Students blogs

Emma Burton

Course: MEng Electronic Engineering (3rd year)

Email: ask-a-student@ecs.soton.ac.uk

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15 April 2010

Life is a funny thing. It can chew you up, spit you out, occasionally steal your hairbrush, but what makes you really want to shake your fist in its general direction is when you realise that, quite against your wishes, it has set itself to fast forward.

Since when was it allowed to be April already? I’m fairly certain I did not give permission for this to happen. I’ve got a pile of dirty dishes, a dog who wants walking, and 12,000 words of what is supposed to a 10,000 word report sitting on my hard drive. Thank you, life.

But the scariest part isn’t the ballooning report or the whining spaniel (I’ll take him out in a moment), it’s the young man bursting through the door downstairs. My kid brother has just passed his driving theory test. (Well, I haven’t actually checked that yet. But seeing as our mother very kindly told him not to bother coming home if he failed it a second time, I’m assuming the news is good.)

My little brother is learning to drive. Worse than that, last week my little brother bought me a drink in the Hobbit pub! They say time flies when you’re having fun. I’m of the growing opinion that time just flies if you don’t nail it down.

But enough of the past. (It mostly involves me and my brother hitting each other with bricks anyway.) The future is far more exciting. May 6th, in particular, is the gleeful host of two very important events. The first is the general election. (Vote Jedi!) The second is my project report deadline.

Yes, that report. The one that’s currently 12,000 words and still a long way from finished. I’ve tried looking up the word “concise” in the dictionary, but I think I may need someone to explain the concept to me using instructive diagrams. Which reminds me, I’ve still got that growing list of report-related diagrams I need to construct in a combination of Adobe Photoshop and MSPaint (which is a little like using a combination of a dentist's drill and a sledge-hammer to crack the same nut). At the end of all this, I hope to magic the entire thing into LaTeX, whereupon I will be declared the Messiah and carried off to Narnia to live happily ever after with Optimus Prime and the Joker.

Which is my way of saying that this is not very likely to happen.

LaTeX doesn’t like me. In fact, I’m fairly certain that LaTeX once mugged me outside Lanchester and made off with my wallet. (I can’t possible have spent all that money on my own.) My only hope of taming this beast lies in bribing my housemate with bramley apple pies until he helps me.

For that I’ll need my wallet back.

(My brother DID pass, by the way. Looks like mum won’t have to guillotine him after all.)

10 December 2009

Holiday at last. Well, almost. I’m back at my parents’ house a little early this year to help out with a radio play my dad is staging. The fact that I just said “staging” should be raising a few eyebrows. My dad is trying to recreate all the fun/insanity of watching a radio play being recorded live, including microphones, multiple parts, and that silly person knocking cups together to do the “live effects”. (That silly person, in this case, being me.) On the upside, this somewhat unusual format means that the actors don’t have to learn any lines, as they can quite legitimately be holding their scripts the entire time. On the downside, it also means that (for the first time since Infants School Nativity) I have to be on the stage.

This idea has left me just a little bit wobbly. When it comes to theatre, I’m very firmly a techy person. Actors go on stage, and I sit in a little black box hidden away at the back (sometimes reading a book if there are long breaks between cues). This time, I’m going to have to sit very still and very quiet on stage. A small relief is that I seem to have finally stopped sneezing.

The sneezing began last weekend, on day two of the National BUCS Individuals Fencing Competition in Nottingham. By day three, the world was a strange, somewhat unsteady place, featuring a mind-swelling sort of headache and the uneasy suspicion that I might throw-up at any moment. (Not a good idea when wearing a fencing mask as it tends to result in “the sieve effect”.) Unfortunately, day three was also the day when I was supposed to be fencing my favourite weapon, foil. So I thought, ill or not, I’d give it a go anyway.

The first problem was of staying upright on the piste (long rectangle you fence on). The sports hall was swaying a little by the time my fights started, so I quickly settled on a technique of using my opponent to judge whether I was standing straight. This seemed to work. I only completely fell over once (although there were a few near misses when I tried to attempt anything risky like actually attacking). Unsurprisingly, my fencing that day wasn’t the best I’ve ever done.

Then again, neither was the weekend before. Every year, Warwick University hosts a fencing competition specifically for novices. This year, I ended up in charge of taking a number of our new beginners along to it. At time of turning up, we had exactly the number of body-wires to go round. However, anyone who has ever fenced foil will tell you that a foil body-wire is about as reliable as an umbrella made of kitchen roll. Two broke within twenty minutes of each other, leading to a lively game of “musical wires” as we swapped them back and forth to keep everyone fencing.

Somewhere in the resulting chaos, I’m sure I did fence a few bouts, but all memory of how I did is lost in the utter relief that, come the end of the trip, I still had exactly the same number of beginners as I started with. Missing/broken body-wires can be replaced. Missing/broken students are a little harder to explain.

21 November 2009

Someone, somewhere is trying to kill me. I am quite convinced of this fact, to the point of installing a rack of swords next to my bed (more on that later) and chanting prayers to minor gods as I moved between lectures. Unfortunately, I suspect all this effort may well be in vain, as the person trying to kill me will almost certainly turn out to be… Me.

Like snow in a Russian winter, the problem isn't one of impact, but accumulation. Lectures and supporting work? No problem. Keeping up with my end of the house cleaning rota? Easy. Writing two management essays? No sweat. Competing on the women's fencing team? Much sweat, but still not an issue. Prototype for individual project done before Christmas? Completely possible.

Doing it all in the same month? Now we're experiencing a little bit of strain. Of course, then I was silly enough to enter NaNoWriMo (or "National Novel Writing Month" for those who don't speak babble). The challenge is to write 50,000 words of complete fiction (no, this blog DOESN'T count) between the 1st and 30th of November. I'm currently sitting at just over 30k (lagging dangerously behind today's target of 35). I'm sure I'll make it to the big 50 mark by the end of the month, but whether I'll still possess a comfortable portion of my sanity remains to be seen.

Oh yes, and that rack of swords. It actually has a fairly reasonable explanation. With the loss of many car-owning committee members this year, the fencing club needed somewhere to keep all the gear that would be: a) secure and b) slightly closer to the sports hall than our cupboard at Stoneham (shared with the boxing club). At this point in the conversation (which took place during the first committee meeting of the term) I made the mistake of mentioning that my house is only a couple of minutes from campus. Thus there are now three boxes of parts (and a collection of foam sabres) under my bed, a rack of swords next to my desk, a box of broken blades (and a some steam weapons) in my under-stairs cupboard, and an impressive pile of "use-every-session" kit (including jackets, plastrons, masks, MORE swords, and plastic chest protectors) lurking behind one of the sofas.

My house may now be the best armed on the street. Take that burglars!

6 November 2009

On the wall above my desk, is a large cork-board. One half of this currently has on it a random jumble of bits of paper including my lecture timetable, a map of the university, the passcode for my wireless internet, and a picture of Prince William on a motorbike cut out of the Metro. The other side is my Quote Wall, a veritable library of amusing, interesting, or thought-provoking sentences I've heard members of the human race come out with.

Most are by people I know, although there is one by Gordon Brown ("I take full responsibility for what has happened, which is why the person responsible went immediately"). This week, the Quote Wall received a new addition.

It was my first lab for Principals of Computer Graphics, and I wasn't making such a hash of it as I originally suspected I would. I'd even got as far as offering assistance to other people. Well, "assistance" here meaning telling them what the lecturer told me, which was that the whole thing would only work if you pressed "Clean" first. Which was when someone came out with the line:

"Oh, it's VOODOO. My favourite type of programming."

I know the feeling. Logical thought dictates that all problems in life (or ones that don't involve other people at least) can be solved most effectively by sitting down, maybe with a sheet of blank paper, and calmly thinking it through.

Logical thought has obviously not tried programming. I swear on my uncle's grave, I have had bugs that went away when I recited the Lord's Prayer, and race-conditions that only reared their ugly head when the forth strike of midnight had passed. Then again, on that second occasion I had been gently sipping whiskey-and-ginger since eight (I'm convinced it helps me program), so my concentration might not have been at its best.

Never-the-less, I feel it's an irrefutable fact that, whilst most programming concerns WILL lie down after the "think it through" method, for others you simply have to crack out the candles and the black cockerel.

My Rotating Ellipse test app will currently only rotate if I ask it nicely before pressing compile (and then it does a quarter-turn before deciding that life really isn't worth living after all). I hope to have it fully obedient by Monday, but first I might have to buy more whiskey.

18 October 2009

Well, two weeks gone and I’ve decided that individual projects require a “Love/Hate” relationship. Reasons to hate them are many and varied.

To start with there are Gannt charts. They’re a little like brussel sprouts: good for you, but that doesn’t stop them leaving a foul taste in your mouth. Although, in the case of the brussel sprout, that taste is caused by a chemical called sinigrin, and in the case of the Gannt chart it’s caused by the slow realisation that your beautiful crafted plan is likely to be the greatest work of fiction since “The Leadership Genius of George W. Bush”.

(That’s a real book, by the way!)

Then there’s the increasingly unhealthy amount of time you’re likely to spend in the library. When does it become unhealthy? The moment you utter the words: “I think I’m really starting to know my way around.” Seriously, the place is like King Minos’ labyrinth. I keep expecting to encounter the minotaur lurking around the scientific journals. Or maybe reading them. Some of those journals are surprisingly addictive. The University of Beijing researches some strange stuff.

Oh, and once you’ve followed your ball of thread back to the library entrance and staggered off home with enough reading material to fuel your heating system through another Winter of Discontent, you’ll remember the monster waiting for you at the end of this long, winding, and often backtracking road. You’ve got to write a report. A proper report. Without spelling mistakes.

But in the midst of all this doom and gloom, what keeps you going? For me, it’s a sort of bizarre, childish glee that this is MY project, born out of MY head, and I’M going to get it done. And it’s going to be the most amazingly fantastic interactive-whiteboard-based-demonstration-software-for-IGCSE-physics that has ever graced a British school classroom. Or possibly just the only one.

Now to find my way out of the library. I must have taken a wrong turn at engineering...

Back Again

A month of summer to go, and I'm back in Southampton. My time away has been eventful (in parts), but there's something irreplaceable about walking down Portswood Road in my trampling-the-unworthy boots and just thinking, "I'm back".

Said beloved boots have been a little neglected while I've been away. Much of my summer has been spent commuting from my parents' house to a nine-to-five job in central London, where time is money and the seven deadly sins are (in order): scruffiness, tardiness, lack of enthusiasm, bad ties, long hair, desk clutter, and not drinking coffee. My scuffed-up walking boots (useful as they are for drop-kicking chihuahuas) don't really have a place in this centre of banking paranoia.

(By the way, the dog thing was a joke. I wouldn't really drop-kick a chihuahua. Not when they fit so nicely into a hamster ball.)

Those thoughts aside, I wonder if I haven't overlooked my dear boots as a vital commuting tool. Especially for those days when South-West Trains have (for reasons best known to themselves) shortened a rush-hour train from eight carriages to four, resulting in a "human jam" effect: faces pressed helplessly against the glass as the crush of bodies slowly sweats itself into a sloppy macro-organism made up of shirts, shoes, briefcases and under-tanned human flesh. Oh, and somewhere in all this mess there's me, pressed groin to groin with an Indian man in a grey suit. We share a wonderfully British few stops as I stare up the carriage and he stares down it, both of us carefully ignoring the fact that we're possibly closer than some married couples get whilst trying for a baby. He got off at Earlsfield, leaving me to draw a full breath of someone's underarm fragrance and wonder exactly why Americans think London is a glamorous place to work.

My poor boots didn't even get a look-in during my week off. Sometime last October (my family believes in planning ahead) my dear dad made the following two realisations:

1. The children were almost all flown the nest.

2. The Euro was getting more and more steep against the pound.

So he thought he'd try for one last family holiday somewhere new.

He picked Croatia. A location just a little too hot in the height of summer to wear clumpy boots (or, as it turned out, many clothes at all).

I said, "Great, I'll be there", then promptly forgot about it, only to be reminded again four days before we were due to leave. After a nice phone conversation with a man at Thomus Cook about the Croatian Kuna, a long walk up to St. James Street to collect said Croatia Kuna, and a frantic night's packing, we were off. It was as I was boarding the plane that I remembered two things:

1. I hadn't packed a hat.

2. My little brother doesn't like flying.

Oh well, we all made it there and back alive and (reasonably) sane. I even picked up a rather striking white cowboy hat in a Dubrovnik hat shop (only 75 Kuna). But the best part of the trip is still sitting in the cupboard by my leg. A bottle of bright orange pear liqueur.

I think I might be ready for my third year now.

31 May 2009

At last, the end is in sight. Three exams have been beaten back, leaving just maths skulking in the corner, hissing menacingly. Come Tuesday, one of us will be a gibbering wreck. For now, I've got two more days to sharpen my lance and work out what in the name of engineering is up with the Laurant expansion.

Maybe I should get the dream-team to explain it to me. On my course, we decided a while back that exams were a beast best conquered as a group. To this end, an ever-changing selection of us have been meeting in the library each day to scratch heads together. This tactic works very well (I certainly wouldn't have got through Communications II without assistance) except for one tiny detail: the weather.

Even in cool conditions, the group-study rooms can "mature" somewhat after having been in them for a few hours. In the recent spell of hot weather, with no openable windows, no excuse to leave the door open (we can be a little noisy), and eight people trapped in a glass box pouring sweat… Well, the best advice is not to leave at all. After being out in the library proper for a while, returning to the room is like running into a wall of smell.

Maybe I'll take a peg to today's session.

16 May 2009

“Oh yes,” says my lab partner, taking his hand slowly off the dials of our laser-powered-communications-testy-ma-thing. “I am the MASTER of fine adjustments!”

It had sort of got to that point. You can only spend so long meticulously observing “laser safety” before the insanity starts to creep in. It didn't help that we were all made to swear oaths of blood (alright, maybe just sign forms) promising the following:

1. I will not undertake any laser work without a supervisor.

2. I will not attempt to interfere with the interlock on the device.

3. I will not look directly at the laser beam.

4. I will not attempt to give partner eye correction surgery using said laser...

I might have made up the last one. I just feel that if you can't trust students with highly-dangerous pieces of equipment, who can you trust? The supervisor selection system. Apparently.

When my personal tutor referred to the process ECS uses to allocate third-year-project supervisors as a “Stable Marriage Algorithm”, I thought he was joking. Now I'm not quite sure why. It's exactly the sort of random idea that ECS would come up with. I have a theory that engineers shouldn't be allowed to name things.

At least “Stable Marriage Algorithm” makes it sound fairly cosy. Maths, but with net curtains and floral patterning on the cushions. It's not. It's more like a swarm of angry bees. Bees with keywords tied to them. Or maybe I'm overreacting and that's just the stress talking.

While I haven't been struggling to order all 90 possible third-year supervisors into a perfect list of preference, I've been busy with report deadlines. Two major group projects have decided (as they always do) to come to a head at exactly the same time. The trouble is, they're with different groups, and I was never that good at remembering people's names to start with. To everyone I have mis-named in the past week, I apologise. Especially if you're my boyfriend.

And it's not likely to get much better any time soon. Exams are on the way, with their usual array of salivating jaws and multi-part questions. And here's me, left with only my glittering army of coloured gel pens to fend them off.

Computer Systems Engineering better be ready to kneel. I'm writing my revision notes in pink!

2 April 2009

I'm typing this on my netbook, surrounded by piles of a teenage boy's laundry. Next to me, someone is fighting off a combination of head-grabbing aliens and gas-mask wearing policemen (courtesy of Microsoft's Xbox360) while, somewhere in the distance, a King Charles spaniel snuffles around looking for a free meal. I must be home for Easter.

There's always something a little weird about arriving back at the parents' house after being away all term. Simple things like dishwashers seem imbued with magical powers (“You mean, I don't have to wash up?”) and having someone else cook makes you feel like royalty (especially when said person is my dad, a very good cook if somewhat “inventive”). Being reunited with a teenage brother (who is growing up too damn fast for my liking) also has its refreshing points. I'd forgotten just how long my brother can spend spinning out a yarn of dragons, unicorns, mysterious strangers and late buses, to explain exactly why he's in trouble at college. Again.

And then, once you've got a good meal in your belly, a dog on your lap and have secured yourself the perfect position on the sofa, you remember. You're supposed to be doing work.

“Work” in this case means catching up on notes, finishing one design report, and getting a running start at the software project. That last one is not being immensely helped by the fact that (thanks to a certain someone and their bright ideas) I'm now also attempting to write my own turn-based strategy game in C#. Do I get some sort of insanity award for giving myself more work? Oh well. When I'm filthy rich and working for Microsoft Games I won't look nearly so stupid.

It's all a matter of balance really. Not too much work. Not too much play. Not too much dog-petting. (Seriously, if I spend any more time fussing over him I'll end up kidnapping him and smuggling him back to Southampton. I'm not sure my landlord would be that impressed, but I'm sure my housemates would love him.)

12 March 2009

Some people say there are lies, damn-lies and statistics. My computer systems lecturer disagrees. He says there are lies, damn-lies, statistics and benchmarks. After nearly a week spent slowly disappearing under a mountain of chips, wire and code, I've thought up a new one: There are lies, damn-lies, statistics, benchmarks and things-you-wrote-in-your-design-project-plan.

The following explanation has been carefully stripped of any direct references to electronic engineering. (More for my benefit than for yours. Rather unfortunately, my brain appears to have gone on strike. I'm sure I can placate it later with an episode of QI.)

So, my D4 group set out with the express intention of building an elephant. A robust, intelligent creature, capable of assessing complex situations (such as the building being on fire) and giving clear, easily recognisable signals with its huge flapping ears. As of today, we appear to have managed a cluster of blind, anti-social moles. Each individual does something, but at the moment they're all digging in different directions, making snuffly noises and eating worms.

This is not an ideal place to be the day before the deadline. Still, our inspirational project leader seems convinced we can build the moles into a sort of elephant-shaped pile during the full seven hours we're given in the lab tomorrow, thus winning fame, fortune and at least a “pass” for this module. To this end, I'm currently teaching my mole to shout very loudly at a handy bit of web hosting. (One I bought ages ago with the express purpose of building a personal website which, thanks to the wonderfulness that is sequential deadlines, currently consists of a holding page.) I mean, what better way is there to tell ECS students that the building they're sitting in is on fire than via the internet?

Leaving my mole in the corner for a moment (don't worry, it'll just spit out test pages until it gets bored) and looking ahead to the as-yet mythical creature that is my other design project. The software one. My current idea would most likely resemble (when finished) a typical half-trained dog. You know, the kind where the owner lost patience after a few days, so it'll “sit” on command (looking at you expectantly for a treat) but won't do much else.

This simple approach has the advantage of being very achievable, but I'm still tempted to try something more like a monkey-butler. Namely, something that'll do anything from polishing your shoes to long-division, but is more at risk of swinging from the curtains if it gets confused.

It's a dilemma.

25 February 2009

You know, web development really should carry a health warning. Just a small sticker in all the books perhaps. Something like: “Warning! May slowly turn you into a crazy person.”

I mean, when I started work on the (currently three) websites, the only clues that I might be a closet animal freak were the pet fruit beetles, David Attenborough DVDs, and collection of stuffed bats. A few weeks later, and I have a USB hub in the shape of a starfish and a growing collection of little wire animals occupying every available surface. I had to move a gecko to get to my lecture notes this morning. It's a small step from that to crazy-cat-lady.

My mental health aside, I really do enjoy building websites. There's something irresistible about an activity that gives you an excuse to have complete conversations with an inanimate object.

“Where's my text gone?”

“Why is that image green?”

“What did I ever do in a previous life to deserve...”

Or maybe that's just me. Although the intriguing world of HTML and CSS does have a habit of making you forget things. Like shopping and laundry. Not only am I now down to a T-shirt with “Will work for shoes” printed on the front, today I found myself chewing through leftovers.

It was probably a good idea to use up the various edible bits and pieces I had lying around anyway. Any longer in the fridge, and I have a suspicion that stir fry would have started walking. The cheese was already energetic enough to leap out at me as I opened the door. It gave up its escape under threat of grating. Sometimes you just have to be tough with food.

So, where does all this leave my studies? Constructing a series of graphs to best describe a system for tracking zookeepers using GPS. Not entirely sure how the zookeepers would feel about this idea, but at least it includes an emergency plan for if one of the lions escapes:

Call a lawyer!

10 February 2009

A new semester never fails to bring with it a whole host of new challenges. There’s a bundle of new modules to contend with, a new set of labs to get your head around, and of course a new timetable, prompting the usual chorus of “where actually IS that building?”

Luckily for me, I avoided such problems for the first week by running away to France. Paris, to be exact. Not as glamorous as it sounds due to the fact it was for a fencing competition. Less “Moulin Rouge”, and more “university sports hall”. Still, speaking as someone who scored straight F’s in school games lessons, it felt good to be representing my university at a sport. Even my inevitable horrific defeat (15 to 2) at the hands of the number one seed (a lovely lady I’ve had the pleasure of being thrashed by at a previous competition) managed to be more fun then any trip up the Eiffel Tower. My excursion may not have earned me a medal, but I did pick up a number of impressive bruises. Most of which were (bizarrely) caused by my own kit bag rather than my opponent’s swords!

But back home now and back to reality. Groups have been set for what promises to be a brilliant software project. All we know at the moment is that it’s going to involve databases and a mysterious GPS device. Naturally, one of the first suggestions was for a Pub Crawl generator. You’ve got to think of your target audience. Personally, I’m all in favour of Urban Pacman.

For those not familiar with the sport (and, believe me, it’s real!) the idea is based around bringing the much-loved computer game to life. This generally involves running around the streets of your city of choice trying to either catch or lose your fellow players. With a GPS system and a bit of code-related jiggery-pokery, it should be possible to program a system where players could watch themselves “eating up” the traditional yellow dots as they run around Southampton, and even know when the ghosts were catching them up.

Of course, there are a few tiny problems with this idea. The most obvious being that anybody running around Southampton with their eyes fixed on a screen is risking death-by-car or indeed death-by-irate-shopper-that-you-just-ran-into.

Back to the drawing board.

6 January 2009

Back again

It's amazing how fast Christmas can go by. One moment you're wondering just how quickly you can ebay some of your more bizarre presents, the next a lecturer is asking you how your Solar Cells report is coming along.

That's another amazing thing, actually. The report is going rather well! Of course, the Analogue Design report that's due in the day after is still an as-yet-unwritten work of fiction. Eyes down ladies and gentlemen, we're approaching exam week.

At least the beetles are happy. After being left on their own (with an ample supply of fruit) for ten days, they seemed remarkably happy to see me back. Then again, that may have had something to do with the lovely fresh pieces of clementine I gave them. Or the fact that I opened the curtains. Fruit beetles do love to sunbathe. Even in the middle of winter. Then again, winter doesn't really exist in the tropical forests they come from. Which explains why (thanks to a handy heat mat) their tank has been pretty much the only warm place in the house recently.

Fate when it wants to be. I arrived back in Southampton on the 27th of December, having spent over a week at my parent's house, complete with the mother-of-all central-heating systems. Our heating system, in comparison, is more of a doddering granddad. Or maybe great-granddad. The morning after I arrived back, it was 8 degrees Celsius in the kitchen. By the time my housemates started to arrive back, I'd recorded a record low of 6.5. That's cold. In fact, drop that by another degree and it's cold enough to actually be a fridge.

At least, with the return of my housemates, things are now warming up. Something to do with more people showering and cooking I suspect. The kitchen was at 10 degrees last time I checked. The next two weeks should start to heat up too, as final deadlines give way to desperate revision. I need a 2.1 average in order to make it onto the masters course. Wish me luck!

18 November 2008

Deadlines are interesting things. I'm firmly convinced they're living creatures in their own right. Has anyone else noticed the way they seem to cluster together for protection? And their uncanny ability to sneak up when you're least expecting it. Often in packs. And then there's the happenings of last week. A full blown, coordinated attack.

I emerged victorious, but have taken to keeping a blunt weapon beside my bed. The next lab report that tries to take me by surprise will be getting a heavy blow from “How to C Program – Fifth Edition”. To the face if possible.

Deadlines beaten back (for the moment at least), now seems like a good a time as any to assess just how I'm getting on in my second year. It's a pretty even spread really. My modules in Digital and Control are making quite astonishing levels of sense (and actually turning out to be quite interesting to boot). Whereas I'm clinging to analogue by my fingernails (but hey, clinging is clinging). Maths is just maths. I think of it like the sliced brown bread of engineering. It's not terribly exciting, but you can't make a bacon sandwich without it. Semiconductor Device Physics (try saying that with a mouthful of mushy peas) is variable. Some days I'm fascinated (if a little bemused). This morning I fell asleep (I think I need to get to bed earlier).

Oh well. Six weeks down, four to go before the freedom (or not) of the Christmas holidays. I'm planning to spend mine working for Royal Mail. The pay is alright, but I'm hoping to supplement it by taking bribes from school kids who don't want their report card getting home. (If Royal Mail are reading this, I'm joking!)

But before I can get to the holidays (and start up my new business in postal-service corruption) I need to finish this term. Chatting with housemates should help pass the time. Of course, we may have to come up with a few more things to talk about. Our regular topics of conversation are as follows:

1.Food

2.Books

3.Washing Up

We possibly need to get out more.

22 October 2008

There are very few instances in life where such a simple sentence as, “It’s a student house”, can be an acceptable explanation for so many things. The piles of abandoned washing up is a fairly standard example. The tank of fruit beetles a more unusual one. And then there was the morning I emerged to discover a “Diversion” sign on the landing. I’ve decided to let sleeping dogs lie on that one. Though I’m seriously considering doing something about the stairs. Why the stairs? They’ve been attacking me. Why have they been attacking me? It’s a student house!

For the curious, here’s a more thorough explanation: Our kind and generous landlord (he might be reading this) recently replaced the carpets on the stairs and upper landing. All very well and good, except that the new carpets are somewhat thinner than the old ones. You know carpet gripper rods? The long rectangular things with sharp spikes sticking out of them. Well, they’re now poking through the carpet. And I keep spiking my feet.

“Thump thump thump thump OUCH! hop hop thump thump thump.”

But I guess, as student-house-problems go, biting stairs aren’t too bad. I know of a student house where it rains in the front hall every time someone takes a shower (ever tried to open wet post?) and another where traversing the living room is comparable to a game of Twister (“Ok, left foot between the dinner-plate and the missing floorboard. Right hand balance on the sofa…”).

And then there’s the house round the corner. Recycling neatly boxed, post nicely sorted, carpets vacuumed, dishes done, and spotless from top to bottom. The occupants are two midwives, one female zoologist and two male engineers (desperately trying to keep their heads down). As a department mostly comprising of engineers, I’m sure we can lend our sympathies.

Speaking of ECS, I’ve been attempting to further its inherent quirkiness this week by taking my sewing to labs. It makes good sense really. The D2 lab is an (ahem) interesting one, but suffers from the fact that only one person in each lab pair can be fighting with software at once. So, while my lab partner curses the black-hearted individual who invented LEdit, I make progress on my bear (whilst offering sweet words of encouragement). Then we swap around (well, I take over the cursing, he doesn’t take over sewing). It works quite well, allowing both parties the enjoyment of “back-seat-lab-work”.

“No, you need to connect that there. Not there, THERE. That’s it. Now you need to… Ouch! Stupid needle.”

As to why I’m sewing a stuffed bear in my electronics labs. Well, Christmas is coming and I’m a little short on money for presents.

Oh the joys of being a student.

10 October 2008

Beetling forward

I’m slowly coming to the conclusion that fruit beetles just aren’t very smart. That’s the fifth time Rincewind has tried to fly through the plastic wall of his tank in as many minutes. I wouldn’t be so concerned if it wasn’t the exact same wall each time. I’m sure he’ll work it out eventually.

It’s not just insects who’ve been feeling a little disorientated these past few days. The first week of lectures is always an odd time of year. The wandering packs of freshers (map in one hand, hangover cure in the other) make campus feel somewhat like it’s being invaded by a particularly studious brand of tourists. There are new faces in the computer labs; new addresses to add to mailing lists; and a sparkling new timetable to contend with. One with even more 9 o’clock starts than last year. Maybe this year I’ll finally start drinking coffee.

At least none of those dreaded 9 o’clock lectures is Analogue Electronics, my personal kryptonite. Last year’s module in this subject left me feeling a lot like Rincewind. That is, repeatedly hitting my head against an invisible wall. (He’s still doing it, by the way.) This year, I’m determined to conquer the beast. My secret weapon is coloured pens. Lots and lots of coloured pens. It’s a simple law of the universe that everything makes more sense in a range of colours. Oh, and concentrating in lectures. That helps too.

But it’s not all Analogue. (Luckily for me or I might not last long!) The hilariously complicated lab-timetable is back, with a new set of codes for modules and lab groups. We’re meant to be working in groups of six this year which, if nothing else, should be an interesting experience. Either my group will emerge proudly victorious, bearing aloft an IC design so mind-blowing it will land us in the new-year’s honours list… or we’ll all have killed each other by the end of lab one.

Only time will tell. Now, I really should see to Rincewind. Maybe he’ll stop trying to escape if I give him food. Hell, it works with students!

23 September 2008
Back In Soton (Almost)

Here we are again. The holidays are finally drawing to a close, leaving me to wonder in a somewhat dazed fashion where all that time went. Now I think about it, a large chunk was in theatres. That sounds very cultured, but what it boils down to is me madly running in circles around a dark, dusty room with a roll of duct tape in one hand and a (sometimes quite literally) dog-chewed script in the other.

Stupid dog. No appreciation for the finer things in life. Like burning fingers on lights, crawling around the floor following cable, or trying in vain to tease electrical tape out of your own hair (how does it even get there?), all whilst muttering the “To Do” list over and over again like some sort of gypsy incantation against forgetting anything. Of course, then the actors get on stage and do their thing and it’s all wonderful. Right up until they miss a cue line.

Happy days. I’ve still got a few of them left before I can escape back to the welcoming (if slightly full of roadworks) bosom of Southampton. I hope everything’s alright back there. I’ve left my lovely (and, more to the point, clean) new house in the hands of one of my new housemates, and my fruit beetles in the hands of my boyfriend. He looked a little nervous when I handed the tank over, but I assured him it would be fine…just as long as there are still three of them when I get back. If not I’ll kill him.

In case anyone’s wondering, my charming beetle family consists of a Giant Green Jewel called Rincewind, and two Spotted Suns named Lecturer in Recent Runes and Chair of Indefinite Studies. Readers of Terry Pratchett’s Discworld will get the joke. For the rest of you… Just trust me. It does make sense.

Unlike Joomla. My mistake, “Joomla!” (exclamation mark compulsory). Motto: “Because open source works.” I’ve no doubt it does…for other people. For those who are confused (I’m one of them!), Joomla is a content management system designed to support easily updateable websites. Easily updateable, yes. Easily buildable, no. I’m attempting to migrate a friend’s website to it at the moment and it feels distinctly like trying to construct a piece of flat-pack furniture while a “helpful” child keeps hiding the screwdriver in “helpful” places and “helpfully” rearranging your work while you’re off looking for it.

I realise it’s a fairly standard part of web development to spend at least part of your time cursing the screen, but the point I ended up threatening to hunt down and kill its wife and kids was possibly taking things a little too far.

Oh well. Deep breath and count to ten. Or maybe to thirteen. Number of days until term starts.

11 June 2008

Maybe I spoke too soon on the whole “summer’s here” thing. Within the week that I posted my last blog it started raining. And didn’t stop again for about a week. The sun is back again now, but for how long is best known to skilled weathermen and God.

At least the weather has some sense of timing. For most of us (myself included) the exams are now over. After two weeks of insanity, we have escaped for another semester. And I really do mean insanity. In ECS at least, the pressure pushed some people to near breaking point.

It starts with the revision itself. A quick glance through most university modules will turn up a few random facts that you “just have remember”. Quite how you go about this is down to the individual. When confronted with the problem of Harvard vs Von Neumann architectures, one first year electronics student came up with a brilliant ploy.

“Well, Harvard only has one memory block and only one word in its name. Whereas Von Neumann has two memory blocks and two words in its name.”

Simple, but only a limited amount of use. As was pointed out by another student, the architectures actually go the other way around. Back to the drawing board. I personally went for the following:

“Harvard is a big university, so they have the big complicated one. And Von Neumann is… the other one.”

This is, admittedly, lacking somewhat in elegance, but at least I remembered it. A rather more humorous strategy was introduced to me on the way into the communications exam.

“You see, the way you remember how GSM is distributed is that it’s like The Doctor. It travels through Space, Time and… Frequency.”

The amount of laughs this got shows that maybe the pressure was getting to us a little. The pressure was certainly getting to the Connaught student I ran into entering Glen when I was on my way out. I was heading to my first exam. Coincidentally, so was he. The trouble was, it was the same exam. (For the record, I was right, although I carried a printout of the exam timetable to all further exams!)

Most other events of note took place in Zepler, the refuge of revising (and/or procrastinating) ECS students. The levels of insanity are never exactly low in Zepler, but looking up to see a compsci gliding, straight-legged across the room is still a little unnerving. As it turns out, the Computer Science course doesn’t include a module on levitation, just at least one student who does his revision on rollerblades. I didn’t inquire further.

Perhaps more disturbing was the thought dedicated to the information content of an explanative originating from the mouth of a particular electronics student, resulting in a joke even more obscure than the “Space, Time and Frequency” one. We counted this as communications revision.

But perhaps the most interesting event of the exam period was nothing to do with exams, Zepler or even ECS. Whilst returning from getting lunch (even hard-working students have to eat) a fellow student and myself passed a shifty looking man walking the other way. A shifty looking man with one hand held inside his jacket.

Was it a gun? We didn’t know. But we’re students, and the curiosity of youth compelled us to find out. So we made the logical decision and followed him. Our mystery man headed straight into the SUSU shop. From there the conversation went something like this:

“Is he going to rob the place?”

“I don’t know. Let’s get closer.”

“Not too close. We’ll want space to run if he starts shooting.”

“What’s he doing now?”

“He’s taken his hand out from his jacket.”

“Bloody hell. Can you see what’s in it?”

“Looks like a…”

“What?”

“Oh.”

“What!”

“It’s a sandwich.”

And with that, I’d like to wish everyone a fun-filled summer. See you next year!

19 May 2008

Summer how it should be ...

Well, after a spring season that saw enough rain to count as a rather cold monsoon, it seems like summer may very well have arrived at Southampton. The sun comes and goes from day to day, but spirits are no less high for it. The skirts have risen, the barbecues have been lit, the flip flops are out in force, and the summer-time pranks have begun with gusto. The students at ECS may not be, on the whole, the flip-flopping types, but they approach the traditional summer playfulness in the same way they approach everything else: with careful planning.

It was a C# lecture when the note circulated:

“When Kevin shouts ‘Sniper on the roof!’, the undersigned company will in turn shout ‘Protect the President!’ whilst tackling John to the ground. Will occur when the target is standing on grass.”

At least fifteen of us dutifully signed. If John wondered why we all stayed fairly close to him as we left the lecture hall, he didn’t mention it. All the way to University Road, the company waited on tenterhooks. Finally the target decided to cut across an area of green. It was a fatal mistake.

“Sniper on the roof!”

“PROTECT THE PRESIDENT!”

John was somewhat red-faced when we finally dug him out from the pile of students. Red-faced, but laughing all the same. Not all pranks were taken so well.

I was in my halls room, attempting to revise for the upcoming exams when a heavy thump hit the window. My course mates in the opposite block waved at me cheerfully from their balcony, hefting water balloons in their free hands. Protected by the mighty force that is double-glazing, I waved back and tried to return to my revision. Failing miserably, I sat back to watch the show instead. Targets of the liquid-filled missiles included: other windows on my block, Kevin (mastermind of “Sniper on the Roof”), a few random passer’s by and a security guard.

I was able to identify that last one by just how quickly the occupants of the balcony disappeared indoors. If you are reading this and you are a rather wet security guard at Glen Eyre Halls, I can give you names.

But not all summer insanity results in pranks. Buoyed up by the warm weather, one student in a digital systems lecture was heard to declare, a little louder than he perhaps intended : “I am too hench for this!”

When asked by the lecturer if he had a question, the student hastily denied he’d said anything, proving that mere good weather is only capable of so much. Other sunstroke-inspired statements included, in a somewhat thoughtful tone: “Girls really are the the pinnacle of their sexiness while programming.”

I guess that’s one of those “You know you’re in ECS when...” moments.

5 March 2008

He Has Risen: That’s right, Vulcan the abused PC has not been beaten yet! After a little coaxing (and the bribe of an update to XP Pro) he’s back on his feet once more. Unfortunately, all the attention seems to have inspired jealously in my external harddrive. That’s now broken instead.

Ironically, this has resulted in another gift for Vulcan, in the form of the tinniest speakers known to the human ear (only £10 and only just worth it). But they work, meaning I can at least listen to the 5.63GB of music I managed to scurry off the external onto Vulcan (nearly) empty harddisk.

He may also be getting a mousemat. I can’t stand the scraping much longer.

My technical troubles aside (which I maintain are due to incurring the wrath of a minor deity), I’ve having a bit of a “special” couple of days. That’s not “special” in the “it-was-my-birthday-and-I-managed-to-blow-all-the-candles-out” sort of way. That’s “special” in the “managed-to-get-trapped-inside-my-own-sports-bra” sort of way.

Yes, you read that right. I swear the dangerous part of fencing is supposed to be the “hitting-people-with-swords” part, not the “getting changed” part. Quite how I succeeded in entangling myself in JUST the right way to tether my head back (face towards the ceiling in a “god-please-help-me” fashion) is a mystery possibly best left unprobed. As are the precise circumstances that led to me almost setting my hair on fire. I guess I’m just “special”.

A special person who seems to have spent far too long staring at ModelSim outputs. When a small dip in the trace elicits a response like “Oh look at the cute little kink!” you know it’s time to take a break. Likewise when you discover yourself texting a friend for the specific purpose of asking them if they have a module in “Pornographic Programming”.

The answer was surprisingly “yes”! Grab a Computer Science student if you don’t believe me. While you’re at it, ask them what the entry requirements are. I’m not sure electronics is good for my sanity.

12 February 2008

The Dearly Departed

When in mixed company (that is, techys and non-techys) there are a few rules that it is wise to follow. The first is to not start up a heated debate on C vs Java. The second is not to let slip that your computers have names.

Proper names, that is. Not just “Emma’s PC” or “Dell1”. My laptop is actually called Miles. Why Miles? Long story. Though the truth is that computers very often name themselves.

Vulcan, for example. Vulcan started his tortured life as my younger sister’s desktop. My younger sister is very talented in the areas of singing, acting, dance and graphic design, but not so good with computers. As such, she has developed a reputation for brutally and bloodily maiming them, to the point that I spend a lot of my time at home playing Burton Technical Support.

When her last desktop finally gave up the ghost, it was a battered, abused system. Battered, but not yet beaten. Despite all that had been done to it. Despite every virus that had been allowed to rain destruction. Despite all the hurt and heartache, it was still stubborn as a mule with a bad hangover.

I knew we were going to get on like a house on fire.

As in, lots of screaming and people running for cover as unidentifiable items explode.

It probably didn’t help that I decided fairly early on that I didn’t care particularly if I broke Vulcan (well, broke him more than he was already). As such I was free to use him for “experiments”. The first one being an attempt to re-partition the hard-drive using a piece of free software on the internet.

Re-partitioning a hard-drive is not the simplest of processes. Attempting it with a piece of amateur-made software (still in its beta stage) is a little like attempting a triple-heart-bypass with a barbecue fork and a Swiss-army-knife.

Messy.

A bit of head-scratching later, and I’m a little worried I’ve killed dear Vulcan. He certainly doesn’t want to boot up. He’s also refusing to rebuild from his recovery disk.

RIP Vulcan. If I can’t resurrect you, it was fun while it lasted!

17/1/08

Some not-so-Satanic Verses

It was a dark and almost stormy night when I made it back to Southampton. Equipped with my new trampling-the-unworthy boots and twelve-foot-long-Dr-Who scarf (birthday and Christmas presents respectively), I felt I was ready for anything.

Then the showers in my halls stopped working, and it all fell apart again.

After the mysterious first day of cold water, posters around Selborne let us know that the problem was being caused by two boilers failing. Two? One I can understand. That’s just normal beginning-of-a-new-year bad luck. But two at once suggests something more sinister, possibly involving pagan rituals and goats. I suspect the Monte lot.

I’m not the only one who thinks there may be satanic forces at work this semester. A mechanical engineering friend commented that every times he’s tried to take a self-paced maths test, it’s rained on him all the way to campus. This is either proof of Lucifer’s role in the invention of integration and/or vectors, or just shows what we in ECS have suspected all along: God doesn’t like mechanical engineers.

There’s a lot of superstition around at the moment, heralded mainly by the looming presence of the dreaded exams. In times gone by, shifty salesmen would peddle their good-luck charms in the streets around Highfield, exchanging hard cash for the sweet gift of hope. These days, students either knuckle down, or drown their sorrows at the pub. The fact that I’m writing this at the end of a solid eight hours in Zepler is a solid indication of which option I went for. Although the Stags Head is looking pretty attractive right now!

And I’m not the only one who’s starting to crack under the pressure. It would, of course, be unfair to name and shame a fellow blogger, so I’ll just say that at least one ECS student has recently been having a little trouble with simple tasks…like turning monitors on. Don’t worry, James Snowdon. It happens to the best of us.

27/11/07 - The Intriguing World of Labs

On any given day in ECS, there are always those moments when you see or hear something puzzling; something unexpected; something that makes you take a second look.

Maybe it’s the third year attempting to train Wii remotes to track his hand. Maybe it’s the fresher expressing plans of acquiring liquid nitrogen for his Professional Issues project. Today in labs, it was the moment I turned round to see my neighbour using perhaps one of the most expensive rulers known to man.

It was his ipod.

As you can probably tell, I was getting a little bored of electronics by that point. There are a selection of diverting things you can do when bored in labs. I think I must have tried most of them.

1. Underlining important points in logbook.

2. Adjusting the power supplies to exactly plus and minus 15v.

3. Trimming nails with wire cutters.

4. Wondering if sausages are safe to eat three days past their use by date.

5. Readjusting power supplies to exactly plus and minus 15v.

6. Wondering what that smell is…

Investigating said smell can’t really be called a diversion. It’s more a matter of personal safety. The source was a charred protoboard and a pair of somewhat sheepish faces. I didn’t ask.

Back at my own bench, my ipod-abusing neighbours were having a few problems with their square wave. The major one being that it was triangular.

They were still puzzling over this when I bundled myself back into two layers of jumpers and headed for the door. On the way back to halls, my lab partner gave me reason for one final double-take. Somehow the conversation had gotten as far as…

Lab Partner - “Damn. I really want a Segway now. I could pimp it up!”

Me – “You can’t pimp up a Segway.”

Lab Partner – “Watch me.”

Gods and Procrastination Monsters

I think it was around five hours into a Zepler-work-marathon that one of my fellow students turned to me and said, in a somewhat thoughtful tone.

“You know, ECS is pretty much God, really.”

I chewed the statement over.

“I think you’re right,” I replied. “And Zepler is his temple.”

This goes to show one thing: five hours is an unhealthy amount of time to spend in front of a computer.

It’s a surprisingly easy thing to do. Working in halls certainly sounds like a good idea. But the laws of procrastination dictate that the one time you sit down to do some work will also be the one time you simply have to tidy books/do laundry/feed alligator/etc.

So, for a student of limited willpower, Zepler is a lifesaver. It doesn’t free you from the siren call of Facebook, but at least the unwashed dishes can’t drag you away. Not that Zepler doesn’t provide its own distractions. I spent a good twenty minutes chatting with a student about his third-year project before I remembered that in order to get to the third year, I first had to pass this one! At least I helped him fix a bug, meaning I could go back to my seat preening like a peacock with a Gucci handbag.

I get almost as distracted by the second years. Especially their habit of using MATLAB in every other sentence.

“We can put that into MATLAB.”

“We’ll get MATLAB working on that.”

“I feel MATLAB is the way forward here.”

I keep expecting to hear, “Global warming? Better put that in MATLAB!”

Or maybe not. Maybe I should be concentrating on my own work!

But that’s one of the wonderful things about Zepler. When it’s busy, you really do feel there are great minds at work. From the back wall to the helpdesk, the brains of tomorrow can be heard muttering the eternal mantra of the engineer.

“Damn thing, why won’t you work?”

ECS may not be God, but it’s certainly a force to be reckoned with. Today, B3 labs. Tomorrow, the world!

Books, Butterflies and Bad Dancing

"You should collect your Butterfly with your B2 notes from the Lab Support hatch."

That was the, somewhat cryptic, email I got from the master of labs this week. Now, to me, a butterfly is a small, fluttery thing that drinks nectar and occasionally gets stuck behind the blinds in my conservatory (where there is currently a developing insect cemetery).

But disorientated bugs aren't a very common component of electronic circuits. At least, there weren't any in my computer when I last opened it up (then again, maybe that's why it wasn't working!). Either way, I approached the Lab Support hatch in Zepler with a reasonably open mind regarding what I might be given. What I got was a wad of paper (my B2 notes, very useful) and a small electronic...thing.

It's got a small screen, a dainty little joystick and plays “Fur Elise” in a strange, beepy way that would most likely have Beethoven turning in his grave. It can also tell me the time, temperature and even my name! So if ECS decides to go all “Spirited Away” on us, I’ll be prepared. (Spirited Away is a film about a girl who has her name stolen by a strange witch woman living in a bathhouse. And now that I’ve explained that joke I’ve also completely killed it. Maybe I’ll edit it out on the typo read.)

Moving from bad jokes to bad dancing we encounter…me at Kinki! Actually, let’s move on again. I don’t make a pretty sight when having fun and besides, it’s positively dangerous to be within arm’s reach of me on the dancefloor. I will just say that of all the box-shaped clubs I’ve been in… Actually, scrap that sentence. I’ve never been in any other box-shaped clubs! The Cube is great, let’s just leave it at that. It’s also a helpfully short distance from Glen Eyre Halls. Useful when you’re feeling unsteady, or are determined to dance the whole way (best not to ask).

And books. I’m sure I mentioned books in the title. You would not believe how much seven hefty textbooks, an electronics toolkit, a lecture notes pad and a lab logbook can weigh. Then again, maybe you would! Why I went to get them all at once, I’ll never know. I think that goes down as one of my less clever plans. I have those sometimes. My brain can only come up with so many clever plans (such as applying to Southampton) before it starts to churn out more questionable ones (such as walking from one side of a Greek island to the other at 3 o’clock in the morning).

This particular less-clever-idea was saved from becoming a really-bad-idea by one of the guys on my course who, in a moment of chivalry, offered to carry my two heaviest textbooks back to Glen for me. This was very nice of him, as it meant he had nine hefty textbooks to lug back from campus. I should probably buy him a drink some time!

8 October 2007

Fresh Face, First Week

Mountain of paperwork, avalanche of flyers, sweat-stained clothes, funny taste in mouth, and a head full of cotton wool. I must be nearing the end of my Fresher’s Week!

I’d like to say here that I’ve drunk responsibly, had a respectable amount of sleep and not made a fool of myself. I’d like to say it, but only one of those points would be true. I have, however, started with a jump. Or jumped to the start.

Bad pun aside, my entrance into the magical (and it is magical) world of ECS has been through the Jumpstart program. Jumpstart being mostly comprised of inspirational talks (“You are going to change the world”), gentle warnings (“The safety bus…”), keen advice (“Pub golf and 9:00am lectures don’t mix”) and bizarre activities (“Are you over 85?”).

I’d also like to say here that at least that first one is perfectly true. I am going to change the world. Just as soon as I get my hands on a roll of gaffer tape, a screwdriver and an army of killer robots…

But it’s the activities that are most worth mentioning, especially for those of you who can be a little trigger-happy when it comes to getting started. Valuable points were lost by teams (ahem) that didn’t read the sheet for the scavenger hunt carefully enough.

Of course, our time wasn’t just spent rummaging through our pockets for a year 1980 coin or taking pictures of Highfield wildlife (and wondering if students counted). We also had to put together a section for our team on the Jumpstart website. This involved filling in our team members (with amusing titles), writing a few blogs and setting up a Facebook group. HTMLing insults onto other people’s team sections wasn’t on the briefing, but was (arguably) nicely done.

And to round off the Jumpstart week: free food. Lots and lots of free food.

I never want to see another triangular sandwich in my life.