Of good news and cuteness

So I met with my line manager, and she has said that I can move to 4 days a week from May. Thank you for your supportive messages, I appreciated them all very much.

A friend posted this on facebook and I just had to share, I challenge you to watch it and not smile:

Hoping hoping

Tomorrow I am meeting with my manager to discuss my application to reduce my working hours (so that I can have a day a week to write my thesis, before I entirely forget what it’s all about). So any prayers, candles, good thoughts and vibes, etc much appreciated, thanks all.

[Tues 9th pm. Thanks everyone. Here's an update: meeting was cancelled, am hoping to have it tomorrow instead. Sigh]

My poor neglected thesis

I haven’t written much about the student experience (after all, the main point of this blog) recently. There is a good reason for this.

(excuse me while I cower with guilt at the thought of my poor neglected thesis).

I had a long conversation (well, one-sided ramble if I’m honest) with HD today about how I feel my job is exhausting me to the point that the last thing in the world I want to do is my thesis (even though if I’m honest, really the last thing I want to do is actually my day job). I have set myself a few mini-targets to get me through being at work – end of this week we have a holiday (YAY), end of Feb I will have done enough hours to be able to reregister as a health visitor when my registration next comes up for renewal (not for over 2 years, but it’s good as a first short-term goal), mid-June the OU course finishes so I’ll have one less thing to take up my time away from the thesis, end of June I will have been in the job the same amount of time as my first health visiting job after I qualified so if I can stay longer it will be better for my CV, end of July I have a conference to attend so moving job before that would be too stressful, same sort of time I’m aiming to submit my thesis (eeeeeeeek) so likewise it’s silly to be jobhunting/changing before then. Of course if HD gets a permanent job somewhere else in the meantime then all this will be academic as I will have an excuse to leave earlier, but in the meantime giving myself these short-term goals will hopefully make life a bit more bearable.

It doesn’t change the fact though that I am spending far too little time on my thesis. I know I was a world champion procrastinator the 4 years I was at uni actually being paid to do the thing, but now I’m too tired to procrastinate.

Which is a shame as this evening I discovered an opportunity to procrastinate in a way that would actually look good on the academic side of my CV, but I don’t think I’m ever going to have the time. I might make a discreet enquiry (it involves blogging) but I probably need to be realistic and manage the plates I’m already juggling rather than taking on anything else.

New job

I don’t intend writing much about my new job, as it wouldn’t be appropriate and would be boring. But I did want to note that today was my first day, and I have survived and don’t hate the thought of going back tomorrow. Which is a good start!

I had a nightmare this morning though. I got a letter last week asking me to go to a different place from my base, and I had planned on spending yesterday evening sorting out everything I needed – letters, proof of qualifications etc – so I wouldn’t have to rush around this morning. However, yesterday turned out to be much longer than we had originally planned – HD has got a room in a shared house for the duration of his job, but as it was an unfurnished room we planned to drive down with our spare bed, with me then driving back in time to have a leisurely evening. Unfortunately the combination of roadworks and inept navigating by me meant that it took us nearly 8 hours just to get Down South, and then I still had to drive back, and I didn’t get home till 11. Never mind I thought, I’ll get up early so I’ll have lots of time to sort everything out before I leave for work.

Except.

Could I find the letter telling me where I had to be? Well, no. The flat now looks like a bomb has hit it as I (almost literally) turned it upside-down. One good thing is that I found my driving licence, which I lost ages ago, and I did eventually find the letter. But it meant that when I got there and met what felt like a hundred people I felt like I could say very little other than “wibble”. One of the nurse development people told me she could tell I was new because I looked so keen. I was so frazzled I didn’t even have the energy to laugh out loud – I’ve spent the last 2 months (since I got the job) really not particularly wanting it, so to be told I looked keen was hilarious!

Anyway. My new colleagues seem nice, I have a much smaller caseload than I did in London (but have no duobt they’ll keep me on my toes), and it will certainly do me for now.

In the meantime I really need to get my act together and mark the OU essays. Even though there is only a fraction of the essays I had to mark last year, it feels like a giant mountain to climb. I need a motivation transplant.

I did my first OU tutorial today, I think it went well! I was expecting 8 students, 5 came, but they were nice and chatty, and I think this is the first time in my life ever that I have planned stuff for a tutorial and had too much material rather than not enough! Anyway it’s a relief it’s done, and I don’t have another till January – last night I was really antsy and feeling a bit ill, but more tense than ill really, and I remember that it was exactly the same before every tutorial day for the last 4 years, I always used to feel sick the night before until they were over! Maybe I need to rethink my idea of going into academia, it’s no good if I feel sick every time I have to teach! But seriously, I did actually rather enjoy it, and I don’t think they thought I was a numpty so that’s always good (I’ve not read the feedback form yet though, I’ll save that for another day!).

HD is home for the weekend – am happy about that

I have a provisional start date for my new job of 2nd November, which I agreed with HR yesterday (I need to confirm it with my line manager next week, assuming she’s back from holiday). Unfortunately, I got home from the tutorial this afternoon and found I have been called for jury service from 16th Nov! I hope I don’t get a reputation at work for taking time off as soon as I start! Not the best timing, and I can’t say I’m brimming with enthusiasm at the prospect, but I guess if I do it I can at least get it out of the way.

As for my thesis chapter, and my various doomed attempts to get it finished when I say I will: I think this Dilbert cartoon pretty much sums up where I’m at with it (guess which one’s me?!).

Reasons to be thankful

Yesterday I celebrated Canadian Thanksgiving with a few people from church (one of the hosts is Canadian, unsurprisingly). Sometimes it is really good to have eyes bigger than your stomach – the food was so good, but I packed it in anyway and just had to suffer later (it’s a hard life).

Today I am thankful that at long long long long last my Disclosure Scotland form arrived. This is the form that confirms that I am not an axe-murderer or otherwise unsuitable for working in the NHS, and was the one thing holding me up actually starting my job. Actually it transpires it’s not the only thing holding me up, as I have just discovered that the line manager is on holiday so HR are having to wait for someone else to confirm I can start. If I have any say in the matter I think I want to start in just under a fortnight, rather than next week – that way I can have a mad thesis frenzy before I start, and to be honest one more week’s debt isn’t going to make all that much difference after all this time.

I’m also thankful that some of my OU students are starting to make some tentative steps on using the discussion forum, which means I am not Jackie-no-mates in there any more and am not feeling like I’m totally useless at it. So that’s good.

Good day, bad day

Good: my thesis extension was granted, with no conditions. Hooray!

Bad: after yesterday’s close encounter of the 8-legged kind (discussed at great length on my facebook profile – basically I got up, was having a wee, turned my head and saw an ENORMOUS spider in the sink), today there was one (similar size) in my office. That’s never happened before. I was just about to leave to go home anyway, and it scuttled across the floor, so I have left it there and will have to brace myself to dare to open the door on Monday morning (where no doubt it will have either extensively reproduced and there’ll be a million of them in there, or it will have covered everything in a webby cocoon. Or with any luck will have found its way into somebody else’s office). The reason I was about to leave, earlier than usual, was another evil headache. I’m getting fed up of this now. I’m seriously thinking about buying an eye patch, as it’s nearly always (like, 95% of the time) on the same side of my head, just over and all round my left eye) and if I close the eye it’s so much more bearable, but keeping one eye open and one eye closed takes surprisingly large amounts of concentration, I’ve discovered. And then my friend sent me a photo by text, and it has completely buggered up my phone, so I now can’t send or receive texts or access my inbox, as it keeps going straight to the MMS template box instead expecting me to send pictures, AND I keep getting messages saying the memory is full, even though I’ve deleted tons of things as it’s far too complicated anyway and I just want another crappy Nokia half-brick as they do all I want and more and I know where I am with them. Needless to say I had a little cry at the bus-stop, it all just got a bit much

But – we have a shipmeet tomorrow (four of us have had birthdays ending in -0 this year, making a total of 150, so we are celebrating our 150th which has a nice pleasing ring to it – we won’t discuss who is the most ancient of this select band) (*weep*) so it will be fab to see people again. And hopefully the horse pills will have knocked the headache on the head (pun unintended) by then.

HD starts his new temp job on Monday. So is leaving here on Sunday, and we’ll be weekends-only for a while. Having very mixed feelings about that – happy he’ll have work, happy he’ll have money, happy he won’t have to deal with the Jobseekers’ Allowance lot for a while. Unhappy he’ll be a 5 hour drive away and only here for a couple of days a week, mildly unhappy that I’ll have to do a lot more cooking (!), unhappy that I’ll have to deal with any other 8 legged intruders by myself, but mostly unhappy that he’ll not be here. Sigh – just desperately wanting a decent employer (anywhere) to notice just what an asset he’d be and give him a full-time permanent job so we can settle at last (and I can have a good excuse to not be a health visitor for any longer than I have to – not that I am any closer to knowing when I start, never mind when I can stop!).

Good day

Our newest, shiniest nephew was born at 11.45 this morning (8lbs 8oz, what a chubster!).

And this afternoon HD heard that he has got a temp job, just for a couple of months, and not in Scotland so there will be a bit of commuting and separation going on, but it’s a couple of months of not dealing with the Jobseekers’ Allowance people and takes a bit of the financial pressure off us both (particularly as I still don’t know when my own job is going to start – Disclosure Scotland (the criminal record checking people) are taking as long as they’re taking).

We are now on our 3rd glass of champagne of the evening

In other news, we managed to get out to a concert last night with a couple of friends from church, marking the opening of this year’s Scottish Mental Health Arts & Film Festival at the Fruitmarket. The concert was called “Music Like a Vitamin” (there isn’t a direct link, but you can probably find it from the festival link). HD was only able to come for the final hour so missed all but the final act and a bit (he was driving back from his job interview). The line-up was James Yorkston and Adrian Crowley singing the songs of Daniel Johnstone (whoever he is) first (they were a bit shambolic but not in a bad way), then Emma Pollock and her band (a bit rocky and bangy-crashy for my liking, oh I sound like my dad – she had a great voice though, I’d like to hear her doing folk music as I think it would suit her voice better), then Karine Polwart (the act we’d gone to see), and then Alasdair Roberts (who I didn’t know but really liked – kind of folky, kind of surreal, and bizarrely he reminded me a bit of Kenny Everett), and then finally they all came back on stage to do a couple of songs. Actually the final two songs were my favourite bit, they were just extraordinary. We all felt that we’d have preferred it if perhaps there were fewer acts and they could have done longer sets (they all did 35 min sets with 15 min breaks between) as it felt a bit bitty. But it was a good night, and good for us to get out and have a life

Brief update

I’ve just written a very long entry about my interview and the ins and outs of it all, but decided that there was such a lot of soul-searching and gut-spilling that I didn’t really want public that I have kept it but made it a for-my-eyes-only thing, and I’m afraid I’m just going to write a shorter entry here for general consumption.

So, in short: I had an interview yesterday for a health visiting job in an exciting place (am a bit tired and emotional so photos will have to happen another time). I loved the place, but also am more sure now that I don’t want to spend my life as a health visitor, plus the particular place is quite remote and there wouldn’t be that many opportunities for HD, or many for me other than as a health visitor. So I found myself hoping they didn’t offer me the job, so I wouldn’t have to make a decision! Unfortunately, they didn’t play along and went and offered me the job, much to my surprise (having been out of practice for so long and having not ever lived or worked in that type of environment, and having fluffed a couple of the interview questions). A pretty sleepless and troubled night followed, and once I got home today and talked things over with HD I made the decision to turn down the job offer. I really hope I’ve done the right thing. After months of HD trying and neither of us having anything else on the horizon, turning down the job looks on paper like a reckless thing to do. But I had hardly slept for a week worrying about it, and ultimately, amazing though the location was (and it really really was), there were too many cons along with the pros for me to be entirely happy to accept it.

Our current situation is basically as it was. I have a job application at the university, which I will hopefully hear about soon. There are some health visiting jobs in Glasgow I will apply for as a stop-gap (as although I don’t want to do that long-term, it will be fine as something to tide us over if we don’t also have to worry about a big move, getting the Stately Pile in a fit state to rent out, etc). One (preferably both) of us needs something really quite soon though.

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?”