Palfrey's life

Well, I've survived the supposed worst day of the year with only minimal damage. I was pleased that it started to snow a bit last night, but things did manage to start off rather badly this morning with a chunk of icy road managing to force me off my bike. Got away with what felt like minimal damage, but my back on my left side is *still* bloody hurting, so I'm now less optimistic.

Spent 3 hours this afternoon invigilating for an exam. This is one of the points at which I realise the difference between the Dutch and English degree course schedules. This exam was for 2nd year computer scientists (i.e. they've spent 1.5 years minimum doing CS), with 4-option multiple-guess and full open book (we're talking the book, a set of lecture slide printouts *and* the guide booklet for the course from the lecturer in a number of cases), and for some reason a 50-60% pass rate. Now, this material is about the sort of standard that we on the Bristol CS course were doing in the 1st year (Haskell + a bit of predicate logic work), and that with no multiple-choice and no books in sight, and with a pass rate a slight higher that 60%. And I wonder why this course takes 5 years to do the master vs. 4 years for most english courses (admittedly this is mainly 'cause they don't do any selection before you start a degree). There was a brief interesting moment when I realised we had this guy sitting there wearing a 'I did Paris Hilton' baseball cap sitting in front of a girl in full hijab (as in External Hijab, the one marked "Hijab (3)"), but otherwise fairly boring.

New (to me) bands I've been enjoying: Senses Fail (any band which does a song called "Angela Baker And My Obsession With Fire" is fun in my book), and Our Lady Peace (with the entertaining album Happiness Is Not a Fish That You Can Catch).

Having fun and games avoiding the scary Netherlands military types getting the guided tour around my building, while I'm sitting here being my usual scuzzy self and putting post-it note segments on little computers.... oh, the joy. At least the adaptive LDR sensor interpreting software is working well, so I could theoretically give them a little demo if they decide to wander in vs. standing outside and being told about what our group does.