Wherein I Try Weird Jobs and Tests

Got a strange job - designing a condolence book for a recently deceased student from my faculty. Turns out a student passing away is a big thing. I'm surprised - with a population over 5,000 staff and students you'd think more of us would die. I mean, the CIA factbook lists our Mean Death Rate as 4.16 deaths per 1,000 inhabitants, so you'd expect something like 20 deaths every year from my faculty (okay, let's say 10, if you discount the elderly), but this is the first one I've heard of. Do we fire or expel the people who are likely to die so that it happens off campus? Where do all the dying people go?

Anyway I'm kind of lost with the condolence book. Think I'll do something that looks classic and old-like. Would have helped if I'd known the girl or at least had some pictures of her. Since the book will be for her parents I guess I'll just leave a couple pages empty with some photo slots in case they want to stick some in.

Interestingly, I've been asked to make three copies. Far be it for a mere desinger like me to question what the other two are for, but even with one copy for archiving, it leaves another... who could possibly be interested?

Went for a writing test yesterday, a pre-requisite for a job as a "Media Associate". The job involves tracking news and making summaries for a PR company, which will then distribute them to clients based on requirements. Unfortunately I'm supposed to track both English and Chinese papers, and god knows my chinese is barely sufficient to read Seet's dirty comics. Hell, to be honest sometimes I can't even read the words used to make moaning noises by the women in those comics.

So I'll be contacted in two weeks if I get the job - they want to try out a few others first to get the bestest translator they can get for 5 dollars an hour.

If I do get it I'll have to wake up at 6am every morning to read the newspapers, even on weekends, and write summaries like crazy for two hours before submission to an editor who has to wake up at eight in the morning and thus is probably not in a particularly good mood.

Not quite so sure I want this job.