teacher training in ireland

So now I need some teacher training, to become a teacher and all!

There are a few courses around Ireland that will train you to become a teacher. The main 4 are through the National University of Ireland. Cork (UCC), Galway (NUIG), Maynooth (NUIM) and Dublin (UCD). DCU and Trinity (TCD) also run courses and Limerick (UL) does a nice Business Teacher course too.

So to apply for one the NUI courses, you have to go through a similar process to that of the CAO, through PAC (Postgratuate Applications Centre). You apply for an application form pack and receive it in the post. No online applications here, these guys want to keep it old school!

Be warned, the closing date for entry into the 2009/10 course is December 1st 2008! A whole 9 months before hand.

Photo owned by germanium (cc)

I’m at this point now, just about to get everything together to send it into PAC. Lets just recap on what I’ve had to do... so far:

• Request a application pack from PAC.
  
• Paid a € 80 application fee through the bank (not online).
  
• Got an official copy of my results from CIT where I did my undergraduate degree (luckily I still have the originals I obtained from last year for my masters application. It cost me € 20 or something).
• Copied my degree results and masters parchment.
• Got those photocopies certified as true copies.
• Got a stamp for the confirmation post card.
• Now just go to the post office to get the evidence of postage page stamped.

This is only the tip of the iceberg with what I'm sure will be a bureaucrats dream. Next time I will tell you about the teaching council of Ireland!!

becoming a teacher

Since I don’t have much to blog about these days, I’m going to bring you on the journey of becoming a teacher in Ireland.

First of all, why do I want to become a teacher? Lets look at the pros and cons of going down the road of teaching.

The Cons

• Dealing with kids all day
• Some kids don’t like to learn
• The pay
• Bureaucracy
• The nicknames
• Dealing with parents
• Lack of respect among other educated professionals
• Car getting keyed
• Early mornings
• Uncertainty in the current economic climate

The Pros

• Teaching people
• June
• Influencing them to do my bidding once they have grown up (may involve subliminal messaging in my teaching methods.. haven’t quite figured this one out yet.. I’ll keep you posted)
• July
• Job satisfaction
• August
• Job security once you have one

Photo owned by sridgway (cc)

So I’ve now talked myself into taking the first steps and consciously making the decision to become a teacher. What is next?

I need to be trained. More next time..

bold blogger

So I'm back to give you an update since I've been practically gone for the last month and a bit. Besides that last post which lowered the tone of the blog completely.

Yes I sold out, but I do have a canned response to those emails that I get enquireing about advertising on here and what do you know someone took me up on the offer! Thanks to Mike for writing it, my first guest blogger (kinda)

Anyway, since I was on here last I finally got myself an iPhone and I'm loving it. Besides a slight problem at the start with the side of it and I promptly received a replacement from Apple so they are still my friends for the time being, and o2 haven't been as terrible as they make out (besides ripping me off with my contract.. but i'll live with it)

I've also had a bit of a Holiday when Lena came over to visit, which is a nice break to work work work during the week. We spent the weekend in Dublin, taking advantage of a Getaway Break! You know, so I could experience what I'm working on first hand!

I climbed Carrauntoohil with my Rover Scouts. I've climbed it before, but it was good to get out and up it again. We had an Investiture at the top and all, the First Rover Scouts to be Invested in Douglas and the County!

What else? Oh! Obama won! Thank you America! Mulley puts it brilliantly when he says:

The world watched tonight because this was a world election, with just Americans voting in it. All those people that were frustrated with their lives, their countries, the world around them just wanted a new regime and their American brothers and sisters voted for it tonight. Thank you.

Besides that, work, Scouts and Friends are keeping me too busy to update here as much as I'd want to. I'm a bad blogger. I do however keep a Tumblr going that gets updated every off day with stuff I find. darran.tumblr.com

open letter to o2

Dear O2 Ireland,

I'm a long time customer of Vodafone, for at least the last 9 years. I've also only had 1 brand of phone, Nokia. I have been a loyal customer to both companies.

Now since you got your monopoly on the iPhone here in Paddy taxed Ireland, and I really want one, the only option for me is to abandon the two companies that have served me well for the last decade.

For the last 2 out of the 11 weeks that the new iPhone has been on sale I have been checking your website for the opportunity to purchase one. Needless to say I haven't been able to as you know well, they are all sold out.

I don't want to hear your beef with Apple and their supply, I do know they are mighty pissed with your rediclous tariffs too and there is no one to blame for that. And I am aware that you will be changing them after Christmas, after all how can Apple target business accounts when faced with the options, a Blackberry easily out matches an iPhone on value!

You have me, a customer who is willing to abandon ship and move networks for something you fought hard to gain exclusive rights to (did ye really have to work so hard on this considering the deal was in the bag once O2 UK got it). Yet, after 11 weeks with the phone on the market, I'm here writing this letter explaining my frustration.

From Wednesday, if there is not any news on your website (last updated nearly 2 weeks ago) I will have no choice but to try and buy an iPhone online, get it unlocked and stay with Vodafone for several more years.

If you loose potential customers like me one at a time and don't care if you do. I guess I'll be glad I join your Company. Hopefully that's not the case..

Kind Regards,

Darran :-)

P.S. I know I won't hear anything from you on this.. but wouldn't it be nice if someone dropped me an email..

cork lan sponsorship

Any Cork or National based companies out there interested in sponsoring Cork LAN?

Sponsorship can range from:

• Name of the event - include your company name in the event name.
  
• Competition sponsorship - "The your company challenge!"
• Food Sponsorship - "Today’s meal is brought to you by your company!"
  
• Area for your company at your event - show demo's, answer questions, get your product out there.
  
• T-Shirt sponsorship - Logo of your company on the event’s T-Shirt. We are still looking for Staff T-Shirts, or we can sell CorkLAN ones with your logo on it.
• Banners Placement - Put up banners of your company around the room during the event.
  
• WebSite Placement - Your company logo/banner on the Cork LAN website.
  

Sponsorship can range from one or many of these! We are very interest in competition sponsorship as it is easy to donate prizes, and everyone loves winning stuff!

So if you are interested in even donating a spot prize anything in value from €10 up, please contact us on events@corklan.com and we can organise something!

Thanks and please pass this onto anyone you might know who is willing to help out a new type of event in Cork!

us presidential election post

This will probably be the only post I do about the US Presidential Election 2008.

First of all, has anyone noticed the connections between the West Wing TV Show and this election?
There is definitely a Santos/Obama and Vinick/McCain link. Considering Santos was based on Obama!
The candidates were also brought to the White House for a chat with the current president before he lands the winner in it for the next 4 year? What about the Republican just about to cancel the debate at the last minute?! Only time will tell, but hopefully Obama's running mate won't die on election night!
The BBC also have a nice article on this here.



On another note, as for Vice-Presential pick. McCain's choice was brilliant! A life safer for his campaign which would have been a walk over for Obama if another white male, stereotypical ticket was on offer from the Republicans! For those guts they deserve a it, if only to show the Democrats you messed up not picking Hillary (Altho if the West Wing parallel continues, Obama might have a chance to still pick her!)

I think this comic sums up a lot too:

So anyway, since I don't have a vote, I'm just going to sit back and watch the American People possibly screw the world over for another 4 years!

cork lan

With just about two weeks to go, I suppose it is time I mentioned Cork LAN.

Another boring Saturday?

So what is there to do on your average Saturday Night? Go to the Pub, go to the cinema, go to a club or go drinking in a field. That pretty much sums up for your average Cork person. Now here is an option to do something else, something different, and the only reason it is going to fail is because people in Cork don’t like the idea of not going out and including one of more of the above mentioned activities.

Cork LAN is a Local Area Network Party, held for the first time in Cork. We are unaware of any big publicly available LAN parties available in Cork before, so we are gonna claim that this is the first! (Feel free to let us know, and then explain why we weren’t told about it!)

What is it?
A Local Area Network party or LAN party is where a group of people come to one place and hook up their all their computers together and play games and the like. This has also spread over to the gaming consoles with the new network ready machines and online play. A LAN party is a chance for all these people to get together and play games, hang out and have fun.

When?
In two weeks, on Saturday the 11th of October there will be such a party happening in the Cork International Airport Hotel. Doors open early at 10am, but show up whenever you want on the Saturday. We will be kicked out of the room the following morning at 10 making it a 24 hour event!

Open to all!
This is not just for die hard gamers either. We will have Wii’s and Rockband and Guitar Hero too for the casual gamer!

Why not give it a try?
So the main things to take from this post are if you’re into hanging out, playing games, have a free evening and want something different to do, come along and bring a telly, Xbox and a few games! It doesn’t take that much to pack them into the car, we have do it many many times! Bring a group, it's always more fun with friends!

Check out the website for more information and register your interest to get €5 off!
http://www.CorkLAN.com/

our next chief

I've decided to run my own poll to see what the feeling out there is for the Next Chief Scout of Scouting Ireland.

Who do you think will get it or should get it?


Note: Options in alphabetical order, this has nothing to do with Scouting Ireland and the results of the poll do not reflect the views of it's members and so on, blah blah blah......

my cv

I'm in the job hunting game these days and no better way to get my CV out there than to put it on my blog! After all, whoever is about to hire me will probably just Google my name and find it anyway!

So if you or someone you know has a job opening and looking to fill it, please take a look at or forward on my CV! I'm interested in anything in the Cork area or beyond and involving IT and/or Business.

My Curriculum Vitae in different formats:

• Word Document - DOC
  
• Portable Document Format - PDF
  
• Google Document - HTML

free priority boarding

****WARNING****

This post is only for fun and meant to point out how poor security is and how easy it is to change your boarding card. Changing your boarding card may result in you not being able to board and prosecuted.
****END****

I fly a fair bit with Ryanair. I was reading their in-flight Mag on my recent flight with them to see that there is a glaring mistake in their "aren't we a great airline company" page:

That bit in the middle:

Passengers who avail of our FREE online check-in service enjoy the double benefit of skipping queues at both check-in and boarding, as Check'N'Go passengers automatically receive priority boarding onto their flight.

Besides that mistake and Ryanair stealing €5 from you each way if you want Priority Boarding, I thought what is stopping you editing your own printed off boarding card to give yourself Free Priority Boarding?

It turns out nothing! And I sucessfully managed to skip the queue on my recent trip with a modified Boarding Card. I present to you my:

Guide to Free Priority Boarding in 10 Easy Steps!

1. Book a flight with Ryanair

2. Choose: 0 Bags & Online Check-in And No to being one of the first to board the aircraft:

3. Have a PDF Printer installed on your PC. I use PDF 995, It's Free!

4. Check-in online up to 5 days before your flight and print your boarding card to PDF.

5. Open the PDF in Photoshop (YES! You can do that!)

6. Move the page down a bit to make room for the two new lines:

7. Add the text: PRIORITY BOARDING PASS in Arial, 14pt, Bold Italic.

8. Print the Image to PDF, scale it to A4 size.

9. Open the PDF and then print it to your physical printer.

10. Enjoy FREE Priority Boarding :-)

subcard

Yesterday I picked up a SubCard from a Subway. Hurray I thought! They are bringing back a loyalty scheme since they discontinued their Subway Stamps!

Lets look at this new "Collect points. Get FREE Subs" deal:

For every 10p [UK] or 15c [ROI] you spend you will receive 1 point.
500 points gets you a regular 6” Sub, wrap or salad
1000 points gets you a 12” Footlong

That means to get a FREE  6” Sub, you must spend at least €75 or £50, and double that for a footlong!

Now lets compare this to their old Sub Club - Customer Appreciation Card:

From what I remember, you got a stamp for every 6” Sub you bought, and 2 for a footlong. Stick them onto the card and when you have all 8, claim for your FREE  6” Sub.

An average price for a  6” varies from about €2.99 to over €4.50.
So lets say you spend on average €3.50 for a 6”.
Then multiply that by 8 to fill the card.
You end up spending €28 to get your FREE 6” Sub, or the equivalent now of 500 points.

So you now have to spend over 2½ time more to get your free Sub. On top of that, this time they have complete and accurate information on where and what you buy in the store from ordering extra cheese to making it a meal!

For me, I don't want to give them all my eating habits, but when I end up spending €150 a little reward would be nice. Do I even want to know when I reach that amount!! Surely for handing them all that delicious customer data their reward wouldn't be as stingy.

jamboree 2008

The First Irish Scout Jamboree was held in Punchestown this Summer from the 2nd to the 10th 9th of August. It was an experience.

This will be a post in pictures because Bloggers auto-save didn't work last night! So I only took my new camera out twice over the Jamboree, at the Opening Cermony, and on the last day. This is due to the fact it was really wet and I was working my ass off for most of it.

The opening ceremony.
So much promise and excitement. It was going to be great.

The box that arrived via coast guard helicopter!

It was Christy inside, our Camp Chief!!

Then lots of stuff happened... and fast forward to the end:


At the end of the couple of days, here is a view of our campsite, after the water receded.

It was way worse this this two days before.

Driving across the campsite.
Impossible to avoid the puddles!

An Taoiseach, at the opening ceremony. Someone took the original video message on their camera phone after catching him after he received communion. He was clearly reading off a sheet of paper. But it was more than we got off our Patron!
So that was the best of my pictures, more on my flickr photostream. I'm not going to get into all the problems there was and mistakes made. There is plenty of discussion on the chat forum.

Overall, It wasn't Great and I think it is silly to even suggest it. I wouldn't even say it was satisfactory. Infact thinking back I don't even want to talk about it much. I'm just posting here incase anyone wanted to know my reaction to it, and in that case.... It was a Shamboree!

title

Holy Snapping Duck Do! I just checked and I have not updated this since people stopped clapping and Tinkerbell died... You would not believe the fairy dust I have to clean up. I'm a blogger so I will though!.

I am not going to post now with setting fire to people wearing Crocs, watching the grass grow, just generally being asleep, dreaming and chancing to society in general, my day is passing in a blur from mid-morning to sun down and beyond. I am looking at rectifying this. I need some perspective.

I won't promise anything to you but I will make more of an effort to blog more often until the nice men in the white coats come back. Until I need your shoulder to cry on. Don't hold your breath though, you're likely to turn blue..

(via The Lazy Bloggers Post Generator)

a quick summary

This is just a quick summay of what is going on with me:

This week I bought a new camera. Its a Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ4. Haven't had a chance to fully test it out. Keep an eye out for any chances to my Flickr Photostream.
I saw The Dark Knight. and even tho it wasn't in focus (those lazy lazy bastards in Mahon Point Omniplex) I really enjoyed the film. It's amazing!!
I'm off to Jamboree 2008 tomorrow. An Irish International Jamboree celebrating 100 years of Scouting in Ireland.*

So I'll be back in about 2 weeks, until then, check out my twitter feed for any on-site updates!

Byee!

EDIT: * It's going to be great!

eircom ups my broadband

Eircom finally upgraded my broadband speed!

According to my Router it should be: 3072/384 (kbps)
What I'm getting from SpeedTest.net is only 2633/314 (kbps)
I'll test it again in the dead of night.

That took long enough to get upgraded!

twitter counter

I had a look at Twitter Counter to see how many people follow me. It gives you stats over time but what is better is that it gives your a FeedBurner style button you can put on your website showing the amount of people subscribing!

My FeedBurner:
My Twitter:


And here is the leaderboard for some of the RTÉ Twitter bots:

RTÉ News

RTÉ Business

RTÉ Sport

RTÉ Soccer

RTÉ GAA

RTÉ Rudgy

I also made a bot/account a while ago to put Twitter Feed through it's paces. Bosca (Irish for Box) just pulls any Irish Blog or News and every 30 minutes publishes 5 new stories. In the last 5 months it had updated itself over 24,000 times!

Bosca

And any Brian Cowen news follow Biffo :-)

iphone prices worldwide

With the release of the new iPhone world wide on Friday, I have been contemplating should I get one. Afterall my old phone is getting a bit dated!

The offers here in Ireland from o2 are pretty shite to be honest. A €45, 18 month contract and pay €169 for the 8GB model up front! So I started to look online at the other countries offers to see was everyone else getting screwed, and the answer is yes.

I've gotten prices from USA, UK, Canada, New Zealand, Sweden, Mexico, Denmark, Norway, Finland, The Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland and Belgium. This is the 8GB model of an iPhone on the smallest and cheapest contract. You can see a summary below and a break down of each country on my Flickr Photostream.

Some things I've noticed:

• Switzerland is the cheapest place to buy a contract-less iPhone
• Belgium is selling unlocked iPhones with no contract
• Canada has the worst deal, with a 3 year contract
• After Belgium there is Denmark with a 6 month and Norway for 12 month contact

Data-wise:

• The Netherlands, UK and USA offer unlimited data
• Sweden, Norway, Mexico and Finland only have 100MB per month
• Ireland and Switzerland isn't doing too bad with 1GB per month

Price-wise:

• Per month: Mexico, Germany and The Netherlands are all under €30
• Ireland is up there with The USA, Norway and Denmark with most expensive monthly contact
• At the end of the contact, Canada, USA, New Zealand and Ireland are most expensive

You have to take what you get from the contract (datawise, free minutes, sms) with what your going to be paying. Obviously when you live in one country it would not make sense to buy a contact for another country.

All currency conversions done via xe.com. I couldnt translate/understand Italy, Hong Kong or Japan. There is no word from Australia, Spain, Portugal or Austria.

One last bit of information. The i in the iPhone means Internet, as it does it iMac. That holds true in the USA & UK as you can use it as an Internet Phone. It is a pitty that other countries put a cap on how much you can use the Internet on it. o2 here in Ireland gives you no indication of your monthly download and if you reached or exceeded your limit of 1GB.

I found it intresting to see the wide differences around the world. I am considering getting the unlocked Beligan iPhone or waiting to see what the prices for unlocked one sell on eBay for. I'm not sure what i'm going to do yet. Lets see how the launch goes 1st!

am * dam

Just back from Amsterdam and I had a good time!

You can fly into Amsterdam with AerLingus from Dublin or Cork, but it was cheaper for me to get a Ryanair flight to and from Dublin than pay the huge price for the Cork flight. I've also restored my loyalty and faith in Ryanair. AerLingus are a bunch of hippies. They can't have it both ways, low fairs and high quality reputation. Has anyone been on an AerLingus flight that was on time?

So anyway we stayed in two different Hostels for the week.
De Lantaerne
This was right in the heart of the popular Leidseplein location, great for partying and bars. Be warned tho, to get to our room (which was a box, but did it's job) on the 4th floor, we had to walk up and down 88 steps!
Y Boulevard Hotel
Once we got tired of walking up and down those steps we moved to this Hotel, which was closer to central station and a nicer friendlier hotel, not to mention a way nicer breakfast! Nice and quite compared to the last one.

There is loads of Museums to keep ya occupied, but be warned about the Van Gogh Museum, he decided to become a painter at the age of 27 and then only did 10 years work before killing himself. Didn't think he deserved a whole Museum dedicated to himself! Also the Museum of Bags and Purses completely fail to mention Scottish sporrans at all!

My final gripe with the city is a meal we went out for, seeing this sign:

Yet after ordering my meal (of spare ribs with fries and salad) I got charged €17 for the ribs! I questioned it and was told basically since I didn't order it off the special menu, I had to pay the full amount! JERKS! So be warned, avoid Argentinos Restaurant just off Dam Square!

So I should put putting up more photos on Flickr, but I have stuff to do now. Off to National Council this weekend I think to decide what kind of Programme we will be offering to our youth members!

irish scout decision time

In just under 2 weeks time it will be decision time for the members of Scouting Ireland. Just 5 years after the vote on the merging of the two associations, we now have to decide on the creation of a new programme for our youth members.

This is a very topical subject because with this new programme come lots of other changes like section ages and names. I will point out some of the main issues people seem to have with the new programme. And when I say new programme, it really is the 1st programme ever offered by the new association since its formation.

Me on the Cover of the Tracker Scouts Book!

Programme
The development of the proposed programme uses the tools and techniques that come straight from the World Organisation of the Scout Movement:

The Renewed Approach to Programme (RAP) is a new approach in developing youth programmes, which has been launched in the Interamerican Region some years ago under the name of MacPro and then adopted at world level. It is the approach that National Scout Organisations are advised to use in order to update or improve their youth programme.

The development team, along with the handful of brave groups who volunteered to pilot the new programme have spent the last 2 years running, refining and improving all aspects of this new approach to programme.

From what I've seen, groups who fully embraced the pilot have flourished and found it beneficial, while some other groups who were more skeptical and didn't implement it correctly seem to have a less positive view of the whole pilot.

The bottom line here is that groups have tried this first hand, and the vast majority of them gave it the thumbs up. That is hard fact that is difficult to argue with. Yet people choose to ignore it.

Age
By far the biggest issue people have with the new ages for the sections is that they lose 6 year olds. The main reason is that most groups see them as the money making section in the group. So if we were going for money making, why not bring children on board at the young age of 5 like in some countries or even the age of 3 like in India? Think of the money rolling in then!

I believe that the programme for Beavers (6 to their 8th birthday) doesn't give the kids a good grounding in the basic scouting experience that they learn as the progress through their scouting lives. It is a baby sitting service, and yes the kids enjoy it and have fun, but from what I've seen, the 7 year olds in the pilot are getting way more out of the section than I've ever seen compared to a Beaver at the same age.

Section Names
Everyone is now a Scout. For the new programme to work I think that there needs to be a new identity, we don't want people falling back into their old way of thinking. These sections are new and nothing like the sections that already exist, and the new names help give a fresh perspective on the sections and a fresh start.

Around the world there are many different names for different sections. Even in the UK there are two different scout sections, Scouts and Explorer Scouts. I believe calling all sections Scouts the a great first step, and this is always an evolving process and will be refined as the years go on.

My Views
As you can probably tell from reading most of that, I'm pretty much in favor on the new programme proposals. I am a Discovery Scout Leader so I have experienced it first hand. It is no way perfect, nor should it be followed blindly. There are parts we didn't fully implement and parts we changed to suit ourselves. What it has going for it is that it's a start, a step in the right direction and a bold way of thinking that will pay its dividends in years to come.

My only fear is that after National Council, and after nearly 4 years in our new association we won't have a proper programme in place for our youth members. Groups will still be stuck in their old way of thinking and Scouting in Ireland won't be able to cater for the changing demands of the young people in society.

That's me again, investing a Scout :-)

For Your Information
Current system:
Beavers - 6-8 years
Cubs/Macaoimh - 8-11 years
Scouts - 11-15 years
Venturers - 15-21 years

Pilot scheme:
Tracker Scouts - 7-10 years
Explorer Scouts - 10-14 years
Discovery Scouts - 14-17 years
Rover Scouts - 17-21 years

Further Reading

• Scouting Ireland Programme Website
  
• WOSM on the renewed approach to programme
• Some Scout age ranges across the world

I do hope at least something gets voted in and that we can all look towards the future with Scouting in Ireland. Afterall, once upon a time we didn't even allow girls in!

the langer's ball

Got a nice email from Michael from The Langer's Ball (maybe a play on langball?). They are a 2-piece Irish Group that has been performing in and around the Twin Cities in the U.S.

I had a quick look at their website and they have The Langer's Blog! No RSS feed tho, so I wouldn't classify it as a real blog. In my eyes a blog has to have a RSS feed!

They do a nice trad version of Galway Girl, which you can listen to here:




So all this has brought doubt into my mind at the title of my own blog: A Langers Blog.

Should there be an apostrophe in my title?! I wondered about this before, but just decided to leave it out. So should I have one?

• A Langers Blog
• A Langer's Blog
• A Langers' Blog