In that time I’ve built more websites that I can remember, given training courses, spoken at conferences and, possibly the biggest achievement to me, been able to do that most basic thing of buying food and paying the rent without having to borrow any money. (I honestly thought after a few months of freelancing I’d fail miserably and have to move back home with my tail between my legs.)

From July, I will no longer be freelancing because I’ve just formally accepted the role of front-end web developer at a web agency called Message. I’m also moving (again) into my own flat, still in Brighton.

It wasn’t an easy decision to make because I love being a freelancer. I love the flexibility of working wherever I choose, being my own boss and planning my week. I love the independence it gives me and the variety of working on the visual design of a party website one week, and the IA of a school website the next.

But in the past few months, it’s been too much. Work has been picking up a lot which is great, but as a result I have to spend an increasingly disproportionate amount of time outside of the code editor; writing contracts, sending emails, chasing up payments. There’s the pressure of getting cashflow right so I can pay the rent and have enough money (and time) to go out and enjoy myself. I wanted so much to stay living in Brighton where I feel I’ve finally settled and made lots of friends, but it was difficult to justify as I have to do so much commuting. I felt like I was in over my head. The stress was making me physically ill, and I never want to stop enjoying work, so it was time for a change.

I’m really looking forward to starting work at Message next month. They’re a short walk along the seafront from where I live, and after meeting all the people who work there, I know I’ll fit right in. I can’t wait to settle down and work in an office with other people, have more of a routine and be able to come home at the end of the day and actually be at home; not live and work in the same place. I feel like I’ve achieved everything I wanted to achieve as a freelancer, and now I need a new challenge.

There’s a lot I’ll miss about it and it was a very difficult decision to make, but I know I’ve made the right choice.

Most of the pictures annotate conversation threads, but on one page there is a collaborative abstract drawing. We use different coloured pens to show the branches the picture takes.

Here’s a picture someone drew when the supply teacher we were assigned that day entered the classroom and announced “Funtime is over.”

We refer to another supply teacher as “the woman who shouts”.

In this picture, I’m trying not to catch Lucy’s lurgee.

The themes vary wildly from dinosaurs, to reasons we hate a particular subject, to various ways the faulty science equipment will kill us. There’s even a bunny suicide themed section on what form of suicide would be better than reading poetry in a double English lesson. (All very light-humoured, we weren’t that emo!)

I went on to create my first website for my friends with a guestbook and visitor counter which was an extension of the sketchbooks, and as a result of the books getting confiscated a number of times. Unfortunately, the place I hosted my site (freewebs!) was eventually blocked by the Great Firewall of RM, which encouraged me to seek alternatives and build a real website using HTML with a forum and chatroom. Not long after, I began making sites for other people and by the start of A-Levels, I’d quit my weekend job and was building sites whenever I wasn’t at school.

And to think it all started with some doodles in a sketchbook.

The band may be glad that they wrote such a popular song that brought them to fame, but at the same time, it feels like a curse.

And we are grateful for our iron lung

I often regard my age and my gender as my iron lung. It has helped me stand out because teenage developers who are women are uncommon, and I doubt I’d be where I am today if were a man, or a little bit older, but I also regard these labels as a curse.

I’m worried that I will only get asked to speak at conferences so that people don’t complain there aren’t any women speakers. I’m concerned that the work that I do will be less important than my “female developer” label. No matter how good I am at what I do, there are some clients who don’t want to work with me because they think I’m too young, and then they go and pick someone else with ‘more experience’ to build their site in tables. There are events that I can’t go to until 2011 like SXSW, because I wouldn’t be allowed in any of the bars where social events are held. I find it hard to socialise when I am at events because everyone there is usually a lot older than me, and then when I am round friends my own age, I feel like we can’t relate to each other because we’re leading such different lives.

I hope this doesn’t sound emo, I guess I just wanted to get it off my chest, and because now I understand what Radiohead meant by their iron lung.

You can watch her speech here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7475470.stm

As a woman, I would not want to be given a job with the knowledge that the reason I got it had to do with my gender rather than my professional capabilities, and I would not want my colleagues to also be thinking that.  In fact, it would put me off working anywhere with a high ratio of men to women.  I want to work somewhere because my work is appreciated, not so they can tick a box or improve their statistics.

Things may not be perfect as they are, but the knowledge of the inequalities are, to me, an incentive to work harder which is why I find the bill demoralising.

I view any discrimination, including this so called ‘positive discrimination’ as wrong.  It’s still discrimination even if it is with the best intentions.  I believe this bill would do more harm than good, especially for small businesses, and I imagine a lot of people would use it to justify being rejected for a job.

Wouldn’t it be better to offer more flexible working hours and give people the option to work at home to attract more women into these ‘male-saturated’ jobs?  After all, many firms are put off by employing women if they have children (or potentional children) to look after.  This would also make it easier for people with disabilities to work with the organisation.

What do you think?  Can ‘positive discrimination’ really be justified?

So this is the second week of exams. Last week I did my Module 4 ICT exam, which was… well… the questions were quite reasonable, apart from the one asking me to describe the ‘behaviour’ of a computer system which threw me a bit. I was feeling great at the beginning of the exam and pacing myself well (even writing legibly!) Last year I rushed and finished in half the time and spent the remaining hour fretting because I thought I hadn’t been given all of the questions.

Half-way through the question paper, my hand felt as though it was going to drop off (the result of not having used a pen in weeks, and not having written more than a paragraph by hand since the AS exams last year). So my answers were not as well thought out, and I think I fell into my bad habit of making up words when I can’t find one that works well in the sentence.

I finished with just 5 minutes to spare and checked through the paper to see if I’d labeled all the question numbers correctly. I then realised I’d missed out a question and spent the remaining 30 seconds scribbling an answer between the lines. Oh dear.

Up next is my Media exam on Thursday which involves writing two essays in response to questions based on Audience, Representation or Genre. Then on Friday I have a 4 hour exam paper in the morning for Design & Technology. I don’t know what this will contain because it’s a completely new syllabus ..which is a bit daunting.. Then Friday afternoon I’ll be sitting my Module 5 ICT exam. Fun fun fun. So that’s 6 hours of exams in one day. The morning one will probably run over lunch too, so I’ll have no time to eat :(

But after Friday, it will be all over. Then I will have the rest of the Summer to worry about things like getting a job so I can buy shoes that don’t have holes in them

I’ve been finding it hard to stay focused and motivated on getting good grades when the course I’m doing after the Summer doesn’t require any qualifications at all. The only thought that is keeping me going is that I’ve worked so hard these past 7 years, and it would be a waste to throw it all away because I couldn’t be bothered.

Since they’re only a few weeks away, I thought I’d share a few ideas to help anyone else preparing for their exams.

Revision Tips

• Split your subjects into sections. For example, my IT course has 2 modules split into 10 sections each. Therefore I need 20 revision sessions (maybe an hour long each) before the exam, plus 2 hours at the end for each module as a ‘recap’
• Make a revision timetable on a calendar application such as Google Calendar or iCal. Add a block for each section on each day at a time you find revising easiest. I find between 4pm and 6pm is the best time because it’s straight after school and I have the rest of the day to waste after that.
• Add your exams to the calendar so you can see how many days you have to revise, and pace yourself accordingly.
• Set alarms 15 minutes before each session. This can be done on most calendar applications, either by email, or a little popup. This gives you time to get your stuff together.
• Revise in the way that you find most fun. Revision is deadly boring, so I try to incorporate the things I enjoy doing into it. This could be by making a web-page for each section with notes in bullet points, or drawing diagrams, pictures or brainstorms. If you do it on the computer, you can search, print and and share your notes with others which is useful!
• Keep breaking down all your notes so they fit on a couple of pages. Then use those pages for a cramming session the day before the exam.

I hope that helps. I’ve found it has certainly made it easier to get down to revision despite how I feel. Maybe you have some additional tips?

So the chin may be a bit humungus, and the hair a little crazy, but she put so much care into doing it that I was really flattered. (I was expecting her to draw me with 2 noses, or a monobrow or something!)

I didn’t immediately register the scenery around me because I was distracted by the pretty plants and trees, and was trying to take pictures of everything. Then I looked up, and what I saw was so strikingly beautiful that I was taken aback and just stood there gaping. How can I have lived here for 18 years and not found this place? Surely it should be more well-known. St Albans has many parks, but none of them compare to this.

The things that made it special was the eerie quiet, the fact that for most of our time there we were the only people around, the sound of the birds chirping and twittering, the gentle warm breeze… it was breathtaking. We sat on a bench in silence for a while, (apart from the noise of the shutter on my camera going clickety click click), and just soaked it all in.

I’d like to share this garden with everyone I know, but in doing so, would that make it less special? There’s a part of me that is scared that if everyone knew about this sacred place, wouldn’t they all want to see it, and leave litter, and make lots of noise? Or is it better that if you know about something so beautiful, you should share it with everyone?

My first impression when I unwrapped my shiny 15″ MacBook Pro out of its packaging was how light it felt. I occasionally use my dad’s laptop which is about 5 years old, and it’s very cumbersome. It’s also very noisy and slow! I took it with me on Drew and Rachel’s CSS course, and was very embarrassed by the massive whirring clicking slab I had to use whilst the others in the group all had sleek, elegant Macs which didn’t take half an hour to start-up. My Mac is so quiet that when I turned it off, I had to press my ear against the case to convince myself it wasn’t still on!

Everything about the Mac is designed around the user. Right down to the power cable which is not only magnetic, so pops out if an accident-prone like me trips over the lead, but the box thing that’s attached to the cable has two little legs that pop out to wrap the cord around. The keyboard illuminates and screen brightens when the lighting is poor (which I had fun testing by flicking the lightswitch on and off!) Setting up was a great experience. My wireless Internet was automatically detected, and at the end of the process, the inbuilt camera offers to take a photo for a ‘buddy icon’. I chose a default one instead. (I was having a very bad hair day!)

Despite my affection for my new best friend, there are a few things that I had difficulty with. For example, the keys are slightly different (the @ key is on the 2 key, and some of the buttons have funny shapes on them), but I think I’m already getting used to that. I did have a bit of a blonde moment trying to use iTunes, because I didn’t realise the menu bar across the top changes for each window. And only having one mouse button rather than a left and right one… that’s going to take me a while to get used to.

Most of the software on it seems to be a 30 day trial (including Office for Mac). Microsoft offer a 60 day trial for their Office suite which I am taking advantage of before my ICT coursework is due shortly after Easter. Then I will have no need to use it! But from looking at the Apple site, iWork is something around $45, whereas Microsoft Office is…. too much! So why not just have it pre-installed on the machine?

One of the things that drew me to get a Mac was the Time Machine. This saves frequent backups, and presents them as pages going back in time. Before using Time Machine, I had to delete everything off my drive which was a bit annoying because all my stuff from my PC is on there. I hope it doesn’t mean I can’t use both. I also managed to connect my PC and MacBook wirelessly, and share files… although I messed about with the settings a bit and can’t connect them again. But it was easy enough the first time!

So far, I think it is worth the hours I toiled working at the Juicebar last year and doing design projects to pay for it. I won’t have any money for a while, but I see it as an investment, and I hope it won’t be too long before it starts paying for itself.

Isn’t it obvious that I’m putting off doing something more important?

Number 5 – Custard Creams

These are plain biscuits with a layer of cream in the middle which isn’t too sickly sweet. I like the pretty pattern they have on the outside too. They are perfect when dunked in tea because they don’t immediately go soggy.

Number 4 – Bourbons

Similar construction to custard creams, but with chocolate biscuit and filling. These are also lovely dunked in tea. They do go a bit mank if left open though!

Number 3 – Oreos

I used to find it almost impossible to get these anywhere in the UK, now they seem to sell them all over the place. These are dark chocolate biscuits with a custard-cream-like filling. In the US, they make loads of different flavoured ones, and even ones with double the filling! They’re quite expensive though, so nice as a treat!

Number 2 – The Pink Wafer Biscuit

Incredibly addictive. The biscuit consists of layers of pink wafer, sandwiched between layers of vanilla. The problem is they are very very moreish and I often find myself feeling ill after demolishing an entire packet because they’re so sweet.. Dipping them in tea can result in a lot of soggy pink stuff at the bottom of the mug.

Number 1 – Chocolate Caramel Digestives

These are immense! They take the chocolate digestive template, but have an inner layer of caramel, which really complements the chocolate and the biscuit components.

…that was way too many big words!

Every friend I have introduced these to has become completely obsessed with them. Sometimes we’ll have conversations like this:

“do you want to come round for a cup of tea?”

“..mmm… naahh, I’ve got some really important..”

“I’ve got caramel digestives…”

“OOHH! OK!”

Because of the properties of the caramel, the biscuit does not tend to crumble as much as others, but the chocolate is very melty and sticky (especially when dunked). Mmmmmmmmm……

So, what are your favourite biscuits?