Autor: Ben Kemmler

A work placement abroad. For me, during the time before it was a great feeling. Having that as part of my apprenticeship I understood as chance. A chance to combine my everyday learning experience with another environment in several aspects. A chance to integrate to that other environment and continue getting work experience. It was my second educational stay abroad on my own. I could also count it as my second longest stay abroad generally. For that reason, our general situation and concerning the accommodation was not new for me: Not to speak your mother tongue but to communicate in English nearly all the time. To live with a host family and to have also host siblings. Another aspect was to get used to a new local environment including the neighbourhood and the local public transport. But also some circumstances like driving on the left and to be less as pedestrian than in Germany: Drivers do not wait for you to cross a street parallel to them before turning off. And to be honest, I expected something else thinking of a host family: A nice community to chat, eat and live with. And contacts for some tips of what to experience in or around London. Well, at least I was provided a park nearby, a long public meadow next door and public fitness devices outdoor. And I was not far from a train station. „My reflexion“ weiterlesen

I continued work on the excel table. Basically I updated again and I should update the table for only the sports T-shirt orders.

At Cafe Hilliard I ordered a raspberry blueberry lemon loaf for Monday.

I assisted Sylvester and handwrote a table of the current content of new and unprinted T-shirts in their cardboard box. Because of other orders by the time the employees needed their sports T-Shirt table updated to print it out and give it to the employee who is in charge of the actual T-shirt printing.

At the end, I admit this week was not so much IT based but no wonder: Generally, the only thing we could do was to transfer file and folder bundles from the NAS to the server. And of course, we checked the status of the server and the network in a regular base. But else, there was nothing more IT related we could do.

In the evening I went running and spontaneously met up with Anton for a common training in a park of Plumstead.

With some berry hibiscus tea besides I started working. I began by continuing my work on the excel order table. Later, I was told I should have accessed another version of this file. I admit I could have had a look before. But mistakes happen and you learn from them. By the time there came new orders. Before I added them to the table I should update the file system on the NAS.
For lunch I went to a pub behind the next corner my first time.
Later, I helped a nice employee to print sports T-shirts for the London Legal Walk at the mid of June. He told me of different shirt printing types. There is sublimation printing like it is done at DoduLand: A special type of ink is printed on a heat resistent paper before. Of course this step is done at DocuLand too. The logo of the company the T-shirt is printed for is printed on it mirrored. The paper is fixed on the shirt with two stripes of heat resistent adhesive tape. Afterwards, the T-shirt was put over the lower side of a special heat press. As as soon as the upper part of the heat press was turned above and pressed onto the T-shirt a countdown of 35 second ran. At the same time, the temperature of the heater was at at least 200 degrees. When the timer was run down the machine beeped. Immediately the employee opened it, pulled off the paper fastly but with care and took the T-shirt off the press.
Another kind of printing is Vinyl printing. He knows it because the employee I was working with is also self-employed. So before he comes to DocuLand he works on his own printing T-shirts. He said he has two printing presses but more professional: As soon as he operates a pedal the press closes and after the countdown it opens automatically. At the beginning the smell reminded me of fresh bread or rolls. However, later my nose began to tickle and that or a similar feeling lasted for the rest of the evening.
Last but not least, I brang away some parcels and letters to the post office. Strangely, on two of them it said large letter even though they looked like parcels.
Later, I was on my way to Tate Modern to meet my godfather who was staying in London for a spontaneous visit. His new long-term partner was present too and I saw her my first time. In Gala newspaper an aquaintance of her discovered a vegetarian restaurant, The Gate. We enjoyed a delicous dinner there.

My Oyster Card had expired. I realized it when I tried to gain access through the gate of our train station. After reloading I had still five minutes of time for taking my train.
At the company, I finished bundling sports T-shirts for a big charity walk, the Lomdon Legal Walk. The company I work for, DocuLand, is the official T-shirts‘ supplier. I made one bundle per order by repacking them to their packages correspondingly. When I was finish I should count how many were unassigned.
Later, I updated the excel table by adding the latest orders. I also updated another table which contains the orders of all the sports T-shirts separately. Because since Friday there came at least several new orders.
For lunch I met a good friend of mine who studies in London. We had some pizza and sat outside chatting. It started raining a bit but we did not care.
Later, an employee introduced me in how to fill data about the amount of T-shirts into the table. For every order I filled the details so the amount of every size ordered by the different organizations. Before, however, I should update the order list on the company’s NAS. In the file system there is a added a folder each order and inside the email needs to be added.
For dinner after a long look at Covent Garden I discovered a nice pasta place from Timeout magazine.
In the evening I went running. The host family’s children Nathan and Miya didn’t want to go with me. Miya said she needed to learn. At the same time I saw a YouTube video paused on her laptop screen. I said ”That seems to be tough learning“ but she did not care. And Antonin was not there yet. So I went alone and left at around ten past nine. I ran around Abbey Wood Park for 10 kolometers and saw at least six foxes.

After our lunch at a pub which we where invited to by our chief we did a special thing for me. Or let’s at least say something of contrast: Upstairs we had already placed one access point and made sure that it works successfully. It is temporarily lying on a bookshelf where it disturbs nobody. But the second one for downstairs had not been provided similar conditions yet. In the room where we wanted to install there is no shelf at all but only staples of boxes. So the need of providing necessary conditions for installation was beyond all question for us. We intended to install the access point on the ceiling of the room so that its signal is also receivable from both the furthest rooms. As soon as we had found installation patch cable we ran out as much cable as there was needed. We placed it similar to our idea of final state beginning at the access point’s point itself. „The wire fight“ weiterlesen

This morning I was good in time so I could go to our train station Abbey Wood without any rush. On the train I prepared another blog entry. On my way to cafe Hilliard I called my former host mother in Cambridge: It was about my visit next week. I am looking forward to seeing the whole family a lot since they are so lovely. After my breakfast I called my grandmother to hear of how my grandparents are doing and to tell her a bit about my situation in London. Actually they aimed to visit me in London with my mother and my sister soon. But it turned out that due to a little injury it would not be possible probably. „Like categories“ weiterlesen

After my jogging tour on Sunday I was in a rush. Because I was arranged with a new acquaintance to visit a theatre play. Fortunately, I arrived ten minutes earlier at Charing cross so there was even some to let myself advise about my Oyster Card. We met and looked for a meal. My acquaintance hit on the idea that I could have a look at a nice guide book for restaurant recommendations which I had bought yesterday at Tate Modern. We went to Pizzeria MOD Pizza. The doorman was attracting people. When I told him the way we found the restaurant he wanted to see the recommendation and showed my guide book to his colleagues. As soon as my pizza was ready, we went on our way straight to the theatre house. I was eating my pizza and when we arrived and let check our rucksacks the security forbid me to take my pizza into the lobby. After finishing the pizza outside we were short of time. But he my acquaintance collected the tickets already. Although most of the audience had sat already the play had not begun when we took our seats. There were very funny scenes and the way it was played was also nice. I would like to see another play by the same authors too. And I would definitely go to his theatre play again – whoever will come with me.