Fastforward

I started this with comments on how the blue Monday wasn't very blue for me but then Monday got harder, I planned to pick it up on Tuesday, and that too, didn't happen, Wednesday was out of office day and much manual work got done. Thursday I had half a day with a local primary class, a composite class of P1-3 with 5 P1's and 12 or 13 pupils in total! So only a half day at my desk and I have a meeting later today, but for a few minutes I will have a break and rest!

Finding time to be properly reflective gets hard when work keeps coming at you. I find writing this blog helps me get a perspective back on my world and work.

Again I have got to a Friday and a blog post and again I am a week behind my last note, this is my last working day in January! where did the month go! I have plans for the next three weeks at least so I am nearly at the end of February already mentally. My plans of the new year and getting things completed have gone up in smoke, and I am needing to do lists to get the basics of my world completed on time.

The power is flickering, I may end up finishing this on yet another day :-)

I have heard this recently which had me giggling and sharing to everywhere (and now here) which is a parody of the song Hello by Adele, but re written as Snow by Mary Morris.

I love my job, and find much to enjoy every day and week. I do get out of bed and head to work with only basic moans about being up and nothing to do with going to work. I miss my desk even when I am busy at meetings and out for a afternoon or two but even saying this I am totally onside with this song :-)  watch and enjoy.

We had our latest meeting for the north branch of Cilip Scotland this week just gone. Despite using a mix of platforms including one that was new to us and the UHI we all got connected and had a productive and pleasant meeting, from the Western Isles to Caithness to Inverness and beyond we all got connected fine. Technology is the only reason we can run this group as the area we cover is just too diverse to allow us to meet face to face. With this in mind we have set up a facebook group to help get more connected and we have plans to run a blog, one of the things we suffer form in the highland is our geographical distance. My nearest colleague is 20 plus miles, then 60 plus and then 70 plus! we all work days and esp when the school is in, so getting together is hard! just chatting is impossible unless we have the channels to chat already open. But we must start somewhere.

Spent part of my week out meeting primary ones again, refreshing their memories and reading the 3 award books for the Scottish book awards, I get to read Wanted, Ralphy rabbit, never tickle a tiger and mouse first night at midnight school. I have found each one has its own voice and fun, I know as an adult I love the never tickle a tiger as the language used is very emotive and the story very real, but then Ralphy is about libraries which are fun and the back grounds are fun too, but the first night touches on the little ones first day at school! so I have no idea who would win! My own pupils have been putting in reviews and choosing which of the older titles they like and I am finding that hard too!

I am off to write myself some info for the North Group Blog and hopefully the facebook there :-) have a nice blowy weekend in the teeth of the gale!

New Year and New Resolutions

Happy New Year

I tend to avoid making resolutions as I am very good at not following through and doing them more than once or twice. I have looked back at last years plans and am pleased to say I managed most of them but as I made few targets just aims that isn't as good as it could be.

• The first was to tidy more often, this got a boost in the summer when I gained a more regular cover person who I could not leave to work at my messy desk and a quick apology and be netter soon wasn't washing! My excuses wore very thin! so I gutted my desk and the surrounding area, this led to more space and a tidier area, which then got even better organized and then a promotion led to me being honest about what I had sat waiting to be done round my desk! I threw out over a cubic meter of paper and waiting to be dine stuff and things I had kept for over a decade, went! So yes I am more tidy both at home and at work, and this is ongoing so I shall happily keep this one for this year.
• My Cpd has not been still, and I spent a while before Christmas uploading it to the e portfolio that is now included on the Cilip Website, and I am impressed with myself, the minimum of 20 hours, ignoring online and reading I have attended over 60 hours of events and courses and meetings, I am so pleased and I must get the last bits done to re-validate, and that way I have a line drawn and know how to help my own mentees!This years plan is to re-validate and carry on CPDing.
• I ran the course with the help of a wonderful woman called Kathleen Irving, she was inspirational and so much fun and so helpful but sadly shortly afterwards she had an accident while walking and was later found on the hills. I plan to run the course again, with the help of the the rest of the North branch committee which came out of the original set up and was Kathleen and I plan to help set up next, I found others interested and we have now done this. The North branch will grow and once its up and running I will step down and just help from the side lines. So more North Branch this year.
• Being around for my staff has been a challenge, I have done more but now have more to do, the non school side of my job has eaten into so much of my work time. I think this will be another ongoing resolution or plan, I need to make sure they know how I work and that I will not bother them and they need to contact me to get me over and above the normal drop in occasionally. Personnel changes higher up the tree mean my own work patterns now have the light shining on them. I must keep a better track of this and be more efficient.

I have managed to post much more frequently, I have missed the odd weeks and the first time I did I worked myself into a right state and had to change my focus, I am now happy to blog every week and hope to keep doing this, but I wont be losing sleep over the odd miss :-).

I have spent the last two weeks enjoying this lovely tree and am now home again and getting back into the harness after 10 days of peace, sleep and lots of knitting.

I wish you all a happy new year, and I hope to be back to normal for the end of next week.

New four letter word for me, Time.

This last week has been one of retrospection, I have been looking back over a series of interactions to try and identify the point I could have made a change, could have made it different. My current job is so very different from what it was only a few years ago, I know I have talked about change and moving forward and I have been. What I need to do is the part of the reflective practitioner where you then look at what you would change and do that. I have let myself become an only forward looking person, this has been needed but now I must start looking round, I felt I could not in all honesty tell others who depend on me to do things if I wasn't doing them myself. So the current work I am doing is more of an assessment of my world and finding my own balance point, then I shall be off again like some manic toy!

Instead of whats new I am revisiting some of my old favorites, my blog of the week must be the History Girls, like any good site sometimes the post does not speak to me, but like any adult I can accept this and move on with out writing off what is a fun read most days. I often find a topic that I would have passed over contains lots of things of interest, and it helps to know you have value no matter who you are from the past. Another Blog I have been enjoying is by Michael Logan about writing and writers, again a well balanced blog, which covers all sorts of info, latest post is about how and how not to accept an agent and what you must think about when doing it. My final for now I shall mention is Letters to a Young Librarian which has the power to make me stop and reflect on my own world. Their latest post is on writing papers for conferences which is new to me so I got lots from it, even if I am not a new librarian.

After doing some homework and realizing that the one missing piece is now in place to apply for my fellowship of CILIP, I must now consider all the other parts, like my aforementioned Time. Until I sat and looked at what I do and what I don't get done, I hadn't realised how little time I get to do 'other' things in. My creativity and my craft things are now home focused and practical, I do not do an art class any more (no time and local college changed what courses offered) My design of things for the kids at school and my displays of facts and new books have gone almost completely, my plans for making the extra things more exciting has again gone. I hadn't felt their loss until I sat down and started to think about it all. I do wish I had more time to do this, but the challenges that have come about due to the changes are fun to me and the rising to the challenge have given me a whole new way to be fulfilled.

Why I do what I do?, what do I get out of them?, what could be done better? apply to my world. The basic steps for reflective practitioner. I enjoyed doing the CPD23 and I hope to get my own group of this going in the new year, so that others can get something out of it, even if it just these tools are not for me. The new North branch gives me the chance to potentially do more for others and to learn for myself, again I have plans and hope to make more of this and run events for all come the spring. But I must sit and do the 'why am I doing this' bit first! and then more on. A timely reminder that I need to support all I do and not go off tilting windmills as I no longer have the time to make big mistakes and still get my work done.

The Road is ongoing.