Eleven Months Later

I left Tinkerton and hostel work eleven months ago with the intention of working part-time and studying for a diploma in teaching ICT. Things didn't go exactly to plan. I ended up accepting the offer of a full-time job and keeping on with the course with less free time to study than I'd envisaged.

At one point I got so stressed that I was on the verge of quitting the course but our teacher would have none of it. So I struggled on and it was tough, especially towards the end.

Now I've got the diploma (heard today) and I've also got six months experience of a new and challenging job under my belt.

Thanks to our teacher, a wonderfully supportive bunch of fellow students, Bert for putting up with me, my family for encouraging me and CD for letting me work on assignments in quiet moments.

Class of 2007...

...or those of us who didn't have to rush back to work or other commitments.

Funny things exams. Throughout the year you go to your classes, you produce good coursework, you read your expensive text books and you revise like crazy. Then you go into an examination room with nothing more than a dictionary and two new biros and put down a parcel of shite.

Displacement Activities

One of my colleagues on the course spent the weekend ironing. Twenty-six shirts to be exact! Worse still twenty of those were her husband's. Anything rather than knuckle down to the psychology of education.

I'd been doing quite well at the revision. Of course Friday was a bit of a disaster what with Hannah preparing to go to Thailand and me, as a consequence, on eggs.

Thursday was a good revision day and yesterday too. I'd even given up on Big Brother to study. Today was my last crack at it so why did I take the urge to start a crime thriller and plant a flower bed?

The situation so far - I feel I know nothing, I'm halfway through the novel, feel sure the acupuncturist dunnit and the new flower bed looks lovely.

Despite this all crossed fingers, positive thoughts and prayers for tomorrow would be appreciated.

Never Too Busy...

Bert's Cousin Margaret: Are you busy?
Nelly: Yeah.
Bert's Cousin Margaret: Really busy?
Nelly: Really, really busy. Revising. I've got this exam on Tuesday y'see. Why?
Bert's Cousin Margaret: Too busy to show me the owls?
Nelly: Never too busy to go see the owls...

Study Update

All this time away from the blog and do you know how much revision I have done?

1. Zilch
2. Nada
3. Naethin'
4. Eff All

Just so you know. I have been putting the finishing touches to my coursework. And cleaning the house. And starting this Flickr group.

Excuses, Excuses

Blogging will be lighter than usual over the next four weeks because I will be working in my garden... and studying for an exam.

There is also a party to be organised next weekend for Bert will soon be 48 and Hannah is going to Thailand... and I have an exam in June.

Then there is our visit to Norfolk. Zoe, Katy and I will be visiting the English Bowyers, Mick and Katy and their partners Linda and Mark.... it will be a welcome break from studying for my exam. Which is the second week in June.

Oh! And I mustn't forget about teaching practice. I've that to get out of the way....before my exam. In June.

Then Bert is going to Northern Spain for a week and I will have sole responsibility for dogs, cat, hens and Pearlie. That's a week before my exam.

So I'm going to be busy. Revising for an exam.

That Was Me Told

Last weekend I emailed my tutor to tell her that I was giving up on my course.

She emailed me straight back and told me that I wasn't.

So this weekend I have been mostly revising for an exam.

Peformance Art

How did the teaching practice go?

Teaching practice?

You know - that thing you were doing tonight. Teaching that lot about word processing – that thing you’ve been working at for the last week. Did you make a good job of it? Did it go smoothly? Did you get yourself in a big tizzy?

In a big tizzy? I don’t know where you get the idea that any of that stuff matters one tiny little bit. I wasn’t doing Teaching Practice. I was doing Performance Art if you must know. It’s not about things going smoothly and getting it right or anything like that. It’s Art! And as Art it went very well thanks very much for asking!

I Am A Domestic Goddess And I Am Drunk

Swisser called in last night, on her way back from the airport, after collecting her son Conor who was back from his first term at Glasgow University.

She said on the phone,

He's malnourished you know. Living on rice and pasta. I was eating a pear while I was talking to him on the phone and he said, 'What are you eating?' and I said 'A pear,' and he said, 'I haven't had a pear for months!'.

So I decided to give myself a wee break from the studying and lesson preparation and do a bit of baking. There's nothing an ould doll like myself enjoys better than cooking for an appreciative (and hungry) young fellow. I baked an apple tart, a pineapple and coconut sponge, cheese scones and apple and cinnamon scones. I knew that Conor would go mad when his mother suggested calling in with us.

Mother! Nellybert is so boring! I want to get home!

There will be cake. Nelly is baking us cake.

Alright then.

When Swisser saw the spread I'd made she said,

Don't leave it all out at once. He won't be able to control himself.

I said,

Let him eat away. Didn't you say he was starving?

He spilled through the door. He is six foot four. He is a man now although a man newly hatched. He ate and he ate and he ate. I packed more into a box and sent them home with him. For his brother. His brother will be lucky to be left a morsel. When he was leaving he said,

Thanks for the cake.

The cheese scone was awesome so I made it again tonight. And I made curried parsnip soup. Apart from doing that I worked all day long at my studies. Then I decided to fall to the drink. Why not?

Basic Concepts of Information Technology

So how was your class?

Not bad. Tonight was the first night of our peer to peer teaching practice.

What was the class?

Basic Concepts of Information Technology.

Dear God! Sounds damnable. Who took it?

This guy. Know what he did? Only built a computer right in front of us. And made it look easy and fun. How am I going to compete with that when I take my class in word processing?

Links

Since changing to beta blogger I found that my old ways of inserting links have ceased to work. I promised myself this morning that I'd figure it out before this day was done.

And so I did. And to prove it I'm going to link to something I learned about at my course this evening. I learned about this.

And I also found out a little about this.

Ain't learning a wonderful thing?

Gissa Job

I have completed three days at the Faraway Home for the Disorientated which means I am now an expert on the care of the elderly and infirm. Ahem! Say this about it, though it is hard work and you’re always on the go, it’s not as stressful as working in Spide city or Tinkerton. I come home, I’m tired yet I don’t want to yell at or kick anyone. No work on for this week so I’m hoping that will change.

I’ve been invited for an interview for a temporary post that would be ideal for me. It’s close to home, fairly well paid and, best of all, it’s experience in just the sort of field that I’m hoping to work in - training. The hours will fit in with my course too and speaking of which I’ve got homework - still undone!

The homework is a five minute presentation on a topic of our own choosing. I keep thinking how easy this would be for Stray Toaster who can give several five or ten minute presentations over a few drinks in the pub. To give him credit he does draw the line at power point. Now my question is - what shall I do this presentation on? I’m tempted to do it on the work of the organisation whose ranks I hope to join. Then I’d get the homework and the interview preparation done in one fell swoop.

Shite Or Right?

When I was in my late thirties I resumed my education. For a year I attended the local FE College to take A levels in English and Sociology. There was only one other student who wasn’t a teenager and as I was a fellow oldie she latched on to me like a cleg. She was 20.

At first I found the whole process very difficult. My first attempts at essays were dire, simply because they were all over the place. One of the lecturers gave me this piece of advice, which I intend to apply to the remainder of this post. Then I invite comments on how shite the advice was – or not.

The advice was this

Tell them what you are going to tell them.
Tell them it.
Tell them what you have told them.

So here goes –

I am going to tell .you about a weird dream I had last night.

I didn’t realise quite how anxious I was about returning to work today until the dreaming started. There were several dreams which were all work related but this one was the weirdest. I was out on the razz with three work colleagues and we were having a hell of a night. My only difficulty was keeping up with them and worrying about what crazy situations they were going to drag me into. I managed to slip into the ladies at one point to chill but whilst there I gave birth to an infant. My main concern was that my colleagues would think I was a party pooper for having done this and I was wondering how I could keep it from them. It was obvious that it was not going to be easy as the infant was a cross between a large foetus and a monkey and was very active. In fact it kept climbing up the curtains, perching there and glaring malevolently at me. I realised that I did not like it very much then immediately felt guilty about this, as after all I had given birth to it. So I decided to knit it a cardigan in an effort to bond with it. But it kept coming down off the curtains and unravelling my knitting. The third time it did this I strangled it with a piece of yarn.

That was the best dream I have had in ages and I know I will remember it forever.