BUSY!

So apparently I haven’t even posted here in 3 months, not that I’ve really noticed that much of the time go by, everything has just sort of started to blur. I understand why, there have been a few changes going on over the last few months as well. Firstly, I’ve moved up to the ever so feared 3rd year at uni.It’s not all that bad, but there’s just a level of commitment expected that I never used to have to give them. That and project. CSCI321 is a compulsory subject in Computer Science, generally taken in 3rd year (which is normally the last), it doesn’t introduce any more content, rather draws from everything we’ve already learned (plus a bit more) and asks us to do something most of us have never done before; form a group and over the course of the next 8 months, create a real, useful program. My group has decided to create a carpooling program, you can find out more about it and follow it’s development at www.carpoolprovider.com (in particular the blogs).

Another thing that has brought a pretty hectic change to my life is my new job as an IT Administrator and Programmer at a local financial group. This job has affected me in many ways, both good and bad, stealing almost all of my free time, but giving me the cash to not only survive, but to enjoy any free time I manage to wrangle up. From the first day I was dropped into the deep end, being asked to manage a system of 5 servers (4 linux, 1 windows) with an array of programs I’d never used or never heard of with only a fairly brief overview of the whole setup and a root password. Regardless, about 2 or 3 months later I’ve got a decent grasp on the system and am making some changes to one of our two in-house programs. I’d have to say that the last few months at work have taught me things that I’d never have learned during my 3 years at uni and while I’m certainly no master, my tab-fu has become much stronger, as has my knowledge of so many important sysadmin things like apache, bash, openvpn, nagios, dirvish, exchange, postgresql and hell even java! Even as I’ve settled in though they keep bringing problems to me that fit into a few categories:

a) Easy solved. Just a simple code change, a reset or showing them what to do.
b) User Error. I’ve always heard it in jokes and in comics but seriously, a lot of people really just have no idea what they’re doing. I guess they can’t help that sometimes, but some of the problems have been pretty weak. (I also don’t want to even think about how bad some of their passwords are).
c) I have no idea. None. Whatsoever. Either I don’t know how to do this but I’ll get on figuring it out or just plain old “Uh…yeah, I’ll try and do that”. Some of the stuff really just doesn’t make any sense.

I was talking to a friend on IRC last night and he said something that seems really true and exciting and daunting at the same time:

[23:05] <TimmyRt> Haha, as my power grows I only realise how little I know :p
[23:05] <~TSeeker> and that’s good
[23:06] <~TSeeker> we are *always* noobs

At the same time as work is really filling up all my spare time, it is giving me the money that I need to be fully self-sufficient. I’d never really believed it when people told me before, but living completely off my own back kind of feels good, especially when there is some money left over for gadgets! I’ve managed to buy myself a couple of cool little gadgets, some that I’ve wanted for a very very long time, but that’s for another post.

The other new part of life that takes up so much of my time now is just that; life. Now that I’ve moved out of college and into a house with 3 of my mates (and kitty), there are so many little things that just add up to fill in my entire day. Make breakfast, clean up after breakfast, go shopping, make lunch, clean up after lunch, do my laundry, hang my clothes out, make dinner, do the dishes, clean the house, watch tv…although more often than not it turns into skip breakfast, buy lunch, eat dinner, leave dishes for a few days and then do a LOT of them. I don’t know, there just isn’t enough time in the day.
At the same time, living in a house is great. Apart from all the little issues like “Who’s turn it is to clean up!?” and “Who used the last of the toiler paper!?” it’s really great having your own little slice of the world that you can do what you want in and with (within reason) without the full might of…the head of college coming down on you. It’s fun just to live the day by your own schedule which is made difficult by uni and work, but yeah…fun stuff.

So yeah, I’m currently writing this while lying on my queen-sized bed using one of my brand new gadgets (teaser!)  listening to my next door neighbour pull up in his ute (I’m already over real-life neighbours) thinking about how I never really have any time to get anything done, but at the same time I’ve managed to sit here and type this, after a long day of doing not much at all. I guess some of it comes down to a bit of time management, but I think another important thing is too, that I need some time to do nothing, just to  chill out and do nothing but what I want to do, which I think at the moment is to sit down with a beer, play with some code and maybe fire up a game or two using my new headset.