My chosen modules for this year have continued to be as interesting as they seemed at the start of the year and I am getting on well with them. Some of the lecturers however are not as good.

The assignment for one of the modules I am doing was given out at the start of term together with a list of suggested research areas. Basically we had to pick an area, research it and write a 3000 word report. Now this was quite a good piece of work as:

A> It is nice not to have to worry about coding or designing anything for a change, we can just write.

B> Some of the suggested topics on offer were very interesting.

I picked my area almost instantly (Cyberstalking - which was on the list he gave out and I was not the only one to pick it) and being the hard working student I was hoping to be pretty much made a start on the research straight away. (more…)

Considering the halls I currently reside in are ones that are allocated to first year students they are surprisingly quiet.

It is a fairly old building though so I imagine it has thicker walls than some of the more modern halls I am used to but even then it is still silent. I am used to halls having music playing well into the night, drunken students running up and down the corridors banging on your flat door and students generally being students… not that I have ever done these things of course *ahem*.

Besides the hole on my wall, stains on my carpet and general crudiness of the kitchen (it would be much better if there was somewhere to sit and relax, but there is only a little table and 3 uncomfortable chairs, so not the most welcoming of kitchens) it isn’t turning out too bad a place to be living. Add to that the fab location to the shops and pubs and the less than 10 minute walk to uni or the library it is perfect.

The older building has its quirks too and it looks nicer than your run of the mill, modern halls. And, rather oddly (well, I find it odd) on our floor there is an emergency access lift to the railway that runs underneath the halls. Must remember that if I am ever late for a train.

Yeah, yeah I know I have been shockingly bad at keeping this up to date. But you should know me by now and probably think some stupid excuse is coming up… well you are wrong! I am not even going to bother with an excuse this time, just put it down to me being crap.

So, the summer literally flew by and on Saturday I moved back to Liverpool. As any of you who is a friend on Facebook will have seen over the weekend I didn’t initially think too much of my room. Hole in one wall, crack in another, stains on carpet and generally dirtiness of the room when I got here was not good. Anyhow, once we had a clean and got my stuff in I settled in pretty quickly and it is good to be back at uni.

Even better is that the available modules seem much more interesting than previous years and the coursework we have been told about already sounds like it will be quite manageable (remind me I said this in a month or two when I am tearing my hair out please).

The strange part of the week has been finding out that our nice little course with 4 people in our year has suddenly grown to 15 people due to a load of the 2nd years not getting placements and going straight into the final year. I quite liked the fact there was only 4 of us so the fact that our course is now more than triple the size in numbers is going to take some getting used to.

Due to some expert guidance given to me last night I am making progress with my dissertation and hope to make a big start on that very soon and I am looking forward to the start of lectures next week. So, all in all a good first week back at uni.

Please let it carry on as well, i know the work is going to start to pile on soon… but I’m ready for it!

Bring it on!

I am all packed and waiting for my sister, who is currently stuck on the M6 to come and pick me up to take me home for the remainder of the summer holiday. On Thursday I finished my placement. I have enjoyed the time at the college but have to say I was quite happy to get to the end and I am looking forward to getting back to uni and starting my final year as a student.

I will miss all the guys at work, they have made the job very easy to get into and they were all fun to work with. After work on Thursday we went out for a couple drinks to celebrate us leaving. Needless to say the couple drinks lead to me getting in at 1am after consuming far more than a couple of drinks. It was a fantastic night out though, my best in a long time and it has made me start missing the guys already. A good thing about the college being quite close to uni is that I can come back and visit next year which I definitely will do.

So, my year in Widnes has been worth it. The placement has been great, I have learned a lot and I have definitely grown as a person more. My confidence, not only in my ability to do the job but also in myself has grown immensely. For that alone, this year was worth it, the additions I have to put on my CV is a bonus.

Topical Tuesday is a new meme intended to inspire the art of discussion via our blogs. Each week, on a Tuesday, a new topic will be placed on the main site for people to post about. Topics are open, and don’t necessarily need to be intended for serious discussion - after all a meme should be nothing if not fun!

I have been a member of Facebook for almost a year now. It is the only social networking site I am a member of and to be honest I love the damn thing. It got me back in touch with so many people that through one reason or another I had thought I wouldn’t be in contact with again.

Social Network Sites (SNS) are not without their problems though. Only yesterday there were reports that Facebook had come under fire from having an application that allowed you to ‘Shank’ other members, shanking being the slang term for stabbing someone. I myself had not seen this before and did not know what Shanking was but anything that promoted stabbing, or any other crime should be gotten rid of quickly in my opinion.

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I am lurking here somewhere, I promise you. Lack of recent posts has been down to me working on a new theme for this here blog. Yes I know I have been saying I was going to do one for ages, but this time I have actually found something that once I start designing I actually still like.

A few of the elements are giving me grief but hopefully I should have it live in the next few days.  I might implement a style switcher so you lovely peeps can decide which one you want… I know the one E made is lovely, and mine won’t match up to it but I try ;).

Until then, I leave you with this small teaser:

Topical Tuesday is a new meme intended to inspire the art of discussion via our blogs. Each week, on a Tuesday, a new topic will be placed on the main site for people to post about. Topics are open, and don’t necessarily need to be intended for serious discussion - after all a meme should be nothing if not fun!

When going on holiday to a foreign country I always want to experience as much of the local culture as I can, sure laying on the beach is all right but not something I could do for the full duration, in fact I doubt I would even last they day. You can just as easily get a nice tan by walking around, experiencing things than you can laying on a beach. I extend this attitude to the food that I eat. I would much rather seek out the non touristy restaurants and experience true local cooking and food than to go somewhere full of tourists, eating a fried breakfast… To be honest if that’s what I wanted to experience I’d go to Blackpool for my holiday.
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Topical Tuesday is a new meme intended to inspire the art of discussion via our blogs. Each week, on a Tuesday, a new topic will be placed on the main site for people to post about. Topics are open, and don’t necessarily need to be intended for serious discussion - after all a meme should be nothing if not fun!

More and more young girls (I say girls as I think they still are) are becoming pregnant and having babies nowadays, not all planned but some are.

It was quite rare even when I was growing up to know someone that was pregnant. Apart from one girl. She was quite a good friend of mine and was quite good at school up until we were about 14 (she is actually in the photo’s below this post). Then she got herself a boyfriend, he was a bit older at 17. Of course we all thought she was cool for going out with an older boy. A few weeks into their relationship she announced they were going to try for a baby. Most of us assumed she was just kidding, some girls (not me might I add) may fantasies about having a baby so young but most of them snap out of it quick, or so we thought. About a month later it was discovered she was pregnant and she was overjoyed. She continued with school until she was about 6 months gone and then left to have the baby. She was intending to return to school after the pregnancy (her mother was going to help out with child care) but after giving birth she quickly fell pregnant again. I haven’t seen her since she left school but we found out that by the time she was 17 she had 4 children to three different fathers.

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Someone just posted these on facebook, i have no recollection of what they were for, or who the two people in the middle are.

And I don’t know why they are in black and white… surely I’m not that old?

I have had a mild cold the last few days, just a sniffle and a sore throat but yesterday while at work I was starting to lose my voice.

I woke this morning to find that today I can barely speak. If I concentrate hard I can just about get a few words out at a squeak. It’s quite comical really. Because of this, I decided it would probably be best if I rang in sick today so I can rest my voice. Well I attempted to, I had no idea if my boss would be able to decipher my quiet whisper so I sent an email too. He replied saying they were having a good laugh at my phone message in the office. Charming.

By chance I happen to have tomorrow and Friday off to use up my last two days of holiday so I am now off work till Monday. Lovely.

Apart from my voice, I feel fine in myself. The other cold symptoms I had during the weekend have gone and my throat doesn’t overly hurt. So apart from not being able to talk I feel quite fine.

Only problem is, I don’t know what to do with myself now. After I rang/emailed I attempted to get back to sleep but I couldn’t so resorted to watching weekday morning TV which I have not seen since around this time last year and I see it hasn’t improved at all. I am even considering tidying my room… I must be bored!

I am however annoyed at the fact I needed to take a day of work for something so silly, so close to the end of my placement. I rarely get ill and even more rarely take sick days from work. I was hoping to get through my entire placement year without having to take a sick day.