So, how've you been?

 Hello! Yes, I know it’s been a long, long time, best part of 8 years, since I last posted something here but hey, I've been busy! Well, ok, maybe not busy but I've been doing stuff. Lots of...stuff.  Let's face it, this blog was never a regular thing but I'm pretty sure this is the largest gap between posts! So why now I hear you ask, why post something now? 

To answer that I need to go over a few things about where I am now. So, Last post I talked about following your dreams and seeing where they take you. Well, couple of years ago, ok about 6 years ago I decided it was time for me to do just that. I have always wanted to be a teacher, right back to when I was in high school. When I was in 5th year I think, might have been earlier, my friend John Carson persuaded me to go to the Jordanhill open day. Jordanhill was the teaching college in Glasgow back then.  It eventually merged with Strathclyde university and the campus building, a beautiful old place, has now been turned into flats. Anyway, on that open day I decided I wanted to be a teacher. As things went on though I didn't get the qualifications I needed, and I went off into computing instead and teaching went into the "not to be" category. I went through various jobs in computing and eventually customer service and ended up working in a call centre for Tesco Bank in the credit cards complaints team. Loved the people there but the job, not so much. But I used to tell myself “It’s just a job" and it pays money. so, I got my head down and got on with it. 

One of the people I worked with was a man called Donald. He had been in banking since he was 16 working for Royal Bank of Scotland. Eventually, he ended up in their complaints department and eventually ended up with Tesco Bank. After his decades of service, the time had come for him to finally retire. He was in my team, so we all went out for a meal to celebrate his pending retirement years. While we were out, I asked him how he had managed to do work in complaints for so long. His reply was "it's just a job". The very same phrase I used myself when people asked about it. At that moment I saw myself in Donald, I saw me in my sixties getting ready to retire having worked for decades in a job I didn’t like but that I did because " it's just a job".

That stuck with me for the next couple of weeks or so and I kept thinking to myself " is that what I want?" I decided it wasn't. Teaching is what I wanted to do. I hadn't ever really given up on it, I'd went to the Open University and did a degree there with the intention of going on to do the post grad course, but I'd never went further than that. After some long talks with my wife Joan and a good hard look at our finances we decided it was now or never. We could afford for me to take a year away from work and do the PGDE (Professional grade Diploma in Education) 

I won't go into all the details, there were a few steps and obstacles along the way (I'm looking at you COVID), but eventually in June 2019 I left Strathclyde University with my PGDE in my hand ready to start teaching! It hasn't been all plain sailing since then. I did my probation year teaching Primary 5 in Kilsyth Primary, then got a 12-month contract to teach Primary 2 in Ravenswood Primary. From there I ended up in a job that suits me perfectly. I got a 12-month contract as a Digital Pedagogy Practitioner for the Digital School. This is a job which takes my technical skills and combines them with teaching. It's the perfect job for me and I love it! I'm on a second 12-month contract for that now and having now done two full years with North Lanarkshire, I'm permanent to the council which means at the end of this 12 months I'll have a job with them somewhere in education. I hope this position keeps going and I can continue with the digital school but, at the moment, that’s up to the council and how they allocate their funds.

So, what's all that got to do with this blog? Well, I'm doing an Apple Learning Coach course tomorrow. I must log into it from my iPad, so I sent the email with the link to my iCloud email account. When I opened my mail app on my iPad the last email I sent was to "Mick Blogofski", the name I use in my contacts for emailing this blog! I decided to have a look and see if "Mick" was still around and lo and behold here he is! I started reading over some of my old posts and thought it was time for an update so here it is!  I can't promise when the next post will be, but I hope it won't be another 8 years! Thanks for sticking with me folks and if you read this leave a comment so I know you’ve been here. Who knows, maybe you’ll read this and think “I wonder if my blog is still there?” Go and see! If it is, take the time to do an update and let me see it. Who knows, we might just start a whole new Blogging revolution! No? well, at least it’ll keep us busy for a while. Until next time, take care Mick, and we’ll speak soon!