Merry Christmas Everyone!

The Countdown to Destruction (warmup)

There are only 148 days left until the day of destruction. To celebrate this event, please see photos of Low-rise being destroyed below:

Winter Flu :(

Usually, there are two flu epidemia in Aston before the winter break. The first one is the Fresher's week epidemia that I have discussed before, or Freshers Flu. The second one, I am suffering from right now - Winter Flu. When I went to the nurse in the main building yesterday she basically told me that everyone has it and there is nothing I can do. And it is so true, in the past month one could barely hear the lecturers from all the coughing going and sneezing, and nose blowing going around in a chain reaction around the lecture theatre. So, the nurse advised me to just wait it out and take better care of myself. The recently submitted Econometrics coursework has not really given me much time to be sick, though. In addition, I have been suffering from mild medicine shortage.

First, one of my flatmates (currently suspecting all) stole my paracetamol-based-Bulgarian-hot-drink. I had innocently left it on the kitchen counter to not forget to take it first thing in the morning. I woke up to see the packet used and ruthlessly left on its previous place! The medicine shortage continued due to the fact that I was more or less locked 12 hrs a day in the computer rooms, thus constantly hitting uni-shop when closed. As my illness continues I can't help but think how does it smell in this computer room ATM?

High Stakes and Coffee Breaks (pt. IV)

Today I am having the last coursework-related power study session. I hoped that by now I would be enjoying my winter break. Well, I should've thought of the extra work when I opted to write a dissertation this year. Now, I have an outline of the aforementioned dissertation to submit by the end of the week (i.e. by tomorrow). It did not help that I failed the Placement Report and Placement Journals and now have to re-write them again and submit them again by tomorrow. So, yes, one last day of "torture" :P

High Stakes and Coffee Breaks (pt. III)

I have just submitted the evilest of courseworks that is the aforementioned Applied Econometrics and Forecasting group project. My group has spent the last four weeks with this project at the highest priority; we have stayed in the computer rooms morning till evening trying to "crack the codes" to the assignment; we have been eating takeaway and drinking vending machine drinks; and all this with deadline 14th Dec 23:55. I have just successfully uploaded my group's work (a total more than 300 pages) and am off to finally continue with my life!

High Stakes and Coffee Breaks (pt. II)

Wow, I thought that at least until January I will not be doing a second study oriented post. Unfortunately, I have been hit by a new type of disease that has spread in the Aston Business School - econometrics'obia. My whole course and I have been stuck in the computer labs of the main building for weeks now. And what is worse, we've been spending crazy hours without food or drinks - 9hrs on Wednesday with one break for tea and pastry, 10 hrs yesterday with two breaks, one for a lecture and one for dinner. This is not how I immagined this year.

My dreams have been narrowed down to finishing this "bl***y" coursework and finally seeing my mates who have by now stopped texting me with going out offers as my replies has been "soz, econometrics" for way too long. To think that on the Aston Open Day on Wednesday one visitor asked us (the panel of current students) if the curriculum would be much different from the A-levels. Yeah it would, and the level of difficulty has been rising year on year in an overwhelming manner. As my boss, P.P. said, once you survive a final year in Aston, you can do anything. So, I am off to Excel and EViews fun.

The Countdown to Graduation

While we're on about countdowns, the date for my graduation has been announced as well - 14th July 2011. Here is The Countdown to Graduation.

MySpace-Countdowns

Paparazzi

Today I had the possibly most enjoyable studyexperience ever. Of course, the afternoon lecture was supposed to be no different than any other, but when has that stopped the ever so amuzing Aston students. So, as our lecturer, let's call him S.T., was rapping up the class and the whole theatre was sitting in complete silence, I saw a flash and heard a "click". The girl sitting next to me, let's call her I., had decided to unexpectedly take a photo of S.T.. The process was somewhat sabotaged by the fact that she left her phone's sound and flash on. Before anyone could react S.T. was asking: "Are you taking this for the paper?", as I. attempted to sink underground or, alretnatively, disappear. I don't even remember her answering the question. To be honest, I don't remember the end of the lecture, either. All I know is that I kept laughing until the end of it (and after). So, a Tip for I. (and future paparazzi wannabes): There are photos of the lectureres on the Aston website :P