Assignment frenzy 2 days to hand in

Well it would have been if I'd done this last night when I finished the critique of my CV. There was something very cathartic about doing that. It's as if by bringing memories up to the surface then commenting on them to draw something positive you close the door on that bit of time. I am slightly concerned about the levels of repetition I'm feeling about the phrases "next job" and "when I was teaching" however as "next job" is ultimately what this course has become about, as it has become apparent than internal upward development is limited, and as "when I was teaching" was the career I invested a lot in but it was not the right one plus there are a lot of things learned from that experience I feel it is inevitable.

I definitely made the right move with all those psychometric tests then the skills check - very positive about my skills I was when doing that. It is hard for us all to appreciate that what we do is good when it's what we do all the time. If you do it all the time that becomes your average and as you are more aware of your own efforts, or in my case don't see anyone who does similar work, you loose the perspective on what you do. It was also interesting finding the skills analysis I'd done in the autumn - where my skills listing done on the Leeds met site came out as "you need to work on all these areas to apply for graduate jobs" then I did a similar one this week, I don't think I've developed in those areas in 2 months, just my realisation of my abilities has improved.

Whether what I have done is correct for the assignment of course remains to be seen, however what I have done is create a very useful bank of data for myself which ultimately is probably more important. Achieving the exams is nice (and gets the funding for the university so that they can continue teaching other people and so on and business cycle) but perhaps I am finally getting to grips with the fact that learning is the goal not the bit of paper that indicates someone has tried to get me to learn something. That's an intriguing concept - is a qualification evidence of learning or evidence of someone attempting to help you to learn something?