I keep finding music and thinking, I could use that!  But then I keep wondering what video i’ll make to use said music on.  For instance, just discovered Ride of the Valkyries as Royalty Free on audiomicro.tv

They even have sound effects, why haven’t i used this site before?

Free Sound Effects
Download Free Sound Effects from AudioMicro.

hehe, and to top it off, i get 5 free credits for telling you about it too, love this site XD

It seems that we have become a rather nosy species, we always want to know how each others day was, what they got up to, where they went blah blah blah.  This has been escalated to the point of insanity with the dawning of twitter.  With twitter, a person may place online exactly what they are doing at any one time, a sort of reverse stalking, forcing public your own private life.  The problem we seem to have is what our conscripted stalkers will do when we leave out certain details.

This is shown more than anything in the School of Computing, (see, this is a student relevant blog).  Here at Dundee University’s School of Computing, most of us students are tweeters, and yes we realise that tweeting tweeters on twitter use some of the most insufferable jargon of any computer meme.  When all of us are packed together in labs and lectures, we know exactly what each other are doing and thanks to twitter, now we can get confirmation of that fact with each others “in the labs” tweets.  But now we know what each other are doing when we’re not in the class room.  One can sit and say “Hey, Josh is in a Japanese Lecture, he’s bored.”  We can say this because Josh tweeted so on twitter.  But what happens when we don’t say what we’re doing?

Well i have observed the phenomenon that is “twitter status withdrawal symptoms.”  I observe this when arriving to the labs and being demanded of my location and doings directly prior to arriving in the form of the question “where were you?!”

“Where were you?” has become one of my pet peeves.  People now rely on twitter for my current activities so much that they simply cannot abide to not know what i’m doing if i do not tweet it.  This peeve of mine resulted in a rather vulgar experiment today, what would happen if i did fill twitter in on the missing details?

The occasion that i hate being asked where i was the most is when i am returning from the lavatory.  Having only been away for say two minutes, people have been so addicted to my current location updates that they wish to know where i was for such a minuscule moment in time.  I threatened several times that i would start posting details of my bowel movements on twitter if they were so very interested.  Today i did it.

When i was upon the throne today, i posted details of where i was and what i was doing in the form of “Daily Bowel Movements on Twitter.”  Having been so sure that i was filling the final gap on twitter you wouldn’t believe the barrage of unwant i received in response to my tweets.  Suddenly it wasn’t “where were you?” but it was “why would you tell us where you were?!”

It would seem that followers on twitter don’t want to know everything, but they don’t know that until you tell them everything, but of course if you don’t tell them everything, they demand to know everything.  You see the dilemma?

Twitter seems to have turned us all into socially acceptable stalkers, but even then we don’t want to know everything about a person.  Even if we are making our private lives public, it’s important to know what parts should be kept public, if just for our collective sanity.  Unfortunately this does not solve the problem of the annoying question “Where were you?” but perhaps this rather nifty response of mine will:

“None of your business!”

I went to a party last night.  To be honest, I didn’t enjoy it very much, been going through a hard time recently, my estranged wife left the country with my daughter and I’ve been struggling to enjoy much at all, so having found it rather depressing I ended up going home while no one was looking.  Don’t worry, I’m not going to bore you with personal life, I’m just trying to prove a point.  You see there’s a common belief in a stereotype of student.  Students are young people, just out of school who want nothing more than to go out every night and get drunk and have sex.  Hell it seems obvious that all we do is sex, drugs and rock and roll.  Eugh, if only.

As student representative for my year, I’ve got to know all sorts of students and I’ll point out the definitive phrase there being ‘all sorts’.

It’s my belief that there is no such thing as a student stereotype.  From what I see, the only thing that makes these people similar to each other is that they’ve all come to study at university.  Student’s are from all age groups, countries, beliefs, attitudes and personalities.  It just wouldn’t fit that they’d all be party mad kids.  To facilitate so many different types of people, The University of Dundee has to be able to facilitate their needs, whether it be through activities, societies or support.  See, I am going somewhere with this.

For every student and for every need, there’s a service.  For the sporty student, there’s a club for every body punishing desire: fencing, swimming, athletics, canoeing… water polo?  Hey you can even join the rucksack club, a club that was named so long ago that its members now live in fear of suggesting a new name.

Sports not your thing?  Then how about the politics society?  Book club?  Perhaps you’d like to meet like-minded people of your religion, Christian?  Buddhist?  Muslim?  There’s even a society for atheists.

This week I discovered that support for your situation can be found anywhere.  My difficulties have been causing me to miss several lectures, I thought I’d better inform one of my lecturers why I hadn’t been attending and immediately I’d been invited to attend counselling on campus, an offer I must admit I refused out of my keen talent of stubbornness but it’s good to know that university services go beyond just activities, support for depression, financial issues and even your health exist right here on campus and all you need do is make contact.  So what ever your need, or what ever need you find crops up, it’s nice to know that who ever you are, there’s something there for you.

So there is no stereotype of student, there are many different types of people attending Dundee University but this is not a problem, because Dundee University can accommodate for us all.  Even boring anti-socialites like me.  Now doesn’t that bring a smile to your face.

Let me tell you about my day yesterday.  I woke up at nine and left for my morning lecture at ten.  I’m studying Applied Computing and I’m now in my second year.  I’m class rep for all second year students studying at the School of Computing.

After an hour in a lecture learning about polymorphism in C++ I’ve left feeling like I’ve not learnt a thing, this is the way of most of our lectures, we’re taught what they plan to teach us but the real learning is in practise, now knowing the starting knowledge of polymorphism it is my job to research it further and see how I can use it in my projects.  We’re warned by Michael, our C++ hating lecturer, at the start that we will not understand a word he says and really its something that we can only hope will just one day “click” in our brains several years down the line.  I still don’t fully understand what polymorphism is or why I should use it, but I’m sure I will use it on a day to day basis even if I don’t realise it.

I now have a two hour wait till my next lecture but this doesn’t mean I have a break.  For two hours I sit in the computer labs, along with several other computing students from various years, working on my coding assignment.  To make a program that simulates a cash machine in C++.  Although we’ve only been learning the language for a couple of weeks we’ve been thrown in the deep end.  Much of what we’ll write is from our own research, Google being our main aid of study.

This is a large assignment, which we’ve had three weeks to work on that is due on Monday.  It’s hard work but I’ll get there.

After an hour we decide to go for lunch, on our way in to town I’m told there’s a new Burger King just opened in the Overgate Centre.  I decide that rather than my normal McDonalds lunch I’ll give it a go, see if Burger King makes a hardy student meal.  At Burger King the new store looks good, well set out and cosy though this is not important as I’m here for take away.  After five or so minutes in a queue I’m at the front with a woman wandering around side to side in front of me.  A girl calls out “Next here!” I turn to the woman in front and ask if she’s in the queue, she attempts to tell me that she’s already ordered but before she can finish, the girl at the counter bellows “NEXT HERE NOW!”  A little shocked, I approach the counter, I ask for an Angus Meal with no tomatoes.  Noting that the prices are the same as at their retail park stores (expensive) I ask if they have any student discounts, “no!” she says sharply, almost sounding offended that I asked, “that’s £5.20” she says, still having not once said please.  I hand over my card and she darts her eyes at me and says “is this your card?!” A little shocked at this accusation I say yes and she informs me that I’ll need to sign for my purchase, it seems they still don’t have chip and pin after four years of the rest of the country being updated to the new secure technology.  I sign for my purchase and am informed that it’ll be a few minutes wait for my burger, this makes perfect sense seeing as I’ve asked for a custom made meal with no tomato.

After five minutes I finally get my meal, she shoves it toward me in a small bag, the burger box stuffed in on its side to make it fit.  “That’s yours,” she inputs, “NEXT HERE!”

I leave Burger King a little shaken, I go find a spot outside to sit and eat my meal.  After all that wait, I’ve received a standard meal complete with tomato, the bun is dry like it’s been sitting on their selves for several days.  Having worked two shifts in a McDonalds restaurant a few years ago, I know that all their ingredients are fresh and with a regular turn around, obviously the same doesn’t apply at Burger King, even if you are paying a good two pounds more for effectively the same meal.

Now 1pm it’s time for my Information Technology lecture, this is the final lecture before we give a presentation of what we’ve been working on for the IT brief, an alternative text input device for people who can’t use a keyboard.  This lecture goes well, although not the most exhilarating of lectures, it is interesting and though provoking.

Now my lectures are over but my day isn’t finished, you see, I’m also signed on as a student tutor so I now have four hours in the labs teaching first years web authoring, part of today’s lesson I have to take up informing the freshers that they require a class rep, a position that I held last year and so was informed I would be best to tell them about.  There is much reluctance among them for taking this role, which surprised me actually as it’s a role I enjoyed very much and frankly, it looks great on your CV.  After a few minutes of tedious avoiding the subject, several first years look to the back of the room at one guy.  Their nomination had been made, I spoke to him about it and he told me if no one else is interested, he may as well do it.  A few minutes later, after sitting with other students and explaining the role, I’ve had no further luck.  I go back to the lab where this guy is sitting and tell him, “Congratulations, you’re now the first year class rep.”  The reaction was not one that I expected, immediately there was ruckus as all the other freshers have stood up in standing ovation, wooting, whistling and cheering their new class rep.  Can’t say I was ever so celebrated.

At 6PM, my labs tutoring time ends.  I go back though to sit in the labs, my friends are done for the day and are packing up to leave, but I have to work on my code.  Thankfully, all computing students have 24 hour access to the labs so there’s no need for me to leave.

I sit and get on with my code, after an hour or two, I’m alone in the lab so I put on some music.  Whilst listening to spotify and drinking large doses of caffeine filled coca cola I code late into the night.  It’s ten to midnight and my left leg has fallen asleep so I take the hint, I pack up my things and I go home straight to bed.  This is a normal day for me, I will probably do it again today, and again tomorrow… but I won’t be going back to that Burger King.