So the past week has been a little manic for me.
I've done several things, one of which was insure my car. Finally I'll be able to drive it. I found some insurance that's going to cost me £150/month for 10 months and I had to put down a £609 deposit last night. My bank account looks sad, but I look happy, since I'll be driving my car on the 7th of September which is when my policy starts. The other great thing is that I still have 3 more paychecks to come through, and now that I've changed my tax bracket, it means I will get another £600. Great news since it'll see me through for a little while at University while I look for a job.
I'm contemplating moving out still, I just haven't really had the energy to sit down and do the expenses calculations and things to see whether it's worth it or if I could make it work. I think I might have to wait until I have a job to see if I can cover it. I suppose this is where my maintenance loan will help.
I've also looked at the course a bit more and it looks seriously amazing. Most of all I can't wait to use the computing facilities at the University and get a new computer. This one is seriously terrible. I'm just so excited to start now, I really can't wait and time has dragged on and on for me.
To add to the excitement of University, I get a load of free software to download worth thousands when I get there. I'm excited to try Windows 8 Professional 2 months before general release, although I'll probably stick to Windows 7 after, it depends how well I get on with Windows 8.
As for the nightlife side of things, I'm not really planning on going out much, although I'm sure I'll break my promise to myself to work hard all the time. I think I'll just party hard during freshers week and then put my head down and get on with work from then. I'm planning to go out maybe once or twice a month, especially on a budget like mine, I really don't want to blow all my money on alcohol in the first week (not unheard of apparently). I also hear that the first year counts toward your work placement, and the work placements I want to go for are going to require 100% in every test, which means I really will need to work hard.
I think the part I am least looking forward to is the mathematics and statistics part of the course, but it's a necessary part and so I guess I'm going to have to just work at it.
Work is going all right. I'm not enjoying it, but it's just running along on it's own and I can handle the eight hours a day and the early mornings. It's become the norm now. I am rather sick and tired and fed up of the job now though. It really is starting to get repetitive and boring now.
Anyway, that's me, I'm off now, but I'll update you when there's more to speak of,
Thanks.
Tuesday, 28 August 2012
Tuesday, 21 August 2012
life.update(Day2);
So today at work was different. At around 11am my supervisor came to me and told me I was being moved upstairs. The work is a lot easier, and I like the people up there a bit more. I think that these last few weeks at work might just be a little bit easier than I thought they'd be.
Time is dragging and I really just want to go to University. I haven't checked the mail yet for any sort of information pack but I really hope it arrives soon. I'm still high on Thrusday's buzz of getting in and I really really can't wait to start. It looks like it's going to be easier to just drive and pay for insurance and fuel for University.
I'm going to go now, this post was really short but there wasn't much to update on. I guess I'll update as much as I can tomorrow.
Time is dragging and I really just want to go to University. I haven't checked the mail yet for any sort of information pack but I really hope it arrives soon. I'm still high on Thrusday's buzz of getting in and I really really can't wait to start. It looks like it's going to be easier to just drive and pay for insurance and fuel for University.
I'm going to go now, this post was really short but there wasn't much to update on. I guess I'll update as much as I can tomorrow.
Monday, 20 August 2012
Life life = new Life(Day1);
Hey, my name is Michael. I'm a bit of a computer freak. I enjoy programming and writing. I'm not really sure what I'm gonna do with this blog, probably gonna be a bit of a public diary, and those of you that find it even a little bit entertaining might want to read it.
I guess I'll start by saying that this is a pretty exciting time of my life for me. Around 5 days ago, it was the day before my A - Level results came out. I had pretty low set expectations for my results. I was certainly not expecting what I got. On Thursday (4 days ago), I opened up my results envelope, and to my great surprise, they were actually something that I could work with. Previously I had expected that I would not go to University with the rest of my peers, but instead I would join the Army. I had actually gone through quite a lot of the application process by this point.
So on Thursday after getting my results, I realised that they might actually be enough to get into University. I looked through my clearing options and found that available spaces were still on the Computer Science course at Staffordshire University (30 minutes drive from where I live) and I jumped at the chance. I phoned the hotline and I had an offer for a place within half an hour.
So here I am today, not even a week later. It feels like time is dragging now in the 4 weeks run up to the start of University, and really, I can't wait to start. My first day is 16th September.
Until then I'm gonna be working my ass off at a job that I landed at a warehouse. It's an 11 week contract, however I'm only going to work up to the 8th week because of University. I don't really enjoy it there and the people aren't really the type of people that I normally associate with. They're all right as people go, but I'd much prefer to be in a place where I'm intellectually and mentally stimulated such as a University than be in a physically demanding job that I cycle 5 miles to and from to work 8 hours a day in a loud, dirty environment for a low wage.
The only reason I have this job is to pay for my car insurance. It's ridiculously priced, so that new drivers end up paying absurd prices that most of them couldn't afford. I've had this job for over a month and earned only half of what I need to pay the initial deposit of £900. After finding the £900, I need to come up with another £160 each month for 10 months. This is going to be especially difficult once I start University, but I guess a job would help here. It looks like I can get a job working up to 16 hours per week, which hopefully will be on campus and will allow me to cover insurance costs and fuel costs (looking at about £120/month based on me going in 5 days a week) all in all I'm going to need to earn at least £280/month, although my parents have said they would help if it came to it.
I think a job paying £6.50/hour and me working 16 hours a week would cover the costs:
£6.50 x 16 hours = £104
£104 x 4 weeks = £416
£416 / month should cover the costs of insurance and my car, now I just need to include the price of a new laptop and supplies like pens, paper and books. I think I can get a nice deal on laptops where I pay £20/month for 36 months for a pretty high specification laptop. I'm looking at 8GB RAM, Windows 7 Home Premium edition, 2.5GHz intel core i5 processor and a dedicated AMD graphics card, rather than a crappy intel onboard one and 760GB HDD space. That should see me through three years, it's pretty future proof, as far as I know. I can't imagine needing more than that for University use, and if I do need anything more powerful than that I can always use the computers at University, since they're all very high specification. Books shouldn't be too much of an issue since the library seems to be pretty extensive, but I should have a fair amount of money left over to pay for other expenses that pop up and living with my parents will really help.
Anyway, it's taken me about 3 hours to write this post and I'm tired, so I'm going to wrap it up here and I'll see if I can update you guys tomorrow. I guess the real updates will come when I start University for real.
Thanks for reading.
I guess I'll start by saying that this is a pretty exciting time of my life for me. Around 5 days ago, it was the day before my A - Level results came out. I had pretty low set expectations for my results. I was certainly not expecting what I got. On Thursday (4 days ago), I opened up my results envelope, and to my great surprise, they were actually something that I could work with. Previously I had expected that I would not go to University with the rest of my peers, but instead I would join the Army. I had actually gone through quite a lot of the application process by this point.
So on Thursday after getting my results, I realised that they might actually be enough to get into University. I looked through my clearing options and found that available spaces were still on the Computer Science course at Staffordshire University (30 minutes drive from where I live) and I jumped at the chance. I phoned the hotline and I had an offer for a place within half an hour.
So here I am today, not even a week later. It feels like time is dragging now in the 4 weeks run up to the start of University, and really, I can't wait to start. My first day is 16th September.
Until then I'm gonna be working my ass off at a job that I landed at a warehouse. It's an 11 week contract, however I'm only going to work up to the 8th week because of University. I don't really enjoy it there and the people aren't really the type of people that I normally associate with. They're all right as people go, but I'd much prefer to be in a place where I'm intellectually and mentally stimulated such as a University than be in a physically demanding job that I cycle 5 miles to and from to work 8 hours a day in a loud, dirty environment for a low wage.
The only reason I have this job is to pay for my car insurance. It's ridiculously priced, so that new drivers end up paying absurd prices that most of them couldn't afford. I've had this job for over a month and earned only half of what I need to pay the initial deposit of £900. After finding the £900, I need to come up with another £160 each month for 10 months. This is going to be especially difficult once I start University, but I guess a job would help here. It looks like I can get a job working up to 16 hours per week, which hopefully will be on campus and will allow me to cover insurance costs and fuel costs (looking at about £120/month based on me going in 5 days a week) all in all I'm going to need to earn at least £280/month, although my parents have said they would help if it came to it.
I think a job paying £6.50/hour and me working 16 hours a week would cover the costs:
£6.50 x 16 hours = £104
£104 x 4 weeks = £416
£416 / month should cover the costs of insurance and my car, now I just need to include the price of a new laptop and supplies like pens, paper and books. I think I can get a nice deal on laptops where I pay £20/month for 36 months for a pretty high specification laptop. I'm looking at 8GB RAM, Windows 7 Home Premium edition, 2.5GHz intel core i5 processor and a dedicated AMD graphics card, rather than a crappy intel onboard one and 760GB HDD space. That should see me through three years, it's pretty future proof, as far as I know. I can't imagine needing more than that for University use, and if I do need anything more powerful than that I can always use the computers at University, since they're all very high specification. Books shouldn't be too much of an issue since the library seems to be pretty extensive, but I should have a fair amount of money left over to pay for other expenses that pop up and living with my parents will really help.
Anyway, it's taken me about 3 hours to write this post and I'm tired, so I'm going to wrap it up here and I'll see if I can update you guys tomorrow. I guess the real updates will come when I start University for real.
Thanks for reading.
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