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Thursday, 28 June 2012

Preparing for Clearing in an Onomatopoeic Sort of Way


I have been battling away at my horrid course work and not getting very far at all.  I have had almost two weeks away from work in the Enquiry Unit hoping that I would return to work with my professional development project pretty much in the bag.
Well it is not to be.  I have been going to sleep despairing in of it, waking up dreading another day working on it and dreaming of having some sort of amazing light bulb moment when all appears clear enabling me to whiz though it.  Instead, I feel more muddled than I did before and him-at- home is starting to look as miserable as I feel at my lack of progress.


It got so bad two weeks ago that I volunteered for ambassador work  figuring that if I was not going away on holidays and I was getting nowhere with my work, I may as well take a break and earn some money.  For two mornings last week I went out to Medway to do mock interviews in a sixth form college.  I had six students to spend a half hour with each:  15 minutes interview, 5 minutes verbal feedback then ten minutes to write up the feedback to be given to the student.  I really enjoyed this work and tried to give balanced feedback emphasising the positive aspects but explaining what could help the interviewees to improve.  Then on Friday I was off to east London to subject another batch of sixth formers to a one hour and a half finance talk.  It is hard to make uni finance into a really gripping presentation but I did my best to encourage the students to apply for uni, explaining how much I had benefitted from my higher education experience.
So after two gruelling days at home trying desperately to avoid implementing my well-honed procrastination skills, I am back here in the Enquiry Unit for three days until we move to the computer lab to start Early Clearing on Monday.
On arrival in the office all was in disarray as staff prepared to move sites for Clearing.  I mentioned that I was feeling rather discombobulated which led to a wonderful discussion about onomatopoeic words.  I’ve always loved these and discombobulation just sounds to me like its meaning.  I found a wonderful article by Dianne Saphiere (blog) entitled “Want to Feel Ukiuki, Pichipichi and Pinpin?” where she writes about the Japanese implementation of onamatopaeia to describe foods; their texture, and smell, eating them and preparing them.
Some of my favourites are shikishaki  for crisp, fuwafuwa for fluffy and korikori  for crunchy and crisp and the wonderful sound of chokichoki  for using preparation with a knife. I wonder what word the Japanese would come up with to describe my very much alive and fecund Herman friendship cake mixture, bubbling away very busily on my kitchen bench with its yeasty earthy smell and sticky almost elastic texture?
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