My birthday weekend was great! I booked Friday and Monday off work so it was a long 4 day weekend, we went to the zoo on Saturday, as I love the zoo like a big kid! Obviously, the zoo was full of young children running around and massively pregnant woman, so I kept myself occupied cooing over baby giraffes and the new born meerkats. We then stayed in a gorgeous Bed and Breakfast, which turned out to be just over the boarder and into Wales (It took us a good 4 hours of being there to realise we weren't in England any more, and even then it was only because of the welsh writing everywhere!) As we were already in Wales, the next morning we drove a couple of hours further down the coast and visited Caenarfon Castle, which is beautiful and great fun to run around! Its not one of those historic castle that's all fenced off for safety, its was a castle built in 1322 which you can still walk around. We walked through all the great halls, the walls, up and down every turret, visited the kings chambers, climbed through secret tunnels and ended up in dungeons and in the old kitchens, it was scary, but fascinating! Definitely worth a visit!
This is a photo we took of one of the turrets you can climb, good workout for the legs!!
Now I'm back at work, and god do I need a new job. My brain is melting and I'm bored to tears at this place, but it's so quiet and so understanding they're great with the IF and time off, so I'm stuck in a bit of a catch 22 situation.
When I joined the university I was employed as a academic and pastoral tutor for the students, so my job is to help them with assignments, understanding how to write them, marking criteria etc...as well as dealing with pastoral problems, relationship breakdowns, financial difficulties, housing issues etc...you name it, I have dealt with it. This was a job that nobody had ever done before, so I was the first person in the role. I work with three different degree teams, and out of those three, only one have made me feel welcome. I think the other two feel a little threatened by my presence, as I am pretty much here to make sure the students are happy and are learning properly, if they aren't, they are the ones who get the slack for it. So two of the degree programmes very rarely communicate with me at all (The last email I received from one department was 2012...) but I deal with their students regularly, so its not to bad. Now, the programme who did make me feel welcome have been brilliant, have kept me very busy and I genuinely feel like part of the team. I've done some teaching for them, I see their students regularly and work with them almost daily, that was until they were told the degree programme they are running is not going to exist after next year. So now they have mostly stopped caring, stopped coming into university, mostly work from home and are, I imagine, mostly looking for alternative work. Queue me now coming into work at 8.30am every morning, sitting in my office and twiddling my thumbs for 8 hours until 5pm and hoping a student needs me at some point. Its exam period and we have no students in, so I have to try and pass 8 hours a day productively.
I shouldn't moan at all, when I was teaching full time I was seriously stressed, making myself ill stressed, I cried most mornings and my relationship was in tatters, now I'm very relaxed, I can do what I want in the evenings, no planning, no weekend work, just get up, come to work, go home. Except I'm bored to tears and think my brain is dissolving a little bit more with every passing day I spend here. I'm not lazy, I love working in education, but when you're working with people who don't want you to be here, so don't include you in department decisions, I'm practically being paid to just fill an office and tick a box saying 'Yes, we have one of those'. Again, I shouldn't moan, I get paid a very decent wage, more than I did teaching, and without the stress, I can also work from home one day a week which is a godsend. I'm just.....bored. I'm never happy, right? It also means hospital appointments etc...aren't a problem as I can take holiday leave, and also work from home after procedures etc...so although I've applied for 5 teaching posts this past week, I might be shooting myself in the foot there?
I don't know, I'm rambling now. Thats because I've been in my office for 4 hours already today, and haven't spoken to another human being yet.... seriously.
Well, on the plus side of life, its 13 days until our first IUI appointment. I'm so excited and terrified all at the same time. AF arrived right on time (for a change!) on my birthday (lovely of her!) so next AF should be May 29th. My appointment is on May13th, I'm seriously hoping I can fit in an appointment with the nurse for meds and injection lessons between the appointment and AF, as then I will be on my first IUI cycle.
Cross your fingers and wish me luck!! Heres to lucky 25....
