Envelopes

I seem to have spent the majority of today staring at envelopes. At 9.30 this morning I was called by my agency and asked if I could work today. I was beginning to lose hope of ever speaking to the nice ladies at Bruce Murray again, but lo and behold they picked me up out of my daze this morning and offered me work. I jumped at it since I really need some support for my 'endeavours', and I was planning on today being another of my self-congratulatory days in the park, reading and sunning myself and then retiring later to a cool and relaxed evening alla Wooster. But no, I was whisked off in a frenzy since I said I would be at the office in an hour, and turned up at 10.25 looking rather more dapper than I had done 55 minutes ago. I was immediately introduced to the smiling and amicable staff, who made me feel at home before warning me that the job was a little monotonous. I've done some really dreadful jobs in the past, but despite this one being really rather dull, I wasn't in a dull mood and remained cheerful for the rest of the day. I forget how friendly people are if you smile at them regularly, and I duly accepted cups of tea and their suggestions to take breaks whenever I wanted. That said I finished the work before the day was up and they sent me home early to the tune of a few pounds better. It consisted mainly of stamping payslips with a big, red P60 and then putting them into envelopes to be whisked off to the person concerned. I find it amazing that these jobs are still done manually, given that every other stage of the task is done by computer, including franking the letter. Perhaps it's that letter stuffers are hard to design, or that people just haven't thought of buying one in an office. I suppose also that plenty of temps would be without jobs if people didn't still have to send out letters in the post, or keep written records. They've asked me back in again on Monday so I'll be back to do much of the same thing then.

Tomorrow it's off to teach for the last scheduled teaching week of term. I have a feeling that many will want to see me next week for last minute touch ups before hand in, especially on the analysis project side that I feel may have been a bit heavy in terms of requirements. However, this may be the last time I teach in the college unless I secure some teaching for next year so it'll be an interesting day. I feel they may need rewarding with some token gifts to get those last few words in, perhaps a bag of chocolate raisins, or coated ginger might be in order. Usually you can treat them to some fun stuff, and relax on the work side, but they have too much to do so there'll be no respite for the wicked.

Time to continue the dreaded Max patch that crashed on me yesterday, and caused me to lose 2 hours of work. Macs generally don't crash, but Max/MSP seems to invariably crash at the most inopportune moments, especially on stage. It's going well, so I'll keep you updated on its progress. It doesn't do nearly enough things at the moment, but we're getting to the stage where I think it could be useable. Let's just hope that I can get something musical out of it after all this.

I've just finished a cup of Shangri-La tea, purported to be some of the finest in the world. I'm not sure I rate it so highly as the finer green teas available at Tea Art Studio, or even indeed the humble Earl Grey (only in one of the better mixes). I must admit it has a delicate flavour, and rewards repeated drinking, but perhaps my tastes are just too exotic. I think I'll be visiting Tchai Ovna soon enough for a cup of Spicemaster to warm my bones. Tomorrow night is the inaugural concert of the Sonic Fusion Festival, a festival of contemporary electro-acoustic and new 'classical' music. I'm not sure how it'll compare to Plug, especially as the two are so at odds in terms of style and content you couldn't compare them. I'll let you know what it's like.