Update

I haven't written regularly because of many reasons, some of which are not valid any more (hopefully). First of all, I suspect my ex is still reading it (just like he used to read my mail - some people just need to get a life). Now that we are divorced I do not care any more of he knows anything about me or not. I also see no reason to protect some other people against him any more.

I also need a safe place to vent and write about things that bother me again and why should I search for another place than here? I would also like to get back to habit of writing regularly and setting goals and plans, because I am at a place where life can and should be planned and worked at again, unlike it used to be for a couple of years before.

SO I hit the 3 months mark at my job, which is means I made it halfway through the probation period. My boss is happy with my work, but I know I need to work on several areas, especially being more consistent. I get one project done really well and then slack off a bit until the next wave comes. This needs to get changed, especially as I am getting more and more important projects.

I also need to work on my qualifications. I wouldn't want to get stuck at this level forever, so I better get going and start working (again) on my next exam.

On the private field, I need to get more consistent in working with my DD (homeschooling in Polish), I also need to make an appointment for her to get evaluated in sensory integration. I suspect something is slightly wrong with that and she's having hard times sometimes dealing with other children. It's nothing really serious, but if I can get help for her, I should do it. She still has some speech delays (they change constantly - at the moment she's almost at target in vocabulary, but the grammar is really... adventurous).

I also need to work on spending more quality time with my DBF. We do sneak a lot of time already, but sometimes we waste it on doing nothing and then regret not planning in advance or just going out eating, because it's the easiest (but the most expensive and doesn't make that much fun anyway).

So I have a lot to work on and I'm happy to say this, two years ago there was almost nothing to build upon.

New Job

As some of you know I have a new job and have been working for 4 weeks already. And I can really tell you - it makes a differenece, a huge difference. Things are going well here, especially as DD is with my Mom in Poland on holiday, so I have time and space to get used to working again.

The only not-so-shiny side of life is my health. I have been running with an UTI for months as it shows, and now I'm on antibiotics to kill it in the long run. Unfortunately they are making me mildly nauseated and very tired, so I'm really looking forward to not having to take them any more. Of course, I also hope they will do the job and I'll feel better. Still, it seems my kidneys are OK and at least I know the reason why I have been feeling so down and tired in the last months.

Next week we're celebrating DBF's 40th birthday. We're going to the mountains for the weekend, as we're child-free and most of our friends are on holiday already. I'm still angry that J haven't come up with a better idea, but I'll do my very best to make up for it next year.

What Gosia means...

What Gosia Means

You are deeply philosophical and thoughtful. You tend to analyze every aspect of your life. You are intuitive, brilliant, and quite introverted. You value your time alone. Often times, you are grumpy with other people. You don't appreciate them trying to interfere in your affairs. You are well rounded, with a complete perspective on life. You are solid and dependable. You are loyal, and people can count on you. At times, you can be a bit too serious. You tend to put too much pressure on yourself. You are the total package - suave, sexy, smart, and strong. You have the whole world under your spell, and you can influence almost everyone you know. You don't always resist your urges to crush the weak. Just remember, they don't have as much going for them as you do. You tend to be pretty tightly wound. It's easy to get you excited... which can be a good or bad thing. You have a lot of enthusiasm, but it fades rather quickly. You don't stick with any one thing for very long. You have the drive to accomplish a lot in a short amount of time. Your biggest problem is making sure you finish the projects you start. You are usually the best at everything ... you strive for perfection. You are confident, authoritative, and aggressive. You have the classic "Type A" personality.

What's Your Name's Hidden Meaning?

Won the battle with Tomcat!

I don't want to bore you with details, but I won my two day long battle with Tomcat installation. Of course, those are two precious days of learning lost, but at least I found the solution on my own and now have a running system ;) I can run both Servlet and JSPs, and try out everything I want to. I'm also on page 300 of 750 of my textbook, but I admit I haven't memorized everything from those 300 pages, so there's still awfully lot to do for me.

Anyway, getting Tomcat to run is a very good closure of a very bad weekend. Actually nothing happened, but every single thing that could go wrong went wrong. Taxes have to wait, because the form I got from my ex-employer has errors, I didn't manage to get as much done as I wnated, Tomcat was giving me headaches and DD had a stmach bug making doing anything else than cleaning almost impossible. I'm so happy, it's Monday!!

SCWCD, job hunt, and such.

I started working on my new exam on Monday I can't shake off the feeling that at least the book is easier than the previous one. I'm almost at page 200 (of 750), so I hope things stay this way. I have nothing against passing an exam that is not that difficult, for a change.

I have also been seraching for a job application coach, but I have no idea which one to choose. The price differences are not that big, but how do I judge one, just having their webpage as a reference?? I do not know anyone who has used them personally, and they are basically all online, so I guess I'll restort to the phone when I'm ready to start with revamping my cv and such... and hope I get a decent one. I won't be able to afford a couple, just to see what they can do with my cv (I have a somewhat twosted one and I don't know what I should include and how. Like for example all the classes I took towards my master degree, they are definitely job relevant, but I don't know what I should write, if I am not getting my Masters after all).

All this job hunting is very stressful, especially as I have no experience at all. The only job I've ever had was offered to me after two months internship (and I did not even apply for that, my school took care of that). So I really have no experience at all. I also need new photos (in Germany you have to attach a photo to your application, I hate it) and I significantly gained weight, which of course makes taking those photos a very pleasant event. I need to go to the hairdresser anyway, but this has time until mid-April. Maybe I'll lose a bit until then and will feel better about myself, but it's not my top priority at the moment. The new exam is most important.

I also have problems getting servlets to run on my laptop, which annoys me. We'll have to watch what's wrong both, with DBF, he's usually better at the whole installation game than me. In the menatime I can continue with my book.

I also have loads of paperwork to do at the moment, taxes, mountains of things for the divorce, bankruptcy filing and so on, but I'm moving along there too. It just takes so much time... But it gets done, so I'm not complaining.

Passed!!

I passed my SCJP with 86%. I could have done better, but I went for the newest 6.0 version and I'm happy it's done. I lost points in one area only, I find those questions were much more difficult than on the mock exams I took. Pity, but I passed and the result is quite OK too :)

Now, on to the next one - SCWCD 5.0!!! I would like to do it in just 30 days, which ios very little for this exam, but I'm going to try :)

Thanks for all crossed fingers!!

Scheduled the exam!!!!

I have scheduled my SCJP exam for the coming Monday, so I only have three days left to prepare. I am scared, but I'll be so happy when it's over!! I just need to succeed in something to start believing again I am not totally useless. I think I am prepared for the exam, but I'm still going to go through the whole book again on the weekend and I still have three mock exams to go through and revise the questions I got wrong. So enough work before Monday.

I have also already installed Tomcat on my Linux laptop and got it to running under Eclipse. It means I can write JSPs and Servlets immediately without worrying about the configuration cram first. I know I still need to learn it all, but I admit I hate starting to learn a new technology with loads of configuration problems. There will be still enough time to learn why things do not function, when I first get a grip of how things function when they function ;)

I am going to go for exactly one month of preparation for the SCWCD exam. I know it's very little time, but I can learn effectively around 6 hours per day, which ought to be enough.

I lost so much time on the first exam, because I felt worthless and depressed. It was so stupid, because from the very beggining I had no problems understanding the book, I just felt it was too much for me to learn and memorize all the details. But with time and learning every single day it is perfectly possible to achieve it. Just one chapter at a time. And of course allowing enough time for solving mock exams and getting the "big picture" in place. I am already excited about the preparation for the next exam :)

I started my career as a web developer (in ASP, though) and I really liked it. At that time it was still fairly easy and the learning curve was not that steep. Now, it's almost as difficult as programming EJBs, etc. but I still have a lot of warm feelings for dynamic webpages :) When I'm done with SCWCD, I am going to go for the next exam - SCBCD, which is more difficult, but I hope those three will help me to get a new job soon. I will still not really be ready with all three exams before my unemployment money runs out, which I'm trying not to think about at the moment. I will also still need to learn Hibernate and Spring in the meantime (pity, there's no exam for them, I find learning towards a goal so much easier than just getting to know a technology) and just hope to find a job soon. But slowly I am cautiously optimistic about my future, or at least I am feeling about it much better than when the school big bang happened.

Day...

Nothing chynged much here... The other school made me an offer, but it's inacceotable, I'd have to retake almost all classes, which is not an improvement over starting anew where I am. So I guess the chool story is over for me for now.

I'm trying hard to cope with it and get back to normal life again, but I must amdit that I'm not very successful. I am sick on the top of everything and so spending hours surfing the net, doing nothing and feeling sorry for myself. I really need to take the bloody exam next week, but I'm so unmotivated to learn and also I forget everything so fast... I worked through half of the material before we went to visit future in-laws and now, just one week later I can't rememeber what I've lerant. I hate it, I hate it, I hate it.

But enough rambling. I'm still awaiting a day when I can write somehting more optimistic, sigh...

No clever title

I was not doing as good as I wanted to believe. Shortly after last post I felt into a huge black hole, when I couldn't even be bothered to get up in the morning, kept crying and not sleeping. I hate such phases, I want to believe I am stronger than I am.

Even though I learnt close to none, which is a big problem, because I need to take the first exam as soon as possible, I still kept doing small steps and next Thursday I have meeting at another school who is willing to work a new schedule with me, which could mean that I'm only going to lose 6 months and will only have earn a couple of credits more. Well, I'll know for sure when I've been there and there are of course some drawbacks - the school is not as well-known and it's going to cost a small fortune, but I'll take whatever they are going to offer me. My parents are also going to lend me the money, and etr DBF has a new contract, so at least financially things look a bit brighter for the time being.

I'm going to try to get my health a bit better and take vitamins regularly and see if it affects how I feel. I think that the insomnia, etc. was just stress, but if it continues, I'll need to see a doctor.

Oh, and DBF said that I'll be getting my Michael Powell for passing the first exam, so now on to learning :) :) :)

Doing better

I'm doing better, even though I still haven't come to terms with the school disaster. But I'm doing better and even though I can't find my learning mojo back, I did a lot of paperwork that has been waiting forever, which is almost as good ;)

Tomorrow I have to start learning again, I'd like to take the first exam as soon as possible, as I believe it's going to make me feel better and bring back my mojo again. At the moment I am still into the "I'm too stupid to study, I'm too stupid to work" - phase and I need that to stop.

In the meantime I am happily stitching on DMC In the Meadow for DD and listening to Pilars of Earth with DBF. I'm not sure I love the book, we're on CD 3 of 12 and it's been a bit too two-dimensional and a tad too bloody for me, but we're going to listen to the end. I'll write more later on.

Oh, and DBF promised I am going to get Michael Powell's Venice Tryptych anyway (even without writing my Master thesis), we just need to come up with an idea how I should earn it. Maybe we'll tie it to my Java exams, I just need to come up with some rules. One exam would be too cheap, but all three feels a bit too much and too far away to achieve, so we'll see.

When I'm done with Witzy & Co, or when I'm bored with them I'm going to come back to DBF's woolvies, he's definitely more than earned a first cross-stitched gift from me :) :)