Shockwaves Blog

GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH.

2011-03-20T16:14:00.000+00:00

I'm having to start my entire blog again due to some fucking whiteknights reporting blogs and such. Could I ask all my followers to follow my new blog > http://dailyblogandsuch.blogspot.com/

I'm trying to revert everything back to normal as fast as I can and get back into the bloggersphere. Thanks! <3

Absence!

2011-03-13T22:56:00.000+00:00

Wow, I didnt realise it had been a WEEK since I'd posted. I guess time flies when you're constantly entertained.

So, the majority of my past week was awesome, me and Alison are now together and thats going super smoothly. The Sabres are playing excellently other than last nights slip up against Toronto, as for the job front... urghh still dragging along.

I've hit the gym pretty hard this week and begun taking a creatine supplement again - only to find out I've almost finished the tub. Although in all fairness I had consumed half the tub the last time I went on a creatine spree and its just sat in my cupboard for a while. The results are showing which is great! I've been following a mental dietary plan all week as well and stuck to it like a fly on cake.

Everyone else had a good week?

Awesome mode, Engage.

2011-03-06T21:05:00.000+00:00

So, Friday wasn't a good day for me with the whole break up and I was preparing for a shitty weekend consisting of gaming, sleeping and my Sabres games. Saturday morning I woke up to a shedload of texts from people saying they were sorry for what happened, am I okay etc. After sleeping on it I realized I didn't actually give a shit.

I'd been flirting a little for the past week with a girl called Alison yet couldn't take it any further than light flirting due to the fact I was in a relationship. HOWEVER, she had no clue about that.

Saturday morning I woke up to a really nice text from her and it went from there again. She very subtly told me she liked me etc and asked if I was free in the week at all. I'm sat there thinking, this couldn't have gone anymore perfectly! Only trouble is, shes been sick the past few days so there was no chance of us hanging out over the weekend or anything so I decided to have a lazy day. Saturday night I spent my final evening with the students, made an absolute racket during the Sabres game which they roared back for a 5-3 win over Philly, got paid and made my way home.

Today (Sunday) got even better. After a fairly decent nights sleep I woke up super refreshed and raring to go. Me and my twin (as we call each other) had a catch up over coffee at our local mall. Spent a little while shopping for clothes before going back to mine and sorting out his plane tickets to Finland. All the while me and Alison were still texting and arranging what to do during the week etc.

Its now 9:02pm Sunday night, the Sabres take on the Minnesota Wild in just over 2 hours which I'm super stoked about. A win and we jump into 8th place in the East!

How was everyone elses weekends?

I'm moving on.

2011-03-05T03:15:00.000+00:00

Another short entry. The interview went pretty good. I messed up a typing test due to the fact my hands were freezing cold and the things I had to copy at an insane speed were fucking stupid. Other than that it was good.

As for the title "Im moving on", me and my girlfriend broke up today. Our relationship became "stale" I guess. It was the same stuff everytime we saw eachother, she wasnt willing to try new things or go to new places... Plus we've been arguing a shit tonne lately so I decided to put myself first and do what I wanted for a change.

I hope everyone is doing good, i'll get back to my usual long posts tomorrow!

Time to step it up.

2011-03-03T13:14:00.000+00:00

Good morning / afternoon / evening, depending on when you read this.

Today, I have my interview - well actually its in just over 2 hours. Im feeling pretty good about it, a lot better than I did when facing Saga due to the fact this is something I have experience in (to a certain extent).

I've used MS office for years now, and upgraded as the new versions have been released, I'm a bit of a grammar Nazi when it comes to reading my own writing and spelling/punctuation in this job is CRITICAL because its all to do with updating peoples information, company information etc. I'm qualified as far as GCSE's go with this job (sports A-Levels aren't quite necessary).

But, away from the technical side of things. A little more confidence arose after I realized something. I fit everything required by this job: Computer literate, work to deadlines, able to work on own initiative, good numeracy & literacy skills (I've got GCSE grade C's for both as well as key skills in both subjects; also equivalent to C's). A good eye for detail, good typing skills & speed as well as experience in the customer service sector if need be.

When I was contacted and asked if I was available for interview, they immediately gave me control of the time and date of the interview. How many of you have or know someone thats been given that kind of freedom? I've had a fair few interviews and every single one has been "this is your time slot unless you can make it".

On top of all that right after they called me for the interview and confirmed it, the job advert was removed from website. Now, I'm not sure if its just me getting pumped up and my confidence levels going through the roof or if this is one of those "you're hired, we just want to know a little more about you" situations but those events are pretty encouraging.

I'll check in again later with how I felt it went and if any progress has been made.

The past few days..

2011-03-01T10:47:00.000+00:00

I dont think I've done myself any favors the past couple of days. I've undertaken a temporary job for this week at least. as a "Foreign Student Guide" which is as fun as it sounds. Its one hour a day.. but its an 8am start. Which really hasnt sat well with my sleeping pattern.

I guide students from A to B, get paid £10 an hour and trust me... it is not worth the money. The age range at the moment is 13-23. They're stubborn as hell, more ignorant than anyone I've ever met and extremely inconsiderate of everything thats going on around them.

Anyway - on from that. I've secured yet another job interview. This time with a media company called MH Media as a "Data input clerk". So, to put that in a nutshell its working with MS Office and emails.

Speaking of my sleeping pattern its gone haywire.. I wasnt sleeping till 5-6am a couple of weeks ago now im falling asleep at 8-9pm and then waking up at 3-4am... Urghh gotta buy some pills or some shit to get this sorted.

Quick Post

2011-02-26T03:22:00.000+00:00

Yesterday.. well the 25th. Crazy tiring. Our whole front yard & driveway is getting redone, so we had 2 tonnes of sand and then 2 tonnes of stones being dropped off at 7:30, the lawn getting turfed up and all this other crazy stuff going on in the pouring rain. Im not kidding, it turned into a freaking monsoon whilst me and my mom were wheeling sand everywhere in wheelbarrows.

Sleeping patterns gotten even worse >_<

I didnt sleep last night, was meant to go out to a club tonight with some friends and ended up falling asleep at my desk from 7pm till 12:30am. Woke up and tuned into the Sabres game which was AWESOME. A 4-2 win over the Senators to keep us in the playoff race.

Only trouble is.. its now 3:15 and im wide awake.

How was everyone elses day? :)

23rd/24th

2011-02-24T03:35:00.000+00:00

My god, I feel like a bag of crap. My sleeping pattern has gone crazy these past few days. I was up till 7am with a friend of mine on skype literally falling asleep at my desk. I then woke up at 6pm that day. I went to bed at 2:30am and woke up at 3pm on the afternoon of the 23rd.

I went out to dinner with some family, had a good laugh and a great meal. Later that evening I headed to the Vue cinema complex with some friends to see "Paul". We found the film absolutely hysterical and I'd advise anyone who hasn't seen it to go watch it, its definitely worth the money.

I got in around 11:30pm, with a couple of 6 packs of Budweiser, some doritos, salsa dip & other munch for the Sabres game. The first game of the Pegula era and it was a hell of a game! Buffalo pulled out a 4-1 win and outplayed the Thrashers in every aspect of the game.

Its now 3:32am and im sat here wide awake wondering if theres anything else worth putting in here before I close it...

Oh - actually, check out this video. I heard this on the radio today and fell in love with this song, its incredible!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlpRALePj_A

Thats all for now, goodnight all! <3

2011-02-22T02:12:00.000+00:00

So.... it turns out Blizzard are dumbasses. I just spotted this online and bagged myself a free copy of Starcraft2. Not that I've ever played SC2 but a few friends of mine love it so I thought what the heck.

The steps are as followed;

1. Make a new account on battle.net
2. Choose to be from Netherlands (!!!!)
3. Choose games to buy (classic WoW and gametime for wow dosen't work, but expansions, diablo II and all the other work)
4. Go to pay.
5. Choose "Automatish ingrosso bank" as payment.
6. Bankname can be anything, baknnumber can be any numbers, but it must be 7 numbers! Name of banknumberowner can also be anything.
7. Buy it!

If it still works, enjoy!

300!

2011-02-21T00:15:00.000+00:00

Forget, this is Sparta. THIS.IS.AWESOME!

The last 5 followers seemed to take forever to get, but I've pulled it off and hit 300 at last.

A massive thank you to each and every one of you! <3

Rebound!

2011-02-20T18:07:00.000+00:00

Watching the Sabres game at the moment so this has probably taken me an hour to finish.

So after yesterdays fail & day full of anger I took a few hours to analyse my options and hunted around online for any available jobs or any form of opportunity in the local area. I've settled on an apprenticeship in Customer Services.

I'm waiting for the application form to come through the mail. A little info on it - It gives a Level 2 NVQ in Customer Services, pays £95 a week and it 35 hours a week. Like all apprenticeships you learn on the job so it should be a great challenge for me. It lasts for 36 weeks which equates to 9 months.

My plan now... Complete this and then re-apply for Saga. Except this time - Apply for a Customer Service Agent rather than a Sales Agent.

I hope you're all having a good day & once again a big thank you to all my followers.

Happy Hockey Day!

GOD DAMNIT.

2011-02-19T14:42:00.000+00:00

Short entry today, really not in the mood to be insightful and stuff.

I dont often get written mail, the reason being I do everything online, like most people these days. However today I had a letter come through which turned out to be from Saga.

Dear Gavin BLAHBLAHBLAH

"We're sorry, you were unsuccessful on this occasion"

WHAT THE FUCK.

I have a favor to ask.

2011-02-18T18:19:00.000+00:00

As I sit here wondering what to write today, I look back at some of the things I've done since the new year.

One of the main highlights was starting my own YouTube channel in an attempt to become a vlogger. I'm not quite sure why, but I enjoy sharing my day, certain moments & my life in general with other people. After the channel failed pretty hard to get off the ground (due to lack of me knowing how to promote through YouTube) I created this blog instead.

Obviously the added bonus with E-Blogger is the whole Ad sense, monthly revenue that comes with it, so in a way you're rewarded for your efforts be it a massive amount or very little.

Heres the cheeky part. I know you guys are doing so much for me at the moment. Taking the time to read my daily blog, following, commenting and everything else you do and I cant thank you all enough. Could you go to my youtube channel (listed below) Subscribe, watch a couple of videos and give me some thumbs up?

http://www.youtube.com/user/GavinsDays

If any of you guys have channels I'll be more than happy to check them out, return the favour ect.

In the meantime, have a great day!

Make or break!

2011-02-16T20:13:00.000+00:00

Good afternoon / evening!

So, today was the day of my interview with Saga. I set 4 alarms last night all to go off at 9am which included an alarm on my pc. Speakers left on full and "Lights out" by the greatest band on the planet Breaking Benjamin ready to echo through my house. Needless to say... I woke up.

Spent the next hour and a half getting ready. Bath, shave, gel hair, iron clothes & get my phone, iTouch and wallet together. Hopped on the 11:22 train from Ramsgate to Folkestone and was well on my way.

This'll sound a little odd - There are two sides to Folkestone, the city central side and the rest of Folkestone. My assessment last week was in the city central side which for the most part was a nice area... the rest of Folkestone, isnt.

After navigating my way round I stopped off at a Tesco (superstore) ate literally as much as I could and with Saga being literally seconds away from where I was, I didn't have to worry about being late. I arrived at the reception 15 minutes early (interview was scheduled for 2:30) just to show I've got good timekeeping skills.

Carl (the interviewer) came down, greeted me and we then headed upstairs into one of the many offices in the call centre. It started out with the usual questions, "Did you get here okay" & "how are you?" and then the real questions came flooding on. I had solid answers for pretty much everything although a couple caught me off guard. Eg- "What do you think the difference will be from serving customers over the phone rather than face to face" .... Well in all honesty not a lot other than I cant see them..

My leadership skills were questioned. What kind of leader am I? Am I competitive, ect.

I wont relay off the details but I'll leave you guys to work it out. I've played sports my entire life, American football for 4 and field hockey for 6. Along with a shedload of others throughout high school. I was asked what motivates me. To which I responded "Being told I cant do something, people thinking they're better than me and the sheer burning passion to out do and out play everyone I ever compete against."

All in all, I think the interview went really well & I should find out within the next couple of weeks whether I've got the job or not! :D

200 already!

2011-02-15T19:10:00.000+00:00

Whoa! Literally a few days ago I put up a post about hitting 100 followers and I've just hit 200!

Big thank you to everyone following! I love you guys.

Surprise!

2011-02-14T21:01:00.000+00:00

Today started out like every other Monday morning... slow and dull. I had a few errands to run as per usual, due to losing my job at the end of the Christmas period and being unable to find work since I had to go sign on. (For those outside of England its pretty much benefits for not working).

I'll make it clear now, virtually all of the money goes towards me paying rent & paying for 50% of the shopping each fortnight so its not spent on crap. The remainder of the money covers my phone contract (£20) and gym membership (£15).

I got home at around 11:30 and was getting my stuff together ready to go hit the gym when the home phone rang. I ignored it at first, if its someone for me they'll call me. Then it occurred to me Saga (check back a few blogs if you're not up to date) STILL hadn't sent me a letter saying I was unsuccessful or not. I darted through the living room and out into the hall, answered the phone and sure enough....

"Hello, this is Laura from HM at Saga" HELL YES!.

Out of the three tests taken I scored 80% and blew past the required percentage. I now have an interview scheduled for this Wednesday at 14:30 in Folkestone.

After walking to Broadstairs and grabbing some lunch I hit the gym and I hit it hard.

Warm up: Light stretching, 10 minutes running at 15mph/24kmph.
Main: 6 sets/10 pull ups, 2 sets/ 10 lat pull downs, 2 sets/10 shoulder press, 4 sets/ 20 leg press, 4 sets/ 10 hamstring press.
Sub main: 5 minutes/ boxing bag.
Cooldown: 5 minutes jogging at 8mph/12kmph, light stretching.

So, how was everyone else's days?

Tomorrow, plans?

2011-02-13T20:11:00.000+00:00

So, tomorrow is Valentines Day. To some people... this day is absolute hell for a variety of reasons.

I've been lucky enough to have a girlfriend 4 years straight for this shitty day. Why would I call it shitty when I've gf's for 4 straight years? Well, first off its a commercialized day for stores to make an absolute shedload of cash off of peoples love for each other!

Secondly, I've lost 2 girlfriends due to this day. I dont celebrate it in any way, shape or form. It's just another day of the year to me. Both girlfriends I lost went batshit crazy and proceeded to break up with me when they discovered I was being serious when I said I hate the day and don't buy gifts. That happened 2 consecutive years straight. I still find this entertaining.

The girl I'm with at the moment is so much like me when it comes to these kind of things its scary. When I told her about it she was like "No way, I feel the exact same way!". Incidentally its our 1 year anniversary on the 15th of this month (Fuck yeah!)

So, what are you guys doing for valentines? And if you're not what do you make of the day in general?

I cant put into words or get my head around it! I mean really...whats next best friends day?

Inspiring

2011-02-12T19:41:00.000+00:00

This isnt so much a blog post as it is just something I felt like sharing.

So, the other night I was browsing peoples blogs and came across a guy who reviews movies. His latest review was Never Back Down and the description he gave of the movie was brilliant. I then spent a couple of minutes searching and found a decent enough stream online, sat down and watched the movie.

I can honestly say, its one of, if not the most inspirational movie I've seen in my entire life. At certain points throughout the film I wanted to physically get up, and hit the gym so hard. It sparked memories of all my childhood dreams and for a few minutes, I had a burning desire to go pursue every single one of them. The down side was that it was almost 4am. So I intend on watching it again first thing Monday morning and hopefully start my week off with a bang!

So, to all of those who're reading this and haven't seen Never Back Down, I highly recommend you go check it out, you wont be disappointed.

100 followers!

2011-02-11T22:38:00.002+00:00

Finally hit the century mark! Thanks guys!

Next stop... 200.

Friday at last...

2011-02-11T03:42:00.000+00:00

Entries a little late again, got totally stuck to my screen watching the Sabres game which we just won 3-2 in OT. Now 2 points out of 8th place in the East, thats a nice ending to this week.

Still no word from Saga... however I've managed to get myself another crack at the company AND a guaranteed interview without having to do those bullshit tests again. Every 2 months the company runs a 2 week "Call centre training course". Those on the course are given a tour of Saga itself, have the chance to learn all about the different roles, listen in on calls and "shadow" sales agents as well as the other positions available. Once the 2 weeks are up and you've managed to take the 9-5:30 Monday - Friday beating whilst getting absolutely nothing except experience from it you are guaranteed an interview. Of the 15 people that attended the course in December, 3 dropped out. 10 attended the interviews and 6 now work for the company.

Other than that, todays been a pretty slow day. I've got a stack of CV's next to be waiting to get mailed out to various companies & its me and my girlfriends 1 year anniversary on the 15th so I'm still trying to figure out what we should do. Any suggestions would be appreciated, creative things though. Taking her out to dinner etc is too original, I'm a pretty good cook myself - perhaps I'll cook us dinner.

Anyways, thanks for following, stay safe & don't forget to check back tomorrow!

Slacking D:

2011-02-10T01:49:00.000+00:00

I wondered how long it'd take me to miss out a daily entry, evidentially not very long. Whoops!

So to pick up where I left off, the Saga assessment was nothing like I expected. 6 of us were sat around a table in a small room with 3 pieces of paper in front of each of us. We were about to take whats known as a "Tommy test".

Now, before I go into what this test consists of, I don't quite think they're fair. For starters working in a call centre involves a lot of a noise, lots of talking, taking notes and writing things down (onto peoples profiles, clients notes) and you're not under an insanely small time frame to work with. The papers; the first was to do with short term memory and how quickly you could identify mistakes. The "mistakes" in this case consisted of 8 letters. 4 in capitals, 4 not. The capital letters formed a top row and the lower case a bottom row. If the letters above and beneath each other matched you'd mark it with a 1. Then total up how many matched and thats the end number.

EG - A B C D
a b c h - The A's, B's & C's match so you'd mark it with a 3.

Seems simple right... not when you have 50 different combinations ranging from A-Z to complete in 2 minutes.
Up next was another odd test. The questions were set out as followed:

Peter is faster than Bill.
Bill is faster than Colin.
Who is the slowest?

Again, 50 questions like that to complete in 3 minutes.

The final test, made absolutely NO sense. It looked like this. (A) F (H). A is the first letter in the alphabet. H is the eighth letter. Which one is further away from F, being the sixth letter. 50 questions just like that to complete in 3 minutes. I've yet to hear from the company regarding an interview, whether im successful or not I'll receive some form of notice but I'm not holding my breath on this one.

Today was not a great deal more fun. I decided to buy Dawn Of War 2 at last... spend hours downloading it from steam because my download speed isn't the greatest where I live. Only to find, my graphics card was out of date... BRILLIANT. Turns out ATI no longer manufacture the Radeon X600 series, showing how old my card was. It ran every game I'd ever purchased except DoW2 so it had to go. I ended up settling on a nVidia GeForce GT240 costing my just under £70. Im convinced I could've gotten a cheaper card but alas, it works and runs fine so all is well.

I think I broke my sleeping pattern?

2011-02-08T00:17:00.001+00:00

Superbowl 45... One heck of a game huh? It felt nice to be able to cheer for a team thats kicking ass for once unlike the Bengals. But alas, I've stuck with them since '97 so theres no escaping them now. Hats off to Aaron Rodgers and the Packers, heck of an effort!

We stumbled into my buddies apartment at 5:30 this morning so drunk I couldnt tell the difference between the fish tank and the tv. I crashed on the living room floor because quite frankly, I didnt give a damn.

After a night of heavy drinking, lots of shouting and chanting you'd expect to have no voice and a bloody big hangover. I've never experienced either and hopefully never will *touch wood*. I woke up at 1pm, went into the kitchen and made some coffee and left around 4:30 this afternoon.

The rest of my day was pretty peaceful really. Its now 12:04am so this entry is a little late but meh! I shouldnt really be awake. I've tried sleeping all evening but as per usual my body is telling me to stay up till stupid times and then go to bed! I have a job assessment with a massive company called Saga today. For those who aren't quite sure what I'm talking about - Some companies will take a massive amount off applications and just bring all the applicants in on day and then do a bunch of tests. Today's tests consist of a spelling test and then a scenario sheet which is pretty much a list of 20 scenarios and 4 choices for each one. They then pick out the best candidates, interview them and then POW. You're a Saga employee.

Saga itself is a company set up for over 50's. As in 50 year olds. Their products range from life insurance to round the world cruises to backyard swimming pools. I'm aiming for a Sales Agent position which in a nutshell is; calling clients and selling them whatever is on offer. The reason - UNCAPPED COMMISSION. Sales agents are given (I think) 30% commision on everything they sell along with their monthly pay. If gone about the right way... it's a gold mine.

And with that, I'll finish today's entry. To all my followers, have a good day/night wherever you are, thanks for reading and following!

Suuuuuuperbowl Sunday!

2011-02-06T14:46:00.001+00:00

I woke up with a smile on my face today. Why? Because I sat up till 3am watching my Sabres dismantle the Maple Leafs for a whole 60 minutes last night! Then I realised... Superbowl time!

So, today's plan was to head up to London for the Eurogamer 3DS expo. The guy I was going up with called the Expo hotline just to checkout what was going on and we got some pretty shitty news.

Its not a 3DS expo as such... its more along the lines of a presentation. Some Nintendo representative stands on a stage waffling on about the new 3DS, what it can do and how good it supposedly is whilst you WATCH, not play with - WATCH a demonstration. Then four 3DS's get shared out between roughly 100 people for 30 minutes. You still only get to watch.

You know when you walk into a PC store, or a superstore with consoles in and they always have the "Customer Demo" which is actually an interactive video. Thats exactly what the 3DS's had. Right there and then we decided to cancel and shredded the tickets.

A £25 train ticket to London to watch a video on a 3DS. No thanks.

I'm so stoked for tonight though. A group of us are off out to a bar in Canterbury that's having a HUGE Superbowl bash. Being a Bengals fan, its only natural I'm going to root against the Steelers and in this case its Aaron "God"gers and the Pack.

To all my followers, have a great day, enjoy the big game and check in tomorrow, ciao!

Delay

2011-02-05T18:53:00.000+00:00

Quick message to those who have followed me in the past couple of hours, I'll return the favour and check out your blogs once I get home, out with family at the moment and its a pain doing it all on my phone.

5th of February

2011-02-05T15:27:00.000+00:00

Well... my Sabres lost. They blew a 2-0 lead and eventually fell 3-2 to Pittsburgh. That was not worth sitting up till 2:30 to watch!

Anyhow, onto today. I woke up to find my house empty, mom & sister decided they'd casually go to Bluewater (shopping centre) without telling me so I've got a free house for the day. I love to cook, so todays going to consist of me trying out some chicken & pasta combinations that I found online so I can then slot them into my nutritional programme!

Tonight, the Sabres take on Torronto (for the love of god, WIN!) and then tomorrow I'm taking a trip up to London. Eurogamer are holding an expo for the new 3DS so me and a friend are gonna go check that out. As well as a blog, I'll have a new vlog up on my youtube channel. Links below, go check it out :)

http://www.youtube.com/user/GavinsDays