June

Friday:

New South Wales has been reducing restrictions which makes it feel like we're out the other side of Covid-19, but a neighbouring state has had an increase in cases (20 new ones, I think, Australia has been touched lightly in comparison to many places) and of course in some parts of the world the pandemic is at its peak or even just getting started.

I still haven't been offered any work. The current school term only has a week left, I had expected to get work next term but who knows? I may have to look for work elsewhere, which is sad. I really liked where I was working.

Tim, on the other hand, is swamped. He often comes home very late (one night 1.30am) or goes in very early, he has a long commute as well which makes it worse. His department had been offered Voluntary Redundancies at the start of the year, he's been there many years so it was a good deal for him with a chunk of money that would give plenty of time to look for a new job. But then Covid happened so after filling in all the paperwork and getting approval from HR we decided not to take it. He could always take his Long Service Leave for a break. Someone else in his section applied and was then told by their boss that she couldn't spare anyone! Bit late to mention it, after months of agonising and all the paperwork on both sides! But anyway, it means Tim doesn't have to regret the decision not to take it, it was never really a possibility after all. But then a new big boss took over and has fired half the management, including Tim's boss. Someone else left to get a promotion elsewhere. And now Tim is the only lawyer. He's supposed to work a nine day fortnight, but he's missed three of his last four rostered days off as there is no one to cover the work. I hope this doesn't go on very long, and they hire more people. It's crazy.

I have to do 30 hours a year of study to keep up my Professional Development, the financial year ends 30 June so I've spend quite a bit of time these past couple of weeks catching up on that. Only two hours to go.

Home and final assessment

Monday:

A couple of important things happened today. Firstly, Tim came home after nearly three weeks in the US for a work trip! I didn’t mention it while he was away because I don’t like to advertise when I’m alone in the house. He was in Washington DC and Virginia. I misread his itinerary and thought he would be home in the afternoon, and was still asleep when there was a knock on the door this morning. Luckily he wasn’t expecting me to pick him up at the airport! He seems to have been most impressed by seeing squirrels cutely running around, something his US associates laughed at him about.

The other thing was I had my final assessment for my Diploma of Library and Information Services. My supervising teacher Julie came to my library and had a chat with my workplace supervisor Lyn, with me there, and they both said lovely things about me and also said they would give my contact details to someone they know needing a Library Technician for some casual work. Then I demonstrated my chosen task, cataloguing, to Julie and gave her a tour of the library to show I knew where everything was. It all went really well and I’ve seen the feedback they both wrote about me. In the past couple of days I’ve also got results for two assignments, so I’m just waiting on results on the last two. And I’m working two more days, but no pressure! I wanted to finish out the week to learn as much as possible.

My weight this morning was 70.6kg, down 0.8 from last week, so that is also good.

A couple of bad-ish but kind of funny things happened as well. When I first got to work I went to the staff bathroom. As soon as I sat down the whole toilet seat slid sideways, broken off from the base. My hands flailed wildly and I saved myself from falling onto the floor but have a bruise where my arm met the metal toilet paper dispenser. Not the best start to the day.

Usually I have two cups of tea a day, one with breakfast and one at lunch or in the afternoon. I don’t drink coffee or cola so I’m not used to a lot of caffeine at once. Today I’d had a cup of tea with breakfast but had another one when I got to work to warm up and to recover from the toilet incident. I’d just finished that when Julie arrived. Lyn got out a fancy tea set and biscuits and I felt like it was the polite thing to share a cup (and a biscuit) that I didn’t want at all. Three cups of tea in an hour certainly kept me alert, but I spent most of my assessment needing to pee.