It was 9am on Wednesday 14th June 2006 when the world became a better place...

Thu 22 June

It was 9am on Wednesday 14th June 2006 when the world became a better place to be! I handed in my coursework and instantly felt like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders. What am I going to do at the weekends now? Going out or watching TV just won't be the same when you haven't got that guilty feeling for not doing any work.

It was actually quite sad when I handed it in. The two years just went so quickly. It doesn't seem like that long ago when it was the first lesson and I didn't know anyone, and I didn't know what the work would entail and whether I would even be able to do it! But I actually far more enjoyed this course than the three years I spent doing my undergraduate history course. I have found that there is a gap in the industry of mid to late twenty year olds, so I worked mainly with trainees straight out of school or senior surveyors. So it was brilliant to talk with people my age who were doing the same job as me and having similar experiences. Who didn't roll their eyes or start yawning when I was talking about a difficult account or a good result that I had had!

So now it's a matter of getting motivated again to start the dissertation. Even though the hand in date is May 2007, and at the moment that seems like an eternity away, I know it will go quickly and I don't want it to become the same old story of ‘I should have started this sooner!' I am aiming to do the research and the write up bit by bit so I don't end up working on it for weeks at a time. So I met with my supervisor for the first time today and that was really helpful. It doesn't seem like such a long piece of work now, I am going to tackle it section by section and go through it with him on a regular basis. And I'm determined to stick to the plan!!

At work I am moving onto a new site at the beginning of July as the job I am working on now is coming to an end. I think that is the only downside to this job - that you have to move from site to site. It's particularly sad because I have been working with a really good team and have been involved with a lot if interesting work. But onto new challenges and all that! I will be working in the buying department for a while, as it is part of my structured training course with Carillion that I will spend time in other departments to get an overview of the whole contracting team and how it relates to surveying. So I am looking forward to working on something different for a while, and of course not having loads of coursework to do.

Thu 8 June

Well this blog is a bit late because I am on the final, long awaited stretch of the MSc Quantity Surveying course. This included a nerve wrecking corporate finance exam on Monday. And typically, the weather was lovely and sunny over the weekend, while I was cooped up revising ratios, interest rate yield curves and a whole lot more. It's hard enough to concentrate anyway without the sun beaming in, calling you outside!

But the exam was ok in the end (I won't say anything more than ‘ok' until the results are out). The thought of three hours writing away was daunting but as always it flew by and the last five minutes involved frantic, ineligible scribbles. And now there does seem to be light at the end of tunnel, and it's made a massive difference to my coursework productivity rate! I have only one piece of coursework left and I am flying through it, spurred on by the thought of another sunny weekend but this time out enjoying it not holed up bent over books!

But the highlight of the past two weeks has to be the moment that I conquered by fear of heights! It's not so much that I am scared of the actual height; it's just that my legs go to jelly - my hands are sweating now at the thought of it! But on Friday, I took the plunge and took the trip up the tower crane. It's actually only a relatively small crane, about 13 storeys high, but high enough for me!

It took a bit of reassuring that I wasn't going to somehow fall off and the crane wouldn't magically topple over while I was climbing it. But I made the mistake of stopping after the first set of stairs and looking down, so from then on it was just deep breaths and non stop until the top! And it was great! Everything is just so much calmer at that height with fantastic 360º views of the capital, and cheaper than the London Eye! And in every direction there were dozens of other tower cranes - I didn't realise just how much building activity there is in central London.

So now, when I am calculating the tower crane and operative hours it will mean so much more than just hours printed on a page! And I was on top of the world afterwards, even if my legs were still a bit shaky!