Blogathon 25/15 – loose ends

I re-met someone I used to know, today.

It was about 8.15am.

I was sitting on my desk, putting together a network diagram for a lump of infrastructure I’m working on.

A shape wandered up to my desk and said my name.

I refocused my attention away from the technical drawing.

The person said ‘We were at college together’…

*Scooby Doo flashback*

I was fairly new in to a role, and it didn’t take my employer too long to realise that I would probably benefit from some work-related education.

So I was signed up for a two year, day-release course at the City of Bath College, aiming for an HNC in Business Studies.

‘Day release’ is an interesting label in this context.

Yes, I was given a paid day away from the office, in order to attend college.

But the day started at 9am and the last module concluded at 7.30pm.

Add on to these hours the two project-based assignments we had to complete each week.

Additionally, my employer expected me to keep up with my normal weekly workload, during my four days in the office.

If I left that job within two years of completing the course, I was expected to pay back all course fees.

So really, my employer was doing fairly well out of this arrangement.

The course achieved its goal.

Not only did I come out of the far end of the process a better-educated person, I also had more awareness about technical-, and business-related niceties.

I also had an understanding of hitherto unexplored areas such as marketing, law, media, and so on.

The course gave me something else.

A desire for more.

I came straight out of that course and began preparing for the next things I wanted to learn more about.

Not a career path – that’s always been an unplanned passage.

No, I was planning my next course(s).

Cookery.

And then plumbing.

And then, after a year of these practical, hands-on studies, a return to more academic, post-HNC subjects.

This internally-driven interest to learn stuff still hasn’t finished.

I continue to peck away at a degree in English Literature and Language with the OU.

Just for fun.

I really need to sit down and crack on with that.

I reckon that if I took six months off from work, I’d have it nailed.

And I’d have the grades I want.

Because a pass is not good enough.

I’m very competitive.

Against myself.

But for me to give that course the full attention I feel it deserves, I would really need to have no other distractions on my radar.

Yeah, right.

But I would like to finish it.

I have a very entertaining paper to write on Blake’s Jerusalem, in which I rip to pieces the widely-held misconception of the true meaning of the lyrics, and nail the song firmly to the mast for what it is: one of the greatest revolutionary, anti-establishment works ever written.

Hint: If you think it’s really about factories, look at it again.

That would annoy a few people.

The Last Night of The Proms-goers. The fervent jam-makers at the WI.

And a political party or two.