Ok, as it has been over a two months since I have written a real post, I thought I’d try and get back into the swing of things. On the list of things I have done in the last couple of months is:

• Secured a third year placement (A Job)
• Secured accomodation for the year (Moved house)
• Passed all but one of my exams (retake tomorrow!! :Z )
• Got paid… twice! Woo!
• Spent more money than I have
• Saved money for the first time in years
• Taken out an ISA
• Taken out a Credit Card
• Worked out my Student Loan Debt

And of course, various other happenings also.

So where do I begin?

By my post on June 13th, the second year of Uni and our exams had finished, and I was focusing on getting a thrid year work placement secured as soon as possible. After having two successful interviews and passing with “flying colours”, I secured a ~60 week (June 08- ~End Sep09) placement at appius (http://www.appius.com). I have been working there since mid-june and have been very successful and working on a number of projects, while adhering to excellent standards. So far I have worked on projects for DLR (Docklands Light Railway), Sunseeker Charters, CTC Wings, Greenwich WHS and Royal Wimbledon Golf Club, to name a few :] I enjoy working there, and I’m hoping that I’ll soon be able to help encourage the move over to the use of ASP.NET C# as opposed to Classic ASP (A case of code reuse there )

I moved to my new house in mid July and photos of the place are in the previous post. I have been living in the Winton area for about a month and a half, and am happy with the location. It’s close to Uni (although I won’t be visiting there as much this year) and very close to shops and every takeaway you can imagine. It’s a half hour walk from town, which I often take twice a day, to and from work. If I don’t fancy walking, I take the bus home which costs a modest 50p (student fair). I refuse to take the bus in the mornings as the price of a single is about £2.20 and the price of a return is £2.70. Considering it used to cost me £1.50, I wasn’t impressed. Student fairs saw me paying even less at 50p single, 80p return. I can’t get a student ticket before 9am, hence the price of the tickets is a lot more.

I am doing a good job of controlling my finances this year. I have taken out an ISA, as well as a credit card to aid my purchasing power and increase my savings. The credit card is mainly for online purchases where the protection may not be as high, or I am dealing with a site or company I have not dealt with before. The “CCA” (I think) agreement protects you against fraud, whereas a debit card does not. I am doing well with my ISA – saved over £150 and will be over £300 in a few days.

Ah yes, now. A couple of days ago, I was talking to a colleague and the subject of being a student, etc. came up. Student loans were a part of this conversation and this got me thinking. So later on I paid a visit to my SLC (student loans company) website, logged in and totted up. So far, I have accumulated over £17,300 in loans. Yup, over £17,300 in 3 years of education, with another £7000 or so for next year (~£3000 tuition, £4000 maintenance loan).

I am not going to be getting all worried about it, however. A) The money will be deducted from my wage packet in future, adhering to the minimum payments (whereby my wage is over the minimum threshold of £15000 (it most likely will be). B) The interest on the loan, increases by the rate of inflation each year. To counter-act this, I will be opening multiple ISAs and investing the maximum I can. The rate of an ISA is generally higher than the interest rate of my loan, so any money I would have used to pay off the loan would make me more interest, and in turn more money, by sitting in my bank. And finally C) The debt is written off after 25 years (as of 2006)

More Info: http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/loans/student-loans-repay

In other news, I have a new graphics card – The XFX GTX 280 1GB. More to come on that later (Including pictures).
I have also saved a bunch of money buying from GAME online – This I will follow up with a new post too.

Until then, have a good weekend!

Well it’s finally here. My special edition version arrived through the post this morning, and after I made breakfast I took it to my room to open it up.

Remind me never to open something while I am eating breakfast – Breakfast got soggy as I was so eager to play.

Already I am happy with my purchase – The bundled stuff in the special edition is awesome, and the game itself even more so. There is no main menu when you start the game, it runs the introduction cinematics.

At first I was a bit confused as to why they did that, but it makes sense. The game has detected I haven’t started a new game yet, so it starts one for me and puts me straight in the action. A few necessary controls are then displayed after the introductory cinematic.

Anyway, I am going to get back to playing. Here are a few unboxing shots:

If you haven’t bought this game already, you are missing out. Not only is this the most anticipated game of 08, it lives up to it’s expectations.