Wow! Stanford University have released a selection of course material from some of their most popular engineering courses, free for anyone to download and study! It's rather a nice selection, too - Introduction to Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence and Linear Systems and Optimisation.

Mmm... I love having courses to do. Between these and the Japanese Language class I've signed up to, I should be able to keep myself busy for a while!

Ahh, Torchwood... making an otherwise tedious day go by so much faster. Yay for dorky, look-we're-relevant-to-current-affairs radio plays starring particle physics! :D

(Gosh, I can't believe it's been so long since my last Torchwood fix. Roll on season three!)

There is no light. The Sun sucks dark. In fact it sucks dark so hard that the friction of the dark moving to the Sun causes the Sun to be very hot. The flow of dark towards the Sun interrupted by the Earth causes the side of the Earth away from the Sun to accumulate dark, thus causing Night. As the Earth rotates the dark caught on the night side can then be pulled off, this causing the absence of dark known as Day.

What we call light bulbs are truly dark suckers as well. That is why light bulbs are hot, just like the Sun. When a light bulb is full of dark and won't suck dark any more, it cools off. If you look in old light bulbs you can even seen the accumulation of dark.

Dark is also heavier than water. This can be seen in the oceans where the deeper you go the darker it gets.

(Source unknown) but spotted on /.

Remember, kids - the Earth is flat, and evolution's just a theory!

Three words.

MADE. OF. AWESOME.

Five more words.

Christmas 2008? Too long away. :(

You know you're in the geekiest depths of the internet when instead of

"Chat LIVE with a HOT GIRL!!"

the banner ads proclaim:

"Chat LIVE with a C++ EXPERT!!"

I realise I'm going to sound like an utter nerd here, but I don't care:

I just got two new books in the post. A brand new matching Oxford Compact English Dictionary and Thesaurus set, bound in blue leather with gold lettering.

I think I'm in love. They're gorgeous. ♥

Also, I'm going to Leicester this weekend. Hello again, social life! I've missed you!

Hm. Over a month since I last updated. Bad Kate.

Saying that though, there's not much too talk about. I still haven't started the new job yet - I got a phone call on Christmas Eve to say it'll now be the beginning of February, but the confirmation papers should be through soon.

I still don't have them. John, one of the other new employees, emailed me this morning stating his intentions to just turn up on the 4th and demand to see the boss - I think I'll be joining him, if I don't hear anything else. Actually, I should be phoning Steve... trouble is, I expect he'll just tell me everything he did before. "It'll be in the post soon..."

The situation is really beginning to grate now. I turned down a very nice little temp position at the Salford Council offices, thinking it wouldn't be fair to them for me to fulfil less than half of the contract before leaving - now it's looking like I could have done the entire thing, and had something to do with my life for the past few months. Grrr.

The driving lessons with Dad are coming along, although I've not had one for a week or so, mostly due to my own laziness. I think I'm setting Easter as a target to have passed by. It should be doable, I hope.

And on a final note:

- Day trips from Wigan to London? So not worth the hassle. But if the sister needs help getting her luggage to Stansted, well... why not? (Ow, my wallet.)

- Korean restaurants in Manchester, that serve Bento Lunch boxes? Yes, please! Yum.

- Beer festivals in Manchester, full of beer, middle-aged men, and beer. Why did I let my parents talk me into coming in with them? Because my watch was somehow two hours fast, and I thought I'd missed the last train home. FAIL, Kate. FAIL.

- Related to that last one - anyone ever hear of Dunkle Weissbier? It apparently tastes like sardines. It definitely inspires some truly fantastic facial expressions.

December in Poland is pretty.

Not enough snow, though.

I finally made time to see the Muzeum Powstania Warszawskiego [Warsaw Uprising Museum]. It's... incredibly intense. The Polish really do have a tragic history - I have such immense respect for them as a nation.

Wish I'd gotten to see it while I was still on my study placement, though. There's a lot I'd've liked to ask Ida for context on.

---

I start the new job on the 7th. It'll be nice to have something to do with myself. (Also, to have money again. I have already started making crazy travel plans for summer '09... it could get interesting.)

Meet my babies. Stickicons and Bears, oh my!

Heh. These were taken mid September - my mum's photography skills need a bit more work, I'm afraid. But still - aren't they pretty! The boys are about ten months old now, so they're little old men by stick insect standards, but the girls are only a month or two old. Hopefully we're gonna get some new males soon, so we can start breeding them.

And yes, I named the spectres after the Cassetticons from Transformers. The next two will be named Ravage and Ratbat when they arrive, regardless of gender or what my mother thinks. Thus speaks the geek. :D

Graduation is in three days. Eeek!

The gown's all booked, of course; but what on earth are you supposed to wear to something like this??

I've been talked into being more girly over getting ready for this than I have for anything, ever. New hair-cut and dye-job, actual (well, almost) beauty regime to try to disaster-control my spottiness - my sister's even supposed to be giving me a manicure of some sort before we head down to Luton. It's downright creepy. I've never had a manicure in my life! I'm even half-way to being convinced to break my 'no-more-leg-shaving' rule - special occasion and all that jazz.

But all that aside - I still don't have the faintest what to actually wear!

Clearly, I fail at being a girl.*

However, this could still end up all being academic (ouch, what a pun), since my mother admitted this morning that we still don't have a hotel room booked. I don't think even Lucy could look glamorous if we end up sleeping in the train station, LOL.

*That said, I won't deny that there's a small part of me wants to turn up looking as drop dead gorgeous as I'm capable of (not that that's much, heh) just so D can see exactly what he passed up on. But that thought makes the rest of me vaguely uncomfortable - it's really not a 'me' thing to do, and not something I'd have expected to result from two months of strenuously not-thinking about him.

I've obviously been exposed to too much Hollyoaks since I came home. That's the only explanation I can think of. Stupid mother and sister. >.<

---

In other news: the rollerblading thing? Very good fun. What wasn't, was nearly snapping my wrist a few days ago, falling off said rollerblades. Ouchies. Luckily, after having it strapped up for a little while to make sure, I don't seem to have done any major damage, so yay for being indestructible. I think I may leave off it until after the ceremony, though - I'd never hear the end of it if I turned up to graduation in a cast...

Also - blood test results tomorrow. Gleep! Hopefully we can finally get my hormones straightened out before my chin actually achieves the Brian Blessed-esque beard it seems determined to sprout. Ick.

I just went rollerblading with my dog. XD She wasn't impressed.

Also, my neighbourhood? Not a good place to wear wheels. Even the hills have hills.

I gotta start doing this regularly.

Happy belated birthday for yesterday, misssimm!

---

Ugh. Back from Belgium in one piece, just about. It was a bit of an adventure, to say the least - I can now add to my list of lifetime achievements the dubious honour of crossing an international border without a passport. That was fun, with a capital not.

I might post about it at more length later - however, I seem to be the centre of a germ dogpile right now, so I'll wait until I can form coherent sentences again.

In other, brief news:

+ Saw the new Harry Potter film this morning. It gets a thumbs up from me, despite vague nagging feelings of "was that how it happened in the book?", and also despite far too little Ron and Remus screentime. Also too little Sirius, but then you can never give Gary Oldman too much screentime. (I have a vague feeling that the cough medicine may be responsible for that last statement... oh well. In medici, veritas... or something like that, right?)

+ I uploaded some new sketches from the Belgium trip period (well, the ones after I managed to replace my little sketchpad. Stupid bag thieves). I present a bored Conrad, a Len v2.0, and a rather mean looking bunny whose name has not been officially decided yet. Whatever, I'm lame at that part. Suggestions on a postcard, please!

---

Oh! And finally, thank you to everyone who congratulated me on my degree! After pondering it, I have decided I am quite happy with that result in the end, so yay!

1. Matt just called with my degree classification results.

I apparently got a 2:1!

2. I will be leaving for Leeds in an hour or two, and then heading down to Belgium. Just as well I waited an extra day, seeing how much stuff Lucy forgot to pack...

...I do believe my results are published tomorrow.

Eergh. This is going to be a restful night.

ETA: Blah. They may have been posted in the C100 corridor; but they aren't available online 'til tomorrow. Joy.

---

Not that anyone'll notice (I haven't exactly been the more regular poster) but on Tuesday, I shall be heading down to my sister's place in Leeds; and then the next morning we'll be heading off to Belgium for the Dour Festival. It's been a few years since I've been to a music festival, and it's my first one abroad, so yeah - should be fun. I'm planning on taking a day off to go amble around elsewhere in Belgium too - looks like that may be Saturday, since I recognise no-one on the line-ups for that day.

I should be back either Monday evening or Tuesday sometime.

Ma-an, I need to start packing. I am so disorganised.

( Things to do/pack tomorrow )

Well, I am still alive (just about).

I've been back home since a week on Tuesday now. Not much happened before I left Luton - Matt, Winston, Esme and I had a day trip to Cardiff, where we spent the day acting like massive Torchwood/Doctor Who geeks, running around looking for all the filming locations, and making bad jokes about sheep. It was fun. (Incidently, we also watched 'Black Sheep' before I left - that is one twisted horror movie. Very cracky, and highly amusing!)

Dad and I just about managed to get all my gear into the car for the trip back, although it was close. I still haven't found places for half of it - I'm gonna have to beg my mother's help to sort through it.

Speaking of the parentals, they and my sister should be returning from Spain late tonight. I'm sure the animals will be doubly delighted to see them, since then they can go back to being looked after by someone who has a clue. (Although, hand feeding water droplets to a Macleay's Spectre? Wow. Those boys are amazing.)

I, no doubt, will have approximately half an hour before the nagging starts. Bets are currently open as to whether the opening salvos will be regarding a) my not having a job yet, b) my not having finished unpacking yet, c) something I neglected to do around the house while they were away, or d) my asthma and medication, once last night's little drama comes out.

Currently the favourites are probably b or d. Fun fun.

In good news though, the random power-cut last night has apparently fixed the telephone now - at least that's one less thing I have to explain being broken.

Oh, and results day is apparently the 10th of July.

...yay?

---

And to finish, a meme ganked from bamfchickie:

RULES:
1. Put Your iTunes, windows media player, etc. on Shuffle.
2. For each question, press the next button to get your answer.
3. YOU MUST WRITE THAT SONG NAME DOWN NO MATTER HOW SILLY IT SOUNDS.
4. Put any comments in brackets after the song name.

( ♪ )

I had the first of the work related credit presentations today. It went well, I think; although it did raise certain questions about how Mark's grading us, since it appears he's issued us grades without even looking at the CD full of calculations we spent a whole semester working on.

But that's okay. I don't give a damn about WRC anymore. We have the last presentation tomorrow, and I'm done. I think I'm supposed to be going to see GG's public exhibition afterwards - it'll be a good excuse to stay out of the house a little longer. Maybe then I'll go for a walk or something. I dunno. Anywhere but here.

*looks out of the window*

Hmm. Why do I have a sneaky suspicion that tomorrow's barbecue is going to have to become a film-day instead...?

---

Anyway. I've been meaning to post this for a day or so now, so here we go. Strikethrough '07 - I'm sure most of you have heard that name recently, so there's no need to go into it much. I did get the vague impression that a lot of you (and your extended flists) were a bit ticked off with Livejournal and SixApart though, sometimes to the extent of deciding not to continue paying for their services in protest. Fair enough - but if that's the case, you may wish to cast your collective gazes here - fandom_gives.

Quoted from their stickypost (apologies to those of lauralaitaine's readers who will have seen this all already):

fandom_gives came about as an irony in the wake of Strikethrough '07: What if Livejournal fandom turned the tables around? What if everyone who vowed not to renew their paid account, everyone who swore to give LJ and SixApart no more financial support in the form of extra userpics, or virtual gifts, or more storage - what if all those people took that money and instead donated it to charities for the prevention of child abuse and sexual assault?

Their main charity drive has finished (this is why procrastination is bad, folks); but it's never to late to donate, if you want to. Personally, I'm quite happy to stick with my paid account for now - but if I were to stop paying in protest - well, I think this is a pretty good way to both put the money to good use, and tell LJ, "this is how grown-ups do it" at the same time.

The Physics Guy.

*dies laughing*

Oh - and happy birthday, staplerchild!

Dozing off for an hour after all uni work is over, with a nice mug of green tea?

Is nice.

Being woken up with fresh chunky choc chip cookies straight out of the oven?

Is pure, definite win. That boy can bake.

(God, I wish I were a cat. I just want to curl up and start purring. And I certainly wouldn't say no to someone scratching my ears, either. LOL!)

There's a puppy somewhere on our street - perhaps a few houses down, I don't know. I've never seen it, but I can hear it - it's been howling and crying for a few hours now.

I don't know how anyone can hear that noise and not get upset. When Genie cried like that when we were training her, it was awful. I felt like Hitler every time. Even hearing this pup now just makes something in me lurch.

Poor little doggy. Please don't cry. :'(

My viva is a week on Tuesday. I have no idea what I'm gonna say. Halp?

---

Mm. My fake!birthday last week was... well, as a birthday, it was a bit naff; but as a weekend bumming around with my friends, it was pretty nice. gyrotech came over, which is always fun (even if he did spend most of the weekend playing Crackdown on Dan's 360); and although the rain kinda scuppered the barbecue, I did manage to drag everyone to London on the Monday (whereupon I spent far too much on books in Forbidden Planet - however, the Johnny Trilogy for a tenner? Score!)

Tim and Irene also got me a fabulous Flash t-shirt from when she was still living in the States (although, as it's a US XL, I could probably use it as a small tent next time I go camping, LOL).

It was a good weekend, though. I'd forgotten how much I'd missed just hanging out with my boys all night, talking utter rubbish.

Dan's birthday was also quite fun - although, I got ribbed quite hard for my low-cut top. Honestly, a girl lets her hair down once in a while... *shakes head* I get no respect.

---

A nice side-effect of the weekend though, was that I finally got my act together and bought the parts for my shibby new desktop. The parts should be arriving on Monday, minus a keyboard, mouse and monitor; but I'll be ninja-ing the ones from the Linux box downstairs until I get around to looking for some new ones. (I'm hoping my mum and dad'll consider getting me a nice new Plasma for my birthday...)

( Specs, if anyone's interested )

And now, I should get on with stuff. I'm archiving some of my files, and then I'm going to play with Webots a bit more, since the demo to Dayou is due this time next week. I will beat it, I will!

So - last night, I kinda did something... a little drastic.

I finally got a hair-cut.

( Surprise! )

So what do you guys think??

Golly! Look what showed up on BoingBoing this morning - it's Ann Hathaway's Cottage Superthunderstingcar!

Oh noes! Woe is me! I see it so clearly now - evolution is obviously an utter lie! How can it possibly be so, in a world where bananas are so well designed they even have little pull tabs on the top? I feel even more foolish when I think I never noticed that life never spontaneously appeared in my peanut butter!

My life as an atheist is over!!12"3one!

...

...or, y'know, not. Seriously - these people actually finished high school??

Whatever. Best laugh I've had for ages.

---

Easter Holidays. Yayz, I am so excited. Esme left last night, Dan's having breakfast with his folks now and will be off shortly - and then I get to hang around Luton on my billy-todd lonesome until Thursday. Then I get to hang around Upholland on my billy-todd lonesome for the rest of the holiday, since my parents are both working full-time again, and my sister is in Spain.

I do so love the holidays. </sarcasm>