On Thursday she had her first real awkwardness. A boy who was new to the school decided to get under the table and stay there. Apparently, he "has no friends" (in 5 days of actually attending the school). Short of starting some sort of under-table after-school club, difficult to know what to do.
The teaching thing does seem to be a lot of work, but in theory all this preparation can be re-used next year. Assuming that the gov doesn't fuck with the curriculum again.
Life at LCC has got more crap and more uncertain. They've moved us to the same floor as the rest of IT which means that we have very little space. They seem to be freeing our old floor up to rent out to another company. I am pushing the rumour that someone is opening a roller-disco there. This version of events is not taking off as I'd hoped.
On the crowded floor, we are subject to close scrutiny by very old-school management - e.g. drowning out the sound of your colleagues arguing/chewing/sniffing with an MP3 player smacks of fun and therefore is disallowed. Taking phonecalls (from job agencies) is also forbidden (note to job agents: when leaving a voicemail message, tak the extra half a second to recite your phone number clearly and at a speed where someone could hope to write it down).
The uncertainty comes from the management inspired rumour that we're dropping the "system for all the stuff" plan and going for "lots of small projects". Normally, I would agree that this is sensible, but we've spent the last 9 months designing for "everything" and implementing this huge class library to do it. Also, the main problem in the part we have rolled out is caused by having to swap data back and forth with the old system (because the new one was a "quick win"). It would've been easier to replace all of the functions in one go.
Job searching: well it's early days. Putting my CV out has had a tremendous response and I have told a few agents to go ahead and put me forward for a few positions. Waiting ... I did go and speak to one of the agencies on Wednesday (motty: you weren't at Farringdon station at about 18:50 were you?). Am allegedly working on yet another version of the CV - except that I'm typing this.
Best job title evar: Chief Techinical Architect. Yeah, put me forward for that one baby.
Other stuff:
Was reading Private Eye. Apparently, a few households have recently (simultaneously) been fingered as the residence of Maxine Carr. Naturally, one of the aggrieved people went to the local newspaper and asked them to do a story about the persecution they were getting and explain tha the vigilantes were mistaken. Not possible - apparently the same legal thing that stops newspapers from publishing where MC is also prohibits them from saying where she isn't (I suppose that a paper could get quite specific by ruling out regions, counties, towns etc.). Still seems a bit crap. The main thing though that bothers me is what a bloodthirsty mob the British people apparently are these days.
I am coming to really despise the public. As far as I know, not even uncivilized countries like the USA have the death penalty for "perverting the course of justice" no matter how stupid you are and what kind of scumbag you lie for.
Observation: Seeing as it's the Lib Dem conference, I was wondering how you pronounce the name of the newsagent "John Menzies".
Don't know whether to enjoy or just be totally bemused by the Pope thing. After all, haven't most of the major religions as one time or another gone on an armed rampage? (Maybe not buddism) Don't all of them regard the others as blasphemous and wrong? That said, upsetting "leading" Muslims does seem to be remarkably easy - though the Muslims I meet in everyday life seem not to give a fuck.
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