Posts Tagged ‘homeworker’

Today’s Lesson

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Posted 13 May 2010 — by cheersphilip
Category diary

Well, this is a first.

Can you see what I'm doing wrong?

Looks like I’m using my blog to help me deliver a lesson in a ‘foreign’ school! This lesson will take place in Norwich, which I’ll have to get to by starting out at seven in the morning and travelling until eleven.

After that, I’ll be in interview mode. For a teacher this means doing a sample lesson, sort of like try before you buy. Its a funny old situation, as you have no idea about who the students are, where they’ve come from, what their day might have been like, or anything.

For the lesson I’ll be using eggtimer (thanks to @chrisleach78 for finding it).

The school gives you a topic in advance, and some basic information about the students i.e. how many there might be, and you have to come up with a lesson to fit the slot you’ve been given. In this case twenty minutes.

My worst fear is that another teacher, given the same broad topic (exam preparation), has chosen the exact same detail to focus on. Of course you don’t find out until afterwards, so i guess you can’t worry about it too much.

The reason I’m typing this up in the blog is simple. Going to a new school, with various different IT solutions is a tricky business. Will your powerpoint work? Will their computers recognise the file type? Its all a bit of a nightmare, so I thought ‘why not put it all on the internet?’ I know they have this, and have asked the head of department if they can see my blog, which they can, so all good.

The lesson is simple – the topic is exam preparation and the learning objective is to gain an understanding of what makes for an effective study environment.

  • Show the first picture (me in my untidy spare room) and ask for comments about what I’m doing wrong vis-a-vis study
  • then get students to write or draw in detail what their own study areas are like (with the timer),
  • share with a partner (timer again)
  • note down some comments for improvement that their partner suggests
  • round it up with some examples fromt he various people
  • finish off with the second picture, showing me putting into practise what it is that I’m preaching.

What have I changed?

Lovely.

Hope you enjoyed the lesson. Wish me luck!

Cheers,

Philip

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This Is The Week That Will Be

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Posted 22 Feb 2010 — by cheersphilip
Category diary

Morning all,

Just a diary entry, this one.

Supply teaching still looks to be a bit thin on the ground, so I’m going to focus on getting my agencies to get me more work by hassling them.

Today, as it looks like I’m not going to be in schools, I’m going to pick up my mates’ scooter from town. He crashed it and broke his hand a week ago, and the scooter is sitting in a car park in Paddington. Pity its raining.

Also, some editing of the script for the first DVD might be in order, as well as a brief script for a ‘how to..’ video for sharpening a chisel. this one is interesting as i’m just trying out the short format video, as a sort of taster.

All that will go on the Mr Watson blog that i will be starting today. hopefully I’ll also be able to transfer both blogs to their websites, rather than have them here on wordpress.com. That is quite techy so fingers crossed. If i manage it, it means that I can have stuff like videos automatically posted ont he blogs, which I think will be  a nice touch.

Chasing a couple of inventions as well – an idea for eco toys and the back support. Just emails, keeping conversations going, you know.

Later on a friend of ours is opening her play, for which she has done the set design, so I’m looking forward to that, too.

All in all a busy day!

Cheers,

Philip

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Status Update

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Posted 16 Feb 2010 — by cheersphilip
Category diary

Hi there blog,

There’s a lot going on at the moment, so I thought I’d get it all out of my head and put in the compost bin to stew.

Projects-wise, we have the following:

  • The DVD project – I’m in the middle of making a DVD for GCSE Design & Technology. This is probably the most fun and interesting thing that I’m doing now, and has some real long-term potential. The script is at the second draft stage, and just needs to be gone over with a fine comb to ensure it is free of nits, with a glossy coat.
  • Tying up the ends of a website I’m doing for North Farm Cottages, I’m just waiting for better pictures of the cottages, then I can hand it over. Please – no-one make a booking, as it all comes to me at the moment!
  • The Barbican’s Ron Arad exhibition opens on Wednesday, so the wife and I will be going to the private view. The first workshop that I’m doing isn’t for a month yet, so I have a few days to finish off the deliverables for that.
  • The back support that I’m working on with a client has stalled a bot, so we need to get that ‘back’ on the go. [That was horrible, sorry]. Next step, I reckon, is to go speak to a lawyer about securing some IP. That’s a long road, but we need to get started.
  • Tutoring is ticking along nicely, no problems there.
  • Supply teaching has stalled completely – obviously, as its half term! Still waiting for a couple of CRB checks before I can start working for more than one agency, but they should come through soon, and then this’ll pick up a great deal.
  • I really fancy making a set of bookends and putting them on Etsy. I don’t put a lot of time into this area, but perhaps I should… One of those things, I guess.
  • I also want to continue updating the website, especially thinking about the ‘about me’ page. I just did this quickly when I first put this site up, and, also, I think that I was a bot ‘ooh, it’s a bit egoistic to write about yourself’, but my mind has changed on that one. It’s okay to just tell people who you are.
  • A mate of mine spectacularly crashed his scooter last week, breaking three bones in his right hand, so I’m going to go and pick that up for him at some point. Probably not today, though. It’s pissing it down.
  • And we need some shopping.
  • And I just got a new computer (very nice) and it came with a load of software that i don’t know how to use. I should probably leave them alone, as it will just waste time, but I can’t help feeling that if I just spent time learning to use them, they could be really useful and save me time in the future… I don’t know!
  • Oh, and I need to do the filing.

So what to do first? Well, I think this morning could productively be spent making some phone calls – lawyers, clients, collaborators. I’ll then have a coffee and proceed to stare at the script for the DVDs [should that be DVD's or DVDs?] to see what falls out. A spot of lunch (we’ll be having pancakes later!), and I might have a look at that page on my website. Or maybe I’ll go to the shed and make some bookends. Or maybe i’ll go to lynda.com to learn how to use all that software. We’ll see!

Hope everyone has a good day, despite the rain!

Cheers,

Philip

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The Unnanointed Brother

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Posted 09 Feb 2010 — by cheersphilip
Category Typewriter Bubble, diary

Click the image for a closer look

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Commuter Impersonator

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Posted 11 Jan 2010 — by cheersphilip
Category diary

This morning I was ready to jump out of bed and rush to whatever school needed me.

As a home worker, my routine usually runs to sitting in bed drinking coffee until 9, (don’t tell me you wouldn’t do the same!). But not this morning, oh no. this morning I would be the dynamic, assertive go-getting supply teacher that you don’t see in the movies [note to self: could be a new project in that?]

Sadly, the call did not come. Never mind. I was dressed, watered and ready to go. Thing was, the only place I had to go to was my spare room/office.

This was not good enough! Where was the dynamism? Where was the cold air on my face? Where was the struggle of humanity between the opposing forces of financial security on the one hand and the primeveal drive to stay in bed on a flippin cold morning like this?!?

Where was my commute?!?

My course of action was clear – I was going to have that commute whether it got me anywhere or not!

Togged up, I set off amongst the other commuters, winding their way towards the station. What bliss! What solidarity! We were here, we were cold, and we wished we were in bed! Again I felt as part of a group, part of the industrial work ethic, part of trekking through the bleeding frost to get to somewhere you’d rather not be!

But my enjoyment was short lived. After a street or two, I realised that, yes, actually, it is quite cold and that no, really, I did not have any idea what I was doing or where I was going.

My house lies equidistant between two train stations. I considered walking to one and catching the train to the other. This may legitimise my pointless wanderings, or so I thought.

Then the whole pathos of the thing struck me. What was i doing?!I was mocking these people, turning their daily run to the office into some sort of sadistic little smug-fest of my own.

Pausing at the corner, I turned to make my way home. I imagined my follow commuters glancing at me, jeering. “Home-worker” they would say. But it would be true.

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A Little Girl Sits By The River Bank

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Posted 15 Dec 2009 — by cheersphilip
Category Stories, Typewriter Bubble

This came out of me no having any internet, for several days now. The question is, ‘what do you do?’

Click on the image to see it more clearly

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A Cup-of-Tea Kind of Day

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Posted 20 Oct 2009 — by cheersphilip
Category diary

It’s been a cup-of-tea kind of day. One cup after another. Check emails. Nothing. Check Twitter. Not interested. Search the web. Too slow.

I’m slowly looking back to me in my early twenties, and I want what he had. young, dumb and full of cum. A flexible mind that went everywhere. Could think itself round corners and slide laterally to come up with solutions to problems that could be recognised as worthy by the majority of the western world.

~But the world knows he wasn’t perfect. Too fickle, not confident. No discipline. Nothing ever came of those ideas, of course, although we’ve seen some of them come to market recently. nothing came of it because there was o belief, no recognition that ‘this could work’, that people might welcome these things into their lives.

So what my life needs is the flexibility of thought that ‘he’ had, with everything that I’ve learnt since added on. I’ve seen many amazing things and met so many interesting people. I’ve learnt more about myself than i thought possible.

It’s possible that the two can’t be linked – that my knowledge and habits now preclude that flexibility of mind that i’m looking for. But i’ll look none the less.

In the meantime it’s looks like i’m going to put the kettle on again. i really like sitting in the garden with my oversized mug and the cat playing at my feet. time to breathe. Time for a really good cup of tea.

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" I haven't met anyone who regretted following their dreams"

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Posted 19 Oct 2009 — by cheersphilip
Category diary

I’ve just finished watching John’s interview with Tom Hodgkinson. Tom wrote How to Be Free which a friend bought me for christmas.

his book, i can confidently say, is what started me on the road to being where i am now. Ten months later i have given up my job as a school teacher and jumped feet-first into self employment.

Tom, in the interview, is absolutely right when he says that noone regrets going after their dreams. Even if this inventor lark doesn’t work out financially or whatever, it will still have been orth it. Just to know that it was something that i could do, and that i did it, gives a lovely warm feeling that would make office-drones puke.

Shortly after reading it i got help, from John, in the form of support and encouragement. John says that the ideal is to play all day and get paid. (one out of two so far, John!)

I got on to John through the ideas of Barbara Sher, who says that its okay to be intereseted in lots of different things, not just one thing. Halleluliah!

Its still early days, but at least im enjoying it :)

So thanks to everyone who’s influenced me a long the way, and to everyone who i’ve yet meet!

Cheers,

 

Philip

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Jenga, or:When do i get around to inventing something?

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Posted 09 Oct 2009 — by cheersphilip
Category Rant

So i’m looking around the internet, playing games with myself and coming to terms with thte fact that my time is ‘my own’ (with all the good & bad that implies) when i start to realise that i’m not actualy inventing anything at the moment.

I’ve tried to justify this to people i know – everyone alway asks ‘what have you invented?’ – and all i can say is that i have several things in development. this is true – i have a number of ideas about specific products or concepts, that have not YET turned into inventions. so where does the invention start?

I guess i really need to meet other inventors to find this out, as at the moment i am not having any Eureka moments. Previously they have happened in the course of my days, but after chucking in my ‘normal days’ and winging it as a full time inventor, those Eureka moments are not forthcoming, although i am trying to create as fertile a soil as i can.

Don;t get me wrong, what i do have is a lot of flexibility to explore ANY angle that i chose: evolution; quantum physics; magnets; lead flashing on roofs; pyramid power; backk supports; design exhibitions; etc. However, what mostly happens is that i do a lot of filing and tidying up.

Sad thing is my desk isn;t even that tidy!

Maybe that’s an indication that things aren’t as bad as i think. Its early days yet, and i have plenty of things to keep me occupied whilst i sneak up on a Eureka :)

Have listened to CreativeMaverick’s interview of Leslie Scott. She invented Jenga (awesome) and i’m very pleased to have heard her talk about her experiences with Intellectual Property and her advice for would-be inventors. So let’s keep going!

I think the main worry is that i’m going to distract myself from doing serious work. I guess all home-workers experience this, so i take heart from that. I guess i can ask myself if everything i do is suporting where i want to be.

For example: i have completed a prototype product for money – good; I am replacing a fridge in my in-laws home – not so good. Lets limit the things that don’t support inventing, and encourage the things that do.

BUT WAIT! What if i fix the fridge for my in-laws, and come across some awful thing that prevents me doing something essential, and have a Eureka moment?! I don’t know!

Guess i’ll just keep on keeping on for now.

cheers,

Philip

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A day of tidying up

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Posted 07 Oct 2009 — by cheersphilip
Category diary

weel, just got on with it today. seems that no matter how much clearing up there is to do, it always takes the same amount o time to do it.

Its good a t the moment, working rom home and under my own steam. Got to live the life you love, eh Barbara Sher?

For example, yesterday, instead of doin my usual research and development stuff here at home (and in the shed), i drove some friends to deepest Shropshire, where they filmed an actual hermit living on a hillside. Quite a sociable guy (for a hermit) and bloody lovely surroundings. Was  a good day.

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