Catching up

Work

I’m not going to say a huge amount about my job, mainly because I don’t feel it’s fair to post things about people who I see on a daily basis but don’t really know all that well. What I will say is that work is going okay so far, although obviously like any job it has good days and bad ones. Fortunately I already knew Gareth as a result of UA and another of the people who works there had heard of me beforehand because I was a fairly active poster on the ManLUG mailing list, so it wasn’t as if I was walking into a room full of strangers (not that it would bother me if that was the case, but it’s always reassuring to have some familiar faces).

As for what I’m actually doing, seeing as so many people have asked, it’s mainly a list of things that really need doing but aren’t quite urgent enough to warrant taking someone else off what they’re working on – at least that’s the impression I get. It’s nice to be working on projects that are actually being used rather than some theorectical stuff that’s just been handed out to keep you busy. It’s also good when you see people benefiting from what you’ve done – for example I got a printer server set up to allow people to share the new laser printer. It wasn’t a huge task but it was something I’d never done before and when you see people using it and saying how useful it is to have a working printer accessible on the network from all the computers it makes you feel like you’ve actually accomplished something. The same applies when you’ve been working on some code for ages and it hasn’t been working then suddenly inspiration strikes, you make a few changes and everything falls perfectly into place.

Anyway, the job isn’t so terrible that I’m dreading work each morning, although I am beginning to get that “your job suddenly takes over your life” feeling. It’s not so bad now that I’ve got my flat sorted and I’m not travelling from Bury as that gives me an extra couple of hours each day and means I can get up later, but by Friday I do find myself feeling like the past five days have gone by without me actually having relaxed or stopped for a rest. On the plus side though, I’m getting paid (always a good thing) and gaining experience, plus you never know who you might meet through work and given that I’ve got every job I’ve ever had as a result of someone mentioning my name to someone else I know how important contacts can be. Also, I am getting involved in more interesting stuff now, so hopefully things will pick up over the next few weeks.

The only major downside to my job is that it’s made me realise how little I’ve learnt as a result of doing my degree. All the skills and knowledge I’ve used are those that I’ve taught myself or learnt in other jobs and it just shows you how modules like software engineering (which tell you how lovely and happy the world and everyone would be if you followed guidelines X, Y and Z when writing software) are a bit useless when you’re trying to figure out what on earth a twenty two page Perl script does. I’ve learnt more useful and practical skills in the three weeks I’ve been working here than I have in the last twelve months of my degree course, which is a bit depressing when you consider I pay to go to university but I get paid to go to work. Having said that, in a year I’ll graduate (assuming everything goes to plan) and I’ll finally have a piece of paper that I can wave about to sort of prove that I know what I’m talking about. 🙂

Flat

I’ve moved into my flat more or less full time now. There’s still no washing machine in, but the landlord has said he’s onto it so I’m leaving it until Monday before pestering him again about that. He did send someone round the next day when I told him about the light fittings being broken though (which meant that I had no light in my kitchen) which I was quite impressed by. I know he doesn’t really have much choice when it comes to things like that because it would be unsafe to leave a kitchen without a light source but at least I’ve got a landlord who understands his responsibilities, which is one up on some of the horror stories I’ve heard about other peoples’ experiences.

Anyway, once the plumbing for the washing machine is done and the sealant around the bath is applied (I’m a little narked that this hasn’t been sorted, as it’s a ten minute job that I could do myself if he gave me the material) it will be quite a nice place to live, although I’ll probably only be here for eleven months anyway – more like nine when you take into account the fact that I’ll probably go home for the holidays. I also have a double bed all to myself, which seems a bit weird because I probably only take up about a quarter of it. 🙂

House warming will probably be happening at some point, although I’m a bit busy at the moment to get around to organising something so it will have to go on my rather large todo list.

Dungeons and Dragons

No D&D session this week, or the next for that matter, as Kate is away and there’s so few of us left now that it’s not really worth running a game with only three players and a DM. However, here’s what happened two weeks ago when we were all still around.

First off, David had to create a new character to replace the old that we’d executed the week before. Being super organised and everything, he had already done most of the work at home and come up with a barbarian half orc. My first thought was one of apprehension and dread at the creation of yet another psychopathic killer, but I assume Jon has put sufficient restrictions on the character to prevent a repeat of the last encounter.

Although David managed to scare most of the villagers at first (to be fair they had been attacked by Orcs rather a lot recently, so to have something that looks like one appear in their town was probably a bit unnerving for them), we managed to calm them down and, after a bit of discussion, headed off into the woods. We got back to the cave entrance without too many problems, but half way down the entrance corridor we were attacked from the front and behind by two undead Orcs (one zombie, one skeleton), although we managed to dispatch them without too much difficulty.

After continuing our march through the cave without incident, we came to the door where we had got to previously. Opening it revealed a skeleton that looked surprisingly similar to Jess (Jules’ character) in part duck/human form, which we immediately set upon. An amusing sequence of events followed, in which the fighters completely failed to do any damage to the skeleton, all of my spells failed and Kate’s character stood there shouting at us to stop attacking so that she could get through the door behind the creature. Despite having no spells working, I managed to get a good few blows on the skeleton and did a fair amount of damage, but unfortunately this attracted its attention and I ended up unconcious again. Thankfully Lucy pulled me away and left David to batter the skeleton to bits when he finally managed to hit it.

We entered the room next door and, amongst other things, we found a little sprite (sort of like a fairy creature) in a jar. After convincing it that we weren’t going to kill it for its blood (I had to translate everything as I was the only character who could speak Sylvian) and a bit of running around, it decided to take us back to the village, riding on David’s shoulder. That’s where the story ended and we won’t be picking it up again for at least two more weeks.

Other stuff

Megalomaniacs

Gareth came round on Tuesday to discuss the society plans for next year and gained the “honour” of being the first person outside of family to see my flat. We managed to get a fair amount of stuff ready for the web site, although I’ve still got to work on that over the next few days/weeks to get it all up and running. I’m not sure if I’m entirely happy with the way things are heading society wise, but I think if we can pick up a few new people this year that will be an achievement in itself, given that I’m the only person who has stayed on and turned up to the majority of meetings since two years ago.

Wednesday

Went round to pick up my router’s power supply from Rachel on Wednesday, seeing as I’d left it at the old house but she had picked it up before moving out. I only meant to stay for a couple of minutes but ended up there for several hours having a good natter and catching up on where things were.

No longer a lager lout

Last week at the usual Megalomaniacs pub meet up I decided to give Hydes bitter a whirl, purely because it was quite a bit cheaper than the lager (more like union prices). Turns out that it was very nice, so this week I gave up on the Fosters completely and drank bitter all night. Problem is I’ve now got rid of two of the vices that made me unique, so I’ll have to find something else that people can use to discern me by. Suggestions on a postcard to my new address. 😉

Anyway, that’s it for the moment, not much else is happening because I’m at work during the week and trying (and failing miserably) to relax at the weekends. Hope everyone else is having fun and is less stressed out that I am at the moment.