Learning curves

Today I watched an eighteen year old hack into someone's email account, change their password and adopt it as their own. Along the way he had a brief chat to someone called Rodreigo in Krakow, Poland and bought his friend an ipod using this poor person's amazon account. He managed to get into that through a password stored in one of their old emails.

This was all in the fifteen minutes we were waiting for the teacher to turn up to class. Scribing.. what a job. Afcab didn't turn up again, so i left shortly after the teacher arrived. He turned up for the next class, but then felt sick after about 45mins and i have another afternoon to myself.

Notes written today = 0
Total notes written to date = 1 x A4 side (two large diagrams of where to place the address on a formal letter)

My first day at school

You don't really want to forget your timetable and your phone so you can't find out your timetable. You don't really want to get lost a few times. You definately don't want to get a copy of the time table to find out that it was the wrong one and you're 45mins late for the most important class.

You especially wouldn't want all this to happen if you were actually there, not for yourself, but to assist Afcab a deaf student.

But actually all these things did happen. My first day working for Afcab, was totally one of those nightmare experiences that should only happen when you are asleep, so the blow is cushioned over all by your incedibly comfortable bed. It was when i got to somewhere in the building where every door seemed to say on it, "To enter here, you must wear protective clothing," that the panic pot started to boil over. I couldn't even find a pay phone to phone Lucia to find out the room number.

Gosh. But weirdly and incedibly, although it was quite awful, it wasn't terrible. Does that make sense?

Afcab didn't even turn up for his first class and i sat there with the sixteen to eighteen year olds and learned how to write a formal letter. I eventually did find him later on and it all worked out...kind of.

The college is a bit of a joke, it's mostly about going on MSN and playing those games where you run around and shoot people form the perspective of the guy holding the gun. Somehow it made me want to be a teacher.

Religious Tourism

I met a woman the other day who described herself as a religious tourist. She's the half Lebonese half Scottish daughter of a strick Muslim, who can't seem to get away from Born Again Christians. She says they turn up everywhere she goes. Some of them have become good friends of hers. She affectionately refers to them as HER Christians. It was with the glee of a seven year old boy who'd won a chocolate bar in drawing competition that i told her that I too was a Born Again Christian. She said I'd slipped under her radar. I took that, somehow, as a compliment.

It was Jesus who made up the phrase Born Again. It was us who took it and capitalised it. Now, in America especially, it has all these political connetations I'm pretty certain Jesus never intended. I think he meant: It's a big deal to follow me. You become my child and it's permanent.

Lucia and I have been engaging in religious tourism of our own. Church shopping. Swooping in collecting welcome packs and friendly strangers as we go. Singing the same songs with different people. Everyone loving Jesus in their own particualr way. It's kind of fascinating and a bit horrifying. Lucia said she felt like you shouldn't be allowed to choose your church. It's like trying to choose your family. Imagine you held some sort of Pop Idol auditions for your prospective family. They had to succeed in categories such as: Style of singing, age, sex, background and of course theological persuasion. It would be a farce.

Additional job

I got another job today! Now i have two.

I think I've got it. It depends whether Afcab liked me or not. I think he did. Afcab is the student i will be supporting in his computing classes. I'll be writing notes, clarifying things etc, because he is deaf. He is an amazing lipreader. It's like some strange power.

[Interlude: have you seen the kid in X-men whose special skill is changing the channel on TV by blinking. How much does that suck as an X-man skill. "Storm, she controls the weather, pretty awesome. Xavier, he reads minds. I pretty much change channels." That would not come off well at X-men speed dating.]

The most amazing thing is that Afcab he has a thick scottish accent. How does that work? I have so many questions like how far away can he read lips? Can he "hear" my accent?

I'll keep you posted.

The IKEA nesting instinct

This is a list of things I care about now, but in all honesty I really wish I didn't;

1. Ornamental fire surrounds.
2. Interest rates.
3. Whether that lampshade is cool, or just kind of odd.
4. Things in general, matching.

Seriously i walked into someone's house the other day and the first thing i said was: What a lovely fireplace. I shouldn't even be using the word 'lovely' for a start. I barely knew them.