Blogphen

Right, I’m back online and back with it.

Spent a lot of time with this down after my server had a catastrophic failure. Managed to recover all the data, just been biding my time until I could get something set up again. Having finally installed Ubuntu on my old 400MHz machine, whose hardware is horrendously unstable, I’ve managed to get this back up again! Just spent about 2 hours getting stressed at MySQL and phpMyAdmin wondering why it refused to work. [1]

So, not a huge amount has happened lately - been a lot more positive despite the circumstances (being back home, getting stressed at overprotective, overcontrolling parents). I’ve managed to completely fail to get myself employed - I seem to be completely unable to pass the ‘psych’ test thing which asks what kind of a person you are. I’ve told this to people who all say things like ‘well you need to sound outgoing’ and ‘why not just lie?’ and ‘be honest’…! I’ve tried all sorts, nobody’ll employ me

Speaking of not passing tests, I failed two modules of my CompSci course which I’ve got to resit on w/b 20th. Not going to be much fun - not only are they exams but I’ll have to spend 5 days in Swansea in a house with no Internet access, probably no phone, no TV, etc, etc.

Still, I *really* need to pass these - the last thing I need is to resit the whole year. I need 40% across the board (which conflicts with what we’ve been told by tutors and heads of department) and in the two I failed got 27% and 35%. Going to need a fair bit of revision in the former - I took that in January and isn’t as fresh in my mind. Probably going to take a lot of understanding I didn’t have before either.

Still, I am feeling quite positive about going back in September. My housemates may not be the easiest people in the world to get along with (they go hand in hand with the pranks they pull) and I reckon arguments will happen about various things but I still think it’ll be a lot more relaxed than living in halls. They’re also quite quiet, which is the thing that pissed me off about living in Hendrefoelan. Also a lot closer to the city which means I won’t have to spend countless hours on buses backwards and forwards. I’m considering if it’ll be worth buying a bus pass, but given the financial situation I’ve got into with too much partying at the end of the year combined with a lack of income, I won’t have enough. I’m very much considering taking a bike down with me, but I know what Swansea weather’s like and I can’t imagine cycling through the pissing rain’s much fun. I’ve also not cycled for years and I’m not overly confident on 2 wheels. Mind you, if I stick to the pavements (I know, I know!) I ought to build that confidence up quite quickly.

That’s all for now. It’s late, I’m tired, I want to finish HP7 and I will update soon enough

[1] If you’re trying to back up a MySQL database using the flat files saved from /var/lib/mysql or wherever, you’ll find that by dragging them back into that directory on the new server renders them read-only. The best workaround for this is to make a backup of the table you’re having issues with (see this page) and restore the backup. When MySQL can write its own stuff to the disk, it seems happy! NB: Google’s useless on this front for how to help.