Getting it done

I blog so rarely that this is me trying to kick start the process again. I felt today I’d talk a bit about all the work I’ve got going on at the moment.

First up this month was my dissertation submission. I flew back to Loughborough as there was no way I was going to trust the post to deliver. My first impression on landing was “damn this country is cold”. Getting to the university campus I collected my keys and headed to my digs for the week, which turned out to be the same halls I spent my first year in. The mattresses are still just as horrid (I really shouldn’t have expected them to buy new ones in the four years I’ve been absent). However given I’d be spending 16 hours a day in the library this was no real problem.

That’s what I had to do to get my project finished. Worked some crazy hours, through the night when I felt I could. I find myself least productive in the mornings but late at night, once everyone had gone, I would work through till 6am or so most nights. I have done enough all nighters in my time at university that I realise they were all just training for this one event. Come 8.30am on Tuesday 12th of May there I was at the printers with half a dozen others getting my project printed and bound. Very shiny it looked too!

How do feel about my project? I would say I have mixed feelings. I think there’s some good work in there and it was interesting in parts. However my concern is whether or not I drew enough succinct conclusions. I feel my Project Definition Document was pretty vague and so whether my dissertation actually matches what I supposedly set out to do is a matter for the assessor.

Now that my dissertation is done I’m down to my last pieces of work. I have two reports due as part of my Erasmus placement. The first is a comparison of French and British education and engineering. the second could be anything and for which I have ended up doing a bibliographic study of low energy buildings in the UK. Other than that I basically have a couple of presentations to do mid June and I’m done.

The low energy building project is actually quite interesting. It is beginning to spark ideas in my mind as to whether I can get involved at a business level somehow. Construction is going to have to go in that direction so how can I catch the bottom of the wave? I’ll have me a think. In the mean time it’s back to night shifts to try get the projects knocked out. The afternoon is so warm here I’ll be off to the park again – rumoured to hit 28 degrees today whoop!