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!

Started back at uni today. Good first day back, 2 hour Business lecture from 9-11, then 3 Chemistry lectures including the year induction. My timetable is pretty good this year, which makes up for last year’s pretty lousy one. I have an average of about 10 hours a week, 9:00 starts on Monday and Tuesday, one hour on Wednesday and 4 Thursday afternoon with Fridays off! Woo. Also, strangely I don’t have any labs this year. They said it’s something to do with making up the credits with Business modules, but I’m not complaining. Have to do a rather long research project though which could be quite a task. Need to choose my topic by next Tuesday.

Here’s looking forward to my final year at uni!

Got my timetable today. It’s only for the first week, so I assume they will issue a new one at the first lecture. Bad news is I have a business lecture at 9am Monday mornings. Better get used to getting up at 6.20am again! Other than that, the core lectures don’t look too bad. Looking forward to receiving the full timetable a week on Monday.

Exactly four weeks today I start my third and final year of uni. I’m quite looking forward to it as I’ve been rather bored the last few weeks, struggling to find much to do during the day. Its amazing how fast the last two years have gone, I will soon have to start thinking what to do after graduation to pump some money in.

Ive found out the graduation ceremonies are going to be either two or three weeks before I go on the Jamboree next year, which is lucky as it wasn’t something I’d thought about. So this time next year I will have graduated and will hopefully be in a job earning some nice cash!

Arrived back home about 5 this morning. We landed an hour late due to some pathetic messing around before departure by the handling agents, then got a taxi to the hotel where we had left our car and drove home.

I’ve just uploaded loads of photos to the gallery, trying to stick to only the most interesting ones. I haven’t arranged them into individual days due to cant-be-botheredness associated with lack of sleep and other things to do, but hopefully you should be able to tell what most of them are anyway. They are all sorted in ascending date order (earliest first).

Still got a few days to write up, which will be done sometime soon and slotted into place. I’m also going to read through the ones I’ve already posted to make sure they read well - they were all written with an hour in an internet cafe whilst doing other things.

[edit] Also uploaded some photos from Manchester airport viewing park and my scuba diving course. We visited the aircraft viewing park the day before we went and saw some interesting departures, including a rare British Airways benyhone Dash 8 and a super-huge Antonov 124 cargo. The scuba diving photos weren’t taken by me, only the ones named DSCFxxx (not Sx) were from our dives.