… more to come from this blog soon

The man at the counter examined the form and politely told the dog, “There are only nine words here. You could send another ‘Woof’ for the same price.”

The dog replied, “But that would make no sense at all!”

From this week until mid September, I will be working in the accommodation office at my university. I have to admit that there hasn’t been a lot of time between finishing writing my PhD thesis and starting this job. I had originally envisaged myself having a nice relaxing break between the two. In reality, it was just a day or so.

My main role with the job will be to deal with first year students applying for university accommodation. This includes dealing with telephone and e-mail queries, working out who is eligible to stay in accommodation and assigning rooms to students. So far it has all been good. Whilst quite quiet at the moment, the pace is sure to pick up in a month or so when exam results are released.

For me, the most challenging thing about the job is the 9am start. I know this is not considered early by ‘normal’ people, but remember, I have spent the last four years going to bed and getting up when I like. I am getting better at the whole sleeping at normal hours thing though, last night I even managed to be in bed by 1am. Tonight I’m aiming for 12.30am! Wish me good luck…

All was not lost however. Last Friday, the second round opened for the remaining tickets. People, like me, that had not got any tickets in the first round were given the first chance of getting these. The down side, of course, was that none of the tickets for popular events, like athletics, were left. Also, the second round ticket window opened at 6am!

So, at 5.30am on Friday I got up and logged onto my computer. Along with thousands of other people, I rushed through the application process, applying for tickets in table tennis, beach volleyball and hockey. I finished my application by 6.03am. By that time, the website had ground to a halt under the weight of all the traffic. Thinking that I had failed to apply, I spent a further two hours trying, with no luck, to refresh my application. I was worried that I would miss out again.

Yesterday, I finally received an e-mail saying I had been successful in applying for all three events! I am particularly looking forward to the beach volleyball which is to be held at Horse Guards Parade in the evening and the hockey which will allow access to the olympic park.

A woman gets on a bus with her baby. The bus driver says: “That’s the ugliest baby that I’ve ever seen. Ugh!” The woman goes to the rear of the bus and sits down, fuming. She says to a man next to her: “The driver just insulted me!”

The man says: “You go right up there and tell him off – go ahead, I’ll hold your monkey for you.”

should evolution be taught in schools?

* Interesting in the sense that it provides the platform for some controversial answers, although most of the contestants here do a good job of sitting on the fence.

Next week, I will be starting my new summer job, working in the accommodation office of my university. Whilst I will be working from 9 to 5, I still think I will have time to come and post here, as well as checking out other blogs.

Whilst quite lighthearted, I think it raises some interesting questions. What defines a masterpiece (like the Mona Lisa); simply the  end product, or the process of creating it? Does the advent of technology that makes the creation of artwork easier, also make creating masterpieces correspondly easier, or does it just move the goalposts in terms of what is defined as a master piece?

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