And thus Uni Year 4 is beginning!
I sit down in my 3rd Domicile in Swansea thinking about where i've been, where i'll go. Experiences I've had, experiences i crave and realise that at the end of the day as I've been told hundreds of times throughout my life that the world is my oyster.
And now I'm entering my 4th year here in Swansea, a city that being honest i could see myself spending the rest of my life in, but as the world is my oyster, would I want to stay here forever and starve myself of new experiences in different areas?
Life is a weird thing, a few weeks ago my landlord was talking to me about this guy out in the tropics who works at a bar, lives in a shack and surfs every day and for him, thats perfect life.
For most people nowadays we're so caught up in consumerism we don't see the world around us. The forests, the hills, the endless green being destroyed in the pursuit of the silicon chip and a false, fleeting sense of happiness we get from having the latest gadget, the latest TV, etc... We're never happy with what we have we always need more!
I was walking through Singleton Park yesterday morning on my way to my last day working for Residential Services at University and opened my eyes to the world around me. Instead of being engrossed in songs on my iPod I listened to Birdsong, instead of checking texts I watched a group of what I believe were either Blue or Great Tits pecking at bark on a tree, of Black Birds hopping along the ground and squirrels running across the ground up into trees.
As mentioned by Agent Smith, we are a cancer of this world. And I just wonder sometimes where we'll stop, whether any animals will survive our relentless expansion and where we'll all be in the future. Then i realise that once again I'm getting too far into the future, I'm missing whats right in front of my face. At the end of the day I can't save the world, I can do my bit to help reduce my carbon footprint, help to reduce the level of electricity I use, start being thankful for what i have in life.
And thus we get back to my 4th year at Swansea! I've been trying to make up a budget for the year. This budget was to ensure that i remain outside my overdraft by the time i eventually graduate next year. But instead of this plan, I'm going to spend it wisely on making sure that i enjoy my final undergraduate year in Swansea and have enough to go out on Holiday next year and enjoy myself. This will however reduce the amount I go out this year in Swansea, instead of multiple times a week only a few times a month I shall be gracing the swansea town and uni clubs. That'll ensure that I don't get towards the end of term and go... hey, where did all my money go! It'll also help with my weight loss efforts!! Win Win surely?
I'm also hoping to reduce the level of multi tasking I do this year to help focusing on things. James Frost (frosty) mentions this in his latest blog and I think I'm going to take a leaf out of his book.
I need to be narrow minded when doing my dissertation which sadly will mean that my "virtual" connection to the world outside will have to sever most of its ties, or at least go quiet for a while. So adieu to the many online communities i contribute to.
Hello World!
[ Entry posted at: Mon Sep 21 09:25:48 2009 | 4 comment(s)... | Cat: Swansea ]
Pete writes:
Go out less? Why, citizen, it is your responsibility to consume as much as you can! FAT IS GOOD
[ Tue Sep 22 15:36:59 2009 ]
Aggy writes:
That's way the bseetst answer so far!
[ Mon Jun 13 00:16:16 2011 ]
Lolly writes:
All you CAN do is own your own thoughts and flneiegs! I think you are powering (AND empowering) along you're doing things for YOU that also have a positive impact on your kids. What he thinks and does are for him to work out by himself that's a huge part of growing as a person. I wish you both the strength and courage to take your own journeys. Perhaps you'll intersect again, further down the path!
[ Tue Oct 16 17:16:16 2012 ]
Yacine writes:
thanks. however even if I detele the extra .000, the code doesn't work as expected. the calculation is not what I expected, i.e., 2000-06-12 23:01:06 should be 960865266 seconds from Epoch. However the script would give me 960782400seconds from Epoch, which actually corresponds to 2000-06-12 00:00:00. it seems that in awk the usage--------------------system("command"$3) --------------------is not going to expand as what we expected if $3 itself contains a space. in this case, $3="2000-06-12 23:01:06" in awk, but the system command only get the first part of it due to the space. the usage--------------------system("command"'$3') --------------------will simply be wrong again, since awk is prevented from expanding $3. my conclusion is that awk can only pass field to system command if the field doesn't contain space and other special characters meaningful for the shell. Within shell programming, we can use quota to escape these special characters, however using quota inside awk, such as "$3", we prevent awk to send out the field. By the way, it seems that single quota within single quota is better to read as two consecutive pair of single quotas. in your example'my variable is '$1''is equivalent to 'my variable is '$1all the best,Michael
[ Wed Oct 31 04:31:03 2012 ]