Car Trouble

Although my ambition to get my driver's license by Dec 2008 fell by the wayside somewhat, I have been doing lots of driving in the meantime. I went for my first "official" lesson in the past 6 months there on Saturday and was happy to hear that the instructor deemed my driving up to test-ready standard, which is fantastic. I've applied for the test (hurrah! I hear you all say in unison), with an extra "asap, cancellations please!" in the comments section so hopefully I'll get a slot in the next couple of weeks. In the meantime, my poor little Punto needs some TLC after failing the NCT :( I was pretty pissed off actually, as I had previously bought two spanking new front tyres pre-NCT only to be failed on one of the rear-tyres, some problem with the rear brakes (who needs brakes anyway, I say) and an undetermined engine leak (more than likely a loose cap somewhere). This means I've to fork out more cash, but hopefully I'll be able to get it re-tested in a week or so and be back out terrorizing slow-moving pedestrians and wobbly cyclists.

On the work front, I don't think I've ever been busier. It seems as though every contract job we had lined up have all suddenly come in at the same time, which is great for the company, but not so great for me as it means a few crazy busy weeks ahead especially as all the shared responsibilities that come with being in such a small company often means double-the-workload for me.

9 Days

I gave my talk today, and it went quite well. I talked a tad too fast, but overall I got some tought, but good questions and people seemed be interested enough as there was 20 mins of questions/discussion after the talk. It's a relief as it means that I basically have the whole presentation wrapped up. I just have to make one or two changes to the slides and to focus the talk a little more, but I am delighted....


...plus there's only 8 days left till I jet off.

Sneezefest

I cannot stop sneezing. I started on Friday night, just before we went out to the George to meet friends, and seriously, I haven't really stopped since. I've currently got tissue jammed in my nose to try and stop, not a pretty sight nor a pleasant feeling. I had previously decided that I would work on practicing my presenation and timing today, although I really don't feel in the best condition to be doing so. But, as Tyra would say, I gotsta just model on through. I had hoped to go see Tropic Thunder this evening, but I may have to put in on hold. There's always the second series of The Shield (which I'm really enjoying) to get through anyway.

Presentation done...well almost

I'm feeling much better today than yesterday. I needed to get all that off my chest.

Plus, I finished the slides for my presentation for Hawaii, so that's a big task out of the way....well, almost. I still have to practice the actual content and timing, and have to add more slides for when I'm giving the talk to a more general audience next Friday where I've been booked in for an hour long presentation. At least it's mostly filler and general background information that has to go in, so it shouldn't be too hard as it's something I'm pretty familiar with.

I'm planning to take a break tomorrow and do some shopping for the trip to Hawaii. There's a few bits and pieces I've still to get and it will be handy to dedicate a day to give myself the chance to look forward to it, and to remind myself that it's going to be one hell of a (badly needed) holiday!

To represent my joyous (erm, well maybe joyous is a tad exaggeration) mood, here's the latest single from Girls Aloud's upcoming album. It's called the Promise and is very 60s, yet 70s sounding; very Bacarachesque. It's got a nice wall of sound-vibe about it; very radio-friendly, although perhaps not as exciting or inventive as their previous outtings. Here's hoping that the album will have a few electo-tinged stompers with multiple bridges/verses/choruses/codas thrown in for good measure!

Work Management

Work seems to becoming increasingly pressurised. I'm finding myself working ridiculously long days - practically all day, every day, including weekends - rarely finishing up before 9pm. If I'm not doing work I'm doing something Pride-related. On my long work days, it is true that for a lot of days I don't actually sit down at my computer until 10am, and even then I don't start doing actual proper work until 10.30/11. Reflecting on the situation the panic over my current work load could be influenced by a number of factors:

1. I have a shit lot of work
2. Too much is expected of me
3. I expect too much from myself
4. I work too many hours
5. I don't actual do enough work when I am working
6. My time management skills are atrocious
7. I'm not actually enjoying any of my work

Thinking about if for a bit, if I'm completely honest, it's probably a mixture of everything above. I do have a lot of work to do, but I should really be concentrating better and focusing on doing blocks of work and being more disciplined.

I need finish up my working day earlier, take more breaks from the computer when I'm not working and at least let myself have a few hours off in the evenings so I can wind-down properly. To do this I do need to manage my work load a bit better, and manage myself a bit better.

I really am my own boss, so therefore I need to give myself a break every now and then, give myself credit where credit's due but at the same time, come down heavy on myself if I am fucking about. One of the things I do miss about not working in a larger business is the lack of structure or management. On the one hand, yes it is terrible to have someone breathing down your neck every 5 mins, but it does give you that incentive to get work done and imposes goals on you that you can, and must, stick to. Working for a small company also means I have a lot more jobs and responsibilities to take care of - I have to actively think about revenue opportunities, and chase any up, and if any opportunities do arise, it's me that has to carry out the work e.g. contract jobs, as well as any work that I need to be doing for our own company.

Working from home often makes time-management doubly hard. Sometimes it feels like I'm not really doing that much work, but then again, if I was working in an office Im sure there'd be my morning chat with people as I come in, the early morning coffee break, my hour(+) long lunch break, the afternoon break and numerous chats/interjections in between. In terms of breaks (apart from checking out popjustice etc. during the day, and ignoring the days where I venture into town for an extended lunch break i.e. the entire afternoon) I only regularly take about 30 mins off for lunch.

In most proper office jobs work is over as soon as you leave the office at 5pm. The finality of that is something which is very hard to get when working from home, seeing as the work is always sitting there, staring you in the face. I've read many articles on having a seperate working space where you can close the door at the end of the day, which I do have. However, shutting the door is often a lot easier said than done, and once there are any hours left in the day the temptation is always there to do more work.

The isolation is an additional factor - I have no colleagues, group or team that I can discuss problems and roadblocks with. If I have a problem, it's entirely up to me to figure it out and to come up with a solution. Yes, I do get occasional help from my boss, but the reality is I still have to do the practical and physical work, together with a lot of the brain work.

The last question I need to consider is do I really like the work that I do? That's a difficult one for me to answer. Really, I don't know anything else, having come into the job straight from my PhD, which I came into straight from college. I am good at it, there are aspects of it which I like and there are perks - the upcoming trip to Hawaii being one of them. But there are other aspects which I'm not too keen on, and some days I am gagging for a change; that's why it's great whenever I get the chance to work on things I am interested in - things like web design. This is where Pride can come in handy; it does take up a huge amount of my time, but it can be enjoyable and gives me a reason to pick up new skills and develop existing ones.

I guess at the end of the day, I am a bit hard on myself. I do need to really manage my time and goals better, but I also need to give myself an emotional and physical break every now and then. I am good at what I do. Yes, there is some serious need for improvement, but it is still a work in progress. I'll get there eventually.

Note to self: I must re-read this post in a few months to see if I'm still in the same situation, and also to encourage myself to be a bit more positive about it all.

Paper Writing

This paper writing isn't going well at all. I think its a mixture of not having a clue where to start and the pressure of it all. Still have to book our flights too.

In the meantime, watch/listen to this for your ammusement. Note the Kat & Kim references.

Good Times/Bad Times ?

I got some good, and some bad news this week. I found out that a proposal for a presentation I put in for a conference in Hawaii has been accepted. This means that I get to go to Hawaii towards the end of October for a week! Good times! How often does anybody get presented with an opportunity like this? I received confirmation when the organiser of the conference rang me to ask me some clarification questions about the presentation. He seemed really interested and enthusiastic about the presentation, so much so that he invited me to be a keynote speaker. Good times? No, bad times!


Now, don't get me wrong, this is a fantastic opportunity - especially for my company - in terms of raising the company profile - and to be invited as a keynote speaker is very prestigious. It's generally offered to people who have a lot of experience in research and in their field, and are generally considered experts in their respective areas. This is what makes me nervous. No, not nervous, terrified!

I get nervous at the best of times, when I give presentations. Generally, the nerves pass as soon as I start to talk and I ease into it. But this is a whole other kettle of fish than a simple presentation. It is an address to all the attendees at the conference, setting the theme for the particular session I'm speaking at, so if it goes badly, it's not as if I can slink off into the lei-filled night unnoticed. I know, as everybody has been saying to me, it will probably go fine, but it really is challenging my self-confidence and pushing it to the limit, so much so that after the aforementioned phone call I was on the verge of some sort of panic-attack. I literally felt weak at the knees and weirdly upset. As I've said I do get nervous and anxious occasionally, but nothing like this, and on the occasions that I have become extremely nervous I'm completely aware of the fact that it is nerves that are affecting me. It took me a while to realise that the prospect of being a keynote speaker simply terrifies me. In the past, if a talk didn't go particularly well, it only reflected on me poorly. However, this time around I'm not only speaking about my own work and findings, but I'm also speaking on behalf on my company, so I have an even greater responsibility to do well. This is the first time the company will have been represented on an international scale and as they say, first impressions are often everything.

To say I am shitting myself slightly, is a complete understatement.

In Limbo

I'm finding it really hard at the moment to get back into things, now that I've finished by Ph.D. Granted, I still have all my corrections to do, but besides that I'm technically finished college, apart from graduation in March sometime. I've been in the same place for 7 years, which means I've probably become somewhat institutionalised. The last year has kept me cut off from most of my friends, the older ones in particular (not by choice), who let's face it, all have their own shit going on, which I suppose is inevitable. And now that I'm finished college, it's going to be harder to keep in touch with the group of friends I've made in college (none of them work-related). So in one way I'm in a kind of limbo. I always told myself that I wouldn't end up being part of one of those couples who just hang out together all the time, but it seems almost as if that's exactly what I've become, despite my best efforts. Working from home for this new job of mine, is not going to make matters any different either. Speaking of which, I still have no idea what exactly I'm supposed to be doing for this job which I'm supposed to be starting next Wednesday. I should really get that sorted out. All this oral contract stuff has left alot of things up in the air.