I don’t particularly think River Song is the right person to be quoting here, but regardless:

This changes everything.

This means I have an altered view of my project to create a WordPress plugin. What’ll it be now? Perhaps it won’t be a WordPress plugin. Perhaps it will be, but it’ll be really damn simple. Perhaps it’ll be an advanced non-WordPress feature. All I know is that now I’ve got a bitchin’ (excuse my language) uploader that can definitely be expanded.

I can’t say I’ve ditched the idea of a WordPress plugin ever so completely, but… now I have to get my brain thinking in a slightly different manner.

Definitely not too late to change my project now.

I didn’t quite hit 5,000 words for my assignment but after putting it together with Kirti’s (the other girl in my group; we’re working in pairs), we went at it and realised we had written as much as we could. After writing an executive summary, introduction and conclusion, we were at 9,500 words. I think we’ve done pretty well. I just have to finish proofreading it and write a table of contents. Following that, I’ll have to add the last of my references to the reference list and we’ll pretty much be ready for Thursday. Did I mention there’s a presentation?

And I don’t know what I’m really going to say in my presentation, but I could do that thing I seem to do where I prepare my presentation fifteen minutes before class…! We’ll see. Maybe I ought to do some practicing this time.

I wanted to share a couple of WordPress plugins I’ve been using recently. One is Broken Link Checker. Normally a lot of services ask you to pay to have them crawl your website and check for links. However, if you have a WordPress website you’re in luck, because this plugin looks at all the URLs in your website and can even change the styling on dead links so that people know it’s a 404. I find this useful for a large website like mine that has a lot of external links.

The second plugin was recommended to me by Ruben. It’s called TanTanNoodles Simple Spam Filter. Normally, Akismet should do a good job, but if you’re like me and have a relatively popular blog with a lot of traffic, chances are you’re bordering on 1000 spam comments a day. This plugin really does a terrific job stopping the bulk of it. You can select which words are spammy, and if any of them are used, you can let the user have a second chance to enter a captcha and prove they’re not spamming.

Finally, I use WP Optimize. I feel like I may have mentioned this to someone or already blogged about it, but it’s worth a mention again, even if I have. As we know, WordPress databases can end up very large, especially due to annoying post revisions and drafts. While you can use Revision Control to take care of that, WP Optimize also optimises your database tables and reduces the size of your table by quite a lot.

Anyway, that’s it for my post… guess we’ll see how my little project goes, eh?

It’s been kind of weird, actually. Earlier in the week I spent some time buying some clothes. Of course, I was trying to hide the bargain bundle from my mum, who found them in the wash and noticed I’d bought some “shit” clothes. Whatever dude. Sorry I never had middle-of-the-road clothes and wanted something casual for once. In fact, I wanted to wear this yellow shirt and my mum wouldn’t let me leave the house in it. It’s the shirt I own that James likes… it’s yellow with a dinosaur and giraffe hugging. It looks exactly like this, but on a shirt, duh.

Anyway, I’m going through this nasty thing as part of my 101 in 1001 list, trying not to wear a dress or skirt for a month. It’s pretty terrible, I’m four days in and every time I’ve worn jeans I’ve felt like crap and feel like the damn things are sticking to my legs. I mean, stockings and pantyhose – that’s one thing, and they’re thin and flexible. Hello, jeans are not. I feel like I hate jeans as much as James does, but the thing is, I wear them. Sorry sweetie.

I caught up with Lilian earlier this week and as per our tradition we took sticker photos in those little photo booths. We went to a new one we’d never been to. It wasn’t that good because it took photos too fast and we ended up with some pretty shit pictures. They were hilarious though. One had a template of two heads so you’d naturally put your head in the hole, and James and I had a go – but he moved just as the photo was taken so instead of capturing his face it captured his laughing grin.

On Wednesday evening I went to see San Cisco at The Standard for their Rocket Ship tour. I had a hard time finding the venue because I’d never been there, but eventually I found the glass doors with the logo. It was a pretty nice place, a casual little bar, very small, and had a nice balcony. I went alone again, because no one was completely willing to go with me. I walked for half an hour in the dark while I wolfed down some sushi. All good, I found the place without too much hassle.

I always end up rambling about shows, but I always have a good time! San Cisco are a band from Perth, Australia – and the members are pretty young and recently out of high school, so they’d be around the same age as me or a bit younger. I always find that kind of thing peculiar, haha. San Cisco have rather unusual pop-rock tunes, but they also have some softer ballads. Their music is really generally chirpy and they love their “dududu” and “dadada” vocals, as it makes an appearance in a number of their songs.

They were supported by two other Australian bands, The Griswolds and Voltaire Twins. The Griswolds were a rock piece, while the Voltaire Twins were synth pop. When I saw Gold Fields earlier this year, their style of music was similar and I was disappointed to find that they were better live than they were in the recordings. I had heard their songs after I’d seen them live. That was the same with Voltaire Twins, sigh.

Anyway, I did manage to get a good spot up front. I was one of the first people into the large hall, and I just took my spot at the front, in front of the stage. There was no barrier; I was pretty thrilled about that. I was hoping the venue wouldn’t get too full, but I heard that the show actually sold out. I brought my camera with me and immediately started taking photos of the stage area and surroundings.

“So, do you work for a magazine or something?”

A boy had approached me and started a conversation. I’m always meeting random people at gigs, sometimes having a chat, sometimes just saying hi or realising that we’re singing along together. This guy’s name was Benny and he was studying a doctorate, studying every day, and he was also at the show alone. We had a good chat about what kind of music we were into and what gigs we’d been to in the past year, as well as studies and stuff in general. I suppose I’m used to meeting and talking to new people since it was much the case in my bachelor’s degree (sadly in postgrad, no one seems to be very talkative). We chatted about cameras and photography, and of course I told him I didn’t work for a magazine – I was just a hobbyist photographer and I really enjoyed photographing at gigs.

It’s a challenge with limited equipment and being in a dark environment but I tend to manage most of the time, and I get used to the lighting in the venue. That night it wasn’t bad.

San Cisco put on a great show. They started out with Golden Revolver and went through all their songs on their two EPs, as well as playing one or two new songs. Someone yelled at the drummer Scarlett, “take off your shirt!” to which she said “piss off”. With a young attractive girl as part of the band, I think it’s to be expected…

Jordi (lead singer and guitarist) performed a solo version of John’s Song, and of course, naturally, the band ended with their best hit, Awkward. I have to admit that they performed really well and I was very impressed. I managed to grab one of the setlists since I was at the front. A few times the band members made eye contact with me because I was right up the front. It seems that if you’re right at the front with a camera they don’t mind making faces or posing for you, or they smile at you before they even start playing.

Anyway, I had a great time – there isn’t much else to say. I got a photo with Jordi and I failed and cut off part of his head in the photo. OH… well.

To go to work.

Alright, after I ate and washed my face and ate breakfast. I said ate twice. I mean brushed my teeth. And not necessarily in that order.

Since most of my clothes are dressy, I find it hard to dress for certain occasions, and sometimes I feel like I need something casual that I don’t have to worry about ripping or tearing. I’m also a tights/stockings kind of girl, so one of the things I endlessly worry about is making runs in my pantyhose by getting it caught on peeling skin or zippers of bags or just having some asshole scrape past me with a velcro-fastened bag.

Velcro on stockings is a real bitch.

On the weekend I did some online window shopping for some basic tees and casual tops. That’s just what I need. A few months ago I bought a girly Nirvana tee, and I was really happy with that purchase. It has become my gig shirt; I seem to wear it to gigs. I also bought an Anberlin shirt, which is white – and that’s a band shirt that’s a change from the usual black. I think a girl knows when she’s got enough band shirts.

During my online browsing I found that I had obviously been browsing for too long, because my session timed out and my cart emptied itself. Oh well, too bad. In the end I decided that when it comes to most clothing it’s best to have a look at it in-store. Looking at clothes online… well, sometimes they look nice, but you’re looking at it on a screen. There is also a reason why I don’t like seeing clothes on models when I view clothes online. All I see is some girl posing and I don’t get to see the garment. That’s what I want to see, so I can imagine how I’d look in it, without having some grinning girl influence my decision.

This afternoon I went to the shops and picked up three long-sleeved shirts, a woolly top, a striped black and white top, a tan-coloured top and a grey shirt with a chipmunk. I wish I’d gotten more basics… but I guess it would be pretty easy to find black and white singlet tops in most places. Now to toss everything in the wash and wait until I can wear them for real. I hate waiting to wash clothes after I buy them.

That was a splurge of some $60, but I did spend a lot more buying tickets to the Smashing Pumpkins. They are most definitely one of my favourite bands. I guess I love the old lineup better than the new – and the band members have changed so much over the years… but what I love most is their music. I’m going for the music. One should always go to shows for the music. I’m going with James, and I’m forever grateful that he agreed to come.

While I look forward to that date at the end of July, I return to the present, where I’m working on a 10,000 word assignment.

Nope, not joking.

I’m glad we’re working in pairs. 5,000 isn’t half bad.

Actually, it is. It’s half of 10,000.

Hello, I’m Georgie and I’m tired. I also had my graduation ceremony today to receive my Bachelor of Arts in Communication. As I type this sentence mid-yawn as my eyes are shut and watering and my fingers bear a life of their own, I look back on today – eventful.

It began at 5:30am when I woke up to Houdini playing on my phone. Perhaps it’s time to change my alarm tone, but I’m far too lazy. I’ve been waking up really early for the past few days, trying to get used to it, as well as sleeping earlier, just to shift my body clock a little. I’m often tired when I get home from work, and it’s too late to do much, so I think it would be a good idea to sleep not long after I get home and have an early, productive morning.

I went to work this morning. I love work; hey. I was supposed to get my graduation robe and hat some 90 minutes before the actual ceremony. I left work at 1:00pm. I was actually intending to come back after the ceremony. We weren’t allowed to take a bag in anyway, so I left most of my stuff at work and just took my camera and phone and wallet. I took my work keys as well, just in case I came back to the office and no one was in.

I met Seb at the front of the main university building. I was surprised to see so many people there already; some with their guests and some without. I didn’t really dress up so much. I mean, for one thing, why wear something fancy when you’re graduating? My mum had a point; she suggested I wear a collared blouse and a skirt and work shoes so I would be wearing something that looked like I was going to work. After seeing some people graduate several years ago and describing the way they dress to my mum, she actually said it was rather inappropriate to “dress up”. Anyway… I agreed with her. My parents didn’t come until much later but I sort of wished they had come a little earlier.

The ceremony wasn’t as boring as I thought it would be. I thought it’d be boring to sit through all the names and wait for my turn, but because it was all very organised and you had to slowly get up and line up in the wings of the Great Hall, it seemed like most of the time was taken up by standing and shuffling forward in line as the names were read out. I guess it also depended whether your name was called out near the beginning or the end. My name was somewhere in the middle, and I kept an eye out for people I knew before I had to get up and line up with the other people in my row.

The Great Hall was recently refurbished. The inside was amazing, like being inside a little theatre. The seats were pretty close together, but the place felt cosy without being uncomfortable. I’m surprised a good half-a-thousand people fit in there, because it seemed so small. I think the most beautiful part of the Hall was the ceiling; decorated with rigid asymmetrical tetrahedrons. It was like being inside of a geometric icicle cave.

It was all very organised and representatives in the wings made sure we looked presentable before we went on stage; that our square hats (I should call them their proper names, but it’s cute to call it a square hat) were not crooked, and that our robes were sitting nicely on our shoulders. Once we acknowledged the Dean as he called our names out, we’d shake hands with the chancellor, have our photo taken quickly, exit the stage and collect our testamur – which basically consisted of our wonderful certificate and report and other information.

It was like receiving dreaded school reports without the dread factor, perhaps. I actually found it interesting watching the names being called out and all the graduates walking across the stage and being acknowledged. It was all very exciting. I wish they’d given us custom coloured lightsabers simply because it was Star Wars Day…

My parents and James ended up sitting at the back, but we still got some photos before and after the ceremony. Woo. Afterwards we were invited for refreshments and food… there were some very delicious plain croissants and buns with cheese and tomato/ham.

I was actually looking forward to going back to work. My mum insisted I get my certificate and my photo with the chancellor framed, so we did just that. She said it was an opportunity I may not get again, so I might as well. I will be graduating from my postgraduate course at some point, so one day I’ll wear the robe and hat again and walk on that stage again.

To celebrate, James and I had dinner at the same Italian place we went to a couple of weeks ago. The one with the awesome pizza. This time we had pizza with olives and anchovies, and potato pizza. The potato pizza was delicious, it was like having potato bake on pizza – Spanish onions, shallots, sour cream – the lot.

• Type in some metadata for the image. Title, caption and so on. It doesn’t include everything WordPress asks for – the idea for this is to make it very simple.
• Choose the image on your computer to upload.
• If the image is over a certain size, it won’t upload.
• If the file is not a valid image file, it won’t upload.
• Images upload to a selected folder on the server.
• Image metadata and the URL of the image is stored in a MySQL database.
• After connecting to the database, the page loads and displays the images already in the database.

I won’t really say it’s “getting there” but I’m getting a move-on. There’s so much I want to push out of the way in terms of university. When I think about it, there’s not too much to go, but everyone knows that you start falling down when it gets into the last weeks of semester. Since I’m horribly scared of that, this week will have some intensive work, alright. Time to get caught up on stuff, time to study and go on and on, time for things to never end.

I am so tired… I feel like I’ll be able to catch up on things on the weekend, then the weekend catches up with me…

Time to sleep earlier, time to doze off on the train, time to skip lectures when you know you’re just going to be sitting there in the pits playing on your iPad. If I get that vibe again this week, and if I believe I’ll work better at home and learn more by reading the notes rather than listening to someone yak on and on… well, so be it. Not everyone learns fantastically well when it comes to listening to someone. Some people work better when they have a discussion with friends. Others work better reading, writing, drawing.

The good thing about university is that people don’t watch your back all the time. That’s what we were told in high school – “no one is going to spoon-feed you and warn you and remind you to study!”

They said it like a threat. Like it was a bad thing.

Being forced and told to study and having work thrown in my face wasn’t my idea of desirable. I have no idea what high school teachers think, but if they think we’re going to fall down, they’re wrong. There is something just absolutely liberating about a teacher not being on your back or breathing down your neck all the time. You have the independence, you can work at your own pace, and you pay for your schooling and you hold the responsibility. I like that. I like having that kind of flexibility. I don’t even think it’s about trust – but someone is trusting me to do what I need to do. Maybe I’m trusting myself.

Apart from classes starting again, I did get my hair cut on the weekend. I got it highlighted red. I sort of wanted to have my whole head coloured, but I think something set me back. I chose a red that wasn’t all that natural, and my hairdresser suggested having highlights… so I guess that was the way to go. It took a while as they were busy that day. Maybe I regret not colouring my whole head, but at least this way I still have some of my natural hair colour. Which isn’t too bad either!

I’m mostly happy about the cut.

A lot has been going on despite me having a study break this week. I’ve been working eight hours a day, and we’ve got a new project in the works, completely rebuilding a website and its content, and setting up an online shop. Today I finished some wireframe work for the client, and I used Omnigraffle on a Mac – I think it’s really easy to use, even though I think the price tag is really ridiculous. I was thrilled when I found it available for iPad, but the price was ludicrous, I recall – and given the capabilities of the program, I don’t think it’s worth that much. Same goes for the Adobe Creative Suite; you’d think that they have enough money by now after people have bought their products, but no, it still has to be five hundred bucks a program.

On Wednesday we had a public holiday, so I stayed at home. Last week, I was thinking it would be a good day to hang out with James, but we were both very busy with work. I have an assignment due next Friday, and I started it then. I got up to 2000 words. The whole essay has to be around 3000 words. In my Bachelors degree, I had a lot of essays that had this limit, but because I enjoyed the research and had so much to write about, I honestly ended up writing about 5000 words. I probably lost marks for that, even though it was never explicitly said.

Today I reached 2200 words, but since I’m tired and wanted to write a quick post, here I am. I will finish it tomorrow – I really want to get it out of the way. I have a group assignment to work on after this. We’re working in pairs and my partner Kirti says we should get as much done as we can by next week and just get a start on it. I believe we still have another three or so weeks, but we’d really better get a move on. I also think we’re going to need to write a hell of a lot more than 3000 words… so I’d better work hard.

I’m graduating from my Bachelors degree on Friday! I’m annoyed at the schedule and how we have to turn up an hour and a half before the ceremony to get our gowns and all that other crap. It’s very organised. I’ll be working in the morning and then going to the ceremony and then going back to work. We’re allowed to invite three guests, and my parents said, “Of course we’re coming, it’s special!” – so they’re two, and James wanted to come, so that’s three.

That night we’re having pizza. I know I don’t like pizza, but last week we went to a fancy Italian restaurant and had their pizza. It’s far from the oily and gross Western shit. It was honestly the best pizza I’d ever had. It wasn’t too oily, it was thin but it was crispy and not too crispy, and it tasted spectacular. The cheese was stringy without being too gross or thick. It was perfect pizza, honestly.

I’m turning 21 in May. I decided that in very early June I’ll have a birthday dinner at a Japanese restaurant; I booked a washitsu room for the full dining experience.

I’m planning way ahead of time, and it’s going to rock.

Thankfully the huge ugly wound on my knee as a result of me falling on the concrete in the rain is healing and closing up. I actually put some honey on the wound today. I’ll be honest, I picked at the scab a little bit. You know when you think it’s safe to pick at a scab, it’s not going to bleed, it’s going to be perfectly fine? That’s just what I thought as I dabbed some Vaseline on the dry edges of the wound. So I didn’t pick anything off just for kicks to see fresh blood again (who does that?) but just to remove scabs from already formed skin.

Honey, with all its antibacterial properties, is quite good for wounds. I was surprised that from this morning until now, my wound has healed quite a lot. The skin around it is pink again, except for the ugly bruise. I forgot to mention that when I wrapped up my bandage on Thursday and Friday before I went to work, I noticed that there was a horrible bruising around the wound on my knee. I must have fallen pretty damn hard. There’s still a nasty bruise on my hip as well.

I’ve been using Wunderkit lately, which is a – well, how should we put this? It’s a tool, it’s a system, it’s an application. It’s a place where you can efficiently organise your own tasks, own personal projects, or even group collaborations. The project is still in beta but you can sign up and check it out. I’ve found it quite useful to keep track of all my tasks in one place. There is an app for the iPhone and a desktop application for Mac.

I love to-do lists and now it just seems like the notebooks I have maybe won’t really be needed anymore. Pen and paper is always magnificent for planning and brainstorming, but for quick to-dos, you will probably like Wunderkit. It can be social if you want it to be – Rachel and I have invited each other to our respective workspaces so that we can see what the other is doing or what they have planned. It’s really simple to add tasks – you just type it in the box and hit return on your keyboard. You can also assign tasks to other people who are members of the workspace, you can create lists of tasks to organise them into manageable chunks, and you can even use tags to tag tasks.

It doesn’t stop there, though. While I can assign a task to Rachel to humourously tell her to study for her Japanese exam and “star” it for priority, she is also able to “like” my task. Of course, “like” is just the same as liking posts on Tumblr and Facebook, and/or favouriting tweets. However, if you’re not one for liking but you want to respond, there is also comment functionality. You can also comment on comments. What’s great about these is that you can easily discuss if you’re in a group, and of course, one can always step in to help or give some guidance along the way.

You don’t have to invite anyone to your workspace either; there’s the option to have to completely private if you’re working on a surprise birthday party for someone.

I’ve been using Wunderkit to organise all my website duties and other online business, as well as keeping reminders of things to do – like buying train tickets, cleaning my desk, or even keeping quick notes. The notes are another basic functionality of Wunderkit; if you want to write something a bit longer they’re there. I must also mention that Wunderlist is for those who are after something simpler, less social, but just as efficient. Also created by 6wunderkinder, it’s available as an app for iPhone, iPad, Android, Mac OSX and Windows. At the moment there is no integration between it and Wunderkit, but it’s soon to come.

Wunderkit is a terrific option for project management and we’ve started to use it at work as well. The great thing is that it syncs at regular intervals, so if you’ve lost your connection you can still add tasks as per usual, and they’ll just sync as soon as you’ve got a connection. It’s probably a bit late to be delving into project management halfway through the semester for university, but it’s just another handy thing to start using for anyone who wants to keep organised, or, like me – likes a to-do list for anything.

Well, going back to my idiot wounded knee, I’m sure it’ll heal a lot quicker if I keep treating it like how I did today. The honey should do a good job again, and of course I’ll clean the wound regularly. It’s already drying and pretty much closed up, but I don’t want the skin to get too flaky, so I’ll have to pop Vaseline on the edges again.

Excuse me for talking about my horrid wound.

It looks like this.

And it doesn’t look pretty.

I posted on Twitter that I didn’t like the album art, and I was disappointed that he didn’t illustrate it himself. Funnily enough he replied and said, “haha… you get it and you don’t even realise”. Of course, before I complained about it, I made myself think about it. Of course scrutinising the album art of guitarists gone solo is not my day job, but I had to know what “A+E” meant, and I took it to mean the most popular definition according to Google: accident and emergency. After bringing up the topic with James, I said that perhaps the whole album was an accident and emergency, and so too was the album art.

Of course, I replied to Graham again on Twitter and I told him my thoughts, but he didn’t say anything more on the matter.

It rained extremely heavily today, and at work there was a leak above my desk. I could tell because I felt drops on my head, on the screen, and occasionally on my hand. It was worst on the part of the desk closest to the window, and my boss had to wipe down the desk and put a saucepan there to collect the water. It could be worse. Most of the time (we’re in a loft by the way, which is beautiful) we get a bit of dirt from the ceiling fall to our desks overnight, but you can’t really blame anyone for that. The loft is a lovely place to work in.

I wore high heels. Most people would say that’s a stupid thing to do when it rains. I didn’t think about it, okay? I woke up late and I just threw some clothes on, brushed my teeth, grabbed my stuff, and went. My mum was nice enough to give me a lift to the station. I’ve been trying to catch the South line train because it’s not as smelly and disgusting. I also get a seat all the time, it’s not as packed, and the trains are the newer kind with air conditioning or heating and cleaner seats. I usually catch the Western line because trains come more often, but the actual service is crap. I ended up taking one of these crap trains because my mum insisted. Thankfully I got a seat, but the inside of the train smelled like urine. Gross.

Anyway, I wore those high heeled boots because last time it rained, they didn’t get soaked through like all my other damn boots. I also found that the height given by the heel made me stay out of puddles. I guess it just helped me to stay dry, hah. That proved well for most of the day until I walked out of the office that night, on my way home.

My boss said “good luck getting home in this rain”. I did tell him that James was giving me a lift though, so I should be okay.

I took two steps outside after I walked down the stairs, felt myself wobble, and landed hands and uh… more like knees first, on the pavement. There was a stinging pain in my knee as I gathered my belongings and hastily looked around. No one was nearby. No one asked if I was okay. Not that I care – but most of the time if you fall down in public someone helps you or asks if you’re okay or stares at you. None of those things happened, so I stumbled to the crossing with my umbrella and that was when I noticed the blood on my knee and the hole in my tights that was exposing the blood on my knee. FAR OUT.

I was actually more annoyed that I tore the tights as they are one of my favourite. Fuck the pavement, I thought. It TORE. MY. STOCKINGS. Pantyhose. Tights. It tore the… gufufuufhutghfdh.

Of course, I was in pain, but I went on my way. My hands were dirty and I was half wet from falling into a small puddle after that trip. I thought I’d make my way through the shopping centre, because it would be quiet. There are no doors so it doesn’t close, so you can walk through it to go to the train station. I did just that.

And then I slipped and fell on the tiled floor as two gentlemen in suits walked ahead of me. They hadn’t seen and they didn’t turn around. I managed to limp to the station alright. I met up with James and thankfully I got a seat on the train. He gave me a lift home and when I got home I removed my tights to see how my knees were.

Then I realised they looked really familiar.

You know what Graham said?

“oh dear!”

I’m pretty tired, that’s a given. I was up until 5:00am this morning. Five. Ay. Em. I usually drop dead at around 2:00am on most days, but lately I’ve been finding that I can stay up really late without feeling tired. A couple of weeks ago I didn’t sleep until 4:00am because I wasn’t tired at all. I have, however, been sleeping early on some days – sleeping at around ten at night. I think it’s the fact that I’m sleeping really early that leaves me staying up late the next night, because I have a bit more energy. I am totally going to crash on the weekend, just you wait…

I was up until 5:00am this morning because I was working on that PHP shopping cart I mentioned in my last post. I had to because it was due at midnight. I did finish it before midnight and it was functioning okay, but there were still bugs in the script. The assignments are submitted via a form, and you just type in your student details and the URL to the shopping cart. I did that on time, but it looked messy. I’m a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to web design and code. Things just have to be neat. If there’s one little thing wrong, I honestly can’t sleep on it until I fix the problem.

So many times I’ve left work with my brain racked up in a whirl, because it was time to go home and I didn’t quite figure out a script or a piece of code or part of a layout. I just can’t leave things half-done, or unfinished. It’s probably why I like breaking things up into manageable goals and writing to-do lists like mad.

You can view my shopping cart but keep in mind that it’s just a prototype and not actually a real shop. You can add items to the cart, you can delete and update the amount of items, and you can check out and put in your details. If anyone checks out with the form, I’ll know they tried checking out the dummy products, because I get an email notification of the person’s order. I also set it up so that the customer receives an email as well. It’s a pretty nifty script and I’m pretty proud of how I got it to work. It’s hosted on my university’s server and I had to use the iframes and imagemap – that wasn’t my choice. I’m still happy with the way it works. At least I’ll have a basic idea of how to make one if I ever want to sell anything. I know there are simple shopping cart scripts out there, but it was nice to have a go at making my own.

It did leave me very frustrated with the problems but I’m glad they’re over now. I can’t believe I spent five hours after midnight fixing the images, styling and debugging it. I figured that I did submit my assignment on time but I can still technically update my files and make changes. I was so close to giving up near the end but I’m glad I didn’t, because in the end I’m happy with the result even though it’s not perfect.

This week is supposed to be my study break week, but I have two classes this week and a presentation to give on Friday. Bleh. I’m glad that I still have less classes than usual, though. Any smaller workload is nice after a hectic weekend.

James and Lilian bumped into each other on the train this morning – James sent me a text message to let me know. I was running late because I didn’t get enough sleep… and I really didn’t want to rush. I sent my boss a text message and he actually said to me “Sleep in!” I was already on my way so I power-napped on the train. I was on a different train on a different train line, and I arrived at one of the train stations near my workplace, when I saw Lilian and James walking down the stairs. I quickly got out of my seat and ran off the train.

It was good to see Lilian again – I hadn’t seen her in half a year or something. I can’t keep track – all I know is that we only get to see each other about twice a year.

Earlier this evening when James was dropping me off at home, he backed his car up in the driveway and hit our car. I warned him the car was close to the entrance to the driveway so to be careful, but he still hit the back of the car. Luckily the damage wasn’t significant; just a bit of paint scratched off. My mum wasn’t too pleased; she wondered why he didn’t just drive nose-first into the driveway, and he said it would be easier to get out of the driveway if he parked rear end in. It makes sense but my mum thinks that it’s easier to exit by reversing out of the driveway because you have a lot of road to move onto – compared to trying to reverse into a driveway. /confu

My dad didn’t mind; he’s scratched our own car several times himself, heh.

Man, I can’t wait until the weekend. Again. Because weekends just frigging rock. Never gonna give you up, never gonna let you down… Man, I love this song.

Also, I updated my about Georgie page.

Georgie logging.

It’s cold. And I don’t know whether to laugh or cry that the weekend is nearly here. Because of Easter, Monday was a public holiday, and I didn’t work or have class until Tuesday. On Tuesday I finished all the class work in ten minutes. It was very easy and involved some simple PHP that I was already familiar with. I left class early.

Yesterday, I didn’t go to class. I went straight home and picked at the code for that idiotic PHP shopping cart. I just can’t get it right. Once I’d figured out something small I just let it go and went to sleep. It doesn’t help that I get home at around seven-thirty most days; sometimes later. By the time I shower and eat dinner it’s nearly nine, leaving just an hour to brush my teeth and do any homework for the next day.

But I’m not really complaining. I’m not stressing out, though that shopping cart has been driving me mad and I hope I get it all done and fixed by Sunday at 11:59pm. That’s when it’s due and I suppose I’m glad the weekend is nearly here so that I can work on it.

Earlier tonight I had a class on business process modeling. I regret doing a business-related subject. It is the most boring subject I’ve ever done and to be honest, information goes in one ear and out the other. My lecturer is great though. He explains well and he isn’t boring. He jokes from time to time and he answers questions and relates things to everyday situations. It’s a shame the subject is so dull.

Mid next week my study break starts. I am looking forward to it for so many reasons… I mean, I get to have a break, above all. I get to catch up on all my assignments. I am really looking forward to that. I still have to go to work, but that’s okay. I probably have a bit more time to read blogs and blog and photoblog myself.

I guess I just need a break. I’ll be happy when I figure out that PHP shopping cart thing, really I will. Wish me luck.

I’ve decided that tomorrow I’ll be taking photos to document my day again. I’m just doing it for fun this time, to make up for the lack of photos on my photoblog in the part week.

I guess I’ll go to bed now, goodnight.

Hmm. My iPad still doesn’t have a name, so I think I’ll be spontaneous and call him Kevin, after one of my favourite musicians, Kevin Mitchell.