Monday 28 October 2013

Write Blog, Not Homework

Trying to make up a word limit is hard sometimes, especially when people you telephone are not forthcoming with information ): I keep being told to look online for answers to questions, when what I really want is a statement from a person of authority.

I've been busy busy with uni work and other things, so it's been a while since I last blogged. I also managed to sprain my ankle on Thursday - it just gave way while I was walking along the pavement, so I'm hobbling about and housebound (at least until lectures tomorrow) since stairs are very difficult to go down, and I live up three flights of them.

There was a 0 hour game jam on Sunday, because of the clocks going back an hour for Daylight Saving Time, so I thought I'd give it a go since I haven't coded anything for a while. It turns out it's not really enough time to do anything, especially given that I didn't have any idea what I was going to make when I started. I made a sort-of-but-not-really RPG, kindly hosted by Mark, who also took part in the jam. I spent far too long fiddling with pixels instead of checking everything worked as intended, so there's a fun "feature" if you try to take a particular action near the end.

It was mum's birthday last week, so I painted some leaves for her. First time I've got out the watercolours since I did the course earlier this year...


Leaves were what I really struggled with during the classes, so I might do some more practice at some point - if I get any free time! Journalism is about to get more full-on next week, as we'll be starting the project unit and doing newsdays on Fridays. I did manage to relax this weekend and play some games - I've got a 3DS XL now and Pokémon X, early Christmas present - so who knows, maybe I can sit around painting all weekend in the near future. I hope.

Friday 4 October 2013

Drowning in Ill

Ughhhh I have some kind of hideous cold thing that I picked up from my flatmate. How rude of him to pass it on. This is making it very difficult to concentrate on anything, since my head is feeling all stuffy and pressured. Nevetherless, I just about managed to get through today's 9 - 4 multimedia marathon.

I'll go back to the start of this week, though. Nicole and I did more vox pops on Monday, actually on the streets of Bristol. It was interesting to note that middle-aged women seemed mostly likely to totally ignore us, while male uni students were intrigued by the microphone and willing to answer our questions about the new fertility clinic for single women at Southmead Hospital. We had to follow this up with an interview, and mistakenly thought the interview had to be on the same topic as the vox pops. This led to a panicked Thursday, not helped at all by Giffgaff refusing to actually send Nicole any of my texts, in which we wrangled with an uncooperative press officer to no avail. In the end we went to the University of Bristol Students' Union (UBU) and spoke to the lovely Imogen Palmer, Vice-President of Activities, about the alternative activities UBU offered to freshers. President Rob Griffiths wrote an article about the prevalence of drinking culture, so we thought talking to Imogen would be a good follow-up. Even though we just turned up without warning, she was willing to be interviewed, so we were quite lucky!

I haven't done much else apart from uni work this week, due to wanting to hide in bed 90% of the time. Went to the first COGS social last night, but it was far too warm and noisy for my poor ill brain to cope with. Pretty good turnout of new members though, so I'm looking forward to the LAN next week.

This week, we have to produce an audio package for Friday, so I need to get thinking. We're not supposed to do assignments alone for safety reasons, so these are all in pairs (except us this week - odd number in the class so Verity will be joining Nicole and me). I've worked out that I can actually have a nice break this weekend, so I'll just do some reading. Aside from that, I'm off to the Bristol Comic and Zine Fair with Sara and Mark tomorrow, so maybe I'll pick up some cool stuff.

Oh yeah, totally forgot to mention my poor camera last time. One of the pins in the CF card slot has snapped off, so, no camera for now. Until I can sort out a repair. Cleverly left my compact in London, so all I have now is my phone and a film camera. ):

Ok my brain is too blurry to anything right now so I am going to huddle in my duvet.