Tag: Employment

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Life

Wanting what’s best

I’d like a holiday. And to win Gold Lotto. And to work only because I want to, not because I have to. A second property would be nice, as would travelling with my family and seeing what the world has to offer. I’d like… well, when it comes down to it, I’d like a lot of stuff without having to work too hard for it. Lazy, huh! And I wonder if I’m the only one out there who feels this way?

I know, however, that life wouldn’t be good like that. Even though I’d like to think that ‘I just need this to happen, then all my worries will be over and I’ll be on Easy Street’ – I kinda know, in the back on my mind, that it’s just a pipe dream. That with every set of circumstances comes its own unique set of problems, challenges, issues, whatever you want to call it. Like wanting to exist on cheesecake and chocolate. It’d be absolutely beautiful – for a while! – but there’s no way that we can get out of the inevitable consequences on our waistlines and our health!

So, I guess, I need to suck it up and just live the life that I’m living. With work. With exhaustion from lack of sleep. With the daily struggle – because I know that the daily struggle makes me the person that I am. And I *do* actually like this person. Most of the time! It’s the journey that counts. Isn’t that what they always say? Even though the journey is the hard slog bit, it’s the trudging forward and forward that confirms our character. With all that money, living on ‘Easy Street’, I wouldn’t be able to look at my life with pride. Actually, I’d probably feel guilty because I could see all those people – hundreds of millions around the world – who have nothing compared to me, and who knows but I might share what I have with them until I’m right back where I started! I’d like to think that I would anyway. I know that laziness isn’t good for me. I need to work. I need to struggle. If nothing else, then for my own self-respect.

In the next chapter of 1 Samuel, we’ve fast forwarded a few decades. Samuel, the Israelites’ spiritual leader, is now old, and although he’d like to hand over the reigns to his sons, they’re corrupt and so the people want Samuel to choose a King to lead them. Samuel is horrified, and tries to convince them otherwise, but they insist. How often do we do that? Insist on one particular course of action even though we have been told by wise advisers that it’d be a stupid thing to do?

Listen to advice. I guess that’s the moral of the story today. Don’t just assume that what we want is what’s best for us. Like a Gold Lotto win, or living entirely on cheesecake, what we want is NOT what’s best for us. So I’m going to look at today with a ‘this is what’s best for me’ mindset, I think! And, when it all comes down to it, that’s okay. I kinda really like my life.

Here’s wishing you an awesome day today, dear reader 🙂

— Ceridwyn

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family anecdotes Life More about me teaching Work

Happiness is…

I am so truly, incredibly, utterly blessed. I’ve scored a job working in the same school where my daughters go. I get to teach them both Music. I get to look through the windows of their classrooms as I walk around the school. I get to see them at break times, while they’re eating; while they’re playing with their friends. I get to liaise with their teachers about the day-to-day things. And they get to see me as a teacher, which in some respects is a more confortable skin for me than the ‘mother’ skin is.

It’s pretty darn cool, let me tell you!!!

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Bloxham Marketing momentous events Technology Work

Hump day happenings

LogoColorTextBelowSo yesterday was Wednesday. Hump day. The day of the inaugural ‘HumpDay Happenings’ with the awesome Jenny Venier, over at BloxhamMarketing.com

Why not head over and check it out?!!!

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Realities

I’ve blogged before about my TV watching habits. Well, on the recommendation of @joeyroo1, I watched Grimm last week. And again last night (taped from Wednesday night, when I was busy trying to get my bomb-site of a kitchen in some semblance of order). So. Grimm. Not bad, I must admit. Pretty witty in places too, which I wasn’t expecting! A lot darker than I’m used to, but I like the premise. Hopefully the storyline will get a little deeper though – the three episodes I’ve watched to date (this week’s was a double episode) have been rather similar, and I can see it getting old rather quickly, if it remains this repetitive. Not when you compare it to “Once Upon a Time”, which also started last week and which has quickly become my all-time favourite TV show. The script-writing is clever – to drag the ‘Snow White’ story into a second season, it would need to be! But even this show, with the introduction of Mulan and Lancelot in the second series, is becoming rather predictably far-fetched. I mean – how many extra characters do you need to add in here?!!

Be that as it may, I was thinking about Grimm as I fell asleep last night. And something occurred to me. They mentioned that “Marie”, the protagonist’s Aunt and ‘mentor’ in the area of ‘fighting evil creatures’ was a Librarian. Which makes sense, in that she needed to research the huge variety of evil creatures, in order to know how to kill them; and then pass this wealth of knowledge onto her nephew. And so yes, research and keeper of information, seems to go hand in hand with the occupation of Librarian. So far, so good. But you add her moonlighting (haha) as a sword-weilding killer of evil fantasy creatures, and then her character becomes enviable. I mean – who *wouldn’t* want to be that kind of a secret hero? That’s what all the comic books told us when we were kids, right? That to be good, and fight evil, and protect the innocent who were unfortunate enough to not have any super-powers… that’s what we’re all brought up on, right? So here she is, a little old Librarian, all the more pitiable because she’s little, and (apparently) frail, because she’s dying of cancer and keeps slipping into and out of comas at the most inconvenient of times, so that her nephew who is new to all this killing werewolves etc has to turn to  a ‘good’ werewolf for help, and then she calls on super-human strength to wield swords, daggers etc and overpower people trying to kill her, and kill them instead. I mean – how cool is that?!!

And it occurred to me that I – me – am studying to be a Librarian. Yes, now that my Application for Advanced Standing was approved just a few weeks back, now I have just two courses and my 100 hours Prac to do, and I’ll be fully qualified to stand behind the desk in a Library and help people. By day. And maybe be a superhero by night.

Hopefully I won’t end up frail and weak, dying of cancer. Maybe I’ll be a Librarian like Superman’s mum was, or along the lines of Batgirl?! Or maybe I’ll just getthe qualification and keep on keeping on with Bloxham Marketing, and be a SuperHero marketer?!! Whatever happens, I guess, remains to be seen. Which do *you* think I should opt for?

Image credited to IMDb at http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1830617/

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Bloxham Marketing More about me Work

You know you love your job when…

Yesterday, Hubby commented that, “What if we had won Gold Lotto on Saturday? We wouldn’t have to go back to work this week.” He then added, that we could just laze around at home, go to the beach, going shopping, or do whatever we wanted to.

It made me stop and think for a minute . And then I realised something awesome. That even if I *had* won Gold Lotto, that I still would spend my time doing exactly what I’m doing right now. That I, strangely enough, I *want* to work at my job. Because I love my job. No, really. I truly am, in love with, my job!

Yes, I realise just how wacky that sounds. I mean, who would *want* to work, if they didn’t have to?!!

But I love it. The infinite variety. The challenge, after challenge, after challenge. The exhilaration of doing an excellent job, and having that job appreciated by those who know how hard it was. The conviction of knowing that I am doing something that few others do. And that I love it. And that my clients pay me for it.

Wow. That understanding is so liberating!

That’s said, it’s a huge responsibility as well. When I stuff up, the only person to blame is the person who looks back at me from the mirror. And that can be humiliating. That’s a failure is a part of life, and one which I hope I learn from. Only time will tell, I guess!

CC image courtesy 401K at http://www.flickr.com/photos/68751915@N05/6355347769/

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Bloxham Marketing GoodOldTalk Life teaching Technology Work

The calm before the storm…

Today is the *last* day of the working week. Ha! I can’t recall when the last weekend that I didn’t work. Months ago? Years, more like.  I think, prior to conceiving the idea for GoodOldTalk.com – back when Mr 3 was 9 weeks old – I had some weekends where I wasn’t in front of the computer screen. I would have been busy with young children though. Is that just work of a different kind? Anyway, straying off topic here…

I love my job. Which is why I don’t keep regular hours. I often send emails between the hours of 9pm and midnight, or will blog in the early hours of the morning (I’m currently writing this at 3.54am) because that’s when it’s quiet and I can get stuff done. And if a kid wakes me in the middle of the night, as Mr 3 did just an hour or so ago, I’ll generally just stay up and work. And that’s okay with me. Truly. Being self-employed, if I don’t put in the hours and get the work done, I’ll lose my client’s respect – and then their business. Which is not good. So I work, and am happy to do so.

When it gets tricky though, is managing when I’m offered relief teaching. Since teaching means good money, and we need that, I only pass up these opportunities when I’m ill, or one of my children is. So missing a good 8 working hours out of a day while I teach means that I inevitably have to catch up that time elsewhere. And that’s where my organisation, of necessity, goes into overdrive.

Take next week, for example. I’ll be the St Paul’s Prep C teacher Monday through Thursday. I’ve also organised a branding photo event next Monday for the school – so the brilliant Greg Parsons will be shooting some additions to the St Paul’s library of branding photos. And normally I would assist in this event – but I can’t, because I’ll be in the classroom. I’ll also be in the classroom on Tuesday when I would normally be updating websites, on Wednesday during my Skype appointment with Hervey Bay, and on Thursday when I’d be interviewing sources for my weekly news stories that I submit on Fridays. See my problem? I need to re-schedule all my marketing activities for non-school hours… and not forget my mum / wife duties too (swimming lessons, shopping, cooking, washing clothes, helping with homework etc etc etc).

Sometimes life can be tricky to sort out. Lucky I’ve got this weekend to prepare it all! (Oh – and I apologise in advance. I doubt very much that I’ll be posting anything over the next several days!)

CC Image courtesy CC Chapman at http://www.flickr.com/photos/cc_chapman/480188435/

 

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Bloxham Marketing GoodOldTalk Life Technology University studies Work

Code? What code?!

If you’re a regular reader of hmmm… you may remember I’ve written before about GoodOldTalk.com – a social network for Seniors – that I launched back in August 2009. I still run it, with my mum. We were fortunate enough to obtain the services of the brilliant Sean Bannister and Mindy Chaplin to create the site for us, and at their recommendation, used the Drupal content management system. All well and good – since its inception, I’ve grown familiar with how to run the administration of it all.

Fast-forward to July of 2010, and witness my entrance to the world of post-grad studies. A Masters in IT, majoring in Library and Information Science, to be precise. And one of the main pieces of assessment for one of my first units? Keep a WordPress blog. Happy to! Since GoodOldTalk. I’d kinda become familiar with blog-keeping. WordPress was unfamiliar, but the concepts were easily transferrable. And by the end of the unit, I could see enough value in the idea of a personal blog that I didn’t need too much convincing when @fionawb issued a #blog12daysxmas challenge – and that became the impetus for starting hmmm…

Fast-forward again, this time to February of 2011. Jobless, I pitch the Principal of St Paul’s Lutheran, Caboolture, to pay me to run his marketing. He agrees, and suddenly I’m a self-employed marketing consultant. With administrative rights to the St Paul’s website. Which is based on Joomla! (If I had my way, there would be no exclamation mark at the end of that sentence…!) Again, the skills are transferrable. Which was good. Adding St James Lutheran, Hervey Bay, as a client in September of that year – and Caloundra Christian College just two weeks ago – both of whom have websites based on Joomla! – is also rather helpful, as it has meant that I’m not being pushed too far out of my comfort zone.

But what I love about this Masters I’m studying is that it really challenges me. As in, REALLY challenges me. I’m pretty proud of the fact that I’ve received 7’s and 6’s (that marketing elective I did, Sem II last year, I’m counting as a major aberration. I was seriously NOT happy with the outcome of swapping across to the Business faculty for that elective!!!) – and  I’m also pretty chuffed that because I was among QUT’s top 15% of students, I was invited to become a member of the Golden Key International Honour Society. I know I’ve worked my butt off, and (with the exception of one assignment to date) I’ve immensely proud of the work I’ve submitted.

But I’m nervous about this semester. On the suggestion (demand?! ultimatum?!) of Hubby, I’m only studying one unit. INN530, with @katiedatwork. Which I’m pretty excited about… but… one of the 50% assignments is a coding one. In HTML5 – with maybe a bit of CSS thrown in for good measure. And I’m scared. I’ve skimmed the Wikipedia entries on both topics, and I’ve gone ahead and checked out an online tutorial on HTML5 coding, and I’m feeling WAAAAAAAAAAAY out of my depth. Really. And truly, And very, very, very scarily!!!

So… wish me luck! This semester’s going to be a biggie!!!

CC Image courtesy Jesper Rønn-Jensen at http://www.flickr.com/photos/jesper/355128797/

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Bloxham Marketing family anecdotes Life More about me teaching Technology Work

Flattened.

Squashed. Like a bug that’s been steamrolled. That’s how I’m feeling after this week. I mean, I knew it was going to be a biggie, going into it, but didn’t really expect to be feeling like this at its conclusion…

Monday was work day. Head down, bum up, get-a-heap-of-things-done day, because the rest of the week would be drive-around-like-crazy day. It didn’t help that I had negative-gig left in my data quota due to a mix-up with Telstra this time last month. But, I had to get it done, so done it got.

Tuesday morning I spent at St Paul’s, getting stuff done on campus – stuff which would have been nigh-on impossible to do remotely, then it was pick-up-the-kids-from-care-and-drive-up-to-Minyama for my last (sob) Speech Therapy session with Suzanne at Sunshine Coast Speech Therapists. Lovely lady. Truly lovely. And even though that nodule on my right vocal cord isn’t gone yet, at least now I have some techniques to speak properly without exacerbating it – and hopefully it will go over time. Then I taught that evening.

Wednesday morning was meant to be playgroup-before-podiatirist, but Miss 4 and Mr 2 weren’t going to cope too well with that, so we ended up just visiting our neighbour in the morning, then heading out to collect Miss 7 early form school and driving down to Brisbane for her Podiatry appointment, then driving back to Caboolture for her swimming lesson, before driving to Morayfield for a *fun* time grocery shopping, then finally back up the Coast to home.

Thursday was diagnosis day. Miss 4 got dropped off at my mum’s at Currimundi while Mr 2 came to Nambour (Selangor Hospital) with me. Autism diagnosis confirmed, he then spent the afternoon back at my mum’s villa while I visited Tullawong Primary College, Medicare, the Family Assisstance Office, CentreLink, and finally Telstra (Yay! Got the internet working on my iPhone again!) before collecting the kids and heading home exhausted…

And Friday, I relief taught a very full-on Prep class. And Miss 4 managed to lose one sandal at care. One half of her favourite (and only!) pair of sandals. And Hubby fell victim to an unfortunate accident – our HUGE German Shepherd pup tripped him up badly in their morning run – which not only meant that a) he spent the majority of the day visiting doctors (X-ray of right wrist revealed just tissue damage thank God!) and dentists (teeth shaken about and chipped, but little other damage) and b) being laughed at because he’s limping and looks a sight – and his dog did it to him, but also that he’s completely out of action when it comes to helping with the kids because they don’t understand that they can’t jump on him anymore – plus he has zero use of his right hand / wrist anyway.

And Saturday morning was family-time. Half-great; half-tragic. I guess it’s no wonder that I spent most of Saturday afternoon yawning, if not dozing / less-than-conscious. Which is why I’m blogging now, at 3.07am Sunday morning. Nuff said?!

Phew! And it looks as though this coming week will be almost as full on…!!!

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More about me random scribblings Random thoughts Scribblings Technology University studies

From the archives… my thoughts on ‘folksonomies’

Again, another interesting piece from my first-ever blog…

Is ‘the author’ a dying breed? Just one of the disadvantages of folksonomies.

BY CERIDWYN, ON AUGUST 13TH, 2010

Imagine you’ve just spent the last few years of your life writing a novel. You’ve researched it; poured out your thoughts, ideas, and plans; agonised over characters, settings and  plot devices. Finally, after countless hours of Herculean effort, it’s finished. YOUR work. YOUR  effort. YOUR blood, sweat, and tears.

Should you have the right to feel some sort of ownership of that novel? Or those words? Phrases? Characters? Ideas? In my opinion, I yell out a resounding ‘YES!!’ (Of course I would, I’m an aspiring novelist.) However, there are many that wouldn’t.

Put a photo on flickr, and anyone can ‘tag’ it. Okay, that’s normal practice. Maybe, if the photographer hadn’t wanted their photo tagged, they shouldn’t have put it there. But they did, so they should accept the ‘standard practice’ on these types of sites. But what then, when it comes to something other than a photo? When it comes to something like that novel you’ve worked just so darn hard to create? Is it then fair that others can ‘tag’ this? Your work? I guess it’s all well and good if the tags are suitably reflective of the main ideas espoused: ‘historical novel’; ‘character-based’ etc etc. But what if it gets tagged ‘a piece of crap’?! How would you then feel? Because this is indeed a possibility – once ‘out there’, on the net, you have relinquished all control over your work. Completely. It’s enough to make you, the author, want to quit.

And another disadvantage? Finding your novel again! Say this piece of work that you had sweated over was ‘Les Miserables’ (which makes you, of course, Victor Hugo). Say hundreds of years have passed; hard copies of your novel have fallen into disrepair or worse. The only copies that exist, dwell in whatever the future’s version of ‘online’ is. But unfortunately, they’re impossible to find, because everyone has ‘tagged’ your work with classifications that are personal to them.

This system called ‘folksonomy’? I don’t agree with it. I can’t change it; and I know that I have to live with it; but I don’t like it. I’m with Daniel Pink on this one… “On the great library shelf in the sky, Melvil Dewey cannot be amused.”

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Excited!

I love the anticipation of a journey!

Source: bing.com via Heidi on Pinterest

Not knowing where it will lead, or where it will take you in the process… as an optimist, the thought of where I could end up always makes me smile with the possibilities!

Tomorrow and Friday I’ll be at my first Lutheran Education Queensland (LEQ) conference. Possibly my first of many! (At the next one, on the 28th of February, I’m actually the presenter! It’s called ‘Harnessing the Power of Digital Marketing’, and I’m the ‘Professional Digital Marketing consultant’ that they’ve got addressing the LEQ Principals and Business Managers. Cool or what?!!)

So I feel as though I’m taking my first steps into a journey I’m very much looking forward to taking.

Wish me luck, dear readers!