On Campus

A quiet Sunday after a busy week. L back from London on Friday, and the car in the garage having its MOT and service, needing two new tyres. No such thing as a cheap trip to the garage...
L returned with a cold she caught on the train going down, from a giant man with a tiny laptop, and is now feeling a little sorry for herself, coughing uncomfortably, and drinking hot blackcurrant. Still, she had a wonderful time in London, seeing different friends. Yesterday I was at the latest of my personality development seminars - on puberty! Only it wasn't really. Much more focused on adolescence generally, which seems a shame since that is actually the topic for the next seminar, and since puberty is such a specific, such a momentous event in our lives, in our development. This series has been patchy. The first two seminars fascinating, exciting, informative. The subsequent three disappointing in different ways, though always still managing to be thought-provoking one way or another.

The experience of being at Leeds University on Thursday was a strange one. It was extremely windy, and the afternoon sun was dazzling, as I made my way up from the station, leaning forward against the intense force of the wind, rubbish swirling in the gutters, people battling with their hair, ties, coats, bags. I held tight to my little street map, followed signposts, and found the building I was directed to without too much trouble, though the geography of the campus was a mysterious jumble to me, great herds of students moving this way and that. Big buildings, big groups, lots of activity. A group of young men in sports gear, with a football, making their way across a carpark.

Up I went in the lift to Floor 7, not entirely understanding how I seemed to have started out at Floor 4, when I thought I'd entered at ground level, feeling as if I were in a strange dream. Floor 7 - the doors open and I get out. Now what? A sort of lobby, some students eating snacks on seats near a pool table. No signs to indicate where specific rooms are, least of all room 7.09. The central space of Floor 7 is taken up by a coffee bar, where a scattering of students sit, eating or not, drinking coffee from cardboard cups, chatting, texting, looking at pieces of paper. I walk all the way to the other side of the coffee bar, find myself approaching the Health Sciences Library. To my left the East-West Campus route is sign-posted, from which direction emerge further herds of students, fresh from a lecture perhaps. I walk all the way back to the lobby area near the lift, ask a man with an ID tag round his neck (he obviously works here) if he knows where room 7.09 is. I tell him it's the Medical Education Reception. He looks rather blank, suggests it is most probably over the other side of the coffee bar. I head over that way again, once again find the Health Sciences Library. Begin to feel slightly hysterical, though luckily it is still more than half an hour until my interview time. I ask a librarian, who comes out of the library and points me back in the direction of the lifts and the lobby, suggests I turn right there and go through the double doors, and she thinks there's some sort of reception down there. Off I go again, pass the man with the tag, tell him I've now been told it's over this way! He is impassive. Along the corridor I go past noticeboards for Years 1,2,3,4 and 5. On Year 1's noticeboard, I see the timetable and list of groups for the course I am applying to teach. This is beginning to make more sense... Then, a huge glass-doored reception area. I stand looking at it, noticing there is nothing to suggest it is room 7.09. A woman says you're lost... I tell her I'm looking for room 7.09, the reception area, and she tells me this whole area is 7.09 - rather misleading to call it a room, I think to myself. I thank her, go through the doors, approach the desk, discover that yes, I am in the right place, though the person I've been told to report to is on her lunch break. I say that I'll go and get a cup of tea, and come back in half an hour.

In the coffee bar, I approach the counter, ask for a cup of tea, am told it's self-service, directed to a big machine offering various combinations of drinks, or hot water to add to a teabag, which I do, feeling exactly like a student on her first day, everything strange. I sit with my cardboard cup of tea, watching the students, looking at the coffee-stained and sugar-scattered round aluminium table top, with the little notice asking everyone please to clear their tables when they've finished. Two students do exactly this, a girl and a boy. She says ooh aren't you good? as he deposits his styrofoam food container into the bin beside where I am sitting. I was brought up well, says the boy, as they walk away towards the library. Eventually I go slowly back to the lobby near the lifts, down the corridor, through the double doors, past the noticeboards, and into the reception area. The administrator for the course in question has returned, and shortly comes to greet me, and takes me inside the area where a large number of people work in an open-plan office space, and puts me in a little side room to do the exercise... which is to say what factors I'd consider and what actions I'd take if I had a rude student who kept talking over people, changing the subject, and sending text messages. Not hard. And very similar to a scenario in a little tutors' e-learning section of the website I'd come across a few days before. Thanks very much, most helpful. The interview began with this and I could tell I was scoring well, nice smiles, good body language, encouraging nods... And so it went on really. I was able to answer all their questions with relative ease, and could tell my answers were at least adequate, sometimes better. I was asked to wait outside for maybe 5 minutes. While I was waiting, friend S, who works there, and had put me onto this work, appeared, asked what was happening - I told her the jury were deciding. We chatted a bit and in mid-chat, the door opened and I was asked back inside. The course manager told me that they had no hesitation in offering me the job. I made appropriately professional noises of pleasure, and we discussed logistics a little. The plan is I go in on Friday week, as long as references are through, and all well, and shadow the present tutor who I'll be taking over from next term. Then there'll only be one more week of term, then a training session, then the Easter hols, and then I'll start in May with my group. Gulp. By then I'll know what it is I'm going to teach. More of which anon.