On Wednesday Apple finally revealed their long-awaited tablet/slate device, iPad. It boasts a 9.7 inch IPS display, a souped up flavour of iPhone OS and totally rewritten UI for all Apple-developed apps. I want one.

It's shiny

Let's get this bit out of the way early. It's a new Apple product. Everything they make (well, almost everything is awesome. This is no different.

Piss off my fellow course-mates at college

I walked into college this morning to geers about the maxiPad, very funny guys. Not. Somehow they just don't get it; so when I get one and start using it I can simply ignore all questions about it. They can't seem to look on the Apple website to see what it does and then moan to me when they bring out another "contract" product. Imbeciles. Grr.

Easier for taking lecture notes

I hate using paper to take notes in my lectures and I hate using either my MacBook or the college PC's as I can never be pointing in the right direction so it looks like I'm ignoring the lecturers. An iPad will remove this issue.

Email app is gorgeous

I love the look of the new Mail application and I can't wait to use it. I'm not sure how much I will love using it, I guess we'll find out when I get one.

It differs from my iPhone

My iPhone comes with me everywhere, the iPad will be different and will be used in different ways. Depending on what apps are upscaled, depends on how much different it will be. I don't email from my iPhone, but I probably will from the iPad, for example.

WiFi only version, thank you.

I have no need for the 3G version. I have 3g on my iPhone and don't regularly use it. In fact, everywhere except my college has a WiFi connection. Once I go to Uni there is a campus-wide WiFi zone – so 3G really won't be needed then.

I'm just hoping that it doesn't cost £499. Somewhere around £399 would be perfect. Although I might have to get the 32GB model. Would I really feel comfortable having more storage space on my iPhone than on my iPad?

This past Tuesday I went to my first kickboxing lesson. Oh. My. God. It was immensely fun. And I'm going again. Every week. I even bought a pair of boxing gloves.

Why I went in the first place

Before I go into the whole "I got to kick a man in his gentlemens area" I want to go into the reasons why I am going kickboxing.

Get Fitter

I really need to get much fitter than I am now. Well, I don't *need* to get much fitter, but I *want* to. Kickboxing will help with stamina, it'll stretch me out a bit (well, a lot) and will work most of my muscles.

Lose a stone

According to the NHS website, I am overweight. Not by much but it's still not in the green part of their annoying little scale. If I drop a stone I will put myself well into the green zone.

Get out more

This sounds like a computer-geek-loner type of thing to say. I get out plenty already, but I want to get out more and do more (and new) things. Kickboxing is a perfect way to do this.

Defend myself

Ok now this one sounds like I'm a computer-geek-loner-feeble type. Which I'm not. It just might be helpful to know how to drop a drunken idiot next time I find one in a night club.*

What we did

I was a bit nervous because I had no idea what to expect. The lesson had four distinct parts.

Warm up & epic stretch

As with any sport, properly warming yourself up ensures you are nice and loose. Although the epic stretch really hurt. This involved having my leg on my mates shoulder – with him pushing my knee down to keep my leg straight. Yeah it hurt.

Training

Time to don gloves and pads. Boxers had to go around switching partners and practising different combinations of punches and kicks. The weirdest part was when a guy asked me if I was new and proceeded to tell me I would "love this one then". He told me I had to hold him around the neck and repeatedly knee him precariously close to his gentlemens area. Awesome.

Practice Techniques

The next part we get to either spar or practise techniques. This is exactly what you think it is, practising fighting without actually hitting each other. This bit was mostly boring to be writing about.

Warm down (kinda)

The warm down was the single most difficult exercise I have ever done. Laying on the floor doing about 20 variations of situps 50 times each. It felt like that scene in alien when it bursts out the dudes stomach.

So it was bloody brilliant fun and I'm going again. I'm going to go every week, in fact. Thus concludes my 4th Project 52 post.

*Does this make me sound like a total loon?

The very first post I made on this blog was me stating the benefits and drawbacks of doing a degree at university versus doing a HND at my college. At the time I decided I would stay in Shrewsbury for another two years and obtain a HND, and go off to a University for a final year to obtain a Degree (most likely at Staffordshire due to it's ties with my college.) I have decided to go off to University. Here's why.

I need to challenge myself

I need a challenge. Staying in Shrewsbury would give me a challenge, but it isn't as great as moving away and having to learn life skills. I need to go to University to really challenge myself and get massive rewards from it if I can pull everything together.

I need to learn life skills

Staying in Shrewsbury means staying with my family. If I moved out there'd be no point in staying in the first place. I want to learn how to look after myself as soon as I can because I know it will benefit me in the long run. Becoming independent is important to me and it's important I do it as soon as I feel ready. I feel ready now but will wait until University.

The HND is…Pathetic

The HND entry requirements is a PPP for a BTEC - equivalent to roughly CCC at A-level. I'm on course to get DDD which is equivalent to AAA at A-level. I'd rather go and do a course more suited to my needs than that of the lower end of the grade scale. The HND also doesn't let me choose any of the modules I want to do, whereas most University's do. Of course if a module is under subscribed I know that they probably won't run it, but at least the opportunity is there.

The HND content is also different to what I'd do at University. Where I like numbers and programming and stuff like that, there's networking modules and tech support. I don't like those subjects. I hate them. That and I can't just go to any University with the HND because the modules won't match up. In fact, I just checked. It's an Applied Information Technology HND. I couldn't go to any University and get 3rd year entry on a Computer Science course other than Staffordshire. I don't like Staffordshire.

I have found a great University

The University I am most likely to be at in September/October time is awesome. I went there on a visit day and everything was well organised, they showed a good deal of the course material and gave us all an insight into what we'd be doing. It was so exciting. The fact that my cousin goes to the same University doesn't really come into it. Although it will be awesome to know that if I'm stuck or broken then I can ask her for help. If she's reading this, I'll probably owe her a lot by this time next year.

For those that don't know. I have an offer from Cardiff University and, unless I get hit by a bus, will be heading there to start my Degree. This also has the added benefit of being able to tell people in years to come that I left the country to do my Degree, even if there is an open border.

I thought I'd write about the new skills I plan to acquire this year. A lot of the items on my 101 Things to do in 2010 list are "Learn…". I'll go over some of the things I want to learn this year.

Python/Django

I have always seen Python as a language I would love to learn. I've heard and read many great things about it so want to dive right in as soon as I can. Python also runs on Google App Engine, which PHP does not, so I would be able to play with GAE and hopefully get an app running on it.

Ruby/Rails

Even though I wrote "5 Reasons Why I'll Never Use Ruby/Rails" on Programmers Voice, I want to learn the language. I keep hearing good things about it and it keeps cropping up so I figured I may as well give it a go. If I end up (still) disliking it then at least I'll have more solid reasons as to why.

Objective-C - Mac & iPhone Apps

I've been running OS X for over two years now and have only tried to create a native OS X app once. I followed a tutorial to create a text editor of some description and ended up downloading the source code and changing the title of the window. This year I am going to learn Objective-C and get my teeth into the OS X frameworks as much a possible. I hope to have an OS X and accompanying iPhone app done by years end. Even if it is only available to me.

JavaScript/AIR/jQuery/MooTools

Even though I am primarily a back end developer I feel I am only doing myself a favour by planning to learn JavaScript this year. I already know a bit of JS but I'd love to be a JS Ninja, so this year I'll put some time aside for learning JS properly.

I'd also like to know how to create AIR apps, it's been something that's been in my mind for some time now but I've been held back by my (lack of) JavaScript kowledge.

jQuery and MooTools are also on the list. I want to learn two JS frameworks. That's about it.

Mandarin

This one is odd and I'm surprised nobody has questioned me about it yet. Someday I hope to leave Britain; it's cold, wet, everything is taxed too much. Oh, did I mention it's wet? If I don't leave, then I hope to at least travel. One of the places I would love to go is Taiwan. Don't ask me why as I'm not too sure myself but it's always stuck out as a beautiful place.

So this year I will start to learn Mandarin Chinese. I have audiobook type lessons and have been through a few already. I'm starting to pick up some basic phrases. No, I won't be fluent by the end of the year. But I hope to be able to hold a conversation with a native speaker for at least 5 minutes. It'll also be quite cool to go into the Chinese restaurant I frequent and just start speaking to the staff in their own language. Awesome.

Spreading myself thinly?

I was asked why I wanted to learn so much this year. Wouldn't it be better to learn less but to a higher level? I answered this question in the comments on my 101 list. Find it here.