Roots or wings?

Cold is the first word that pops to my mind if I think about the last days. It's not been an extreme cold at all, nothing that at the end of November shouldn't happen, but cold after all. Fortunately for me, I'm not working on site now. I have already started working in the office writing the report of the Building 11 in Woolwich Arsenal. Woolwich is actually the name of the town where it is (SE London), but it was known as The Warren first and as The Royal Arsenal later. Since XVIth century and specially since XVIIIth century until the 1960's, The Royal Arsenal was a kind of self-sufficient hidden city were ordnance, guns and ammunition were tested, manufactured, stored and supplied to the british army. From small cartridges to torpedoes and massive cannons. During its best moment in the I World War, over 80,000 people were employed there, mainly women, being probably the largest industrial complex in the world in terms of manpower. Still some buildings stand from that "martial city" and they're working to restore them to flats. The one I'm studying is very interesting although complicated. They were the Officers' Quarters, a compound of four terraced houses part of which were used in the last years as offices or similar. I think I'm writing slow the report but it's going on. We'll see what happens in the next days/weeks.

Another important thing I've done is the CSCS card test. It's a silly test, everybody says and now I can say it as well. But I wasn't so sure some days before. It's just a test about general health and safety on site questions. It's necessary to work on most of the sites we work although it is made for builders. However, archaeologist often have to work on sites were something is being built and deal with building sites' rules. That is to behave like a builder and, therefore, hold one of this cards to be allowed to work there and look after everyone's health and safety. I needed it to go to Woolwich for example although exceptionally they allowed me to go without the card on the condition that I booked the test as soon as possible. It was easy actually. You get a book in advance with all the questions and answers, 40 of which will be asked, and most of them are easily answered just using your common sense. A funny example:

To help keep rats away, everyone on site should:
a) buy rat traps and put them around the site
b) ask the local authority to put down rat poison
c) bring a large cat to site
d) not leave scraps of food lying around

Although most questions were easy, I was afraid of the language because the vocabulary on a building site doesn't always sound familiar to me. As there are lots of foreign workers in the UK you can do your test in some other languages but not spanish. Words like crane, hammer drill, scaffold or others more general like slip and trip... Well, I know them now. I passed the test and I'm a bit proud of it because I did it like an english spoken person.

As a final thing, I have had today an interview for a job I applied some weeks ago when I wrote the entry "Roller coasters". The interview has gone worse than I expected. My english hasn't been as fluent as I know it can be and I'm actually interested in that department because I can learn some useful things to work later in buildings, but not because I'm interested in that department itself. And I have said it a couple of times. I'm not going to lie them telling that suddenly I forget buildings and want to be a geomatics' surveyor; they already know that's not true because they of course know me (it was an internal advertisement). Besides, I don't have any experience at all working with databases, GPS, GIS... So I'd have to start with a training from zero. By the other hand, I don't think there were many other candidates because, as I said, the advertisement was internal and maybe they're interested in having someone who is familiar to buildings. Well, I think I'll know next week if they offer me the job, although I'm still not sure if I'll accept in case I get it because I have to think about my future as well.

You know, you can't have roots and wings at the same time... You have to decide.