A Cup of Tea…
Doesn’t solve everything as I am absorbed with the flu (just flu and not swine flu) right in the middle of my exam period. I haven’t been totally with it this week as I turned up for my cisco skills test with the wrong crib sheet as I was under the impression I had a different exam.. Although I feel I did pretty well in it and I will find out the results soon. Having said that my first exam went better, someone found it a little too boring though as one of the invigilators fell asleep.. (and yes I am not joking, snoring and everything!!)..
Anyway apart of the flu and my exams I have acquired another computer! A small compact pc that I’m going to use to test the various operating systems I should really know about,. Mainly Linux distros like Ubuntu and Gentoo which is a popular OS at my placement I am told…
I have also set my moving out day which is the 14th of may a couple of days after my last exam and on that note I am off to do some more cisco reading..
Just an update
Just a quick one. Uni has started for the 3rd semester and my last assignment has been handed in so that means its revision time!
I didn’t do much yesterday as I was being lazy for one and also I got a new hard drive for the Home Server racking it up to 3Tb so now I can properly fully backup my PC to it with the extra space.
On another note I thought it worth a mention the blog was put live 2 years ago yesterday. Can’t say I have been using it solidly for 2 years but its birthday was yesterday 2 years ago. Actually that reminds me, I’m 20 a month today… Where is the teen?
Easter Update
The Easter break is quickly coming to an end with the 3rd semester just around the corner. Its been a good break, I have been home for a while building IKEA shelves and decorating the dining room in between finishing my last assignment and seeing friends. However back in Stafford now as I needed to take care of some things before uni was in swing again.
One of those things was finding a house for my placement year in Birmingham. I decided over Easter I didn’t want to commute from Stafford. I used to commute to college in the first year before I learnt to drive although I don’t mind getting up at 6am in the morning I don’t like the idea of spending 40minutes each way on a train everyday. so I started looking for flat in Birmingham. Surprisingly the rent is very similar too what I was expecting if I lived in Stafford including a season train ticket. I e-mailed a few people and arranged house viewings for yesterday (Tuesday) I was quite nervous as I didn’t know what to expect from the houses as it would be like first year in halls, not knowing who you are moving in with etc. However the first house had reasonably sized rooms and the rent was pretty low, however the house was very student like and didn’t feel like a house at all more like halls really, so on I went to the second house which was very nice indeed. It had been well looked after and was more of a house than a student pad. It had a nice living and dining room with a fairly big kitchen and generally felt like a nice house to spend time after a hard days work. One out of the 4 rooms are taken and I’m the process of signing contracts and putting down a deposit to take up the largest room more on this later though.
It appears I have also signed up on Twitter, I signed up a while back as I thought I’d check it out but never did anything with it and now Facebook seems to me as trying to follow twitter (Little joke there??) which is a shame as Facebook had its own thing going on but has seemed to have lost that spark now so I thought I’d check out twitter again. Haven’t got many followers though maybe because I need to update it more…
The car passed its MOT first time which is a first I think although it had to stay the night at the garage as they didn’t fit the new brakes and new front pile in time for it to have its MOT done.
On other note I have reached 200,000 credits on BOINC Stats…
Anyway back to work….
The Easter Break
The Easter break hasn’t been much of a break yet from me. I am finishing off my last assignment of the 2nd year. Although it is nice to be home and to see the family its a shame I have word to be done when is it the weather decides to be nice and sunny.
I suppose I am still in a mind wandering dase after getting a placement last Friday, I’m very excited and really looking forward to it. Although at the moment I am still deciding on where to live Stafford or Birmingham but its still early days yet.
As I am home and not really paying for the electric bill I have started number crunching for grid networks again. I’ve participated on and off over the years but after a couple of lectures in my Network and Grid computing module on BOINC and its projects I decided it turn it all back on again.
I’ve taken the break to get my car in for its MOT. The garages in and around Stafford don’t seem to really offer value for money and as a student that is a top priority so its in and I’ll find out soon how much damage it is going to cause to my bank account.
Placement
On Friday I was pleased to have been accepted for a placement with Blueberry Consultants in Birmingham. I start at the end of June so I’ll have short break after my exams.
Money Saving
The start of term starts to tomorrow (Thank you Google Calender reminders) and the start of my money saving plan! Over the past couple of terms I have had a rough idea on budgeting my money but at the end of the term is seems its all gone down the pan and I have next to nothing left!
So with the new year I have decided to budget my money, my debit card will stay at home and I’ll only have £55 to spend a week! This should leave me at the end not so much positive but a lot less negative.
To kick start this plan I have reduced my mobile phone bill, because of the stupid rules I can only reduce it once and at one step at a time (Oh but I can upgrade how ever many times I want, Grrr, Stupid Orange) but I have now saving a little bit and as they say, A little bit goes a long way..
To help motivate me I have decided that left overs of each week will be set aside and will hopefully build up so I can get some new hard drives for the media server and put Windows Home Server back on it!
