square zero

I was going to post something after being rejected for my job interview (no call back), entitled square one.  I knew that the chances of getting the job were slim, but it still sucks when you're implicitly told you aren't good enough. 

I don't really know why the blow was so disappointing.  Maybe it was because the interview seemed so close to the actual job.  Maybe it was coupled with the fact that my new tutoring student in fact didn't really want me tutoring him despite what he said.  I think I'll take a bit of a break from job hunting though.  The endless online applications and emails and phone calls can get kinda draining.

So I was basically where I was seven months ago when I got the walking job, thinking I'd be upgrading soon. 

Little did I know it'd get worse, and I'd get kicked out of Engineering Mathematics, and in doing so throwing my course plans off course.

It started innocuously enough.  I wasn't on my tutorial roll, so my tutor told me to see the head tutor to fix it up.  I couldn't find her, so I emailed.  Instead of fixing it, she went through my student record and claimed I had not done the proper prereq of calc 2.  No worries, I thought.  I had the subject approved at the start of the year, hence my enrolment. 

Apparently not.  I had to go see the head lecturer for approval.  I couldn't find him either, so more emails.  He was not impressed.  He was adamant that I hadn't seen too much of the prereq subject so he 'didn't want me' doing eng maths. 

I got some calc 2 tute sheets off a friend (thanks jacky!) and looked through it. 

Limits. surfaces. complex numbers.  All stuff I had covered already.  The only thing i hadn't done was differential equations, which didn't look too hard.  I told the lecturer I'd be happy to sit a test on calc 2 material.

The problem with email is the lack of 'channel richness'.  You can respond to an email after an age or conveniently ignore it.  The lecturer, decided to contact student admin to remove me from the subject without even replying to me.

wow that sounded like a mega rant.  Lucky I didn't write this right after my enrolment got cancelled or it would've sounded even worse.  I'm surprisingly feeling okay now though.  It's amazing what meeting up with friends at the start of a weekend can do.

new times

It's been a couple of pretty big weeks for me!  I got my Ps, found a new tutoring student, got my uni overload approved and had my first job interview.  With luck and if everything goes perfectly to plan, I'll have a new job and play in a regular futsal team with some friends too.

The licence wasn't quite as straightforward as I had hoped.  The combination of light rain and cold surrounds required demisting skills which I didn't have.  However, my mum got all the settings right so the car was all ready to go. 

The paperwork was fairly straightforward.  I was attended to by this guy who looked like he was 70 and bore a resemblance to Mr Perry (cgs teacher).  He had a wierd accent and could be a little hard to listen to.  Later, my mum told me he was my examiner.  Great.

We got out and went through the regular check up things, like lights, indicators etc.  He then called for the high beam.  *panic*  I didn't know/forgot how to do it!  quickly pulled the stalk for a prolonged flash, and he moved on. 

"fraannt demister" *point*
"reaah demister" *point*
"horn"                *honk*

twenty seconds later:

"fraannt demister"
"reah demister"
"horn"

Awesome.  I've got an examiner who struggles with short term memory.  On the plus side, perhaps when I make a critical error he would've forgotten by the time he goes to write it down!

We roll out and immediately he goes around adjusting all of my mum's carefully calibrated settings.  Temperature? ramped up to 24 degrees.  Fan? full blast.  Air con? on. 

Immediately the front windscreen began fogging up.  In fact, every window fogged up.  We prepare to enter Burwood Highway, and its so bad I have to wind down the window to see outside.  I drive us to a side road where we try to fix it up. 

"maaasstt cleeahh", the examiner claims.  So we fix up the settings and wipe the side windows. 

Thankfully the rest of the test wasn't as eventful and I passed!  A huge relief and the freedom is great :D


My first job interview was a big deal for me.  Once I was told to have an interview, I prepared questions and answers in my head.  Friends and family gave me extensive and sometimes amusing tips.  I listened to Eminem's classic song 'Lose yourself' about 3 times in two days.  The lyrics described my mood perfectly:

'if you had one shot, one opportunity...would you capture it, or just let it slip?'
would I be the person who 'keeps on forgetting what he wrote down', and
'opens his mouth but the words won't come out'?

When it came to the actual interview though, it was reasonably straightforward.  I was shaking a bit (probably not visibly), but my voice didn't completely give out on me which was a relief.  Ultimately though, the interviewer said there were about '50 applications' for two positions.  Mathematically, I have a 4% chance of nabbing one of them.  Realistically?  probably about the same with my lack of experience.  I'm preparing myself for likely disappointment when they ring back on Wednesday. 

However, that 4% is not nothing.  There is no reason why I can't be that tiny percentage and defy the odds. 
For now at least, there is hope.

Pizza!

made a pizza pretty much from scratch the other day :D

It was only my bro and I having dinner at home, so I thought it was the perfect time for experimenting with some cooking. I had never tried it before, and to be honest both my bro and I were worried it wouldn't turn out properly, so we had two pre-made pizza doughs just in case.

The initial mixture kept sticking to my hands when I tried kneading it, but after a while it stuck to itself better and so I could roll it into a nice ball:

I had to leave it in a warm place for it to rest and expand.  Two hours later, it had expanded nicely:

After cooking, the final pizza looked like this:

Ended up tasting alright too! 

always good to know I can cook something edible :p

interpersonal relations

I've realised recently when talking with my little brother about 'immaterial benefits' that what I really value are family and friendships.  Basically, spending time with people.  Its not really that I didn't value them in the past; more that I've clarified in my mind what is important to me.  

When I think back to my best memories, they don't include moments like when I won a soccer game (a 'cup final') on computer coming back from 3-0 down at half time. However exciting that might have been at the time, it just doesn't fill me with a buzz that lasts hours or even days that comes from real interaction with real people.  My favourite times inevitably include having a good time with friends or with family; shopping/movie/hanging out last friday with cgs friends and the kununurra family trip being recent examples. 

This might come across as strange to people who know me and don't see me as the most social type, but trust me, it's true. 

This is why recent weeks have boosted my happiness; lunch at uni with new and old friends instead of newspapers, and nights out with friends instead of with a computer screen.  Stuff which probably sounds quite standard to a lot of you, but more a privilege than a routine for me.

Thanks to these people who brighten up my day :)

mistakes

I've made a lot of mistakes recently.

 Stupid things said to friends.  Silly things done.  Bad decision making.  Terrible time management.

Take yesterday for example.  I went into a 3 hour engineering workshop unprepared without practice with the computer program matlab.  No problem, I thought; my other two work partners would be able to help me out  and we could accomplish it together.

Neither one of them rocked up.

There I was stuck there with a program I couldn't get to work for me and I was at the mercy of a computer screen which made no sense to me and questions which I could not answer.  It was me against matlab, and matlab was owning me left, right and centre.

I've rarely felt so helpless in my life; only chinese exams which I hadn't prepared for could possibly compare with yesterday.

I ended up answering two of the five questions, with one of the questions requiring only excel.

The culmination of all these mistakes was today when a friend told me an assignment was due yesterday and I hadn't handed it in yet because I thought it was due next week. I was hoping he was wrong, but the assignment boxes were taped over with paper saying
'LATE ASSIGNMENTS TO MICHAEL BRAK ROOM 195'

He's the lecturer in case you were wondering.  It actually wasn't that bad; he wasn't terribly intimidating and said matter-of-factly that I would get a 0 for the assignment, unless if i scored a 48 or 49 overall, upon which it would be counted and I would pass.  No sermon or rhetorical questions designed to force you into a corner of shame, which I was immensely grateful for.  I do wonder why late assignments have to be handed to him to deal with personally though- so he can remember our faces and be less forgiving towards us during his lectures perhaps?

I'm not posting this in a grab for sympathy, for indeed I deserve none; my mistakes have been my own and mine only.  I just feel a compulsion to post this as a record of my waywardness, and hopefully with a combination of willpower and perhaps some luck this will never happen again.

On a more positive note, thanks to adhi and edi for a fantastic party!  happy 18th birthdays to you both :)

walking

Apparently someone in my neighbourhood complained about not getting the melbourne weekly magazine last week because I was on holiday.  The manager had sent someone to replace me but it seems like they didn't do their job.

It's nice to know that my work actually has a positive impact on other people's lives, no matter how trivial that may be.

pancakes

Since I haven't blogged in a while so don't really know what to talk about, I have taken viv's advice and will try to blog about...pancakes.

Truth be told I have no idea how to make pancakes, or for that matter have much knowledge about them in general, except for the fact that they are nice to eat when combined with nice toppings like icecream and syrup.

...and that is pretty much all i have to say about this topic.

I also got chased by a dog at work which was kinda freaky.  It was making a racket when I was delivering junk mail on its side of the street, then when I was delivering on the other side I see a white dog bounding across the street right towards me barking the whole way.

 Okay in truth it probably didn't look as aggro as that but it was still pretty freaking having a free dog rush at me like that.  It didn't exactly chase me all the way down the street but it was enough to make me ditch my trolley once i realised it wasn't just going to stay near the house.

From that point on I kept seeing/imagining wierd things in the darkness, like a rat or some kind of wierd creature, to the point where my yelp actually scared some girl who screamed inside their front yard or something.

Uni is draining.

Orientation

Orientation was...interesting.


In terms of actual information intake, I'd rate today a failure.  All I really got was another vague tour of patches of the campus, some more info on union/club pricing, and a few random flyers promoting anything from non-atheism to same sex marriage.  The only lecture I went to was a new low: about 'academic expectations', it had just about every study cliche you could think of- active learning, get enough sleep and exercise, and some other random stuff.  In truth, the most beneficial information I got today was where I'd get newspapers from.


On the whole though, today was a good day.  I caught up with a few old friends from school days and saw other classmates around the place, and heard about science O-week camp 'events' which were shocking and funny in equal measure. People said that I should've been there, but I think listening to the stories I was better off at home, and besides if I went I would've missed an awesome party on Saturday night. 

Finally sorted out my uni timetable, which is looking good despite having to go in 5 days a week and having straight lessons from 11-4 on monday. 


Work is also getting better; I've finally figured out how to stack my papers in the trolley so I don't have to wrench out magazines, and with a consistent route i've minimized time wasted pushing an empty trolley home.  It also seems far less strenuous than it used to, so perhaps it has increased my fitness!


not a bad day at all.

jobs

Been pretty lazy with blogging lately.
and job hunting
and dealing with holiday photos


Come to think of it I've been pretty lazy since coming back from Egypt/UAE about 20 days ago.  True, I've been sick, sometimes a fever so bad I wear three layers of clothing when others are in T-shirts.  But I can't shrug the fact that I have been lazy.


I couldn't find a proper job after some insipid searching (google) and decided to cop out and try for a walking job.  No interview, no resume required; just a name and address, then account details so they could pay you.  The real thing started last monday, collecting and sorting junk mail and local magazines.   


I stacked them on this child's play pram, on top of which I tied a massive box and metal frame stuffed full of papers.  'the more the better', I thought.  


I start wheeling it, feeling its weight.  
I roll it slowly down the slope, backwards so it wouldn't run away
I change it's angle so it rolls out to the driveway instead of the roses
....and the whole thing just completely collapses and folds away in front of me.
The papers are everywhere on the driveway and garden.  I've trashed the pram and have not even delivered a single one of the 354 i've been given.


I had to completely rethink how I was going to do the job and resorted to carrying some in a luggage wheelie roller thing which didn't carry many more than 30 copies.  I feel like i spent a lot of time wheeling the thing and carrying some more in my arms going past houses i had already done.  Then even more time wheeling the thing back empty because it ran out.


Childishly, I thought getting a job was like pokemon; they're hard to get sometimes, but once you get it it's good fun because even though it's hard work that pain is tempered by knowledge of money flowing in.


I was so very wrong.  It is quite simply hard work which left me exhausted for hours afterwards.  When I tell my mum about it, she replies with a knowing smile.  She know's i'm soft from years of not having to work.


This job isn't the best.  As a friend said, a job as a cashier or something like that would be much better.  As the old saying goes though, 'beggars can't be choosers'.  In the professional world, I am not much more than a beggar.  For now.