Blog: The Life Of A Supreme Ruler

Exams!

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— orudge @ 05/01/2006 5:14 pm

Yes, it’s that time of year again (well, not “again”, as this is my first year at uni… but it’s that time of year, anyway): exams! Well, revision for exams at the moment. I’m back in St Andrews, after having a fun journey up on the train on the 2nd, and then finding that none of the supermarkets were open so I had no food. :/ Got food the next day, so that was good. Have basically been procrastinating since, but revision is gradually being done, and will likely shift up a gear quite soon. My first exam is Computer Science next Thursday, then Discrete Mathematics on Friday, and Management and Philosophy the Thursday after. It’ll all be over by the 20th, anyway. 🙂 And, after that, I’m going to Budapest for a week, on the 23rd, with my academic mum Rachel, which should be really good. 😀

My new digital camera, a Fuji FinePix E550, arrived yesterday. It’s really rather nice, so expect some more pictures cropping up on this blog and in the photo gallery in the months to come. 🙂

Well, best get back to work…

Happy new year!

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— orudge @ 01/01/2006 1:20 am

Well, it’s now 2006 here in Britain… happy new year to everyone! The fireworks here were amazing, coming from Sanday, fireworks were a rarity in general outside of Bonfire night – I never expected quite what I just saw. The delights of civilisation, eh? 😉

Coincidentally, 2006 means that part of my web site (specifically the really old archive posts on this blog) are 10 years old (well, will be in October). Yikes.

Hope you all have a great year! 🙂

WordPress 2.0

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— orudge @ 30/12/2005 9:00 pm

Well, WordPress 2.0 has been released, and I’ve just upgraded the blog now… seems to be working quite nicely. Has a number of nice new features for me behind-the-scenes, you probably won’t notice any difference as a user though. 😉

On another note, Aegir has created a small page called “Planet Tycoon” which basically contains live blogfeeds from the blogs of various members of tt-forums, including yours truly’s. So now you know.

Merry Christmas!

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— orudge @ 25/12/2005 11:15 pm

Hey all… hope you had a good Christmas. I had a fairly quiet day here in Wales, but it was enjoyable enough. Hope you all have a good New Year! 🙂

Back home

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— orudge @ 23/12/2005 6:13 pm

Well, I’m back home now for Christmas. Things aren’t that exciting really, but it’s nice to not have to cook for a little while. 😉 I realise I still have half a semester to report on, and I will do at some point – probably closer to the end of this month though. The past couple of months have gone insanely quickly, and all of a sudden it’s exam time in January! I’m going to Budapest after exams with Rachel though for a week, which should be good fun. 🙂

Will check back soon, anyway. Have a merry Christmas, everyone.

Blog?

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— orudge @ 07/12/2005 8:46 pm

I will post a proper blog at some point soon, honestly! Ann posted this thing on her journal today, and I thought I’d do it for myself. I think it’s about correct, referring to places that I’ve actually stopped in rather than just travelled through (much of central England and extra bits of Scotland would be highlighted if I was talking about just travelling):

[map service is no longer available 🙁 ]

I’ve visited the counties in yellow. Which counties have you visited?

Ah, yes, my blog

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— orudge @ 12/11/2005 10:23 pm

It’s been a while again, hasn’t it? Quite a lot has happened this past few weeks, quite a lot indeed. On the academic side of things, I’ve had tests and assessments and practicals galore, which have generally gone fairly well I’d say, no major problems so far. On the social side of things, it’s been a busy few weeks. Indeed, I can’t rightly remember everything that’s happened simply because it’s been so long, but one of the main things would be that I’m now going out with the lovely Ellie, which by the way was why I was looking forward to the cinema in the last post. Oh, and the film was very good indeed, I’d recommend you go and see it. 😉

This past week has been Reading Week, so I went down to visit the family in North Wales for a few days on Saturday, returning on Wednesday. It was fun, if only for the steak and the haircut. 😉 (There wasn’t really that much to do, but it was nice to see people again, of course). Since then, I’ve basically been trying to relax, and also get various bits of work done for various things that need doing, academic and otherwise. I’ve also been playing bits of Age of Empires 3 where I can (I have the Collectors Edition, which comes in a huge box, and is actually rather heavy – but very nice indeed) – as a fan of all the existing AoE games, I have not been disappointed with AoE 3 so far, although I’ve only played a few of the scenarios in the campaign so far! The graphics are very nice too, of course, which is one of the main ‘features’ of this new release. So yes, that’s what I’ve been doing this week.

I’m just about to upload a load of random photos to the photo gallery now, most of them taken by Douglas. I keep meaning to get a digital camera, haven’t yet done so…

And that’s the end of your random blog for what will probably be the next month or so. Hope you enjoyed it. 🙂

First blog of the month!

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— orudge @ 20/10/2005 3:31 pm

No, I haven’t died, I’m still around. 🙂 Time has been moving so quickly! I’m now in week 4 of lectures, and things are getting busier… indeed, I have a management test in half an hour, and have to leave in about 10-15 mins, so this blog may be fairly short. But things are rather good here, especially after yesterday, for reasons I will go into soon. 😉

Basically… I’ve been attending lectures and doing work for the past few weeks. Started driving lessons again today (had an assessment lesson) and that looks like it’ll go well. Going to the cinema tonight to see Wallace and Gromit tonight. Should be good. ¬_¬ Went to Dundee on Tuesday night, that was good too. Went to Edinburgh at the weekend, most enjoyable. Got Yoda and Gandalf, my two new dedicated servers, set up at the weekend, and moved most sites to it – it’s really fast. And that’s about that for now, as I have to run.

But I’ll write more soon, feel free to post comments bugging me to do this. 😉

.updatestats

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— orudge @ 29/09/2005 9:30 pm

Well, what a week… what a week. I don’t think I’ve ever experienced anything quite like it.

For those who don’t know, I am now a student at the University of St Andrews, studying Computer Science with French, although this semester I’m taking modules in Computer Science (CS1002), Discrete Mathematics for Comp Sci (CS1010), Management (MT1001) and Philosophy (PY1001). I’m living in Albany Park, which is a 1970s concrete park with rather small rooms, but on the plus side there’s a nice community and it’s cheap! On the downside again though, it’s a long way from Albany to my lectures on the North Haugh, which is conveniently located on the other side of town. However, my purchase of a bicycle today should make that less of a problem. 🙂

Now then… what have I been doing? Those who do not wish to know/should not know what I’ve been doing, look away now. Hm, well, Saturday 17th was the day I arrived. We (Dad and I) set off at around 5.30am, and got in St Andrews around 11am, which was ahead of schedule, I think. On the journey, I got a phone call from Tom telling me I’d managed to leave one of my bags – conveniently the one which contained most of my clothes – at home… oh dear. We got to St Andrews, anyway, and managed to find Albany Park. Rather nervously, I look for the office, collect my keys, and we try to find house 22. The house numbering scheme in Albany is totally illogical, by the way. Unload my huge pile of stuff into my rather small room, and basically abandon everything and head for the welcome tent. We were one of the first people there, and I was there issued with a huge pile of bumf – leaflets, handbooks, flyers, free sweets, you name it. Dad had a cup of tea before heading back down south and I had, well, a drink, and spoke with the committee who were there welcoming us. Other freshers arrived, random discussions were had, more drink was drunk, and everyone was merry. That evening we had a pub crawl where we went around a few random pubs – I honestly can’t remember which, not due to being drunk but simply because so much has happened – and finally we ended up in the union, where I met many of the sinner lot – Duncan, Richard, Douglas, Rachel, Jen, Steve, Will, etc, etc. Much fun. Ooh, yes, now I remember. Ended up in the bop after that with Will, Rachel and Douglas, and it was actually really fun. For those who don’t know, the bop is basically the closest thing St Andrews has to a club I guess, and usually plays pretty cheesy music for people to rave around to. Not something I thought would really be my thing, but it was good. 🙂 Ended up stumbling back to Albany – ooh, yes, I remember now, haha, I won’t tell that story just now – and getting to bed. Of course, I hadn’t quite made it to Woolworths to buy a duvet cover, pillowcase, sheets and so on by then, so it wasn’t the most comfortable night, but I managed to get to sleep pretty quickly.

The next morning – after getting to sleep at around 3am, I was woken – oh, wait, no, this was the Monday. Oh well, woke up at some time or other, and did… something. Can’t really remember. Went out shopping with a couple of my housemates, I think. Did some random stuff anyway, vaguely sorted out some things, and ended up on the Albany three-legged pub crawl in the evening. My partner unstuck us a couple of times, meaning Caroline and/or Chris had to come back and tape us up again, but it was all fun, and after the 2nd pub I think most people were unstuck anyway! Ended up in the Vic I think where I bumped into Jo, a girl from Orkney who I knew who started at St Andrews last year – and had a good chat to her. Then, I ended up in the union again for the Sara Cox event in Venue 1, where I met with Ann (my academic mum, THE mama smurf!), Emma (my aunty) and Bobbie (my uncle). It was a while before Sara actually came on – until then, Graeme (Ann’s boyfriend and DJ Convener in the union) was getting the crowd going, and it was actually a bit of a let-down when she came on. But, she got better (apparently it was her first live show in ages, and she didn’t know how the equipment worked!), and it was generally a good night. 🙂 At the end of this night, we ended up back at Ann’s house, I think (also conveniently located on the other side of town, vaguely at least), had some fun there meeting more of my extensive academic family, and then back to Albany, where my bed was slightly better, but still not properly made. Went to sleep, had a bit of a weird dream IIRC, and all was fine…

… until 7.30am or so when my brother phoned me up to tell me about the stuff I’d forgot and that Dad was posting it up, and so on. In fairness, Tom had his navy interview that morning, which explains why he was up that early, but I could have done without the early wake-up call… Oh, yes, of course, Dad had tried to phone me the previous night in the bop – if you’ve ever been to the bop, you’ll realise why that didn’t quite work. He probably wouldn’t have heard much that made any sense. Ehm, yes, so… Monday. *consults text messages and orientation guide* Oh yes, there was the Campus Moviefest thing in the afternoon, that was good fun, a number of us hope to take part in that if it happens this year. I must have ended up in the union again that night… ah, yes, that was the hypnotist! Oh, indeed, I remember now. I was happily playing away here on the Internet, when there was a knock at the door and I was invaded and taken away by Steve, Duncan, Richard and Anne, my very nice academic sister from Canada. Ended up at Duncan’s house, randomness ensued, then Duncan and I went off to the hypnotist. We met up with Kat (another of my sisters, this time from the USA) and went in, and it was a very good night. The hypnotist was Chris James, and it was an enjoyable affair – Kat was hypnotised, and it was very fun night, and got me rather intrigued and interested in hypnosis, something I’ve not followed up on yet, but maybe one day… after that, I don’t really know what happened. Oh yes I do! Randomly bumped into Lyndon, who was in some of my classes at KGS – I’d forgotten that he was going to St Andrews, actually. So I decided to go to Ann’s house – the gathering there was this night, not Sunday night, and take Lyndon with me. Lyndon was soon adopted by Ann, and a generally good night was had by all, at least until Ben (I think?) locked himself in the toilet claiming to be fine, but wasn’t really. Dot dot dot, etc, everything ended up OK, walked back to Albany (it’s a long way!), the end.

Woke up the next morning to subject talks or something, or a welcome from the principal, or something of the sort. It was fine enough, anyway (except what was up with that lion? It seems to be a regular feature, but nobody knows quite why…) This is Tuesday, by the way. Just so I can keep things in track. Can’t really remember what I did during the day, but I passed the time somehow. That night it was the Gatty (Albany) pub quiz, and we didn’t quite win, but it was fun anyway. Our team didn’t do too badly at least! Then met up with someone – Melissa possibly, who was someone I met who’s staying here at Albany, and eventually ended up in the Union, where I finally met Sarah (Smiles) and had a generally very enjoyable night. Also met many random people in the union – Ann, Jazz, and probably others. We all ended up back at Duncan’s, where I appeared to consume rather a lot of liquid of an intoxicating nature, not helped by Duncan (my academic dad, by the way). In the end, Caroline and Lee(?) walked me back home, and that was all good and nice. I had to then get up earlyish – well, maybe about lunchtime, thinking about it – to be advised, and matriculate. I matriculated before most people, so there were no long queues that everyone had warned me of. 🙂 That night was the comedy night I had planned to go to, but instead I ended up going to the debate with Sarah and some of her housemates – “This House Believes An Arts Degree Is A Waste Of Time”. In the end, the popular vote was for the opposition, but it was a good debate and I enjoyed it. I then went to the union, intending to go to the comedy, but it had sold out. Met up with Eleanor there, had a brief chat, before I went off and finally had that early night I’d been planning on having for days… well, earlyish, at least.

Thursday, Thursday. The week seemed to go so quickly! Ah, yes, I remember now. I won’t go into very much detail on this day. Basically, met up with Sarah that afternoon and went over to Fife Park to meet her housemates, and generally had a lot of fun there. There was a barbeque happening over there, so I helped myself to some free food and drink. 🙂 A bit too much of the latter, perhaps. Anyway, had much fun, sent a text message to someone I didn’t mean to, things happened that weren’t meant to happen, blah, blah, etc, etc, don’t ask, ended up at the union again briefly, before making my way – a bit late – to Ann’s magic-themed birthday party. Had more fun there, met more family and other random people, slept, woke up, found my jumper had disappeared (still don’t know what happened to that!), went back to Albany, and… whatever happened next. It all seems so far away, somehow. This week too has gone very quickly, but I’ll get to that in another 20 pages or so time. Friday now, anyway, and Friday night is bop night. Had a generally good night, although something happened at the end that was a bit meh, but let’s not go there again. Back home then, and that was that.

Now, after Friday came Saturday, and with that came the sports fayre, which I briefly attended and ended up putting my name down for fencing and archery. Not actually done anything with these though, yet, not had the time! Will see how things go, and there’s always the future when I’ve not got quite so much on! Met up with Rachel in the afternoon and my academic grandad on her side, and had a nice little chat. Saturday night I went to see Aberfeldy with Eleanor, who were performing in venue 1. It was a good performance too, although the guys that were on before weren’t quite so good in my opinion. Saw Douglas there too, and Rachel again, which was nice. Went back for another quietish night, which was welcoming! Sunday afternoon was the societies fayre, I put my name down for a few too many societies, including WiredSoc, The Sinner, Ents, Rogue Productions, St Andrews Radio and possibly others. More about that later. Sunday night, now that was a good night – ceilidh. Coming from Orkney, we have a lot of ceilidhs, although we just call them “dances” up there, so it was interesting to see how they did them down in St Andrews. It was generally a lot of fun, had a few random dances with random people, and then finally did the good ol’ Orcadian Strip the Willow with Rachel – the Strip the Willow (we don’t call it “Orcadian” in Orkney, funnily enough) has always been my favourite dance, so it was nice to dance it here! Went back home, and that was the end of freshers week! An absolutely insane week it was – I met so many people, forgot so many names, but it really was an absolutely brilliant week, it really was. 🙂

Monday came, and that meant enrolment for modules, and lectures! 10am was Comp Sci, got enrolled for that, and had a basic introductory lecture. That afternoon I had enrolment for Management, which was also fine enough, and Tuesday brought enrolment for Philosophy, as well as introductory lectures for CS1002 and CS1010 (the discrete maths module), and a start to work in Management. Tuesday night was “Boozeday Tuesday”, which basically means cheap drinks at the Vic. A good night was generally had with the sinner lot there, in the union, and at Duncan’s house, so that was good and nice. Getting up for 10am lectures the next day was not quite so fun, but it wasn’t impossible. That’s yesterday now, by the way. I had two lectures yesterday – none in the afternoon – so that was quite nice. That evening I had the first meeting of Ents – the group who set up all the sound, lighting and who generally run events in the union. It looks as though it should be good fun – a few of us will be behind the scenes at the bop on Saturday to see how that runs – setting up, starting everything up, the event itself, and so on. So that was good. Today, I had a couple more lectures, a comp sci practical, and a meeting of the STAR group (St Andrews Radio) – that also looks like it’ll be good fun. Oh, and I bought a bike yesterday, picked it up today, it makes things so much nicer. I had a little cycle around St Andrews tonight, means I won’t have to walk 1.6 miles each way, twice a day, to lectures alone, any more…

Hm, and that’s what’s been happening with me recently, summed up in a neat 2,400-ish words. What a long ramble. Oh well, I hope you enjoyed, please do leave a comment, and feel free to get in touch and let me know how you’re all getting on, those who I haven’t spoken to in a while.

Anything else? Nope? Oh well, I’ll check back in… sometime.

University…

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— orudge @ 18/09/2005 2:58 pm

… is good. Or at least yesterday was. Pretty mad, but good.

More in the coming days.

Magical Trevor 3!

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— orudge @ 15/09/2005 9:47 pm

Magical Trevor 3 is out, and in my opinion, it’s really not all that good compared with Magical Trevor 2, which itself wasn’t very good compared with the original and best… but oh well, thought I’d announce it here, since I announced the other two. 😉

Got my new 256MB PCI Express GeForce 6600GT graphics card today – it plays the AoE 3 demo very nicely. 🙂

Off to uni on Saturday, so I’ll update from then sometime over the next little while. It should be fun!

Updated photo gallery!

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— orudge @ 13/09/2005 5:28 pm

I’ve upgraded the photo gallery software to the brand spanking new Gallery 2.0, which has a very nice new look and is generally much nicer for me to administrate too… be sure to check it out! 🙂

Don’t forget…

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— orudge @ 09/09/2005 11:59 pm

… as reported last year, it is Talk Like A Pirate Day on September 19th, which will be the Monday of freshers week for me… should be interesting! Y’arrr! Shiver me timbers! Maybe I should go to Ann’s party as a pirate…… 😛

Updates on my life, and survey

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— orudge @ 05/09/2005 9:34 pm

I did another one of those silly e-mail forwards today, which I was just about to post when I thought I hadn’t posted anything much on here for a while. But does that mean I have nothing to say? I thought about it, and I will now start a rambling blog about recent happenings, before posting this survey thing. Right. Currently listening to the main titles of the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory soundtrack – saw that film the other day, as I will explain.

Right, well, what have I been doing here in Wales-land? Went to visit my mum in mid-Wales for most of last week, that was quite good. Among other things went shopping and got some new clothes and so on for uni, which is no bad thing! Also, the weather was really nice, which was great, since it had been pretty miserable up in Orkney! Then, after that, came back home for a day, before heading off again, this time to Ann’s for her 20th on Saturday, in an exciting little town in Lancashire. Much fun was had, and various amusing/embarassing/random photos and videos were taken, which you can see in the photo gallery. (The last blog here was posted when at Ann’s, if you were wondering about it). Did see Charlie and the Chocolate Factory on the Friday night, as I say… my mini-review of that: I thought it was a good film on its own, or if you hadn’t seen the earlier film or read the book, but I personally prefer the older film in many ways. (Spoilers follow) There are some nice things I liked about the new film, such as Wonka’s humour, although I’m not sure that’s how I’d imagine Wonka to be personally. The new songs are nice, but I wasn’t too keen on them. And the whole Wonka family storyline seemed a bit out of place to me. But then, I used to watch the old film every Christmas, so I’ve just seen that one too much, I think. 😉

Anyway, a very nice time was had at Ann’s, and that is basically what I’ve been up to since leaving Orkney. Having a 2Mbps ADSL connection is rather nice too, what with my brother and I having used some 45GB of bandwidth in the past 11 days… having Freeview and a digital capture card on my computer is also nice, although most of the channels are pretty uninteresting! So yes, that’s that.

More news now, I’ve got my accommodation for St Andrews back, and I’m staying in Albany Park, house 22! Albany is pretty cheap at least compared to the other halls, so more money for other stuff! The freshers guide for Albany looks pretty good too, as does the overall orientation week programme. I’m looking forward to it! 😀

Oh, and that survey… click the “more” link to view it, if you haven’t already. 🙂

(more…)

Chocolate

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— orudge @ 02/09/2005 11:15 pm

North Wales!

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— orudge @ 26/08/2005 7:27 pm

Well, I am now in North Wales for the next 3 weeks, with a nice 2Mbit ADSL connection! Fun it is indeed. We drove up yesterday, leaving Sanday at around 9am and getting in around 11.30pm, so it was a long day! Will post more in the near future, anyway, that’s my quick status update for the day!

News!

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— orudge @ 21/08/2005 10:53 pm

Right, a little status update… what’s going on with me then? Well, we’re moving to North Wales on Thursday, which should be interesting. Been busy packing for the past little while, things are a bit hectic. Hm, what else? Had my last driving lesson up here on Friday… unfortunately, didn’t have time to take my test up here (wish I’d started earlier, now), but it’s not the end of the world – I’ll have to finish in St Andrews or somewhere. Got my entrants pack at last on Friday, too, and have now picked my modules for next year and “pre-advised” them:

CS1002 – Computer Science
CS1010 – Discrete Mathematics for Computer Science
MN1001 – Organisations and Society
PY1001 – Reason and Argument

in first semester, and:

CS1004 – Internet Programming
FR1012 – French II (Science)
MN1002 – Organisations and Analysis

in second semester. So that should be interesting, at least. 🙂 Not got my accommodation back yet, but I’m hoping that’ll arrive this week, ideally before we head down to Wales…

And that’s me for now! Oh, congratulations to Rich, Peter, Jess, and everyone else who got into university recently with their A-level results! 🙂

Yes, another one of these things

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— orudge @ 15/08/2005 7:17 pm

And again, Ann is responsible for it. She insisted on it, or… well, let’s not go there.

Oh, and I believe she wrote this questionnaire herself, which may explain the content.

1. What’s your favourite piece of laboratory equipment? And why?
Bunsun burners, too… they were fun. But messy.

2. What do you think is better, 34.7m of red hosepipe or a pinfilled pincushion?
A pinfilled pincushion could be handy, I guess…

3. If you could be someone else for the day, who would it be? And why?

Ehm, hmm… that’s a good one. Possibly the Queen or someone, to see what she actually does all day.

4. If you could be someone else for the day, would it snow?

It might well. I like snow.

5. Do you have a nick-name? If not, what would you like your nickname to be? Figs?

My ‘nickname’ tends to be orudge, boring, but practical.

6. What’s your favourite kitchen/appliance?

Kitchen? What? The fridge is nice.

7. Have you ever smoked a kipper as you would smoke a cigar?

Can’t say I have.

8. What’s your favourite piece of clothing?

Ehm… t-shirt. Although I’m intrigued and amused by Ann’s answer to this question… 😉

9. If you could have a house anywhere, where would it be? And why?

On an island somewhere. Oh, wait, that’s where my house is anyway! So maybe not.

10. Who discovered pensilvania?

John K. Pencil.

11. Where’s your favourite place to be massaged?

What a question!

12. Who’s your favourite member of monty python?

Hmm, John Cleese, perhaps. They’re all great!

13. What’s your favourite childhood memory?

Hmm, there are a few I can vaguely remember. Can’t be bothered to write them out though, I’m lazy.

14. What makes you didgeridoo?

*censored*

New system!

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— orudge @ 13/08/2005 10:57 am

Finally, after over 2 months of sending motherboards back and all sorts, my new system is up and running, and running quite well! And so incredibly quietly compared with my old one! So I’m generally quite happy about that… although not to happy to have discovered earlier in the week that the ASUS A8V Deluxe merely needed a BIOS flash to work with the new Venice core chips (which is what I have)… *sigh* I got an Abit AX8 instead, which is better in many ways since it has PCI Express for a start, which will be good when I upgrade my graphics card in September/October. 🙂

Moving in 12 days! Everything’s a little bit hectic right now. And only 35 days until uni! That’s just a bit over a month… will check back soon, anyway!

I’m in!!!

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— orudge @ 09/08/2005 10:51 am

My results haven’t arrived yet, but I logged into UCAS Track on the off-chance that it might tell me something, and….

“The university/college is satisfied that you have met the entrance requirements, this means that you have a place for the course shown.

University of St Andrews, S36
Computer Science with French (Integ yr Abroad), G4RC”

Woooo! I’ll post my results here when they arrive! 😀

EDIT: Right, got my results… B in AH French, which is basically what I expected, C in AH English (I was expecting an A, not too sure what happened there, will probably appeal), B in H History and a C in H Biology. The marks are more or less what I expected, a bit lower in some cases, but I’m quite happy, since I’m into St Andrews. 😀

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