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Fully Legal and Employed December 19, 2009

Posted by Sharny in : Life, Work , add a comment

This week has been quite the turnaround. I’d hoped for it to be good but you’ve got to be careful with potentially good things, I didn’t want to celebrate too early. So, Sunday we had a gig down at the Grange Hall in the village. It was quite a fun event, free for everyone and included a buffet. Lots of bands from the local area, quite a few of which were good fun to see perform. Our set was pretty short (15mins) which was unfortunate but you have to make the best of these things, it was a good fun evening overall.

Then on Monday I had a job interview at the local Co-op food store. I felt it went well at the time but didn’t want to jump the gun in happiness terms so I just waited to hear back.

On Tuesday was a big day in every persons life, I had my driving test and passed (yep, first time, I think I can be a little smug about that). It was almost a fail for going too slowly (which does make me chuckle somewhat) but almost a fail and flying colours all end up the same in the end. It’s difficult for me to feel too pleased about this as it don’t actually have anything to drive at the moment, nor the money to buy it. However of course I’m happy to have passed, it’s only just starting to sink in really, the idea that I can drive on my own and that I won’t have to do any more reversing around corners.

This was followed up the next day by the news that I had got the job at Co-op. Since I felt it went well it wasn’t exactly a surprise but in the current economic climate I’ve become used to being turned down for stuff. I had my induction yesterday and I start on Sunday, my only point of confusion being that I have yet to get any uniform and don’t really know what the hell is going on overall. I have faith it will work out though, I’m starting before the store opens so there’s plenty of time to get things straight.

I’m really relieved to have this work, it will allow me to have a steady income stream so that I can do my own projects on the side without worrying about having no money. It’s a big weight taken off my shoulders and will have an incredibly positive effect on this year. Unless something weird happens I’ll have a car by the time I go back to Uni so I’ll be able to continue working whilst I study.

It’s quite amazing how a week can turn things around. I should feel much better than I do and that is a little frustrating, I guess it’s because these things are long term and take a while for their positive effects to really show. Still, things are certainly on the up, even if they aren’t quite how I’d cherry pick them to be (when are they ever like that?).

Ain’t life grand? December 14, 2009

Posted by Sharny in : Essay, Life, School, Thoughts, Work , add a comment

So this is the updatery and depressive post that will explain why I’m posting here again and why I have relaunched durka. It’s not exactly going to be much fun but I kinda want to write some things not addressed to myself and explain the sudden reappearence of posting.

As planned, this year I started higher education at Nottingham University on the 21st of September, after moving in the day before. Things didn’t exactly have the easiest start, you hear tales of university being so much better than school before hand and people really finding themself and such. I didn’t get so lucky. All of it was a massive struggle and it was all a very depressing and downtreading time. As a few weeks went by and routine began to set in things did get better, as they surely do.

Then, something rather unexpected happened. Essentially, in the space of a day I realised that Chemistry was not the course for me. It was a real epiphany moment, and not a moment I wanted to have. There were other doubts around it, including ones about whether being at University was even the right thing for me to be doing. Through talking and thinking and thinking and talking some more I got some plan of what to do.

(more…)

Bringing Durka Back November 27, 2009

Posted by Sharny in : Fun, Gaming, Internets, School, Work , add a comment

It’s been my plan for a while to relaunch my old filter avoiding website tehdurka.info. As my most sucessful website ever, it’s demise was quite unfortunate. At the point of taking it down it had received over 400,000 hits during it’s lifespan, not massive on internet scale but certainly something for me. Of course, if it ever did get especially popular I would probably run into trouble anyway due to it appearing on the radar of school and workplace filtering technology. A few thousand hits a day was quite enough for me.

I can’t entirely remember why I shut it down, probably to do with the hassle of juggling free providers to keep my costs down to a minimum. In order not to run up massive bandwidth costs (my host, nearlyfreespeech.net, operates on a pay-what-you-use system with a high level of transparacy in their operation, I would reccomend them for anyone needing a cheap place to host a low bandwidth/storage site) I will be using free web hosting providers wherever I can, a slightly dubious practice but if they’ll let me hotlink then hotlink I shall. Most are very limited in terms of both space and bandwidth so it’s quite a bother juggling it all. But I’ll do it again, to keep myself occupied.

My new incarnation of Durka is named Malarky and is currently hosted as part of this website. Depending on what happens, I may give it it’s own subdomain or possibly get some unlimited bandwidth hosting for it. Of course, that’s a point where it gets worryingly popular and could possibly fail because of it. There’s also issues of copyright on the games I’m hosting, I have a very open takedown policy and I think most game makers are mostly interested in people playing their game rather than making money but I’m sure there are some out there who only want their game on a specific site and I’ll respect that provided that I’m aware. There are of course lots of ways for flash games to make money irrespective of what website is hosting them, mochi ads for one.

Hopefully my good faith will keep me clear of any trouble, and it should improve my programming skills as a by product which is always positive. So, if you’re in need of entertainment at school or work (obviously not during a lesson, wouldn’t want to ruin your education) then head on over to Malarky and get playing. I will be adding lots more games over the coming weeks to get it back up to the level that Durka had when I shut her down.

Educating Adventures Instructor Internships: What you should know (Review) June 20, 2009

Posted by Sharny in : Essay, USA Trip, Work, World , 1 comment so far

I wanted to write this post in order to give people in my position of a little over a year ago the information that I would have liked at the time, or at least what I would have liked before arriving at the training. I am not in any way affiliated with Educating Adventures, I’m writing this completely freely and because I’d like people to have a bit more information about what they’re getting into, an apposing viewpoint if you will although I make no bones about how amazing my season was and the major part that Educating Adventures played. I also have to say that this is just what I experienced and may or may not be what they do in following years, I doubt it would change that much though.

Presumably you’ve already been browsing through EA’s information and are trying to find a bit more about it, you conscientious consumer you. As far as I know, EA still have the monopoly on what they offer, a training course followed by a job offer. Plus they offer their course at a much lower rate than the many other competitors that have longer training programs but no work. Much cheaper in fact. Of courses, the EA course is a lot more intensive. Which is where I will start.

They advertise their course as a 3 week program designed to train you to level one ski instructor standards and get you qualified before you actually start work. In reality, what we received was 6 days of on snow training and 1 day of off snow theory. Even including the exam it doesn’t really come into 3 calendar weeks either so I’m not entirely sure where they pulled that number from. Either way, that’s what you’re getting.

In the days that we weren’t training they pretty much left us to our own devices to get things done. Which was kinda sucky to be honest. No help getting to Reno to apply for social security numbers (wasn’t an issue for me personally as I came out early and already had mine) or really any help with transport to get to anywhere we might want to go. It really wouldn’t have been that hard for them to arrange a bus to get everyone to Reno and back but they seemed to be taking the cheap way out wherever possible. Various figures for how long the walk was from our accomodation (on the edge of King’s Beach) to the nearest supermarket were quoted, usually between 5 and 10 minutes. In reality it was more like 15-20 minutes but of course the reason that they got this wrong is because they had a car and so didn’t have to walk so wouldn’t know how long it took.

It’s true to say that there is a little grumble in a lot of all this and I am just saying the negative stuff first, the other element that added to everyone’s general sour moods was the lack of snow. The 08/09 season was a bit late in Tahoe and when we all got to the training there wasn’t a patch of snow in sight which was naturally pretty depressing and caused us to be much more critical of everything else that was happening. Things did actually work themself out and we didn’t lose any time on snow due to the magical powers of man made snow.

So after arriving and being given a few days off we had one day of theory, nothing wrong with that, it included some fun little bits and pieces. After that we had another couple of days off hoping that Northstar would be able to make the snow for us to start training on Saturday. It’s worth noting that the way they put it to us was that if there wasn’t snow falling then Northstar would make snow for us. In reality, they were making snow just to try and get open and start being able to make some money and we had no exclusivety whatsoever, other than the fact that we were in ski school. It meant that when we did finally start the training it was very crowded and pretty limited. This isn’t EA’s fault of course but you should be aware that the weather could really screw your experience over, hopefully you will be lucky, obviously there’s nothing you can do about it, it’s just a risk that is inherent in a sport such as ours.

The other thing that became obvious to different people at different times was that the training they offered over this intensive course is in fact offered for free by our resorts in order to train their instructors. Of course, you don’t get a nice intensive course leading straight into the exam but don’t be under the impression that this training is more special than it is, both Northstar and it’s sister resort Sierra (my resort) offered weekly clinics to work towards exams.

One other little thing to note is the 98% pass rate and the claims that people of any ability are welcomed. Nothing wrong with that pass rate, indeed in Tahoe the pass rate was actually 100% as far as I’m aware but it says as much about the nature of the exam than it does about the quality of the training. I’m not saying the training was bad by any means, it really wasn’t, but the reason the pass rate is so high is because the exam is set up for passing and not failing candidates. The first two days are designed to be learning as well as examining experiences so are more like extra days on the training but with a different trainer, a feature that is no bad thing. It’s only really the last day of the 3 day exam that is an exam and even then it’s pretty relaxed.

The other part of that is any ability being welcomed. The 98% pass rate didn’t include the people who deffered their entry because they were advised not to do the exam. That included a decent percentage of the “beginner” training group. It would be true to say that actually most of the people who chose not to do the exam would have passed if they had done it but they didn’t feel ready and so chose to wait. The point being if you haven’t done much skiing but still want to do this (awesome) don’t necessarily think you’ll feel ready to sit the level 1 directly following the training. You can still do the course and still have the job but chances are you won’t feel ready to do your level 1 until a bit later in the season.

One other little nit pick is that if you make alternate travel arangements to arrive at the training don’t expect EA to make things particularly easy for you. I happened to luck out and get a ride up there and had a place to stay due to knowing some people up there due to the pre-season training I did but if you’re thinking of doing something different instead of going to the San Francisco stop over be prepared to get yourself to the training off your own back entirely.

It’s also worth noting that although the EA representatives guiding you through the training are perfectly friendly and try to be helpful they are a tad useless in a practical sense, which is a bit difficult to describe and probably just something you’ll realise when you get there.

One last bad part, this time about something outside of EA control: Visas. I can’t say about Canada (although from what I gather it’s a safer bet) but the US are limiting the amount of visas at increasing rates which is a real danger to the EA model: their training course isn’t nearly so unique if no one can get visas to work afterwards. In order to guarantee the visas got through for my season my resort and it’s sister held a mandatory (but not actually mandatory) “pre-season training camp” in order to say they needed their instructors early and therefore letting them put their applications in early, meaning that many other californian resorts had no H2B visas. That’s probably not what will go down this year but with the visa situation as it is the course is a fair risk. Even returning employees already qualified have been warned that the visas may not be available for them if they get unlucky so for unexperienced level ones the chances are even lower. Really, you are only above the uncertified locals and they don’t need visas, as there aren’t really any uncertified foreign instructors. Essentially: Be wary, you may not get your visa, and the risk is only increasing. Hopefully the visa cap will be raised with new legislation some time soon but for now your chance to work is at risk.

In conclusion, the opportunity Educating Adventures gave me to have the best experience of my life but it’s not the only way to get the preciously advertised level one. There are other options and if you are considering EA you should consider them too, just to make sure that spending the $4,000+ is worth it for you. For me, I think it was and I hope to do seasons again in the future, by which time I may just about get my investment back.

Just remember, you can’t really put a price on good experiences. Despite all the negatives of the training, it really wasn’t all bad and enabled me to have a fantastic time.

Neglected September 29, 2008

Posted by Sharny in : Life, Scraps, USA Trip, Work , add a comment

I haven’t really been paying much attention to this here part of the internet recently. It comes from things getting busier and as that happens certain things drop off my attention, this being one of them. As I said in a previous post (I think…), I am still writing but in a much more private setting. Although my fears of lacking censorship in my private writing have kept me from doing it in the past it has just felt rather necessary this last month to get my thoughts, feelings and events down as I feel the ever increasing pressure of my departure.

As it happens, said departure is on the 12th of October, which is substantially earlier than I had anticipated but is very very exciting.  Today is also the day I hand in my notice at work, although my last shift will actually be a week tomorrow.

Hmm, as it happens, I don’t actually know what else to write here. I certainly have things to write, but they are organisational and reflective and don’t have a place on this blog. I feel that the neglect it has been feeling is only likely to get worse in the coming weeks and months. One post I can guarantee you is the one documenting the Turisas/Dragonforce gig this wednesday, which shall be attended by almost all my best friends, as well as many other acquaintances. It should be a lot of fun.

Ok then August 31, 2008

Posted by Sharny in : Scraps, Work , add a comment

Right, so, I’ve decided that I’m just gonna post my little work based nuggets here since I really can’t be doing with creating a separate attempt at an anonymous blog about it. As such, I don’t intend to say anything mean about people, merely just report on the cool/odd happenings of the day. I’ve been thinking about them since I started really but not yet wrote them down, so I’ll start with a few that I can remember

There is, of course, a ton that I’ve forgotten but hopefully if I document them each day that I’m there then some fun things will pop up.

*It should be noted that you shouldn’t take offence to this, it would be indeed wise to just do as I do and laugh at silly racism. You may, of course, say “oh but you don’t know what it’s like to have people hating just because of something you can’t change” when in fact, my obviously German surname and first name have caused me to be on the receiving end of plenty of hate. The obvious difference, of course, is that when someone calls you a Nazi, or Hitler, they are actually referring to a group or single person responsible for the deaths of millions of people, whereas when someone kills you a nigger it means almost nothing except for the meaning you (or society) give it. In that sense, I have little pity if you do choose to take offence.