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)

Binklebonk

Ah, the sound of pinging reminders… so many tasks still undone… so little to actually say to you. Have made timetable look a bit less hideous by sharing out sessions with a colleague. Inbox looking relatively clear but I just know I’ll come back to chaos on September 1st.

Shall carry on with the great mapping exercise for the graduate attributes… fiddly task involving spreadsheets and four different colours and patterns (for those viewing in black and white, just like the snooker in the early ’80s). Meeting with a colleague later to chat more about our input into the PGCHET course. We were supposed to have half an hour each but as usual I’ve totally over-written and crammed my bit so it could last about 45 minutes.

CDG plans for Umbrella 2009 are coming together nicely

A little lightheaded

Today I feel a little lightheaded; ‘unpleasantly like being drunk’, as Douglas Adams put it (‘What’s so unpleasant about being drunk?’ / ‘You ask a glass of water’). Having topped up the sugar levels just in case, I put it down to eyestrain from too much scrolling through online timetables. Ah, timetabling; a joyful experience. Trust no one; rooms don’t have the projectors they claim to have; some tutors have entered no data at all for their modules; I definitely haven’t yet mastered the art of being in two places at once. Otherwise right now I’d be sat at home with my feet up instead of at my desk.

Small and select gathering of just two book group members today, but we have a lively discussion over lunch about ‘Their eyes were watching God’ by Zora Neale Hurston. Suspect some colleagues dropped out of today because the language took a bit of getting into. Deep South is a long way from Tayside. Next month we go youthful and tackle ‘What I was’ by Meg Rossoff.

This is turning into an unexpectedly long week, frittered away in email threads here and there, sundry admin and liaison tasks, and small snacks of a more or less healthy nature.