Monthly Archives: June 2008

Confidently inexperienced.

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I feel like there’s something I should be doing, but there really isn’t.

I just write up my CV, which I just need to get someone to check (I’ll probably email Paul, and ask him to take a look at the online version). It’s a paragraph over a page, so I’m not sure what to do with that. I read a post somewhere that the requirement for CVs to be only a page is silly now, since people have more roles within their jobs than before, so they take up more space explaining.

I have a list of job openings that I’m perfect for all printed off and ready for me to sort out. They’re based sort of around the West Midlands, which means I’ll be able to move out. I’m very nervous, and don’t feel like I have enough confidence to have other people relying on me yet. I suppose the only way to get that confidence is to do it; fake it till you make it.

I might actually start writing up a plug in for WordPress, for the competition, though I’m not sure when the deadline is. Either way, a useful plug in would still generate traffic, and hopefully donations! More importantly, it’d be something good to put on my CV as actual work experience. At the moment, I’ve had to really talk up what experience I do have.

Great unexpectations

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The exam today didn’t go as well as I expected… I didn’t do horribly, but not as well as I hoped when walking in. They decided to abandon the judicial creativity quest completely, which messed up our revision. We were told, and understandably so, that judicial creativity was a topic that always came up, 100% of the time. And it did since the beginning of this subject. Today though, they decided to miss it out… Instead, I had to do justice, and just make up a tonne of stuff. I’m more curious than worried about if I’ll have the grades to get into university now… I hope I will. If not, I have next year to reapply and maybe retake an A2 unit or something, part time.

In Warcraft news, I really wanted to do Deadmines tonight, with Ratio, but my connection is being so stupid.

I went to the job center today! I felt crappy going in, like I failed at life or something… I know there’s nothing wrong with using the service, but I don’t feel like it fills its purpose since both my dad and mum have been going since… well, ever. I was pleasently surprised though; there are tonnes of jobs all listed on a touch screen computer and you can print off the details and stuff. I even though programming, PHP and HTML jobs. I printed a bunch off and I’ll start working on those Monday. I’ll probably start this weekend, but I doubt I can do anything (like phoning them up and stuff) till Monday.

Apparently, I’m entitled to job seeker’s allowance, but I really don’t feel like I’m entitled to it. I mean, I am seeking, but I’ve not given the government any money at the moment, so I feel like I’d just be 100% selfishly using other people’s tax money to fund my non-productive lifestyle…

Underestimating exams again

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It’s hours before an exam and I’m reading World of Warcraft pages… Thank goodness it’s an easy exam. Well, I think so anyway. It’s Law 6, where I just need to ramble about statutory interpretation and precedent, which I did awesome at last year, and I still know fairly well. The second and last question is on the Hart-Devlin debate, which I sort of know already. I just have to remember some cases; I’ll be shocked if I get less than a B on this.

Up and jogging

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I’m pretty much done with building the site now. All that needs to be done is the Javascript bug fixed, and add a few more “more information” pages and it’s pretty much done… I may add some more impressive scripts to make customer feel more like I know what I’m talking about (which I do!). It’s ready for customers at the moment though, I just need to do advertising.

As soon as I get £10 availiable I’ll start an AdWords campaign, which would be fun to try out, since I’ve only ever played with the sandbox before. If I pick keywords well I should get a ROI pretty fast. It’s not really like I can lose money, unless lots of people come and don’t buy.

It could be awkward doing business on the same domain that I’m using personally though… Well, at least they’ll read that I’m excited about helping them, and commited.

Oh, yeah. Also, I was going to say that I’ve emailed the WordPress theme place to see if I can get registration there to upload Eventide. That should increase traffic here, hopefully, which may send traffic to my WordPress hosting. If not, at least people will stop using Beccary’s broken version.

Encoding problems

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On localhost this script for really simple currency conversion works fine. When it’s live on the over hand the £ symbol is making it all iffy. It’s obviously being uploaded as the correct symbol, but I guess it’s not the correct charactor encoding, since that’s the only thing I can think that would be breaking the Javascript. You can check out the script brokenly working at my business site.

A clear outlook

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I only have one exam left now, which is one that I’m expecting to be hugely easy so I’m not at all worried about it. Getting an A in it would be awesome though… It’d definitely help me out with UCAS points, since I’m really worried about those at the moment. Looking at my AS results, I really don’t feel like I can get what I need for Brighton – which is a near impossibility – I might just scrape DMU, which is a sucky thing to say since I slated them for giving me a really low offer… I guess the main lesson I’ve learnt with A Level is that even if you think they’re likely to be easy, you still have to put in the effort. Kinda like even if you’re a level 42 hunter, if you take on six level 30 you’ll probably get beaten.

I’m not at all worried about getting into university though. The way I see it is that I’m likely to get into DMU. If I miss that, it really won’t be by much, in which case I can fight my way through clearing. If all fails miserably, I’ve still got all of next year to reapply. I can even resit an A Level unit or two if I really have to, not getting into university won’t push my timetable back at all.

The problem of this being my last exam though is that I’m actually unemployed once it’s over. Dad’s nagging me that my child support money will stop in September so I’ll have to get a job to pay him the money he’s losing out on. What I think he meant though was that I needed to get a job in order to pay him board money. Which is really a dumb thing to say, since I’m hoping to have moved out of this house long before September anyway. I just have to start looking for a job now; I’m not really sure where to start though. I’ll make an appointment at the Job Centre tomorrow, I guess.

Meanwhile though, I’ve bought shamess.info and I’m using part of that to advertise freelance, hosting and SEO services I can start offering. That’s something I wanted to do before, but never really had time in between World of Warcraft and college. Now it’s just World of Warcraft I can start focusing on that full time, till I get a job, then I can focus on it full time.

Side note: I’ll start to move this blog over to shamess.info too soon (probably tonight) so things may get a bit confusing, since I’ve never migrated a WordPress blog before. I figure I won’t touch the files, and just change the ServerName. Hopefully, most people won’t even notice the URL change, if I set it up right.

Oh, also, I’m going to start updating DebianTips again. It still gets okay traffic for a neglected blog. I need to touch up some of the older posts with stuff I’ve learnt new though, before I start doing more stuff.

Hypocrisy

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Argh.

I was just about to come and do an update saying that today is the end of the holidays, and so I’m going to start hardcore revising again. No one can start their start-of-hardcore-revision without a start-of-harcore-revision-cup-of-tea, so I went to get one.

Dad’s still in bed, at five to nine of the morning and had the audacity to say “Isn’t it about time you got a part-time job yet?” Unfortunately, he said it so off the cuff that I had to respond quick fire and we all know there’s a sort of speed/politeness relationship.

I ended up saying “Bite me. You’ve been looking for a job for seventeen years, I haven’t started looking yet and I’m closer.” It’s true though; how dare he question my employment state – I’m a student. I’m not even expected to have a job. My primary aim at the moment is to pass my exams – when he hasn’t had a job in so damn long when he has a family to support. It’s just freaking… rude!

Also, he said part time job. Part time!? If I was going to get a job it’d be a little more than part time, you ass.

Anyway. I’m going to watch Diggnation. Revision after this.