I guess first things first, I have a new job YAY! it really exciting, i am an ICT Technician for a reputable private school in newcastle, unfortunatly due to school policy i cannot divulge on here where i work,  but the past month has been awesome, i am working with an awesome team, there is only 3 of us, but the other guys are brilliant, really relaxed and layed back, and i am assisting in supporting well over 500 users which i think is quite a feet or any IT office. I am absolutly loving it here, both the staff and students are great to work for, and they have all been really positive about the work we have done, which is always a bonus . I really feel i am fitting in nicely and learning a lot, particularly about profesisonal customer support and managing my time efficiantly here. My manager is great, a really nice guy, he is good at getting the job done without adding any pressure to the job which suits me fine so i am happy, i reckon i am gonna be here for quite some time. Although there is the downside that because my former employer botched up my p45 i am now paying base rate tax on my wages untill my p46 goes through, but hey can’t complain the pay is still better than it was before so again i am happy .

Now onto my student lifegroup work, i found out a couple of weeks ago that i am the only member of this years team that wants to stay on and continue with it next year which is fine, i will be working with some one new and working with a (mostly) completely new bunch of uni students which is always interesting. However over the past year i don’t feel i have played a big roll in leading my lifegroup, i have been kind of shadowing the person i was leading with and only leading 3 or 4 sessions this year, but next year i will be the most senoir lifegroup leader which means more responibiliy with regard to the pastoral care of those students.

This however poses a problem/dilemma because i am currently a part of the congregation at two churches in newcastle, one is my home church and the other i have been going to for 4 years since becoming a christian, and i have responsibilities at both which means i have to be at my home church often because i do PA work there on sundays which means that i am not always at the other church, and unfortunatley i have somewhat of a choice to make, because the church where i do the student work want me to commit more of my time to that church (every sunday morning at least) which means i would have to stop going to my home church in the mornings and would also mean that i could no longer to PA there, they are not stopping me from being part of my home church, but i would be spending considerably less time there than i have been this year, though i feel i have commited a lot of time to the student work, but my current situation is, according the the elders of the church, inappropriate for this ministry.

Sorry i know this must be a little long winded and i have probably confused you more than anything, but basically i need to choose whether to commit myself more to the student work and be an almost full time lifgroup leader, or to my home church and give up student leadership. It is going to take a lot of thinking, and a lot prayer, but i feel confident that God has a way forward for me in this situation, because ultimately i feel that if i am walking the path God has set for me then i am walking the right path for me and the end result will be the right one. so please pray for me that all this is worked out, because it is a little stressfull at times and there is some stuff that still needs clearing up on both sides.

Update 03/07/10

With my leadership decision, i feel like i have finally come to a decision about what i should do with regard to commiting my time to one place, and i have come to the conclusion that often God leads us down roads that we may not necessarily fully agree with, he always has a plan to prosper us and to bring us closer to him, and i believe continuing with the student ministry is where i am being called to go, and have therefore decided to commit the majority of my time to performing my pastoral duties as a student leader, however there are still some things to be sorted, which will hopfully be soon. so again your prayers are greatly recieved.

Fianlly i have taken on another website project for a charity organisation called the Tyneside Decorative and Fine Arts Society, this is relatively similar to my last web project for my church, however this is the next step up in that i am attempting to encorporate it into a content management system called wordpress, which is a new concept for me, somthing i have not done this before, sure i use wordpress for this blog, but i have never incorporated my own theme before so it has been exciting but challenging because it has come with a whole new set of issues that i have to take my time over and work through, however there is not much time left because i need to have it finished by the end of the month. It is nearly there, but there is one small problem with the posting system for the news, but between my self and my web guru Sean O’sullivan i reckon we can figure it out . Well i live in hope .

In the end though it will all be worth it because i am getting paid at the end of it, hopefully that is .

Anyway thats it for this post, hope it was not too hard to read, till next time. Bye .

I spent the first month of my unemployment trying to keep myself busy, so i committed myself to revamping my church’s website, which to be honest i had been meaning to do for quite some time but as always things got in the way, such as work, which inevitably slowed my progress, however during that time i really worked hard and made it my biggest priority to make it as good as i could, which meant learning a lot of new skills in a very short space of time, such as coding, which to be honest has never been my strongest ability and i really never thought i would make as good a job of it as i have done, and the site has gotten a lot of praise from most of the staff at my church, which is always a bonus, somehow i expected to get more resistance than i did, or get comments like “well it doesn’t look the same” or “its too different, too radical” but i have had none of that, which was actually a big surprise, though people have called me up on spelling errors but never mind . Why not check it out @ http://www.trinitygosforth.org.uk.

That fact of the matter is that i really enjoyed that month because i had some thing to do, and i was learning somthing new, but i cannot take all of the credit, my mate Sean O’Sullivan gave me loads of help on the coding side of things, because before that i had no idea lol. Infact i was so taken in with all of this that i applied for a web development job, which i actually made to the interview stage, but of course i am a complete novice which probably shone through as i did not get the job, nope i guess i am  a hardcore Techy all the way and web development will simply have to remain a hobby.

The past month has been increasingly difficult, not being able to get a job, the website is just about finished and is infact live, so there isn’t much to do, i have to go and sign on every second monday, which is the biggest drag and waste of time in the world, and i think because of these things and everything that has happend over the last 6 or 7 months has really taken its toll on me in almost every way, my confidence took a big hit, which has affected my social behavior as well as my ability to compitantly lead my student lifegroup, which has also been cause by my lack of spending time with God on a daily basis, i have been neglecting my bible, not praying as much, so yeah it has been really hard for me.

Though this week has been a great glimmer of hope, as i have managed to secure two interviews for next week which i am equally excited and terrified about, but hopefully at least one of them will go well, so if you believe in the power of prayer, please send a couple my way next week. Thanks in advance.

Well that is my rant over for now, i will post again next week if i have been successfull in my interviews. Bye for now .

So yes, recent events, well as i have just said i have more time on my hands, due to the unfortunate fact that i lost my job last Friday (19th Feb) which though i am a little glad about, i was actually pretty gutted and got quite emotional and angry on the day, because you get a certain sense of failure when that happens, but that’s life i guess, doesn’t always go the way we plan, and to be honest i found my christian life was suffering because i was devoting all my time to worrying about work and trying to “impress” the unimpressible. I believe everything happens for a reason, i just couldn’t find it at the time, which didn’t really help me deal with it, But i spent some time with one of my Christian friends on friday afternoon, which did help a lot and actually prerpared me for the weekend i was about to have, of which i will tell you about in a bit.

However I reckon God was always looking out for me, i was able to persevere through the 5 month period, and i have actually learned so much about being a good technician, my skills and knowledge have come a long way, it might have been the most stressful time of my life but i can take away that experience and use it in the future so i am in no way regretting my time there.

This weekend i have been away on a christian retreat with a great bunch of students, and i truly believe it came at the right time, it helped my tune myself back in to Gods “frequency” if you like, because i really felt lost on Friday, but God really found me again this weekend, and i am feeling stronger for it, i am feeling more connected, more able to commit myself to his purpose for me. For instance last night i really felt inspired when preparing worship and prayer for tonight’s lifegroup, which is really encouraging for me because i feel my leadership of the life group has suffered the past couple of times i have attempted to lead the group. However i attribute that to trying to do it under my own strength, letting my mind lead my heart instead of the other way round, and also it was not particularly spirit lead either which is probably why i messed up so often. So i guess i am just coming to grips with what it means to let the spirit minister through me into the lives of others, whether i am leading worship or a study. I guess i had forgotten how big a role the spirit plays in our lives. so i am just praying that i will mature in my faith and not step backwards into my old ways of dealing with things on my own.

On a final note, i may not be long out of work, because after sending off an internship application for a web developer position yesterday, i got a call today for an interview, so my future may be looking a little brighter in worldly terms (if you know what i mean).  So we will see what comes of that, i will be praying hard about whether or not this is a role i am meant for, because God may have other plans for me, i guess i will have to put my trust in Him and trust that he has a plan for me. If you are a Christan or believe in the power of prayer, i would really appreciate the support.

So i guess thats it for now, i hope you don’t find this post too preachy, i am just using it as an outlet for my thoughts and feelings . And you never know i might be back next month to post again. Bye for now.

P.s. pleas leave any comments or suggestions below, i will be happy to read and reply to them as long as they sensible and not spam. Thanks.

About four months ago i felt very blessed because i had managed to get myself a job on my second interview, little did i know that it was going to prove to be one of the most difficult transitions i would ever have to make, from being a graduate enjoying endless free time, to an average working joe earning a wage every month. nothing quite prepares you for the sheer shock of the pressure and the responsibility. Since then its been a fairly up and down ride, having really good days where everything goes well, i learn a lot and i keep my boss happy, then there are the days where everything just seems set to out of control, i get stressed, i make mistakes, my boss gets irate, and has on more than one occastion threatened my job. In the recent month of January i have really been struggling to settle in, i feel like i am constanly beening belittled for making minor mistakes or not knowing some what my boss calls “simple” things. He has now set me the task of doing 100% of domestic computers and simple business support jobs, an objective i think he knows i cannot complete successfully, and i just feel like i am being set up for a fall, especially when i have a review for that objective next tuesday, but the jokes on him because there is only to of us it technicians working for him and if i leave there will be only one left and the other technician goes on holiday next friday so if he fires me next week he will be right up a creek lol, but thats upto him, as for me i am at the point where loosing my job is more appealing than keeping right now. But i dunno, i am not really sure how to handle the situation, any suggestions please comment below .

Anyway enough of me complaining about my job, there has been some really exciting developments to, for instance at the beginning of the month my mum got baptised as a believer which was really awesome, its encouraging to see her faith taking strength again, because i know it has been quite difficult for her for a number of years, its good to see her back on track .

Another really cool thing has been happening with me, in that i am now leading a christian student lifegroup, for one of my two churches. Its been really fun so far, the stuff some of them come out with is incredible, i see this as a way for me to grow in confidence with my faith as well as help them grow nearer to God, i love my lifegroup particularly because we are all friends even outside of the group so thats always a positive when trying to lead them, it helps them get more comfotable i feel. But the only downside to all this is that i have actually been struggling quite deeply with my faith, because of pressures at work, i have stuff happening all the time, IT’S COLD! I am still dealing with a lot of old personal issues i am just feeling realy exhausted in every way, and a little lost in terms of where i am suppose to be going with my life, i am constantly asking myself  ‘ am i on the right road, is this truely where i am meant to be?’ so if you are a christian or believe in the power of pray then i would really apreciate it right now, i feel i need God now more than ever but i am struggling to find my footing.

anyway enought for now, I think i have depressed you all enough and contrary to my opening statement i appear to have waffled lol.

See you another time, probably in another 6 months .

Bye

After the next couple of weeks when i have finished my course for this year i am going to have to start thinking about what to do in the near future, like over the next year as well as the summer. I have discovered there are many options available for me to do. I can continue in my education, and or get a job, or take a year out. And i think i have unofficially decided to continue with my enduaction next year by doing a masters degree in computer forensics part time, and get i job part time in technical support (hopefully), and as well as that, i have decided to complete Cisco CCNA (Cisco Certifide Network Asscociate) certification and cisco wireless fundimentals certification over the 3 months of summer i have. i have already completed CCNA 1 & 2, i just need to get 3 & 4 out of the way and do the prometric exam. Why am i doing this you may ask? simple, i am passionate about networking and technical support and these certifications look good on a CV in this feild.

My goal for quite some time now has also been to try and find a job that will pay well enough for me to be able to afford to buy and run a car, because after passing my test in december and getting my pass plus in february i haven’t really had any time behind the wheel of a car, and i hate not being able to do it because i love it so much, it gives you so much freedom and it means that you are not constantly relying on others for a lift which unfortuantley i do…often, and i feel like i am taking advantage of those who are giving me lifts because it happens so often. So that is the ultimate goal before my pass plus runs out and i am no longer able to benifit from it.

I think that is me all brought up to speed with current events in general, watch this space for more “riviting” post, and also keep an eye out on my other catagories for some posts coming soon , by for now.

Todays exam went ok, i proabaly could have done a bit better, put some more detail in and i could have done a bit more revision i think, but because the test was timed i couldn’t go into as much detail as i might have wanted, because i am not the fastest or the neatest when it comes to handwriting documets, i would have probably got more done had i been able to use a computer but as it is we couldn’t so we had to make do.

I am just glad that it is now over and i don’t have to think too much about it for a while untill we get the marks back and hopefully i won’t have to re-sit the exam, because that would mean more stress that i don’t need at this time of the year with all the other work i need to get on with right now. But anyway i think that is enough ranting, i’m sure you don’t want to be drag down to depression with me, so i will leave it there, but know this, i will be back ranting to high heaven if i have to re-sit .

If you have taken the time to read this, thanks for the interest and i hope enjoy my other articles as well. Catch you later. Bye

I would also like to tell you a little bit about my dissertation if i may, i know some of you may think it boring or be thinking to your selves, what on earth is he on about, but i will try and make it simple-ish which is not easy because it is not a simple subject but you will be glad to know that i will not be going into a great amount of detail, just the basics of what it is all about.

So my dissertation is all about the insecurities of WiFi encryption more precisely how easy the different methods of security are to break into, i have covered WEP, WPA and WPA2, and i am sure if you are reading this with some degree of knowledge of wireless you will know that WPA2 is virtually impossible to ‘Crack’ into however my research has shown the other two are much easier, and i would like to alert those who have lesser knowledge that if you are running WEP encryption on a wireless device the your systems are what we call in the technical world an ‘Open door’ to anyone with a bit of know how, the right software and a few minutes, and WPA if used improperly produces much the same result between 15 and 30 minutes, so my advice to you is to use the most random password you can think of for WPA or switch to WPA2 and never worry about being breached in the near future. I apologies if all of that flew over your head, this subject is not exactly something you can tech in one paragraph but hopefully my 10,000 word dissertation will impress that examination board a Leeds Met enough to get me that first grade.

Anyway that the most exciting news i have had in the last 6 days, and i will certainly let you know what i get when i recieve my result . thanks for reading if you managed to get this far without getting a head ache. Bye

I had a good proper go last night with Oasis’ wonderwall chords, it wasn’t great but i think i have the rythm of play about right (down,down,up,up,down) for the strumming, and then attempted Man in the moon by REM but made a right pigs ear of it, more practice is needed I think, I guess it will just take a bit of time to get used to the different rythms and quick finger changes, I’m still fluffing some of them because I get a bit confused when my teach plays his guitar with me, it kind of puts me off cos I am paying more attention to what he is playing than what I am playing, so it is a bit difficult in that respect, but the main thing is i am getting better one step at a time and i am enjoying it.

I have also started to listen to some proper acoustic’y music to get me thinking about the different rythms that different artists use, I have dicoverd a great band called the fleet foxes that are kind of an american folky ish band that also do harmonising like a barbershop band but they are quite good, their music is quite complex the way it is composed but they definatly have a unique sound behind them that seems to get my foot tapping, I would definatley recommend giving them a listen even if your not in to that kind of music as you never know you might like them.

I think thats me up to date with everything in this area so far, but watch this space for more updates on my progress, and I am sure I will be adding more posts about other things as well, I hope you enjoy reading them all. Bye

I’m back because there has been loads of stuff happening over the past year thats both really excited me as well as really got on my whick, but dom’t worry i won’t regail you with all my worldly depressions, lets start with some of the big stuff thats been happening. Now as may of you who know me will have figured out by now i am a christian and not surprisingly the Lord has seen fit to challenge me with everthing he/she (not quite sure which) can through at me, starting with one of the biggest challenges of my life, going out to a foreign country to tell others about the good news of the gospel, which is all well and good but i had absolutly no experience doing this and i felt like i had been throw into the deepend with a big metal ball chained to my neck, but of course God bieng God gave me all the resources i needed to get me through including spiritual insparation, financial aide and (brand new) good friends who of course i miss a great deal sometimes because after spending about a month with the same crowed you kind of get used to having them a round and its sad when you have to leave and not see them so much anymore :/ but guys if your out there somewhere reading this you were great and i miss you all loads.

Big deal number 2 would be my brothers wedding of which i was best man *smug*, that was a great day, beutiful weather, my brother in a suit (rare thing trust me ) and of course his wife in a gorgeous white dress, it really was a wonderfull day ad i even got a little drunk later which doesn’t happen often. although to be honest the after party was a bit of a shambles, not enough seats, DJ wasn’t booked and to be honest the place was a bit of hole, but the happy couple managed to enjoy themselves which is the main thing.

This summer really was something special, lots of things going on, honestly the most exciting summer ever. harvest this summer was incredible as usual although admittedly spending 5 days in a cold and soggy field isn’t everyones idea of a fun weekend but we made it work, and of course with any weekend away there was adventure, well a slightly dangerous adventure involving me three others and a herd of INSANE cowsand the odd bull, of which we came out with more than a few cuts and bruises, but those of our group who left early, you really missed out. oh and int turns out that if you scream at a cow it will run away lol. but God used this time to challenge me once more on an idea thats been swimming in and out of my mind since march, and that was the idea of having a believers baptism at my church (Trinity Gosforth) in there brand new baptistry pool, God really inspired me to move in that direction during a talk about Elijah calling Elisha into the Lords ministry.

And so a couple of weeks ago i took the plunge and publically declared my faith in God, yes i was nervous but i had the right people backing me up, filling me with confidence, and the spirit seemed to really move in that place because many people came up to me afterwards with congratulations and telling me how moving my testimony was and i think its really special that my story had such an affect, and my hope is that the young people were moved similarly, as well as those there who have not yet found their way to the Lord. the thing that worried me most was the temporature of the water i was being dunked into, but luckily they had the heating on the night before so the water was just right, however like after any bath once i exited the water i turned into a human ice cube and nearly put my back out shivering but it was worth it to make that step with God . thats most of the good stuff out of the way but i will not send you to sleep with all the little things.

Christams was great this year, lots of pressies, food and family reunions, and what made it even better was the fact that the week before i got my drivers liscence throught post, thats right i passed motorists beware another detriment to the roads commeth.

before it leave you once more i would like to make special mention of a friend of mine whom ispired me to right this years life story Sean O’sullivan, one of my more gifted friends, mate if blogs are anything to go by, your novel is going to be awsome best of luck to ya matey.

anyway thats it for now folks, i will try and attempt to make the effort to make another post sometime soon, hope you have ejoyed reading and if you havent i honestly couldn’t care less , HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! people.