I’m very distracted writing this essay today, and it’s not just because my copy of Light and Magic arrived today (the whole tactile vinyl LP experience is still just as good, sliding the record out and checking it over, then placing it on the turntable, gently lowering the stilus onto the record deck, hearing that click-crackle and then the gentle quiet of the run in on the record. It’s all about the feel of listening)… No, the distraction comes from my vague anger at being so abandoned to an essay I don’t understand.
My mind keeps leaping back to “You have your comments”, and railing mentally against the uselessness of that remark. I’ve gone from 70% average to 30% and 35% – at least the woman who marked the 30% one is willing to help.
What gets me more is the entire folder full of stuff which doesn’t help; the module that lead up to this assignment, I’ve got pages marked ‘Assignment related’ and they’re not, not even slightly. The whole essay is related to the module in the same way that global warming is to the weather yesterday. They’re linked, but in a big, distant way. The module is a big floaty management concepts thing, and the essay is a down-and-dirty thing which, is desparately attempting to make a management concept seem like it’s useful in the workplace. It’s not. The problem is, I suppose, that as newly qualified, or pre-qualification nurses our links with management processes are pretty slim. I did some stuff down on MSSU, but frankly it’s the same as running a business and something I have no desire to be involved in, not really. So the links between what they’ve taught and what we do are like slender pieces of spider’s web, heading off into the far distance.
And frankly, by the time we need them, whatever management fad came up with the stuff we’ve been taught, well, it won’t be the in thing when we get to management. I think I’m gonna prod lunch and try and get myself more in the mood. But it’s really frustrating, the guidelines are so vague, the comments so useless, the whole thing is really, really depressing.
