Château pwaring

At last, despite the lacklustre response from estate agents I tried to arrange viewings with, I now have a flat to live in. I’m still waiting for all the paperwork to be sorted out by the letting agent, but hopefully I should be able to move in by this time next week—possibly sooner. The place I’m moving to is a small flat in Didsbury, with one bedroom (en-suite) and an open plan kitchen/living room. The kitchen is no more than a few years old, there’s laminate flooring throughout (I much prefer this to carpets, which get dusty and dirty) and the flat has been redecorated this year—in fact the painter was still there when I went to look round. It’s really lovely, with the only disadvantage being its distance from the University, but I am within five minutes walk of all the major bus routes so that isn’t too much of a problem.

One thing I have noticed during my flat hunting is the huge difference between student and graduate accommodation. It’s like being in a completely different world—no hideous 1960’s wallpaper and bathrooms, no cookers with five years worth of fat and grease build up, no manky fridges which only keep food cool for two days, and no damp kitchens (both of my student places suffered badly from the latter problem). I’m paying more than I was for my previous place, but it’s definitely worth it, I just wish I’d been able to afford somewhere this nice when I was an undergraduate. I can’t wait to move in!

posted by Paul at 10:05pm on Friday 21st September 2007 | 2 Comments »

Flat hunting

Due to not knowing where I’d be in September until a couple of weeks ago (I have bounced between the possibilities of Oxford, Cambridge, Manchester and ‘elsewhere generally’ in the last few months) I’ve still not found anywhere to live this year. I did have two viewings lined up for today, but the agency called me this morning to say that they don’t have the keys for the property—not really an encouraging sign—though thankfully they told me this before I’d set off into Manchester. I’m not entirely sure where I want to live—Didsbury is a pleasant area with good public transport, but it involves going through Fallowfield each morning which is not a pleasant experience. At the moment I’m looking at the city centre and have used a few websites to contact five or six letting agencies so hopefully I will be able to arrange some viewings for tomorrow and get things moving as quickly as possible.

Thankfully, the University has finally made me a proper written offer which I have accepted, and I’ve got them to push things forward so that I can actually register next week. Annoyingly I can’t register online from home because my offer is conditional on the award of Masters degree, and I won’t get official confirmation of whether I’ve passed the course or not until November/December. No doubt this will cause confusion at registration, as will the fact that my offer letter states that it is conditional on me getting an MSc, which will be rather difficult to prove.

Anyway, I feel much better about FoE stuff than I did earlier in the week, even if they have annoyed me immensely by pulling out of the current nuclear power consultation which the Government is running, after I’d started to write a response to it (as usual I discovered this via the Guardian rather than directly from FoE).

posted by Paul at 11:28am on Friday 14th September 2007 | No Comments »

Thoughts on my MA

I’ve finally handed in my dissertation, along with all the related paperwork, so my MA is effectively now complete—although apparently it will take until mid-November to get the results. It feels weird to have finished something which has occupied most of the last three months of my life, and to come to the end of a year spent doing something not related to computing for the first time since college. I wasn’t entirely sure what to do until I got my PhD offer, although I did have jobs in mind which I was going to apply for.

On the subject of my MA, although I’m not entirely sure about this, I think it was probably the right thing to have done. I could have gone straight into a job (I had one offer, and other places which I could have applied to, plus offers of freelance work), but I think I would have regretted passing up on the opportunity to do something different for a year. If nothing else, it was almost worth the effort just for the sheer amusement value of seeing the look of utter confusion on people’s faces when I explained what subject my first degree was in—though strangely enough, the reaction was always positive, which wasn’t what I had expected. Giving a paper was good fun, and I enjoyed writing the two assessed essays (yes, I’m weird, I like writing papers/essays) and leading discussions in the tutorials.

On the down side, I don’t think I really fitted in on my course, despite displaying as much enthusiasm as possible in the research training unit and the socials in the first semester. I enjoyed the tutorials and the Latin lessons, but outside of those I always felt rather isolated, which was annoying. The only exception to this was at conferences—I felt much more comfortable at these than I did in the research seminars, and I noticed that the Manchester lot would usually drift off in their own little group whilst I ended up with people from all over the place. Oh yes, and it would have been a much smoother ride had the University not screwed up my registration, my Latin classes, my deadlines and many other things, but I’m almost used to that now, and they would have found a way to be incompetent whatever course I was doing.

Overall, I’m not sure what the MA has done in terms of job prospects, which, regardless of how long I remain a student (anything from one to four years), I will have to face at some point. I think it broadens out my CV and makes me look more interesting than someone who has specialised in the same subject all the way through their education, but I’m not sure if it will be seen as a waste of time by some potential employers—although I probably wouldn’t want to work for someone with that attitude anyway.

Anyway, I’m off to the Friends of the Earth local groups conference at stupid o’clock tomorrow (it will probably take about five hours to get from Bury to Reading), and I really need to start packing, or at least check that I’ve got everything that I need. If anyone desperately needs to get in touch I will have my phone with me, otherwise I will catch up on emails, UA, LiveJournal etc. on Monday morning.

posted by Paul at 5:53pm on Thursday 6th September 2007 | No Comments »

PhD award

Upon checking my email when I got home this evening, I was amazed to find in my inbox something from the School of Computer Science telling me that I’ve been awarded a full Doctoral Training Award from the EPSRC for the PhD I applied for. Woo! Not only does the award cover fees and a maintenance grant, but I also get extra money each year for my previous ‘excellent academic achievement’ (apparently—their words, not mine!) and a recruitment bonus. I am so happy right now. (I haven’t received the formal letter in the post—that should come later this week, at which point I can accept the offer).

Also, I’ve discovered that Oxford didn’t find any suitable candidates for their DPhil, and now it’s a bit too late so they’ve had to put the start date back to January 2008 (presumably if they don’t allocate the money at some point they will lose it). I don’t want to be vindictive, but I do feel a bit of poetic justice in that Oxford rejected me because I wasn’t good enough academically (they specifically mentioned my 2:1 as being part of the reason) and didn’t have much experience of working independently (ignoring the 5+ years of freelancing listed on my CV), and now have no one, yet Manchester saw my application (which probably wasn’t as strong as the Oxford one) in completely the opposite way, and offered me a place.

The only downside is that I can’t apply for the MySociety job now, which looked so perfect, but I’ve been doing various bits of pieces for some projects there (though haven’t got round to offering it up yet as it turned out that someone was already working on one task and had nearly finished and the other things aren’t really ready to show yet) and hopefully I’ll be able to contribute some more stuff over time.

posted by Paul at 8:34pm on Wednesday 29th August 2007 | 4 Comments »

Job hunting

So, having pretty much finished my dissertation, other than some minor edits and a final swathe of proof-reading, and having heard nothing at all from the University regarding my PhD application, I have started looking around for a job so that I can keep my book acquisition programme going beyond the end of September.

The problem is, I’m not really sure where to apply. There is a really cool job going at MySociety which ticks all the right boxes for me – web development (my main area of expertise), charitable project, politics and media focused and flexible working location/hours – but I’m not sure if I tick their boxes. The University is another possibility, with the advantage that I’ve worked there before in two different positions and having been a student for four years means that I have a reasonable understanding of why things work (or don’t) in the way they do. Further afield is Cambridge, which has some interesting jobs going at the University there, but would mean moving away from Manchester.

Anyway, I hand in my dissertation for printing on Tuesday, and after that I will be able to dedicate all my time until conference (where I have to address an audience of several hundred people in the motions debate) on applying for jobs and, almost as important, finding somewhere to live because I’m slowly going mad with having to be in Bury. I’m fairly confident that I can find a job and a flat, but where and how much I don’t know yet.

posted by Paul at 6:26pm on Sunday 26th August 2007 | 1 Comment »

Dissertation

Finally, it is done, or at least it’s as complete as it’s ever going to be. I would spend a bit more time on it, but it takes five working days to be bound, and given that I have to hand it in a week on Thursday and Monday is a bank holiday I really need to send it off for binding tomorrow. After that, I will have finished my MA, and it will just be a case of sitting around and waiting for the result, or in my case running around trying to find a job in the meantime…

Update: It appears that I am a basket case, or a time traveller, or both, as I don’t have to get my dissertation bound until next week. I’ve been working to my super paranoid ‘must get it finished on time’ timetable, which is good as it means that I can now add in a couple of extra sections which I was otherwise going to leave out for reasons of space.

posted by Paul at 12:13am on Wednesday 22nd August 2007 | No Comments »

Going Ape

On Saturday, a group of eight of us from Manchester FoE went to Go Ape, which appropriately involves swinging through trees on an assault course of varying degrees of difficulty. I really enjoyed it, and everyone else seemed to have a good time too, although we did get absolutely drenched towards the end when the heavens opened just as we were lining up for the last zip wire. Sam has lots of amusing photos and videos on her phone which will hopefully be uploaded at some point, including one of me swinging from a platform down onto a rope net with Holly singing the Spiderman TV series theme tune (you can see a video of someone else doing the same on YouTube, though I jumped rather than just dropping down in a boring fashion, and I actually managed to grab the net instead of flailing backwards). I also got asked if I had been before and/or was ‘in the Territorial Army or something’ – I’m not entirely sure what to think of that!

Dissertation

I can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel—either that or it’s a train heading towards me, I won’t know which until I get the marks back. I only need to get 50% in order to pass both the dissertation and the MA overall, and because of the grossly unfair way in which the marking system works I can’t get anything better than a pass overall, even if I get a high mark on the dissertation. I’m a bit worried about whether I’ve hit a high enough level to pass though, I feel my dissertation is better than my essays, for which I got 66% apiece, but the topic—representation of ancient warfare in modern video games—isn’t as classically academic as my other pieces of work, although both my programme director and my supervisor said it was an acceptable subject to tackle. I think I’m mostly worried because everything depends on this, and I don’t think I’d be able to face a lot of people if I failed.

Whilst on the subject of academia, I still don’t know what is happening with my application to do a PhD in computer science. The department asked for some more paperwork from me a couple of weeks ago, which I gave them pretty much immediately, but I haven’t heard anything since. Apparently they still haven’t allocated funding for September yet, so anything could happen, and I probably won’t know one way or the other until the end of August.

posted by Paul at 9:40pm on Monday 20th August 2007 | No Comments »

MA and PhD progress

Thanks to the people who commented on my previous post about not getting into Oxford. I’ve written to the head of student administration about the way my application was handled, so perhaps s/he will do something about it, though I doubt anything will change as a result. I did manage to get some feedback on my application, although it was rather vague. The two main sticking points were me not getting a first (I always knew that might be a problem for Oxford) and insufficient evidence of independent work—obviously running a business for six years doesn’t count for much in academia. However, I have heard a bit more from Manchester about the PhD in computer science—I thought this was dead in the water but apparently it might not be. So far things are sounding promising but I’m still looking ahead with the expectation that I will have to join the ranks of the full time employed come September.

My dissertation is also moving forward a bit more now, and I’ve worked out that writing 500 words a day on average (which isn’t much really—I got 700 done on Saturday) will mean that I will finish with about two weeks to spare in which to thoroughly proof-read the whole thing and get it bound according to the University’s specifications. The Faculty of Arts is useless in that it provides a huge list of requirements as to how to the dissertation must be laid out (including 1.5 or double spacing, which looks hideous), but doesn’t bother to provide a template which would take care of this. Thankfully Computer Science provides a LaTeX template which, with a bit of tweaking from me, provides the layout, as well as some amusing comments from the original author about how people who insist on double spacing will be first against the wall when the revolution comes.

I hope I’m going in the right direction with my dissertation though, as I’ve only had one meeting with my supervisor and he’s not back until Friday. I’m currently aiming to write a detailed description of the Roman army of the late republic, including a commentary on the primary sources (especially Livy, who people seem to think is a storyteller rather than a historian, but what he writes is probably useful for my work), and then moving on to look at how this differs in computer games and why particular elements are represented in the way they are. Unfortunately I’ve discovered that I can’t get a merit for my MA, because one of the requirements is to obtain over 50% in all modules, and as I failed to do this for Latin I will only get a pass, despite the fact that my overall average will be over 60% if I do as well in my dissertation as I did in my two essays.

posted by Paul at 2:40pm on Monday 16th July 2007 | No Comments »

No luck at Oxford

I’ve just got a Word document attached to an email saying:

“I am writing to thank you for your application for the Doctoral Studentship associated with this research project. I regret to tell you that we do not feel able to place you on the shortlist for this position. I thank you, nervertheless, [sic] for your interest and wish you every success in your future academic career.”

It’s not on a University of Oxford letterhead, and looks as if it was knocked up in about five minutes in Word. They didn’t bother to separately acknowledge receipt of my application either.

So I’m not good enough for Oxford and Manchester hasn’t got back to me about funding for the other PhD, which I presume isn’t going to happen. I must be really rubbish if they can’t even be bothered to interview me. I’m really upset too, as I genuinely thought I had a chance at this, what with it being in my two areas of interest/expertise.

Ah well, I suppose I will be staying in Manchester and attempting to get a job like everyone else. I guess this means I can continue doing FoE stuff and perhaps work on my business plans a bit more.

posted by Paul at 10:28am on Wednesday 11th July 2007 | 4 Comments »

DPhil application submitted

I posted my DPhil application today by special delivery, so barring any gross incompetence by the Royal Mail (always a possibility) it should arrive at Oxford before 1pm tomorrow. I felt a bit guilty telling Ali and Sam about it today at our coordinators’ meeting, because it will mean that I might not be around from October to help run Manchester FoE, and Ali is already stepping down after three years so if I do go to Oxford it will leave Sam trying to find two new coordinators for next year. I know I’ll miss the group if I leave, although there is an Oxford FoE which I can join (they’re not quite as active as Manchester, but that can always be fixed! :)).

My dissertation is also coming along slowly, although I have found my copy of Ancient Warfare: A Very Short Introduction which, whilst perhaps not being considered sufficiently academic to warrant citation in itself (though I suspect I can lower this barrier somewhat given the topic of my dissertation), nevertheless contains a useful ‘further reading’ section which will be helpful in building up my bibliography. I’m going in tomorrow to spend most of the day in the library getting quotes and references, as it’s wonderfully quiet now that all the undergraduates have gone…

posted by Paul at 4:36pm on Monday 2nd July 2007 | No Comments »