Well, life moves on.

I've just finished my paper for the IDS 2006 conference in Budapest, Hungary in August. IDS stands for International Drying Symposium.
I worked my butt off for it, and then to discover that when submitting it onto their upload server they extended the deadline from today the 15th to the 27th March,.... so annoying so annoying... if they had told us, I wouldn't have had to rush it like I did...

On other things, I've applied for a job in England, at the University of Bristol. The job number is 11973, Prosector Post, 5 year contract, 20-22k£/year. I couldn't let an opportunity like that pass me by, so I applied, knowing fully and intending to leave my PhD if I get the job. The applications closed on Feb 27th, and they said if they were going to give me an interview, it would be within 4 weeks of the closing date (pretty standard) well, so far, nothing, so still another 11 days of anxiety (thus my MSN title if you see me while I'm at uni)......
~Sigh~
But because if I get the job, then I will be attempting to finish a MER (Master Engineering by Research) so that the project at least has something to show for it besides being *cursed*....
Cursed? you say, well, lets say that it's had not much luck. First person to start the project leaves it without results after 8 months, no papers, no conferences etc. Then I come along and then things go bad, ie, oven dies, dryer fuse dyes, I hurt my back, industry sponsor moves offices and doesn't inform us, thus funding issues, then spray dryer tip breaks, then dryer fuse dies, then drier motor dies,...... so yeah, it's not exactly been the most smooth transition in this project. But at least on the other side, I've done two conferences, submitted for a 3rd, and have two potential journal papers in the cogs being turned. ~shrug~

Onto other things.
Archery is moving along well. We had 62 people join up during O-week, which was a bit poor in terms of numbers, but the turnout has been quite good with some people showing definte potential happening. There is a tosser by the name of Vlad. Vlad, if you read this, you're a dickhead. And if you know what is good for you, you should tone down your attitude when you are at archery, lest I kick your arse out of the club for doing stupid things.
Enough said.

Haven't been to kendo for ages, but I've been having training with Jimmy in by back yard a few times and that has been really good actually. So, hopefully if the weather is good this weekend, we'll be back beating each up in my back yard. I've also set up a messageboard for the kendo group to stop the mailing list of the yahoo group getting spammed.

Onto further other things.
I got a white PSP!
Whooot.
Now I'm just in the market to get a 2GB Memory Stick Pro Duo for it so I can watch anime on the train, cos the train trip is ~40min, so I can watch 4 episodes to and from uni hehehe.
I also bought Kingdom of Paradise (it's a RPG) and it's pretty fun so far in the 46min I have played it.
In the market to look for a english version of Me and My Katamari too hehe, Bigger, Bigger, BIGGER!!!!!!

Kirsten was sick yesterday, throwing up and having a bit of a fever, but it got better around 36 hours, so not really sure what it was, but she called it a 24 hour bug as her mother had something similar a few months back... I can't say I've ever had that..... Though it wasn't food poisoning (and I've had that before,... not pleasant at all....)....

Hmmm, I think that's about it for now.