Work

For the ones that don´t know: Since februari I have been working as a Computer Lab Auxiliary at the Tecnical School Redentorista or Escola Técnica Redentorista (www.eter.org.br) here. Redentorista litteraly means something like Redeemer-er... It´s the name of a catholic group of monks from Italy that spread all over the planet to spread the word about the Eterno Redentor (Eternal Redeemer). Don´t ask me the details, after all I´m an atheist and couldn´t give a toss anyway. Here in Campina Grande, about 50 years ago, they started a school to train more monks, wich then was transformed in a philantropical tecnical school 30 years ago with the mission to improve the futures of poor teenagers. (Probably because being a monk was becoming less hip than it was 100 years ago... :P) Today it´s one of the most renowned tecnical schools in the area, and they give courses in electronics, telecomunications and informatica. So my job is to make sure all the PC´s in the Computer lab keep humming nicely and also to assist the teachers during the lessons. It doesn´t pay much, but I like the people and the ambient here, and the work is really relaxed. My hours are during the morning and evening, with free time during the afternoon. I really like it this way since you can get a lot more done during the afternoon than during the evening. Since this months I got myself a second, temporary, job to fill up the gap in the afternoon. It´s at the State University of Paraíba (Universidade Estadual de Paraíba - www.uepb.edu.br), also here in Campina. I´ll be working there for three months, and it´s my job to train the maintanence team to use and maintain Linux. I´ve been hanging around there for the past two days and I must say it´s a great team. It does mean that I won´t have my free afternoon anymore, and have to work 12 hours a day, but I can really use the money. Working only 4 hours a day I earn almost double the salary what I get at ETER. If after these three months they offer me a full-time job then I will really reconsider my job here at ETER. (Unless ETER gives me a raise of course... :P ) Anyway, the first actual lessons will start today. Though it will be the first time I´m actually teaching anything, I´m not really worried since I´ve gotten used to speaking to large groups at ETER. And I´ll only be giving lessons to about 6 people, not much to worry about. I´ll just start off having them install Ubuntu in text mode from the Alternate CD, and explaining all the details during every step of the installation. And tomorrow I´l l give some theorics about the Linux directory structure... Hmm, I think this is going to be fun. :)