Thank you (photo by kikashi)

Thanks for bearing with me while I’ve been ill. And thank you for the kind comments both on and off this site. But sorry I haven’t been able to post.

Although it looks like I took the right week to be ill and not post much…

Strangely, I’ve just logged back on to WordPress for the first time in a couple of days and noticed a huge skyrocket in people visiting the site. It appears one of my articles is being found through StumbleUpon. So my thanks go out to whoever put my link there. I might have to log on and see if I can find out who it was to thank them personally.

It might be Friday night, but I wanted to give a small update and explain that I am still here. Bear with me!

Looks like things should return to normal for next week’s posts and I might just keep you updated on things over the weekend. It’s just great to feel close to normal again. In the health sense, at least!

As a special treat, I’ll tell you a few things I overheard when walking around the campus where I work. I’m convinced that it’s possible to overhear enough stuff to fill several books if you hang around for a couple of days on a campus. I’m sure any campus would do. And from what some of you have told me, you frequently hear all sorts of weird and wonderful stuff.

Well, here are three things I overheard on the one day I was actually in work this week:

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1. “I’m sweating my tits off and I need a beer. You probably won’t see me tonight.” – spoken at 9.45am! I presume the two sentences were unrelated, but I kinda hope they weren’t! Not that I’m promoting excessive drinking or anything…mumble, mumble…

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2. A girl was crying. She was sat on a step and shouting unhappily at a man standing one or two yards away. “Why do you keep buying me all these presents? It’s not even my birthday. Why do you do this to me?”

The man tries to speak. He got as far as “…” when she started again with, “I can’t take this kind of relationship!”

People nearby looked scared and stepped slightly further away than they needed. [Okay, that bit’s a slight exaggeration for effect, but still…]

I thought presents were usually pretty good to receive. Maybe he was just rubbish at buying gifts.

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3. A girl walks past a guy. They both acknowledge each other. As they walk on, the girl stops, turns around, and calls to the guy, “I’m really hard for you. Downstairs…you know what I mean?” and then she laughed. The guy smiled and looked a little confused, saying only “See you later” and walking off again.

I wonder what she DID mean. I think he does too!

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If you’re lucky, I might just pop by once more during the weekend as a treat and let you know a couple of the childish things I said on purpose to confuse members of the public when I was in town with friends. I was a cheeky so and so, was I.

Due to illness (cough, splutter, sneeze, etc.), I’ve not finished the EduLinks post, but it’s mainly there, so hopefully there’s enough here for you to be getting on with:

Unclutterer – Zoom Room Bed

I wish my student room had been like this. Okay, so it looks slightly too executive for a student, but it would have been an improvement.

I’m probably such a snob. To be fair, my rooms at the wonderful Winchester were pretty good for student rooms. That probably had something to do with the fact I was in about the second year of students to frequent the rooms. Hardly any time for TOO much damage to have been done.

Still, a bedroom that you can turn into a hardcore lounging and study room? Alright, I’ll drop it now. It’s not going to happen, is it?

Ririan Project – Top 10 Ways to Ruin Your Night

Didn’t get enough from my post on getting to sleep? Here’s a brilliant post over at Ririan Project. It overlaps in some places, but there are so many other great ideas that you’ll need it if you’re trying to improve your sleeping habits.

University of Bath – Student Enterprise’07

Student Enterprise’07 Press Release @ Hero.ac.uk

Want to make money and ALSO be happy? It’s not as easy as it looks for many of the people with megabucks. I’m sure most of us would still like to have lots of money to do whatever we wish, but a lot depends on the mindset.

I like the idea of Student Enterprise’07 conference that’s at the University of Bath on 16 November (Friday). According to the links, the conference is for students to hear about forming ideas for starting companies and making them great. But one talk will be on how to get rich and stay happy at the same time. Gavin Eddy, speaking at the conference, says “The challenge when starting your own business is to be successful on your own terms”.

I wish students at the Uni of Bath (and any others who can make this conference) the very best of luck in their future business plans!

Education Guardian – ‘Beacons’ scheme to link universities with public

Universities to work with the public and take it seriously.

Apparently, academics who engage with the public in their research are not regarded as highly as their other peers. This idea is trying to put a stop to that.

Independent – Crime risk warning to users of social networking sites

I’m still amazed at how much information some students are willing to hand over to the public. I say ‘the public’, because there are many individual profiles out there, available for all to look at. In some cases it’ll be fairly revealing photos, while in others you’ll get full address details and when they’re next going on holiday, etc., etc.

People can now post photos of all their friends to social networking sites and make them available to anyone. And even if they only make it available to ‘friends’, that doesn’t mean the people in the photos are going to want those photos shared with others.

Telegraph – Blogs move into the UK mainstream

If you want to go beyond Facebook, MySpace, et al, then you could always start a blog like this one. Blogging’s all the rage in the UK now…

The Simple Dollar – How to Construct a Killer Resume From Start to Finish

If you’re taking steps to build up a sterling CV after my series of posts, this link provides some good advice on how to make your CV and applications shine.

Studenthacks – Group Study 101: How to Avoid Goofing Off

Looking at a very different set of thoughts to those in my ‘Working in Groups’ post yesterday, Studenthacks.org discusses studying in groups for exam revision and general work, as opposed to talks and presentations. One of my favourite suggestions in the article is “Discuss Class Notes”, because everyone should have a different perspective and open up the discussion somewhat. The more rounded and researched your arguments can be, the more chance you have of getting the pass you want.

I thought I’d take the plunge and go all posh on you. From today, this blog is now accessible from the usual address (https://universityblog.wordpress.com/), but also from the following:

https://theuniversityblog.co.uk/

I’ve got my fingers crossed that everything will cross over smoothly and work in roughly the same way it already was. If you have the blog set up on an RSS reader, I hope you don’t need to make any changes. Please leave a comment if you’re having any difficulty with any aspect of the change and I’ll see if I can iron out the issues.

I don’t know what Google’s search engine will make of this, but hopefully I won’t lose sight of the many people who have stumbled across this site when searching. TheUniversityBlog gets a regular daily flow of visitors to the site, arriving mainly from searches about writing essays, coping with long-distance relationships, and getting to sleep (or staying awake). So hopefully we won’t have to miss them while things sort themselves out!

Anyway, welcome to TheUniversityBlog.co.uk and let’s raise a glass to the future!

Just a small selection of articles regarding Facebook’s announcement that YOU, the Facebook users, will be given the means to connect with the brands and companies that you like.  If you want to be associated with them, Facebook has the power to let it happen…and so on.  For more info:

The Guardian – Facebook’s social advertising system and the rise of the fansumer

The Chronicle of Higher Education – I, the Advertiser

p2pnet – Facebook privacy invasion

John Chow dot Com – Facebook Ads Launching Tonight

New York Times – Facebook Is Marketing Your Brand Preferences (With Your Permission)

New York Times – Facebook Everywhere

Facebook: The Facebook Blog – Facebook Ads