The Adventures of Joe Trap

Hey everyone...

Today was my last full day at the London School for Girls. Today, I went out to Lunch with Matt Chance at Marks & Spencer’s and then ate the sandwiches in the park. It was good to hear about how the Corporation of London (which basically keeps the inner city businesses happy and IN London) spends their money for a non-profitable charity causes (through communal investments, such as the London School for Boys, Girls, etc...). There is even a law stating this... After all of the money they have collected from hundreds of years, many foundations have been installed throughout London through their investments. Quite an interesting conversation I had with him...I never knew all of that stuff about who I was working for.

After Lunch, I made some progress on my project...and It is almost done...just a few touch-up's and It'll be complete!! I can't wait...I've been working quite hard on it. Hopefully, the CS Department will approve the credits and I will be on my way to graduating in a year from now. I've felt that I have learned a lot, so if that constitutes for anything, I'm sure it will show through.

Near the end of the day, Ian Phillips (The ICT. Director) invited me to the Fac/Staff Christmas Party on Thursday evening at 6:00 pm. He wanted to give me a small gift when everyone was present, so he felt he could sneak me into the £13 3 course meal :) -- Lucky me! Also, Russell Dovers, Matt Brumpton, Bhavia, and I went to a local pub about a block away after work to have a few rounds. I drank 2 Guinness and a Stella, which held me over pretty well. Some of them usually go out every Friday evening or so...too bad I never worked on Fridays ... oh well. It was nice to relax and talk about Christmas plans. Most of the British people have many Christmas parties to attend for a straight week up until Christmas eve, and most of them are always held at local pubs which are rented out. Presents are generally always exchanged on Christmas morning and even those who don't celebrate still get together to party and give gifts (such as the Indian population, according to Bravia).

Joe, Bravia, Matt Brumpton, Russell Dover

Bravia- She is in her third year at her university (which is basically in a work placement year...since she is practically finished). She has been working with PHP in the Web Tech dept. for 6 months each day of the week with Russell...she also has a small salary from what I'm aware of, one reason I'm glad I wasn't working more...because no matter how much I worked I wouldn't be receiving any money out of it.

Matt Brumpton- He graduated with a degree in music technology, with C++ programming to assist him in his projects. Since he couldn't find a job in that industry, he picked up a few books about a year ago and worked out Macromedia Flash and PHP to build up his resume. His musical tastes are Dn'B, Trance, and deep House which often sparks up conversation with me from his DJ'ing days. We often share samples of music to compare on. The friendliest co-worker in the department hands down, and he is very beneficial in showing off his home projects such as his fancy media server and Macromedia flash action-script programming.

Russell Dover- Originally from Australia, he has worked for a major corporation for about 7 years until deciding to move to London to find a better job, or one less stressful. He lost quite a bit on the exchange rates when coming over, but he says it's worth it, because London has much more to offer. He is the longest member of the ICT Department next to the Director (Ian Phillips)-which has been there for one year since January. He's a nice guy, I was a bit weary of him at first since he is a bit more reserved, but if you talk with him for awhile he can be quite talkative. A master of PHP & SQL programming, yet he still hasn't learned much CGI and .NET.

# posted by Joseph Trapani @ Tuesday, December 13, 2005