Triple bad blogger update - on tenterhooks

Apparently you're meant to update your blog every week if you want people to read it. Woops.
However I reckon now is a good time to update because I've got some free time...I'll come to that in a bit :)

Since the last update, I've done two sets of exams and a research project. There were four exams in January, Solar I, Wind I, Water and Biomass I. And the results for the nightmare that was Sustainable Energy Systems. The exam I was worried about most and spent most time on was Solar, because it had some horrible maths in it (mathematical proofs - ugh). Wind turned out to be the most difficult in the end.
Then came semester 2 in very quick succession - I think I had four days of freedom before we started again. We had Integration, which was about integrating renewables into the national grid - all Electrical Engineering and very difficult for anyone who didn't already know all about it. Then Biomass II and Solar II. I changed to Solar from Wind at the last minute and was glad because I really enjoyed it.

An added bit of stress in the January exam period was that we had to choose our projects, which we could pick from a list or propose our own for a 'private deal'. Someone told me about three weeks before the end of the winter term that your enjoyment of the course was pretty much made on whether you enjoyed your project, so it seemed pretty important. While I was revising for Biomass and googling uses for glycerol I came across an article about anaerobically co-digesting glycerol with pig waste, which inspired me (!) and I ended up proposing a project called 'Co-digesting Glycerol and Municipal Solid Waste', which was accepted and supervised by Prof. Andrew Wheatley, who I then discovered was one of the leading lights of anaerobic digestion (he's cited in lots of references). The project was absolutely brilliant, quite a lot of hard work and I needed to go into the lab every day, including weekends, but some interesting results and very satisfying. Somehow my anaerobic digesters became known as my 'poo babies' and were duly named (Raspootin, Pooella de Ville, Poopert, Poodolph and Poocilla Queen of the Desert). Last week I handed in my dissertation and had to do a presentation on my project and findings, and now all I can do is wait. We haven't had our results for the second semester exams yet, so I really haven't got a clue how I've done. Apparently we're going to get the results 'after 21st September'. So definitely not yet, but not long now.

The reason I've got a bit of free time as opposed to infinite free time and a job search is because, almost incredibly, I've found a job! I wrote to the guy that showed us round the Anaerobic Digestion plant at Marmite in November, and he came and met me in Loughborough. Then I went for an interview with his boss, the plant manager, and they've taken me on. I'm going to work in the Safety and Environment Department as an Environmental Technologist. I'm not yet entirely sure what my responsibilities will be but I imagine that there will be a certain amount of negotiation or feeling the way seeing as the job didn't exist before I got to them. Anyway I'm very chuffed to have got the job. I've spoken to my boss and he sounds really keen about what I'm doing and full of ideas about what he wants to achieve. I start on 27th September, in 10 days. Exciting!!

I'll be working in Burton so I've moved into a rented house in Burton. I've spent the last week moving, sorting my house out and biking round Burton getting to know the place properly. I already love living there. Burton is full of activity and industry, the people are lovely and it's just the right size to get around. There are a lot of bridges so it's going to keep me fit if I'm biking everywhere. There's a newly refurbished leisure centre and library too. Yesterday I got a cooker delivered, which was dead cheap and fitted by a lovely and very efficient gas bloke who had it all sorted in a matter of minutes and even arrived early. I celebrated by inviting my mum round for dinner and made mushroom and walnut bolognese. Yum.