So here we are at the weekend… and my enthusiasm and joie de vivre are at a low point. I was supposed to be going to a recording for a show this weekend, which would have been fantastic, but given the events of the last couple of weeks I just couldn’t bring myself to do it, especially given the company I would have been joining. It just wouldn’t have felt right, but I don’t think I’ve felt more lonely in a very long time.

On the academic front, I think things are going well! The dreaded final year project is moving along slowly, with this week being devoted to initial reading and meetings with my supervisor. I have to say that curling up with a textbook on the intricacies of source code management is not the most rivetting thing I’ve ever done in my life, but I know it’s going to be useful! I just hope I still feel that way in a couple of weeks! Hopefully by the time I get to reading week (I know, i don’t do any work anyway, yadda yadda) I should be in a position to go off and do my own thing for the three days I have off… despite the fact that those days will coincide with my trip home!

I was reluctant to write this post, but I felt it had been a few days since I wrote my last one so I should jot down a few thoughts and post them for the world to pay no attention to whatsoever.

Once again, I find myself being distracted from work by the most trivial of things - tidying some cables up in my room, reading news online, tinkering with the computers, etc. I bought myself a new 300GB external HDD and a mini PC to connect it to, and I seem to find myself just tinkering with the setup just as an excuse to avoid doing work. Even if I go onto campus to do work, I just end up finding excuses to look at wiki guides online or chatting to people about problems I’m having with it, and before I know it a couple of hours have passed by and I’ve done none of the work I could have quite easily done in the first half an hour. Even now, I have MATLAB running happily in the background, waiting for me to put it through more agony, but instead here I am writing a blog entry! My ability to find distractions in the most menial of things never ceases to amaze me!

So the forms are now all handed in, and on Monday I hear who my project supervisor will be - I wonder if the cost of their therapy is taken out of my tuition fees?

Despite being awake since about 09:30, I’m still suprisingly alert at 03:45! I suppose it can be considered time to dwell on the aftermath - decisions I’ve made, people I’ve affected or hurt, realisations or ponderings for the future, and a certain guilt.

There are some decisions in life you make that you know will affect people to their core and yet you realise that dwelling on those decisions is draining you, both phyiscally and mentally, interfering with the way you think and act, and preventing you from dealing with other matters at hand. For that reason, and that reason alone, you know you have to make the decision and just live with the consequences, if only to give yourself a peace of mind.

To those who have witnessed my self-destructive moods since term started, I can only apologise for my behaviour.

On a lighter side, I feel I have finally found my place within the University. The modules I’m taking this year are amazing, especially Life Cycle of Languages and the forthcoming Natural Language Processing. Being the only student doing a certain combination of subjects has not been easy, but now that I am discovering modules in both disciplines which draw on aspects of the other (hopefully giving me a certain edge) I finally feel like it is all coming together.

I went to a talk the other day on “Linguistics on the Web” by one of the ICS professors, which looked at research being carried out into which languages are represented online, why languages are not, and the trends that are developing. It was incredibly interesting and got me thinking that maybe I want to go on and do a postgrad after all, something I had never given much thought to before.

Everything happens for a reason, and everything has its time. Despite the obvious stress and workload of the coming semester, I’m looking forward to it and where it leads me.

So on Friday I handed in the forms for my project ideas, and the stress was over. I was looking forward to a week of no stress to do with my projects, with only some light background reading for each of my ideas to try and get a head start. A good plan, you say? Looks good to me, you think? I commend your diligence, you say? You say a lot, don’t you?

Tonight I discover that they would like more project submissions from students that submitted projects that would most likely be led by specific lecturers! I feel like I have regressed back to last week!

I have to say that other than that, I had two fantastic lectures today. Data for Knowledge Management is looking to be an interesting module, as is Computer Vision, especially now I’ve had a lecture where I could actually follow what was being said!

That having been griped about, I’m generally in a good mood! Term has got underway, and while I’m a bit peeved that I can’t see some of my friends cos they’re on placement, the ones I can see seemed happy to see me (though I’m sure it’s a sham) and it’s nice to be back. Life wouldn’t be the same if I couldn’t pester all my lecturers!

You may be wondering what this post is doing going up at such an obscure hour of the morning… and the answer is that insomnia has once again struck! I’m exhausted, and know what a busy day I have ahead to sort out my projects, but my mind is just too restless to actually get to sleep! Maybe something is bothering me after all!

Cue the intrigue and string section of sympathy!