big things on the beach

Today our team took an afternoon on the beach.   (Sorry, forgot the camera… but smileygeekgirl has them plenty good enough 🙂 Hope you don’t mind me borrowing…?)

It was quite a treat to be surprised by the suns presence and no rain, so we all cheerfully put smiles on our faces as we tramped up-and-down up-and-around-and-down the streets, invading the privacy of gardens all and sundry along the way.  (Not just the artists, mind you… smelling the rosemary and scrutinising the thistles too!)

Embarrassingly enough, I actually found myself generally agreeing with our team sceptic as to the artwork… not that I gave him the satisfaction of knowing that!  I suppose that makes me “uncultured” but in the light of recent exposure, that’s probably a compliment. *hides from our French connection*

Just when I was about to give up in despair at this “contemporary art”, we found one I could concede as my favourite.

Quite refreshing. The connection with the sea gave cheerful connotations of summer holidays at the beach… while being right beside a beach made it harmonise with the surroundings in a simple yet enjoyable manner.

It was colourful without being too taxing on the eyes. The orange-and-white fitted the theme, and the pale blue background gave a contrast while fittingly maintaining its humble role as a backdrop.

No bold statements, just simple, straightforward fun.  Pleasant indeed, and all the more for its scarcity.

Squeakie was disappointed I hadn’t taken him along: he could have eaten the birdfood-containing-artwork.  And he’d certainly have qualified for the job of protecting me from the various little beasties I met.

Now once I can just catch that wee squeakie, I can go to bed.  All the fresh air today is making me yawn.

Cheap-squeak; goodnight.  😉

Ps: Hehe, amusing error message I received: “Hold your clicks a moment please…Flickr has the hiccups.”

 

You know there’s something wrong when…

You catch yourself succumbing to the depths of googling “homer donut”…

And what is far worse, actually calling it “work”.

 

…aaand… CHILL-LAX!

It has been a trivial week.

There were aspects that were fairly cheery and pleasant – like my day off on Tuesday just for fun. (Oh, and a confidence-boosting long chat with Sarah last night. 🙂 Thankyou!)

But mostly it has been characterised by stress. Not ‘real’ stress, just minor-frustration-I-can’t-be-bothered-with stress.

So, just to get it off my chest, here’s my top five:

1. Getting blown off my feet on Tuesday. Totally the wrong day to be visiting a hairdresser…
2. Being told 😮 by a phone salesman that it was “user incompetence” and not bad design that made me dislike the phone he was trying to sell me. ( 🙂 no, of course I didn’t feel smug when he couldn’t do the simple select-operation I used to illustrate…)
3. Spending two days trying to fix the java installation on my work PC. I failed. 😦 Grr… and I was *so* trying!
4. Waiting 45mins (instead of 2mins) for a train after planning my journey based on Scotrails “live updates” site.
5. And today I get to sport a totally cringeable red slit on my hand after a little incident with the breakfast avocado and a knife. (Be glad I don’t have my camera cable handy right now 😉 )

Ps: My justification for blogging from work? Foolproof (for a change) 😛

 

123 meme

The afore-promised… and, as you can see, entirely unoriginal, offering of words. But it seems that that is the name of the game. 🙂

So, the book is by Dr. Frank Luntz¹. To give its fully expounded title: “Words that Work: It’s not what you say, it’s what people hear”.

The point Goldwater thought he was making, a strong unwavering declaration for freedom, was far too rarified for the context of a presidential campaign. By appearing to describe himself as an extremist – actually using that highly charged word – Goldwater’s own language reinforced the image his opponents had created for him as a finger-on-the-nuclear-button extremist.

But the story doesn’t end there.

Hehe, quite an amusing exercise, actually! The only liberty I took was to chose whether or not the first half-sentence ‘counted’. So of course I had to encourage you all to read the book…

¹(Yes, I know, I’ve talked about it before… but it was closest, and it is precisely because it has more than 123 pages that I am *still* not finished reading it.)

 

reassuring emails

Sometimes, just out of the blue, an email arrives:

Hi Rachel,

I have deleted all local files and directories which aren’t [version controlled]¹.

Cheers,

[Identity hidden to protect the not-so-innocent]

I’m sure that, just like me, you all *love* getting emails like this! Thankfully, there was nothing *too valuable* lost on this particular occasion (that I’ve discovered yet!)… but sometimes a little protocol-agreement can go a long way!

What I see here is the “delete-inform” protocol: irreversibly remove the files, then tell people you’ve done so 🙂 Personally, I think I’d even prefer the “delete” protocol to the “delete-inform” protocol ‘cos at least then what I don’t know can’t bother me!

But by far my favourite has to be the “inform-delete” protocol (assuming a sufficient and communicated time-delay between the two events). To balance things up a bit, I had another email today doing precisely that – informing of an irreversible delete of potentially usable material, informing *what* the material was(!), informing of when this would happen, informing of the method of avoiding a delete should it be neccessary…

Maybe on a spreadsheet this doesn’t “add value” 😛 It’s just the same two events that are happening, after all!

But – somewhat selfishly of course 😉 – I think I shall continue to insist on the adoption of my own preferred protocol. 🙂

¹[Version controlling keeps a selection of saved-off copies of files, so if you eg delete a paragraph by accident, and save it, you could still go back to a previous version. Similarly, if you delete the file.]

 

going gold

Sometimes our Chinese friends just have such a sweet way of putting things:

chinese friend [to one of my friends] : I complete agree. You have a golden heart. and think only good things.

my friend [to me]: *polishes heart* 😛

 

total talking

Yesterday I got paid to talk all day…

Sounds like a skive but actually I got so tired I fell asleep face-forward on my keyboard last night earlier than I normally go to bed. So yes, it *was* work!

I was a rep at one of those fairs for graduate students who are looking around at which companies are offering jobs. We had a rather trickyish ‘brief’ as to the message we were trying to put across. Wouldn’t really want to discuss the details right here, but suffice to say we had sorta a couple mutually exclusive “images” to put across. A challenge to add to the excitement, I suppose.

At first I was a little nervous of speaking to people. Then I realised they were even more nervous to speak to me… so the only way I was going to learn this business was by picking on unsuspecting victims. Friendly smiles weren’t enough… I had to force an audible hello onto them to encourage them to feel welcomed.

It was a whole different kettle of fish when I tried having a surreptitious wander round the other stalls. Everyone wanted to know what degree I was doing, and if I wanted some junkmail… despite me sporting a company t-shirt of my own. All I wanted was just to nosy into what kind of company attends these events, how many I’d heard of, how easy it was to work out what they did from the stall branding, and all that kind of worky stuff…

An’ I only chored one freebie… 😛 I thought I was kinda entitled to that, after being prepared to listen to the guys sales pitch for a good half hour (at least!) It was a handy wee sim card reader… (Twice recently I’ve almost-lost my phone, and gone and got panic-attacks at the thought of losing all my numbers…) So, all in all, I was quite pleased with myself at managing to be an opportunist for once

The most interesting part was pretending to be a corporate spy, and trying to get as much info out of the other exibitors as possible. I paid particular attention to another company that our company used to be part of, before we launched forth on our own.

Since joining, I’ve been reading up on quite a bit of our (joint) company history… so it was rather enlightening to see just how much two companies can diverge in half a decade. Enough that they have developed almost completely opposite recruitement strategies…

Curious!

But hey

On the blogging front, its been quiet lately (as you may have noticed!), but having recently discovered my dearest Stephie has a blog… as does Ev , I may decide to motivate myself again, and start tackling the 30-or-so drafts I have on the go. :S That sounds awful! ‘cos it is, really! But I guess I just needed a holiday for a bit… and its not like I’m “pandering to the masses” anyway. I’m really writing it for me of course!

 

one year on

Having a bit of history behind my working-life is a novel concept, one I’m not sure I fully relish quite yet. During school and uni there was a perpetual need to prove yourself as every new year churned by. I got fed-up of this sometimes, even if I was able to work within that system.

But the aspect I never quite appreciated was that chance of a fresh sheet of paper every year. Whatever the positive gains of the previous year there was also the moving-on aspect of wiping away the negatives too.

It was never a deliberate offer of a clean-slate, but it just seemed to work out like that. People you hadn’t enjoyed being around suddenly weren’t on your course anymore. The rut you’d got into of having an unhealthy lunch-break changed when the new timetable was more accomodating to having a lunch-hour.

So, despite a marvellous first year at work, I have felt a rather sombre perspective on the passing of this landmark. I am grateful not to have to start all over again, but also I cannot forget my mistakes quite so easily.

There are aspects that have an inevitable tinge of sadness: little things, like using a stapler donated to me by someone who has since died of cancer.

Then there are other aspects where my mistakes have hurt people. I guess what is done, is done, but at least I can say that I am not proud of my mistakes. I’m sorry for them. Most importantly, I’m concerned not to make the same mistakes again. I’m trusting my friends to help me be honest in overcoming my weaknesses.

In fact, that has been the most positive aspect of my year: having the priveledge of becoming friends with people I respect. Having a friend from India on msn for the first time. When I thanked her for getting in touch, I got the heart-warming response:

My friend (05/09/2007 11:47:16): pleasure is all mine

It has been a rewarding year. Though I have not been able to quantify my progress as naively as I wanted to, I am convinced I have been learning continually. Possibly I have learned more about myself than I ever realised there was to know.

At times it has been daunting. There is nothing harder than trying to understand yourself. It is a – sometimes painful – process.

Then, other times, I have relished the challenge, as I’ve realised how something that seems just a little thing can actually make a big difference. For example, there is such power in what we say to one another, and it is certainly a worthwhile pursuit to pay attention to what you say:

Even so the tongue is a little member, and boasteth great things. Behold, how great a matter a little fire kindleth! [James 3:5]

I hope I will be kinder, more helpful, less selfish… and not make quite so many mistakes in the year to come. 😀

Thankyou, everyone, for putting up with me! And thankyou for being my friends.

 

The mystery of the messed-up Rubiks cube…

Today I arrived at my desk to find the colours in my Rubiks cube arranged in a rather non-conformant mess.

Strategically placed in front of my keyboard, with Alberto the frog sitting on top, keeping watch over proceedings.

And now I have discovered that the most Rubiks-friendly candidate is actually still on holiday, so bang goes that theory…

I’m still trying to work out who thought it was fun to wind me up 😛 but now won’t admit to it 😉

Come on, confessions now please? 😛

 

I am S.A.D.

While gracing the dcs department with my presence lately, I have received confirmation of the sorry truth…

This past winter I became increasingly confused by the level of depression I made myself put up with.

Ok, nothing properly serious (before my caring readers get worried 😉 ) but I just wasn’t making sense of it.

My reasoning went something like this:

1. Last three years of my life I have spent all winter in a dcs lab.
2. 3rd and 4th year uni were way more stressful than work was at the time.
3. any S.A.D. tendencies could not possibly have survived such an environment undetected.
4. I can cope with a general bit of not-quite-beamingly-exuding-happiness, but surely I should at least be less depressed than a similar time of year exactly one year before.

But I hadn’t counted on one factor in the equation. My visit back to the department informed me of the crucial difference: the computing science labs are apparently all installed with those special S.A.D. lights.

Quite considerate – and sly – of them to do so… :-P… but a bit like ditching us now we’re out of there.

So, yeah…!