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Last day

It occurred to me tonight that Friday morning was not just my last day in work, but possibly for all I know, the last day ever of getting up, putting on office clothes and going to the office.

fairly scary.

Almost there!

Happy Christmas

One less thing to worry about

I have got rid of my car.

I don't use it that much: cycling to work (and using a train) removing a sizable percentage of the average commute milage and I generally prefer to use a train for longer distance journeys when possible. However, this year I relised that my insurance premium was probably higher than the value of the car. What with that, other associated car-ownership costs and the fact that I'm out of the country for the next few months, it seemed time to get rid of the thing.

My only regret is that I will no longer have the useful storage space that it provided, when securely locked in the underground car-park.

Countdown

No more needles

Finally, I've been plugged full of as much rabies, hepatatitis A and B, diphtheria, tetanus and goodness knows what else as I need to be. Three trips and eight injections, at an average of nearly £40 an injection.

Now all have to do is get my GP to prescribe 150 tabs of anti-malarial drugs on prescription: saving me approximately £140 compared to the cost of buying the drugs privately.

Previous experience of my GP is that he couldn't care less about giving me any holiday vaccinations: he referred me to the nurse, who told me they only do yellow fever and I should go to a travel clinic, hence me paying an arm and a leg for the same inoculations that my husband got for the price of two or three prescription charges from his GP.

I'm not entirely sure about all this. On the one hand, the choice to go abroad does mean injections that aren't, strictly speaking, necessary (one can always choose to stay home) so perhaps paying for them is fairer than demanding the NHS should cover it.
On the other hand, as the travel clinic nurse said, some diseases are coming back now, because some people can't afford to have vaccinations. I was lucky enough to be able to pay a large amount of money - some people who want to work abroad aren't blessed with a savings account.
One thing's for certain: I wouldn't feel so hard done by having to pay for them if I wasn't standing next to someone who hasn't had to. It's the inconsistency that creates the problem.

I is a First Aider

One thing fewer to worry about.

The team

That's us, having completed our "Go Ape" session. The funny hand gestures are us all forming the letter "T", as in Team. Really.

For the record, we are Karen, Myn, Rob, Nick, Josh. We all have exciting job descriptions, but they would be too long and convoluted to spell out here.

Like, totally dialled

One other thing from the team building weekend:
It took less than three hours for the 18 year olds on our team to conclude that Rob is an all around Safe Dude.
I'm getting the t-shirt printed up while we're in Cambodia.

Closed and Opposed

We've had a really great weekend, team-building for Cambodia, and also starting to make some decisions about who might initially be given which jobs on the team. This involved plenty of outdoor activity, some of it in the dark. Nobody fell down any holes. Although later, there was lots of deliberately stepping off heights, because we went round the Go Ape course in Buxton.
I cannot recommend this highly enough as a teambuilding experience. None of your ‘pretend this bucket is really a bomb that needs to be defused’ rubbish, but plenty of clipping and unclipping of safety lines, meaning that when you look out for your team, you really are checking that they’re not going to fall thirty feet. It’s really quite fun, even considering the heights, and the fact that a rainy day in November isn’t necessarily the optimum time to be clambering around on ropes and bits of wood. On the other hand, teambuilding probably doesn’t work very well if nobody has any pressure put on them.
The karibenas on the safety lines for your Go Ape experience should always be fastened properly and facing in opposite directions, so that whatever angle pressure is put on them from, only one is at risk. As the instructor put it, check the karibenas are closed and opposed. We have so far discovered at least three ways of using this as a metaphor for good teamwork.

Positive things gained from this weekend:
1. We like all the people we’ll be working with. This is possibly one of the most important things affecting the success of the next four months, so that’s a major relief.

2. We’ve taught two more people to play Fluxx 3.1, which can only be a good thing for humanity in general.

3. We know slightly more about what we’ll be doing, and among other things, Rob and I have the job of taking our volunteers round Angkor Wat, which suits us just fine. Rob also has the job of assessing which restaurants the team should eat at. It feels like those in charge have got us sussed out fairly accurately.

Negative things.
Really not a lot, apart from the discovery that we’ll be getting up at 5.30 everyday. That’s the one that happens in the morning. Poot.
Oh, and the feeling of panic and inadequacy that always comes from changing jobs, just in case you turn out to be rubbish at the new one. But that’s normal.

And so it begins

It's looking fairly certain that, in just over eight weeks time, we will be flying out to Cambodia.

Things to do: Lots
(vaccinations, first aid training, team planning / briefing weekend, close out major work projects, etc etc)

Feeling of readiness: Low

It's becoming very real now, and the number of activities and actions are starting to build up. If only work demands would stop being so inconvenient...