A Journal Melange....

[tcpip]

To finish off my year's work here I have decided to have a bit of holiday: Bali, Singapore and Kuala Lumpur. All booked and ready to fly...

High weirdness in the tech world: Ministry email clients can send mail, but they are not being recieved at the other end. There is no bounce messages. Ditto to anything sent to Ministry email addresses. And I don't have the foggiest why this is happening. I've given a general appeal for "help" to both the nameserver and to the UNDP. Any comments by cluey techs in the livejournal world is thoroughly appreciated.

There is good news with the departure of a particular international worker (not a volunteer) from this place. A former Ambassador who betrayed his own country, he was an extraordinary lazy individual (I am struggling to find evidence that he did any work whatsoever), an empire-builder and one who had a terrible propensity to tell falsehoods in meetings. He also didn't like being caught out either. No, not at all .

In thesis news I have finished another subsection of a subchapter (hey, these subchapters are about 10,000 words each, OK?) on Enablement: Physical Disability and Technical Limitations. I must admit I've learnt a lot on the conceptual and empirical level on this matter over the past several days. There are some particularly good resources out there, not the least being the proceedings of the California State University's Technology and Persons With Disabilities Annual Conference".

Comments

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Hmmm... That's a very good comment. With regards to the Ministry, the staff should be full-bottle when it comes to computer knowledge. My two co-workers are "ready and able" to take over and I've been slowly shifting responsibilities to them.

In my own life, to be honest I don't know. There will be probably a little bit of a PhD to edit and finish off, inevitably because I know what supervisors are like. I resigned from my job to come here and whilst I was given assurances that I could return, the management structure has changed a fair bit, so that's no longer a definite.

I am interested doing another AVI stint. Nepal, China, Mozambique, Cuba...

[caseopaya.livejournal.com]

You changed your mind about Mozambique again?? :)

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

I must confess I'm a little all over the place with regard to Mozambique. Part of my says that the entire place is up the creek and part of me says that it has great potential. I'm very confused :/

On other news the initial printed version of the manual has arrived. I stamped my foot and said that it has to be done in time for the training sessions. So the UNDP hurridly put out 100 copies, photocopied and spiral bound. But more is on its way...

[caseopaya.livejournal.com]

WOOHOOO!!!! At last, it's printed! It doesn't matter that it is spiral bound, its there and that is what counts!

Mozambique does sound like an interesting country...

I still haven't heard any more from AVI about my volunteering, but Crawfords has my CV in case they need staff when there are world catastrophes, it could mean being sent to the Carribean for a couple of months. Not that I'm hoping for a disaster though.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

The Carribean?!? Well, half your luck! That would certainly be interesting.. Any particular part? There's an interesting diverisity of colonial languages there (English, Spanish, French) and and a whole bunch of creoles... The Haitian French is quite unique, so much so it's actually considered as it's own language...

[caseopaya.livejournal.com]

Like I said, it's only if there is a disaster, so no particular part was specified. There is no guarantee that I would be choosen either :( Sort of like AVI really - will they even need someone with my skills??

You are lucky you know ;P