My Random Ramblings

If you are reading this, do you think my posts are too long and rambling? Just a general question. Answer and comment away.

This post has nothing to do with the title. So suck it,

It's that time of year again. My birthday. I'd like to say thanks to those who have wished me a happy birthday either through facebook or when they met me. Overall it's not been such a bad day, spent most of it giving my heart and soul to a black hole called "cover letters", more on that a bit later on. What I'm most surprised about is how many people knew it was my birthday and that have actually took the time to say happy birthday to me. I don't consider myself important but I have lots of friends, but the amount of people that have come up to me and said "happy birthday" has been utterly overwhelming. I'm moved, really. So I'd like to dedicate this post to those kind people, cheers everyone!

Now, on to the matter of the dark mistress known as an internship. Oh lordy, where should I begin? Well, let's begin at the beginning since I can't start anywhere else but also end at the beginning because I've yet to get anywhere. I'm tired, so if you want this post to make sense, f*** you. The actual application form isn't at all bad. You fill in your details, education, skills, work experience etc. That kind of stuff takes about 15 minutes tops for each place I'm applying to (think investment banks). Then comes those evil little things called open ended questions. Here's a little taster:

"Why do you want to work for [name removed], why that department and what skills you can bring to our organisation. [300 words]"

That's about the general sort of stuff you get. OK, not so bad, all you have to do is write something down that will look good to the employer. But then I hear that the HR department only takes 10 seconds to GLANCE at the statements and CVs. Students have poured their hearts and souls into these letters, well okay it's bullshit, but it's bullshit from our hearts and souls and all you do is take a glance at it, tell whether it's in the right format and then say or, god forbid, think yes or no. At least take 3 minute to read through some of the entire application. If you work for 8 hours a day, minus a 30 minute break for lunch, 2 x 15 minutes for smoking breaks (don't do this at home kids) and a 1 minute break once every 3 minutes, you can go through 93.333 applications in a single working day. I don't want any excuses saying that you have other things to do, your HR department is huge and your only job is to process/read these applications and to approve or disapprove (is that the right word here?) them. But then, these applications don't all come through at once, do they? They come through in a trickle at the start and then more and more. If you done your job right, this shouldn't be a problem for you, right? Forget it, I think this might just piss off some HR people if they read it. If you gotten this far without being so utterly disgusted and decided to start a satanic hate group against me, write a comment about how you're about to start a satanic hate group against me.

On the anime front, ladies and gentlemen, the London Expo is coming around again. My first time and hopefully not the last time. I'll keep you guys notified about it in my next post. As for the anime itself, Manabi Straight. Okay, I've honestly have had thoughts about someone coming into my room and seeing me watch this show and thinking I'm a paedophile. THEY ARE HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS. Blame the flipping animators making them look like bug-eyed midgets on crack. The plot revolves around one girl, Mikan Inamori, basically the only member of the school council. Due to falling birthrates and a failing economy, the Japanese children have been given the right to drop out of school after middle school to find work. Because of this, attendance at schools have been at an all time low and thus affecting the school council of Seioh High School, where Mikan is at. Then this energetic girl, Manami Amamiya, transfers in from another school, takes over as president of the council and decides to make everything more "fun". By now, it's beginning to sound like Haruhi, but it's not. As a show, it's OK, but it takes things a little bit too seriously. The lead characters are shown to be normal school girls with problems (no big surprises there) while the lead character was supposed to be Manami, or MANABI as she likes to be called, was suddenly switched to Mikan about halfway through. Overall, it's an okay show. Not something to watch with all-male friends, but something light-hearted to show to your sweetheart.

So there's the update and my moanings and groanings for this week. I'll be back later to slap you over the LAN.

So how was everyone's summer? If you are wondering why I haven't been updating this blog is because I really could not be bothered for the best part of the last year. Not that I don't like to blog but it was that I just did not feel like adding to this unless I have something to say. So why am I updating now? To be honest, I have no idea.

Now when I say that "I'm ALIVE", I mean that in the short term. You see, during the summer it has been bed at 2am and late brunches at noon. Now, however, it seems that God (or a minor deity) has got something against me. For, you see, I have just received my timetable for the next year. And what do I see? 9am starts lectures for Monday to Thursday but lectures start at 12pm on Friday. I think, "OK, it's not too bad, at least Friday will be good, right?" but noooo...fate kicks me in the crotch and puts a class at 10am in the morning on Friday. Even though I have to go to bed at human hours (at around 12am) to be actually able to climb out of it in the morning, the times actually means I'm free most afternoons, which frees me from the stresses of having one lecture in the morning and one in the dead of night. I'm not totally sure whether this is a good thing or a bad thing any more.

On a more personal note, I'm officially the IT Halls advisor for my halls of residence this year and, from what I can gather, the next year too. The pay is good and the hours are perfect for me too. The only bad thing is that I've been dubbed this genius at IT by most people in my halls when I'm not. I haven't said anything to them, but it's been perceived that I am. I was approached by a guy this morning from the Bridge Society (the card game, not the thing that goes over large crevices) to help them do some stuff for their website. There's three things wrong: 1. I haven't done any website stuff for 5 years, not since my work experience down at the Royal Navy's website team, 2. I'm not part of the Bridge society, and 3. I practically know nothing about websites. He didn't believe me and said I was just being modest. Oh lawd. I'm pretty sure that in the next few days, I'll have students asking me to set up servers in their own rooms to hack into the Pentagon or something. I mean, it's not like I'm bad with computers, I'm proficient with using them, troubleshooting problems, sorting out internet connections, destroying viruses etc, but people who don't understand that just because I'm the IT guy, does not mean that I am good with everything that is to do with the computer. Just because you don't understand how to do it does not mean that someone relatively competent with the thing will know exactly how to do it. It's like saying to a dentist to operate on a hernia. They have their own specialities, same with the IT profession. You get coders and you get network engineers. One might have some idea about the other's job, but they can't do each other's job for them. I'm happy for them to ask me, but sometimes it's just embarrassing to say that "I don't know". Maybe I should put up a list of my required tasks on facebook or posters around the halls or something...

On the anime front, the summer season of anime is about over. Several good shows came out of it. Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagaan (Or Heaven Piercing Gurren Lagaan), Lucky Star, Darker Than Black and RomeoXJuliet. Gurren Lagaan is basically for mecha fans and those who generally like Gainax, Lucky Star for those who want cute and a good laugh (Azumanga on steroids), Darker Than Black is for those who want action with a supernatural twist while RomeoXJuliet is one for those who like anime adaptations and love stories. I have yet to see RomeoXJuliet, but it has been rated highly, so yeah. Check them out. Beware that only Lucky Star has yet to be licensed, so you might have trouble finding the other three.

Anyway, have a good October. And here's some words of encouragement for the oncoming winter: "Go forth and multiply."