After seven months my final year project is now almost over! I handed in my hefty final report today - a whole day early. It is quite a weight off my shoulders, but that isn't the end of the course yet...

...only one report, two presentations and four exams to go before I'm finished at university. I'm counting down!

The project was basically to create a website to help students find houses whilst away at university, but it aimed to give people more information about the places they were looking at - such as nearby pubs, supermarkets and bus stops. And it worked too, apart from the bus stops because I had problems getting the data for them.

Link: general module information

I discovered Cadbury's Gifts Direct yesterday and have to say I was very impressed.

I was trying to find something to put a smile on my face after just being rejected from a job I'd applied for and really wanted. Not only that, but university deadlines are here-there-and-everywhere at this time of year (especially in the final year) and at the same time I have to sort out what I'm going to be doing for the coming year. Generally quite a stressful time of year. Not to mention the imminent exams!

... Well, a cuddly parrot and a lot of Mini Eggs will help, I thought. And today when they arrived packaged in their trademark purple Cadbury box, they definately did put a smile back on my face. Cadbury's offered a guaranteed next day service and the cheaper standard delivery which I opted for. It still arrived by 10am the next day!

What can I say, I'm a Mini Egg monster!

The University of Manchester and UMIST are merging this year to form one big university - also called the University of Manchester. With the thought that some of the university buildings may be disappearing over the next few years I thought it would be a good idea to go out and capture the beauty of some of them.

I have been wanting to go out around Manchester more since being back from London, as I'd not really been out taking photos here for quite some time. The week of lecturers strikes last week inspired me to go out and take some photos, both of the universities and of the picket lines - photos of the AUT and NUS picket lines to come soon.

In addition to these new Manchester photos, I've uploaded sunrise photos from the Isle of Man taken on the last day of 2003.

As promised yesterday, I have just uploaded the photos from the truly beautiful Ballaugh Beach Sunset which I took towards the end of 2003. You can find them in the Ballaugh, Isle of Man photo gallery.

Ballaugh is perhaps better known not for its sunsets but for its hump-back bridge over which the annual TT races have to travel. I hope you enjoy the photos as much as I do sharing them...

Before Christmas I went to see Finding Nemo at the cinema and thought it was brilliant... despite the fact it's sort of aimed at kids. Well, it came out on DVD on Friday and I was so excited when I found it waiting for me on my doorstep before going into university. I spent last night watching the movie and then today watching all of the special features. It's so good!

Over the past few months, it seems like I've had no time to myself with lots of university work on. One of the things that I'm working on is my Final Year Project, which I've decided to create a website for. It's a website called the Student Housing Helper, and basically it helps students find accommodation for their time at university. It is also going to help them find out more about the area around the houses - so, for example, it'll list the pubs which are nearby and the bus routes which go into university or into the city centre. Once the whole thing is a little more complete, I'll add a link to it from this site...

Oh, and talking of all these things I have to do, I still have a load of photos from the Isle of Man and from around Manchester to upload to the photo galleries. Hopefully I will actually get around to it very soon. Fingers crossed!

ps - Happy Leap Year!

Welcome to 2004 and I wish you all a Happy New Year! It is now 4 years since we passed the millenium milestone and it doesn't seem that long at all.

I was hoping this morning to be able to get out to take some photos of the New Years sunrise, though sadly I didn't surface early enough. I did manage to get some shots from New Years Eve sunrise looking over the South of the Isle of Man, and also a number of sunset photos from the day before up at Ballaugh beach. I will be uploading them to the site soon...

I was recently looking through my site and realised that I haven't changed the picture on my about me page for over 2 years...

Well, I finally thought I'd update it and so I've replaced it with a picture taken on Tuesday before a ball. I was very lucky to be invited to the Buckingham Palace Christmas Ball, which was a fantastic night. We even got to meet a few of the Royal family, which was a little surreal!

If you click on the full picture, you'll see me all dressed up in my dinner suit instead of just my face...

Sorry for not updating the website in a long time, I've had so much work on at university it's been crazy. I'm finished now until the new year (apart from revision for exams) and looking forward to going back to the Isle of Man for my Christmas break.

I'd just like to take this opportunity to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

I've just noticed that there have been some problems with voting for photos lately... it wasn't taking any more than 255 votes in total, so many of the recent votes you have added sadly haven't been stored. However, you can now rectify your votes if you wish by going back in and adding your vote again.

I've been away at university between September and now - starting my final year of my course. There is so much work to do, with my final year project (a website to help students find houses) and work for all my modules too. Sorry for the lack of updates, I've not really been out with my camera for a while and haven't done anything on the site, so not much to report on really.

I'm back on the Isle of Man at the moment for reading week, but looking forward to going back at the weekend.