Throwing in the towel

Well, the time has come to finally admit defeat and close this blog. I’m not going to apologise – it was always a personal, voluntary thing and as such I reserved the right to fail miserably at it! It was all going fine until termtime kicked in with a vengeance and since then I have been chasing my tail in an alarmingly rabid manner. It was a fun experiment but I conclude that my lifestyle is just not compatible with maintaining a blog!

Land of the Living

Oh dear, oh dear, it’s been an awfully long time, hasn’t it? Then again: it’s my blog and I’ll abscond if I want to. There are times and seasons when one just has to prioritise. The last two months have seen me run off my feet with classes, barely keeping on top of absolute essentials, never mind all the work I’d actually like to get done. Actually achieving anything substantial is a very forlorn hope.

Here we are in the week of frost and bonfires and I am slowly emerging into a less teaching-dominated routine. But now comes assessment – an increased marking load every year, my own fault really for inventing assessed literature searches, website evaluations and all that jazz. It’s also the season of Programme Executive Boards, sitting and listening to yet more complaints about widgets in labs not working properly or the fact that we only have 16 gadzillion copies of Connolly & Beggs, and why are there no spa facilities in the library, and why the sea is boiling hot and whether pigs have wings…

Book Group continues monthly, I have been torturing colleagues by making them read ‘The Wind-up Bird Chronicle’ – it’s giving them all bad dreams. Title for next month is not yet finalised but we agreed on a classic to while away those winter nights.

And what do you know, Career Development Group is alive and well and there are all sorts of great things happening. We are gaining members due to sterling efforts from the Membership & Marketing Officer; we just got awarded the Seal of Recognition for our high quality CPD events; plans are well under way for November Council and for many events and innovations next year.

Scottish Division meets tonight, am in the process of organising our second Revalidation course, this time in Glasgow. Have had enquiries from Inverness and United Arab Emirates (is that part of Scotland?!) about remote access to training – important issue which deserves consideration at all levels of CILIP.

Headed north a couple of weeks ago to speak in Aberdeen at the CILIPS NE Branch AGM. Friendly souls and there was wine and lovely M&S sandwiches. Was up first and then followed by Alan Hasson who apparently disagreed with me on several points but I never got to find out which ones as the train home beckoned.

OK, enough blogging, it’s lunchtime and I have Day 4 of my Tesco Diet to activate…

Yes, I have really been that busy

(Nearly mistyped ‘busty’ for ‘busy’, always an amusing error… almost as good as my recent stratgey document in which I surmised that certain measures might enable us to ‘think bugger’! Fortunately spotted before it went to press).

Yes I know I’ve been neglecting all duties blog-related. Thouight I’d better check in; don’t want to disappoint my regulars. It’s just that things have been a tad busy what with zillions of classes, and, well, just the classes really. They create a lot of work. Writing and delivering presentations. Buying packs of Cadbury Snaps (chocolate incentives are the only way to do catalogue training). Hiking back and forth to the Copyshop.

Then there’s my dazzling media career to attend to (see Otober’s Update). Thanks to Elspeth Hyams for the compliment on my apparent youthfulness. I put this down to not smoking, not having kids, and a lifelong moisturising habit. I look forward to marketing my own range of cosmetics soon. On the downside, am rather worried Powers That Be may not approve of my outspoken comments, and that I may either get the sack or just never get employed by anoyone else again. One’s daily rantings look much more alarming when set out in print.

Check my bling though, nice to have a picture with the Gong which will all too soon be adorning the curent Vice President’s neck. I’d rather have a cloak of invisibility though…

Maple Leaf Rag

A rare moment’s breather in what has been an insane knee-straining fluorescent-vest-toting registration and induction week. Just back from videoconferencing with Algoma University in Canada – a handful of computer gaming MSc students. Always a bit disconcerting when the audio and video links behave randomly. Try to be witty but it does work so much better when you can make eye contact. ‘I’m the one without the beard’ was about as good as it got today.

Clean out of inspiration, sorry – trying to do far too many things at once and as usual doing most of them badly!

Lithuanian 101

Crazy day today running around being the different dramatis personae in the extravagnaza of registration and induction. Running scripts mainly involves punching numbers into a system. Induction presentations, on this international week, I like to jazz up with a few forays into European languages. Drew a blank on Lithuanian so asked the student in question to teach me something ‘Laba diena’, if you didn’t know, means ‘hi’. Then there’s my all time favourite, Air Traffic Control or Fat Controller, general foyer management duties. Basically herding cats. Had a few escapees during the course of the day.

Distinct lack of breaks, sanity or actual useful work done – par for the course though. Have to watch the inbox though as sneaky extra information literacy classes wend their way into your timetable, as do all manner of absurdities. And people are surprised when we’re not at our desks waiting on their every call. DON’T YOU KNOW THERE’S A FRESHER’S WEEK ON?! Wake up and smell the Rescue Remedy.

Looking forward to a weekend thinking about anything but universities and systems…

Preventive measures

Working from home today in the hope of killing off a cold in time for student registration and induction, which rather alarmingly start tomorrow. Apparently summer has finished. Tell that to all my flowers that are desperately straining their buds and scanning the skies for the most momentary of sunbursts. Lots of rota juggling, calendar filling up so fast and so comprehensively that I may have to ask an equestrian colleague to supply use with ready-filled team nosebags. Should I start pencilling in my bathroom breaks or do I just cross my legs and hum the Marseillaise?

Actual proper classes what are supposed to make sense start all too soon – revisiting presentations, worksheets, demos etc and have the familiar sense of having far too much to say and far too little time. Trying to forget everything I ever knew about Athens (which wasn’t much) but keep catching myself out with off campus access and such delectable joys.

A busy week for CDG Officers, who met on Monday for a marathon agenda which inevitably overran, merging seamlessly into an unexpectedly pink bottle of Pinot Grigo (Pinot Barbie perhaps? Another hint at a summer we never knew?). Lots going on – our Seal of Recognition application has now been submitted and we wait with bated breath… team is shaping up for 2009 and though it is always sad to say goodbye to those who have worked alongside us and shared all the highs and lows, it’s exciting to look forweard to fresh eyes and talents on the committee… Umbrella is less than a year away and our programme is fuller than ever… on the down side, various organisations are falling over themselves to gain entry into our coveted Basement of Doom, whence are consigned the uncooperative, elusive, rude and downright incompetent bodies we occasionally find oursleves dealing with. Yes I know I shouldn’t end a sentence with a preposition, but. End of.

Everything must go

Rising sense of mad trolley dash again as I try to tie up loose ends on a Friday afternoon… taught some S6 school pupils today, just for an hour to give colleagues a breather – they were very nice actually although I don’t know what they thought of my bizarre ad-libs. Don’t think I yet have all my security filters on ready for term time, am just saying things that come into my head without checking for due appropriateness or relevance… waxed lyrical about pilchards and semolina among other things…

Been a few rounds with CELCAT, champion supersystemweight timetabler, all horrible and messy and I don’t wanna play no more. Considering pushing Touchpaper call management system into second place in my Most Hated Applications league.

Frantically doing last minute prep for CDG Officers’ meeting on Monday – out all day tomorrow doing a charity walk round Loch Faskally, then Sunday morning I leave for the long journey to London. I suppose it wouldn’t be a genuine meeting without a few last minute changes or additions to the agenda … in this case I will have to try and tidy up a wee misconception as efficiently and non-controversially as possible… looking forward mainly to the glass of wine following the meeting and the reading time on the train!

Have yourselves a merry little weekend (not too merry, right kids – I always preferred Pippin to Merry BTW)

All issues big and small

According to this week’s Big Issue, it has been a ‘bad week for Library fines: an American student was handcuffed and thrown in jail over two overdue library books. Heidi Dalibor owed £20 after failing to return books by Janet Fitch and Dan Brown on the due date. Cops jailed her, forcing her mum to pay £100 to bail her out.’ I will make no comment on whether her reading choices justify such treatment. But it’s a safe bet that the library service won’t see that money again (we wouldn’t). It will probably go towards leather sofas in the Principal’s office…

I see the World Mind Sport Games are about to take place in Beijing, including bridge, chess, draughts and Go. No Sudoku or Scrabble though. Nor Risk (which has nearly broken up several marriages to my certain knowledge). Nor 221B Baker Street. Nor even WOW as I believe the in-crowd call it.

I was reading these snippets on the way home from a particularly well attended but lengthy CDG Scottish Division meeting. (I am partly to blame for the length, I fear). We missed one train and were forced to chat in the pub for a full 45 minutes after the meet.

Train time now and maybe eke out an hour’s useful CDG work tonight…

Trolley dashing librarian style

day in the life

taught summer school students joys of subject gateways and image resources, nice people

wrestled with admin mountain (can you wrestle a mountain?) for some time

finalised some super official assessment documents

presented paper on IL at big scary meeting which turned out to be not as big and scary as feared

need to run for early train to CDG Scottish meeting in Edinburgh – over £600 raised for Passport to Latin America – visits and courses in the pipeline – might finally get to read those Officer papers on the train and start to get my head together properly in advance of Monday

then will collapse on train on way home and read freebie Val McDermid that I got with Red magazine

milky drinks and pillows beckon soon after

No blogging till Brooklyn

Far too busy working to blog for you today. Don’t you know there’s a new academic year looming? Timetabling hideous and tomorrow I actually have to perform in front of (a) summer school studensta nd (b) teaching and learning committee. Aaarrgh. May even have to iron a suit. Went to gym today and took a lot of it out on the rowing machine. Worship planning meeting tonight which means I still won’t get to read the papers for the CDG Officers’ meeting. Aaarrrgh squared.