Day 12 - Serendipity

Don't you just love it when a plan comes together?

Today is my last day in Room 524, my working "home" for the last four years. Thinking about the future hasn't worried me per se but it has been something that has been on my mind of late, I have to admit. I had ideas for how to get to where I want to be (i.e., surviving financially for the next ten months while building up my experience in the area of postgraduate skills training) but didn't know what the route to accomplishing those goals.

So I arranged to meet someone more in the know, pick his brains a bit and try to get my foot in the door. I was hoping that I might be allowed to come in and observe a few workshops, see how things ran, that was what I was praying for I guess.

My prayers were more than answered.

So. Let's tick these things off as they came through:
1). I'm going to be employed as a tutor on a career skills workshop in November ("enterprise skills") for four days. Good experience and a decent wage, very high hourly rate.
2). I asked if I could observe a workshop; I was told yes, and oh, there's one starting next week... Actually so-and-so is away and we're a bit short-handed... What are you doing for the next two/three weeks? Result: two/three weeks employment now (general temp wage but experience and more foot-in-the-doorness means I'm very happy indeed), starting first thing on Monday.
3). Since we're going to employ you in November and you've not done one before it would be good for you to get some more experience... Well, we'll employ you as a tutor on one of our first year skills workshops some time before then - and we'll pay you the normal tutor rate for that too. It was at this point that I was mentally doing my little happy dance.
4). As part of my observations in these various workshops I'll be looking at developing some resources too, sessions and case studies for groups to consider. There's potential that after they are trialed here they could become part of a much larger collection of resources that are available nationally!!!

Reality Check: It's early days for all this I know, and I don't want to get too carried away with all the excitement. However, I think I'm off to a good start and I'm so thankful that this has all come together. I had faith that it would; something similar happened as I was finishing my Masters and faced with the prospect of sudden unemployment and imminent financial hardship - not quite what I was facing this time, but it feels very good that things have lined up once more. I knew that they would, but had no idea just how well things would come together.

I'm going to throw it out there to the audience: what do you think of serendipity, when things just come together and give you a really great set of circumstances? When have you experienced it in your own life - or do you think it's just a load of rubbish?

In all this happiness I am still quite sad at leaving Room 524. There's still a few things to do, empty the recycling bin, steal some office supplies, pack away the electronic Cyberman that I got for one birthday... I'll miss this place, but things have been winding down for a few weeks now. It will be strange not being here, but I'll still be around. My place of work for the next few weeks is just two buildings over, so that might be even stranger, to be around but not be here.

"But then again, all good things must come to an end..."