This is The Monday before The Thursday, and The Thursday is approaching too quickly and with too much force. I spent the most part of the weekend putting together the boards, then most of today split between trying to get into the workshops and trying to expand foam into all the right places. It hasn't worked so far.

Some swift changes in my engineering means that I have one last shot at success tomorrow morning. If that fails, I really am going to be vexed as what to do. I have been gluing, painting, sanding, spraying, mixing and generally getting messy which under other circumstances might be very enjoyable, but with a considerable mound of paperwork looming over the top I once again find myself, to use a technical term, 'wired'.

If you happen to see me in the next two days and I am carrying anything pointed or with a sharp edge, it would be advisable to talk quietly and stay out of throwing distance.

It's the weekend, but not for me. The final hand-in on Thursday is quite definitely the most important submission in the entire three years I've been at university. I need a finished prototype, boards, logbook, report and presentation complete. Complete so far: none. It is really hard for someone outside to judge quite how much work this entails, but as a heads up; if you don't hear from me before Friday it is purely coursework related.

On a slightly brighter note (yet still course related), I finish my degree totally the day before my 21st birthday. Some people will still be presenting, and my housemates are all in exams, but yes, I will be 21 and free from the clutches of education.

My Macbook has apparently been dispatched. I didn't get much space to explain this before, but here is the deal. I've been wanting to switch to a Mac for a while, or at least have one to work from. I also needed a laptop as working on the move becomes increasingly hard - especially when lugging the old WDM back and forth from home. This is my opportunity to cash in on the student discount and provide myself with a much needed aid to my life. My main concerns are having to buy all the extra bits like a case, a mouse (maybe), and especially the duplicate software. I'm not unhappy or unsure though. This is the second most expensive best purchase since my camera six months ago. Another thing to distract me from what I am meant to be doing...

The Zutons were fantastic and although the journey back was a bit of a mission (Sean and I had to be back for the morning, the trains to Loughborough stopped at 10.15pm and Mother had to be called in for some transport-related assistance). The Academy is a quality venue, and we were fairly close to the stage meaning some good photos. The supports were alright, but were totally blown out of the water by the main performance which was lively, animated and easy to recognise. We both decided the lighting was fairly impressive too.

Currently I'm boshing out some renderings for the display boards. Roll on Friday.

This will be brief as I need sleep, but I've just got back from watching the Zuton's live at the Birmingham Academy. Truly, truly awesome. I would pay to see them again in the blink of an eye.

Secondly, I have succumbed to my own drool and ordered a Macbook. Woo yay for sporadic expensive purchases (minus the student discount)!

Why, oh why is it that whenever Apple release a new product do I start drooling? Well I know the answer, and its the same-old-same-old combination of a love of the aesthetic and things that make me go oooh. I've been needing a Mac laptop for a long while (not only do I need a laptop for convenience's sake, I also need a Mac test environment) and I'm being sorely tempted to make a purchase now. The worse thing is my student tastebuds are being tickled by the student discount option which I will lose in about a month's time; the opportunity is now and now alone. An even more tortuous question is do I go for a black'n'shiny one, or a silver'n'purring one? Currently I'm feeling the little black number, mostly for the form factor and also that my requirements do not yet warrant a high-spec machine. But the option to swap my main development platform in the future? It's probably not worth the extra 300 quid, or is it? Hmmm.

Workshop stuff today started out badly. I lost a part, or at least I am saying I lost it in order to stop my anger from spiralling out of control. The truth is I think one of The Fresh or a second year might have picked it up, thought, "that'll do me," and welded it to their project. I had to remake it and it took up half the day. Not pleased.

I'm also a little concerned that with the deadline just a week and a bit away, that I'm still building, especially when I wonder about the type of report I'm going to be able to write in such a short period of time. This really isn't fun. I need more time, or I need less work. Either, or, or both.

It's not often that I get woken up in the early hours of a morning by a girl wearing a (very) makeshift bikini. Not that I'm complaining.

Workshops have proved a drugde once again, and by mid afternoon I found myself lost in my own little world surrounded by emery cloth and metal filings. Before you knew it, five o'clock came around and it was time to go home. Another day passes, snap, just like that, and once again I see the deadline looming. Towers ball is tonight, and if I hadn't so much work, I might actually have been tempted. It's been over a year since I've been to Oceana and with a free bar as well you have to have a decent excuse to miss it.

Psycho was up for the event and insisted on being blogged. Wearing his dinner jacket for the whole way up from London, he quickly started a buzz on the floor with his casual use of bank notes and 'theme tune' - the soundtrack to The Apprentice USA.

It's hard when you're at the top of your game; the hottub parties, the executive weekend brunches. It's a hard life.

Yesterday's house party for Sean's 21st was a success. Despite the poor weather, everybody stayed outside, got wet in the tub and 'had BBQ'. There was a mass social experiment as well. It was the first time such a large number of people had ever been subjected to Zeppelin Punch; a concoction of Zeppelin Cider (the stuff not even the pikeys will touch) and Tescos value squash. A good 40 litres of the stuff at the fantastically low price of £30. Nobody died, so it can be deemed a success.

The hottub was hot and quickly filled; the house was also busy with visitors including (but not limited to) Mike, Irish Johnny, (Poodle), The Swede, The Day, Broomy, Brent, Danny, a million people from YST, Zoe, Jo, Smokey, Adam, Ian, Lynda, Laura and Corrie, Ibs, Culsh, a clutch of randoms, Amanda, Martine and Emma, Little Dave & Neil, Loz, Gary, all of our house, some more randoms and not our neighbours.

There is a reason why our neighbours didn't come. Firstly, we didn't tell them about it. Secondly, two minutes before we were going to tell them, I got a call from Yoli (our brilliant landlady) who said she'd had a particularly angry phone call from Mrs. Next Door complaining about some damage done to her roof on Thursday in a garden-football related incident. The situation was reassessed and it was decided that going around to tell them that we were having a rather loud-outdoors-type party that night might be inadvisable at this point in time and so we unanimously voted not to go.

Back at the party, the Daymato (Day was turning a shade of tomato) cooked burgers, punch was quaffed and a variation on poker called ch eating poker was played. The rules of the game are as follows:

• Most of the normal rules of Texas hold 'em apply
• You can cheat in anyway you see fit; discrete or otherwise

And that's it. After much laughter and a bout of karaoke in Jono's room finally the last people left and we headed to Echos where the night followed out. Nick generously supplied some drinks (generous in so far he supplied then, but didn't have to pay for them) and beautifully decorated the side of the bar with an Irn Bru VK in an outward display of oral fireworks. Pleasant.

Swan and I idled home via Subway and topped the night in a late hottub dip before retiring for the night.

Saturday has been the best day in Lufbra I've had in a while.

Hottubs are one of the great pleasures in life, and that is why we have opted to have one implanted into the garden at the Palace, albeit only for a weekend.

The question of why this evening has suddenly turned sour has still not been answered. All day I slaved in a piping hot workshop playing with silicone and discussing the finer points of GM crops (why can't we grow trees in the shape of chairs and cows into sofas. Yes, it can be very, very lonely in the workshops) to be greeted with a disappointing drizzle and a tepid hot tub (due to a recent cold water top-up). I am not amused.

This could be compounded by another number of depressing things, but I won't go into that. Instead I will focus on the fact that today was payday, and being Friday I finally can (metaphorically) suck on that chill pill I've been saving all week.

My new earphones have arrived, replacing my all-but-knackered white Sony's from New York. There was a nostalgic twinge as I retired them, but my new pair are nice and shiny and that's what counts the most.

Jumping back to the beginning; a hottub related tale. This morning at approximately 3am I was awoken by the drunk-subtle (noisy) attempt of Swan, the Day and the Swede climbing into the hottub, just meters outside the patio doors that separate my sleepy head from the rest of the world. If the tale had ended here, that would be fine, but it doesn't. The Three Amigos then decided that waking Higgs was Number 1 priority. Whilst they thought they were trying to wake me by flicking pebbles at the window, the reality was that I was already wide awake, and remained so for the next hour and a half before I gave up and went to sleep in Swan's bed. "That'll teach him," I thought, "Swan will come back upstairs and I will refuse to let him get into his own bed. I will then go downstairs after he commenderes my bed and make a racket as I get up."

Like all my elaborate plans, it didn't work, and when I got downstairs at quarter to nine, Swan, the Day and the Swede were all still in the hottub, very wrinkly and very drunk. I passed them another bottle of cider as I unlocked my bike and rode off for another day in the workshops.