2. Nothing left to do / 1. And we're done!

Here we are, course finished! Sorry I didn't post on Tuesday or yesterday, was a bit busy finishing and celebrating finishing course. It's kind of a shame but the feeling of finishing was worth it. Now I've gone blank, thought of a lot of stuff to say over the last few days but all gone, lets see whats happened. Well Tuesday was mainly spent frantically trying to finish practical assessments which was pretty good, took a bit longer than expected I ended up being there until about 2pm. then a few of us hung out at the house just down the road where one of us just happened to live. That was alright. Then yesterday was slightly more eventful I guess. Had barbecue for lunch, I went in a bit earlier and did some desoldering, taking capacitors etc off a power supply i pulled apart a few months ago while frustrated with my computer not working. Then lunch was good, usual kinda thing and got our meters. (Sadly no function to charge my capacitors, both extracted from psu and my home-made one) Was good. Then a few of us went again to the house down the road, a few more this time, had a couple of drinks and the like. Acknowledging that it was over as you do.

That's about all that happened in the last couple of days of course that I can remember for now but it has been a good few months, learned some interesting stuff and met some interesting people. Some that will be kept in touch with and some that I unfortunately cannot remember the surname of and therefore can't add on facebook :(. But I am sure I will see many of them next year in level 3 or meet them and other 'colourful' characters in the industry in the future.

I shall resume blogging at this point in February 2012 when I start level 3 at this point.
Until then I will try to keep in touch with those I can and try not to hurt myself or any of them with electricity. (Or anything else for that matter)

B.A.

3. Just about free.

Here we are, the final week all wrapping up now. Some finished the practical part today and so get tomorrow off, I was hoping to do that or atleast finish it on Wednesday so I can also have tomorrow off but apparantly that is not allowed (somewhat stupidly) as we all are going back on Wednesday for the barbecue and getting our free meters. So now I have to go in for about 2 hours apiece the next couple of days, then Might have to spend all morning there on the Wednesday with nothing to do due to ride arrangements but will see. Might be able to persuede my way into the soldering room for some shenanigans. Anyway it will still be good, happy with the progress I made today and over the whole course overall, learned a lot, but let's leave that for the final post otherwise ill rant all night twice. So not much else to say, I'll finish my practical assessments tomorrow morning, hopefully others from my class there, I can think of one or two that should need to come along too.

Also discovered a great App for android from one of my coursemates today, I would definitely recommend for anybody who is technically minded (or not as it kind of does all that for you) lets find what it's called again.
Electrodroid, very cool does lots of stuff.

Anyway that is enough for this evening, I will leave you all with a lesson in karma I saw today that made the day that much more hilarious (those of you that have me on facebook may have seen it, but I am posting anyway as some do not

http://www.sodahead.com/united-states/thief-steals-computer-stabs-marine-trips-and-falls---slightly-injured/question-1617789/

4. Just one week more

Hey, sorry I didn't post last night. Yesterday was pretty good, we had our last theory test which I was actually confident about going in unlike many of the others and it was a joke, consisted entirely of multi-choice and true/false questions... so got through that in 15-20min and had a lot of time to spare.

In the afternoon we had a few things, first we had to do the literacy and numeracy tests we had done at the start of the year again (I think I did worse in literacy than the start) and a survey. After that we started our practical assessment book in the last period which we will be doing for the entirety of next week (unless we finish before that) it doesn't seem too hard so far, just tested appliances but will see how we go. Then I am done with this course and desperately need to find an apprenticeship or holiday work at least.

Just now upon looking for a particular CHRISTCHURCH job I was told about I found this....

Casual Sales Professionals - Christchurch

Listing #: 420113297

Location:	Christchur­ch City, Canterbury
Listed:	Tue, 01 Nov
Type:	Part time, Contract/T­emp

We have opportunities in the Auckland area for talented individuals looking to take the next step in their career..........

5. Gettin' live

Well this day was slightly easier than expected, basically consisted of revision-test-revision-test and found them a lot easier than expected, partially because of the good revision periods before hand but also because they seem to be able to make tests as easy as possible with things like multi choice or fill in the missing words kind of thing, so not too bad pretty sure I'm safe for those.
 Otherwise not much else to report, just tomorrow and next week left which will be all practical, except the extra test tomorrow that they forgot to give us before, but if it is anything like all the other tests we have done so far, it shouldn't be too bad, then should be starting the practical stuff and doing that all next week, or until we finish it.

Then we get meters for passing the course hopefully. More news on that tomorrow.

6. No new tricks.

Second to last week off to a... very dull start. Starr has done the impossible.. Managing to do something for 20 years and (apparantly anyway) not get any better at it. Seriously listening to him sometimes is less exciting than a commentary on watching paint dry in the desert. So did a bit of lab book, finishing it up. Nothing else notable. In the afternoon we had Wal for "practical" which consisted of some working out where we are up to in the practical book, working out what theory assessments we hadn't done yet (not only have 2 tomorrow but now have one on wednesday aswell) and various other examples of Wal being useless. after the afternoon break only me and one other guy showed up, because he had a resit to do. Wal was quite disappointed in this it seemed, but he still let us go quite early after doing a couple of little practical things over about 5 minutes he let us go as theres not much point doing anything with 2 students (hey he didnt have anything to do for the previous session so doubt he had more for this one) The one advantage of showing up is he gave the 2 of us a contact for a possible apprenticeship (A friend of Wal's tho so may be useless). Overall mostly worthless day but we did sort out some stuff for our tests tomorrow and practical stuff apparantly.

For now I shall worry about my 2 hardish tests tomorrow.

Might have to study for once.

Another week over already, 2 more to go before I am (hopefully) finished with my "National Certificate in Electrical Engineering Level 2" which is rather annoying to write in a small box on a sheet, and even more annoying to write in an even smaller box on the same sheet, both of which expected... Anyway sorted my enrolment form for next year, assuming I haven't got an apprenticeship or something by February then it's back into it if there's enough places. Should be however as apparantly you need was it 80% of unit standards passed and I believe (don't know if this is right, Wal has already told people to resit stuff who thought they passed) I have 100% so far. So I don't think it is possible to get under 80% at this point. Not that I am going to fail any of course but that will mean a a first bit of seriously required study before Tuesday.

Anyway I am sure places wont be a problem as today there were questions from members of another class we were put with which should under no circumstances be asked by people who ever go near wires (or other people for that matter) let alone are going to finish an electrical certificate in 2 weeks.... so that was a scary thought. In other news we met a new tutor today. Stewart who is somehow more Scottish than Neil, he even gave a disclaimer that we might not understand him. Was better than some of our other teachers by far, middle of the range on first impressions. Now trying to remember them all, Mid to high rated, 2-3 that are better.

Not much else I can think of for now, more focused on the sleep in I am going to enjoy greatly tomorrow.
Hopefully wont hurt myself or others too bad on days off since I learned how to make capacitors with common household items from a semi-sane electrical friend last weekend, and from lessons this week know how to rectify AC supply into DC to charge them. Will see how we go. :)

Back in black.

Aaaand here we are again! Back to course today and like any other comeback I am under-slept and under-understanding of what's going on. Partially because of aforementioned lack of sleep (about 2-3 hours last night, epic wind noise), partially because of missing the last period on the subject we were doing, and key formulas and whatnot so I am hoping that in my free period tomorrow I can catch up like a good student... Will let you know how that goes. Apart from that it was ok, had a drawing test in the morning that I was not entirely prepared for but with a little revision I think (hope) I did ok. Time will tell. Was good to catch up with everyone there, a few were in the same zombie-state I was so we kept ourselves amused with throwing thousands of tiny lollies at various things/people which; in retrospect (and kind of at the time TBH but we were too into it to do anything about it) was kind of stupid and probably rather annoying for everyone else. I doubt it will be as exciting tomorrow but I have bought another few thousand just in case :) Will see how it goes, and if all else fails they taste good and addictive.

Well that pretty much sums it up for today I think, good to get back to it as painful as the 6am wake ups are. Hopefully get more than 2 hours sleep tonight :).

PS:  after tomorrow only 2 more weeks of course left! enjoy these posts while they last! 7 to go.

Frustration, Free time

Here we are, sorry forgot to post last night but here I am with free time as people are currently doing resits.

Yesterday started with a rather uncomfortable headwind on most of the ride in, so I was more sore and tired than normal upon arriving. Then thought I had lost my keys for most of the day. The whole day was tradefit "Consolidated Excersise" which is good practical experience... in theory anyway. It was good for a start, up to about lunchtime but after that I was a bit sick of it and behind and frustrated and it seemed like most people were too. By the end of the day it was worse and everyone just wanted to go home, some just did.
Then going home there was another nasty wind, not headwind most of the time but hugely strong and fast, caused my attempt at straight line ride ended up something like \. Overall pretty frustrating day but good to get a bit more experience i guess. Today was good so far, had the morning with a new Steven which was interesting, practical boards again but not as nasty as yesterday's as smaller and less cold and windy which was another fantastic point about yesterday I forgot to mention.

For this afternoon I am unsure of what we are doing, may have a class with Rob for the rest of the day or may go home and play Halo. Otherwise on holidays from tomorrow and all through next week so may be my last post for a while while I get some much needed rest.

tests results

Hello again, good times. No post again yesterday I am sorry, completely forgot, didn't even remember just when I was about to sleep but hey gives me more to talk about today. Both days not too bad, a test on tuesday, seemed to go ok but some bits annoying, also today we got 'unofficial' result sheet as some of our test marking was taking longer than it was supposed to. but I passed everything we have been assessed on so far. (yay) I was going to upload a picture of the sheet so you can see how well I am doing but it is in my bag which is at the other end of my bed for the moment. Otherwise wow just went blank, can't remember much but it musn't have been very important. Today we also prepared for next week where we will be wiring up a mock up wall thing on monday, assessed but not worth anything (gladly as we have done a tiny bit of practical really) so that should be fun. Glad to be on free days now though. I shall spend the later evening trying to stay awake and drinking some new cider I am trying, and training my drinking habits as I shall be parttaking in a social gathering tomorrow night at this point and I have not consumed more than 2-3 drinks in a night in a long while. so, hopefully that does not end too badly.

Cheers!

Wire loose.

Back again, Strikes over (hopefully), had a pretty good day, have easier transport now with arrangements with people in class, did a drawing assessment in the morning and spent the afternoon getting to do some practical on boards with lights and plugs and switches and things.Strange usually on interesting days I have lots to talk about but today that pretty much sums it up, last week's post was short too. I guess nothing much terribly detailed has happened lately, or I am getting forgetful. Either way I hope I have more stuff to write about tomorrow and Wednesday. Until then: I guess I will have to spend all my attention not spoiling the Doctor Who final for everyone.

Three strikes, someone's out.

Sorry no posts this week, not much to tell and I always forget about it.

Monday I arrived at CPIT to find out that there was another strike and we had the day off, so went home again. Thankfully my video card arrived so I had more to do than online poker.

Yesterday they were still on strike but we had a class anyway, Steven the head of electrical took us for EMF that we started briefly last Tuesday. Was rather unprepared however so we spent the day reading through the book and watching videos.

Today was a bit better, Spent the morning with Neil finishing up drawing unit and starting to talk about capacitors. Then we finished at 12 so hung out with a mate from class playing xbox for the afternoon.

That was the uneventful week, managed to sum it up in less than i normally spend on one day. The tutors are still on strike until Friday at least at this point, they have a meeting then so hopefully sort this stuff out.

Just have to wait and see at this point.

Forgot to post yesterday.

Here it is another late post. Now just trying to remember what happened yesterday. Nothing terribly exciting except for the 4th assessment of the week, a practical one no less. Went well except for the fact that the station I was working on continued to fail to work. So me and another unfortunate student who shall remain nameless had to stay later than the rest of the first group doing extra testing and so on eventually passing. (well I assume the other did as I got to leave before him.) Then was done by about 3pm. That is all I can remember at this point, I think we did a bit more drawing and silly things like that but nothing else important.

I think we get to wire up some houses next week, hopefully get some practice first. Reminds me of a cool trick someone showed me yesterday of how to strip TPS, Going to try that now I remember. (Keep wanting to call it TVP but that is dodgy vegetarian food)

Unrelated stuff lately: my computer decided to be annoying again today, bought a can of compressed air to clean it but its still being annoying, need to get around to installing 7 and now I need to find more stuff to spray as the air can is great for pointing around like a gun. Also bought some CRC for tools at same time. Cheaper than air...

Group Projects.

Not a lot terribly notable happened today, as usual but in saying that I will probably still end up putting a lot in here as things come to me. Today as most Tuesdays was Rob day, big class one room and all that. We had a test in the second half of the morning which meant an early long lunch, went to subway got a sub of the day and a free drink for ~$4. (yay student deals) Test was ok, calculating resistance/current/voltage/power, slow to calculate but easy except for my short confusion where I ended up with 200 = 300 with seemingly no errors.

The rest of the day not a lot of work got done either. We started group project things which are good in theory, I really like doing work in groups when you actually get stuff done but most of the time in practice this is not the case. Nuff said although we did get a lot of foos-ball done  (not in the dictionary here but apparantly "Foots-ball" is)
 So most of the afternoon was rather relaxing.

Also was shown the best T-shirt of all time of current time:
http://www.604republic.com/prod/intoxicate_t_shirt
I wants one. will probably buy if my bank account does not have a big enough hole in it after bills are paid.

tests, tests and... too late to come up with something clever

Again I have left it until right when I want to sleep to  post, especially bad tonight as last night I got a total of about 2-3 hours sleep so I'll make this brief, we had 2 tests this morning, Flexible cables theory and testing theory. Did rather well in both i expect but the problem is the flexi cables needed 100% essentially to pass, i think most of us failed to do that as we weren't taught it properly. I was lucky with my 50/50 guess of which way around the phase and neutral pins go and that covered about half the questions or so (Yes, most of them were the same thing) and then there was colour codes which nobody was sure on either and 3 phase plugs which we were even less sure on so we will see what happens, probably mass resit and them learning to actually teach us what we need to know. Other test was pretty good tho, in fact it was exactly the same questions as the practice one we did last week so pretty well prepared for that. Otherwise afternoon was mostly boring so I can't be bothered typing about it. Had a new teacher for the last break who sounded a bit like the old guy with all the guns in hot fuzz, hard to follow sometimes. Anyway I think ive kept that to a minimum while saying a bit so I am going to catch up on sleep. Hopefully more time for blogging tomorrow.

Missing: Wednesday's post. No reward.

Forgot to do a post on Wednesday, and by that I mean I chose to sleep first for once. Then forgot to do it all today. Luckily not a lot happened on Wednesday, so this will be short. We had the morning in the big room with everyone again but when we started there was only about 1 class worth of people from all 3, quite a few missing but then over the next half an hour or so more showed up so in the end we had about 2 classes worth (quite a few missing from ours) To be honest though the people that didn't show didn't really miss out on much. We had Starr for the first time who has been teaching at that place for 20 years. That is quite a long time to those of you who might have thought otherwise and he seems like a good teacher for the most part. Definitely knows his stuff but doesn't seem to know what we have already done. So I spent some time drawing, half listening to what he was saying but hard to stay interested. His voice was somewhat interesting, reminds me of a news reporter or weatherman with the way his voice seemed to drone up and down.

Then after lunch it was slightly more bearable as I had downloaded a new game on my phone that a friend in class had that looked interesting and is rather addictive. Again we had Starr but in our smaller group now but still doing stuff we had mostly seen before so I spent a lot of time on phone game and putting post-it notes and smiley face stamps everywhere. Then at the end of the day we got to go outside and test earth stake resistance which is amazingly less fun than it sounds, at this point it was after 4pm on a Wednesday which is Friday afternoon syndrome for us and to make it worse we went right until 5 which is what the timetable says but this is the first time it has actually happened...

That is about all I can remember at this point, don't think I have missed anything important out as I'm sure it would have been more memorable on a day like that. As I said before I'm sure Starr is a good teacher just needs some more interesting topics that we haven't done before and practical that involves a bit more than just sticking pegs in the ground.

Either that or become a Weatherman

That time again.

Again, I have left it until the last minute to post. Got to get better at that as I enjoy the little sleep I get and can always do with more but anyway. Today was much better than yesterday, not as sick hurrah and had maths test in afternoon which to my knowledge I did excellently in. Went to plumbing shop on way home and they were suprisingly unhelpful but I now have a couple more possible leads. Otherwise not much else happened, found we have 2 more tests next monday so that should be interesting, might actually have to do some proper study. and lunch was excellent got a chicken wrap thing from the cafeteria place (need to come up with a nick name for that) was really good and others got chicken burgers that looked even better, chicken, bacon, egg... nom.

I also got into a bit of an electric themed pun spree on facebook after I was home (Nigel should be proud) as follows (if i remember to upload it before falling asleep):

that's all I can remember for now so it means I am allowed to go and sleep and get up in 6.5 hours woo. Have fun yall.

Down with the sickness. (Trying something new)

Today was good, for the morning anyway. Wal was off sick so we had Neil all day which was fun. Looked again briefly at flexible cables and circuit diagrams. Then in the afternoon disaster struck! I had had a little bit of a sore throat/cough yesterday on and off, nothing major with a slightly more major runny nose, thought oh no im getting a cold but first time in 2-3 years so not too bad then it calmed down yesterday evening and didn't rear up again today so thought nothing of it. Then, the cough came back and got worse fast and in about 10 minutes it was throat almost blocked from all the phlegm bad :( so after leaving the classroom a couple times to cough ferociously and spit up phlegm in the bathroom so i didn't suddenly suffocate I thought I better go home as rhino viruses are not something happily shared (see what i did there? managed to relate this to last week's post in a terrible pun way!) As I was then wondering where the nearest place was to unclog my throat I gladly remembered the cafeteria place there had throaties so I quickly rushed down there, glad to find it open and bought a pack. Then proceeded to suck them one at a time, one after another as any time I didn't have one in my mouth I started hurting and choking more. I finished all but 3 (out of 10) by the time class finished, getting more and more time for each as I was slowly wearing down the flood. (even had a large gaseous burp after a few consisting of what I guess was evaporated phlegm, nice.) Then had the last 3, one on the way to morgan's to sort out my bike charger, then one on way home and one while I was at the supermarket getting more and something more potent (yay lemsip) so it all worked out rather well.
Wow never thought I could make being sick sound so exciting, maybe not for others on second thought.

Otherwise moreorless prepared for tomorrow's maths test now and I have lost my train of thought as was just afk for about half an hour so I'll leave it at that until tomorrow where I will be hopefully less sick, or doped up on lemsip/throaties all day and hopefully not distracting everyone in test with coughs etc too.

So for now hope to sleep well too as it was not the best sleep last night and hope I don't choke on my phlegm in sleep.

some good luck and a bit of fun

It is that time again, where I can't be bothered writing this but I know I should, kind of want to kind of don't.
 The title is a bit of how I remember today I can't really remember why but I will try. It was a good day, the morning ride was a bit colder than yesterday but with my full thermal set up it wasn't bad (loving the goggles now they don't fog as much, but at one point on monday they did blind me with sun glare and almost run me into a traffic island) morning was very interesting considering didn't do any practical stuff, Andrew like Rob but in his own way makes things interesting. I am sitting here thinking they are different forms of interesting/funny but can't explain it, both good interesting people. talked about testing, different meters and methods of testing and stuff like that. Also explained how a transformer works which was very cool but every time he said the word I imagined robots too I must admit. He also kept mentioning (mainly to do with the transformers) the best name of a substance that has now become a kind of sci-fi catchphrase if we can remember it (Just remembered another one our first aid tutor had about "Peas, Carrots and Corn" concerning vomit. Good times) I have it written down here otherwise I keep forgetting it.

"Cold-Rolled Grain-Oriented Silicon Steel."

Makes us sound smart, and somewhat like a Judoon as we determined ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJ_pj31YdrY if you don't know what they are, or just like hearing them :D )

"Col-Rol-Grol-Orl-Sol-Col...Stolo"... Now I need to have fun translating other things into it...

Anyway, The afternoon was spent with Neil doing maths which was a bit more fun than it was last week, in the time we weren't trying to absorb his Scottish accent there were a few funny moments and some actual learning at some points...

Otherwise managed to get a top for my still today hurrah and hopefully will get the rest of the pieces tomorrow so then will just need the putting together and something to distill ( have some things to try )

For now I will probably sleep, lots to do in next couple of days, including but not limited to sleeping in.

The Bittersweet Tuesday

Again I have left it till I am tired at the end of the evening as I planned specifically not to do earlier but with cooking and cleaning and talking and watching the night got away on me a little. Today we had another test; Conductors, insulators, resistors and semiconductors. I was a little worried in the break just before the test but then getting into the test I realized I had nothing to worry about as all of the questions were rather easy true/false, put in the missing word or match a number from each list. I (and many others it would seem) took a double take as one rather simple question was in it twice, makes you doubt your own sanity and then that of whoever writes these tests. Otherwise it was a normal Tuesday which as the title suggests has aspects on each side of the interest line. On the one hand we have the whole day with Rob teaching which as you know is the best thing in education since the 18th century. (i think it was then, recently re-watched the QI where they mentioned when the written exam was invented) Other PTD people will know what I mean. (other classes will as well but don't have the perspective our class has having other notable tutors...) Anyway I am rambling a bit here, yes Rob is the good. However we also spend the whole day in one lecture hall with 50 other people (less intelligent / pleasant to listen to chat behind your head than PTDs) and it is also usually too warm due to the fact that THE HEATING IS CONTROLLED FROM MADRAS STREET CAMPUS! and a dozen electrical staff can't do crap about it. so yes Tuesdays are good and bad days, still much better than Mondays though.

Wow this late and I managed to get a decent sized post. I am also just realising reading parts of it that it may be hard to understand for some as it is a kind of direct line from what I am thinking (I guess the original intent of blogs and things) and sometimes may not make sense to minds outside my own. If this is the case let me know I may be able to translate (or not possibly.) The formatting looks terrible, I refuse to paragraph most of the time as my brain does not stick to such evil limitations. Ok time to slow down.

This is plenty for tonight but I will also add that my jug element arrived today woo so I can start putting my still together I think but I will still need a few more parts, if anyone knows of anything I could use for the dome top bit or a condenser let me know :)

that's all for now I need to get to sleep otherwise I will end up sitting here all night and that isn't good for my health or anyone reading this possibly.

Until tomorrow...

New week, more tests.

Another week of course and blog posts and unfortunately yet again I have left it until the last minute when I want to sleep, nothing much exciting happened today as it was monday which we spend with Wal. The highlight was having a test which I think I did rather good in, did not seem difficult and I think we have another tomorrow which should be interesting but for now I need to sleep, perhaps more details about today will emerge tomorrow when I am less tired.

Another week done

The course week is now over, goes by fast, tomorrow i look forward to another sleep in, this morning was rather painful in terms of tiredness, but the rest of the day was mostly interesting. We had written soldering assessment in the morning and in the afternoon we found out that we all passed (mine 80% which was much higher than i expected to get) I also got to try my goggles on the way, disappointingly foggable but I also used them as safety goggles in soldering which was amusing. Otherwise had maths with new teachers (2 different ones; Neil who is awesomely Scottish and Andrew who takes us for soldering) I list what happens as I remember it so not in order today, we also had a barbecue for lunch which had a huuuge line by the time we got out, but good burgers. and at the end of the day I showed Andrew the tutor my bike because he sounded really interested in seeing it and possibly buying some for polytech. So Morgan might have a bit of extra business (all from me, have to start a commission scheme)
Also just remembered I almost got my soldering practical stud finder to work until it was sabotaged by an evil evil man, he knows who he is and so do some of the class. Anyway overall good week and good motivation to find out which other assessments Andrew will be taking us for as he likes rewards and the 3 people in class who got 100% in the test got chocolate fish!

Sorry thought I posted this last night, thank goodness it saved it as draft.

Slip of the tongue

Another day, another post. Today was somewhat eventful, we had an assessment in the afternoon on the employment rights thing as expected even when we haven't done any work on it, did a little bit of study on it during the day as it was mostly stuff we did yesterday. Volts and resistance stuff, well exactly the same, Rob even had a bit of a nasty slip up (something along the lines of: "You guys did this yesterday?".... "All of it?"...."Can't have been Wal teaching.") It would seem the uselessness of our teacher is widely known so that was amusing but also highly inappropriate.

So a few of us spent the day with a bit of messing around and a bit of skipping ahead in the books and then there was some more strike action or a meeting or something, apparantly more strike stuff on thursday/friday but we wont be around at that point. Sounds like the polytech are refusing to be reasonable as Rob briefly explained the tutors position and how it is fighting for our learning which is always good.

Otherwise hopefully get test results soon and pass, the marks are quite straight forward and PC: either C for "Competent" or N for "Not yet competent." I hope and expect I am "Competent". I believe we also have an assessment for soldering tomorrow so I will be hopefully spending the rest of the night studying for that.

That's all for now except to state that my goggles I bought on trademe arrived and I can't wait to try them out tomorrow, I will add photos when I can be bothered which at the rate it is currently going looks like never but may be sooner if we are all lucky.

Until next time, I hope my teachers aren't on strike tomorrow. :)

Clever title here

Another week, today we started some new stuff, some resistance calculations with weird boards working out resistances for various circuits (the ones with series and parallel aspects were kind of annoying.) Then some safety practices stuff which was kind of boring but we sped through it and spent the last quarter of the day watching videos, well.. I say watching videos, there were videos playing mostly boring (good old aussie educational videos teachers love) so we were mostly playing games on phones and talking.

That pretty much sums up the day as I want to sleep fairly shortly and my brain is turning into the programmable flesh slime i just watched in doctor who stuff so I thought I would get that down while it still exists in my head.

I think we are doing some assessments this week both tomorrow and Wednesday so should be more to tell then.

Apologies

Sorry, no new post yesterday or today, only just got home and wound down really, we had a good evening straight after course of drinking and gambling. Otherwise not much happening lately. Did soldering this morning, was a whole day session behind most of the class but managed to essentially get finished (one component left to solder on, the IC :D ) otherwise it was maths with Wal, rather unexciting except for when we were zapping each other with a hand powered generator.

Yesterday (Tuesday) was good, Rob day but the fact that it was a whole day mostly in the lecture theatre was more evident this week, while we were doing silly employment law stuff. Otherwise was good, did some revision from 2 weeks ago (no class due to snow last week) and more talking about conductors and insulators and started talking about resistors and fancy types like thermistors.

Anyway now to sleep, for about the next 4 days.

Cuts and bangs

Well, today was eventful, not in the best ways however. For a start I noticed my bike making funny noises through the park on my way to course, then i noticed it was a flat tire so i quickly made it to the nearest petrol station, long story short: with an attendant who did not seem to understand or speak any discernible english, my inner tube ended up exploded. At this point it was 7:30 am and not really anyone awake to help. Was told to try the local tyre shop which didnt open until 8am so was waiting around for a bit until it opened only to find the tyre shop didn't sell bike tyres... Did give me information regarding bike shops that there were none nearby.

I then managed to get a hold of one helpful family member, James (sometimes known as my dad) who gave me and my bike a lift to course, I was only an hour late and I had texted ahead (texted is not a word according to this spell check) also, in the evening Nigel helped me fix up the bike. Much appreciated.

Didn't seem to miss much, got the booklet for maths that I missed out on last wednesday and we did some more on flexi cables and things, I think it was an assessment but hard to tell with Wal's teaching, speaking of which we did a performance review thing for him today too. no news as to the result.

So a bit of bads today but was good to get to try out tools. (lots of borrowing of my new strippers and knives, although managed to cut myself straight away, 1-2mm gash in my thumb, still hurts a lot and bleeding occasionally) Tomorrow with Rob should be fun. looking forward to it then should be soldering on wednesday.

Hopefully no  more injuries or breakdowns in the near future (or ever ideally but that's unlikely).

PS: Another big thank you to James and Nigel for helping me out. :)

nothing going on

Sorry for no new posts, the truth is (as most of you should know) we have had a lot of snow these last couple of days so I have had time off my classes. Going in today was optional as it is no longer snowing but only go if it is 'safe' to travel there, I decided not to; partially because I don't want to crash my bike from black ice and partially because it was too cold/early and I didn't have much time to get ready, and TBH I think I can learn more without Wal. So for today I will study at home in the warmth and continue to watch Doctor Who (even just made myself a TARDIS ringtone :D, also tried to make a Dalek snowman yesterday.)

So a dull week for my part in the blogosphere, hopefully more back to course with my tools next week. (reminds me I will post pics of tools at some point, I have taken them)

Third, up and down

Not too much to say at this point, similar to monday with slightly less boringness as the first half of the day was spent soldering (well power cut and talking about soldering, but still more interesting than the later class) then during the boring afternoon we got our toolkits and boots :D I was going to take pictures of them and post but that will have to wait for the weekend as that's when I will have them all properly in my possession. so for now look forward to that post.

until then I'll just feel good that I've already got more value in free stuff than was paid in course fees, and still more free gadgets to take home later / at end of course.

PS: Also damn cold this morning, here's a picture of the 'snow' that grows on me when i ride on frosty days.(once i work out how to add pics)

Second day, improvement!

Well as you probably guessed from the title, today was a LOT better than yesterday, even though I spent all day apart from breaks in a lecture theater with over 50 other people (rather warm). The reason: Rob!
Tutor for the other main group, he managed to talk for over 6 hours about the basics including things we did in high school, along with some laws and safety things and managed to keep it very interesting and fun. Seriously this guy could make dirt interesting, crazily energetic.
Otherwise lots of learning, including seeing the Tesla coil (sadly forgot to take my phone camera).
Can't remember anything else for now, spent the whole evening getting distracted from this and now very tired, might have to be an earlier night to get a reasonable amount of sleep until the next 6am. More tomorrow, but until then, an important lesson in electrical safety and I guess life

There is always a safe way to do it, just needs some creative thinking sometimes.

ps: soldering tomorrow should be fun. \o/ Also just remembered, we also started a glossary of electric terms today, very good idea, I might drop some in these posts every now and then but too tired for it tonight.

First real day, hope later ones improve.

First day of real classes done, let's just say i really hope it gets better, or this tutor does anyway.

Firstly: the pace was way slow, started off with some basic stuff in the book, then after well long enough for any monkey to do the problems about 3 times he might start the next one, or continue talking to induvidual people while the rest of us have nothing to do..(Edit: also forgot, he is not actually an electrician.)

Except strip wire. While we understand (having been told this with emphasis 3 or 4 times) that electricians do a lot of wire stripping and need to be good at it, that does not mean that we will want to do all of that practice in the first few days of course.

All day just in the same room with the same tutor, otherwise just did some testing with multimeters and vibrating stick meters, someone blew a fuse and broke one of the meters which was kind of an amusing highlight.

Otherwise just a full day of a full class (all 3 streams) in the lecture theater tomorrow which should hopefully be more interesting, has 2 different topics on the timetable for it, i think maths and magnetism so should give more of a range and less time doing nothing hopefully. Then Wednesday is half a day of soldering and another half day of continuing what we did today (hopefully less sitting around)

For now I am going to relax and not think about stripping wires.

PS: I'll try to get more photos to put up here to make it more interesting in future.

Suddenly Blog!

Ok here we are. I was going to post updates about my course through Facebook (for those of you unaware, I am now doing an electrician course) but then realized that most of the family etc that will be wanting the updates on my course and so on are not on there and there are some on there that may not appreciate being bombarded with pointless information as I sometimes do.

So i thought I might do a blog about it instead, that way whoever wants to can follow it as they please and we can all see how i progress through the course afterwards. (Also it gives me a great source of procrastination hehe.)

So here it is I will be sending a link to this to all the family etc and posting it on facebook so those who want to can follow my progress but chances are if you are reading this you already know how to find it.

I will try to update it regularly which shouldn't be a problem as there should be a lot of interesting stuff to learn that I will want to share constantly.

This week nothing particularly interesting happened. First week so mainly admin stuff, tutors being on strike, finding out my hours and First Aid course.
My days for course are Monday-Wednesday 8:00am until about 5:00pm so if you want me for anything else try to make it outside of those times.
Otherwise I should have more interesting stuff to update you with on Monday.

Happy Reading.

Beren.