After almost exactly four years…

I quit my first job. Ooaohohooh. So. I haven’t exactly quit, but I told my boss that I can’t work after the 16th February.

I don’t remember exactly when I started this job at the education centre, but I remember that in early 2008, shortly after James and I began dating, I was happy to receive this job at all. James told me it was going to suck and the pay was going to suck, and he seemed to know what to expect. I went ahead with it, really unsure of what to expect for my first job. I didn’t like it in the beginning and I had to get used to their rules of marking papers, and I had to deal with little children, which, to that date, I hated.

So it’s been about four years since I’ve had this job. I can’t say I love it, but I’ve grown to like it over the years. I was close to quitting at one point because I wasn’t really enjoying it. I guess what held me back from making this decision to quit was the fact that they needed me. For a small centre, I was the only English marker, compared to many of the other girls and other staff who worked with maths or with the younger children. There wasn’t much change over the years but I found myself tolerating the children with less effort. I grew to like some of them. :) I felt so attached to the job, as my first job ever. But it was time for me to quit, having another job with more demanding work and one that I thoroughly enjoy, not to mention the fact that my classes will clash with my shifts over at the education centre.

I loved having a job near home, I loved that it was rather easy work and not so intensive, and that it was close to public transport so if I needed to travel there and I couldn’t get dropped off by my dad for whatever reason, or if I needed to go to university in the morning, I could still get there somehow.

That said, I have received my timetable for the duration of the year. I don’t know why people post their timetables on their blogs when they get them – I usually don’t like sharing that kind of thing, but I’ll have you know that I am in class four days a week.

Well, more like four evenings a week. With the exception of Fridays in Autumn semester (February until July) – I have a 9am-12pm class. I’m planning to go to work afterwards. All my other classes start at 6:00pm and end at 8:00pm or 9:00pm, so during the day, I’ll be working. I have this strong feeling that I can do it, that I won’t be dead by the time I get home, that I’ll have every ounce of energy I’ll need. I don’t start classes until the end of February.

In my last post I mentioned my new computer Kepler, and he has consequently been added to The Cavalry. James and I managed to sort out the operating system (Windows 7 64-bit!) and install absolutely everything I needed. Well I haven’t installed WampServer, but I’ll do that eventually. James pretty much spent the weekend at my house. /eee

We had wraps for lunch (on both days!) and between him, my brother and myself, we probably ate four bags of chicken strips over the weekend. XD Although we had problems installing some things, a few restarts did the trick. I had prepared myself pretty well by downloading the installer files for most of the programs I needed prior to buying the computer. :D

iTunes, as usual, was a pain in the backside to deal with but thankfully this time around I did not lose all my play counts and playlists and library history. Ah well, I have Last.fm to found for most of the plays. On the topic of music, James encouraged me to look in my record collection and find something to play. My favourite records are by the record player and my others in my bookshelf, and usually I just play my favourites… but I put on some Stevie Wonder and I realised how great that was. /bounce

Screenshot of Kepler

I think you can see some of the physical photos of Kepler in the enlarged screenshot. I’ll post them on my photoblog shortly. Yep, I went and hid the taskbar so I can use the icons in RocketDock as shortcuts. :P

Also, I just washed my hair with new conditioner and not only does it smell nice but it’s left my hair so very soft. /love It’s specially for damaged hair and since I’ve had some split hairs (not ends, but hairs D:) lately, it’s leaving me with the impression that it’ll do well.

Comments on this post

Your computer looks lovely. I’m glad that Kepler is working! Does RocketDock ever confuse anyone?

Hope that your Master’s certificate goes well! I guess that it’s time to move on – four years is a long time to hold one job. In the US, the standard “long term employment time” is only two years.

Sometimes you just have to move on and try something new! :) But It’s good that you held on to it for so long.

I bet it took a long time to get everything on your computer, ne? XD Though it looks great xD It’s always useful that you have everything you need :3

Wow, for me that is a looooong time to stay in one place. Maybe try something new, if you can? That’s always good too. Expecially if you can get something in the field you’re interested in working in, later on.

I loved Sydney by the way. Just saying. MISS IT!

I’ve only ever had a volunteer experience similar to your first job. I had to mark the daily quizzes the students got and some people literally got 0’s. I only volunteered there because I had nothing to do after my summer morning class, and it was a 5 minute walk from home.

I don’t understand why people post timetables on Facebook. I’m thinking, why does everyone else care? Anyways, good luck with the night classes. In my first year of university we had full class days (6 hours) and two nights a week we were forced to take English. That was bad enough.

So that computer you were building is now finished! Looks like you don’t like the default and changed it up with Rocketdock. Yeah, I do that too, aha. I can’t stand the Windows start-bar. The Mac one annoys me less because it’s not brightly colored.

And though this is unrelated, that’s a lot of songs for one band. I have a friend who told me she has 200 songs by Nirvana. Back when she told me, I only had 200 songs in my whole library.

Not surprised, I have 205 Nirvana songs. :P I remember having about 3000 songs in 2007, and now I have 6822. People were just gobsmacked by the amount of music I had. My friend said he had only a few hundred before he met me, and now he has over 2000. XD

What annoys me about the Windows taskbar (on this monitor, at least) is that it’s always wedged on the left and I can’t centre the buttons on it like you can do with a dock. It annoyed me that I had to move my mouse all the way to the corner to check something out. :P

Yay, Windows 7 is finally up! Brilliant!

Congratulations on quitting your first job. I was sooooo nervous when I quit my first job, but I couldn’t do two jobs at the same time. Especially since it didn’t offer medical benefits.

Chicken wraps sounds yummy! It must’ve tasted so good that eating it for one day wasn’t enough :P

Have you tried doubleTwist? Someone recommended that to me as an iTunes replacement, but I’ve yet to use it.

You do a lot on your computer at once. :)

Yeah, sometimes you just have to quit a job when you’ve found something better and you have too much on your plate. I know it served you well for those years but it’s time to move on. :)

I’m glad you finally got your computer up and running. It looks good!

I love switching conditioners. I do it every so often because whenever I do, my hair is super soft. I think it’s good not to stay with the same conditioner for too long because your hair gets too used to it and needs a change every so often. I’m weird like that, maybe.

I can never deal well with kids. Lol. I think they’re um..annoying… /bash
iTunes…/sigh/ the other day my iTunes suddenly stopped playing songs, stopped responding. I googled the problem and it told me to reinstall the quicktime player separately… nothing work. restarted the laptop, iTunes suddenly went normal again.. but since I kinda uninstalled some parts before, I have to reinstall iTunes.. /snort Apple applications are really annoying sometimes..
Oh, by the way, which twitter desktop application are you using there? I’m using Echofon right now but I don’t know.. I guess I really wanna try the others. haha.

Congrats on quitting your job and getting a new computer! Hopefully this will make things a lot better for you! :D

Kepler what a lovely name!! I really like how you name your computers! I wish I had better naming conventions XD hahaha!

It’s the old bit on turning the page and entering the chapter isn’t it? Congrats on realizing and getting the job that you’ve always wanted :) Am so happy for you too that you got a good job even though it’s not the one you’ve wanted before. If I could only work and study at once (not possible here…. not really if you’re in a situation like me), I would and that’s why I got into paid to blog in the first place because I really needed money. It’s a good thing you can have a work like that there :)

I’m excited to finally enter the world of “work” soon after I graduate in March! I am so scared and excited at the same time!

Whee, welcome Kelper! /wave And I think you may be my match for chicken gluttony! XD (Y)

I think any job you’ve been with for that long is kind of hard to say goodbye to.

Glad to hear you have everything worked out with your new computer. :)

My favorite records are on the top of my bookshelf – I know that sounds odd since I’m short, but I can stand on my bed and each them. Them being my Frank Sinatra, Anti-Flag, Janis Joplin, John Lennon & Glenn Miller – my White Wives is hanging on my wall. ♥

I never change my conditioner, but I think it’s time I need to do that.

It must have been somewhat bittersweet when you quite that job because it was your first job and you kind of grew to like it. But, we all need to move on at some stage. as long as you are happy with your decision it is good.
Oh, now I can relate to you because my evening classes are similar but I don’t go every week day – once every two weeks but every Saturday i spend that attending classes I’ve missed.

Yay for having the PC up and running with everything installed. RocketDock, hey? I think you had been tweeting about it. Looks uber cool :)

Woo, he’s alive. Alive! :B

Yeah, it’s soft. /um So soft! /love

Glad Kumon’s over; that sort of work is..well, kind of below us now. I’d rather help some seriously disadvantaged kids, but I need my weekends to catch up on sleeg /um

(Y)

I’ve been working as a private tutor for a couple of months now and I can’t say I really enjoy teaching but I guess I do like helping others with their work and to help them improve. Like you said, you stayed before because they needed you. If I ever want to quit I think I will stop myself by remembering that my students need me. :)

iTunes hates me sometimes and I hate it too. >:(

And I don’t like wraps! Perhaps I’ve never tried REALLY good wraps but all the wraps I’ve eaten so far are like… I don’t know, nothing to me. I had a wrap at Subway the other time and erm, it was horrible. Maybe it’s just Subway.

Kepler looks goooooood ;) I need a new computer too but my old laptop is still too good to give up though it’s already almost 6 years old.

Ah first jobs! I still have mine at Odeon Cinemas even though I live away from home for the majority of the year – I get a seasonal contract and I love that. It was the perfect first job for me so it’s going to be sad when I eventually move on from there. :( Although higher pay will be welcomed! haha

It’s probably good you stuck it out though, at least you have on your CV that you’ve worked with children and perhaps you may even like them now :D I certainly can’t work with them!

Ugh, I love getting a new computer but copying/installing everything again is an absolute nightmare, I usually just start fresh with iTunes and only copy songs I currently listen to at the time of the move.

Sometimes it just comes to the time where you can’t work there anymore either from bad experiences or other opportunities. my first job i left after 4 months due to bad experiences and the fact that everyday i got yelled at for stuff that wasn’t even my fault half the time so i just left i handed in my resignation and bye bye.
Good luck with studying and work, it seems that your studies are very late i would rather have class in the morning and work in the afternoon/evening but thats just my opinion.
its cool that you and james are so technical challenged. i’ve got a question. How do you stop programmes from running when you start up your machine? my dads ITs told me once but i never wrote it down for future reference.
And how do you backup your iPod? my itunes library is empty and i want to save my songs from my iPod to my computer, is there any free software? i found but you can only backup 100 songs and i have over 1000..

Oh I see…I recall too well when I transitioned between my jobs as well. Originally I was going to try handle both because I was committed to working on one of the projects but I just didn’t have enough time/energy to be able to do two full time jobs!

I remember having to do time sheets at my first job…it was a pain lol. But first jobs are always special even if they suck XD. I am really proud of you for staying there longer because they needed you…that’s a rarely quality.

I love having a job close to home or having public transportation as a backup. Unfortunately now my work is a little far and when my car gives me troubles I don’t really have a good alternative to go to places.

Haha blogs or facebook for that matter. Posting your schedule is almost like inviting people to stalk you xDD.

Good luck with your schedule! Sounds hectic to me but if you have the will you can do it :D. Yay for your new computer…looks like I missed out on it’s birthday lol.

Four bags? LOL. Yeah installing programs takes longer than the OS…but it gives you satisfaction when everything goes as planned :D.

iTunes is always a pain omg…I am glad you didn’t have too much trouble this time around. I just got into last.fm again when my iPod died on me. I usually just play my favorites too and then will suddenly play something that I haven’t heard in a long while and then that will get stuck in my head lol.

Your rocket dock icons are ADORABLE!!! OMFG I love them XD.

O_o what conditioner is this??? Me want! Oh god my hair has been deteriorating these days due to some negligence…oh well I probably need to trim them soon.

Oh and I tagged you again…don’t kill me lol…skip it if you want ;)

Your job reminds of two of my sisters’ jobs they both had in different years. They worked with the after-school program at my current nephew’s elementary school and they would help the kids they were in charge with, like with their homework or keep an eye on them when they’d play outside. The downsides of that job though included: 1) the rowdy kids who never listened to them and 2) the parents who would come late to pick up their kids or some would not even come at all, thus making my sisters stay at the school even longer. It was pretty ridiculous. >_>

You have 4 classes a week, I’ve got 2. Well, my math class is two days a week (Mondays and Wednesdays). Then I’ve got a history class on Fridays. Then all those online classes…

Your timetable sounds pretty good! Except for that 9am start. Man, I hate 9am start. They always get in the way of quality time with my bed (read: sleep). I’m actually looking forward to having classes in the evening. It’ll probably suck in some days when I’ll have to go to class instead of going to dinner with my friends from the anime club, but I think it’ll still be a nice experience. o/ And also, evening classes = sleeping in! Whooot!

I think people post their timetables online to let their friends know when they’ll be available and stuff, and to see if they got any classes together. Or they just want to be stalked. Facebook does that to some people. Oh well.

I hope iTunes doesn’t give any more problems. I wish they actually made it easy to use. It’s a good music software, and hopefully, it becomes a great one day.

Four years is a really long time to hold a job, especially while going through university. I’m proud of you for staying there, even though it wasn’t something you really enjoyed. 👏 Terribly sorry if I sound like your mother, but I am proud of you! I don’t know if I could’ve done it. I’m not a big fan of kids because I don’t like how many of them act–particularly the spoiled and/or bratty ones. /argh I’ve volunteered in my church’s daycare centers before and it hasn’t been pretty. I do it with one of my friends when I spend the night at her house, and she gets really into it and loves it. We always look after the babies, which means there’s a lot of pooping, crying, and slobber. I can tolerate kids ages 4 and up, but that’s about it. :c

Good luck with your new school year coming up! Mine is sort of close to ending (I only have roughly 4 months left). I’ll be taking my summer off when you’re in school! /hehe

Your new computer looks really nice. I’ve always loved Windows 7, but I have Windows XP still. My laptop is old as dirt, but runs well enough so I keep it around. I used to use RocketDock and loved it, but I stopped when I realized how long it took to load. I don’t really use enough programs to constitute using it, so I just don’t use it. xD

Cheers! ♥