all things me

Look what Mum found on our backyard, tanning itself (or freaking out) in the corner of a window ledge.

I’ve been busy doing anything but what I should be doing. I should be doing a lot. I have a database application due in two weeks (I’ll get it done — please don’t wish I get it done or I’ll go nuts) which will require many nights of coding (but I’ll love it when I get the inspiration), and I’ve been trying to decide if I should contact the prospective new working place this week or next. Apparently I already have a contract for the project job, June and July, even though I wasn’t supposed to get paid in June. Bah. I know it’s just an evil scheme to keep me in the project; they’ll never allow me to do the extra month.

So, not much else. I finished reading Bare Bones today. It was horribly translated! With books like that I remember why I read in English even though it doesn’t do good to my Finnish vocabulary. I should try reading books by actual Finnish authors some day. I’m just afraid they’re all bad.

Don’t know if I’ve mentioned, but I’m making a blog application in the database application project course. Today (Sat-Sun) I’ve been doing coding for about 11 hours. First I fought — for 6-ish hours — with Oracle trying to get things out of other tables than the users table. No luck. Then it took a while to get the MySQL base up and running (we have to install it to our home directory and start the server when we need it) with the correct socket specified somewhere.

Then, I got properly into business, aka The Fun Stuff: First I coded pages on the public side, that is, archive pages and things. Then I ventured into updating the database (ahhh, hazard zone — not really) and I got as far as finishing the code for articles. I made the form ready for adding topics, but I’m too tired to keep going. I’m going to continue “tomorrow”, happy knowing that I don’t have to fight for 6-ish hours with the stupid Oracle database.

I’m very proud of the “portability” of it. I’m making an effort to do all the database stuff in one file so I can define the settings (user, password, etc.) in one place. I’m sure there’d be lots of cool things to “rip” from WP, but I’m going to dabble this on my own. Of course, I’ve been influenced by the way WP works, a little.

• Login
• Form checks with JS
• Confirm before delete
• Checks for no rows in query results
• Prevent default category from being deleted (change default to ‘1’)

After this time consumer (20+ hours during the weekend, ok, that’s not really a lot is it, but I didn’t do much else!) is over and done with I’m going to play Bloodlines until I turn into a vampire! … when I’m not working or studying for my summer exams, that is…

I just sent off my CV (resumé, thanks to Chriske for reminding me of that word — I thought I was only forgetting Finnish) to the Dream Job. My puny CV…

They wanted to know about my interests too, but I didn’t mention I like to read horror (I put “reading”); I didn’t mention my fascination of first person shooters and gory games, but I did mention games and homepages (no URL, though, gosh) under “computer” hobby, so I hope they’ll just think my motor skills are excellent. At least it’ll make me stand out of the skirt people (sorry Jafer, you’re the only female FPS player I know besides myself); don’t know if that’s good or bad though. I don’t know if I should’ve mentioned my fast-as-a-lightning touch typing… I didn’t, that is. But I also don’t have any proof of that, just urban legends…… I probably underestimated my language skills, but I think I’m crap at everything but Finnish and English, so I wrote that (not *crap* per se). Then again, I shouldn’t have. But then again, there it would be soon evident that I lied if I had exaggerated.

Luckily, I guess, the job thing was postponed to early autumn, so I can work in the project without worrying I’d have to turn down the one or the other. So, now I’m just waiting for the verdict — Bonkers.

\o/

I just got a response to my CV this morning, and as the job isn’t current (it will be current in early autumn) they said my CV would be filed under “Very Considerable”.

Hmm… I hope they don’t say that to everyone…

I’m very optimistic though. They were impressed by my studies.

Whoever wrote “include source code in the document” in the documentation instructions must’ve been insane!

I’ve been doing that database application for 101,5 hours and that’s most likely an underestimate cause I didn’t dare mark all the hours I’ve spent on it. The course gives 2 credits which equals 80 work hours. We had to print out a work hour list with letters assigned to different parts of the process and I wrote a note at the bottom that there should be a letter code for pedantry (or pernicketiness or perfectionism, they’d all go under P!)…

Sigh. It’s done. It’s actually done! “Tomorrow” we have to demonstrate our applications (I’m sure something goes wrong even though I think I’ve checked everything) and then this whole burden of a c(o)urse is finished. Next I have to start dreading and waiting for the grade. I want a 3 [i.e. the maximum]. I so want a 3.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s been a lot of fun, but trying to cram 1333 lines of PHP code, 13 PHP/XHTML pages, a JavaScript file and a stylesheet into a documentation… not fun. Oh yeah, it ended up being 105 pages. I printed it as 2 pages per paper on a PDF which I’ll be printing today at the department. They make the crazy documentation instructions, they lose the stack of paper.

For the first time in my life my shoulder, elbow, and wrist ache from typing and it’s on my left arm only. Weird. Now I’m going to not-document yay!

My aunt just wrote in an email that I’m free as their donkey grazing outside. She was referring to my ability to try out jobs here and there because I don’t have the burden of a family. Well, that’s one way to look at it. More optimistic than the one I’m currently having, at least.

Donkey…

From a conversation with Mac I got a bad itch to play Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. We used to have it on a diskette but at least I didn’t find it anymore (Dad had an old disk formatting frenzy a while ago) so I pouted a little and started looking for it. Luckily I did find it, and in the process I found a lovely site for abandoned games (and old games in general), Abandonia. I downloaded the DosBox that helps running old games on modern machines and also a couple of games I haven’t really tried properly yet.

But I did play Indiana today. I’ve never played it from beginning to finish because we didn’t have the manual and I never got the hang of fighting. (Instead, I played a little of the beginning and then loaded a save game at the temple in Iskenderun.) After talking to Mac, I found out that one does not have to fight the guards when fleeing Iskenderun. So of course I wanted to try it that way! When I was at the castle, I first tried to be very clever and gave Donovan Indy’s “Grail Diary” instead of Henry’s (Indy’s dad), but then Henry didn’t want to go to Berlin which was a must if I wanted to avoid getting caught at guard posts. Finally I met the Führer and got my easy travelling. I even managed to fly the biplane this time! But I’ll probably play it a second time because I want to fly in the zeppelin, too.

As if I didn’t have enough games to play, I downloaded some old games from Abandonia. But I think Vampire is my #1 priority. (I got past a couple of difficult fights again on Wednesday/Thursday — all I can say is, Katana is great!! Slash slash slash and enemies go down like… hay!)

I hope you got this blog bookmarked (or blogrolled in some way) because I removed the direct link from the domain index page. Why? Probably for no good reason, but I just don’t want my texts find their way into wrong eyes…