OU

The induction day today reminded me all over again why I like the Open University so much (and that’s before we even got to the amazing – free! – lunch, which to be fair they did tell us not to get used to!). Sitting in a room full of interesting, motivated people (who were in the same boat as me, and all seemed equally daunted by it, but equally up for it too), supportive staff, supportive staff, did I say the staff are really supportive? The OU consistently comes in the top 2 or 3 in the national student survey for student satisfaction, in Scotland and (I think) in the UK as a whole, and I think it’s going to be a joy to work for them. Hooray! Now I just have to find the time to get though the absolute mountain of teaching materials and get my head round the tutoring forums etc.

I was interested to hear lots of people worrying about interacting online, and how different that would be from face-to-face. I had done a bit of that as a student already, for my final MSc module (which feels like a lifetime ago, though it was actually just 5 years), and of course I’ve had the occasional practice at online interaction (can’t think where ), so for me that feels like the least of my worries. The most of my worries is in finding the time to get through the course materials and have enough of a handle on it that I can best help my students. I have had a brainwave, which if I were God would make life so much easier to handle, but as I’m not will have to muddle on regardless. Basically I think that if time could be captured on an external hard drive (or whatever the time/life/existence equivalent to a computer would be) then I could do my thesis and day job* as normal, and have the extra OU time running concurrently but not get overburdened or go over-capacity. I’m not sure I’ve explained that very well, but it makes perfect sense to me. I expect the techies will be along soon enough to point out the flaws.

And as for the food – mmmmmmmmm. A sit down delicious buffet, we all felt like we were at a wedding reception (and in fact the venue was quite posh and there was a wedding reception going on down the corridor). With proper cloth napkins and everything! Makes a change from the curled up sandwiches and custard cream you usually get at these things.

* whenever that happens – no news yet.

I hate MS Word part 7963

Today I have had the technological day from hell. What should have been a simple reformatting job turned into an all-dayer due to MS Word’s utter inability to cope with tables and constantly corrupting them. I’ll be glad later that I’ve spent the time sorting it all out, but today was utterly mind-numbing and just a little bit soul-destroying. Grrrr.

In other news, tomorrow I have to be up at the crack of dawn (on a Saturday, reader!) to get to Stirling Uni for an induction day for new Open University tutors (can’t remember if I blogged that I got that gig in the end – have just taken a look at the tutors’ web site and it’s frankly a bit scary!). Somehow I think my blagging abilities, honed over 4 years of tutoring in my department, will come in quite handy!

I’m so tired. I just want to sleep this weekend, but am behind on my chapter (I’m sure that will come as such a surprise to everyone) so as well as this induction day I’m probably going to have to spend Sunday afternoon finishing off the evil reformatting so I’ve got next week to catch up. Sigh. I just *can’t* hand this one in late. Well, I could, but having already put off the handing-in date once I think doing so again would be a bit cheeky (plus it wouldn’t actually do me any good). Sigh.

Stuff and general nonsense

Having got one interview out of the way, I have today found another job I would like to apply for (at my current uni – not that I’m desperate to work for a Russell Group uni, but this looks like it would be a less ‘political’ job than many academic jobs can be). There’s also another one (at a rival Glasgow uni) that I’d love but which is probably too high-flying for me – but I will apply anyway and see what happens. I’ll also apply (rather half-heartedly I have to admit) for a part time health visiting job – it’s just that if neither of us have a job for much longer, then it is a “better than nothing” scenario until something permanent comes up, though I have to say I’m really not desperate to be a HV here.

I have also found an online course, run by the same rival Glasgow uni I spotted the job in, for the branch of nursing I really want to go into, alongside any teaching/research that I end up doing. It is even affordable, and being online means that it is doable with a full-time job. And they sort out practice placements and things – one thing that had worried me about the course up till now is the fact that because I wouldn’t be sponsored by an NHS employer it would be difficult to be accepted as a placement student, as I could (in effect) be anyone. [If I got onto the course, it would be my 6th university. How sad is that?!]

All of this is entirely hypothetical as HD (or I, for that matter) could still get a job miles away from Glasgow, or even not in Scotland at all. But he has an interview here next week, so any prayers/candles/good vibes/etc appreciated!

Of course, if I did get onto that course, it would mean that I wouldn’t have to change the name of my blog. I’ve been thinking that as I’m coming to the end of the PhD maybe it’s time soon to retire “the maturest student in the world” and come up with a new blog title. The way job-hunting is going, I briefly flirted with the idea of renaming it “Would you like fries with that?”

Noise pollution

At work the area outside my office building is being dug up (and has been for seemingly ages), and so for some time I have been working with a backdrop of drilling, which I have usually been able to zone out. Over the last week though, the workmen have multiplied, and as well as the ones on the ground more have appeared on the roof of my building. I’m on the top floor, so when they’re walking around with their hobnailed boots it sounds like a herd of wildebeest migrating overhead. Today they started drilling.

By lunchtime I was nearly crying I was so frustrated as it was absolutely impossible to work, or even think – it really sounded like they and their pneumatic drills were in the room with me. I thought I was being melodramatic, but I went for a coffee with a friend who has an office on the same floor as me, and she said the same thing. Unsurprisingly, we will both be working from home tomorrow.

In other news, I heard today that the article I wrote a few months ago (based on the paper I gave at Helsinki) has been accepted for publication by the reviewers and editors, subject to some revisions. This has been a really big boost to my confidence, particularly as the comments were pretty much what I expected and in line with my own evaluations of my work. They are also similar to the kinds of things my supervisors say about my thesis, so it at least also gives me some confidence in their advice as well. I need to do the revisions by the end of August, and providing that’s OK it looks like I shall have something published in an edited volume at some point next year. I’ve also had some positive comments about the draft article I finished last week, so all in all I’m feeling like I’m on the right track, more or less.

Dullness

Some people may have noticed a bit of a dulling around here.  There hasn’t really been anything earth-shattering to write about.  The study day yesterday went well – the bit I co-facilitated generated plenty of interesting discussion, the second half was a bit over my head but OK, and we had lots of cake provided.  Which isn’t ideal from the losing-weight perspective, but hopefully just one day won’t have too much of a negative impact on my (already large) waistline.

I’ve been seeing lots of photos and hearing about lots of people in the UK having snow, and it all looking lovely and fluffy.  Here a few days ago I counted two whole flakes, but that is all we have seen up here.  Today it is chucking it down with rain and howling a gale, and the most exciting thing we have done is get some stuff out of storage (without entirely planning where in the Stately Pile we would actually put it).  I’m now trying to ignore HD’s tidying spurt, as eventually this means I shall have to tidy up some of the piles of random crappage of my stuff, that I’ve been putting off for ever.

So anyway, nothing to worry about if you don’t see me blogging for a bit – I just don’t want to bore either of my readers to death!

[By the way, my baptism of the keyboard did unfortunately turn out to have been a drowning.  Fortunately my department is rubbish at throwing old stuff away, and I was able to swipe the keyboard from the PC of a student who finished her PhD nearly 2 years ago.  I'm slightly put out that it doesn't match the PC now, but I suppose I can't really complain after my clumsiness!]

Caffeine and cake

Today I have been very busy getting not much done. I moved upstairs to my new office (and got cross with the person who has moved into my old desk – he has been circling the room like a vulture for months angling to move in and I hadn’t even totally cleared my desk before it was covered in his stuff!). This afternoon I went for caffeine and cake with the girl who has been at the next desk to me for the last year – she submitted today! We were all very excited, though I think for her it was all a bit of an anti-climax. With any luck this will be me this time next year. Then this evening I went for caffeine and cake (hmm, theme emerging here!) with another friend, from my book group (that I can’t go to later this week as I’ll be at the wrong end of the country). She is also doing a PhD, so I’m afraid we talked about that a lot too. So it’s been kind of a PhD-full day, but without necessarily having done very much!

Tomorrow the first tutorials of the year start. Regular readers will no doubt be totally unsurprised at my current feelings of utter lack of enthusiasm, tinged with feeling slightly sick. Welcome to Monday nights for the next 2 terms!

Annual whinge

I got back to university today, and it’s absolutely HEAVING with very young-looking people. Where on earth did they come from, and please can I have my lovely quiet campus back please?

Oh well – at least I was away last week so missed the horrors of Freshers’ Week. No running the gauntlet of people trying to thrust flyers for various club nights into the hands of every passer by (do I look like I want to go clubbing and drinking myself stupid till 4am? I’m old enough to be your mother!).

Roll on Christmas holidays.

End of term

Today is the end of term. Work of course doesn’t stop for postgrads (and a big slap to whoever says something can’t stop that hasn’t started), but it will be nice to have the campus nice and quiet for a few weeks.

I think over the summer holidays is my favourite time at university. It’s really calm there, and you don’t need to fight through the hordes of undergrads (of which Glasgow seems to have millions) to get from the office to the loo/library/department/common room. The next few weeks will be a nice calm time in anticipation of the summer lull.

HD is here this weekend – he should be here in the next hour or so, all being well. So I’m having the entire weekend off, before bracing myself for a manic week of work next week.

Wiblog entry for 21/02/2008

For my sins, this academic year I am the staff-student rep for the postgrad research students in my department. Today I finally went on the obligatory half-day training for reps. What can I say? Group work. Argh. Two hours of my life I’m never going to get back – though the facilitator was good and appreciated that a lot of the stuff wasn’t relevant for me, and encouraged my written feedback so hopefully future postgrad reps will have something that is actually relevant to what they may have to face. It was fine for undergrads and those on taught courses, and that was squarely who it was aimed at. As it is, if I have to confront something like assisting when a student is having a hard time with their supervisor, for example, this training has done precisely nothing to equip me to do that well.

One of the things we got asked is why we had wanted to be a rep. I had to be truthful (just in the small group, I wouldn’t have been so bolshy to the whole room as that wouldn’t have been fair on the facilitator) and say that the reason I was doing it was because nobody else wanted to, and at least doing it this year means that I know for sure I won’t have to do it next year when I’m writing up. I’m so altruistic.

Surrounded by imbeciles

My friend at the next desk was very amused by my speechless crossness at the stupidest email in the world today – I had emailed a university service as I had tried to use their service and they’d asked for a password (about which the form said I had already been informed). As I’ve never needed to use a password for this service before, I had emailed them to ask them to send me the password, to which they replied “Please send us your password, so that we can access your account.” !!!!!!! I think my reply was beautifully understated in the circumstances, but I just had to bluster and chunter and try not to explode for a minute as I could feel my blood pressure rising at the ridiculousness of it all. Gah – silly people!

In other news, I’m off to the Big Smoke for the weekend tomorrow, and having my hen night on Saturday. I will do my very best not to make a spectacle of myself. I suspect my bridesmaid (who is organising it all) may well be plotting something. Hopefully not involving strippers.