work in progress

So I am now established in my new venue at work; actually a great little building, with CEMENT walls, 6 flights of stairs and tiny halls…It’s kind of like a student residence townhouse; only has 8 rooms on each side of a communal washroom(so 16 kids per floor) There are three floors, the first two; boys and the top floor is girls.The colour scheme is really thoughtful,( as it is such a small building, it COULD be quite oppressive in the winter) they have a nice bright yellow in the bedroom halls with darker yellow on the doors.

VERY bright and cheery.

The kids are all very friendly and I have started to remember names; my main “office/closet” is at the front door so I feel like a “porter”.

Unfortunately , it’s not Balliol college at Oxford, but no matter..

Theres an underground maze of classrooms and such in which I am to descend once a week; to clean two classrooms and the hallways. It is SO easy, its laughable.

I always wanted to go to Oxford, and had my grads been excellent and HAD I the cash, I would have..
Balliol particularly appealed, as so many of my favorite authors had gone there( including that famous sleuth Lord Peter Wimsy(Dorothy Sayers creation)

Here’s a little bit about it…
“What is Balliol like?
With almost 400 undergraduate students and an equal number of graduates, Balliol is one of the largest colleges of the University of Oxford. It’s also one of the oldest, having been established in 1263.

As well as being big and old, Balliol is known for its relaxed atmosphere, for active participation, and for students who achieve outstanding academic results. There are lots of things going on and whatever your interest you will be able to get involved in some aspect of College life.

In addition to the students there are 65 Fellows and about 120 staff who help to make the college a beautiful, safe, and interesting place in which to live and work.

Some famous alumni
Balliol is renowned for producing Prime Ministers (Herbert Asquith, Harold Macmillan, and Edward Heath), as well as literary figures (Robert Southey, Matthew Arnold, Algernon Swinburne, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Hilaire Belloc, Aldous Huxley, Nevil Shute, Anthony Powell, Graham Greene, Robertson Davies, and Robert Browning). Four Nobel-prize winning scientists studied here: Oliver Smithies, C.N. Hinshelwood, Baruch Blumberg, and Anthony Leggett.

John Wycliffe, who inspired the first translations of the Latin Bible into English, was one of the College’s Masters in the fourteenth century. Adam Smith, of The Wealth of Nations fame, was here from 1740-1746. In the twentieth century Balliol man William Beveridge led the development of modern social welfare.

More recent well-known alumni have included Paul Almond, Richard Dawkins, Peter Snow, Bill Drayton, Christopher Hitchens, Cressida Dick, Nicola Horlick, Robert Peston, Boris Johnson, Yvette Cooper, Stephanie Flanders, Amit Chaudhuri, Rana Dasgupta, and Dan Snow.”

tiny residence

I went over to see the residence that I will be working in, come Monday.

LOL I found this photo and thought appropriate, as really the residence is JUST about that small.

It has three floors and there is room for  16 bedrooms on each floor(8 one side and 8 the other) so QUITE a bit smaller than the building in which I am in now. It has CEMENT walls, so not airy and light but at least no worries about graffiti…

Rather than individual bathrooms and showers, there is one large communal bathroom/shower room.  No doors to fight with and one can clean by simply hosing everything down(rather satisfying, I would think)

As this building IS so much smaller, I will also be cleaning a classroom that is in the basement…

Should be interesting!

(and an interesting non sequitur addition here…

I went to one of my favourite bakeries on the way home today to buy some of their AWESOME whole wheat bread. I said to the fellow, “I was trying to get here all last week!”

He replied, “well, you are here now, and that is what matters. Nothing exists but the present!”

Don’t you LOVE that!

the nerve of some people

So I went to work today and my boss( she who is  like a female Hitler, with just about the same social skills) called out to me, “how are you today?”

Aside; remember, when most people ask you this they do NOT want an answer, especially an honest answer; they want you to ask THEM how THEY are… it’s that old narcissism that prevails especially amongst bosses…

Perversely I honestly answered ,” not that great ; when I eat, I still feel blecchy”

“You should be over that by now”, she meanly snipped…

So I mildly answered that usually it takes about a week to feel back to normal after a gastric upset; and we left it at that.

But how dare she; what a hag… I would never PRESUME to tell somehow how they should be feeling

(cannot WAIT to get out of there…)

new building, new beginning…

At work, shifts  are being changed around; some are having their hours increased, while others are  having new job routines .

Interesting, as when I came to the university after being laid off from the hospital , I would have liked longer hours. I had been working full time and one really gets used to that nice full wallet. I adjusted though, as one does. I worked as a casual worker for two years then was fortunate enough to get a permanent position but it was (as all others in that department) only part time. My wallet was distinctly thinner and it was after a couple of years, thinner still as my husband had to retire.

But now, things change again.

Some jobs will be 6 1/2 hours and as some people didn’t want longer hours, they bumped into positions which had the regular 4 hours.

Here we work, not at desks but doing physically demanding labour; we vacuum halls and common areas, we scour and we swab washrooms and we pick up, pick up and throw away. Four hours of this is PLENTY; and believe me, it FEELS like eight hours, by the end of the shift.

So I was bumped and accordingly,  bumped into another position.  Hopefully it won’t be as hard as it is a smaller building and has (luckily) cement walls, so that is ONE thing less for the little darlings to decorate and for me to try to clean….

International students

Image via Wikipedia

The university where I work has international students stay in the summer time .

They are supposedly come here to learn English, and to learn about our culture but for many of them,  it is a welcome break from their arduous and career orientated lives.  They are suddenly catapulted into a thrilling new environment with many students from their own country or from a country which is vastly different, both in language and culture.

They have their lessons in the morning but in the afternoon, the time is largely spent on touring the city and getting acclimatised.  They are taken everywhere, from whale watching to shopping to simply hanging out at one of the local beaches. They all seem to have a good time but are so different from our own  wintertime students; they are quieter and politer and definitely more mature. They are aware of their privilege  as well.

After their month is finished, they are usually placed with, “home  stay families”.  Here they are placed with a family who usually have children or teenagers ; from this environment  they learn more about the culture and get a chance to practice their language skills (all the while, still taking classes at the university)

I was talking with  one such student today and she looked so SAD; “I don’t want to go”(from the university dorm to her new family); I asked if she was nervous and she sadly said,”yes”.

It’s a big step and SOMETIMES the new family is less than ideal, in spite of the intense screening processes that go on before. Last year one girl told me that her home stay, “Mom and Dad” were an older couple who went to bed at 7 pm!!! She was left to her own devises, and was so lonely and upset, as they lived quite far out and of course, she did not have a car or the wherewithal to take a bus or go out on her own. They also made no effort to get her food that she was used to and altogether it was a bad situation.  I know that such people were just using the situation to get an easy extra $700 a month; shame on them!!!

I tried to urge her to tell one of the coordinators but as she was raised to not make a fuss and to put up with what ever happened, I am afraid that she had a bad three months.

Ideally the home stay family treat the exchange student like one of their own kids, and take him or her out to experience life in western society. They SHOULD try to get food that the student likes and SHOULD make sure that  there are no problems.