Jealous? You bet! But I wish them every happiness, and intend to go over to Boston, MA and see them some time next year, for they will be making their new lives in the States.

Tomorrow the real stress starts: an 0638 train from Nottingham takes me to Bristol for the Automated Reasoning Workshop. At least I should get a good dinner in the middle of it — the restaurant where we’re having the meal looks gorgeous. I return to Nottingham on Tuesday, and have a few days of relative peace before turning out again to the Midlands Graduate School in Leicester, another four days causing me to have to miss the April meeting of the Society of Recorder Players, something I’m displeased about as due to the holidays I’m currently deprived of the opportunity to play with other people. I can’t wait for life to return to some semblance of normality.

Around all this I also need to finish off some other things, and somehow find some time to sleep and not go mad.

I cannot wait until May.

Of course, everyone knows that to get better at an instrument you have to practice.

But where does one practice when the walls aren’t very soundproof and you’re sure half the building can hear you and is giggling, or storming to your door in a rage to beat it down and kill you? I have a lesson tomorrow and I’ve not done what I should have done. This is not going to go well if it continues, as I won’t be improving at any kind of rate at all.

What am I going to do?

But they could be worse.

The thing I like best about this is the freedom. Being a PhD student gives me considerable leeway with regard to what I’m doing and how I go about doing it. To be honest I don’t have a clue what I’m doing, but I’m told that’s perfectly normal at this stage. The atmosphere in the department is very relaxed most of the time, everyone’s very nice and I like going into the office. Would be better if the desk was the right size for me (as usual I’m too big for everything) but it might suffice for a while. The possibility still exists to get something better, as that hasn’t been investigated yet and so nobody’s said no to me yet. Not sure if health and safety regs cover me as they would if I was an employee of the department, and I know I don’t have the status of a staff member for some things, but in other things they’re treating me like one so who knows? I shall of course investigate every possibility I can.

Supervision meeting this week. Maybe I’ll have a better idea where I’m going after I’ve had it. Louise has been extremely helpful and facilitating so far, may that continue until I’ve passed my viva.

Living where I’m living is okay, but I still don’t like halls. Doors banging, people skateboarding outside as I type this, drunken shouting and clamouring — even Postgraduate students aren’t above this sort of thing. Thankfully my flatmates are nice, but one room is still unoccupied and I live in constant apprehension of the fire alarms going off in the middle of the night. That’s unreasonable, I know, but it’s there.

The PhD thing, however, looks like it’s going to be great. Lots to do, and I will attempt to post more often about what’s going on as I’m trying out two new societies this week: Latin & Ballroom and Mussoc. Mussoc is the music society, they’re rather large and I’m going along to their early music group so I can play my recorder (badly). They also teach the viol, which could be interesting to have a go with…

So I’m moving to Nottingham tomorrow as planned. Whew. That’s a relief. Time to pack some clothes.

Online-ness will be erratic for a while until I can get the network point in my room activated, so I might be even quieter and more boring than usual for a while. Not that you’ll notice…

Although that really does remain to be seen. They’re still talking about a forced total evacuation, so we’ll see. Some are kicking up a fuss about the police confiscating guns from the citizens so they can’t resist the evacuation — personally, I don’t think they should have them in the first place so I’m really not bothered about that. I am not particularly pleased with the way the whole affair has been handled, but there’s really nothing for me to do — other than rant about it occasionally from an uninformed perspective, and give frequent thanks that I don’t have to move to America. Britain has its flaws — plenty of them — but on the whole it works out pretty well at the moment.

I have of course been preparing to go back to Nottingham to start my PhD. Sort of scary really — I’ve done this all before, to the same University, but it’s been two years and I’m really completely unprepared for the necessary organisation to get this all sorted. Oh well, it’ll come together at some point — no doubt not to Mum’s satisfaction, but I’m not very good at that lately. We do need to get out of each other’s hair, and this should sort it quite nicely. Were I not going to Uni, I’d be looking to move out I think. That’s no secret — I’ve told Mum that myself.

Just life, really. Things will get more interesting once I get back to Nottingham — although I’ve been doing some things which could turn out rather interesting. I’m just not going to talk about them right now.

Doesn’t that add a nice aura of mystery to the whole affair?

A few weeks ago I was informed that I have been granted full funding to do a PhD in Computer Science at the University of Nottingham. Last week I handed in my notice, and will be finishing work on the last Friday in August. Term starts on the 26th of September.

It’s really quite exciting.

Anyway, there’s another picture of me looking like a total idiot, but Mum and Dad dressed up for the occasion and looked rather good I thought.

Before the ceremony many pictures were taken, here’s one of Nigel, myself and John which is one of the better ones. The digital camera didn’t seem to like the sunlight, and Mum didn’t know how to compensate for it. I suspect Dad’s pictures will have come out better, but since they’re on film it’ll be a while before we get to see those.

Anyway, here’s a final picture of me and Dad after the ceremony. After all this we went back to the house, I nearly coughed up my insides and then we went home. Don’t you just love being ill on these occasions? At least I don’t look it in the photos.

My parents got me a graduation teddy bear, which is incredibly cute. Thanks Mum and Dad!