16 July, 2014

Into the second week of school holidays and not feeling overly enthusiastic about heading back to work next week. Did get some longstanding jobs done around the house though.

End of term was a bit rough. Grandma passed away in the last week and I headed down to Invercargill for the, rather pleasant given the circumstances, funeral. Novopay fired me another rejection letter as I was leaving. Any goodwill that might have existed between me and the Ministry of Education is well gone and the aim now is to sort the salary assessment, get the back pay and then revisit any further work in teaching.

The wee girl has been with grandparents for almost the entire time which has been great for C but left me feeling a bit rough about the remarkably little time I get to spend with her. My mind has turned to how I can have more flexible time in my life while retaining income and I’m exploring different ways to work for myself again. I am finding it is harder to take [the perceived] risk this time around but at least it means I am working on risk management as a larger part of my business plan. I am very keen to hold out the year at school, partly for pride and partly to get the benefit of that long end-of-year holiday.

The 3D printer failed a few weeks back and required a new thermocouple. Having not been born with an innate knowledge of thermocouples it took me a while to figure out what the issue was and then find replacement parts. The thing must have been failing for ages because the new, improved thermocouple has meant the printer works through all sorts of temperatures and in different areas of the house perfectly. It is now back to printing cookie cutters until further notice.