#chartership

Lena double checked the door was locked before settling into work. She carefully laid out her tools in front of her and sat at the longworkbench. She tinkered for a while, biting her lip and fidgeting anxiously asshe did so. This was one project she had invested more than just time and moneyinto.

This one she had put her heart into as well. Part of herliked to think that she and her project shared the same heart. But it wassilly, really quite illogical. And she knew it was downright impossible.

On the table, her project whirred to life. Eyes flicked openand the light behind them turned on. Lena breathed out a sigh of relief. Shedidn’t think she could take it if this project had been lost to her this time.

The droid on the table turned its head to Lena, her head. Solifelike, Lena couldn’t help the swell in her heart. Even if she knew it wasn’treal, she still felt that tug. Supergirl, she called her droid. At least inpublic, that was her name. Lena had secretly named her Kara. A name for her andno one else to know.

Supergirl was Lena’s creation, brought forth from a need toserve the public. Lena wasn’t a fighter, not with brawn at least. But shewanted to help. So Supergirl was born. A hyper realistic droid, running onsolar power and built from the strongest metals and highest tech money goodbuy. She was programmed with knowledge of dozens of combat and martial arts techniques. As well as negotiating skills to try to defuse violence where possible.

Her voice box was still garbling a little, but Lena couldstill understand Kara when she said “Am I fixed?”

My last group training session (teaching fifteen medical students how to do a systematic review, and letting them lose on a variety of medical and scientific databases to try out their searching skills) for the year was a week ago, and my last one-to-one teaching (facilitating a research nurse’s critical appraisal of a published article) happened yesterday. The stream of users returning books…

  Reflective writing has been such a big part of putting together my chartership portfolio, however it is something that I have had to work hard on as I’ve not done a lot of it within my career so far.  It can be very easy to let time fly by, especially when we are short staffed or trying to complete a particular project.  My natural inclination is to put a tick in the box once a task is completed without going back to see where improvements could be made or ideas could be developed.  While it’s challenging, taking on a more reflective way of thinking has been completely worthwhile.  It is encouraging me to become more adaptable within my work and to be a little more objective too.  This week I am going to re-read the Rudai23 blog post on reflection and with that in mind I am going to go through each of my pieces of evidence to ensure that they all illustrate how I am moving forward in each of my selected PKSB topics.  As I haven’t yet written a blog post on collaboration (despite having looked into the tools) I’ll also aim to increase the levels of refection within my post for thing 16 too.

Axiell 1 from Lene K. Nielsen on Vimeo.

  It’s been a bit of a struggle to keep up with the Rudai 23 tasks, but I’m really pleased that I’ve been taking part.  It’s been a bit of a juggling act, as I’m completing my portfolio which I’m hoping to submit before our wedding, which is just less than ten weeks away.  I’ve found it tricky to get anything done in the evenings, and so I am relying on getting the things done at weekends, so the odd busy weekend has set me back unfortunately - and they’re only going to get busier from now on I fear!  But I know that many others are in the same boat, and we’re all working at different rates, and often, for me at least, in a totally different order. 

  I found catching up backwards, from whichever point I was at when I sat down to work, has been a good way to catch up, as I’ve never felt that I was at a point where I was completely behind and utterly out of step with everyone else.  Having to write a blog post for each thing has been really good for me, as it does force you to take extra time out to consider the topic that you’re focusing on, it doesn’t let me get flippant as I really have to immerse myself in them.  And it’s been more beneficial than I had anticipated, I’m pretty chuffed with what I’ve learned!  I’ve found myself using Twitter increasingly, and looking out for more library twitter chats, I’m mentally preparing for Tuesday’s Twitter UKlibchat.  As it’s at 6.30-8.30pm I’m not entirely sure of the practicalities, I don’t think my other half would be too impressed with sharing the dinner table with my laptop.

  ‘Let it all go’ unfortunately describes the state of my house at the moment!  I decided when I turned thirty (In July) that I needed to get my head down, and finish my portfolio over and above everything else.  But to do that, other things have to not get done, and I’m beginning to dread looking under the sofas it’s been so long since I cleaned under them properly – just hope I don’t have any visitors for a week or so while I finish that last stretch...

  In terms of time management I have generally given myself a thing and a piece of portfolio evidence to complete per day off.  I have been pushing myself to complete this, even if it’s not quite 100% as I would like it to be, as my worst habit is to procrastinate when I don’t feel like things are looking exactly as I would like them to be.  So I’m aiming for good enough, rather than perfection.  And I hadn’t noticed the catch up week in September; that is a wonderful thing!!  I still have thing 6, thing 9, and thing 10 to complete, so I’m getting there.