Teaching

First tutorials went OK, could have been better but could have been far worse! I was expecting far worse.
This week is full of meetings; tomorrow a coffee in the morning with the chair of my probationary committee followed by a meeting with my entire probationary committee in the afternoon followed by the research group's reading group. Oh and I want to fit a swim in before all of that! I had also scheduled for tomorrow to start reading my thesis in order to get it into my head what I needed to do to convert it to the book but it looks as if it will have to wait as I am still struggling with the damned book review. If I haven't said it before I'm saying it now: never again.
Meantime, all staff have had to meet with their personal tutees. Except they are not our personal tutees, they are our Personal Development Plan Tutees, or is that meant to be Professional? I think this is government mandated and I think the idea is to ensure that students identify their skills as they develop them in their degrees and see how they are transferrable. It's also to bridge the gap between school where they are spoon fed to university where the are not (apparently). The problem is that they are not to come to us with personal problems, but if a student knows a lecturer then that's who students go to and not to some stranger just because that's who the rules say they should go to. It's everyone's nature to do that. So I'm hoping that none of my students do that, and I have explained that there are student counsellors and careers' advisors and all sorts of people who can help more than I can with such matters, but oftentimes it's the sight of a friendly face that is needed.

I feel odd as well talking about seeing counsellors if they have problems as right now I'm being haunted with images of cutting myself to the extent I went looking for my old razor blades but when I couldn't find them I realised I had thrown them out before my hip replacement. I'm not sure why the thoughts have got more vivid recently, I think I was reflecting on the first month at work and realised that I don't seem to be as settled as other people. I sometimes feel that as it is the institution where I studied and tutored for a number of years that people aren't as friendly and welcoming to me as to the others simply because they think I'm all settled and it's nothing new. I'm not unhappy but I'm not sure the extent to which I'm happy and I think I'm rolling in self doubt right now, wondering why they employed me, what use I am and how to stay as small and as invisible as possible.

As for the cutting I still remember the sheer relief from it and I don't want to remember it. It's hard not having confided in any of my friends and right now the TV programmes seem to have a lot of it so I'm surrounded. I think this time I may have to mention it to my GP next time I get a repeat prescription, I just don't know what I expect to gain from it.