Working Again

After what seems like half a decade, it's nice to work again albeit it's voluntary work without a hefty pay packet.  I have since last week been helping in a home for the visually impaired which is located a stone's throw from my house.

I work in the library and have been re-labelling books to conform to ISO requirements.  The librarian told me that they have over 3,000  books, many of which are produced in Braille for the Library of Congress, Washington D.C. The re-labelling work has been slow as permanent staff are too busy and voluntary workers do not stay long enough to finish the job.

It is really quite a simple job - replacing old labels with new ones but one has to be  careful and accurate as there is a tendency to get the reference numbers mixed up.  I am thankful to my "new" eye which has helped me to manage better!

The perks about working in this home are that it is quiet, the aircon is pleasantly cool and not cold, and at around tea time, a couple of young trainees in the home's bakery will do their rounds offering freshly baked cakes, pastries, sandwiches, etc. for staff to test and hopefully buy! Of course it would have been better if the stuff comes free but then that would be expecting too much!  The bakery has got quite an interesting selection and so far I have tried their cookies, custard puffs and pineapple upside down cake, the latter being very good indeed.  With the mid-autumn festival coming up, I think we will also be having mooncakes to try out soon!

So it looks like if I continue to offer my services here, I'm going to put on weight! I'm not quite worried about that as I noticed I lost around 2 kilos after my cataract surgery and I do want to put back some meat on my skinny bones!

I met two other volunteers the other day but they were doing a different job.  They were keying in the contents of a book for conversion to audio tapes.  The Home has an audio production unit on the same floor as the library.

As I said, it is nice to be back on the work front - it gives me something to do during Mum's non-dialysis days and provides a welcome break from my hospital visits.  About a year ago, I had also been helping out here but due to an internal problem, we volunteers were left without much work to do and so were "retrenched".

Mmmm, I'm looking forward to those mooncakes this week ....