Just found my timetable for next semester on Webct. It looks just as I expected – Monday 9-2, Tuesday 12-2, Thursday 2-5, so thats an average of 10 hours a week lectures. Not bad! Also means I officially get Wednesdays off this time round aswell as Fridays. I start back next Monday, so I’ve got this week to try to get all the work finished. I have five assorted things to do for next Wednesday!

Finished Uni for Christmas yesterday. Officially the term doesn’t end until Friday, but there is only one lecture on Thursday as the rest of the courses have finished, so there’s no point going for one lecture really and I have Fridays off anyway. I’m going to spend the rest of the week doing not very much before I have to make a start on the pile of work I have to do for next year.

Less than two weeks left ’till Christmas! I haven’t done any shopping whatsoever. Might get round to it eventually.

Went to the snowdome this afternoon with my brother to make sure we can still ski before we go to Austria next April. We’ve been waiting for a chance to go for a while to get the cheap deal – it cost me £15 for two hours on the slope, including ski hire on student prices. Not having done any skiing for some five years I started off slowly and only went part way up and after a few runs was going the whole length. Great fun!

It must be like riding a bicycle, because all the movements came back pretty much straight away which was good. It wasn’t too busy either for a friday afternoon so we managed to do several fast runs. Must try and get there again very soon, its real good fun!

Just two weeks left till I finish uni for Christmas now. Getting scarily close. Unfortunately, Christmas isn’t going to be much of a rest though as I have quite a bit of work to be getting on with: 2 business essays, one of which is a group project, 3 assessed worksheets and my major research project. Hmmm.

It’s the end of week 8 today. All is still going well, but the work is starting to mount up. On the Chemistry side, it’s mostly assessed worksheets which contribute altogether 25% towards each module, and on the Business side I have a group project to work on and another essay that will wait till over Christmas. Oh, and there’s all the day-to-day work to keep on top of too. Only 3 weeks left now!

Have a good weekend.

I’m now over half way through the semester – only five weeks to go! For the next few weeks I have 11 hours of lectures a week, which leaves me with Wednesdays and Fridays off. Three day week, can’t be bad!

I had my first meeting with my research project tutor last Thursday. He was very helpful showing me what I need to do, where I need to look for information and some other general guidance. Now all I need to do is get stuck into the wonderful world of superconductors and learn what it’s all about before starting the actual write up. I need to get a first draft in by after Christmas which seems a long way off, but it will quickly come round.

I was invited to a meeting last night about setting up a youth council in Wombourne. Basically, it is intended to set up a committee that will serve the youth of the local area, campaigning for youth issues etc. It’s something I’m really interested in, as I think it’s long overdue and something needs to be done to sort out the lack of facilities for young people in the Wombourne area. Hopefully it will all take off and we will see some changes in the area soon.

Just got back from a long weekend in the caravan in the Peak District with my family. We stayed on a site just outside Ashbourne called Callow Top which was very nice. The site had it’s own pub/resaurant, nice toilet facilities and an outdoor swimming pool for the summer.

On Friday we went cycling along the Tissington trail, which starts in Ashbourne and runs for about 13 miles. It’s kind of like the Staffordshire railway walk that passes by Wombourne, not sure if it is an abondoned railway line in the same way or not, but there are some nice views and it is pretty flat most of the way. After about 8 miles, we stopped for lunch at about midday and it started to rain slowly, slowly getting harder. We decided to carry on for a while to see if we could get to the end, but at 1.30 we turned around and went back as it wasn’t slowing down and everything was soaked through. For the last few miles the rain stopped, but there were still loads of puddles on the track so by the time I got back to the caravan, I had mud all up my back, my face was covered, my shoes soaked and my trousers were brown instead of blue. Into the shower I went!

Saturday we walked from the caravan site, about 15 km to Dovedale and back down the Tissington Trail to the site.

We arrived at Dovedale at lunch time and made our way back. Fortunately, the weather managed to hold and stayed rather nice today so it was slightly more enjoyable than yesterday.

Here is a photo of me sitting on a stile in some field somewhere. Click for bigger picture.

Found out what research project I have been assigned this morning: “n-type Superconductors: Synthesis and Characterisation”. That was my second choice, but I couldn’t make up my mind between the first two so I am happy with that. I got a book out the library to give a bit of an insight before I see my project supervisor hopefully next week for some guidance. Hopefully it is something that will remain interesting ’till next April when it is due in.

Just finished the second week of uni! Only another 9 to go until end of semester.

This week I had to decide the title of my third year research project. Everyone had to submit up to six titles, and one would be chosen so everyone in the year was doing something different. My four, in preference order were “Chemistry of Fuel Cells”, “n-type superconductors: synthesis and characterisation”, “Mercury Based Superconductors” and “The Chemistry of Large Scale Hydrogen Production”. I chose those four because they appear to be quite interesting and I think I could find enough material and past research to string together up to 6000 words. Should know some time next week which one I have been assigned to, hopefully it will be my first choice!