I have seen the light!

I had a blinding flash of inspiration last night - as I've been trying to work out why I have this whole underlying "I'm not good enough" thing and have been wondering "good enough for what? By whose standards?" and so forth. As I understand it most people get this from parents but mine don't really undermine us very much - Mr Man thinks we are fabulous and is forever supportive and JM thinks we are better than her and, for all she responds to anything her kids tell her with a story about someone else who has done similar if not better, she doesn't indulge in the "haven't you lost weight, only a stone to go dear" behaviour of many of the mums of friends of mine (who have far closer relationships).

Anyway the blinding realisation - I spend 13 years of my life in an environment where I was continually aware that I was scum because I wasn't Scottish. 6 hours a day, 5 days a week 40 weeks of the year, spent at school, it's bound to create an issue or two for a child. I then moved to England in the hope of freedom from this where I still got grief for another 3 years until I lost all trace of an accent. No wonder I have no memories of that time to speak of! And there we have it - the totally irrational I'm not good enough. Not even enough logic in if for "Good enough for...". I wasn't good enough to be a close friend to, I wasn't good enough to want to socialise outside school with I wasn't good enough to have anything to do with at all if it could possibly be avoided. Sad isn't it that kids are so cruel? Now I think I know where it's come from perhaps it can just start going away again and I can get on with being good enough to be a human being after all (without succumbing to the urge to classify everyone from my school days as scum sucking pond dwellers because I'm good enough not to have to be petty). Just nobody ask me what my views are on devolution for a few months - tow it out and sink it is too good for my Scotland right now.

A catastrophic week

This week has been a bag of pooh. Last Tuesdays classes were OK. Marketing usual stuff - and the poor lecturer really hasn't worked out his targeting yet - we had a good 10 minutes sidetrack as he had to explain the imagery about putting salt in a dishwasher (some people were vocal about not understanding this) and why not having to salt was a benefit for a dishwasher - too many of us just don't have this item of white goods. He does seem to be improving however. The course leader then called - he's opened a right can of worms and I've just spent over an hour on my email of feedback - may/may not make an appearance in the journal, I feel it is useful.

MIE well I didn't fully achieve my goal of non contribution but I did better. As usual managed to not make my points clear but hey that's why we need to keep our gob shut. Data was pretty good really - I got my head round regression at the time any way.

My week continued - the mood diary is looking bleak (it was looking empty, you know the classic you only write stuff when you are down? That theory is very much in action here) Supervision on Friday was a traumatic experience. Could have done with a "you tell too many stories and personalise stuff. Please don't do it so much" Rather than the caring sharing "I've been thinking about why you might do this and it's classic low self esteem behaviour but you have no reason to have low self esteem - you are very good at your job and I do wonder why you are doing this when you could do so much more" kind of approach. Ah yes that'll be my crippling low self esteem. Epitomised in the immortal words of Tim Wood "your not good enough" But good enough for what? I'm trying to build a whole new set of foundations to climb on based on the concept that "if you don't know what it is then how can you know what good enough is so you are probably there" Day one and I've not cried today so that's progress. That and 2 new affirmations "Don't say shit, no-one wants to hear it" and "I'm happy and Great, I have something valid to contribute" Yes I know these do not scan and great and contribute don't rhyme but they are good thought blocking dittys. And they potentially contradict but the 1st one is about saying stuff and the second one is about thinking and doing but not about saying.

The mood diary suggests that there may be a hormonal element of my taking things so hard. However there's something else going on that the self esteem revealing stories have been escalating - and I thing that something is MIE. I think a blitz on getting assignments moved on over the next week would be a very sensible move - the sooner I can stop the blues.

This thing has thrown up another can of worms - whilst acknowledging that my absence would be bad for my employer he also indicated I probably need to think about where to next and that may well be around the same time as finishing this course. Now I know that logically I knew that but it escalates the whole where/when/why thing about where to next. Had a great conversation with one of the other students about what her work was about - strategic people management kind of thing. And it is the people stuff that I engage with most, whilst liking the concept of strategic stuff and the whole data handling thing but where does this lead me? I know I don't want to be in a social care/child centred environment (I don't think it's right for me long term) but I'm back to the days of temping and knowing what you don't want to do. Right then with that at the top of my head lets go explore these career thing s for tomorrow MIE!

Mind maps

Repeat after me "I must not mention mind maps to anyone, I must not mention mind maps to anyone" I have done something terrible and now if I mention mind maps people start explaining them and talking around them and stuff. It is of course all my own fault. I was trying to get to grips with these about 4 months ago when I read Tony Buzans speed reading book (which of course is now on hold because of this course... That's silly isn't it?) and had a bit of a problem because I wanted an exercise to practice and someone to check it and asked a couple of people who then... Explained what they think of as mind maps, in such a way that I became more confused. I guessed there wasn't a right or wrong way, I just wanted a check that I was pointing in the right direction because it seemed dreadfully complicated trying to do stuff not in lines and lists (because I think in words more than pictures, this is the person who dreams she is reading a newspaper and loathed art with a passion because it was the only thing I was bad at at school and had teachers who deliberately humiliated you, reinforced at university by Dr Hughes and his "you clearly can't see what is in the microscope as you haven't drawn it" battle. Humiliation does scar you badly).
Anyway, on the train on Friday I did the left/right brain exercise and found I fell almost in the centre of the double dominant brain score. Which made sense to me - I'm left handed which seems to force you to be more ambi everything as far as I can see. I have always done what other people call flights of fancy (which I see as logical) as much as logic (which often doesn't seem so to me eg if you miss a step in a mathematically proof it'll usually loose me).

The next section was this mind map thing. I had to stop in the end - the pictures were freaking me out - me and my art trauma thing above, and well you don't really want to end up in tears on a packed out train! Not to mention what the blobby thing that had been drawn to be a centre of your "do a mind map of mind maps" exercise looked like... The clean version is a McDonald's arch over a cesspit - (which to be fair exactly represents a drive thru!) although I did see it as a vagina with B******s hanging out of it prior to this, which is a very disturbing image. So I didn't do the exercise on the train. Nor did I do it on Saturday as the picture tears welled up. I steeled myself this evening and got paper and did it without the pictures. I have now realised that mind maps are partially so useful because you have to redo them so often to render them legible you have done so much repetition that of course it's beginning to stick in your head. You can start to visualise the lists and perhaps there is hope for me yet.

Tried the 2nd exercise of a map of learning development. That has proved harder - partly because I want the neatness of the SWOT (and I don't like having to redo stuff I've done in another format and found useful, because I'm impatient) and partly because I can't think of any other categories to add, and the career thing is rearing it's ugly head again. I don't know! I want to be here to learn stuff so that in a years time I can pull the strands together and think "this is where my career should now head" but I feel that for the sake of this module I need to be thinking "this is where my career should be heading, how do the things I am learning help me" this feels like a closing in path and I want to be on the broadening out path. I think I should bite the bullet and start working to the assignment, get that done then go back to grasping the learning.

Back to the mustn't mention though - my housemate came in from work as I was doing this and threw in some stuff because she remembered I'd had this trauma before, but I've been explaining myself so badly yet again and I sort of felt that I was unraveling, instead of just saying "I can see a use for this" in a closing down conversation tone of voice I do it in an opening up tone of voice and I end up thinking I must have missed the point again somewhere. I don't think I have. I do think that "this is a tool that can be useful, manipulate it how you will" I no longer think mind map says "lists are bad evil and to be avoided". When will I internalise that other people's interpretation is not necessarily the one I should get to grips with? I know logically that just because it's my interpretation doesn't make it less valid, I just don't seem to apply this knowledge. The more I do my course stuff the more I feel I should move away from the hippy stuff and pursue the traditional logic approach, but I can see no other solution than to play an affirmation in my head from now until I accept that my idea can be a valid one. Afterall if I can't accept the possibility that my opinion is worth anything then how can I every manage situations with intergrity (as opposed to the way I currently manage them by pretending to be in charge, applying the "pretend something for long enough people start to believe it rule" as usual). Rats. I want to believe I might be thinking too hard, but I'm afraid I'm not thinking hard enough.

Thankfully the 6 hat stuff makes sense - would love to be in an environment where people could try using it, will just have to try using it on me.

Plan for tomorrow - Don't speak in class, pay attention, shut up and remember just because someone else says it doesn't make it more valid than your opinion. Report back if I succeed.

Noooo!

I wrote a massive blog on Thursday evening and as it was saving the system appeared to go horribly wrong. NO thought I IT WILL BE FINE. How very wrong I was. It was a really good bit of Here is the problem, here is what I thought, here is how I rationalised it, here is where to next that was just perfect for the assignment. And it's gone. And the whole thing was very traumatic and do I really have to relive it again?
Hmmm - it was all about last weeks MIE lecture - I got upset, I felt stupid, I worked out that the tutor just has a rather aggressive response style, rather than acknowledging peoples opinions and asking what others think she tends to talk about with whatever she thinks the student has said (which never seems to be what I think the person has said) in a "this is a conflict to be overcome way" rather than a "this is a piece of information to be exchanged" kind of way, and I always make the mistake of contributing and then feeling I am stupid. I decided I should make a conscious decision to contribute less, remember that she may not have contextualised the topic clearly enough for me (eg in this case it was in fact a history of management, not supposed to be new information to be acted on) so I need to take a step back and all will be well. It was a lot better expressed that that. Don't you hate it when you loose an hours work?

Our Data handling lectures are getting trickier but I think I see a direction my career may need to go in next - if I continue to enjoy the concepts of using information for strategic planning...

Spent a lot of today reading "Marketing, Management and strategy by Peter Doyle - This makes sense, Marketing really is just common sense: Plan, adapt and survive, stay customer focused, longer term goals not just short term planning make for long term survival. I have just read the chapter summaries and the 1st couple of chapters but I think I may have to find a "what marketing used to be" text to understand why the newer books we read all seem to take a "Marketing must change" approach.

homework

Today I did my sums for Data handling - 2 out of 3, no idea how to do the 3rd. Hmmm this doesn't bode well does it?
Today I did the questionnaires bit in the MIE booklet on management. I need to read the rest of it too but its the classic way your brain interprets something as "unitelligible gobbledegook" when the problem is its "illegible stuff" I'll try again tomorrow. I wonder if reading it out loud would help? The difficulty with the management type stuff is that I don't see how I manage people - I manage the people around me but I don't line manage them. Also there isn't anywhere for me to be promoted to and I am doing the course because I need to find out more stuff before I decide what direction I want to move in, Oh life. It's confusing. I need to be a bit more focused on this - less embrace everything grasp nothing, feel I'm going nowhere fast with it.