October Goal Report

The end of the month has come and gone once again, and it’s time to update you all on my progress on 2014 goals.

I feel slightly like that’s all I do at the moment, for which I apologise.  I keep saying that I’m going to blog more, and it’s the one part of my goals that’s really not going well at all.

Work – Nothing going on here.  Waiting for results, and starting to complete this year’s work based skills essays.  Very dull, let’s talk about something else.

Family – Since the end of studying, we’ve settled into something of a routine.  I am getting more time with my husband, which is all to the good, and the cats seem to appreciate the time I’m spending on the sofa.  I feel I’m achieving “active homeostasis”, which was the goal for the year.

Plus, my parents and I actually managed to find a time when we were all free, so they came to visit.  Jasper allowed my mum to stroke him, which is a great victory for all concerned!

Do I need a reason for pictures of cats?

Guiding – Good guiding is “developing skills” – in October, for one of my units, this has mainly been skills relating to acting and singing.  We’re working on our Entertainer badge, and the girls want to put on a performance for the parents at Christmas.  It’s going to be a bit of a variety show, very random.

The other unit has done some “living the promise and law” and “decision making and planning”, when the older girls ran our Promise Activities session.  The older ones have also been working on the Brownies GFI.

Leader-wise, we’ve been doing some “developing skills” of our own.  The County ran a training week – just before half term, they did trainings every night for each section.  The idea was you picked one that was convenient to you, because it was the same trainings every night.

I went on a training about the Guide section programme.  That’s because after half term the current Guide leader is leaving (she moved house, to somewhere that’s… inconvenient… for commuting to Guides).  Of the leaders who are left, none want to be in charge – in fact some can’t even guarantee how long they can stay, due to work commitments.  So Sunrise, Lightning and I are taking it on, along with a lady who has just moved to the area.

I know what you’re thinking.  We’ve swapped one leader for four, is that not excessive?  But none of us are giving up our other units, so we’re going to be all about the team work and job sharing.  In a shocking development that will surprise nobody, I’ve got the accounts.

I’m quite looking forward to the challenge of understanding an entirely new age group.  Plus, I might get to set fire to things more often, which is always fun.

Kempo – I’m plodding along with learning and revising techniques, a little every day.  There’s been a grading this month, so I’ve been helping people prepare, which is always good for revising previous syllabuses.  Plus, half term, so I got to go to Kempo on a Friday.  Friday session is a bit longer, which is nice, and it’s earlier so there’s socialising afterwards.

Reading – This is going a lot better than it had been.  I’ve read 8 books in October, putting me at a year total of 39 out of 52.  To hit my target I’ll need to read 13 more books – 6 or 7 a month, which is very do-able.

At the moment I’m reading a book about Buddhism (which is what caused that haiku), and “The Gallows Curse”, a book my mother gave me because she thought I’d like it.  So far pretty good, but it’s an actual paper book, so it might take me a little longer to read it because I’m too lazy to lug it to work each day to read in my lunch break.  I’ve been using the library’s ebook service instead.

Blogging – as I said, I’ve not done so well at this.  I originally said I would blog three times a week, and this month I’ve only managed four posts, including last month’s very late goal report and Friday’s short haiku.

All in all, Guiding is the goal that is going the best.  That was, realistically, always going to be the case.  More people relying on me to get it right!