01 Mar 2013
Exciting injury pics
In my previous post I mentioned a fall and ankle damage:
I took these pics yesterday
Ouch!
10 Oct 2012
Busier
So far this month I’ve gone from one Pilates class weekly to running four per week (three at the mo, 1 more starting in November), patients have started coming through the door and feedback has been pretty good if I say so myself. All those Pilates classes are not in Derby so I should be able to find a venue and punters locally as well quite soon.
Fingers remain firmly crossed but the signs seem good so far.
30 Jan 2012
Not taxing?
I have just this few minutes back finished my first ever tax return.
I could have had an accountant do it but the amount of money I earn away from my main (and already taxed) job isn’t massive so I expect I’d end up paying more than I’d save in tax paid.
Now just to worry about whether I’ve ballsed something up and actually owe an awful lot more. Fingers crossed.
03 Jan 2012
Starting 2012 as I mean to go on
It’s the end of the world as we know it!
And I feel fine. Except for my toe.
I managed to maim myself at a child’s soft play centre yesterday. Carpet burn on my elbow and wrist and then a nastily bruised middle toe on my left foot. I went in to see a podiatrist at work today who was very reassuring. Looks like I haven’t done in another nail just banged a joint somewhat.
Photo here if you’re interested.
07 Dec 2011
Ah nuts
Possibly the worst result I could have managed. The OU thing I hated and was extremely tedious (here) has concluded with me getting 2 percent off a pass on the final end of year essay. This has left me with a fail but an entitlement to “re-submit”. Not sure yet what I have to re-submit but …
If I’d failed by loads then I’d be done with it. And 2 percent more would have meant I was done with it too.
I suppose I should be happy that I get another go at the last essay but I really could have done without the extra work. Time’s at a major premium at the mo and this won’t help.
The really annoying thing is that my average scores give me a pass but students have to pass the final essay to pass the module. It was my lowest scored essay and even then it was only marginally under the bar.
Sigh.
30 Sep 2011
Lack of knowledge
There’s always the argument that people shouldn’t necessarily know the same stuff as each other and I subscribe to this. However I think we can agree that there are certain things that people should just be expected to know.
For instance that the Earth circles the sun and not vice versa. Things like knowing what vice versa means etc… And knowing what etc mean….
Two incidents have shaken this belief in me recently.
First was watching an episode of Millionaire. There was a bloke on it who was an English teacher. OK? An ENGLISH teacher. I emphasise for good reason.
One question: “What is the latin for cast list?” OK I might not have answered straight away but on Millionaire they have multi-choice. I can’t actually remember the options but they were as obvious as these:
A: Vice versa, B: Cave canum, C: Modus operandi, D: Dramatis personae
He had to use a life-line! Unbelievable. And this was at only £1000, hardly high up the ladder.
This bloke knew nothing at all. Had only one question that required no life-line and that was question number 1. He eventually gave up on the 5th question which was about a Dickens character and which novel was he in. Now I actually didn’t know the answer as I’ve not particularly read any Dickens but I return you to the fact that he was an ENGLISH teacher. Surely some Dickens would have been on some syllabus somewhere in his past if not his own reading for pleasure. Honestly.
The second incident was at work the other day. It was a team meeting on a morning after I’d had a rotten night of no sleep so I was drowsy and narky to say to the least. I can’t really remember quite how we got there but I needed to know the name of the 1st president of the US (some obscure point about honesty I think) and my sleep-deprived mind couldn’t bring it forward so I asked the team.
“Oh you know the 1st American president, oh what’s his name oh you know…” etc.
And they didn’t answer. They couldn’t answer. Well one could, one who’d also done O-levels may I say. But the others looked at me and I couldn’t tell why. Nobody said anything. I became mildly agitated as I assumed they were just being pains and annoying me. Surely they knew such a simple piece of info as this. So I asked again.
“No come on what’s his name? You know chopped down the tree, can’t tell a lie father etc…”
At which point one of the brightest and most able team-members turned to me and asked:
“Alby. Why would we know American history?”
Gobsmacked I was. Reminded me of a time long ago when I used the word “posthumous” in the office and not a single person in this office (a large dept in a major bank) knew what it meant. I think it’s people’s lack of interest in knowing stuff that genuinely upsets me. Very disappointed.
29 Sep 2011
Opened
I have very recently (about 2 hours ago) finally finished my final essay for the first year of an OU Masters degree. Never thought I’d do a Masters.
And I’m now wondering why I bothered.
No time to do the work needed for the assignments. No time to even do the assignments adequately. Thinking about leaving the job that the course would be useful for anyway. Well worth the money and effort then.
The idea was to learn more about research and changing practice at work. Well this year has all been about “leadership”. Rarely have I had to suffer such tedious long-winded nonsense that frankly should be pretty obvious.
Long studies and articles that basically boil down to “if lots of change all happens at once then people get unnerved”. Really? That takes years of scholarly pursuits in order to get something along those lines published? Do people need to be told this?
Likewise – discussion apparently smooths progress within a team. I’d never have known it. Nor would I have known that if someone introduces a new policy then there’s probably an agenda behind it.
Good heavens it was tedious writing essays about this nonsense. Having to find references to support an argument like “a leader should know how his team think” was not my idea of advanced study.
So I’m rather disappointed. And I’m not sure that this final essay has what they’re looking for and if I fail this one then that’s a wasted module for me and I come out of the year with nothing but some very tedious .doc files about topics that should frankly be obvious to anyone with half a brain who’s ever worked with a team of people who may not necessarily think the same way about stuff.
I’m not doing next year’s module yet, even should I pass. I think a year off is a definite good idea. The following module should be more up my street as it’s all about research and methods etc. That’s actually what I was after from the course but this year has really knocked back my enthusiasm to continue. Plus, of course, other things have taken my mind elsewhere what with everything and that.
16 Jul 2011
Varoom!
The last hurrah of my 40th birthday happened this week. My folks had bought me a day driving outrageous cars and we went to do this on Tuesday.
The deal was that we (me and my dad) got to drive 2 cars each round a smallish circuit. I’d never thought of doing this before but it was quite exciting.
The cars I picked were a Caterham 7 and a Ferrari (no idea what model, sorry car nerds). He picked a Bentley (very stately pace) and a Ferrari too.
The Caterham was fun, noisy, bouncy and I struggled to get it up to high speeds as it felt like I was zooming along faster than I’d ever driven before but on checking the speedo I was only doing 80.
I did manage to get the Ferrari up to 100 though (would have been more but the circuit really didn’t allow it).
Unfortunately the majority of the event was sitting around waiting for the 2nd car to be ready.
Ah well, the drives were excellent fun though.
Cheers mum and dad.
20 Jun 2011
Work/life balance
Bleurgh.
Things very very busy at the mo. I suppose I’m in quite a good working place tho. This week I’m working 5 days, I’ve been offered a few Saturdays and a new clinic is offering me work. This should all be good.
However my main job is still the NHS one which is 3 days a week. Leaving it will mean a 3 month notice period (unless I manage to get myself instantly fired for serious professional misconduct – nice idea but I’ll probably lose my professional registration in the process).
So do I hand notice in now and take the risk or leave it until people can offer me more regular work and then I have to keep them waiting for 3 months?
It’s a nice situation to be in on one hand but then I have financial responsibilities which means we might suffer if I jump too early and get no more regular work more locally.
Hmm tricky.
16 May 2011
Mobile questions!
Hi all.
Any techie (or more clued up on phones) types know owt about mobiles and deals?
My contract ends in a month or so and I’m looking at getting a far better deal with a nice swanky new smartphone included. R’s contract ended recently too so we’re looking at both getting a good deal. Both of us want a new phone. I have 2 questions.
- Which phones are worth lookng into? I won’t get an iPhone (probably) but am open-minded re any of the others. R’s keen on “a Blackberry (or something like that)”.
- Which networks are good? IE good coverage and cheap deals.
Cheers for any info.
Hope to see some of you at Bungay.
Have fun.