September

Hi everyone,
Is it just me - or does September seem like the start of something new?
I suppose it is years of being a schoolteacher, but you'd think it would have worn off by now.(I'm 68.)
Anyway, I really posted to say I'd like to join up. You seem to have a wider remit than some of the other groups and as I'm short on inspiration at present, and disappointed with the political scene, especially the choices for the left, it would be great to find some new contacts who know what I'm on about.
Is that enough stirring for one day?
oldstick.

It's curious that the British education system (and for all I know, that of most of the world) and the calendar remain so out of sync despite it being the 21st century. So, being an ex-teacher myself as well, I still find that September feels like the start of a new year -- there certainly used to be a feeling of new year resolutions when it came to timetables, staff meetings, INSET days, new colleagues, "new" management styles and "new" initiatives (which often ended up being "old" management styles and "old" initiatives re-cycled from decades previous), not to mention new students (OK, sorry, I did mention them even though I said I wouldn't). Maybe it's time to pick up Teacher Man by Frank McCourt that I've been avoiding for a year or more and mentally re-visit the old times...

I suppose that the winter solstice is the most fundamental indicator of a new year even if there is a month or two of cold and dark to get through before green shoots start to appear. I do feel that the academic year is reasonably well contrived, though. There is a pleasant season of autumn to get through in which to establish new patterns of behaviour and work out new relationships before winter's gloom sets in.

I guess that the reason for the usual arrangement was that teachers, along with lawyers and MPs, liked the idea of a long summer break and so festooned work around that.

I always get that 'new notebook' feeling in September.

But the change from summery August (theoretically, at least) to autumnal September is far more sudden and pronounced than any change across the solstii (is that right? I've forgotten all my Latin). Nor does spring seem to arrive overnight in the same way.

Edited to correct typo.

>5 sarahemmm: You may be right but I am convinced that I can tell a distinct difference between the light or the elevation of the sun or something in the days just before and just after a solstice. I can't really do a blind trial so I'll just remain convinced ;-)

I think 'solstices' is OK - Chambers says the Latin derivation is 'solstitium' so probably 'solstitii'.

This September certainly feels like a new start for me. Next week, after 17 years with the company where Every Little Helps, I will be starting a year long career break in order to study at City University in London for an M. Sc. in Library Science.

It feels like a huge risk given the way this country treats its library services, but I was considering librarianship as a career when I left uni first time around but somehow got distracted by a giant supermarket, a place where, if I'm honest, I haven't enjoyed working for a number of years. I'm ready to take the plunge and hope I can pull it off. Wish me luck.

That's the sort of move that many of us have daydreams about but rarely have the courage to effect. I hope it all goes as well as you deserve. FWIW I think there's still mileage in libraries, even if they will be different beasts.

Good Luck Grammath! Does this mean we'll see more or less of you on LT?

Good luck, Grammath!

I came the other way - I dropped out of a degree in Information Science in 1974 because I found it so boring. But if I had stuck with it into the computer age, I needn't have gone back to school in 1990 for my Comp Sci...

But I can tell you that going back to school in later life is fantastic. You will enjoy every minute!

Etymologically speaking solstice is from mid-13th century Old French, after Latin solstitium; really, of course, September is the month of the autumnal equinox; our bedroom has a window facing directly east, so when the sun starts rising opposite there is a sense of a chronological point being passed.

I don't know about other countries, but July-August was harvest time, the common explanation as to why we have such a long summer break in the UK -- Ireland having a more agricultural tradition seems to have a correspondingly longer break than the 5-6 weeks British kids (and teachers) enjoy.

I too contemplated a library postgrad course, but teaching's siren song (!) drew me away...

#9

Hopefully more! Although obviously not too much more as I will, of course, be studying hard.

I've been a bit lax for a good few months, mainly because said Giant Supermarket still used IE6 as its web browser of choice so LT wouldn't load on my lunch breaks. I've also recently replaced my home laptop, a knackered 5 year old machine with loose keys and a broken disc drive. Home computing is a much more pleasant experience as a result.

As it happens, one of my professors is also on LT and uses it as a way to spread the course's reading list. When she mentioned the site at the open evening I attended in July I thought I might just have found the right course for me.

Hi Grammath
Did you know there was a support group for libraries? I've only just come back from holiday and am trying to catch up with e-mails but I wish you all the best for your new career. When I get time I'll try to find it - they need all the help they can get.
oldstick.

oldstick, perhaps you mean the Librarians who LibraryThing group ? http://www.librarything.com/groups/librarianswholibrar

No it's a UK thing trying to stop closures under all the cuts we're getting. Can't fin a link right now, sorry.

If you type "library cuts protest UK" into your search engine you come up with a depressing number of sites protesting against library cuts, only slightly leavened by the fact that so much counter action is being mounted. Where to start, though? All essential (and I would argue that culture in all its forms is essential) services are being threatened in a shortsighted attempt to underline the severity of a double-dip recession. When will politicians realise that when things are bad you don't add to the depression?

Totally agree. My local library is one of the few things keeping me sane in my unemployment; I may go completely insane if nice Mr Cameron becomes the reason I'm unemployed AND the reason why I can't afford to read!

#16 - so far I haven't heard anywhere saying "oh yes we've got some slack you can cut out deptartment." Everyone. Literally every single organisation that gets any money from the gov, is saying (to the media) cut somebody else's funding we're too important.

No decisions have yet been made, it's all hot-air. The spending review results are in Oct. Only then will we know what will be cut and what won't. No amount of whinging beforehand will make a difference - but that won't stop groups trying or the media from 'printing' it.

I'm not saying the libraries shouldn't be preserved - but how many children's lives in terms of AnE places are you prepared to 'spend' to do so?

I think the point is that everything is going to face cuts; nothing is safe. It's true that nothing definite has been announced yet, but with government depts being advised to plan for 25% cuts, it's already being felt on the ground - I used to work in the public sector and I'm really struggling to find suitable vacancies, whereas a year or so ago, there were buckets of them around.

As for the last bit - are there children dying in their droves because funding has been inappropriately allocated, and would fewer really die if the NHS had a larger share?

I can't understand why the country seems to have bought wholesale into the idea that we need these cuts as soon as possible.

It's just good, old-fashioned, Conservative ideology - they don't hold with the public sector so they're using national debt as a stalking-horse to drastically cut it and they're willing to risk exacerbating the recession to do so.

As for libraries, if you can't afford to buy books it's your own fault for being poor; being poor is a crime, you know - something to do with not riding bicycles, apparently.

#7: Grammath
Many years ago I became librarian at a girls' boarding school just because of an interest in bookish things. The school was quite small (300-400 pupils) but the "academic" library was very well resourced compared with some much bigger state schools I taught in later (there was a seperate library for fiction). At that early stage of my career I thought of switching but hadn't the courage but now realise how much happier and content I would have been if I had taken the plunge. I did break from the system enough to teach overseas for 13 years (Kuwait, Spain, Brazil) but returning to UK and the state system (this time in Scotland) was very traumatic. My younger sister was also a teacher but after her time overseas she did do a librarianship course and became a librarian ending her career in Canterbury Prison (as librarian seconded from Kent Council not as an inmate). I think she was happy with the change, at least initially. I wish you all the best, satisfaction, contentment, and happiness in your new journey.

Hello
Well I suppose I am a cut-just took retirement and hence the time to discover this! Not one of those who was desperate to go but not too reluctant and, unlike some, could afford it. Complete beginner here-but what an absorbing site it is-I can see myself spending more time here than reading if I'm not careful. Just made a start at putting my books into my "library"-a rather daunting task as I have always bought books-only constrained by my wife's refusal to contemplate further walls devoted to shelfspace.
I agree about September-was also once a teacher but I think we all retain from childhood the sense that it is both a beginning and an ending sort of month.

Welcome to LT, Chribat! You are right - it is very easy to get absorbed in the discussions here. And you wishlist - all I can say is, mine grew exponentially...

Thanks for the words of support, folks. I'm in my second week of classes and, at this early stage, so far, so good and few regrets. This seems a pretty meaty subject and there's lots to think about.

I agree, I am a teacher and think of the new year as September!

Nearly half-term now, only a week or so to go! Do we all feel the same as we did at the beginning of September? Did all the teachers among you have time to read anything on your wish-list or complete anything on your "currently reading"?