Thursday 8th September 2005, 15:23

Whoops, no updates for a while. If I remember anything interesting that's happened over the past month I'll be sure to mention it, but it's all been a bit of a blur. As you can see there's an addition to the site in the form of a webcam, now everyone gets to see how often I get away from this chair. I'll try and add to this entry as I think of things, just thought I needed to post something to demonstrate I haven't *completely* forgotten this journal.

Monday 1st August 2005, 11:53

Or at least the last few days, anyway. So I had my MS interview last Wednesday, a full six months after I submitted my initial application. An interesting experience, everyone actually seemed pretty relaxed which made a pleasant change from the usual stressed and painful form these things take. So I went through a couple of interviews, a group exercise, and of course my presentation, and thankfully nothing went catastrophically wrong (although the laptop running Windows Vista did lock up two minutes into my presentation to do some "file indexing"...ahem).

Thursday I visited Altius, which was a far more intense experience than I was expecting, especially since half-way through the guy got someone technical in to interview me. I thought it had gone okay, but apparently not since I got a call from Oxbridge on Friday informing me Altius didn't want to see me again. Apparently this was due to a lack of outside interests, and concerns about how I would fit into the culture there, although technically I was fine (as ever). This did vaguely irritate me since they could have made that judgement fairly easily from my CV, but I did get the slight sense I was being used as something of a benchmark due to being the first grad they'd looked at in a while, particularly from Oxbridge recruitment.

Still, as it all turned out the swift rejection from Altius was for the best. A nice lady from MS called me Friday evening and asked if I wanted a job. I nearly bit her arm off, figuratively speaking, so the contract should be arriving this week. I can't believe I finally have a job, after countless application forms, interviews, silly group exercises and presentations. Even better most of my friends seem genuinely pleased which is nice given the anti-MS sentiments I know a lot of people harbour. It's just such a weight off not having to worry about what I'm going to be doing now, I might even be able to do something useful with the time before I start work (don't expect miracles though). Of course I'm still not entirely sure when I *do* start, I believe it'll be January 2006 but all the details should be in the contract. So hopefully I'll have plenty of time to sort out all the logistics, particularly where I'm going to live given the job is based in Reading.

I'm nearly employed. Woo!

Monday 25th July 2005, 16:14

So, I went to see Oxbridge about this job with Altius. On the whole it went pretty well, and they're putting me forward for the role...woo. This is despite me getting a measly 7 out of 10 on the numerical exercise they gave me; my brain has definitely seized up due to lack of use (and possibly too much lubrication). But this was made up for when I went through a case study with them, they weren't quite open mouthed as I discussed the various merits and drawbacks of a Christmas tree business, but it was close I reckon. I think I've been through that sort of thing so many times by now I can do it without intervention from my brain, which is definitely a plus.

Whilst being interviewed the guy who runs the recruitment consultancy came in and asked me a few questions. He really couldn't understand why I did the Cowen stuff last year instead of finding a proper city job, though I didn't use my usual line about studying in my final year rather than doing crazy things like job-hunting. I told him about my plan to start in a technical role and pick up business knowledge as I go along, moving to a more business centered job in the long-term. Interestingly he said that's what a lot of technical people do, just that they tend not to plan it. It kind of disconcerted me when he asked why I couldn't just skip the technical part of it... I guess it's because I still enjoy working with technology, and no matter what I end up doing I want that to be a large part of it. Have to wonder though whether that's the right choice - indecision however has paralysed my job-search for this long, I really can't afford for it to do so any longer.

Anyway, got an interview with Altius themselves on Thursday. Oxbridge are also possibly going to circulate my CV to some other random companies, so that could be interesting. I've also got my Microsoft interview the day after tomorrow, it's come around quickly but I feel reasonably prepared. Of course I'm fully expecting them to rip the presentation I've prepared to pieces, but to be honest the chances of someone coming up with a genuinely new, exciting and workable idea are relatively remote. But as long as I can do it without forgetting what I was talking about or the laptop exploding I should be okay.

Went to quite possibly the last full-scale LAN party there's going to be for a while this weekend...Steve and Kate are moving away to somewhere northern and silly in a month, meaning we'll once more be bereft of floor space. Still, was fun as ever. Having second thoughts on granting referee priviledges to everyone I know in Enemy Territory though, certain people think someone being better than them is a legitimate reason to kick them. If anyone is going to be an unreasonable bastard on my server it'll be me, dammit. Made it to Lloyd's too, think I had a good time but my memory of the whole evening is fairly hazy for some reason...

Finally got round to doing another level on NotPron, pushing me up to 67. Can't remember if I've linked to it before, but it's well worth checking out for those people with time to waste. And I've hit the top of the league table on Leafy's Lair; don't know how long I'll stay there mind, but the challenges seem to be stumping most people which is good.

Friday 15th July 2005, 11:57

Okay, I've become a tad lax with the journal over the last month and a half. Unfortunately I've got into the routine where I have far (well vaguely) more productive things to do in the morning and during the day, and then don't have the energy in the evening. Possibly this is a reflection of the dizzying new heights my lethargy is reaching. Incidentally, I do have an RSS feed if checking here to see if I've summoned up the energy to post is too much. I plan to put up instructions on how to use it some point soon.

So, what's been going on. I've played Eve lots...for several months hard graft my reward is a ship slightly bigger than my old one, which handles like an incontinent moose and is about as fast. Yet I keep playing. I've also discovered Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, which I've been far more inclined to play since its release on PC. Few better ways to relieve stress than going on a murderous rampage across a virtual city.

I do have one criticism of the game though. In GTA: SA you can run into a signpost, knock it over, and continue on without hardly a scratch to your car. This doesn't work in real life, as I discovered a couple of weeks ago whilst learning the route to Basingstoke for a wedding. Apparently you also can't take a ninety-degree turn at 40MPH in a rather fat and heavy MPV. We're still waiting to get it back from the garage... Still, the wedding was good, congratulations again to Matt and Jen.

On the job front, I've finally canned Oxbridge recruitment. I think. None of the jobs they came up with were terribly inspiring, and I've come to the conclusion I really want to do something technical. [update] Okay, it's taken me so long to finish writing this entry that since I started that paragraph they've contacted me again, about a job with Altius Consulting. This one sounds genuinely interesting, though unfortunately candidates must "have active interests outside their studies; e.g. a sport or hobby that is not degree-related". Um...ah. Quake III? No? Never mind.

Microsoft have finally got back to me, and I'm through to the final round...yay. This means I've got an assessment in a fortnights time, for which I have to prepare a fifteen minute presentation. Topics include brilliant new ideas for Microsoft and how to get yet more customers...nice and specific then. Really struggling with this one, having grappled with it for the last few days now. Answers on a postcard please.

Got around to another curry a couple of days ago. 'Twas good (and a bit more sober than the last one), though I had to grapple with with the bus system due to my section of tube being out of action. Still, if the terrorists thought they could bring transport to a standstillfor any length of time with this sort of attack they were clearly mistaken, things appeared to be running well otherwise. The actions of last week kind of bring my petty problems into perspective - just need to make sure I make good use of every precious second since you never know what's around the corner. Just glad everyone I know who lives and works in London is okay.

On a more cheerful note I've seen quite a few films over the last month or so, the best of which by far was Sin City, which whilst very odd was immensely original and entertaining. Okay, so it was a little on the violent side (I lost count of the number of severed arms, legs and heads the audience were treated to during the show), but I thought it fitted well with the atmosphere. Batman Begins was also very good, a little less silly than some of the other Batman films and with an actual plot/back-story to boot. Finally, saw War of the Worlds last week...impressive effects, but otherwise disappointing. I may have become jaded having being forced to sit through the original several hundred times by a younger sibling.

I'm building up quite the empire of web-sites on here now...In7 has migrated here, and various siblings are setting stuff up too. For those who haven't seen it I now have a funky bar graph tracking traffic on the different sites. World domination is but a few steps away. Certainly Leafy's Lair appears to be doing well, though sadly I'm completely stuck and my ego refuses to allow me to look at the hints. Dammit.

Wednesday 1st June 2005, 18:18

Ah, June. For the first time in as long as I care to remember I'm not stressing over revision or exams. Nice, but a little odd...particularly as I'd kind of hoped I'd have found something else to occupy my time with by now. Still, can't say I miss it...I really feel for the poor suckers going through all that right now.

I've got about three-quarters of the way through the Top 100 Graduate Employers, which is frankly pathetic given all I'm doing is tabulating a few key details on each into a spreadsheet. Sadly it's not nearly as interesting as Eve Online, a space based MMORPG I started a long time ago and now Steve has got me back into... It's not even that exciting, 95% of the time seems to be spent travelling from one place to another, and the scope for decent teamplay seems limited at best. It also seems to have been created for the sole purpose of generating pretty screenshots, as demonstrated. But it beats the tedium of researching companies hands-down.

Talking of companies, Accenture came back to me with some useful if limited feedback on my performance at the assessment. Apparently my strengths throughout the day were my decisiveness and influence, which I'm fairly sure is bollocks given I hardly said two words through most of the exercises...still, nice for them to say so. Areas for development (what I was crap at) included business awareness, creativity and team working, so no major shocks there.

MS still haven't got back to me (not a huge surprise), but Oxbridge rang me today with another suggestion - a consultancy of all things. I described my less than marvellous experience at Accenture to them but they're still going to put my CV forward to Cartesian, so we'll see what comes of that. MX still hovers in the limbo of indecision.

Other things I've been up to recently include an attempt to investigate the feasibility of a GCC .NET compiler. This has already been implemented to some extent here, but I couldn't get it to compile without a bit of tweaking. Now I have done so I should probably decide where to go next...all courses of action look likely to involve effort unfortunately. I'll put what I've got so far up at some point, or at least mail my changes to the guy who wrote it.

I should also mention the challenge site Alan is putting together...if it's anything like his old one it'll be fairly evil and should be another thing to distract from the tedium of day to day life. Sadly he wants to keep it friendly and so far refuses to have a league table...how I'm supposed to revel in my supreme performance now I don't know. Would also be nice if Mike finished (or in fact even started) his challenge site, which I link to here just so you can see it in all its unfinished glory. Really should get round to doing one myself someday but it seems an awful lot like hard work.