Yesterday morning when I was having breakfast it was told in BBC that psychologists and day experts say Jan 19th is the Blue Monday – the most miserable day of the year. And we scoffed at them saying every day is glorified with some term. I was on relatively high spirits for the start of my Prince2 course. However, the day turned out really miserable for me; an absolute nightmare.
It was raining in the morning. SreeRaj dropped me at the station and I boarded a train to Leeds at 7:45 am. As the course was happening with an external trainer in Leeds I had a map with me to locate the place when I reach Leeds. And I had a well set buffer time as my training was supposed to start only at 9:30 am. The train was on time and I managed to get hold of a priority seat and was very comfy and slowly gone to a nap. By the time I opened by eyes there was no one in train and my mind was on a shock, ‘God, did I reach London?’ I thought I had slept off and reached the final destination of the train. However, I managed to get out and it was only York – only half way through. The station was crowded and from the announcements I got to know that there were no trains running to Leeds due to some fatality. Instead they have made arrangements with coaches to take passengers to Leeds. And we were to board the coach from outside the station. I walked out of the station for coaches and found out that there was a HUGE queue in the form of a flock. Not on the ‘survival of the fittest’ mood, I waited with patience for around 20 minutes there to get in and by the time some coaches have left. It was really a test of patience in freezing cold.
Then there comes the next announcement that rail services will be resumed shortly and no more coaches will be running there after. So I got into the station again and the direction was to board the train in platform 5 to Leeds. By the time it was already 9 o clock, and I got into the train, sat there for around 10 minutes and there you get the next announcement that next train to Leeds departs from platform 7. Good God I thought and walked over to platform 7 and boarded the train there. As soon as this was done all the passengers were directed to move to Platform 9 for Leeds trains. By this I have lost my hope as I was sure I was not going to make it on time for training. Walked over to platform 9 for the train; this didn’t work out as well and another announcement came that transpennine express to Manchester Airport via Leeds leaves shortly from Platform 11. The mob including me rushed to platform 11 now and boarded finally. This train was over crowded and I had to walk the whole stretch of the train to see if I can find a place to sit. Well, the walk was not in vain and got a side seat in the table near a huge man (somehow no one wanted to sit there as you get only a portion of the seat as the other guy occupied more than half of that seat too). All these happened within 20 minutes and by that time everyone in the train was frustrated making calls to their work place cancelling meetings and appointments. I was a bit relieved, ‘Oh, not just me!’ However despite all hopes the train started only at 10:30 am and all were stuck as if in a big tunnel, it was not a pleasant thing to happen on a Monday morning. Meanwhile four different reasons were given for this, ‘Fatality, Signal problem between Church Fenton and Leeds, Signal problem to leave York station, Signal problem to enter Leeds station’!
Meanwhile I get a call from my colleague saying that the course is cancelled as the trainers were off sick. As soon as she hang up realised I didn’t have my office laptop with me and its better to go home and work from there. The train doors were locked at the same second and I couldn’t get out. All I could do was to travel to Leeds now. Reached Leeds around 11:00 am, got in to office and explained the miserable story to everyone. Meanwhile one of my colleagues checked online and told me that I have a train leaving to my home station in the next 7 minutes, otherwise only one after 2 pm. It was another marathon now to ran back to station and catch this one. However, this bit was not bad and I did manage to catch. But, by this I was shattered and couldn’t even sleep because of the frustration. This train ran late for another half hour and I reached Northallerton around 1 pm. I was literally in trains from 7:45 am to 1:00 pm. So, how can I not agree to the predictions of Blue Monday! It definitely was for me!!! However, the second half of the day was relatively better.
Tuesday, 20 January 2009
Thursday, 15 January 2009
3 more days for PRINCE2
The countdown has started for Prince2 course – 3 more days! And that generates a heat now as I have only started the pre-reading properly this week. There was a time in life when I could literally do a whole text book the day before examination which was sometimes referred to as ‘mugging up’ or been called as a liar for saying I did it only last night. However, things used to work then. But now, there is a limit to which I can take in I guess. I keep on reading the junk but nothing gets registered and there is absolutely no point in that. Having done say a 40% of the Office of Government Commerce (OGC) manual by now I am unsure if I can finish off the whole thing in the next 3 days. Especially 2 days being weekend when nothing happens really!
I have tried a sample question paper of 15 questions out of which I scored a 9 which isn’t very disappointing, not very promising too.
I wonder why I opted for the course early this year. Not the right time due to several reasons; but then earlier the better and it is done then. I am trying to ponder with the manual at nights this week, but then really get switched off with everything in a couple of a hours max. I wonder how I used to stay awake the whole night before exams in the past. I hope I can still do a bit of it in the next two days; I have to as I don’t have a choice. What happened during the last week is if I make my brain work for more than 2 hours then I need a ‘quality’ break and this has resulted in watching two good movies. Slumdog Millionaire and A Wednesday! Wow, they were both very good and was a bit of relief from Prince2.
But then reading is not getting on a fast track. If I do a fast track I struggle to get them! I had collected the manual in December thinking that I will work on it during the break. But I had completely forgotten about this until second week of January when I saw one of my colleagues reading it. Again, I started on a slow pace and now I am scared to take sample tests as I havnt done the reading in the first place and has a fobia towards a ‘not pass’! Got to crack this one in three days somehow. The manual is a best medicine if you have a sleeping problem. The fact is I enjoy various aspects of project management starting from initiation until closure and you experience, learn and practise as you do the work. But the theory is so damn dry on this and various terminologies do confuse you at times. And obviously having a problem with choice and part of the test being multiple choice I just hope and pray it is not going to be a piece of nightmare.
Though you are a professional and trying to improve your area of work through a specialised training, the moment you know you are going to be tested based on a exam with a course and pre-reading you get back to a student mind set. And it is much more important here to pass the exam. The start of 2009 is a bit demanding I guess; but no complaints as I have a million reasons to be happy about 2009.
I have tried a sample question paper of 15 questions out of which I scored a 9 which isn’t very disappointing, not very promising too.
I wonder why I opted for the course early this year. Not the right time due to several reasons; but then earlier the better and it is done then. I am trying to ponder with the manual at nights this week, but then really get switched off with everything in a couple of a hours max. I wonder how I used to stay awake the whole night before exams in the past. I hope I can still do a bit of it in the next two days; I have to as I don’t have a choice. What happened during the last week is if I make my brain work for more than 2 hours then I need a ‘quality’ break and this has resulted in watching two good movies. Slumdog Millionaire and A Wednesday! Wow, they were both very good and was a bit of relief from Prince2.
But then reading is not getting on a fast track. If I do a fast track I struggle to get them! I had collected the manual in December thinking that I will work on it during the break. But I had completely forgotten about this until second week of January when I saw one of my colleagues reading it. Again, I started on a slow pace and now I am scared to take sample tests as I havnt done the reading in the first place and has a fobia towards a ‘not pass’! Got to crack this one in three days somehow. The manual is a best medicine if you have a sleeping problem. The fact is I enjoy various aspects of project management starting from initiation until closure and you experience, learn and practise as you do the work. But the theory is so damn dry on this and various terminologies do confuse you at times. And obviously having a problem with choice and part of the test being multiple choice I just hope and pray it is not going to be a piece of nightmare.
Though you are a professional and trying to improve your area of work through a specialised training, the moment you know you are going to be tested based on a exam with a course and pre-reading you get back to a student mind set. And it is much more important here to pass the exam. The start of 2009 is a bit demanding I guess; but no complaints as I have a million reasons to be happy about 2009.
Wednesday, 7 January 2009
Start of 2009
Gone are the days of 2008. And now it is 2009!!! Time just simply flies. I have a special likeness for New Year too!
The year 2008 had been really great with us and family, touchwood! And I am looking forward to 2009.
The start is quite good; back to office after the long Christmas and New Year break, still in the hang over I would say. But then work is kicking off well in New Year, projects are starting up, meetings and discussions, keeps me busy through the day with not much time to complain.
The weather has become terrible in England with snow, ice and chilling cold. And is on severe weather warnings everyday! I check everyday before I get out of home if the trains are running and it will be nightmare if they don’t especially in the evenings. And most of the trains are delayed, cancelled or stuck! Despite all these the rail ticket prices have gone UP to around 20%.
There are a lot of bugs going around, winter flu, winter vomiting bug, diarrhoea and even chicken pox. We had been the victims of winter flu early in November and guess that’s the only reason we were saved during the break. Most of our friends had got either one of these; and we stayed away from bugs! So many of the holiday plans were cancelled and it was a quiet one, quite relaxing though!
On an economic perspective 2009 is not predicted to be a great one as recession hits badly. Many shops are on closing down; having been for one of the closing down sales for Woolworths we were on a shopping spree and picked up a lot of junk (from clothes to post-it notes) which we would have never bothered to have a look if it wasn’t for ‘sale’. Oops, it was a purely a stupid shopping spree! However, realising this effect we have decided to stop going for closing down sales (at least for the next couple of months!!!). But, rest of the sales this year for Boxing Day and New Years was not as great as expected. Favourite brands did have sales on, but most of them were ‘upto’ 50% ones. None of the decent things came for a good 50% off. May be it is just how I look at it; I had expected some of my favourites to come down to half price. Having roamed around Debenhams for a couple of hours on Boxing Day I couldn’t find any good deals of my interest. May be it was just that I was disappointed as some of the dresses I expected to come down didn’t!
New Year brings me back to a student life for a month again. I am on my Prince2 Practitioner Course from Jan 19th and have the exam on 23rd. Have a lot of pre-reading to do, have just started with the introduction chapter and I realise now it is high time. May be I should sit with it straight for say a good 3-4 hours; probably then will get the hang of it. This is a two part exam with a foundation and practitioner. I could have done it any time of the year, but then earlier the better; and you are done with it. And it is closely aligned with my work as well; so I expect it to be a good value addition; and of course looks good in CV.
Will come up with a bit more of news later! Happy New Year!
The year 2008 had been really great with us and family, touchwood! And I am looking forward to 2009.
The start is quite good; back to office after the long Christmas and New Year break, still in the hang over I would say. But then work is kicking off well in New Year, projects are starting up, meetings and discussions, keeps me busy through the day with not much time to complain.
The weather has become terrible in England with snow, ice and chilling cold. And is on severe weather warnings everyday! I check everyday before I get out of home if the trains are running and it will be nightmare if they don’t especially in the evenings. And most of the trains are delayed, cancelled or stuck! Despite all these the rail ticket prices have gone UP to around 20%.
There are a lot of bugs going around, winter flu, winter vomiting bug, diarrhoea and even chicken pox. We had been the victims of winter flu early in November and guess that’s the only reason we were saved during the break. Most of our friends had got either one of these; and we stayed away from bugs! So many of the holiday plans were cancelled and it was a quiet one, quite relaxing though!
On an economic perspective 2009 is not predicted to be a great one as recession hits badly. Many shops are on closing down; having been for one of the closing down sales for Woolworths we were on a shopping spree and picked up a lot of junk (from clothes to post-it notes) which we would have never bothered to have a look if it wasn’t for ‘sale’. Oops, it was a purely a stupid shopping spree! However, realising this effect we have decided to stop going for closing down sales (at least for the next couple of months!!!). But, rest of the sales this year for Boxing Day and New Years was not as great as expected. Favourite brands did have sales on, but most of them were ‘upto’ 50% ones. None of the decent things came for a good 50% off. May be it is just how I look at it; I had expected some of my favourites to come down to half price. Having roamed around Debenhams for a couple of hours on Boxing Day I couldn’t find any good deals of my interest. May be it was just that I was disappointed as some of the dresses I expected to come down didn’t!
New Year brings me back to a student life for a month again. I am on my Prince2 Practitioner Course from Jan 19th and have the exam on 23rd. Have a lot of pre-reading to do, have just started with the introduction chapter and I realise now it is high time. May be I should sit with it straight for say a good 3-4 hours; probably then will get the hang of it. This is a two part exam with a foundation and practitioner. I could have done it any time of the year, but then earlier the better; and you are done with it. And it is closely aligned with my work as well; so I expect it to be a good value addition; and of course looks good in CV.
Will come up with a bit more of news later! Happy New Year!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)