Furthermore: December 2003

December 28, 2003

Today’s Run

I wanted to do a different circuit, so I ran out down Perne Road, into Birdwood Road, then through Cherry Hinton Park. I carried on out along Cherry Hinton Road towards Fulbourn then cut through a hedge on the right into a field that takes you south towards Worts Causeway.

This is the point of the run really - the section through the field is quite long, and it goes up a hill (yes, really) that allows you to look down on Cambridge. The sky was big, the weather was cold, there were no people. Just what I needed to clear my head.

That section actually brings you out opposite a path that takes you round Wandlebury Ring, but that makes it a much longer run, so I skipped that today.

Coming back into the city via Worts Causeway and Mowbray Road then Perne Road was not so good (although running the causeway was pretty quiet) but it had got pretty dark and cold by then, so I figured taking the shortest route back was probably wise.

Total time was about 48 minutes.

December 21, 2003

Bedtime

Sunday night, just before bedtime - it’s quite strange being back at work, and I think I’m still a little apprehensive about what the place is going to be like. I suppose it’s mainly because I haven’t done anything for them yet, so I have no standing - I don’t know if I’m good or bad compared to the other developers, and they don’t know either.

Starting so late in the year I don’t have any holiday to take either, so I don’t have the luxury of contiguous holiday over the Christmas and New Year periods - I’d never normally work that period, but because I have to I just feel a bit like I don’t have any time to collect my thoughts before I start the job in earnest. Seems strange really, given I’ve just been off work for two months, but I really feel I need a holiday.

While I remember - went for a short run today - took my cycle route to work up as far as Stourbridge common, then cut back along the river and then down to Parkers Piece and back home via the cycle bridge and the back roads parallel to Mill Road. Took about 45 minutes.

December 11, 2003

Jobhunting

I had two more interviews this week - a phone interview with Moneyline on Monday, and a face to face with Autonomy in Cambridge on Tuesday. The phone interview was quite tough, but the face to face seemed to go very well, and Autonomy have now offered me a job starting next week, subject to taking up references.

So that’s the end of this particular job-hunt. Mission accomplished, and I’m really looking forward to starting at Autonomy - though I think it’s going to be quite challenging, especially to get up to speed at the start.

It’s a real weight off my mind to get something before Christmas - it means I don’t have the job-hunt hanging over me into the new year, and it also means we can spend some of the redundancy money that we’ve been using to pay the bills with (not all of it though - I’m going to be much more careful to keep more cash in reserve from now on).

I’m not sure there are any lessons for the wider world in my story other than the obvious ones. Keep looking every day, even when things seem to be going nowhere. Use your contacts - I was introduced to the agent that got me this job by a friend of mine. Finally, give yourself a break - use the time off to enjoy being with your family and get some things done at home.

Finally, I ought just to mention a couple of agents who did a great job trying to find me a new position:

• Mark Ashton at
  
  Monarch Recruitment. Mark found me the position at Autonomy, so kudos to him.


• Graeme Jones at
  
  ECM. Graeme got me two interviews in Cambridge and it was pure luck that Mark found me a job before he did.

I recommend these chaps to anyone trying to find a technical job in the Cambridge area.

December 3, 2003

The Arabian Nightmare - Robert Irwin

(Dedalus, £6.99, ISBN 1873982739)

Written in 1983, The Arabian Nightmare is a story containing many layers of stories and dreams within it. Set in fifteenth century Cairo, it is, on the surface at least, the story of Balian, an Englishman on a pilgrimage who falls prey to a disease of sleep which causes him to wake up with blood pouring out of his mouth and nose.

Balian becomes involved in a complex plot centred on the sinister sleep teacher known as the Father of Cats. As the book progresses, he finds it increasingly difficult to tell when he is asleep and dreaming and when he is awake. He comes to suspect that he may have the Arabian Nightmare, a condition in which the sufferer is tormented nightly in his dreams, but awakes remembering nothing.

The book uses many of the devices of post-modernism - an unreliable narrator, confusion of levels of reality, and a blurring of what is within the book and outside it. The techniques are skillfully applied however, and provide a real sense of a vicious infinity of stories within the book that will suck in the unwary. The atmosphere of medieval Cairo is also well evoked, and helped (in my Penguin edition at least) by illustrations by David Roberts, a nineteenth century artist who painted a Cairo that still looked much as it had in the fifteenth century.

Bits and Bobs

A few links I want to just remember not to forget:

• Domaine de Sahari - had this wine in Cafe Fez in New York. Never seen it in the UK yet.


• Bob the Angry Flower - my favourite cartoon on the web.


• Malcolm Gladwell’s site - always worth coming back to browse the articles for the New Yorker



• Winter’s Tale - by Mark Helprin. For some reason it’s not available from amazon.co.uk so I can’t put it on my wish list.

December 1, 2003

Jobhunting

I seemed to get a bit disillusioned with the search at the end of last week, but I feel a bit better about it again now. So today I’m trying to refocus on using a few good agencies and then thinking about networking.

So far today, I’ve:

• talked to Geoff at Vector recruitment. He said I was a bit outside his field, but he’s promised to have a look around, and he’s also given me another contact.


• talked to Mark at Monarch - recommended to me by my friend Ian. Sent my CV in, so I’m hoping to hear back from him later.



• sent in an application to Torex from an advert I saw in the Guardian. It’s healthcare IT, which I think has got to be a good area to get into. We’ll see.

Running

Went running yesterday. Standard circuit - took 57 minutes (although I omitted running up Castle Mound).