Chartership - The Journey So Far!

The journey to Chartership has not been a smooth sailing one so far. I have set myself deadlines about three times now but I do know I have to meet this last deadline. I am trying to work on electronic submission and there are so many things that would need to be put in place for this to work. The images that should be set properly; the hyperlinking, bookmarking etc.
I have been lucky in terms of the new Mentor I have now. I originally had a mentor from a not too near library, this has really slowed me down so I had to change because of distance and I needed to speed things up. There was a period when nothing happened and I even toyed with the idea of letting it all go.
I got a new Mentor from my workplace and she's been genuinely supportive and helpful. It has helped me also with the motivation aspect of it because I always see her and can ask questions anytime and informally sometimes about the Portfolio. She is my former LM which makes it easier as she already understands what I do and also knowing me personally helped her in guiding me appropriately.  It's always been said it's good to have a Mentor from another library or type of library but I like to think having a mentor from your area has it's own advantages too because you'll both be operating on the same wavelength. I have set a deadline now for myself for July. I hope to reinforce it by writing this blog about it. I have promised myself to write a reflective blog in July about the whole experience after submission.

Visions and goals

I have come to that stage again in my life where I have set out some goals I want to achieve in the next one to three years. I have lots of exams to pass, new courses to enroll in, my chartership portfolio to complete and it makes me so excited having being in a state of doldrums for sometime now. I am always excited when I can sit myself down and set some goals to pursue or highlight my dreams and set about achieving them. One of my goals is to do my PhD. I actually started this almost ten years ago but deferred it after a year due to some crisis I experienced. I have always had that nagging feeling of emptiness that I hadn't been able to erase because I am someone who hates not accomplishing what I set out to do. I actually tried to work on this about 3 years ago but listened to discouragements from people who had questioned it's relevance to my profession. I have come to a stage where I have reflected on it deeply and have come to the realisation that it's not so much about relevance to my profession (even though I know it will impact on it positively one way or the other no matter what people say) but it's all about my self-accomplishment. It is one thing I want to accomplish for myself... my very self. When I realised that, I felt excited and alive one more time as I seek to pursue it looking at the options available for me. I acknowledge it's going to be a big task but I think I am capable of achieving that.

Tribute to Whitney Houston

image taken from:http://www.musicstack.com/item/162762784

I was so sad today when I went on the internet and I received full in the face the news that Whitney Houston is dead. It was a big shock. Whitney had impacted in no small way into my life while growing up. She had been an inspiration to me. Her song Greatest love of all had meant a lot to me and If I am permitted to say it, It's been like my personal anthem. Yes she fell, like every human being would at one time or the other, but she rose again. This is the beauty of humanity, to fall and yet to rise again. I felt for her when she was in the throes of drugs and all that but she came out of it all and my heart was delighted for her when I saw her perfom at the 2009 UK Xfactor.

She was a pace-setter with a lot of landmarks in her life: the only artist to chart seven consecutive No.1 Billboard 100 hits, the second artist and the only female artist to have 2 No. 1 Billboard 200 Album awards, One of her songs was the best selling single by a female artist in music history and much more... what more can I say, She was a legend in her own right and she was very beautiful.

May her gentle soul rest in peace and I pray her daughter would always make the right choices as she learns from her Mother's life and death.

Kindle

The Kindle is something I have just explored. I have toyed with the idea of buying one for a while now and have seized the opportunity of Xmas to get one for my daughter. She is a voracious reader too and reads anything she lays her hands on even though I have taken it upon myself to monitor what she reads.

We enjoyed downloading books into it from Amazon over the break and I promised myself one more time to get myself one. It's like my childhood dreams are coming true bit by bit when I would wish I had some illuminations to my eyes to read my novels secretly in the dark when being sent to bed by my dad. I am sure before the end of the year or sooner, lcd screens or something that closely resembles it would be developed for kindles so you do not have to look for some other lightings for it and then you can read it in the dark without having the room light on. Then I would wish I could roll back the years...

Chartership course

I went for a chartership course suggested by my mentor a few weeks ago. It was really inspiring and it's helped me focus more on what I need to do with my portfolio and how to go about this. I really learnt from the career development talk. I have offered to write in the CDG article about my experience. Josephine here I come :)

Chartership - The beginning

I finally was able to secure a Mentor. I met her for the first time and she is really so nice. It was a rewarding trip for me as I got to tour her library which was more or less a library cum tourist attraction site. It was interesting.

Now the Mentor agreement form and the PPDP forms have been sent. I have to sit down now to start writing. I have set myself a deadline of 6 months and my mentor was really encouraging. I hate to drag on things for a long time but I must not be too over-confident about this as it's not a path I have gone before. Anyway, that's my target and I will do all within my power to try and achieve it. With my ECDL exams out of the way, this shouldn't be too hard. I already have a huge pile of evidences sitting in my locker but the main task is sitting down to write reflectively and professionally. Anyway, got to go now.

World Paper Free day

Last Thursday 27th was the World's paper free day. I am not too sure it was celebrated widely enough. I think it’s an issue that should receive much media attention than it presently is receiving. At least this would make people more aware of the issues surrounding it if only for one day. The rate at which printing and photocopies are carried out in offices is alarming.

We are still very far from a paper-free world even though it is an eventual occurrence maybe not in this our generation, but it will definitely happen.
I could imagine the joy and the thoughts that so many issues would be solved when paper was invented many decades ago but it’s now become a burden on the general well-being of the planet and we are struggling to dispense with it! Thank God for recycling that is helping a little. I enjoyed this demonstration of paper recycling at the ‘Paper University’

We have really evolved in dispensing with the use of papers in offices in so many ways. Fewer letters are written and posted now that there are better, faster and cheaper options in emails and SMS, IM etc. Meeting notes are taken on laptops and Ipads and so many Web 2.0 applications are now being used to facilitate information storage, sharing and applications.

However, we are making too much fuss over printing and copying and we neglect other areas where papers and paper products are used. There are myriads of things papers are used for and their wastages are not emphasized. Afterall a lot of efforts are made to recycle office papers as much as possible, what about others we can't recycle.

I think we should emphasize more on the World nylon/plastic free day as these are causing a great hazard to our environment especially in developing Nations where recycling is still to be developed.

The question now is, can we dispense with toilet tissue in the same way we are trying to dispense with office papers? The Western world would be alarmed if offered the alternative of squatting rather than using toilet paper. Squatting is using water and your hand to do the serious cleaning business which on the long run is economical, eco-friendly and more hygienic, afterall nothing cleans better than water. I can imagine the loads of controversies and discussions that would be generated in the media on this. Here is an interesting write-up on Toilet papers :Our love affair with toilet paper.

To cap it, here are two websites showing some interesting facts and figures on paper wastages.paperfacts and wastefacts