A short selection of photos from our weekend trip to the place where pasties are mined. Specifically Mawgan Porth, Padstow, Tintagel and Port Issac
A short selection of photos from our weekend trip to the place where pasties are mined. Specifically Mawgan Porth, Padstow, Tintagel and Port Issac
2015 was a year of big change in my life. Here are 10 moments in 2015 that I think sum up the year pretty well.
April: Played in my first Roller Derby game ever
May: Completed Tough Mudder, an 11km assault course
May: Presented my PhD research at Eurographics in Switzerland
May: Garden Society got a new committee and won over £1,500 to spend on beekeeping equipment (amongst other things)
May: Quitting my PhD. Long story, but in short I wasn’t happy with the direction the research was going in and I wanted to work on something that had more real-world prospects.
Jul – Starting my new job as an Integration Test Engineer at Sky UK, working on the new Sky Q product
Jul – Watching Hamilton win the British GP at Silverstone with my Nephew
Aug – Taking the boat to Bristol. It was a very long way to go, and it took most of the summer in weekends, but it was 100% worth it!
Aug – Moving in with Emily to a (very) little place we can call our own (for the next 12 months)
Nov – Winning prize at CVMP. Very unexpected, but still very cool!
Who knows what 2016 will bring!
The last month has been an interesting one. Certainly a lot has happened over Easter that has got me thinking about my long-term career prospects and even short-term goals.
To start with, the University has started an ‘Operational Review’ seemingly in an attempt to stifle research efforts and reduce the student experience all in the name of short-term cost-savings. My two cents is that the university should be investing in better marketing to entice new undergraduate students to Surrey instead of the other top universities with with we now compete due to increased entry requirements. But what do I know, every time students are ‘spoken down to’ regarding the changes, dumbing down information with meaningless metaphors and simply saying ‘don’t worry your little heads about it, let the adults work it out’. Frankly, it’s pathetic.
Moving on to something more exciting and positive, Emily and I went on a boating weekend in March. Just the two of us in the fresh midlands countryside gave us time to relax and get away from all the stress of operational reviews, thesis reports and conference deadlines. Life in the slow lane for 48 hours. It was bliss. To say I’m looking forward to this summer’s marathon boat trip to Bristol would be an understatement.
Back to PhD life again, and it was time for my thesis review at the end of March. This is a new report you have to write for your 2-year milestone. It caused much argument and debate between my supervisor and I for a good many weeks, resulting in a stale-mate where neither of us are happy with the outcome. I’m still unsure about what to do about this, but thankfully the head of department has been very helpful in moving things along, albeit with me still carrying more than a teaspoon full of scepticism. Alas.
I’ve been taking more of an interest in my personal fitness again. Stuart and I are still going climbing on a weekly basis and hoping to transcend to new heights by taking our skills outdoors very soon. I’ve been keenly going to weekly Roller Derby sessions, and went to cheer on the girls team in a game in Coventry a few weeks back.
By far my biggest achievement recently has been playing in my first Roller Derby game! It was a men’s rookie game made up of guys from various teams around the country. Playing with people I’d never met before in front of a crowd (containing my parents!) could be described as being “thown in at the deep end”, but Emily had made me a sign saying “BRING THE POWER” and I managed to score 14 points for my team! It was a great learning experience and I’m now eagerly awaiting my next chance to play.
If that wasn’t enough fitness news, I’m attempting Tough Mudder on Saturday. I say attempting because it’s a 12-mile military-style obstacle course and I’ve done next to no training. Should be a laugh. I might die.
Aside from the obvious trip to New Zealand, 2014 was another great year for travelling. Barcelona started things off in January, then Nice, Hannover, Paris and Amsterdam. So many other amazing places in the UK such as Llangollen, Canterbury, Cardiff and Bridgenorth to name just a few. 2015 might have to be a bit more low key. Click on any of the photos to get a closer look.
I have been very busy this week after having had a great weekend celebrating my 25th Birthday. On Friday night, my Dad came over and Emily cooked us all an amazing tofu curry. Having never had tofu, my dad was curious, but really enjoyed it!
I got a load of cheeky presents from my parents, including a children’s music CD with 8 songs about how to get dressed, going to the park and going to bed, all where the singer sings my name in all of them! Classic mum :)
Emily got me an awesome travel cover for my ukulele, a really interesting book about the history of design on the London Underground (she knows I’m a massive geek) and a new rubix cube to play with that’s taken me a while to wrap my head around!
Still takes me about 10 minutes to solve, but I’m getting there!
Then on Saturday, we went wakeboarding, my second attempt. And it was a great success! I managed to not only wakeboard, but get all the way to the first corner without stacking it! Next time I’ll try to actually make it round the corner!
In the evening, 23 of my friends and I went for a curry, then headed to a roller disco. Everyone got the hang of skates really quickly, and I enjoyed skating around together with so many people I knew. The last few years I’ve been restricted on numbers for my birthday party, because of the size of my house, so going out and having so many people show up was a great way to celebrate. Needless to say that after roller disco we got a few drinks in, the less said about that part of the evening the more accurate my account of it will be.
I’ve now been writing this blog for six years! And I hope you’ve enjoyed reading as much as I have enjoyed writing here. Who knows what the next six years will bring, but if one thing is certain, it’s that I should expect the unexpected.
Love,
Charles x
On Saturday I will be celebrating my 25th Birthday by eating curry and roller-skating. By way of gearing my self up for my next quarter of a century alive, I’ve taken a look back at 25 things I’ve done in the last 12 months that have been absolutely amazing. See, I’m not getting old…
8. I don’t have a picture for the next one, but filling an entire row in the cinema to watch The Hobbit 2 with all my mates!
13. Another Postgrad event was the pub quiz! I wrote an impossibly difficult connections round where the answers to all the questions were linked. I hope I get to write more pub quiz rounds in the coming year.
May the next 12 months have just as many happy memories.
Charles x
When I decided to write this post I didn’t realise quite how many new and wonderful places I’d visited in the last year. Japan in March to Dresden in December, as well as the Grand Prix, 2013 really was a superb year. Click on any of the photos to get a closer look.