(no subject)
Jul. 23rd, 2007 03:11 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lenora_roseThis week to date:
The weather the last couple of days is beating even Winnipeggers down. 37(!!!??!!) degrees. Pre-humidex. I can be pretty reasonable about coping with even 30-32. This... Just that nudge off the edge.
We'll be leaving for Alberta in about 4 days.
Of my two part time temp jobs?
The Rehab Centre I seem to like more as time goes on; the shift to two days a week combined with the length I've been there have contributed to me feeling more like I do fit in, I like the work, the workplace, the attitude.
The other one has shifted from mostly filing to a great deal of data entry, and the data entry isn't stuff like entering in orders or numbers to assist the accountant, or name after name into a file... it's enter exactly the same information, the same 16 keystrokes and mouse-clicks each time, into a good hundred-some files in a row. It's the sort of thing the computer program ought to be able to automagically do with one or two extra commands; but apparently they were too cheap to buy one more module that would support it. We are talking beyond boring and into wrist-slitting. This makes entering name after name into a database look fun.
On the plus side, I determined that I have indeed memorized the words to every Flash Girls song but three, and I amended that vis-a-vis Personal Things by the Fringe. because I was singing them all over at my desk in song order in album order so that *some*thing would be happening. (ah yes. No music in any of the offices. Another strike against the company.)
Until they switched, the work itself wasn't much more tedious than the Rehab Centre, but now.
Combine that with the fact that the atmosphere isn't entirely as comfortable to me (more big business, more strict) and the product itself is... well, it's basically various plastic packaging for food products. Not only is it not enthusiasm-engendering (Bread and pastries are not-enthusiasm engendering but they're also inoffensive), this is down there with parking lots**, or even below parking lots - even seeing the company offering nice benefits to its employees, and listing off how it's trying to be as environmentally friendly as plastic manufacture ever can be, it's very much not a Lenora place.
Now I just need to talk to the temp agency about that when I get back. I've been having a hard time voicing it, because until the data entry, it was adequate as a thing to get me out of debt through the summer.
____________________________
I have to head back to the University tomorrow to sign on as a special student for a second year. Of course, with all official entry requirements out of the way, I can aim for things for my own interests. I'm starting to think something in music theory, plus another hope to get into the ceramics - though Butler did explicitly invite me to do 17th century Lit, I think the music would demonstrate better branching out, and the theory part would help with the ceramics being a different kind of learning than academic. It would be less than last year for a course load, so I could keep on temping, and be far less broke than last school year.
All of which of course requires one flat statement I haven't made: One thing I found out in the course of the Folk Festival is that I was refused from the Faculty of Education.
Strictly speaking I could appeal -- and if they looked at my transcript and didn't check the rest of my pending grades, then refused me on the basis of insufficient GPA, I have cause. HOwever, I also had barely-adequate letters of reference (Due to ahving to call on people last-minute instead of take some time) and a Biography I hate (Not that I'll hate it less next year). I'm feeling more like it makes more sense to just wait and make a better application next year, and be able to apply to both Universities.
____________________________
The Winnipeg Fringe Festival started Wednesday. I'm missing roughly half of it due to being out of city, and more due to actually, you know, working, and doing other things. Still, wheeee! Much fun has been had already. This year's show I want to recommend is Giant Invisible Robot because, really, how can you go wrong with a story about the friendship between a boy (And later man) and his giant invisible robot who periodically destroys cities? Well, it also has some emotional heart and a serious side which caused the audience to go from umpteen laughs to utter silence for a while. Saw it twice by accident (The first time I saw it, first night, I hadn't realised I would be getting it on an usher shift), but I'm not complaining.
Also really good:
Underneath the Lintel: John Huston & Co's current work. 90 minutes in a venue that starts air conditioned and ends sweltering. *Very* much worth it. A Dutch librarian receives a book returned 113 years overdue, and starts looking into what he starts to think might well be a myth made real.
The usual suspects: Chris Gibbs, T.J. Dawe, Rainer Hersch all have one man shows with material definitely recognizeable to longtime fans as their style. Only seen Chris myself so far, but most reviews are coming in warm. Erik De Waal is doing two shows again, one kid's one adult. The kid's show is partly repeat material, but for me, the viewing was made rather fresh since last year I was in an audience with few children, and this time with many, and of course they respond delightfully en masse (One was trying to heckle, but got drowned out more than not, in spite of having one of the loudest singular voices.)
One of my favourite shows from last year (Cabarlesque) is doing a repeat run, claiming some new songs and dances, but who knows, as with this little time, I probably won't make it again. However, i will say that I've liked everything I've seen the troupe do, adn I loved this last year, so it will be damn good.
And the performance poet doing "Genghis Khan's Guide to Etiquette" I actually liked very much in spite of wariness about performance poetry; I liked him a lot better than Jem Rolls, the usual sell-out* in that genre. Jem made me laugh a bit, but... he's hard to understand at times, more by style and speed than by accent, and his poems are themselves a bit more disjointed.
I disagree with mom on one: Bye Bye Bombay was okay but not great.
Grudge Match was a good step up for Josh Knazan as a writer, and decent but far from her best for Primrose Madayag-Knazan as same. That it's about WWF style wrestling didn't hurt its accessibility for my very non-wrestling-inclined self, so it probably won't for others.
___________________________________
*Sell-out as in "plays to sold out houses", and utterly, decidedly not as in "Shamelessly attempting to appeal to the masses" the only way he does that is by *still* putting out tons of flyers because, gasp, he once had five whole seats empty.
** Working for a company dealing with parking lots: Nobody EVER calls to tell you how much they like the lot. Or the machines. You only ever get calls when something breaks or someone is ticketed. At least with bread, people someitmes phone to say, "Yum" or equivalent.
The weather the last couple of days is beating even Winnipeggers down. 37(!!!??!!) degrees. Pre-humidex. I can be pretty reasonable about coping with even 30-32. This... Just that nudge off the edge.
We'll be leaving for Alberta in about 4 days.
Of my two part time temp jobs?
The Rehab Centre I seem to like more as time goes on; the shift to two days a week combined with the length I've been there have contributed to me feeling more like I do fit in, I like the work, the workplace, the attitude.
The other one has shifted from mostly filing to a great deal of data entry, and the data entry isn't stuff like entering in orders or numbers to assist the accountant, or name after name into a file... it's enter exactly the same information, the same 16 keystrokes and mouse-clicks each time, into a good hundred-some files in a row. It's the sort of thing the computer program ought to be able to automagically do with one or two extra commands; but apparently they were too cheap to buy one more module that would support it. We are talking beyond boring and into wrist-slitting. This makes entering name after name into a database look fun.
On the plus side, I determined that I have indeed memorized the words to every Flash Girls song but three, and I amended that vis-a-vis Personal Things by the Fringe. because I was singing them all over at my desk in song order in album order so that *some*thing would be happening. (ah yes. No music in any of the offices. Another strike against the company.)
Until they switched, the work itself wasn't much more tedious than the Rehab Centre, but now.
Combine that with the fact that the atmosphere isn't entirely as comfortable to me (more big business, more strict) and the product itself is... well, it's basically various plastic packaging for food products. Not only is it not enthusiasm-engendering (Bread and pastries are not-enthusiasm engendering but they're also inoffensive), this is down there with parking lots**, or even below parking lots - even seeing the company offering nice benefits to its employees, and listing off how it's trying to be as environmentally friendly as plastic manufacture ever can be, it's very much not a Lenora place.
Now I just need to talk to the temp agency about that when I get back. I've been having a hard time voicing it, because until the data entry, it was adequate as a thing to get me out of debt through the summer.
____________________________
I have to head back to the University tomorrow to sign on as a special student for a second year. Of course, with all official entry requirements out of the way, I can aim for things for my own interests. I'm starting to think something in music theory, plus another hope to get into the ceramics - though Butler did explicitly invite me to do 17th century Lit, I think the music would demonstrate better branching out, and the theory part would help with the ceramics being a different kind of learning than academic. It would be less than last year for a course load, so I could keep on temping, and be far less broke than last school year.
All of which of course requires one flat statement I haven't made: One thing I found out in the course of the Folk Festival is that I was refused from the Faculty of Education.
Strictly speaking I could appeal -- and if they looked at my transcript and didn't check the rest of my pending grades, then refused me on the basis of insufficient GPA, I have cause. HOwever, I also had barely-adequate letters of reference (Due to ahving to call on people last-minute instead of take some time) and a Biography I hate (Not that I'll hate it less next year). I'm feeling more like it makes more sense to just wait and make a better application next year, and be able to apply to both Universities.
____________________________
The Winnipeg Fringe Festival started Wednesday. I'm missing roughly half of it due to being out of city, and more due to actually, you know, working, and doing other things. Still, wheeee! Much fun has been had already. This year's show I want to recommend is Giant Invisible Robot because, really, how can you go wrong with a story about the friendship between a boy (And later man) and his giant invisible robot who periodically destroys cities? Well, it also has some emotional heart and a serious side which caused the audience to go from umpteen laughs to utter silence for a while. Saw it twice by accident (The first time I saw it, first night, I hadn't realised I would be getting it on an usher shift), but I'm not complaining.
Also really good:
Underneath the Lintel: John Huston & Co's current work. 90 minutes in a venue that starts air conditioned and ends sweltering. *Very* much worth it. A Dutch librarian receives a book returned 113 years overdue, and starts looking into what he starts to think might well be a myth made real.
The usual suspects: Chris Gibbs, T.J. Dawe, Rainer Hersch all have one man shows with material definitely recognizeable to longtime fans as their style. Only seen Chris myself so far, but most reviews are coming in warm. Erik De Waal is doing two shows again, one kid's one adult. The kid's show is partly repeat material, but for me, the viewing was made rather fresh since last year I was in an audience with few children, and this time with many, and of course they respond delightfully en masse (One was trying to heckle, but got drowned out more than not, in spite of having one of the loudest singular voices.)
One of my favourite shows from last year (Cabarlesque) is doing a repeat run, claiming some new songs and dances, but who knows, as with this little time, I probably won't make it again. However, i will say that I've liked everything I've seen the troupe do, adn I loved this last year, so it will be damn good.
And the performance poet doing "Genghis Khan's Guide to Etiquette" I actually liked very much in spite of wariness about performance poetry; I liked him a lot better than Jem Rolls, the usual sell-out* in that genre. Jem made me laugh a bit, but... he's hard to understand at times, more by style and speed than by accent, and his poems are themselves a bit more disjointed.
I disagree with mom on one: Bye Bye Bombay was okay but not great.
Grudge Match was a good step up for Josh Knazan as a writer, and decent but far from her best for Primrose Madayag-Knazan as same. That it's about WWF style wrestling didn't hurt its accessibility for my very non-wrestling-inclined self, so it probably won't for others.
___________________________________
*Sell-out as in "plays to sold out houses", and utterly, decidedly not as in "Shamelessly attempting to appeal to the masses" the only way he does that is by *still* putting out tons of flyers because, gasp, he once had five whole seats empty.
** Working for a company dealing with parking lots: Nobody EVER calls to tell you how much they like the lot. Or the machines. You only ever get calls when something breaks or someone is ticketed. At least with bread, people someitmes phone to say, "Yum" or equivalent.
