Day 12 - Serendipity

Don't you just love it when a plan comes together?

Today is my last day in Room 524, my working "home" for the last four years. Thinking about the future hasn't worried me per se but it has been something that has been on my mind of late, I have to admit. I had ideas for how to get to where I want to be (i.e., surviving financially for the next ten months while building up my experience in the area of postgraduate skills training) but didn't know what the route to accomplishing those goals.

So I arranged to meet someone more in the know, pick his brains a bit and try to get my foot in the door. I was hoping that I might be allowed to come in and observe a few workshops, see how things ran, that was what I was praying for I guess.

My prayers were more than answered.

So. Let's tick these things off as they came through:
1). I'm going to be employed as a tutor on a career skills workshop in November ("enterprise skills") for four days. Good experience and a decent wage, very high hourly rate.
2). I asked if I could observe a workshop; I was told yes, and oh, there's one starting next week... Actually so-and-so is away and we're a bit short-handed... What are you doing for the next two/three weeks? Result: two/three weeks employment now (general temp wage but experience and more foot-in-the-doorness means I'm very happy indeed), starting first thing on Monday.
3). Since we're going to employ you in November and you've not done one before it would be good for you to get some more experience... Well, we'll employ you as a tutor on one of our first year skills workshops some time before then - and we'll pay you the normal tutor rate for that too. It was at this point that I was mentally doing my little happy dance.
4). As part of my observations in these various workshops I'll be looking at developing some resources too, sessions and case studies for groups to consider. There's potential that after they are trialed here they could become part of a much larger collection of resources that are available nationally!!!

Reality Check: It's early days for all this I know, and I don't want to get too carried away with all the excitement. However, I think I'm off to a good start and I'm so thankful that this has all come together. I had faith that it would; something similar happened as I was finishing my Masters and faced with the prospect of sudden unemployment and imminent financial hardship - not quite what I was facing this time, but it feels very good that things have lined up once more. I knew that they would, but had no idea just how well things would come together.

I'm going to throw it out there to the audience: what do you think of serendipity, when things just come together and give you a really great set of circumstances? When have you experienced it in your own life - or do you think it's just a load of rubbish?

In all this happiness I am still quite sad at leaving Room 524. There's still a few things to do, empty the recycling bin, steal some office supplies, pack away the electronic Cyberman that I got for one birthday... I'll miss this place, but things have been winding down for a few weeks now. It will be strange not being here, but I'll still be around. My place of work for the next few weeks is just two buildings over, so that might be even stranger, to be around but not be here.

"But then again, all good things must come to an end..."

Day 8 - Busy Busy

I had a few things that I was going to write on today, but none of them were coming together as I had originally thought. And then I saw the following video over on io9 and I knew that it was all I needed for a blogpost. Videos like this are the reason that popular culture is just awesome...

Like I said: awesome!

Have had a reply to one of my tutoring ads today, which is good; have half finished the transfer of files from my uni desktop, going to load up a suitcase on wheels with stuff that I have to take home (even after putting over 5000 sheets of paper in the recycling there is still a ton of stuff to take) and then if I get a chance this evening I'm going to think about a piece of flash fiction that has been running through my mind for a few days.

A question to the writers out there: do you have any strategies for getting stuff written? How do you beat the procrastination demons? I have a few things that I've tried before, but they only seem to work during NaNoWriMo...

Right, back to work - listening to "The Best of Bond... James Bond" - which leaves me with another question: what is your favourite Bond song? Song, bear in mind, not film: I really like "A View To A Kill" by Duran Duran but think the film is pretty dire.

Teasers

I am sick to death of teaser trailers. I remember when trailers actually showed you something of the film, gave you some hint of plot or visuals to make you go "Ooooooh!" Sure, there are still trailers out there (and some of them are very good), but just lately I have come to hate teaser trailers, because at most they have one little thing which makes you go "Ooooooh!" and the rest of it is just a waste of time.

The teaser trailer for the new Star Trek film is my argument exactly (spoilers for the trailer, but not the film, ahead).

It's just... Well... Boring. Some shots of some guys working on the hull of the Enterprise. Well. Whoop-de-do. Nearly a minute of guys welding. Bear in mind, this is supposed to raise excitement levels in anticipation of the film.

The two good things about the teaser trailer are in the audio as well: Leonard Nimoy's incomparable voice giving those timeless words, "Space... The final frontier..." (which sends shivers down my spine just typing it; Nimoy's voiceover at the end of Wrath Of Khan is ten times better than either of William Shatner or Patrick Stewart's efforts); the sound of the original series transporters as the old Starfleet logo appears.

Empire's blog recently had a post about how there was no opening voiceover or narration to beat the one which accompanied Star Trek, and I'd pretty much have to go along with that (although the various different opening monologues which have accompanied the first season of Heroes have been pretty good on the whole).

Work has been going well over the last two days; finished the first draft of my chapter of background material yesterday, and did a solid three pages for another chapter today (which I'm hoping I will finish tomorrow) as well as tidy up the formatting on some tables of results for one of my appendices. Through it all today I have been listening to Daft Punk and The Benjamin Gate (as well as the soundtrack to the musical episode of Buffy). I find that listening to music which is generally faster in beat has an effect on how fast I type and keep concentration.

Got to go now; playing squash in fifteen minutes, immediately followed by five-a-side. More soon.

Older

It's my birthday (my 27th). It suddenly dawns on me that I'm not exactly young any more - OK, I'm not old by any stretch but my youth is more or less tapped out. Maybe I can stretch it for another year, but that's it.

It doesn't bother me. Indeed, why should it? A couple of people made little comments today about age (and it didn't help that I left my lunch at home, leading to many remarks about failing mental faculties and so on), but, well, I have my health, I have family and friends, I don't really want for anything (anything that matters; I'm still looking for a laptop and thinking my life will be more complete with a Wii in it). Life at 27 is good so far.

Going to the cinema (I Am Legend) and then for dinner (Korean restaurant possibly) with a friend in quarter of an hour.

The list for 101 Things In 1001 Days keeps growing, but not fast enough... Any suggestions? And also one of things that I want to do is read a list of 101 books in those 1001 days (fair dos, I'll probably read more than that number) but I don't want them to just be books I've read before. Some (like The Hobbit, or the Night's Dawn trilogy, or the novels of William Gibson), sure, but not all of them, not even the majority. Of course, I can't write a list for you of all of the books I have read, but do you have any suggestions for books which are "classics" which you think are good?

Finally, I'm very excited that Empire gave Cloverfield a five star review (I didn't read it, just looked at the soundbite review and star rating) and am anxiously awaiting two weeks from today when it goes on release in the UK.

Oh, and Star Trek!!!



More soon, have fun.

(and noisms, what are you up to? You don't write, where's the love?)