After three months hard work the 2011 undergraduate prospectus is finally signed off and about to roll off the presses. And I reckon it’s the best one yet, even if I do say so myself. I just have to upload all the altered text back to the course search now and check the PDF version when it’s ready.
Just in time to start work on the 2011 postgraduate prospectus. Hurray!
It’s everywhere. I’ve got my hands full with the prospectus so I was working from home anyway, but, unluckily for me, almost everyone I know can’t make it to work so is getting free days off. My work has closed for the last two days. I don’t know if it’ll open again tomorrow, but I’m working from home again anyway and planning to visit the prospectus design company who are just down the road on Friday so I can walk there if needs be. No real damage done to my deadlines.
Mark’s work also shut (for the first time since he’s worked there, except when they had a burst water main) and have said they’re also staying closed tomorrow. He’s rattling round the house like a caged animal. He’s done everything he can do from home (he’d planned all his lessons over Christmas so nothing to catch up on there!) and he’s now getting very bored. Poor love. And there’s only so much drums and guitar you can play in a day.
Still, it made the newsreaders very happy on TV. I can’t believe they replaced the footy with a special on the bad weather! They could have given us something interesting to watch.
It’s costing me a fortune in clothes. The trousers I bought about 5 weeks ago are already hanging off me. I look like a kid playing dress up with her big sister’s wardrobe.
I’ve finally got in my last pair of ‘drawer under the bed’ trousers. They are a pair of beige cords I bought in M&S in Norwich shortly after I moved there. They were a bit tight but I figured I’d lose a few pounds and they’d fit great. I’ve had them nearly 5 years and never worn them yet! That was about the time I started piling weight on. They look good now though and I shall wear them this weekend. I’m really glad fashions haven’t changed much in the last decade.
It’s only a couple of weeks since I got in my other ‘diet target’ pair of trousers I bought shortly before I left Glasgow. I’d been on a diet after I’d finished writing up my thesis and everyone said how good they looked. I already need to wear them with a belt I’ve shrunk that much. God it feels good!
Work should watch out though - I can wear my navy blue interview suit again. They’d better not upset me or I’ll be off job hunting, confident in the knowledge that I’ll have something nice to wear when I get an interview. Actually, a really good marketing job came up this week at Salford uni. If I went for it I’m sure I’d be in with a good chance, but I’ve too much going on at the moment to apply for it, and, for the most part, I’m happy where I am. Besides I’ve got some interesting projects going on at work at the moment and I’d like to see the fruits of my labour. I’ve enough challenges to be getting on with for now.
I started the CIM Professional Diploma in Marketing a couple of weeks ago now. I have to confess I’m finding it hard going. I have no background in business studies at all, so while I’ve picked up quite a lot of practical marketing experience at work, the terminology they use on the course means nothing to me.
After the first week I was really uncertain that I’d done the right thing. I wasn’t sure that I’d fit in with my classmates and for the rest of the week I felt completely wiped out, absolutely shattered. But it’s my firm belief that you should never give up on this type of thing until you’ve given it a good six week trial so I went back the next Monday night. It was much better - I feel I have a reasonable grasp of what we were lectured on and it’s interesting and engaging. Plus I seem to be meeting people. My main worry is that the exams are in early December and I’m not sure I can fill in all the background and learn all the stuff that I have to remember in so short a time. I have nothing to connect this information to, no framework of knowledge on which to hang these new concepts. Also again I felt completely wiped out for the rest of the week.
I went back last Monday as well. I’m getting to know a few people and it seems to be OK to admit that you haven’t got a clue what the lecturer is talking about. Some people seem to already know a lot of the concepts and acronyms that are being bounced around the room, but most people only seem to know about the things that relate to the area of marketing in which they work, a bit like me. Also, most of the people that I’m meeting seem to have studied Biology at degree level - so this obviously answers the question ‘Where do all the biologists go?’. Marketing apparently. I’m enjoying it, but there’s this nagging fear telling me there’s too mcuh work and too little time.
It doesn’t help that I’m working vast amounts of overtime at work either - I’m not getting home until 8pm most nights and the last thing I want to do is homework for my course. There just aren’t enough hours in the day.
So, this is my plan:
Leave SK189 until after the exams. I should be able to finish that course in the space between the end of this semester and the start of next semester.
Buy an introductory marketing textbook for first year undergraduates. Hopefully this will give me the background knowledge on which to hang my CIM studies and introduce all the terminology in a systematic way. I’m hoping the book will have a glossary. I’ve chosen the one recommended for the first unit of the CIM’s Professional Certificate in Marketing which is for folk who are completely new to the subject. It also gets a 5-star rating on amazon.com so someone obviously likes it. I should get it on Tuesday.
Get some studying done on my half term break - in fact I think I’ll go visit my mum and dad for a few days (without Mark). Traditionally I’ve always taken textbooks with me when visiting them so they won’t be surprised or offended.
Write up my lecture notes and try to tie them in with the notes in the course texts.
Create World Peace and save the Universe.
I think I’ll tackle the Universe first - it shouldn’t take me more than a few days.
For better or worse, in exhaustion and weariness, I’m enrolling on the CIM Professional Diploma in Marketing next week. I’ve finally got the funding from work and an offer from the uni. I’m quite excited, but also nervous of what to expect. I don’t know where I’m going to get the energy to study after work for 4 hours every Monday night - and that’s just the lectures. There’s the actual exams and general studying to fit in too.
Good job I’ve got a good memory really - gotta cram all that info in there. I need to finish SK183 before the end of October as well. Oh well, who wants to relax at weekends anyway?
Phew! Well, I’m still here - I’ve survived two days of clearing hotline meyhem and two full-on uni open days back-to-back. Bloomin’ hard work mind, I’m exhausted. The hotlines were busy and the clearing applicants generally had pretty good qualifications - you have to wonder how come they’re roaming around without a place at uni already. We’ve had a lot of engineering enquiries which is a bit of a surprise - maybe they’ve suddenly realised that there are money and jobs to be had.
The open days went really well, apart from the downpour from the heavens yesterday. There was a cheerful sort of an atmosphere, which is great, especially when the weather is horrible - folk tend to get a bit tetchy when it’s raining. The new caterers seem to have coped with the butty making, and considering campus is a building site at the moment there were no real problems. Everyone pitched in and poor Keith was roped into acting as the master of ceremonies (which has always been my job in the past). I’m really glad they didn’t ever make me wear the red don’s gown they inflicted upon him - I’d have refused to do it I reckon. Still, it made him very easy to spot in the crowd.
What’s weird is that the open days haven’t flattened me like they normally do - I don’t ache all over. Usually I feel rather like truck has hit me and I have to go to bed and have a little sleep. I suppose it’s probably because I’ve just come back from holiday where we did lots of walking and I’m comparitively fit at the moment. It won’t last.
I just have to survive the next few days now - I get to rest on Thursday - I’m really looking forward to it.
- climb aboard the rollercoaster, the A-level results are here again
Well, it begins, the 13 day week from hell. I’m already knackered and it’s only Monday. Frantic preparations are continuing to get everything ready for the chaos that will begin on Thursday - A-level results day. Obviously clearing is pretty horrible for the students concerned - not knowing which university they are going to, if any. But I guarantee, it’s a hell of a lot worse for the university staff involved in trying to recruit them. Stomach churning is a fair description. There’s all the pressure from the top to get the best students, and if that fails, simply as many students as possible. There’s the long hours, the mail merging, printing, stuffing and deperately trying to make the last post with your offer letters. There’s the record keeping and statistical analyses. There’s the frantically trying to track down an academic tutor to make an offer on an out of the ordinary application. There’s the hoping like hell that the advertising campaign you’ve approved will do the trick. But, most of all there’s the highly stressed applicant and, more often than not, their highly stressed parent to deal with. It is all worth it though, when you can offer that depressed and tearful voice on the end of the phone a place on the course they want, and listen as their despair turns to joy and their misery to whoops of joy - and they do whoop and scream and celebrate. That’s a pretty damn good feeling. Clearing is definitely education’s answer to Alton Towers and I get to go for two weeks every summer. And I don’t have to queue.
Of course the ‘Additions’ post explains why I haven’t posted for 6 weeks. I’ve been working my little socks off and I haven’t had the energy.
In fairness though, I am also doing an OU course in Photography which is taking up a lot of my spare time. I’ve been at the computer for hours and hours every day, and haven’t had much inclination to compose and post blogs as well, even though I’ve had stuff I wanted to say. I’ll tell you about that another time though.
Experience suggests that I don’t carry the gene for addition: I can chain drink coffee for weeks, then stop, and not have caffeine cravings; I was a serious binge-drinker in uni, having 6 or 7 pints or more 5 or 6 nights a week, but I’ve never felt any desire to start the day off with a bloody mary; I was a social smoker for several years, but only once in my life have I ever desired a cigarette when I was sober and that was the day of my PhD viva (probably the most stressful day of my life so far) - I didn’t have one.
I’ve always thought that if I was prone to any addition it would almost certainly be gambling. I enjoy a flutter. I even have an online gambling account. I’ve never uploaded more than £10 though - I’ve always told myself this was because I couldn’t trust myself not to blow the lot, although in practice I never have and feel guilty if I lose a fiver.
I’ve just watched Louis Theroux on Las Vegas and high rollers. All this time I’ve been wrong - I could never get addicted to gambling. I think that my understanding that the stakes are stacked firmly in the house’s favour is far too strong. I can’t help but shake my head in disbelief and wonder what’s wrong with these people? Can hope really be that destructive?
And now it hits me - I AM an addict. It’s just that I’m the type of addict that’s completely socially acceptable, even encouraged. I’m a WORKAHOLIC. I’m pathologically hopeful that if I work hard enough and long enough this will be recognised by my employer and I’ll be rewarded with riches beyond my wildest dreams (well a bit of a promotion). After all, someone’s gotta earn the big bucks - why not me? However, all that’s really happening is that my employers are rubbing their hands together with glee thinking ‘glory be, another hardworking little sucker’. I’m a bloody idiot - but I just can’t seem to stop.
So I ask you - can you get counselling for this kind of thing? Is there a workaholics anonymous?
I probably shouldn’t be posting this as I’m sure it will be costing me a fortune on my Vodafone mobile connect card, but I’m a long way from home and I need to communicate so what the hell! At present I’m staying in an Express by Holiday Inn in Newcastle or Gateshead (not sure where exactly) trying to persuade a teabag to give me a third cup of tea. I’m losing the argument. Why are these places so stingy with the tea bags?
I peddled our university’s wares to the sixth formers of County Durham today (after staying in the similarly unimpressive A1 J61 Premier Travel Inn last night). Frankly, I’m amazed that anyone ever makes it to university from County Durham. The schools seem utterly apathetic about tertiary education. Half the schools would only let their students come to the HE Fair if they had a free period so of course hardly anyone came to the afternoon session. Don’t these schools realise that their stats look bad if none of their students progress to HE? What the hell are they thinking? Of those students that did attend very few were prepared - most didn’t have a clue what course they want to do or what careers they could lead to. What are the careers teachers doing around here?
On the plus side though the sun was shining, and County Durham is very beautiful. So I guess I shouldn’t complain too much.