Prototype of a Person

Google do or Google don’t

In my entry dated the 4th of August I mentioned that I had just completed an online assessment for Google, I received a phone call from them on the 14th of August to tell me that I had passed and that they wanted to interview me… over the phone. I had the interview two days later.

The interviewer asked me plenty of basic questions, and a good few of those awkward ones like “Give me an example of a time in your workplace where you worked in a team.” They asked me about my thesis and college course, which I was delighted to talk about. We spoke for almost 30minutes, which I can only assume is a good thing.

But I was nervous as hell. I’ve never had a phone interview before and it was difficult to get into the right frame of mind, usually when you’re going for a job interview there are numerous steps you take before meeting the interviewer. Your journey there, finding the building, waiting for the interviewer - plenty of time that your mind is forced to concentrate on the task at hand. My mind wasn’t focused enough.

I’m not feeling very positive about how it went, especially since they told me they would get back to me in 2 to 3 days, tomorrow it will have been a week ago. When they do get back in contact with me it will be to tell me if I can progress to the next stage - a second phone interview and then, finally, a face-to-face interview. Google are s-l-o-w in their recruitment process. It’s worth the wait because the job sounds really interesting, the money is also considerably more than the basic I’m on at the moment, and, of course, it’s GOOGLE.

Photography: New Hobby?

For years I’ve had an interest in digital photography but have never had the money to purchase my own digital camera, I’ve always borrowed everyone elses or used my god-awful vga camera on my mobile phone. I’ve been thinking that it’s about time that I purchased a digital camera of my own. Of course, when it comes to me and technology, I want the best there is to offer. I had my hopes set on getting a digital single-lens reflex (DSLR) camera - the difference between a DSLR camera and a standard digital camera is the ability to view the picture you are taking via the lens rather than the viewfinder, giving you a truly accurate image. Unfortunately, even a 6 mega pixel DSLR camera is about €600. Which is definitely outside of my budget, for now.

The traditional digital camera market is completely saturated, and I’ve found it rather difficult to choose one (hence why I still don’t own one!) as my own terrible greed for “features” makes it impossible to stay within a reasonable budget. However, upon investigation I found an alternative to a DSLR camera that’s within budget. The Fuji FinePix S5600 Zoom: it’s only 5.1 megapixel, however it boasts 10x opitcal zoom. That’s impressive for €300, and it looks quite cool too. It has some wonderful features, for instance, movie recording in .avi format and the ability to change the lenses (I already have my eye on a fisheye! - ha ha).

The only drawback to buying a Fuji digital camera is the fact that they only take xD-Picture Cards, which is annoying considering I have plenty of MMC cards just lying around from old digital cameras and phones. If I’m to buy this camera I’ll have to purchase at least 1gb, which will set me back another €60, double the price of a standard MMC card. For now I’m not going to make any decisions, until I actually have the money. What fun it is to procrastinate.

Data Monkey

I’ve spent the entire day in work (so far) counting stock and then entering the stock count into the electronic point of sale computer terminal in the office. This may sound strange, but I actually enjoyed the work, it relaxed me. It was also filled with mini stress and mini victory, where I would think some stock missing and then upon investigation find that it had simply not been returned to the correct section in the stockroom. Although data entry is rather monotonous, I find that monotonous work calms me.

Paperwork, on the other hand - although monotonous, can sometimes really annoy me because it’s seemingly pointless. It must be done manually as well as entered into a database, so you’ve twice the work, just incase one system fails. Paperwork involves keeping a paper copy of everything AND a computer copy of everything. (Because people are still too afraid to rely on computers completely?)

Work has been going really well lately - I’m actually quite glad that I didn’t end up getting that job with O2 Retail. I’m working full-time hours and beginning to find myself comparing my sales against the other staff, it’s a competitive streak in me that I never had as a part-time sales person. I’ve also been promised the occasional Sunday or Saturday off, I’m not too sure when that will begin, but I’m looking forward to it. In retail, you can never be guaranteed to get an entire weekend off, it goes with the territory, but just having one day off would make me happy. For the last 4 years all I’ve done is work practically every weekend. What’s worse though is that my partner is now working an office job, Monday to Friday, so I’ve been seeing less of her than I want to, but now, that is subject to change.

Oxegen Festival

I didn’t get the job in O2 Retail. I was “shortlisted” but based on my references I wasn’t the person they chose to fill the position. I’m disappointed, but I have started working more hours in work, with some extra hours in the Ilac Shopping Centre (which is disgusting!) Ohwell… at least I’ve something to look forward to…

Jen and I are heading off to Oxegen this weekend.

The line-up last year was actually amazing - Green Day, Foo Fighters, Audioslave, Queens of the Stone Age, Keane etc., I had an amazing time. This year the line-up isn’t half as good, only because I’ve seen most of the headline bands already - James Brown, The Strokes, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Franz Ferdinand, Kaiser Chiefs and Placebo. It shall be fun and frolics in the campsite though, and there are a few bands I’m really looking forward to seeing for the first time - The Feeling, We Are Scientists and Artic Monkeys for instance.

Right now I’m trying to figure out how to fit camping gear for 4 people into a 2 door sports car. How very annoying. But driving there is far better than having to break your back carrying camping gear to a bus stop. Horray! for Christine who shall be our chauffeur for the weekend, she has even promised a trip into Naas for breakfast on Sunday morning. How delightful!

I am an old woman.

Some friends came over last night for a few drinks, I’ve not had any extra hours in work lately (damm over-staffing!) so we stayed up till 4am. Kudos to me! So yes, that seems like proper healthy behavior for a young woman with some free time on her hands… until I realised today how many times my buddies asked me to take my laptop out last night (for music and internet), and I didn’t. And the excuse I used…

“You don’t drink and drive, and I don’t drink and surf.”

< cringe > Me < / cringe>

I am an embarrassment to myself. I just can’t help it though, ever since I dropped my Zen and it… oh the horror… it stopped working (waiting 2 weeks for it to come back from repair)… so anyway, ever since I dropped my Zen I have been paranoid about my laptop breaking too - I’d be so lost without it, I do have the family PC as a backup, but my laptop is where ALL my personal space is. It’s my little world that’s password protected and all mine. I’m too over-protective of people using it, I hover around them waiting for them to finish whatever inane task someone (without their own computer) could possibly have.

Sad, aren’t I? Or perhaps just a nerd-to-the-max-o.

In other boring news, I had my job interview with O2 Retail on the 19th of June, they’ve called me asking for my references, but so far they’ve yet to get back to me about the position. How very… annoying.

Quiet, you.

I’m getting sick and tired of people asking me…

“So, what are you going to do now?”

For the last few weeks I’ve stuttered while answering, or ignored/abused/ran-away-from the person asking. So I have come up with a default answer to this very annoying and stressful question…

“I’m taking a year off from my studies.”

This seems to please everyone and stops their further queries about where I am currently working or where I WILL be working. It literally shuts them up and gives me sufficient time to make a speedy exit… and from now on my speedy exit will take me to the cinema, seeing as Jen has given me a year pass to Cineworld in Dublin, what a fantastic birthday present. I DO love movies.

Acceptance and Rejection

Strange day so far.

Acceptance: I got a phone call from O2 Retail, I’ve a job interview on Monday morning for a full-time position in the City Centre, selling phones, again. Boring, yes. But at least it’s money. Which I’ll need if I want to start saving for college next year.

Rejection: I got an automated e-mail from Google…

After carefully reviewing your experience and qualifications, we have determined that we do not have a position available which is a strongmatch at this time.

This is one of those times where automation sucks. If only there was someone I could actually physically talk to, that would answer this question for me: How am I supposed to get experience, when no-one wants to hire you, if you don’t have any? How annoying.

Life is Shaping up Nicely

Yesterday, I turned 22. And I felt as though I’d come to a dramatic junction in my life, where things could either go downhill very quickly, or slowly continue upwards.

Within the last year, a major change occured in my life. I met the woman of my dreams, which encouraged me to finally wake-up and realise that I really wanted to progress academically, in order to fullfill my desire to be successful professionally, to move out, settle down and eventually start a family of my own.

Love is a powerful thing.

Over the last year, I worked harder than I have ever before. When I look back upon my Leaving Certificate, I realise how foolish I was. In the end I was very lucky to gain a place in a college course that has given me the opportunity to combine my two favourite subjects: humanity and technology. In 1st year I was enthusiastic and did very well in my exams, but circumstances led me to neglect my stuides, and take my place in college for granted. During 2nd and 3rd year I did not push myself hard enough, which in the end has made my final year a difficult one. I had to work harder this year, to make sure my overall degree mark was sufficient enough to allow me to one day continue my studies and eventually get my Ph.D.

Today, I recieved my college exam results. I was so shocked by them that I had to call my course co-ordinator to confirm the words sitting in Firefox. I got a GPA of 3.19 for my final year, and added with my 3rd year marks, I have been awarded a Second Class Honours Grade 1 (2.1). I am now the proud owner of a Bachelor of Science (Honours) in Psychology Applied To Information Technology.

A 2.1 was important for me to achieve, as it gives me the ability to persue a masters degree course in almost any area of Psychology that I desire. Currently, I have my eye on a sweet little number that is actually more Computer Science based: A Master of Science in Mobile and Ubiquitous Computing at Trinity.

Now all I have to do is save or borrow €4000. I’m planning on using this year to save, so far it’s not exactly going to plan, but once I get myself a new job I should be well on my way to getting myself into a nice masters course, and then someday perhaps I will lecture… or maybe, get a lovely job at somewhere like Google.

So, in conclusion… the “dramatic junction” I’m standing at right now is steep, but I’m very much looking forward to the climb ahead of me. Knowing I’ll have a woman like Jen by my side, and such wonderful friends and family, gives me confidence that I can succeed in this weird and wonderful life.

What now?

It’s a thursday morning and I’ve been up since 9am. So far, I’ve distracted myself by going online and watching a few episodes of Lost. I’m bored. I need to get out of my job and start something real. I’m still only working part-time, and it’s probably the most boring job on the planet - simply because I don’t seem to have any customers, ever! I wish it was busy at the weekends, in the shop, but it’s just not and there is nothing I can do about it. So I’m looking for something a bit different, something full-time and interesting, but I honestly don’t know what that is.

I’m feeling very annoyed at myself. I turn 22 on Sunday, and I get my final year results on Monday. So on Monday I’ll be a 22 year old college graduate that’s stuck in a dead-end job. Here is to hoping my results are good enough to get me into a post-grad course, I did afterall get a B in my thesis. And if I get into a postgraduate course, at least it will postpone the inevitable “getting a REAL job”… because right now, I’m under-qualified to do what I really want to do, and under-qualified to be hired to get the experience I need. Otherwise, if my results are crap, I’m going to have to relent and take some kind of crappy low paid intership.

It’s all very annoying.

Meeting My Hero

I think Im finally ready to write something about the amazing experience I had on Monday. So here goes… More »