduction separately tomorrow, and get 'em bound on Wednesday.

In the evening watched Game On 2.1, they've replaced the agoraphobic actor with another one. Interesting reference to this after the credits - 'don't you hate it when they keep the same character but change the actor' and they both look at him. I don't know about Game On, the funny bits are OK but there is too much that I actively dislike about it.

Four years since Black Wednesday. How have they managed to survive all this time with no-one trusting 'em? I've now got 3 massive quests on hand - politics, partner and job. Just one of them coming up would be a massive start.

Day 1620

In the morning went to PC World in Dulchester with dad for a new printer cartridge - countryside a bit like Bk.1 of LotR, same time of year too. Pretended the sun-glinting distant Much estuary was the Brandywine.

Sleepy sort of afternoon reading old Vizzes and putting source code into my diss. Finished the 8-page letter to T I started yesterday. Rang up Jo J about the hen night. I'd forgotten how likeable she is, we had quite a long conversation.

Day 1619

Into town with M and E, and M's brother. Played Sim City in the afternoon.

Round to theirs again in the evening. Good conversation. They wished me luck with the databases exam.

Just as I got back the drizzle turned into heavy rain and I got soaked putting my bike away.

That databases exam is only 2 days from now.

Day 1618

Pressed on with the diss - 13,300 words. Bright, cool September weather.

Went round to M's at 9pm, had a long and humourous conversation about everything. E kept joking about dancing with me at the reception.
I told M I only was diffident about being bridesmaid in case she didn't pick me. She was annoyed and said she would've picked me otherwise. That'll teach me.

Home through the cool air. Beautiful view of the stars in cold polar airstream, including the Milky Way in the vicinity of Cassiopeia, υ¹ and υ² Cass. (5th. mag) clearly separable, the Pleiades, and a shooting star across Cassiopeia. (Made a wish). Enough to make one 'drunk with distance and expanse'.

Day 1617

Went to Staples to investigate binding for my diss. Looked in at the Jobcentre and met Spadey, looking rather healthy and together.

After an early lunch went up to Dulchester. Spent an unsuccessful hour in the library, had a cup of tea in the coffee shop, went in the lab to surf for extra diss details. There's a sort of dusty fin de siècle feel about campus these days - mind you, I've always felt not quite right there, there's always the thought of the journey home.

Made the latter via a new route cross-country. Had tea, listened to Doon McKichan again - she's not bad. C came round, had a long talk about this and that. His redundancy thing still hasn't been finalised.

At 9.30 the new series of The X-Files was on. Very annoyingly, they've messed with the theme tune. Story rather jumbled but interesting enough. I'm getting annoyed with all these 'to be continued' eps.

Day 1616

Catalogue boots duly arrived, all fine. It's very quick when you phone up - takes about 2 days.

Worked hard on the diss, finally got beyond the required word count - 12,223 so far.

The only trouble with this diss stuff is one can't spend all day doing it, leading to gaps in the day which tend to bring back memories of dodgy times. Like when after ST:TNG I felt the old boredom returning, so went out for a walk - the old one past the Crown and back via Short Lane and Fircombe Green.

Every other woman or girl I passed was in a pair. Don't we go out alone any more?

Got back to find e-mail from T semi-threatening to ring my supervisor up herself and go on about research assistantships. I hope she doesn't - and this is a different situation to the time when she rang up for the prospectus. Hey, it'd be great though if he offered me one out of the blue, eh?

I must say I wish I could take more pleasure in my achievements, or in any of the pleasant things that happen. I either take them for granted, or they form steps in a chain that have to be achieved anyway - like being top MSc student. That was quite impressive but because no-one knew (among other reasons) it wasn't much fun.

I've begun to see upcoming events as tests to be passed - the presentation, the nox gallinae, the (probable) new claims arrangements.

Day 1615

Got to campus by 10.45, spent 2 hours making notes in the library. T had ordered me to ask my supervisor about assistantships, but I could not do it. He was pretty positive in fact, much better than last week. The presentation is next Thursday at 2pm!

Didn't leave till 6pm, a record for a non-pissed Effolk day.

Day 1614

On with the diss, and the prog: exchanged e-mails with T.

Gave my suit a bit more of a wearing. I do look a bit like the woman CID off The Bill, can't be helped I suppose!

Day 1613

Woke up with an appalling hangover at 7.50 am. Despite feeling ill and interested in nothing (latter the worst hangover symptom there is) managed to get my diss up to 10,700 words (the best so far) and to include an impressively fast 'jump to cycle n' button on the prog. Still don't fancy this presentation much, though.

Filled in an alcohol dependency questionnaire on the WWW - scored 6 (1-9 being low dependency, 10-19 medium, 20+ high). Felt better by 7pm. There's almost nothing more pleasurable than recovering from a hangover, or any illness.

Bit tired, but went out for a reflective walk. Providing I pass the course, the next 9 months-year are my best chance in ages to get things going. I can't waste it because of some lack of self-confidence thing. But how best to tackle it?

Day 1612

Alliterative date. Worked hard all day on my diss, drawing breath only to leave M a message in the morning and talk to C when he came round at dinnertime.

Made improvements to my prog, got it working more authentically. Cooked fry-up for tea; while I was cooking the people over the road left the front and back doors of their house open, and I could see right into the back garden where I played as a child. Real Headwaters of Youth stuff.

M rang up about 7.40, had quite a long conversation. Got invited round with the warning that she was feeling a bit bored, however she seemed to cheer up as we spoke. Had a great time talking and looking at photos. One of M&E in prehistoric times before they were going out. To think everyone was having such fun while I was being unemployed.

On the subject, also saw that pic of me round her house some time in '93, looking in a right state. No wonder I couldn't get a job.

Day 1611

More diss in the morning; lovely day, so went out for a ride and to buy PCW after dinner. Then more diss and prog.

In the evening watched Bottom again, grudgingly found bits of it funny, with names like Unlucky Ted 'Suicide' McGloomy, and a good conceit with Richie interpreting 'hotel maid' as 'servant girl'.

Day 1610

Carried on updating the thesis. Borrowed mum's car and made a trip to Lakeside, got the wedding present. It cost £17 but that's less than half what I've saved from giving up smoking. Also got a semi-formal bird's eye check skirt for semi-formal occasions.

Rather too high a proportion of Sim City in the day's activity, fought it by rationing myself to 15-minute sessions.

Excellent Hancock ep in the evening, The Two Murderers, very funny. Carried on with Our Mutual Friend. Just got to the obligatory sickly child.

T is not well at the moment so she's rather down. However, I resisted being manipulated into visiting her on the 21st instead of vice versa. If she's well enough to have visitors, she's well enough to visit, and how does she know how she'll feel in 16 days' time? Sent her an encouraging message instead. It is much healthier for her not to be my only friend as it makes us equal (tough love approach).

I must say life is more fun when you like people.

Didn't wake up till 10am. Made good progress on rearranging my diss - made a real gain of 500 words. I feel much more positive about it now, as I do about my prog after my supervisor Martin's comments.
Watched the wedding ep of Only Fools and Horses. Realised that stag and hen night shenanigans are appropriate to the social circle in which they take place, so no-one need worry.

More Our Mutual Friend later.

Day 1608

Went into town for wine and Computer Weekly. They all want experience again. Drove to Dulchester: on the way the white sky cleared and a golden autumn day was revealed. Went in the libe, found one of the papers I needed, made notes. It felt like being back at Lowlands.

My supervisor had covered my draft in red ink, and spent 3 hours talking about it. He got quite worked up about where I'd said that 'purists' didn't like LISP's sequential structures, as if, he said, 'purists' were a bunch of crazies hankering after a functional language utopia. He was very constructive though, and I must admit I did say some stupid things in the draft.

Did a bit of surfing, home by 6.30. Gave myself the evening off the diss, read Our Mutual Friend, did more work on a program to use the backupable circular queue I wrote (in one go) yesterday - the answer to the C parsing prob. My queue lets you back up as far as you like (up to the buffer size anyway).

Basically, carried on struggling with my difficult destiny. But let's face it - like Gavin Waylock, whenever I've had an easy destiny, I've been discontented. Better keep going!

Day 1607

Printed out my draft diss. Had a worrying e-mail from my supervisor answering my presentation question - yes we have to do one, quite a serious one too. Blue ruin!

Carried on with Our Mutual Friend. Apparently Richard Adams is going to release a book of Watership Down short stories. Read a sample: short, coarse grained, inconsistent with the main book. I think he peaked with Maia. But what a peak!

Day 1606

Woke up early worrying about the hen night. Got up and did some diss, then went for a long ride to Little Felpham. Church at the latter very similar to the one here. Hint of autumn on the countryside.

M rang up in the afternoon and invited me round. She said she didn't ring me yesterday because she thought I ought to be getting on with my diss! I had a long talk to her and E about the wedding, and made a suggestion about the reception/evening gap.

Came back, did more diss. 10,010 words, 1,990 to go. M was impressed with my progress since Monday. They gave me more advice about looking for a job. As I said when I e-mailed T later, my friends can give me advice till the cows come home, but barring bizarre clerical errors, nothing will happen unless I actually take any of it!