Rory Franklin

The weather has been absolutely stunning recently. It’s not often that the UK gets good weather, but that makes it extra special when we do!

Unfortunately, this recent bout of good weather has come smack in the middle of exam season. I’ve tried sitting outside revising in the sun, but there are too many distractions such as random noises (mostly 1st years having fun as their exams don’t start for a little while yet) and my notes being blown around (it’s not too windy, but there is a nice breeze).

Speaking of exams, so far I have had one exam. It was for Computer Security and Cryptography. The exam was probably the best exam we could have had (in terms of what topics came up), but I stupidly got myself confused between a transposition cipher and the Vigenere Cipher (Substitution) - meaning that I’ve lost about 10 marks out of 60. I was so annoyed with myself as I knew the answer completely, but just wrote about the wrong one!

I have a 15 minute presentation to give to some examiners on Monday that I have yet to prepare for. It should be alright though, and I’m planning on writing it tomorrow so I have most of tomorrow to prepare for it. After that I have an exam on Wednesday (Software Failure and Risk) that I am going to fail - it is a horrible module. I have two more exams on the 22nd and 23rd ("Human Computer Interaction" and "Concurrency Design and Practice" respectively) and then I am done… sort of. I have a Viva Voce as well, where I am interviewed about my final year project.

Now that my housemate Chole is back, I’ve been running again. I did a 5 1/2 mile run on Thursday and a 6 1/2 run this evening, so I’m back on track!

I also went and saw Be Kind Rewind on Friday. I thought it was quite good, and found lots of the sweded films to be very funny. Some of my friends were less than impressed, but some of that was due to the fact that they had not seen the original films that Jack Black and Mos Def recreated.

I saw advertisements for the film Stardust last year and really wanted to go and see it, but unfortunately never had the opportunity. I even read Ben’s opinions of the film, which just made me want to see the film even more.

I finally got around to watching it the day before yesterday and absolutely loved it. So much, in fact, that I watched it again last night. I don’t remember the last time I did that with a film.

The film had humour, action, love, magic and I never found myself thinking that a particular scene was dragging on or unnecessary. I just thoroughly enjoyed it.

I would definitely recommend it, even if you aren’t a big fantasy fan. I found Robert De Niro’s character very good, and Ricky Gervais didn’t annoy me (which is a rarity!).