Hi friends! Friday’s back and it’s time to share some favourites from the week. It feels so good to be here again after a couple of good but ‘out of my comfort zone’ weeks with work placement. I’ve really enjoyed getting back to my regular, ordinary routine—sometimes a little shake-up is all you need to remind you how nice ‘ordinary’ really is.
Let’s start with my first favourite—coming home just after four on Monday. Yay!! I love my usual work routine of finishing early enough to actually enjoy some of the afternoon. I can knock off a few chores, get dinner started, and spend a bit of time blogging. Sometimes, I even squeeze in a bit of diploma coursework. It was such a change working at the long daycare centre where I’d finish at five and a couple of times, even at six. The evenings felt so short!
My fun work friend went overseas during the school holidays. She kindly brought me back some mango dipped in chocolate—two of my favourite things! I’ve deliberately held off from opening it because I wanted to save it for a Friday night treat. Tonight’s the night!
This is not a favourite but I had a bumpy Wednesday afternoon, blah! Doing my diploma course online has its advantages but also some frustrating downsides. I’m going through the RPL (recognition of prior learning) path, so instead of traditional assignments, I submit evidence of my existing skills and experience. It sounds straightforward, but it can get a bit tricky.
I’ve had to figure out the college portal, which took some getting used to… grrrr. The real challenge comes when I have questions. I need to email the course facilitator and then wait for a response. Unfortunately, she only works three days a week from 9 to 2. A while back, she was on leave for weeks, and a simple question ended up taking two weeks to get answered! With online study, you just don’t get that face-to-face interaction where you can ask things and get immediate answers. But then again, if I had to go to college in person, I probably wouldn’t have enrolled in this course! So there’s that.
On Wednesday afternoon, I really needed to speak to her. We’d exchanged a couple of emails, but her responses felt hurried. I just needed a simple answer about my work so I could keep moving forward. When I called the college, she had already left for the day, and it seemed like I wouldn’t be able to get help until the following Monday. I hung up feeling down.
That evening, Luke and his fiancée were coming over for dinner to celebrate his birthday, so I pushed aside my diploma issues and went home to prepare. We ended up having a lovely evening, eating way too much and then watching a movie. I love that Luke always comes over for his birthday. So, even though Wednesday afternoon wasn’t great, the evening was definitely a favourite!
For the cake, we had Luke’s favourite–a pavlova.
The next day, I finally got some help from another facilitator. She sent me some very positive feedback about my work, and now I feel a whole lot more confident. I’m so relieved to know I’m on the right track and happy that my question was resolved. Hooray!
Remember the old Casio watches? My uncle gave me one when I was a teenager, and I treasured it for years. Well, it seems they’re back again as a retro trend. Luke gave his younger brother Sam one as a birthday gift since Sam just turned 20 a little over a week ago. Luke even bought one for himself, so they’re twinning now. I had to laugh because the younger generation is going retro while I’m all about technology with my Apple Watch. Haha!
That about wraps up my week of mostly favourites! This weekend, I don’t have any plans other than an appointment with the optometrist. I’m considering getting some contacts for my long-distance vision. I can see distance, but not very well, and as I get older, my world is getting blurrier. Yikes! Hmmm, I’ll see how I go. After that, I want to get stuck into finishing some more course modules because I want to get it done and dusted!
I hope you have a wonderful weekend.
Happy Friday!
Linking up with Andrea and Erika
Ah, those watches! Nice to see the “young people” enjoying our pasts 🙂 I’m sorry you had a tough time with school this week. Have a lovely weekend, I hope you are getting more spring like weather.
It must be nice to be back to your usual routine.
Ohh! Yum, that mango chocolate sounds so good. You did right saving it for a treat.
Your course does sound tricky without the face to face interaction. I am sure you will get through it and do great though.
Happy birthday to Luke, it sounds like a great evening.
Oh gosh! That watch is a blast from the past. I love how all the retro things are coming back. x
I remember those watches! Glad your school issue was resolved quickly; we just sent off an email to my son’s advisor about next semester and now we wait for a response..
I think my dad had a watch like that! I’m glad you got feedback about your work. My son is doing an online class and we had some issues with a question at the beginning of the semester too!