Okay, I’ll tell you what’s not cool? Not firing an employee but deleting their email address associated with the company. As my phone and mail clients are set up with all my email addresses (yeah, I have a few, so shoot me…), when I get some error about an email address not being able to connect, or my password being wrong, then I go and check the address with an email verifying tool and find that it doesn’t exist, I go and trace my mind back to the blog post I wrote two days ago.
I said it was uncool to beat around the bush and not fire an employee, just leave them hanging. If you seriously take pride in what you do, and don’t want to be seen as selfish, then you do the right thing and say, “sorry Barry, I’ve got to let you go”. What I did not appreciate was my employer saying he’d let me know if they had any work come in, then me seeing that they had a new staff member, then having my email address deleted without a word. Maybe they had reasoning, like they didn’t want to hurt my feelings? That’s lame. They probably hurt my feelings more by giving me false hope. I am severely disappointed.
Well, not anymore though, because I love my current job.
Since it’s been keeping me busy, I honestly look forward to the weekends. I managed to read some blogs today and respond to some comments – finally! I’ve also started using Google Reader to keep up with my favourite blogs. It’s a bit like subscriptions on YouTube for me – except this time I’m more drawn to them because I prefer reading to watching. I’m telling you, I haven’t watched any of my YouTube subscriptions since November. Pretty atrocious.
Along with that, I have changed my Gravatar and started commenting under “Georgie” instead of “Georgina”. I updated my Gravatar to reflect how much the front of my hair has grown out and how I often wear it in a ponytail because the style is getting uneven. I can’t wait to get a haircut in the next couple of months. I am positive I will be colouring my hair red.
I managed to clean some of my room today and throw out some old worksheets and books from high school and my bachelor’s degree. During the week I also found some old personal diaries from when I was younger, right through to high school. I decided that it was time to let go of them. After flicking through some of the embarrassing, horrific things I wrote, I knew I wouldn’t look at them again and they wouldn’t serve much purpose, so I started to tear the pages of one of the diaries to shreds and put them in the recycling bin.
I hate putting paper in the bin without completely destroying it. I just can’t do it. With my envelopes and old mail, I have to tear them to shreds and even scribble or mutilate any financially sensitive information or passwords sent through the mail for my bank accounts. Maybe that makes sense, but I have to do it for everything. With my diaries, I don’t want anyone to read them. I don’t care if the person doesn’t know me – I don’t want anyone reading it. I get paranoid that someone will intercept my trash and come across all my rubbish, especially those printed on paper, and somehow piece them together and decipher it to find out about me. I don’t know why this bothers me when anyone can Google my name and find my blog. I can’t put anything in my trash without thinking that some lonely person who works for the council will discover it and it will tickle their curiosity while they’re on the job operating the machinery.
If it’s a subject outline from school, or an old maths worksheet, or even sheet music that I no longer want, I have to tear it to shreds. I don’t have a paper shredder, but I know there’s one at work. Even if I tear it I have this sinking feeling in my gut that someone is going to spot one strip of it, one piece of it, and start reading what’s on it, and try to find the other pieces. I feel like someone out there might find out that I’m G__rg_na L__ur, a girl who wrote in spiral notebooks about her unrequited love for someone called Matt in 2005, and swore about someone who said she loved her and she seemed to not love that person back, who studied Information Discovery and A_a__sis, who played either the piano, clarinet or violin and possibly liked Naruto or just Japanese music in general, who ate Weet Bix bites and drank skim milk and knew someone born on the 12th December 1990…
A long time ago I tore a letter to shreds; it was from someone who I was no longer on good terms with. Following a huge dispute I chose to dispose of the letter by mutilating it into tiny pieces, drenching it in water, and throwing a small amount of pieces into several different garbage bins scattered around the area.
I’m that paranoid. I think it’s irrational; heck – I fully acknowledge it’s a problem, but I get the shivers leaving something in the bin without having it destroyed. I like to recycle. My dad told me off earlier this afternoon when he saw me doing it; he told me that the council wasn’t going to be too happy with the way we were treating our garbage. After all, it’s a rule that you should bundle up newspapers; I suppose it’s the same with other paper. He said that if I wanted to tear things, I might as well put them in the normal garbage.
Is there less chance of someone looking through it then? Among squashed grapes and meat cuts and rotten apples? I wouldn’t know. I’m being silly.
The other day I only got three hours of sleep, thanks to the wonderful concoction of too many apples, procrastination, the flaws of a perfectionist (oh, the irony) and the beauty of an assignment. Mid-week, now, I couldn’t be happier.
Well, maybe I could, considering I had a rough day. The morning was bad enough; I thought I was running early but it turns out that my analog clock lost time overnight and was actually fifteen minutes slow. I had to rush to make a sandwich and run out the door, only to see the bus pass as I reached the end of my street. Of course, I ran for it without giving it much thought. The thing is, it’s always an instinct to run for the bus when essentially it doesn’t matter; there’ll be another one soon – alright, but for me, not soon enough.
Last night I slept at 11:00pm, which was a reasonable time. Just as I was falling asleep, my phone buzzed and it was my brother… in the same house… just in the other room… he sent me a message asking if I was sleeping. Well, the hell I was, so I replied the affirmative, to which he responded, miffed, “omg I REALLY NEED TO PRINT :/”. Now that’s the thing that sucks about our household: we have a beast 4-in-1 machine that prints, scans, photocopies and is a fax machine, but it’s not a wireless piece of technology. It’s in one room, which happens to be mine, and there are no cables long enough for my brother to connect his computer to it. He always has to email or send me the files somehow, and I print them. (This is a pain in the ass if my computer is off and I am not home or I am just, you know, sleeping.) James said it might be possible for the printer to be connected to the wireless router… but really, that’s for another day.
I was running after the bus thinking I would make it to the end of the street, especially since it stopped there and picked up some passengers. Alright, if I run fast enough, I’ll make it and I’ll be fine.
No, I wasn’t. It disappeared around the corner and by the time I got to the corner I couldn’t see it. The sun was in my face. I was facing east for a while and after some time walking the bus’s route I checked my phone to see if there were possibly any other buses to catch. My guess – usually a correct one, at that – was that there wouldn’t be any for a while, and not from where I was standing. Yuck.
Since I would have to wait close to 40 minutes for a bus to come by, I decided to walk to the train station. I say “the” because at the time I really did not know which way I was going. The thing that sucks about where I live is that I don’t live close to a station at all. If I wanted to walk, it would take forty-five minutes to the closest three stations. We’re stuck between all three, not really within reasonable walking distance of any of them.
I thought I might make my way to the quieter station, as it was closer. After five minutes I changed my mind and turned around and walked in the other direction, to my normal train station. I changed my mind because of the fact that not many trains stop at that station, and I’d probably never make it in time for work.
The thing is, I wouldn’t have made it in time for work going to any station at that rate.
I walked north.
I listened to It’s Nice To Be Alive as I angrily stormed up the hill towards the main highway. Well, I wasn’t angry; I was just wiping beads of sweat from my nose. I realised when I reached the highway that I was the same distance from two different bus stops – going in opposite directions. I just walked in the general direction of the train station. At this point my toes were feeling rather painful from my heeled work shoes, and I had to keep adjusting my skirt because I was walking so vigorously and it kept twisting about. Ugh.
Eventually I just stopped at the bus stop near one of the local high schools. I was about ten minutes’ walk from the station but I couldn’t stand it anymore. I just sat and waited for the next bus.
I felt really drowsy throughout the day. I really hate depending on coffee or caffeine like I did two years ago. I used to drink so much coffee. At work Dan offered Coca Cola but I just refused. I know apples keep you awake but mine wasn’t doing me much good. Rarrargghh. Because I was so tired I started getting a headache.
I sat down in class for five minutes, decided I couldn’t stand it and just walked out. Lucky they were just learning CSS… crap that I already know. Sigh. I can’t wait for Friday, damn it. It’s like my favourite day now.
Last Friday I passed Basement Books, which is a bookstore that is partially underground. You pass it on the way to the train station, so it’s in a rather busy place. It’s a busy place itself though – people like to go there and see what books are on sale (everything!) as well as the stationery and other things.
I was a bit early to class that Friday morning so I took some time to browse the store. I saw a sign that read, “When was the last time you did it?”
In small print underneath, it said, “A jigsaw puzzle, that is.”
This caught my eye, particularly because finishing a jigsaw puzzle is one of the things on my 101 in 1001 list. I wasn’t that specific in my goal, but I usually do try to give myself a challenge. I noticed that these puzzles all had a thousand pieces and there were many different pictures. I couldn’t decide, and I realised I would be late for class if I didn’t hurry up. I wasn’t all that sure if I wanted a puzzle either, but the $4.95 price tag was tempting. I thought about it as I walked up the escalator.
I messaged James later and asked him to please get me a box. I’m glad I asked him, because I knew he’d make a good choice. I would have stood around trying to pick the prettiest picture. James chose one that was not only pretty (a garden with lots of colourful flowers) but also difficult. Because of all the greens in the garden, it would make it a difficult puzzle. James told me that the girl at the checkout said, “The greens will make your head spin.”
Funnily enough, when I lugged it to work after class later that morning, my boss said, “Hmm. This is going to be hard because of all the green.” I already spent time during my break at work to do some of the puzzle, and I got a whole pink blob of flowers put together in the puzzle.
I didn’t take the puzzle home since I was going to the Grates’ show that evening, and I thought that since I already started the puzzle I should finish it at work. Today I worked on it some more, but it was so hard to stop myself and draw myself away from it. I must have spent an hour picking through the pieces and putting it together. I can’t stop thinking about it. I have a large corner done, and nearly the whole bottom edge. My boss said I was going to run out of room soon.
I’ll have to move some of my stuff off my desk. I’ve never been so attached to a jigsaw puzzle. Come to think of it, I wasn’t really a fan of jigsaw puzzles when I was younger. I don’t think I’ve done one for at least ten years. Every time I saw a jigsaw puzzle at a yard/garage sale or at the discount store, I cringed. They were almost like my worst nightmare – something time consuming, uninteresting, and plain horrifying. Now I’m enjoying this one puzzle I have.
I’ve never done a puzzle that big. A thousand pieces seemed insane to me when I was in high school. I never imagined I’d ever be interested in jigsaw puzzles. I’m aiming to finish the puzzle by the end of next week, working on it only when I’m at work.
A week of intense work and university has passed. Four evenings and nights of classes, and work from the morning until the afternoon. It has left me very busy, but I’m not stressed out. I just have less time for hobbies, and I spent nearly the whole weekend studying and doing homework. Thirteen weeks to go, then first semester ends. It can’t be too bad. I can totally do this. Two of my subjects are pretty similar and some topics sort of overlap, so that’s a good thing.
My third subject is Enterprise Computing, which sounds dull and technical as hell, but I hope I can get my head around it all and memorise everything. My fourth subject this semester is Interactive Arts, which is project-based, so it won’t be too bad. I guess I have a good weighting of all my subjects. I am a bit worried about next semester because I think the subjects I’m taking have a greater workload, but that’s all to worry about then.
Hi! To all regular readers of my blog, this is a post I’m writing for class. From now on, posts I write for my Digital Media Technologies class will be dumped in the appropriate category. You can read and comment on these posts if you like. They’ll just be a new addition among my regular blog posts.
Anyway, hello DMT! I’ll call you all that from now on. My name is Georgina, but I’d very much prefer it if you call me Georgie. First, a secret: While most people hate writing about themselves, I like writing about myself, because it’s the subject I know the most about.
I’m the girl with the dark hair who was sitting up the back of the classroom today. There’s a photo of me as the image associated with this post. Come say hello. I promise I don’t just look out of windows all the time, and I hope my age isn’t too intimidating (I’m only 20, and throughout my years of study I’ve had people mistake me for a high school student, but people who know better know that I’m about the same age as everyone else, but to their surprise I’m a bit younger). I’m just always amazed by views from great heights. Being on level 27 of a building is wonderful. I had trouble trying to figure out where the general direction of my house was from there, though.
I recently completed a Bachelors degree in Communication, so referencing was really tight in that faculty. If you want me to write your references for you, I will… no, just joking. But feel free to approach me for help in that regard. I’m a writer at heart, so I’m vehement about good grammar and punctuation and I don’t mind proofreading.
I’m doing this course – a Grad Diploma in IMM – because I was looking for a tertiary qualification that would support what I already know. I hate to say this because I usually sound arrogant, but web design is actually my passion. I got into HTML from the age of ten, and though I’m a keen learner, I didn’t really pick up on new technologies until I was 17 – from which age I started freelancing. I am rather proficient in X/HTML (more recently, HTML5) and CSS, and am very familiar with WordPress and Textpattern. I currently work for a web design company in Haymarket. While this subject contains a lot of what is familiar to me, I am a very keen learner and I look forward to dabbling in more advanced PHP, MySQL and Java/jQuery. I love giving myself a challenge.
Success for me, in this subject – now that I am aware of the subject outline and what this constitutes – is receiving a mark above Distinction. I strive to do well, and I’d be happy with such a grade. However, more importantly, I want to walk away having learned something new. This is why I am planning to propose something that will challenge me for this subject’s assessment. I believe that if I can walk away with some new knowledge on the aforementioned languages, it will benefit me in the workplace. And I won’t have to keep asking my boss for help.
As you can see, I already have a blog and a website. You can visit my portfolio if you want to see what else I’ve done. It is probably the best way I can sum up my skills with visual aids. Also, this website you’re looking at (my first domain name and my personal blog!) is the first website of my own that I’ve coded in HTML5 and made as responsive in design as possible. I would love to improve my skills there.
I live out west, so it takes me about an hour to get to university. I work five days a week, with flexible hours. I arrive in class having finished a shift at work from 9:00am. Lately on the train I’ve been listening to Radiohead (hey, if you’re going to see them in November, let me know – I’m thinking of going and I don’t have a definite concert buddy) and Magic Dirt, but my favourite bands are Armor For Sleep, Jebediah, Avenged Sevenfold, Explosions in the Sky, Smashing Pumpkins, Nirvana… hmm, the list could go on, really.
If you’re in my class and we have something in common, let me know. :3 For reference: The feed of my DMT posts. If you’re one of my regular readers, let me know how school is going for you, or what you’d say in an introductory post.
I have this thing for paper notebooks. I just can’t get enough of them. I used to collect all kinds of notebooks, but I really liked collecting ones with cute designs. Over the course of many years I’d use these notebooks for various purposes – mostly for keeping a daily diary. I stopped keeping a diary in around 2007. That year I blogged a lot more often and going digital was the course my writing took. I know that typing is never going to be the same as putting pen to paper, but I still like keeping a log of events and happenings in my blog.
Because I didn’t use notebooks as much for my diaries, a lot of them ended up being unused. During high school we were given a school diary and I opted to use it to keep me organised, and also because it had important dates printed. I have, however, long hated diaries with dates printed.
Many times I’ve received dated diaries as gifts, but to be honest I have not really liked them very much. I find them to be very restricting; you can only use it for one particular year because the dates will be wrong, or you don’t have a lot of space to write… This happened when I still kept a diary but I used it anyway, just for the lines and the writing space. I completely ignored the dates and print. It was still very annoying.
I have many notebooks lying around now but because I have so many, it’s going to take me some time to get through them. I bought three new notebooks late last year and started using one. I use it for everything – writing poems, making to-do lists, doodling, reminders – and no doubt I’ll start using it by the time university starts again. In early university I started using exercise books, just blank ones you buy from the stationery store, but I found them dull. Later on I wanted to use all my pretty notebooks to take notes.
My problem is that some of these notebooks are just too cute to use. I have this problem all the time with cute stationery. Be it pens, pencils, paperclips, post-it notes – I can’t bring myself to use them because of the impeccable cuteness. When I bought these three new notebooks last year I promised I would use them. I had to use them. I now have to use them and I’m using one. And I’m going to keep at it, too. This time I hope to use a different notebook for each subject when I go to university so I don’t get confused. It’ll hopefully keep me organised and let me use up my notebooks.
Of course, I have to have a handy dandy notebook at hand. Wait, does anyone remember that show? Blues Clues! It’s been a while. I loved that show to pieces, even though people made up some weird stuff about the Steve guy on there. Actually, speaking of Blues Clues and Handy Dandy Notebooks, I loved that show so much that I went out and bought a notebook just like the one on the show. Anyway, what I meant by a handy notebook is one that I’ll have for bits and bobs and other notes that don’t really go anywhere else – and one that I carry around daily so I can write down anything if I need to. The one I’m using now is a spiral notebook with a red cover and unlined pages.
It was obviously no surprise that I was drawn to the sale at Typo yesterday. I was browsing the shops with James and I thought maybe it would be worth a look since I’ve never actually looked in a Typo store before.
Why did no one tell me about this earlier? This shop is like my heaven. It’s full of stationery, typography-inspired room decorations, and, of course, fitting under the stationery category – notebooks. They had a sale, three for ten dollars. I know there are other stores with cute notebooks that sell three for five dollars or three for eight dollars, but something just completely drew me to these amazing notebooks. Typo has notebooks with humourous covers, as well as gorgeous styles and sizes big and small, thick and thin. I was surprised I managed to walk out of there without my wallet losing weight, but I think I’m going to be going there tomorrow…
I got outbid on a lot of iPads on eBay, but not before they hit $500 or more. I’m not really keen on buying any second-hand iPad for much more than $300, and even then, I am a bit of a cheapskate. there are many auctions I am watching, but two of them finish tomorrow morning. I hope that I can win one of them, and of course still be willing to pay whatever price the auction hits.
It’s funny how you say you win an auction but you’re not really winning anything when you’re paying for it.
I’ve also started using Google Reader to keep up with my favourite blogs. It’s a bit like subscriptions on YouTube for me – except this time I’m more drawn to them because I prefer reading to watching. I’m telling you, I haven’t watched any of my YouTube subscriptions since November. Pretty atrocious.
I’m being silly.
I noticed that these puzzles all had a thousand pieces and there were many different pictures. I couldn’t decide, and I realised I would be late for class if I didn’t hurry up. I wasn’t all that sure if I wanted a puzzle either, but the $4.95 price tag was tempting. I thought about it as I walked up the escalator. 
To all regular readers of my blog, this is a post I’m writing for class. From now on, posts I write for my Digital Media Technologies class will be dumped in the appropriate 
Anyway, what I meant by a handy notebook is one that I’ll have for bits and bobs and other notes that don’t really go anywhere else – and one that I carry around daily so I can write down anything if I need to. The one I’m using now is a spiral notebook with a red cover and unlined pages. 
This shop is like my heaven. It’s full of stationery, typography-inspired room decorations, and, of course, fitting under the stationery category – notebooks. They had a sale, three for ten dollars. I know there are other stores with cute notebooks that sell three for five dollars or three for eight dollars, but something just completely drew me to these amazing notebooks. Typo has notebooks with humourous covers, as well as gorgeous styles and sizes big and small, thick and thin. I was surprised I managed to walk out of there without my wallet losing weight, but I think I’m going to be going there tomorrow… 