Nearing the end of my first week back in Salford and its not been all bad. I went to Ikea on Monday and spent nearly 200 quid on furniture for my room, desk – shelves, etc. but it does make a huge difference!

I now have the ability to move around my room freely without being severely hampered by space or depression at how utterly rubbish it looks!

I put a few posters up, set my PC’s up, sound system, Xbox 360, hard drives etc and got myself onto the network which was all fun fun fun. Also blagged myself a Cisco 7940 IP phone from Dave for internal house calls only which is nice

Aside from housey stuff, ive been generally chilling out with Fran, my sexy lodger for the week! Weve just been hanging out, her playing DS while i reluctantly revise for my IAI Exam which was Today. Speaking of which, i dont think ive ever hated a module so much in my life – it is truly awful (dont care if its slander or not!). I managed to answer 2/4 questions i chose, the other 2 i just completely guessed at, but i only need 30% to pass the year and get through to next year so im not bothered as long as i passed!

Finally, i started work at my new job at eFuse on Wednesday and it went very well – however the fact that the first major issue i had to deal with was a familiar old foe did make me chuckle a little bit – people putting 45nm Xeons’ in the 2nd socket of a mobo when the 1st socket is occupied by a 65nm CPU!

Good old Xeon, still finding ways to harrass me.

Well a lot has happened in the last 2 weeks – finally i said goodbye to Swindon and all my friends which was tough to do We had a big party on Thursday to say goodbye which involved running into our mates house at 1am singing songs; playing street football and generally having one last good night!

I moved up to Manchester on Sunday, with my mum and dad coming down to help me take some stuff. Fran came up too to keep me company and help me settle in which was nice of her I got into my room and the first impression was @oh fuck, what have i got myself into here@ it was tiny, dirty and generally depressing!

However, Fran did her usual trick of planning rooms and stuff and we went to Ikea today with my mum and dad and i spent 200 quid on shelves, desks etc and now all my kit is setup again, working beautifully and making me feel generally a lot more relaxed and @at home@ The only casualty, which has made me annoyed, is one of my 19″ TFT screens got smashed in transit, which is a fuggering pain!

Over the last 2 weeks a few things have happened which i’ll write about! I applied for a few jobs for when i move back to Manchester at the end of this month and one of them, ICT Support Engineer at a Consultancy firm actually emailed me and asked me for an interview. After a preliminary phone interview they were apparently so impressed they decided to offer me the job outright – which means they obviously see something in me This is good because it means ill be earning roughly £150 a week working 16 hours part-time, which means no being super poor! Hurrah.

Aside from the employment, it was my 21st birthday! I went home on the weekend before my birthday for a huge family party. On the Friday, me and Fran went to the rugby to see Wigan vs Hull (her first game EVER of rugby!) which we won 66-6 – so smiles all round! On Saturday we had a big family party to which about 40 people turned up – family and friends! On sunday, i took my birthday money and a bit of my own and bought an Xbox 360, games, extra controller etc and ive been addicted to it ever since

We came home on the Monday night and had a fairly quiet one. On Tuesday i went for a meal with Fran to Frankie and Bennys which was great fun followed by a few drinks etc afterwards and other stuff

Rest of that week and this week ive generally just been wrapping up loose ends in Swindon – i packed up and sent home 40% of my stuff when we went back up to Manchester, and the rest of my stuff is gradually being torn down and packed up. I lost internet connectivity on the 10th August as we didnt want to pay another £20 for an extra month worth of internet, it just means i dont have much to do on my PC anymore – lack of internet and Xbox 360 has led to that! On a side note – Fight Night Round 3 is arguably one of the best console games ive played in YEARS – so addictive in Career mode lol.

As far as life goes, im just getting ready to leave Intel and Swindon, move back up to Salford – start my new job, and wait until October when i start my final year of my degree again. Its very exciting times in the world of Sam Marsh – stay tuned!