I am documenting this so I don’t forget this day.

On Wednesday last week I was told in a meeting that the external body that my workplace uses for quality assurance would be visiting in the new year because our students were getting >33% of the top grade and they want to see ALL of last years work.  Now I teach on a two year course and the second year students were signed off by the external QA in July so there work has been returned to them.  The first year students, now second year students are a nice bunch if somewhat unruly at times and I wasn’t sure that we could get their work together.  So the worrying concern that I have had for the last five days is

1. Do I have to track down the second year students who have left already?  They could be at a University or Workplace anywhere in the country (maybe the world!)
2. Will providing the work that I have for the current second year students be enough.

With every concern like this, there is a reason for it.  That is, the external body can withdraw our rights to run their courses.  This can affect students lives if not handled properly, could end the course(s) and could end my job.  So I have a good reason to be flapping.

However, today I learnt that someone in a different department had awarded all but one their students the top grade possible.  This is the real reason why the external body are coming in, they are coming to look at all the provison they are in control of.  This dramatically changes my position, from one of fretting about the course I run and whether I personally am doing things wrong, to knowing someone else made an apparent mistake (!) and that everyone is being scrutinised.

I learnt this today at just gone 5pm.  I was chatting to colleagues about how uncreative the job actually is compared to what everyone in the profession dreams of it being and something inside of me snapped.  That’s it.  I am going to leave.  I am going to leave the job I loved for nearly twenty years.  Not because of some crappy paperwork that I had to do or that I am disappointed in the job itself; I dealt with those years ago.  The reason I am going is because I was so ill.  I cried for help in my kitchen to a deafening response of silence.  I love teaching so much, but that’s over the line.

So I am making my exit plan.

…and this time I am going to execute it.

Recently I have realised that there isn’t a single part of my existence that is valued by another person enough for them to want to make a strong connective bond or friendship with me.

Recently the work I do has come under threat and the stress this has caused has been considerably uncomfortable.  I work hard, much harder than many coworkers in my opinion.  Is this effort in vain overall?  I have begun to consider whether anyone actually benefits from what I do as much as I hope that they do.

Recently I cut off an old friend because of his undertone of racial hatred which was making me uncomfortable and made him appear to be narrow minded and foolish.  While I still believe I made the right decision the experience was the first of its kind for me and has made me more aware of the people around me. 

Recently i was asked by an uncle if I would like to be a part of the family business.  I initially said yes.  I had trouble with getting myself sorted out and the more I thought about it the more i decided that i loved the job I do now more than what was being offered.  I wanted him to tell the rest of the family about his plan but he never did to my knowledge.  Which meant that i cannot speak about what he said to me.  Just before he died, he expressed in his own way how let down he felt about my inaction.  This hurts me still to this day as i have a lot of respect for him.  I believe that my aunt has told her version of what she knows to the closest members of the family.  This appears to be resulting in social alienation. 

Recently i spent a day with a different aunt, I wanted to speak to her about what was going on in her life and try to get to know her.  She is getting old and well, time is probably shorter than I think.  Unfortunately the aunt from the previous paragraph had been invited too which meant that one to one conversatons weren’t going to happen.  Surface level smalltalk appeared to be all that was to happen sadly.  The aunt from the previous paragraph sarcastically said “this is a nice way to spend an afternoon”. Innocent enough when read, but the tone was like a knife.  It made me self aware and unable to start a new conversation.  I was sadly glad to leave.

Recently I have realised that i have nothing of value to express to others outside of my job.  I am boring.  I am sad.  I am lonely in my heart.  This is what i hide from everyone.

Result!  So much for “We need a phone number”.  Need is such a variable thing.

Interesting that the conversation was about getting MY number for their records and the reason was so that they can call someone incase I go into hospital.

As of today I have no credit card debt again.  I managed to pay off the last £350.00 worth.  I had been paying around £160 each month on it for the last few months after moving my savings of £1600 onto it last december.  It wasn’t draining my finances completely but it really was an extra heavy weight to carry each payday.

Of course its all my fault, I signed up for the thing in the first place.  What did I buy?  I can’t actually remember which is probably pretty typical of a credit card user.  One thing for sure is that I didn’t use it for everyday spending like food and mortgage.  However I did find myself in what felt like an endless cycle of  “emergency=credit card use”.  I managed to stop this by starting an emergency fund and by being extremely stringent with my spending for a couple of months.  I managed to put £200 by for the servicing of my car (which turned out to be an MOT and new radiator! instead) so that I didn’t use my credit card – I used cash instead.

Car Insurance.
Books from Amazon.
A meal out.
A new computer.
A shirt.
Petrol.
New Car Tyres (pair).
Car repair (door window issues).
Holiday in North Wales (Hotel Bill).
The odd ebay purchase.
Tickets to see Steely Dan in concert.
Vet bills.

This is what my statements say that I use my Credit Card for.  Most of these are now budgeted for but the Holiday and the Vet bills are a surprise.  I’m going to have to add them to the list of expenses.  At least if I do that I might actually get to pay for a holiday and not feel bad about going on it.

Damn I really hate credit cards.  Things are just going to have to WAIT!  I’m not going back to that kind of suffering again.

Right now I feel like I need to keep it just in case I need it.  Looking at the statements the most expensive things were about £450.  I need to get at least this much into my emergency fund before the next emergency.  Once I have managed six months or so without it I am going to close the account and return the card.

My “credit card cut-up & shut-up day” is August 22nd 2010.

Here’s my list:

1.Ganesh
2. Shiva
3. Aarti lamp
4. Trays
5. Incense sticks
6. Puja sundries
7. My many religious texts (one single shelf full)
8. Tabla
9. PC and cables mouse keyboard etc
10. A3 printer
12. Kettle
13. 5 mugs
14. Bicycle
15. Helmet
16. Pannier bags
17. Cycling tops, pants, overshoes and gloves
18. Tech toolbox (limited to what fits within)
19. General toolbox (limited to what fits within)
20. Blackberry bold and 8820
21. Belt
22. Braces
23. Tie rack and ties
24. Sock hanger
25. One weeks set of pants, socks
26. One summer coat
27. One winter coat
28. One box of cufflinks and collar stiffners
29. My Portfolio
30. My MA work
31. Bread maker
32. Shredder
33. Poker set
34. PS2 & Games (selection only give rest to Nat)
35. Bollywood Movie collection
36. Music CD collection (34,35 & 36 must fit on 1 benno cd bookcase
37. External Harddrives (home and work) bin the other crap.
38. Billy Bookcase
39. Puja bookcase
40. Ibook (?) Mac mini (?)
41. Hoover
42. Ironing board
43. Iron
44. Water sprayer
45. Wok
46. Tawa
47. Kitchen Radio
48. Umbrella
49. Backpack
50. Trainers
51. Catapillar boots
52. Suit shoes
53. Slipper shoes

There are several things that interested me about this exercise.  Firstly that my desire to keep should extend to my bed.  Secondly, I don’t have 100 personal things that I really want to keep.  I realised that this list is telling me that I have a lot of junk!  At least a lot of things that I don’t care for enough to list – which is interesting.  I think the circumstances in which the list was made is significant.  I made the list on my blackberry of the period of three evenings just as I was about to jump into bed and set the alarm for morning.  Its amazing how clear your mind is when it has the expectation of restful sleep.  (I sleep like a log!)

So anyway, I felt like sharing my list.  Its under development.  I encourage you to make one too.  Its interesting how it clarifies whats important to you right now.  If you have a go, post me a few lines I would like to read your comments.  For your benefit this is where I found out about the 100 things challenge.

I am really nervous about going to my local Hindu Temple.   I think I have a fear of rejection and my situation is feeding it at the moment.  It would be wonderful to get over this but I’m not sure how.

What is my fear? 

• I really don’t want to offend anyone by doing something wrong or even by just being there. 
• I don’t have any Hindu friends to go with.
• What if I make a complete fool of myself while I am there?
• I have been told that non-Hindus cannot be Hindus?
• What happens if I can’t understand what anyone is saying to me?

Why do I want to go to temple?

Well, I adore many of the gods, especially Ganesha, Shiva & Parvati, Saraswati, Lakshmi and over the last two years I have read as much as I can about Hinduism and I feel that it is the truth, I am comfortable with it and it represents what I believe.  The things I have learnt I have felt comfortable taking on board and I’ve  not felt the need to challenge things in the way that I have with the other religions that I have looked at, all be it much more briefly than Hinduism.  Going to Temple solidifies my belief.  I want to take steps to develop spiritually.  This has been a long journey for me so far.

The story of the man and his donkey comes to mind now.

This blog gets read by lots of people, what do you think?  Am I justified in my concerns?  I would especially like to hear from Hindus.

Namaste everyone.

M

Do you think about what you want to do and then just do it ?

Do you think about what you want to do and then labour over whether to do it ?

Do you find that you end up not doing things ?

What’s your process?  I would love to hear your opinions and thoughts about this.

Thanks

M

So if like me your sick of them, here’s what to stick in your filter. This works with Gmail and uses boolean logic so it should work in other filter systems too:

!youremailaddresshere@gmail.com

The exclamation mark on the beginning of your email address means NOT. So this makes the filter list all the emails that have arrived that do not have your email address in the TO: field. This works great for me. Of course it works too well and catches a few emails that aren’t actually spam like forum and email group messages. In Gmail you can use the Doesn’t Have: box to list things that you don’t want to filter out. For example:

hindu | bmw | amnesty | wordpress

the “|” means OR so the above line leaves emails that contain one of those words out of the filtered emails.

I just thought I would post this here so that once google picks it up it might help those who are treading my footsteps with Gmail spam.

Om Namashivaya