Well, that’s it, done and dus­ted. Uni­ver­sity life is now offi­cially over — I am no lon­ger a stu­dent. My four years stud­ying a Mas­ters in Elec­tro­nic Engi­nee­ring at War­wick Uni­ver­sity have come to a fruit­ful end. It’s odd thin­king of the very first day when I moved into Roo­tes with my big boxes, going up the stairs for the first time, seeing that awful bright yellow paint, unpac­king and chat­ting with Sam and Kayte for the first time. Good memories.

This final year was spent in Red­fern cam­pus accom­mo­da­tion, with old friend Ste­ven and new flat­ma­tes Jo, Madhu­mita and Robert. It has been a great year. Here is a short but happy-memory indu­cing list. Ten pin bow­ling — both real and Wii based, mas­sive marathon video game con­quests (Bur­nout Revenge, Kata­mari, Bom­ber­man, Wii Sports, Red Star), birth­day cele­bra­tions, the adven­tu­res of Bobby Green and Snowy Bob, tal­ka­tive fridge mag­net non­sense, watching Pla­net Earth, fridge and free­zer space mayhem, the rot­ting cele­riac, Madhumita’s bell rin­ging and supers­ti­tions, the donkey-film fiasco (and the asso­cia­ted eeyore jokes), New Year cele­bra­tions, Christ­mas deco­ra­tions, Madhumita’s quo­tes and blue tac sculp­tu­res, outings to Zizi’s and Piccolini’s “I could be a vam­pire — but you’re vege­ta­rian”, eating two meals at once in Wethers­poons after Oceans 13, sha­ring artsy fartsy films with Jo, going on walks around Heron­bank (to my sec­ret pond), taking trips to the per­fect Arts Cen­tre Cinema (£2.50 stu­dent tic­ket for films such as Zodiac, This is England, Infa­mous and others), buying bar­gain £3 DVDs from the now defunct Fopp, jug­gling in the kitchen (3 ball, 4 ball, mill’s mess, 5 on the floor), the faulty Xbox 360 issues, com­ple­ting that Mars EBM assign­ment, Future Elec­tro­nics “big time” and “for sure”, kitchen visi­ting spa­rrows, wood­pec­kers, rab­bits, squi­rrels and a sin­gle fox, War­wick Art Centre’s tuna jac­ket pota­toes with salad gar­nish, my inter­net ban and resul­ting scrubs marathon, base­ment lab conc­rete slab tes­ting for hours on end, pain­ful all nigh­ters on 300 page pro­ject report and pos­ter, my poor tummy and appen­di­ci­tis, rewar­ding revi­sion marathons (and mis­sing the Bris­tol Rovers pro­mo­tion), lear­ning man­da­rin chi­nese, the lunar eclipse on the night of Steven’s birth­day meal and wii com­pe­ti­tion, watching Liver­pool knock out Chel­sea on HD pro­jec­tors outside in the gar­den after feas­ting on a BBQ, rea­ding Graeme’s fri­day eve­ning “wee­kend joy” texts and laser/smell of bur­ning eye sto­ries, eating fresh French baguette and Camem­bert after retur­ning on a long hard bike trip to Tes­cos, the moun­ting rust pro­blems my bike suf­fe­red as a result of being left outside in the rain, the mag­pies attac­king the bin bags, the “cost-cutter” chime, the inc­re­dibly wet sum­mer, pla­ying Fris­bee on the green outside, watching films with the TV at the foot of the bed, watching the clea­ner rota­tion as ours was off sick again, buil­ding up recyc­la­ble skysc­ra­pers in blue bags, pla­ying corri­dor golf with the plas­tic golf set and Ste­ven losing his ball under my bed, pla­ying long range corri­dor darts and skitt­les, being solemn as Madhu­mita rushes away for the last time, doing that 1000 piece puzzle on top of my dra­wers, buying fans and crea­ting cus­tom made wasp nets, seeing Madhu­mita play Halo, boi­ling up the kettle and having a nice cof­fee and crois­sant break­fast before star­ting revi­sion, pla­ying Scat­ter­go­ries and LOTR Risk (too geeky?), rea­ring my grape found cater­pi­llar to a full fled­ged moth, indoc­tri­na­ting Sam in the ways of BSG, taking down my pos­ters for the last time, Jo’s regu­lar parsnip-carrot and mince meal, Steven’s toad in the hole and chips, Roberts plas­tic cut­lery and balloon antics (see: Madhumita’s cup­board), Madhumita’s smelly night time thing and yoghurts left in the mic­ro­wave, the 2 for £3 tesco piz­zas that got me through, wee­kend trips to Lei­ces­ter to visit Sam where we would shop at Fen­wicks or on the off chance go to Riley’s or cook something won­der­ful and ins­pi­red. And taking pic­tu­res for the last time as I pack up the car and pre­pare to go home.