My PhD is obviously the biggest thing in my life at the moment. I’m glad to say that it seems to be going well, I’m getting results, and while there have been a few setbacks, I’m on my way to obtaining that seemingly elusive doctorate. While I really want this doctorate, I’m not sure I want my PhD to end either. Partially because I’m enjoying it so much, mainly because I don’t want to write that thesis! Still, I can’t complain at the fact I even have a PhD place, there are plenty of people out there that I know that don’t have a job at all, relying on the state – and many many more besides, so I’m grateful I’m in my position. I can’t wait to get my first paper out, but first I have to write it. I guess there are two sides to every coin – but hey, what can you do?

Home isn’t bad either. I moved in July to be closer to the Uni, with a friend of mine. Sure, there are things that niggle at me, but then, that is the price you pay for house sharing. She isn’t a bad house mate at all. I annoy her, she annoys me – but then, I think we generally understand each other.

Course, not everything is hunky dory – it’s that feeling of being used rearing it’s head again. Whether it’s one of your so-called friends being two-faced and trying to discredit you behind your back, or just being power mad and trying assert their imaginary authority over you for whatever reason, it’s not fair. In the same vain, those who don’t really care about your personal feelings about whatever, from inappropriate insults to the little things, need to be knocked into line. But then, I think those people in my life who act like this will get their come-uppance sooner or later – so it really isn’t worth worrying about them much. Why should I? I’ve got most of what I want in my life at the moment.

So I won’t. I’m concentrating on the people that matter most in my life. The people who are willing to listen to me when I’m down, and not only use me to rant to and ignore thereafter. The people who are willing to put up with my idiosyncrasies, just as I am willing to put up with theirs. The people who will do something unexpected, like buy you a box of Malteasers as a Christmas present, or send you a Christmas card from the other end of the country, when you were expecting nothing from them, and make you feel bad because you haven’t done anything in return.

Heh, I’ve descended into a rant again – oops. Then again, I’m not writing this because I’m upset, or angry. I’m writing this because I’m happy, content for the first time in a long while. Sure, there are a couple of things that would like yet to fall into place – but I know they will. I know my situation is better than many others in the world – that is enough to make me feel better.

Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year to you all – may 2010 be good for you all!

I’d rather know if there is a problem, not that there was one that doesn’t exist anymore. Well done Spotify, well done.

*skips track*

To top it all off, I was at a wedding last week, the wedding of Ben Best and Naomi Bowdler. One I had to travel down to King’s Lynn for.

One where I was the best man.

It’s no wonder that this week I’m absolutely exhausted. I’ve taken this week off from my PhD in order to move into my new place, tidy it up, and rest. However, I wanted to take some time to talk about being the best man at this wedding, and what I took away from it. So, here goes…

I was first asked to be Ben’s Best Man by phone when I was in the Student Union bar with some other members of the department after prospective lecturers were shown round the department. Naturally, I accepted, I was honoured to have been asked.

Naturally, I didn’t realise how much work was involved.

I got to King’s Lynn and Ben’s house on the Monday evening, and visited Naomi’ and her parents with Ben. I had a good evening, the Bowdlers cooked dinner for me, which was gratefully received. We generally had a catch up, having not really seen each other much in the past couple of months.

Tuesday came, and the work began. I didn’t realise how much was still left to do! I still had a speech to finish/start, we had to visit Ben’s parents to ensure that the Order of Service booklet was correct (Ben’s computer was still at his parents at this moment), we had to visit the city centre and ensure everyone had the correct attire, check with other key people that they knew what they were doing. I thought Tuesday was a stressful day, but I thought that the thick of it was over, I had helped Ben sort out what he needed, so that Wednesday was just gonna be a fairly quiet day.

Of course, it never happens like that, Wednesday was worse! Of course, Ben and Naomi were jittery, in fact I wouldn’t mind betting that I was at least as nervous as them! Ben and I took three hours to print Order of Service booklets, ensure he had the correct documents for his honeymoon, finish his speech, finish my speech. In that time, I also had to deal with a couple of other issues that had cropped up, and Ben and Naomi also had to sort stuff out for their honeymoon. By the time we had sorted all that out, we had to rush across to the Church to have a rehearsal – which felt unusually quick! Finally, we had a rather awful meal at some pub nearby, before heading to the Sailing Club, where the reception was to be held. Naturally, because I was taking a friend back to where she was staying, I arrived later, after taking several wrong turnings and almost ending up on a beach!

Leaving the Sailing Club was a chore in it’s own right! Originally, Ben and I both drove separately so that he could leave his car there for the night, before driving to Holland for their honeymoon after the wedding. But, Ben and Naomi hadn’t managed to sort their speech out, so Ben decided that he would take his car back with him too, as I didn’t want to drive her back after they’d finished. Of course, it aspired that I drove her back anyway because he was very tired – but everything worked out and I got enough sleep that night!

Then Thursday was the big day! Stress Central a.k.a. The Wedding! The morning was a frustrating morning, we needed to get to the sailing club, set up a gazebo (a word I didn’t even know existed until that day!) and get back to get ready all in the space of two hours! And I’m pleased to say we managed it! Of course, everything else didn’t seem to run to time!

1.10pm. The Church. After unkindly playing “Consign to Oblivion” to Ben in the car, we arrived. Almost immediately, I was wanted, one of the members of the Band was able to get her exam results that day at 1pm, and therefore wanted my iPhone to check her results (I’m pleased to say she passed!)

That was the simplest request I think I had that day. 1 hour before the wedding, and my nerves were setting in. Had I forgotten anything? Rings in the top pocket, corsage on, speech… left at home. Typical, something had to go wrong. Luckily, that was my own doing, and wasn’t going to affect the marriage.

And so the wedding began, 5 minutes late, which isn’t bad really, I find most occasions run late. Everything was going well, until the giving of the rings! It took me a while to get the rings out of the pocket, which was a highly embarrassing situation for me! I was thankful that the band then proceeded to play the wrong hymn! I wasn’t the only one to mess up! Other than that, the wedding was highly successful! I couldn’t stop smiling!

Then, we arrived at the Sailing Club, and the newlyweds arrived… quite a bit later! As there was no toastmaster, I ended up filling those shoes as well as my duties as Best Man. I was also asked about seating, more people turned up then we anticipated, which was good – though it meant we had to move tables about and things. It also meant that I had more people to give a speech to.

The speeches then came. As I’d forgotten my notes, I ended up making it up as I went along – but in the end, it was very well received, and I had a lot of complements about it, which again, I thank all of you for! But my work wasn’t done, I was then directing people up to the buffet, table by table, and bar a few people from the Best family, and a cheeky text asking to be picked next (who ended up getting picked last – serves her right!), people were generally good about this, and it gave me a chance to talk to the various guests.

I then ended up directing the photographs, (i.e. calling the various groups), and that was stressful, trying to get everyone needed at any one time in the same place! Soon after, the first dance! I’ll let you find the photos of me dancing with the maid of honour!

Ben and Naomi left shortly after. I said a quick prayer, and they were on their way, starting married life in Holland.

I thought that was it for me – and spent an hour on the Beach with a few friends, watching the sunset and skimming stones. When I walked back into the club, however, the DJ had it in for me! One YMCA, Saturday Night, Hokey Cokey, Cha Cha Slide and one other dancy-type song later (the one where you sit on the floor) – I was embarrassing myself in front of other guests! Haha! Again, pictures exist.

I finally left about 10.30, and after taking a friend back to where she was staying and picking up Ben’s spare key’s from his friend, I was ready to fall asleep. The week had been stressful, but it had gone well. I wrote in the Guest Book a rather lengthy passage for Ben and Naomi, and went to bed, still smiling.

Reflecting on this, yeah, being the Best Man is highly draining, but it has been one of the best experiences in my life, and I am honoured to have been the Best Man. The work was worth it! So much so, that I left the following P.S. for Ben in his guest book…

“P.S. Ben, just you wait until my wedding! You’ll love every minute of it! I did!”

Where to start?

First, if you were a follower of this blog purely for the Union Politics posts, or at least partly, then you may be disappointed, as I have left the world of Union politics completely. I won’t be writing about the elections that I mentioned in an earlier post – partially because I can’t bothered to do so, mainly because I stopped caring. My main focus has been my PhD, and as such, my life has slowly been crumbling away to make way for it.

For example, I was playing an online game called Travian. I was leading an alliance alongside two others, and I was enjoying it. However, I had less and less time for it, and to try and fit in my Travian commitments as well as all my other commitments was causing my health to degrade. It was a shame really, but it just went to show how demanding my PhD really is. While I miss the communications between the various players on Travian, especially with one of the leaders, I know it was the best move for me. On the flip side though, I can still get in contact with some of the members, so I haven’t lost that aspect of the game, which was the best thing about the game really. (Side note, I just lost the game…)

Moving on, it’s been quite difficult to keep up with real life activities too. I only managed to go karting for the first time this week, for the first time this year, simply because I’ve had no time, and it was good to finally meet a lot of the karters that I’ve seen sign up on the forum. It’s a shame I’ve not managed to race before this year, but hey, my PhD comes first. For similar reasons, I have also halted all work on my Facebook client, iDeskbook – mainly ’cause I have no time and the Facebook platform changes so quickly so often I generally don’t have time to fix compatibility issues with it, which is a shame, as I enjoyed building the program.

Now, it might look like I’m complaining about my PhD, but I’m not – I wouldn’t trade it for the world, my office mates are great (well, most of the time, there are times where they annoy me, and I bet vice-versa!), the department is awesome, and my PhD, while difficult, is really enjoyable. I just wish I had more hours in the day. I guess a point here really for anyone wanting to do a PhD is to make sure they are willing to put the effort in, and to be prepared to sacrifice a lot for it.

Well, I really don’t have much more to say at the moment. I feel like having a massive rant again about some people who, in my eyes, “just don’t get it” at the moment, from the small things, like the little jokes about me that go too far, to the bigger things, like being appreciated for actually doing something and spending money on things to make things easier for others, exploiting that great weakness that I seem to have – wanting others to be happy more than wanting myself to be happy. That said, I hope that I’m wrong, I hope that I’m reading too much into this. However, I won’t delve any deeper, and though my pessimistic attitude seems to be getting the better of me at the moment, I continue to hope for that which I believe will never happen, and I know I must buckle down and get on with what I can achieve, where I know can make a difference, be that via my PhD, or supporting those where I can – I might rant about it, but at the end of the day, I can’t go on without ensuring the happiness of others.

Anyhow, knowing the way things are going at the moment, I probably won’t get a chance to blog again for a while. However, going back to the PhD theme for a final point, I know I said about it being hard work, and PhDs are, but if you are offered one, then seriously consider it. The hard work pays dividends, and I wouldn’t trade this chance for the world – it has been an amazing year so far!

• If an experiment works, something has gone wrong.
• When you don’t know what you’re doing, do it neatly.
• Experiments must be reproducible, they should fail the same way each time.
• First draw your curves, then plot your data.
• Always keep a record of your data. It indicates that you have been working.
• To do a lab really well, have your report done well in advance.
• If you can’t get the answer in the usual manner, start at the answer and derive the question.
• In case of doubt, make it sound convincing.
• Do not believe in miracles – rely on them.
• Team work is essential, it allows you to blame someone else.
• All unmarked beakers contain fast-acting, extremely toxic poisons.
• No experiment is a complete failure. At least it can serve as a negative example.
• Any delicate and expensive piece of glassware will break before any use can be made of it.

For the most part, these elections seemed to be a lot quieter than last year – I often could get into the Union without being harassed by members of the Campaign teams floating about, though it did seem as if most of them knew me anyway, so didn’t bother wasting my time when they knew I had voted. Poster presence was less so then last year, but then again, with less candidates, that was expected. I’m not really gonna go any more into the actual polling days itself, my fellow blogger David Morris has a good account of the elections this year, you can find them here (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3).

I wanted to really just mention my thoughts on the candidates that got elected – I think some interesting people got elected. Note that the Presidential results have not been announced yet due to controversy, as I mentioned in my last post. So, without further ado, here we go:

VP Community
Ben Wilcox

Ben was always a popular character, and had a lot of experience in the role of community, as he demonstrated at Hustings. He had some pretty solid ideas for what he wanted to do with Societies and HUSSO/SCA. He is also a level-headed bloke and fairly open minded when it comes to politics (or that’s the impression I get anyway)

VP Welfare
Alice Marshall

While Alice was the only candidate for the job – knowing Alice fairly well, I knew she would be good at the job, as a member of the exec of the Drama soc, and a keen interest in the running of the Union. It was a shame that this election wasn’t contested, but then again, I can’t really think of a better candidate.

VP Sport
James “Wayne” Kerr

I don’t know much about James, but he did well, considering he won by 9 votes in the end. Only time will tell what will happen here.

VP Education
Chris Marks

So, as a position I essentially ran for last year, I was interested to see what would happen here. As you can see, Chris Marks won – an Education Not For Sale activist. I don’t agree with most of his views, especially for the fact he wants to use VP Ed as a campaigning role, which is fine, but try to decrease the number of committees? While I agree with the sentiment, I believe that removing representatives from committees will only harm relations with the University and will lose vital student input.

However, I applaud Chris’ solid viewpoints, most candidates have policies that are fairly vague, yet I know Chris will do what he said he wants to do – he doesn’t lie. At the same time, I do like the guy, I get on with him quite well, and I respect his views, and  I believe he respects mine. Good luck to him, I look forward to seeing the 24 hour library campaign really start picking up now!

President
???

So, who will the final Sabb be? I’m gonna hold my tongue about this ‘till we know what happened, but I’ll be back with views on the president and what I think of the team as a whole after the election appeals committee meets and decides the fate of the candidates!

And what a development that has occurred!

The Presidential campaign, which I thought had been relatively clean, has been overshadowed by controversy, apparently, one of the candidates have been disqualified, pending appeal. As such, the winner of the Presidential election won’t be announced tonight.

I plan on blogging about the whole election period as it happens/over the next day or two, but for now, I wanted to mention this…

Interesting…

Lately, I have been suffering from high levels of stress due to my workload increasing and I have been advised that my general heath will degrade if I push myself any further. Therefore, after a lot of consideration, I have come to the decision to resign from my positions in the Union, including Council and Postgraduate Committee Chair, with immediate effect. I shall remain on the University’s VLE steering group committee as it is only once every two months or so, until the end of the year, I will talk to Richard about that separately.

To clarify, there is no other reason for my resignation other than stress and health issues, and my PhD is more important to me than Union politics, as much as I have enjoyed it, now is the time for me to move on. Please do not ask me to reverse my decision. If a reason is asked for by anyone else, it is due to medical reasons.

I wish you all the best for the rest of the year. Sorry I’ve had to leave now.

Dan

Thanks to you all who have made it what it is. See you all around.

One year on, I look back, and think, wow, what an achievement. While I’m not bothered who has downloaded it, who has tried it, likes it, or otherwise, I followed a project of mine through to a conclusion. A big 1.0.

So, iDeskbook didn’t overly take off, I’ve not broken the 1000 user mark, but hey, I had fun building it. It was a tool for me, that I figured I would make fancy and let others use. I still support it with stability releases, currently at 1.0.15 I believe, and future major versions, 1.5 and 2.0, are in the pipeline. My app was what I wanted to be, except for one thing – they are all Windows products, missing one goal I had, for it to be cross platform. I planed to make it Mac OS X and Linux compatible, and didn’t realise how hard it would be. I put the “i” at the front to try and symbolise that, and unfortunately, it hasn’t happened. And I doubt it will – and as such, I will probably drop the i from the title of the app with 1.5, no decisions have been made yet though.

Speaking of which, 1.5 is still being developed, although there hasn’t been a snapshot in a while, I plan to get Alpha 3 out of the door in the next couple of weeks, when I have fixed a couple of bugs. My PhD is taking up most of my time at the moment, but I am learning to manage my time so I can build iDeskbook/Deskbook at a faster rate – a more relevant program for all.

If you have been following it’s development, supporting me in any way, thanks. Hopefully the next year will be as fruitful as this one.

On a side note, I offer my congratulations to the Songbird team for releasing their big 1.0 today – that truly is an awesome product! Well done guys!