As I look out of the window and the clouds below us, and the mountains below that, I’m minded to think that saying goodbye to Romania and hello again to England bears a similarity to saying goodbye to the previous year and hello to the next. Alright, so we did that just under a week ago officially, and of course the flight is from one known to another, but you see what I’m getting at. I would like to say something poetic like how flying makes me reflect on my life — so far above the world, and so personally helpless, that my thoughts are free to turn to how I can improve the things I do have control over — but in honesty that’s not true (besides, with so many screaming kids on this flight, it’s hardly conducive to poetic thinking). It does, however, give me time to write.
I didn’t go into 2012 with big plans which I can reflect on at the end of the year. I thought, perhaps, I might have changed jobs, but in the end things didn’t pan out that way; I suppose, in honesty, I didn’t try all that hard so perhaps the whole situation wasn’t as bad as I thought it might have been at some points in the year. I didn’t think I’d come so close to being upgraded as part of the British Airways Executive club; although I didn’t make it, one economy to business class upgrade on my last flight of the year would have tipped the balance. [read more]
So that’s it, it’s all over. It’s been hard work, but great fun. I’ve met a great bunch of people, and never seen such a dedicated group of young people working towards a common goal before. If anyone feels the need to do down young people I’d invite them to spend the week at one of the ISTA festivals and then re-evaluate their opinion.
I did discover one thing though – I’m no good at networking. This causes something of a problem in my industry.
I know what I said last time, but all this work’s been getting on top of me. I don’t suppose I should complain really, it pays the bills. Now a few things are coming to an end (and I’ve decided to give myself an evening off) I’m taking an evening off.
The Blood Bowl site is nearly complete — I should have it all wrapped up by next week — which is a relief. It’s been more work than I was expecting in all honesty. I’ve done most of the updates for the theatre school website, but failed to get a ‘quote’ to them before their last committee meeting as I promised. One Flew Over The Cookoo’s Nest has been and gone (you can read a review here and another one here). My dad’s starting up a company and I went to a meeting in York with him and my brother about their marketing and publicity. Actually I had two reasons for going back up north that weekend. [read more]
I have two sides to me: one artistic and one scientific. I’ve always had this. At college I studied sciences – physics, maths, computing – whilst before this I attended a theatre school. At university I read computer science but spent a lot of time at the radio station and some time with the theatre group. Now in work I am a photographer but make a considerable amount of my living from web development. I’ve always tried to balance these sides out, but it’s tough.
I was approached yesterday by one of my clients (for whom I’m shooting this year’s Relentless Boardmasters festival in Cornwall this August) asking if I would be willing to shoot some sets for a new website he is producing. Now, I’m not totally sure of the details of what he is looking for — the details will be worked out if I choose to accept the job — but basically he’s looking for glamour / softcore erotic photographs.
This obviously throws up a few issues, both morally and technically. [read more]
I read an interesting blog post earlier this week – “To read or not to read?” – written by an MA broadcast journalism student. In it he talks about the ethics surrounding reading other people’s text messages without their consent. He uses this example to illustrate a point regarding investigative journalism as a whole. While we agree on the main point in question, I’m not sure I agreed with everything he says. I’d recommend you go and have a look at his post, and my comments at the end, as I’m not going to repeat them here.
Then, this weekend, I spotted a copy of The Daily Telegraph on the train open on an article titled “The Mandy and Osborne Show had us in stitches”, so I had a look. The article I had initially seen was, in fact, not very interesting at all (some comments by an actress about The Spectator’s Parliamentarian of the Year awards), but the item above it was. The section I was reading was the comment section, and the piece above related to the current economic climate. The article is clearly comment – it’s not hard fact, it’s one writer’s opinion on the way Gordon Brown has handled the slow down in the economy. As good comment should be it’s a very biased article. [read more]
It doesn’t happen often but last weekend, amongst all the other turbulent events, I got an offer of work which I decided to turn down. And it seems I made the right choice. [read more]
The past few days have been a bit different with regards to work for me. I’ve been installing an over-ip CCTV system as part of a new data centre install. It’s an interesting cross over between the areas I usually work in — computers and photography. It’s also been lots of hard work. [read more]
Hmmm, I just had what I think was one of the best weekends of my life. It was just perfect. At the end of it I didn’t want Natalie to go home, I just wanted to snuggle up with her again and spend another two days with her.
But first, I haven’t written since last weekend, and I need to get all up-to-date…I worked last Sunday, and it was good fun actually (hmm, I say fun, but I suppose it wasn’t ‘fun’ in the usual sense of the word, but still fun in a strange sort of way, lol). I was in 9.45 until 4 (they open 10 till 4 on Sundays over peak season). I was working with John (the senior salesman), Gary (one of the other salesmen who I know from when I was at school), and the deputy manageress person (who’s name I can’t remember at all). I was introduced to the warehouse and shop floor, and started off in the small cupboard in the corner of the shop putting all the games in alphabetical order (they were just in a random order before, but they are all in alphabetical order now…or at least were last Sunday, lol), then the deputy manageress and I went up to the warehouse and get some cables which were needed on the shop floor and we got some other things as well, just to stock up. She showed me how to use the till (although I didn’t have a pin for the system, I had to use Gary’s) and priced them all up, stuck stickers on and security tags, and put them out! One thing I don’t like about being on the shop floor, is that people kept asking me things…some people I helped (like the lady asking about speaker wire, and the lady who wanted to know the price of two printers) but most I had to hand on to other people. In the course of all this I had to run up and down the stairs a few times to get things for the sales people who had sold things, which was useful for finding my way about the warehouse, lol. We stocked up again, and then towards the end of the day I was set on to changing the tags from white to yellow (they change them every 6 weeks to show trading standards they check the prices regularly apparently)…and that was my day at work. We looked at when I was meant to be working again, but the rest of the week on the rosta was blank (except Monday which was crossed out…), so I called in on Monday to ask Simon (manager) when he wanted me next. He didn’t know, said he would ring in the week, didn’t, and so I called back on Friday and asked again. He said 2 – 5 on Wednesday (which is the day they get their delivery), so I imagine that I will be in the warehouse then…have to see what happens.
Oh, apparently one of my friends from theatre school has put me on hotornot.com, and I have a 7.2, but I’m still looking for me…I might get the name he put me on with at some point, just to check up, but until then I am going to keep looking, lol.
The rest of the week has been pretty dull, with nothing exciting happening at all, until this weekend…and I think I will write about that in the next entry, just to break it all up a bit 🙂
Read on 😉
I have been meaning to do this since Tuesday now, but just haven’t got round to it…so, here goes…oh, and you know what it is all about now from the title…I think I should come up with some more original ones, I’m just not very good at them!
The week at college has been pretty dull with just normal college type of things going on. It was also parents evening yesterday, which my dad went to by himself because my mum was on a conference. It was just what I thought it would be – a waste of time. Kevin (my politics teacher), was in a meeting when my dad arrived, and then had to dash off (even though he had appointments), so my dad was told that he would ring today (or yesterday now…but I’m calling it today because I have been up since – its still my Thursday, hehe). Duncan (physics) told him what he told him last time that they spoke, and David just said I was doing fine, and that he thought I would do well in the kind of thing I want to do at Uni (actually, I didn’t know this until today when my mum told me (my dad didn’t tell me, but told her and she told me…), but he apparently said he thinks I should do a PhD…but I’m not too sure, how does Dr Jonathon sound, lol 😉 I don’t think anyone can say that I should do one at this time in my life!). So I think my dad thought it was a waste of time evening as well. [read more]