March Madness

It's really hard for me to believe that we are a quarter of the way, and almost a third of the way, through the year! It's almost as hard as knowing that I am now officially 24 years old and that it has indeed been 3 years since my 21st. I know that I am still young, but my God do I feel old!! One of my friends started dating a 21 year old and the thought of it just made me cringe when I realised how much of an age gap that is. Anyway, enough of this self-pitying. Time to get down to it. What did March bring?

First of all, there was my dive course. As an early birthday present, Grant paid for me to take the course and bought me most of the gear that I will need for it (a BCD, regulator and cylinder are just not necessary if you are still trying to decide whether it is going to be a serious hobby or not.) The course did not go 100% as planned, and it is not over yet, but I am trying hard and (hopefully) will have my last pool session tomorrow and my open water dives next weekend. To hear read more about my experience of diving, check out this post.

Later on in the month came my six year anniversary with Grant. It was something that I had been really looking forward to, since we missed our four year and five year anniversaries while I was overseas, but because of the dive course and the grand prix, we ended up doing nothing special for it - we just spent the day like a very normal Sunday, lounging around the house, playing games and watching movies.

In terms of photography, I got one job covering the Windmills performance by the Rhodes Chamber Choir, and some of the photos that were taken have been put up on my website. They will also be put up on the choir's official site once that is up and possibly on Rhodes website. If you would like to read more about covering the event or would like to see some of the photos, you can see them in this post on my photography blog.

Work was really busy in March with problems happening towards the end of the month. Thankfully they were nothing like the problems that we had last year, in that they affected less people and affected most of them less significantly. But those that the issue did affect were most put out and there were a lot of threats to be dealt with. It was mostly not the Accounts department dealing with them (thankfully), but it did mean a lot of stress all around the office.

Towards the end of the month I had to take a second trip to PE (the first one having been to get my diving gear) when I had to take Kath to the airport. It was not particularly exciting, since it took place before first light at 5am so that I could get back to work on time. Needless to say, it was not the most pleasant trip I have experienced and I was in dire need of caffeine and just plain sleep when I arrived.

And finally, there was my birthday at the end of the month. A huge number of people did remember (largely thanks to Facebook reminders I suspect) and I thank all of those who sent me messages. It was a wonderfully relaxing day mostly spent in bed. Grant took me out for a nice dinner in the evening and we finished off the day by watching a movie together. I didn't get too many gifts this year, and I suppose it is a sign of my getting older :P I did get spoiled by Grant with dinner and diving equipment and even got surprised when his parents came to visit this week, bringing with them a gift of lights for my studio, which we are planning on building later this month. It was a bit of a weird feeling, waking up on my birthday to another ordinary Saturday without anything special planned, but I need to grow up at some point and not every birthday needs to be a spectacular affair. There's always next year, when I turn the big 25 ;)

Some reviews from the month of March that you guys have to look forward to:

Books
Angels and Demons - Dan Brown
Dead Famous - Ben Elton
Hunger Games - Suzanne Collins

Movies
The Descendants
The Roommate
Hop
I Love You, Man
Inception
Jumper

Crochety Old Lady

Yarn over, pull through.
Yarn over, pull through.

The index finger of my left hand is throbbing and with each search for a spine, I can hear the wool moaning as I push the needle through.

I can hear them talking about me in the other room, but their words mean nothing. I just need to finish this last row and then I will stop. Okay, just one more.

I have become an old lady. I catch sight of myself in the mirror, glasses falling slightly down my nose, my hair in an untidy bun that I would not be caught dead in outside of the house and the crocheting needle in my hand. To be fair, it's not like I am crocheting a scarf (though I probably will at some point). To be even more fair, this is not a project of my choosing. The penguin that I made earlier was. This one Grant asked me to make. He caught sight of the pattern while I was browsing and decided that it was a must-have. He even took me to Birch's this morning just so that we could get the wool that I would need to make it. It's a Mario One-Up Mushroom, which brings out the geek in him and lets me indulge in my new hobby without feeling too ancient.

I started learning to crochet at the end of January. It was a tactic to prevent boredom in an office where browsing has been forbidden and no tickets were coming in to be answered. The office was dead quiet. With no emails to reply to, no phonecalls to answer and no browsing allowed, we resorted to other activities that hadn't been banned. While some read and some scrolled through the applications on their cellphones, I crocheted. It would be crochet a row, refresh the screen to see if there are any new emails. Crochet another row, refresh again. It was great practice, getting me faster and faster and crocheting. It also meant that the F5 button on my work computer may be dying some time soon.

Within a week, I was ready to try my first project. I finished it in a day. A little wonky, not quite perfect, but still a penguin that I could be proud of and one that my goddaughter adored. I finished the penguin around 4pm and immediately started on the next project, which I finished the next morning. I could hardly wait to start on the next one!

The only problem with crocheting in Grahamstown though is the lack of supplies. Sure, there are places to get wool, to get hooks and even to get stuffing. But things like felt and safety eyes are mysteries to the Grahamstown haunts and practically impossible to get unless you want to order them online (which I do not). Instead, I resort to sewing eyes and buying beads to make the best of what I have available. Not quite the same, but they will do.

So, if you are bored and looking for something to do, considering crocheting. It is not just for old people and is actually highly addictive once you get into the hang of it, especially when you discover sites like Ravelry and all the cool things that you can make with the patterns that you find there.

What strange hobbies do you have?

Religious Issues

My friend, Amy, wrote a blogpost this morning that struck a chord. She wrote a post about how much it bugs her when, in times of difficulty, people respond by offering to pray for her. As an atheist, she finds this borderline offensive. But I am not going to put words in her mouth. If you would like to hear what Amy has to say on the matter, you are welcome to read the post itself.

What I am more interested in talking about is the chord that religion has struck with me lately. It comes in the form of a client. Now, I know that legally and ethically I cannot talk about our clients, but this is less about his problems and more about an attitude that I find highly annoying in certain religious people in general. Back in the days when Gina and I were in high school, there was a boy that Gina liked and, to avoid awkwardness while talking about him and, well, because he had many, we ended up calling him Issues. I would like to refer to this client in the same way. He will henceforth be known as Issues.

Issues had a problem with an invoice that he was sent this month. After two or three emails explaining the situation to him, I received an email back where he suddenly announced that he was a deeper meaning Christian. What he meant by that is that he is not someone who goes to Church often, but someone who believes in God and lives their life according to God's word. Which is just great for him! He is welcome to do that and I am very happy that he has found something meaningful in his life! But what does that have to do with the matter at hand?

I ignored the religious aspect and continued as I had been going, attempting to explain to him the situation and hoping that he would understand logic. His next email explained that he is only accountable to the Lord, his saviour, Jesus Christ. Actually, Issues, no. You are also accountable to the law. But no matter. I continued once again to try and bring the conversation back to the matter at hand, his invoice. I tried to explain that this had nothing to do with who he is accountable to in the long run, but that he is also responsible for his actions now.

Alas, his next email explained that he only serves God and that only God could vindicate him when the time was right. By this point, I was furious and frustrated that no matter how simply I explained the situation, he always reverted back to God and ignored anything that I had said as though it made no difference to his life because he was religious. He acted as though, by being religious, he was completely superior to anyone else and no mortal problems could affect him. Pay a bill? Pfft! God will see me  through! God will pay it for me, or God will deal with the consequences of my own actions.

All this time, he kept repeating that I had to respect his choices in lifestyle and religion. Which I accept. I do respect peoples choices. But that does not mean that they can get off scott-free. People need to accept that their choices have consequences. And that life choices play no part in business. That you choose to follow a religion does not influence the way that your ISP will treat you. You do not deserve better or worse treatment than anyone else. Your choices (aside from perhaps choices in packages) should not affect your invoice. One cannot live their life however they like without consequences and cannot get away with not paying for services that they have requested and that we have paid for on our part.

As a company, we implement some rules (like clients having to pay by the 10th of the month), but we also have rules implemented on us (like domains being automatically renewed) that we need to come to terms with and pass on to the clients. Do you see us complaining about our God-given rights? No. Because God-given rights do not come into it. Rights that the law gives us come into it. Rights that the constitution gives us. And if our services were unconstitutional, if they were unequal or unfair, then I can start to understand. But this is a case where it has nothing to do with bias due to religion or belief. God does not come into it at all.

It is business, plain and simple. And the sooner some people can understand that, the easier life will be.

/Rant.

Job hunting

Applying for a job is a soul-destroying process. I have not been at it for particularly long, but it does not take long to learn this fact. With every fax that you send off, every week of silence that passes, every rejection e-mail or phonecall (if they even bother with one), you can feel yourself starting to get weaker, more tired, dying a little on the inside. As the days, weeks and sometimes months pass, self-doubt starts to set in, and things can only really get worse from there. Once you lose your self-confidence, there is really no hope. During this process, I couldn't help thinking to myself - this shouldn't be happening to me. I am educated. I spent four years getting a university education, and for what? And so, today I thought I would talk about a subject that is weighing on my mind: What is worth more - education or experience.

Personally, I think that experience has become more valuable than education. A person can spend four years studying or they can spend ten years studying, and that will not necessarily make them any more comfortable in a working environment. Studying is not the same as working. When you study, you are being safe. Your environment is controlled. You are not thrown to the masses and expected to fend for yourselves. Your life revolves around lenient deadlines and if you miss a deadline, your career path is not at stake - you will certainly be penalised, but you will not lose your job.

Once you are thrown into the real world, you start to realise what a pleasure university was. You still have deadlines to meet, but they are not necessarily set out from the get-go and they are certainly far shorter than they were in university days. I fondly remember the days of week-long deadlines for essays or articles, and then consider the articles that I wrote while working at Grocott's Mail (a relatively calm and controlled environment in itself compared to most newsrooms) where articles often had to be written, researched and published all in the same day. And Grocott's Mail only comes out twice a week. Imagine the deadlines that would be given working on a daily paper like the Times or the Cape Argus. That is when you really start to realise just how cushy you had it before. And now imagine missing one of those deadlines. Imagine not handing in the article that you were assigned delving into the dealings of the President. Imagine mispelling a name in an article of real importance that is read by hundreds if not thousands of people. A mistake like that would result in more than just a reduced mark. A mistake like that could lead to your having to start the job hunting process from the start once more.

In an example like this and in the journalism world in general, I can completely understand how experience pays more than education does. Journalists need to be able to work fast and efficiently, and while part of their education often revolves around teaching them to do that, a large part of it also involves the study of media history and such things that will never really play a part in the day-to-day field. So, you may have studied for ten years and may walk into a newspaper spouting the value of objective reporting and quoting any number of theorists backing your opinion, but that will not help you to go out into the world in the slightest.

The trouble comes in when it is difficult to gain that experience. Something that I noticed when looking at all the job advertisements out there is that everyone is looking for someone experienced. There is no place for a person just out of university to fit in. Requirements tend to include a minimum of a degree and two or three years experience in the field or eight years experience if you have no degree. Where on earth am I supposed to get this experience when there are no entry level jobs available? Sure, I worked in a cake shop on and off for five years of my life. Sure, I spent a year teaching English in Korea. But where does all of that fit into the grander scheme of things. More specifically, where does that kind of experience fit in when I don't want to be managing a store or teaching.

I find myself adjusting my CV to make my experiences fit with the jobs that I am applying to. This leads to the following kinds of descriptions finding their way in:

Academic Administration:

During my time as a Guest English Teacher and during my time at Just Delicious, I was required to deal with students and customers as well as other staff members in a friendly manner and assist them in any way that I could including answering any queries that they might have. As a Guest English Teacher I also became familiar with an office environment and with the use of office equipment such as photocopiers and scanners. At Just Delicious, a main aspect of the job was cleaning, tidying and generally keeping the shop ordered, the stock supplied and a general atmosphere maintained. Though the job did not involve cataloguing specifically, I was charged with keeping things in a very particular order to keep the owner happy and I succeeded in this effort without complaint.

I have to try and make the minimal tasks that I was charged with seem like the most important things in the world. Suddenly spending five minutes cleaning up the shop at the end of the day becomes synonymous with cataloguing student records. But what else can I do when there is no entry level job that would allow me to gain that specific experience in any case?

Anyway, enough of my ranting for now. What this blog post essentially boils down to is that when you are job hunting, your education suddenly becomes almost completely irrelevant, and my question for today is: Do you agree, and what job hunting experiences have you had?

PS. I was recently informed that it is just about impossible to comment on my posts. I have tried to fix this. If it is still the case, please let me know so that I can try harder. If you are trying to comment and it isn't working, feel free to send an e-mail to laislinns@gmail.com.