Nex and joe came up with this wonderful idea recently…

pthreads are “Peter threads” made specially for the torture of third years.

Ok, it doesn’t quite hold completely… pthreads are a part of unix. But it is rather suspect that you need to add the -lpthread flag in a standard gcc compilation in order to get them to compile/link.

Ps: nex says joe should get all the credit for coming up with this one. Joe originally said “nex and me”… Who is telling the truth? Find out next week…

Pps: pthreads are also alternatively known as pstrings, by concurrency-illiterate flatmates

Any minute now I’m about to hand in my OS3 assignment. Its not working. In fact, its a complete load of rubbish, and I’m just hoping Peter might just be kind enough to let me have 2 marks “for trying” or something. Not that Peter’s really that kind of person… but its the only hope I have left.

Technically theres still about 3 hours to go before the deadline, but I’ve been staring at that code so long that anything I do now will probably be something I’ve tried before at least 8 times, and will just need undoing again when I discover the error that it causes (and has also caused the previous 8 times).

… and I even got up at 5 this morning in the hope of getting it working.

Anyways, enough of that.

Currently, apart from uni-life, life is rather non-existant. Well, Sabbath is nice cos it’s the one day a week I actually get away from it all. I’m beginning to look forward to the Youth Conference. It will be good to get a chance to see everyone without having all the stress of work hanging over me. Just catch up on everyones news, have a good laugh, ask lots of controversial questions. Having said that, I am dreading seeing some of the people there. No doubt all will be fine on the day, but currently I’m so stressed that I don’t want to have to cope with all the hassle. Also, there’s probably going to be an ‘issue’ about Christine again. I don’t see why they have to make such a fuss. She does have special needs, but its hardly right to make me carry the can all the time, especially when Christine doesn’t want me to, either. She just wants her independance, but instead ‘they’ want to force me into looking after her all the time. Anyways, I’ll just have to wait and see… I’m seriously considering not-going next year if they can’t be a bit more considerate/accomodating to me, cos last time I really didn’t cope with everything just because of ‘them’. It kinda spoilt the whole conferance on me. But then, if I didn’t go I’d miss seeing everyone! And in spite of feeling so awful last time, it was still nice to be with everyone again.

On the topic of seeing friends again, I’m hoping very much that I have nothing on around Synod time. The Watkins are going to be over, and if I’m not very much mistaken, they will proly call in at Ebenezer. I’d so like to see them again!

For some of us, that’s just been a pretty normal day.

Nothing *exciting* happening… but then, no tears either, so I guess I have nothing to complain about

Having said that, I don’t actually understand how anyone doing my course is expected to have a g/b-friend. You’d have to end being pretty mean to them… i.e. not spending a lot of time with them *all term*. Well, either that or fail your course.

Conversely, its depressingly noticable how much the folks on my course are missing out on social interaction in general. Ok, some of them still go out the occasional Friday night to get drunk (not that I personally favour that form of social interaction), but still nothing like the amount of time you spent catching up with friends in first year.

But, you kinda start to care about all these people you’re practically living with. And…. we all miss ‘people’ I think. Ok, we’re all in this together, and we got each other. But that’s not the same. And not so helpful either, when you work with these people all the time, and work/time-off get too wrapped up in one another. We kinda need a break from each other, and we need the whole diversity of people that life has to offer. The friend who needs your advice ‘cos somethings just turned upside-down. The relations who’re always there to give a good break from all things rest-of-the-world related. The always-there person who just never fails to wind you up. I want them all back!!

One of my friends was saying recently that when he’s got his degree, he just wants a 9-5 job. That really sums up things. I’d just like to have my life seperated out, again. The line of work does seem to demand/commend/favour work-aholicism, and likes people to be willing to work as and when required “just to get the job done by the deadline”. But, how long can the average person last like that?! 10 years at most? 20 at a push. And what do you get out of it? The 2 weeks in the sun every year. Ok, its maybe more ‘expensive sun’ than some other people get, but it all seems a bit materialistic. That’s your ‘reward’ for being available to work late many evenings/weekends and be constantly stressing about work. Nah, I think the 9-5 ideology has a *lot* more going for it! (Yep, nex, looks like you just might be right… again!)

I really don’t have a clue exactly what I’m going to do once I’ve got my degree. Don’t suppose there will be any world-shattering revelations, but I’m not overly reconciled to just joining the rat race with everyone else. No doubt that’s one of the things that will happen, at least in the short term… but I’m still trying to work out exactly what I should be doing with my life. Maybe some Prince Charming will come along… or maybe I’ll go off to the other side of the world, just for the change of scenery… or maybe I’ll just branch out in some wee (work-related) venture of my own… That last one sounds a bit too much like hard work, so it’d have to be some really amazingly interesting venture in order to be worth my while. Hmm, maybe I’ll just try starting again. *Fresh sheet of paper* *-)(?thinking?) All suggestions welcome!

Anyways, some good news. I think I’ve got a job with Graeham Technology for the summer, so at least that’s one worry off my mind.

My world is going mad…. ‘The Dude’ was sitting in the 3rd year lab talking to himself today… That just about sums up what I have to look forward to. I gather he was only in our lab ‘cos Lauren was, but nevertheless the “talking to himself” bit was rather un-nerving, and a bit amusing too, I must admit.

I came into uni today (note: today = Saturday) to work on my assignment. I was working about four hours solid on it when I got there, and had already done about an hour or so at home. Marv and Nex were looking at this cool wee calculator program we found out about: http://will.thimbleby.net/calculator Other than that, uni was just SQL-stress. Oh, and Nex being kind enough to lend me some DVD’s. Dunno when I’ll get a chance to see them, but ’tis good all the same.

Nex got his query working; I didn’t. Uni-wise everything is all a load of shattered fragments at the mo, and I don’t know if I can ever get them all glued together in time for deadlines/exams. Well, we’ll see, but for the moment I think I just need a good cry… (I don’t think I’ve had a proper cry in a long time , I’m about due one methinks, before I end ‘bursting’ at an inopportune moment as has very nearly happened on about three seperate occassions in the past two days.)

My Dad is working a 48-hour shift right now. Once again I fall *way* behind the extraordinary example set me by my Dad. I admire him tremendously. I have nothing to complain about, really, but nevertheless I still want that wee cry