I've started a new blog in order to record the Polish adventure on which I am about to embark.

I am travelling to Krakow on Wednesday 25th July to spend a month doing a TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) course and, with any luck, to find a job there and stay until June 2009.

I decided to dedicate a new blog to this trip and my future teaching/travelling/TEFL-ing experiences for the interest of other people, and hopefully as a source of useful information for other people thinking about taking a similar career path.

The URL is www.beetroot-soup.blogspot.com . I hope you enjoy it.

Try my Desk Items Test.

I drew round several items that happened to be within easy reach, scanned the sheet and numbered the outlines.

Can you guess what the items are?
Some are easier than others.

Send me your answers and the person with the most correct answers receives Item 3 as a prize.

I have just started a new job in an office in my home town. It's just a temporary contract through an employment agency, that I'm essentially using to save up some money to go abroad do a TEFL course, but is nevertheless a step up from the temping jobs I've had in the past. These have included more filing and photocopying than anyone should ever have to put up with, winding balls of string in a factory from 6am until 3pm, and taking orders for a company that made toilet cubicles.

Despite my experience at Plimsoll Publishing (a company that sells financial reports to struggling businesses), being so far so good, I do have the occasional tedious, repetitive task asked of me, so am prone to the odd fit of boredom.

Yesterday, for example, whilst checking some email addresses on a database, I found myself drawing round my banana onto the back of an invoice. I then photocopied the banana outline, scanned it and sent it to a few friends in an email. Today, I made up a jingle for the company. It is sung to the tune of "I am the very model of a modern Major General" from Gilbert and Sullivan. Here it is:




If you do not want to suffer profit growth paralysis
We can send you your financial study or analysis

We can put it in the post or send it on the internet
Print it off and read it through and you'll no longer be in debt

Plumber, banker, manager: it doesn't matter what you do
Write it on the order form and we can find the one for you

Order it in French or English, order it in Japanese
Top One Hundred, Acquisition, all for very modest fees

We'll send it to Parcelforce and it should reach you in a week
Unless of course your company's in Guadeloupe or Martinique

Please remember just one thing, and that's to pay your fee on time
Or you'll go to Recofact and you may face a hefty fine

So if you think you're dans la merde (in English that means 'in a stew')
Come to Plimsoll Publishing and we can tell you what to do!