The reading I've been doing for the dissertation has begun to coalesce and I need to spend the greater part of today trying to get that into something that resembles an essay. I'm getting annoyed at myself now for just not settling to it. I have to turn something in (let's hope for 2000 words) after next weekend so I really need to avoid the tears of an eleventh hour grind but I am not confident in my ability to do so. I did finally bite the bullet and ask my 'book friends for help with interviews and they are going to come good so I will at least manage to get that part done this week, I hope.
Enough of that - the best part of my week was undoubtedly going to Newcastle for the annual conference I go to. I flew because it was cheap and quick. There was some guilt, especially on the way back when I was the only person seated in the front four rows, but I did get the train to skiing in February so that can be my swap. Also I did see two rainbows from the plane on the way.
The conference was good. I did my usual trick of spending basically the whole thing with the same two people but I really only see them at this event so I am not going to worry about that: I always feel I should be more sociable because I know so many people at the conference, but ultimately that's not what I prefer to do, so there it is. We stayed up much too late at the bar, for two nights this time, and we WON the history quiz! By half a point! Since we did a challenge over one point before we knew how close it was going to be, which was successful, I am not sure it was the fairest result, but we did win. Woohoo! I used to run this quiz with my friend Rich (pinnacle was 2023 when Mary Beard was on one of the teams) so it is pleasing to get to win it for once.
The sessions were all really good. I realised that the one I was running was an hour, not the 50 minutes I had planned, hence my unplanned reading from my current book, but this went down well and has actually inspired me to a project for next conference. The problem with being a senior leader is that I don't do curriculum work and next year I won't be teaching anything new, so it is hard to generate something that other people might want to hear about and, although I'd love it, I can't just keep talking about assessment every time. But, as always seemed to happen, a few ideas from disparate sources came together and now I have an idea and have recruited a geography guru to help me with it, though when I am going to manage it is anybody's guess.
Maybe my favourite thing was the walking tour and the wildlife, though. I heard at last week's bird talk that Newcastle is the furthest inland that kittiwakes nest and I can confirm that they basically own the city - at least the bit I saw. The workshops all took place in rooms overlooking the bridge and I was horribly distracted by the constant bird traffic, as they built nests and went out for food. They were noisy when I was able to get outside, too, and also digging up chunks of turf and soil to build said nests from the bank outside the hotel. I wouldn't have known a kittiwake from a regular gull last week, and my discussions with other people about them (basically anybody who would listen, I was obsessed) revealed that I am not alone in this, but I can report that they have black legs and black wingtips, and are not as large as you might expect a 'regular' gull (whatever that is) to be. I downloaded the Merlin app and it confirmed my sighting, though.
Bit blurry because of the zoom but she had a great nesting site.
So yes - I observed hundreds of kittiwakes, some little rabbits, a great tit living in a hole in a wall behind the big letter S. There was a Millennium Bridge tilt. We went to a library and I saw a picture of a Victorian spiritualist, surrounded by a garland that had reportedly been constructed for him by a spirit he contacted in a seance, I love this sort of thing, it is so of its time. I asked for a selfie with a stag dressed as Cher, at the behest of his friends. I sweet-talked the hotel reception into letting me use the sauna after the conference was over, even though I'd checked out: note to self, remove the metal earrings if it's going to be a hot one, I have blisters on my earlobes now, what an idiot. And at least two people came up to me to gush about how my work has helped them in some way, an experience I never cease to find astonishing and incredibly humbling. There are a few key reasons why I love this conference but enjoying my celebrity status* is probably on that list.
One more week of school and then I am off to Oxford for a week and then it's term 6, which is basically not even a thing. Oh and all the marking. And another conference to present at. But it will be over quickly. I keep waking up and thinking about my dissertation but woke up this morning to the epiphany that the time will pass very quickly and it will be done, even if I don't enjoy it, so it's not really something to carry stress about. I enjoy a lot of my life. I don't have to enjoy all of it, all of the time.
* it's preposterous to call it this but, in a very small community, not inaccurate.
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