EXHAUSTED!

Reading my last entry & what a huge life change for me between then & now... The summer disappeared organising my wedding and house move, followed immediately(first day after the move) by a stay in hospital for a minor op then 3 weeks of frustration in my debilitated state. It is over 3 weeks now since I returned to work and I have been exhausted - the first Saturday after my return I spent the whole day in bed , catching up on sleep; the second I went to bed at 5.30pm and slept til 9.30am (unheard of!). I can't believe how much it has taken it out of me, although the sadness of the diagnosis of my father's inoperable cancer is also taking its toll along with settling in our new household and the emergent disparity of expectations, seeming like such a huge lack of consideration and thought for others.

We are working at it though - as I am working to study too. My hopes to sort out uni stuff over the summer were lost in a packing box somewhere and my illness meant I was unable then to crack the whip for a long time into the first module. I was also at the disadvantage of not being at work to identify Critical Incidents in the workplace, which could provide material for the module. There was however a truly critical incident at home which highlighted the disparity of expectations mentioned above and which we have been trying to sort out ever since. The last paragraph of my last entry has come home though; critical thinking is becoming a way of life, as I find myself reflecting on this issue in terms of perspectives, governing variables, single and double loop learning!

I posted in the UV community about whether this home CI might be acceptable material given that I was on sick leave and my LF said yes; I am not sure though that I want this to be out there in the public eye and so will first check through my Learning Journal entries made since I went back to work to try and identify something there; something more comfortable, more discussable... & then I remind myself that DLL is about discussing the undiscussable and being open to challenge the very basis of my thinking - what brought my perspectives to where they are now and which components of the mix should, could or might I be able to transform into new perspectives.

I also started a couple of discussion threads in the UV community that have elicited fabulous responses from the Learning Facilitators, with "A good argument" from the Module Leader, no less, who thinks one argument "impressive " whilst my tutor thought the other "A very well argued point and a valid one" that "stimulated an excellent thread", & yet the best comment given in the daily round up about the subsequent discussion was "Suddenly our academic prairie is on fire"!

So that brings me right back to ECSTATIC!

That's all for now... apologies for the nigh on 3 month absence... back to study now...