I think all of us could benefit by reading this article on Trickle Theory. Don’t be put off by the name; its an article that shows you how to get over the mental leap that is getting started on and feeling positive about a task which, at the outset, seems impossible. Also offered is some advice on how to cope with very large but boring tasks.

Last night we must have had one hell of a storm or similar because although my clock radio hadn’t lost the time this morning, my routers needed resetting and my server had restarted its self. I feel my surge protectors have paid for themselves already! Whats even more odd, although I guess not unusual for me, is that I didn’t wake up during any of it. Considering our power remained steady during the recent tornados to hit Leeds, it must have been one hell of a belting we got last night.

Its that time of year when new students get their first exposure to the Java programming language and we get to drink lots of coffee and ready ourselves to be asked a load of questions about it. Its good though, we’re getting paid £12 an hour for the privilage and also get the chance to continue chatting to the folk we met in freshers week. Dr. Java is still the IDE of choice for the SE15 java course so we are likely to be asked more about why its just crashed than any actual programming.

Our own experience of Java is also being given a kick start back into life in the form of the SE20 course, using Eclipse as the IDE. The IDE experience should be much better, but trying to remember how to write in Java after a whole summer of doing nothing or writing in other languages in my case might cause a bit of an issue. Noses to the grindstone pronto I feel!

It seems that lately I have been doing a lot of arty things. Yesterday was an addition to an already growing list in this respect when Claire enlisted my help to set up a charity art auction in the union refectory building where nearly 100 individual pieces needed to be put on display with tags and also up on boards that needed to be assembled. As the boards were considerably taller than me this did provide some amusement on occasion (thanks to Claire and Michelle for the short-ass comments )!

While initially I managed to drag along some helpful computing folks (many thanks for the assistance people!) I ended up helping to finish it off on my own. It took nearly 4 hours to sort it all out considering we started at 3 and left the hall at around 7.

We made up for it though by going to a superb little traditional restaurant serving North African cuisine in authentic surroundings. Not having tried this type of food before I was somewhat intrigued by the menu, but Claire seeming somewhat of an expert in these matters, soon told me what was what and taking her advice caused me to end up with a superb lamb dish with lots of great sauces and dips. They also did fantastic honey and mint tea, and I must say its got to be the best tea I have ever tasted. We were soon full of food and just chilling out on the comfy seats they’ve got in there and drinking tea, was a really good break from shifting boards around.

I suddenly realised once again how important it is to just chill out at the end of a long day and just let your mind unwind, really makes you feel a whole lot better and that little restaurant (situated on the road running between Hyde Park and the houses down the hill) has to be one of the best places to do this in Leeds I have found or been taken to, to date.

It struck me on my way onto campus this morning at 8:40am that there were a huge number of students leaving the Hyde park area and heading in my direction. Now I know a lot of students live in that area, but do so many really have lectures at 9am such that there have to be so many people on the pavement that it impeeds my usually fast progress? I walk quickly, very quickly in fact, and a 5mph slow amble just won’t cut it. I’m contemplating researching another route just to ensure I’m not slowed down, after all if I try to overtake the slow folk by walking in the road I’m bound to meet my maker an awful lot sooner than I ever intended in the form of a speeding taxi driver.

Perhaps people are just extra keen given that its the start of the year and the numbers will drop off as the weeks roll by, but I have to face the possibility that it will take over 20 minutes to get into the School of Computing just because people have to walk on pavements in groups of 20 or more. Pre-school is over; crocodile formation is no longer needed folks.