Proper Good News

Finally, some proper good news.

I have received an official offer from my employer, offering me a good settlement and a severance date of the 31st of March. That's two weeks on Wednesday.

I always had planned on going to Uni, regardless, but this will make things so much easier for us. Having now been discharged from Bankruptcy, the offer comes at the perfect time.

My girlfriend and I are now in the process of drawing up 'wish lists' of stuff to treat ourselves to, in an effort to make up for spending the past three years getting by on the bare minimum and no more.

So, it's a PS3, more games than I can shake a stick at, and a metric ton of RPG-related paraphernalia ahoy!!

Gargle blargle

I hate how I've been feeling about my work lately. I've got a real love/hate thing going on just now.

I've been off sick, yesterday and today, some kind of cold-thing I think. My head feels the standard cotton-wool way, and I've got aches and pains and dizzyness. Unless I sit down for a half na hour or so, at which point I start to feel okay. Then I forget, stand up to quick, and nearly walk into a doorway.

Still, because I'm pretty much the only person in Scotland qualified and able to do my job at the moment, people are still calling me, chasing for updates on cases I have open, etc. And I'm feeling guilty about being ill. In the past, I wouldn't have cared, and just relaxed on or in bed with a book or two until all was well. But not any longer it seems.

I'd tell myself that I was just feeling conscientious, but I'd be lying to myself.

I need to just suck it up and get on with things - I've got just under six months left, and I'll be able to hand in my notice and start with Uni.

Even more catch-up

Where to begin?

There've been a few developments of late. I did not get made redundant before Christams, having kept my head down and said nothing. That's not entirely a good thing though. I had assumed that any Voluntary Redundacny payment I got would go straight to our creditors due to our bankruptcy, but this wouldn't have been the case. Although Fujitsu were willing to let people go without working their notice period and give them pay in lieu of notice, I could have opted to work my notice, and not actually be made redudant until well after we had been discharged from redundancy. So that's a nice £30,000 tax-free lump sum that we missed out on, which would have made the first year of uni a cake-walk.

The fact that I missed out on knowing that simply because I was too stupid to ask questions still keeps me awake at night. Srsly.

However, I may still be able to get Voluntary Redundancy. I've moved sideways into a different position which is being TUPE'd over to another company in about four weeks. The word is that this new company aren't sure what to do with us, and VR may be an option. Fingers crossed. I'll need to play this one cautiously, as I don't want to roll right up to my new boss and demand redundancy in case it just ends up pissing folk off. Still, here's hoping.

My pre-entry course for Uni has been okay. At the end of my Sociology block, I only got 57% on my essay, which freaked me the f**k out, because I need at lest 60% to be considered for the Journalism & Creative Writing degree. I only need 55% for the straight English degree, so that's my backup. I'm almost done with the English block of the pre-entry course, with my essay due back next week. I've really been stressign out about this. Many sleepless nights and much trembling when I think about it. I want this so badly I can taste it.

I have conditional offers back from teh uni of my choice for Journalism & Creative Writing and English degrees. Aside from the percentages I mentioned before, for J&CW I need to submit a portfolio. Partof that is a short sample of prose. I had hoped that I could submit an extract from on of my better columsn from Massively, but I double-checked and found out today that I can't do that. I've got three weeks to hand it in though, so I have time. Still, more stressing ahoy.

Let's play catch up

Right, let me see if I can cover everything I want to cover without losing the plot.

I may well be getting made redundant in a few weeks' time. My company is looking at getting rid of 1200 or so jobs across the country. Apparently, shedding engineers i.e. the people who actually do the work will, "allow us to continue forward with an agressive and maintainable strategy for winning new buisness and retaining the buisness we already havem while keeping our standards of service as high as our customers have come to expect." Yes. Of course.

Myself and everyone I know in the compnay have already been informed that our jobs are at risk. Management is doing the whole consultation period, and letting us know at the start of November who specifically they're planning on letting go. Final decisions will then be made, and redundancies will happen on the 12th of December.

Annoyingly, if I wasn't already bankrupt, I'd be welcoming this, as my redundancy package is quite generous, and would put me in a very good position for starting University next year. Unfortunately, I'm pretty certain that any redundancy money I get will be swallowed up by our bankruptcy accountants. We've not said anything to them yet, as we don't want them getting twitchy for noe reason - I may well get kept on after all, but I'll speak to them if I have to at the start of November.

I've started my pre-access course for Unviersity, currently doing our Sociology block, which I'm actually enjoying immensely. We had a general essay to hand in just after the start of the course, which was checked but not marked, as it doesn't count towards our final mark, and is really just a tool for us to judge how hard we need to work on essay skills. I got mine back on Monday there, and did very well. I need to start working on a portfolio of writing to apply to my chosen degree, Journalism and Creative Writing. To say that I'm nervous about it is an uderstatement. I've been putting it off out of fear, but I need to man up and get it done before I run out of time.

Part of the portfolio I need to do is an interview with a local celebrity, which I've been struggling with. Fortunately it occurred to me that a friend of a friend is a kind of a big name in the pro-mountain biking scene here in the UK, so I'll speak to him about it. He's a good guy, and we get on reasonably well, so it shouldn't be a problem.

I'm a little burned out with my Warrior in World of Warcraft, so I've kind of shelved her for a while, and I've been spending time with my Death Knight alt. I was trying to power level her Mining and Blacksmith skills, but got thoroughly fed up with that in a very short time, so I'm just going to have some fun levelling her up instead.

Away from the PC, I've started a regular gaming group with an old friend of mine and some friends of his to play Dark Heresy, the Warhammer 40,000 RPG. I'm a big fan of the universe, and it's a ball finally getting some like-minded souls together for some RPG time. I'm not a huge fan of the system Dark Heresy uses tbh, but we have a really good laugh at it. I've suggested that we could also give Dungeons and Dragons a shot for a couple of weeks, betweend Dark Heresy adventures, if our current GM needs a break, and the guys are open to the idea.

So I'm currently scribbling down some ideas for an Asian-themed campaign, with a particular focus on Japan as the main base. Fortunately, I've got my hands on the DnD 3rd edition 'Oriental Adventures' book, and a lead on teh 2nd edition stuff as well, so I'm going to thieve as many hooks, NPCs and plots as I can. The downside being that none of the mechanics are compatible with DnD 4th edition, so I'll have to do that myself. Having had a bit of time to think about it though, I don't think it'll be too much of a stretch. I guess that's about it.

A few things

A bit of a gap since I graced these pages. Oh noes.

Let me see if I can fill you in, bullet-point stylee;

• Attended the Open Day at Strathclyde University, spoke with lecturers for my degree, attended a mini-lecture/seminar talking about the course. Proceeded to shit brix over how competitive the entry requirements are.
• Started the pre-entry course as part of the above entry requirements.
• Started buying books for pre-entry course.
• May get made redundant some time in December, as my company is talking about letting 1200 staff go, and my job is at risk.
• Started playing WoW again, fun to be back with my guildies. Making progress on getting loot.

That's about it, as far as I can remember.