I'm back
Well I'm back in chemistry. This time hopefully for
good. that is all.
I'll update the world on my current projects in more detail at a slightly later date. At the moment I'm throwing myself into my job.
My current projects are:
Negotiation skills training course
Excel 2007 for admin staff (a training course)
Working out a path for my carer now I kind of have one. I'm thinking ATT or CIPD. Or both thinking long term. Or not. Who knows? Not me, I need to make this job stick for now.
Tx
I'll update the world on my current projects in more detail at a slightly later date. At the moment I'm throwing myself into my job.
My current projects are:
Negotiation skills training course
Excel 2007 for admin staff (a training course)
Working out a path for my carer now I kind of have one. I'm thinking ATT or CIPD. Or both thinking long term. Or not. Who knows? Not me, I need to make this job stick for now.
Tx
The Great Job Hunt: UoB, MoD, BCC
Well, I've cleared my backlog and recovered from the
food poisoning - and I've finished in Chemistry (damn
you Cathy for getting better :-)).
So I'm looking for a Job, I'm not looking for a graduate position, I'm not looking for an especially well paid job, I'm not looking for a fast track to promotion. I'm looking for stability. I've had a lot of jobs in the last few years while I tried to find a job I liked, the main problem I face is that I did, but only realised after I had quit. I really enjoyed working in the Maths department, I enjoyed the work, I enjoyed admin.
Now, I recognise that I'm probably a bit overqualified for the positions I'm going for, but I'm not the kind of person who carps on about boring work if I get it. Try marking year 8 homework if you want boring. I'm also not an uber-ambitious fool, I'd be lying if I said I wanted to work at the bottom rung my whole life but I'm tired of hopping from job to job. If I spend a while doing a job at the bottom, I'll get to know the organisation better so that when I do get promoted I have a better idea of what the people working for me have to do.
Take the MoD for instance: I know very little about the day to day running of the MoD. I'd be very happy to go in at E1 (I have some specific ones on top of the general app on the way), the grade I've applied for, because I want to get to know the organisation and there will be a lot to learn. I want to get in and get on with it. That same goes for Bristol city council (two apps coming up). I know Bristol Uni a bit better but the departments there are anything but homogenous, I'm waiting to hear about one from there as we speak.
All I have to do is hope that my applications conveys that and people don't make assumptions. Chemistry assumed that I was over qualified so they took me on a trial, kept me for two months and said they want me back when Sarah goes on maternity leave if I'm still looking. So the central question is this how do I prove that I won't be insufferable in-spite of my degree.
Tim
p.s. amusing side note - I set my status on Facebook as "Tim is Squamous". Turns out that most people haven't read any Lovecraft so hit Google. Which says skin cancer. I think that is a really interesting failure in the communications cycle. Well after I had calmed all my friends down. I'll see if I can work it into the effective communications skills course. I figured that since I'm unemployed I might as well keep my mind sharp so I'm helping rewrite effective communications and negotiations skills again, I've done a incremental job before but sometimes a complete rewrite is in order.
So I'm looking for a Job, I'm not looking for a graduate position, I'm not looking for an especially well paid job, I'm not looking for a fast track to promotion. I'm looking for stability. I've had a lot of jobs in the last few years while I tried to find a job I liked, the main problem I face is that I did, but only realised after I had quit. I really enjoyed working in the Maths department, I enjoyed the work, I enjoyed admin.
Now, I recognise that I'm probably a bit overqualified for the positions I'm going for, but I'm not the kind of person who carps on about boring work if I get it. Try marking year 8 homework if you want boring. I'm also not an uber-ambitious fool, I'd be lying if I said I wanted to work at the bottom rung my whole life but I'm tired of hopping from job to job. If I spend a while doing a job at the bottom, I'll get to know the organisation better so that when I do get promoted I have a better idea of what the people working for me have to do.
Take the MoD for instance: I know very little about the day to day running of the MoD. I'd be very happy to go in at E1 (I have some specific ones on top of the general app on the way), the grade I've applied for, because I want to get to know the organisation and there will be a lot to learn. I want to get in and get on with it. That same goes for Bristol city council (two apps coming up). I know Bristol Uni a bit better but the departments there are anything but homogenous, I'm waiting to hear about one from there as we speak.
All I have to do is hope that my applications conveys that and people don't make assumptions. Chemistry assumed that I was over qualified so they took me on a trial, kept me for two months and said they want me back when Sarah goes on maternity leave if I'm still looking. So the central question is this how do I prove that I won't be insufferable in-spite of my degree.
Tim
p.s. amusing side note - I set my status on Facebook as "Tim is Squamous". Turns out that most people haven't read any Lovecraft so hit Google. Which says skin cancer. I think that is a really interesting failure in the communications cycle. Well after I had calmed all my friends down. I'll see if I can work it into the effective communications skills course. I figured that since I'm unemployed I might as well keep my mind sharp so I'm helping rewrite effective communications and negotiations skills again, I've done a incremental job before but sometimes a complete rewrite is in order.
Netbook, without the net. Or colour screen. Or rechargeable batteries.
05/05/09 17:49 Filed in: Doing
| Technology
I found my old Psion Series 5MX the other day, it is a
remarkable bit of kit. I can see why Psion are annoyed
with the netbook craze, they really did get there
first! I am a firm believer in judging things by the
standards of today within reason (1). At the time there
was nothing to compare it to really but now there is,
and the 5mx comes out suprisingly well. I won't claim
there are no problems with it, but I could certainly
see me using it.
Pros:
Well it's quick, very quick. There is virtually no lag when using the various functions and they have all the features you need, I've managed to write a job application on it in the library and the battries have stood up pretty well. Having found some comercial software that has been released into the wild, it's pretty easy to convert the files for use on my main machine (including converting the graphics to jpgs, neat). It comes with all the office software I really need on the move (Word Clone, Excel clone, Outlook clone). It is very light. If my batteries run out i can buy some more in just about every shop in the world.
Cons:
The keyboard is a little small, I had to recheck everthing carefully to make sure there were no spelling mistakes. The batteries are not rechargable in the case, and buying batteries is expensive. I had to hunt down a converter for the files, it's a small thing but I suspect it would be beyond a lot of people. The screen is only four colours and the backlight is a killer on the batteries. It doesn't have some of the software I would like no relational database, no presentation software and no sensible way of getting web access (modem via irda, fun!).
In short it doesn't have any real short commings that I can't get around or over. When I bought it, if I'm honest, it was a toy; becuase thats what 18 year old geeks do. Now I've grown up it has become a tool I can actually use. And that I suppose is the really impressive thing, I bought this a decade ago, a long time in technology and I've judged it by the standards of today - its held up pretty well.
Tim.
1. On the subject of the standards of the day, its the same reason I don't like racist comedies from the 70s; The excuse "it was acceptable at the time" doesn't wash, Vlad the Impaler thought what he did was acceptable.
Pros:
Well it's quick, very quick. There is virtually no lag when using the various functions and they have all the features you need, I've managed to write a job application on it in the library and the battries have stood up pretty well. Having found some comercial software that has been released into the wild, it's pretty easy to convert the files for use on my main machine (including converting the graphics to jpgs, neat). It comes with all the office software I really need on the move (Word Clone, Excel clone, Outlook clone). It is very light. If my batteries run out i can buy some more in just about every shop in the world.
Cons:
The keyboard is a little small, I had to recheck everthing carefully to make sure there were no spelling mistakes. The batteries are not rechargable in the case, and buying batteries is expensive. I had to hunt down a converter for the files, it's a small thing but I suspect it would be beyond a lot of people. The screen is only four colours and the backlight is a killer on the batteries. It doesn't have some of the software I would like no relational database, no presentation software and no sensible way of getting web access (modem via irda, fun!).
In short it doesn't have any real short commings that I can't get around or over. When I bought it, if I'm honest, it was a toy; becuase thats what 18 year old geeks do. Now I've grown up it has become a tool I can actually use. And that I suppose is the really impressive thing, I bought this a decade ago, a long time in technology and I've judged it by the standards of today - its held up pretty well.
Tim.
1. On the subject of the standards of the day, its the same reason I don't like racist comedies from the 70s; The excuse "it was acceptable at the time" doesn't wash, Vlad the Impaler thought what he did was acceptable.
The fast and the curious - how do anorexics do it?
I have been ill - really quiet ill. I'm going to have
to fast for 48 hours, I'm 16 hours in and I'm really
hungry. How do anorexics do it?
I managed 28 hours the first time, thought I'd got away with it. Nope, half assed doesn't work with food poisoning.
How do the do it? It is just down right unpleasant...
tx
I managed 28 hours the first time, thought I'd got away with it. Nope, half assed doesn't work with food poisoning.
How do the do it? It is just down right unpleasant...
tx
Stories, Squamous and Lovecraftian. Contraptions, Joyful and Jerry rigged.
I wrote the first part of a story last night, it isn't
something I have really done ever without being
coerced. I wonder how annoying I was to teach English
to in retrospect? It may not have been immediate, or in
fact anything to do with them at all, but I sat down an
wrote a story for my own pleasure. It was Lovecraft-ian
in nature and probably not very good but I find my self
pleased beyond measure that I actually did it.
I large part of it is down to what we are trying to do in improv at the moment, and the switch of our focus into story telling and long form. It occurred to me that I had never tried to tell a story. I approached it from a fairly improvised standpoint, thinking of a first line and a style, and taking it form there. I would be lying if I said I didn't find it a challenge, there are so many things to think about and I found myself wanting to go back and edit what I had done. This is probably down to the fact that normally this option isn't open to me when I'm telling stories up on stage. It has certainly made me think about a number of things which I need to work on.
I large part of it is down to what we are trying to do in improv at the moment, and the switch of our focus into story telling and long form. It occurred to me that I had never tried to tell a story. I approached it from a fairly improvised standpoint, thinking of a first line and a style, and taking it form there. I would be lying if I said I didn't find it a challenge, there are so many things to think about and I found myself wanting to go back and edit what I had done. This is probably down to the fact that normally this option isn't open to me when I'm telling stories up on stage. It has certainly made me think about a number of things which I need to work on.
- I found that I wrote about the relationships and environment that my characters had, but beyond that we knew far to little of the character to care about them.
- I lack the confidence to build the scene, this is a hangover from too much short-form, the pace was far higher than the average Lovecraft stories and suffers for it.
- I need to finish the story before I edit it, forcing myself to just write certainly helped.