Go placidly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence.

Maths, maths, more maths. Think I do computer science, so that’s in there somewhere too. Maths, maths, CompSci, maths. While you ultimately get through most problem sheets, you do seem to come to the realisation that, at university, there is no such thing as a weekend – Saturday and Sunday are merely days where you focus on problem sheets and moan about how bad you are at maths rather than actually going to lectures and tutorials. You do tend to get lie ins, which is always good, but having fire alarms go off in the early hours of the morning is quite possibly the opposite of fun.

Electricity and internet connection was a bit flaky a couple of mornings, which is very annoying when you need (1) a shower and (2) your printer to print off lecture notes or problem sheets. I think I had a small hope that it wouldn’t ever come back on, so that I wouldn’t have to do any work at all. I don’t think the tutors would take that as a valid excuse though.

Tutorials in general are going fine, didn’t think analysis went so well though. Felt a bit intimidated (as did everyone I think though) due to the fact that hardly anyone could understand what the problem sheet was going on about. Think we managed to get there in the end though – thankfully it only lasted 50 minutes. They’re 90 minutes from now on though… although we have one in week 4 (next week), then none in week 5 or 7, which will be a nice break. Doesn’t mean the work will stop though.

Parents were over this weekend for a parents lunch thingy hosted in Keble, good to see some familiar faces after 5 weeks of being away from home. Although I suppose things like Facebook and IM and stuff have made homesickness and losing contact with friends less of a thing than it used to be.

Tonight… I am going to get some pizza, then do an analysis problem sheet (hopefully). It’s due in for 8am tomorrow morning (specifically 8.02am in fact) so I better get cracking soon.

Oh! We watched Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind the other night (pretty good film by the way), and found this bit of trivia on IMDB after watching it:

Despite the fact that Charlie Kaufman’s script and Michel Gondry’s visual concepts were closely followed, the actors were allowed many chances to improvise. Elijah Wood and Mark Ruffalo improvised extensively, and much of the dialog between Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet resulted from videotaped rehearsal sessions during which the two actors became close by sharing tales of their real life relationships and heartbreaks.

Thought that was kinda cute.

- David