JamesX

Yay! I only have 30 days left on my degree. I will finally get my life back… hehe. What a strange day at work today. I suppose the fact I had a headache for about three hours didn’t help, but knowing that I have the next two days off makes it all better. It’s a pity I have so much uni work to do that I wont be able to enjoy the time off by relaxing! Speaking of work, Chris came up with this little gem. It really sums up what we have to deal with on a daily basis, and it made me laugh - so you should go read it. He almost convinced Lee to get his own blog today, but alas it was not so. :(

I’ve finally broken the 5 tip barrier, tipping 7 last round! It’s about time I get a decent score, although it was an easy round and there were a few who got 8 this week. It brings me to a total of 39, which is around 30th in both the work and OHA comps - so a little way to go yet!

In other news - I’m so over uni. Do I mention that often enough? I mean really, it never seems to end. Maybe it’s just because I work full time and have to squeeze the most ridiculously huge subject around that that it just wears me out. Of course, it doesn’t help that I seem to spend even more time at work nowadays. I’m back and forth all the time setting up for this and that… I really need to start sleeping at work… only kidding! :) The excitement of finishing uni is comparable only to that of finishing Year 12. It’s weird because when you think about how far away it is, time seems to go really slowly, but really so much happens in a week that the days just fly by without you noticing. I suppose it’s all about perspective really, because obviously time is constant - it’s fun how the mind works.

Also today, and even more exciting than uni, is that it STARTED SNOWING! All the cold weather and rain is making for perfect conditions for the snow to start to fall. I’ve already planned the first trip up to Hotham and hopefully, after such a terrible season last year, the cover will be really good this time round. At the end of the day, any skiing is good, but it’s the really good days that you remember, so here’s hoping that there’s a lot of those this year. I’m still in two minds about the season pass - I might wait and see how good the snowfalls are before committing to that one. I’ll have to keep an even closer watch on the weather now.

It’s been an interesting week. I dare say not all that much of significance has happened but there’s been plenty to keep me busy. I can’t really think of any one thing to write about, but it scares me that it’s been so long since my last post that the inevitable blog anxiety sets in. After all, you have to keep the people stalkers happy!

Following up from last time, the curtain went back up today. I think I cut the knot tying by about half of what it was to take the curtain down, and it was a lot easier going up than down (surprisingly). I didn’t take the same precautions as far as ease of untying as the original knot tie-ers but I figured, it took 20 years for it to come down this time, so in 20 years time, they can just cut the damn thing off!

The rest of my work, I really can’t talk about. And the other stuff I’m working on out of work, I really can’t talk about. So that doesn’t leave me with much. But in other news, I caught up with Marc (and Liv, Soph and Jimmy) last night. It was the first time I’d actually had a chance to see his new place (by new I mean February - yes I am that busy) and I have to say I was quite impressed. It’s certainly a step up from the previous place (not that that was a challenge) and I’m sure I’ll be back there again soon. Although that wasn’t the real reason for my visit. Marc bought a car, as I found out on Monday, and I had to go see it. He still hasn’t got his licence so I’m still struggling with the logic, but perhaps it will be incentive to actually do something about that now.

The only other thing that happened this week that could be classed as vaguely interesting was my latest uni presentation. It went well, all 25 minutes of it, and it’s another thing off the seemingly long list to the end of the tertiary road. Only 37 days to go now - it’s becoming very exciting.

Anyway, it’s late and I’m starting to lose it, which means what I’ve written may not even make sense at all. Take it how you will…

It’s been a huge week this past week. I haven’t really had time to think with all the Inheritance stuff going on. But after a long wait, last night was the opening night, and I have to say it went reaonably well. The main mistake being caused by Stewart himself, so he really doesn’t have anyone he can blame for that (he sent the mower on early). But, you know, it’s all fun in the end. I really don’t have much to do in this production, which is both good and bad. I guess I’m the “OMG what do we do now” guy that people run to when they can’t find the missing prop, or the cast skip 40 pages (yeah, it’s been done before). I did a quick calculation by updating the list, and this is my 44th production - very scary. Anyway, Fame promises to be huge, so I’ll end up having a big involvement in that one. It’s night number two tonight, and it should be even better than last night.

In other news this week, I finished my fourth Flash assignment for uni. They aren’t really getting harder, just introducing an extra concept each time. I’d say it takes me about 1-2 hours per assignment so it’s pretty quick in the scheme of things. This week my animation was entitled “Caterpillars” and had a couple of caterpillars climing a mound of dirt with clouds flying overhead. Nothing really exciting, but it demonstrates all the concepts learnt up to this point.

Yesterday was also Oscar’s 4th birthday. Not that we did anything special (he already eats better than all of us), and I wasn’t even home. But he got an extra cuddle from everyone at some point. I think he was enjoying the extra attention!

I’m bored right now sitting in the student lounge on level four waiting for my uni friends to join me. So for a change, and to fill in the time, I’m writing this on paper, so I can type it up later - scary considering I can’t read my own writing half the time. But we’ll see how it goes…

Last night I had an in depth discussion with Matt Kennedy about a lot of things, but what could broadly be described as “politics”. The fact is, politics are all around us in everything we do. Sometimes you don’t even notice it, but it’s always there. Nothing is more true than in the workplace. It’s a hard thing to describe but I suppose it’s a complex mix of emotions, power, private agendas and an overpowering sense of rules and regulations, forms and procedures. The Vogons off Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy spring to mind. I suppose it’s just one of life’s little mysteries that we all have to live with - one that is frustrating, and at the same time entertaining (when used in such a fashion!).

Anyway, the group is here now so I’ll have to continue this later… › Continue reading

It’s a momentous occasion, and if I weren’t so tired, I’d probably do something to celebrate it, but tonight my Connex train was on time! Hehe only kidding, it was my last face-to-face class for uni, but the train was also on time, which makes it doubly special. All said and done its pretty exciting stuff but the class itself was a doosey - 90 slides of applications development, usability, testing and other random principles we’ve learnt over the past four years. Even the lecturers were getting bored by the end and started skipping slides saying things like “well that’s obvious”. I wasn’t going to jump up and object as jumping up and leaving was more on the agenda - but I didn’t, that’s kinda taboo in the final class ever.

Where does that leave me now? Well there’s just a few more [self-guided] assignments to go and 12 more weeks until I officially finish. If only I could work out what to do next, I’d be all set…