The Sound of Your Voice

Okay, this is just too cool.

One of my favourit bands, Barenaked Ladies, has made their latest music video using submissions from various YouTube "celebrities" and have posted online for everyone to watch. They even encourage people to host the video on their sites. So I will.




One of my favourite songs off their latest album actually.

Shiv Kaushal

I am now officially me.... virtually anyway. Feeling bored at 2am, I decided that what I needed in life was my very own domain name. Hence I now have http://www.shivkaushal.co.uk

The trick is to try and get Google to take the bait and start ranking that URL high up in searches for Shiv Kaushal. Hopefully this post , with its subtle use of links, will start the ball rolling!

Anyway, I need sleep!

Blog Catchup

I think the chances of me actually catching up with past events in proper detail so I'll just make a short (ish) summary of events from the new year post 'til now so I can get to the good bit. Almost everyone I know already knows it though. Makes it seem kind of pointless in a way.....

Anyway! After the awesome new year celebrations, I was up working with Steve doing my usual server configuration and other bits and pieces. One of the schools was to have a new IT room with the usual complement of 30 PCs and one projector/smart board combination, but the electricians were unable to finish on time, so we were left with not much to do there and had to leave it until a later date. Following that, there was a visit from Martin (alone, initially) and eventually Sarah as well. Always good to spend time with them, even if we did seem to spend a rather large amount of time walking around... We were showing Wolfgang, one of Sarah's friends, the delights of Manchester. Among these was a space invader that Sarah hadn't managed to get a good picture of in the past. I had my trusty new phone to hand to catch the moment, and here is the invader in all his (?) glory:


After saying my (internally) tearful goodbyes to Sarah, Martin and Wolfgang and getting absolutely DRENCHED..... TWICE.... I found myself in Blackpool for Kirtika (aka Kitu) birthday celebration as well as a celebration of Lodi. Lots of nice food was on hand and I ended up staying for a couple of days to help out with homework etc. I found myself re-living the experience of teaching Anu fractions, decimals and percentages all those years ago. It was kind of enjoyable but also a bit trying - it's probably the first time I have made Kitu (and Piku) sit and study and have to fend off their attempts at wriggling out of it. In all honesty, they probably took a lot longer to do the work than they should have and there was far to much giggling (from them) for it a proper study session like the ones I was subjected to. Anyway, I think that they still like me and that they actually learned something new. Not only that, I think that they, Kitu at the very least, were HAPPY that they had learned how to do these things. I felt really very good about myself for a change :) I also got to spend some time around their new (ish) baby brother, Krish. He still cried whenever I went near him, but at least the amount of time it took to happen seemed to be getting longer! There are some pics from the Blackpool happenings here:

Blackpool January 2007

I would have stayed longer, but I had to get back to Manchester to get a job application in on time. A few days after that, I got an email saying that I would have an interview (at Leeds university) in just under a weeks time. In the mean time, I had to put that out of my mind since I was preparing for a visit from AK followed by a fancy dress SingStar party at her place.... Oh yes. So I managed to get hold of some slightly tattered blue jeans, a white t-shirt, a leather jacket and some HUUUUGE and hideous sunglasses to go as George Michael. I didn't manage to get hold of any crucifix ear rings, but I went without shaving for a good few days before the event to make up for it. The party itself was good - SingStar is never bad - there was even sushi to be had.... how cool is that? I managed to pollute/corrupt/subvert many of the people there with White Russian, which was kind of funny. I don't have any pictures of the party - I was too busy singing to be all trigger happy with my phone - but I will try and get hold of some and get them online.

A couple of days later (23rd of Jan) I was on my way to Leeds for my interview. Not only was this interesting because of the possibility of getting a "real" job, but also because I would be hopefully meeting up with Mitch. Anyway, the interview went quite well... a few tricky questions, but that was to be expected really, but on the whole I felt reasonably happy with the way it had gone. It was a bit odd having lunch with the other people applying for the job, but it was certainly an interesting experience. Anyway... after around 5 hours and 2/3 interviews I was free to relax with Mitch. While we were in the student's union playing pool (me not sticking out in my suit at all), I got a call offering me the job! So I am now officialy going to Leeds to become "Grid Support Officer" for the NGS service and White Rose Grid. Exciting and kind of scary all at the same time. In case you are wondering exactly what that will entail, you can get a look at the job description here.

Now, I'm in the process of trying to sort out all of the details of moving (bills, new place to stay etc.) and to finish off my thesis. Neither is happening at a rate that is to my satisfaction. Possibly the only plus side to all of this is that it has made me actually start organising my in a more efficient way - I'm using Google Calendar to map out when things should be happening in order to make sure I get as moved as possible to Leeds before I start on the 1st of March. They wanted me to start on the 1st of Feb, but that was just not enough time for me to get myself sorted out.... The extra month might not be enough either! The weeks since finding out and the coming weeks seemed to have filled themselves with events and house hunting stuff to such an extent that the thesis is taking more of a back seat than I would have liked. Although it's all very stressful, it is exciting. Getting it all down in blog form makes it all seem a bit more... something, not sure what.

At least I'm mostly caught up now. :)