This is a new sensation: Tammy’s away on her first business trip ever, and I’m the one home looking after things until she returns. 🙂
We dropped Tammy off at the airport last night for her flight to Victoria. She’s there for two days getting training for her position as Academic Coordinator at GEOS. She will be at the GEOS school in Victoria, in the Sayward Building. That’s the same building that I worked in at INFORM and Esri Canada before they moved to Fort Street.
Well, it was a slow start because Briana, the one training us, had travel delays from Vancouver due to the fog. She finally arrived at GEOS at 11. Considering our late start we got through most things. That’s what you can do with effective people!!!
Anyway I feel like Radar O’Reilly. The amount of paperwork, not in triplicate, is astounding. There is a form for everything! Of course, no one has been completing even a quarter of these forms and that was the impetus for this training. Languages Canada, which is the ESL accreditation authority, will be auditing all GEOS schools in Canada later this year. Briana wants to make sure we’re “up to code”. Both Kevin, the new AC in Victoria, will be doing a lot of staff and student evaluations in the coming months – all of which must be documented and filed. Jinkies!
On an up side, I was talking with the manager here, Ian, about the amount of technology in this school. They have 6 laptop/work stations in the staff room, 2 TVs, and a projector available as teaching aids. Hell! The staffroom has a fridge and the student lunch room has a full-sized one. We just have a bar fridge in the student lunch room. The teachers actually have desks, not foldable banquet tables like us. So, Ian was surprised and suggested drawing up a cost sheet for getting the laptops and maybe a TV. Yay! It would be nice if he actually does this. Talking with Briana, most of the admin work (supposed to be) done by teachers is electronic. Our teachers are practically saying they won’t do it because we don’t have any devices for them to use (other than the student computer lab – and that’s not secure) and they won’t do it at home on their own time. Briana didn’t realize how lacking our GEOS was in equipment and she told me to approach Kevin about getting these laptops (hopefully with Ian on my side) and if he putzes around she’ll step in.
AC Kevin said that my Kevin is going to regret sending me here because Calgary’s deficiencies are being made known.
Tomorrow we’re going to talk about SPRs (student progress reports) and how the experimental system being used here and in Vancouver may become more widespread ASAP. Ian is in the process of getting Calgary into the loop for test driving the new system at my request. It’s so much better than our current one.
Tonight, I’m off to Swan’s for supper with Briana and AC Kevin. More news as the spam hits the fan. 😀
It’s been an interesting experience, in a Freaky Friday sort of way. I am getting an education on the sheer number of balls that Tammy keeps in the air on a regular basis, and Tammy is finding out how dissociating being on the road is: last night, she suggested we could Skype… while Miranda was at piano and Ian and I weren’t home. I know it’s not that she isn’t aware of the schedule, but being away and focusing on things that are purely work related has a way of supplanting the everyday stuff at home.
It all underlines that the new changes to her work schedule are the right choice, and that she was right all along to be concerned about the work/home balance.
Of course, now there is talk of another AC training session, but this time it would be a bigger deal, along the lines of my going away to Tech Trek, but hers might be in Kentucky. It shouldn’t be a problem, as long as Tammy brings me back a bottle of bourbon. 🙂