Busy times ahead!

This week has been stressful in terms of coursework and catching up on tutorial assignments. I do have my operational research coursework to hand in the following Tuesday. Thankfully, it won’t take me too long to complete. I did have a class based on the coursework on Monday, which really cleared up the misconceptions I had with regards to the level of difficulty of competing the assignment. With any luck I should have it done by the weekend. I do plan to have a quick glance at my work on Monday evening just to check for any errors I may have made and quickly fix them up before I hand it in on Tuesday.

I also have another assignment to complete; this time for numerical methods. Although this is a computing assignment (definitely not my area of expertise), I am quite confident that I can achieve good marks in this piece of work, of course it may have something to do with the fact that I have 5 weeks to complete the coursework and also the fact that I am allowed to submit the work electronically all through the comfort of my own home. Another positive aspect of this coursework is that my lecturer is extremely helpful and offers our class good advice and guidance on how to complete our assignment to the best of our ability.

I also have 2 other pieces of coursework coming out at the beginning of next month; one for linear algebra and another one for statistical methods, so needless to say that the following six weeks is going to be a pretty stressful time for me, but I won’t let this put me off. I do have to say that actually attending the lectures and tutorials do build my confidence as I can ask the lecturers questions based on the coursework, during that time.  At the end of the day, doing all this coursework enables me to plan ahead for my future. I am sure, after I graduate that I will face even more difficult situations compared to completing two or three coursework assignments at the same time.

Honestly, it feels like I spend most of my time at uni rather than at home. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t normally go to the library, I do however use the computers quite often especially to do my computing coursework as well as to do my statistics tutorials. Compared to last year, the courses I currently study are quite practical; it’s not all about paper, pen and calculators. We do actually get to use some pretty cool software packages which helps us to generate some amazing graphical models like the one shown above.

Aside from my studies, I am quite envious of my brothers, because they are currently on their half- term holidays. Not Fair!!! But saying that I am sure that they must also be completing their school/ college assignments and any other outstanding work they may have. Well at least they have the luxury of doing all their work at home.

Learning Something New!

The last couple of weeks I have been quite relaxed and chilled out considering I  had all term 1’s coursework out of the way, however next week I know that I’m getting at least one piece of coursework to do. It’s a pity I only have 2 weeks to complete it. To some people, two weeks sounds like a lot, but studying for all the other modules, and also studying for this certain module: Operational Research can be quite strenuous at the best of times. Ah well, better make the most of it I suppose.

Obviously I do understand that doing coursework and studying for exams is all part of gaining a good degree. After all, that’s how the majority of subjects are assessed. From last Friday, I got roped into doing a presentation on dyslexia for my mum. So I went to the library and took some books out. I tried to do something different compared to just using the internet. As this was a new topic for me to research into, I thought it would be useful to do my reading from books rather than using the internet, as I can then use the glossary to look up meanings of the words. This just goes to show that you learn something new every day.

Reflection and Relaxation

Finally modelling week is over or should I say fortnight?  We had 1 week to do our group presentation and 1 week to write up our report. My group and I received the brief on Monday afternoon and had to perform our presentations on Friday afternoon. Talk about pressure. After completing the presentation we had to complete a written report. I don’t know about you, but I find writing a group report extremely difficult. It’s so easy to have contrasting viewpoints on the same topic, especially when you’re working with 5 other people.

The scenario for our presentation was that the company we were representing was selling Christmas trees alongside another two companies also selling Christmas trees within the local market. The aim of the project is to come up with the best possible price to sell our Christmas trees for. 

The really surprising thing was that even though I submitted the report before midnight Friday, we received our results before our 2pm lecture on Monday. Now that really was fast. The good news is that I did get a first class mark, one that I worked hard for. Even though I am pleased with my mark, I would have like to achieve a higher mark. Nevertheless, I aim to achieve better marks in the remaining assignments and of course the final exams.

Back to Uni

The first week of term has started and I had my first class of the New Year. My new project for this term is a modelling week assignment. This assignment is a weeklong and involved working in groups of 6/7 (in my case 6) on an unseen, unknown real life based problem. Our real life problem is quite interesting yet challenging at the same time. I won’t go into the details today but stay tuned to next week’s blog to find out the topic of my group project.

I am pretty glad to be back to uni life as I get to see my closest friends again. Of course we did keep in touch with each other through phone calls and texts, but it’s just not the same as seeing each other face to face. We had so much gossip to catch up on, that we preferred to talk during the actual lecture rather than listen to what the lecturer had to say. However, seeing as yesterday was the first day back, our lecturer gave us a half hour break in between the two hour lecture so that we could go out and buy some snacks and also complete some questions based on what we had learned during the first hour of the class. Furthermore instead of having a tutorial class lasting one hour, my group and I finished our discussion on how to organise the project pretty early and so I got to go home half an hour earlier than I usually do. So overall my first day back was pretty great.

Keep reading my blog to find out about my modelling week project and also how I performed on the presentation. Till then ciao ;)

NEW YEAR!

Well it is the first week of the New Year and I thought it would be fitting to begin with a few New Year resolutions. Yes, I know that this seems like the thing we used to talk about during primary school, but you know there is a child in me somewhere and I’m eager to let it out.

My new year’s resolution is to spend more time with my family. You see the thing with me is that even though everyone was at home this Christmas holidays, I was in my room. I had bought a laptop a few days after Boxing Day and therefore have spent the last week or so in my bedroom getting better acquainted with my laptop. I don’t even watch TV anymore because I know I can catch up with everything on BBC iplayer.  Currently my favourite television programmes are; Eastenders, Holby City and Silent Witness.

I enjoy watching Silent Witness because although it’s a criminal drama investigating murders, the characters do so in a scientific way; through pathology and forensic experiments. As you may have guessed, I am really interested in science. I find it fascinating and intellectually stimulating. My favourite character for sure is Nikki Alexander, portrayed by Emilia Fox. She’s really passionate and determined when going about her work. Even though she’s extremely skilled and confident in her profession as a forensic pathologist, she’s really down to earth and lively. She’s easy going and makes friends quickly.

The best thing about having a laptop is that I can use it whenever I want and I don’t have to share with my brothers (as they can use the house computer) and also I can catch up on my favourite dramas whenever I feel like it.

Sleepover

Now that the holidays are officially over, my cousins and I are looking forward to a sleepover at my house. Yes that means lots of junk food like chocolate and popcorn and chick flicks after midnight. I might even be tempted to make chocolate flavoured popcorn. Having not seen my cousins for a few weeks although it feels like months, I am looking forward to seeing them again.

Having told my mum my plan, she’s already gone out and done all my food shopping for me. She’s bought all my favourite snacks and drinks. Although, me being me, I’ve already eat half the stuff she bought. So I guess I’ll have to do the shopping again. Sigh.

Although instead of going to the shops to buy food, I might just stay home and make some cookies and cakes instead. I mean honestly who wants to go food shopping in this weather? Not me that’s for sure. If I’m feeling generous then I might allow my cousins in the kitchen to help out. 

The only real problem now is how to distract my brothers and keep them out of the house while my cousins stay over. The only reason for this is that all my cousins staying over for the sleepover are girls only so that means no boys allowed. Brothers or no. Absolutely no boys allowed. I mean if I was staying over for a girly sleepover at my cousins or friends house then I wouldn’t want their brothers in the house sneaking up on us or checking on us to see what we’re up to, so in that respect I would have to pay the same courtesy to my cousins that they would pay me.

Anyways, carry on reading my blogs and tune in next week to find out how the sleepover went and my plans for the New Year.

Holidays Plans

It’s the final week of the semester. YAY! This means that I’ve got a 3 week break coming up after Friday’s classes. After the Friday classes, a group of my friends and I are going pit for dinner. This is just a celebration for all the hard work we have done and all that we achieved over the past few weeks. I am looking forward to this little get together as it’s a chance to get to know one another on a personal level. Although we all study the same subjects as each other – maths,

This year, my family and I have got a lot planned for the Christmas break. After many years of working non- stop my mum will get a full two week break for the holidays. So she has planned with my brother to go to visit her relatives. While this may sound exciting, I’m not so sure. Having not seen mum’s relatives for over 8 years, it can be a pretty daunting experience. My brother of course is thrilled as it means a chance for him to escape from revision. This is a bad choice seeing as he has exams coming up in early January. But there you go, boys are always looking for an escape route, especially when they’ve got important deadlines looming over them. Although meeting family over the holidays has become a tradition in my family over the last few years, mainly because it’s during the holidays that everyone’s quite free – well freer than usual, it’s a good chance to catch up on everyone else.

My idea of an ideal Christmas holiday is to sit back and catch up on the box. It seems ages ago since when i could sit in front of the television and watch loads of movies without abandon. Well now’s my chance to catch up. I’m especially, looking forward to watching the new Harry Potter film and Eclipse. Yes, I do know these particular movies were released a while ago, but what can you do? See, I told you I was behind.