Sad endings, Mary Poppins and shiny things

Whether it’s dropping off the keys to my rented damp-ridden, avocado-bathroom-suite-complete-with-kitchen-cupboard-over-the-bathtub flat in Bracknell, leaving my Citroen Saxo with neon yellow and grey interior at the scrap yard because it had a tendency to be a bit of a death trap, or driving away from the boarding kennels as my cat gave me his best Puss in Boots wide-eyed pity face and I trundled off for a three-day conference in Belfast, I hate goodbyes.

So, with only a few short weeks of this KTP left, it’s probably no surprise that I have decided to break a Wisley tradition and not have a leaving do (let’s face it, we all knew it was never really up for debate). I’m going to do a Mary Poppins instead and steal away with my talking umbrella. But, besides wasting time stressing that whisperings in the corridors are preparations to ambush me with tea, cake and the horrifying words “speech, speech”, these remaining weeks have been very busy for the KTP team.

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Filling the toolkit

If I had a toolbox (and let’s face it- I wouldn’t), it wouldn’t be full of tools.

I’d probably use it to store stationary, or those odds and ends I refuse to throw away just in case I find a use for them tomorrow. Things like those infuriatingly-nondescript pieces of a jigsaw puzzle that seem to proliferate under the sofa cushions, random coins of unknown origin and/or value, crunchy old rubber bands and paperclip necklaces.

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Everything changes

In my early (and I stress early) high school years, the girls could be split into one of two camps- the ‘Take That’ fan club or the ‘Backstreet Boys’ one.  I clearly remember arriving at school on the day Take That broke up. Friends were huddled together red-faced and teary-eyed, sobbing in classroom corners and whimpering in toilet cubicles.  Those were the ones that made it in- many were simply too distraught.

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Back to school

As much as it may be cool to say I hated school, didn’t do my homework and never did any revision, it would be a lie. Keen as I may have been though, I wasn’t crazy, so on my last school day I appreciated the fact that I would never again have homework to do or exams to revise for.

Until last week, that is.

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Preparing for LMC6

Discussing Science at Wisley in 1967

 

Many months before a KTP project begins and long before an Associate has been recruited, a core project team get together and, in a room I picture as being windowless and smoke-filled but that I expect in reality is bright, airy and houses multiple smoke detectors, they devise a plan outlining how the project could develop during the allotted timescale.  The result of their efforts is one of the first things I received on my first day as a KTP Associate – the grant proposal document.  Read and revisited for much of that day – and for many weeks afterwards, this document was rarely far from my desk.

Almost two years on, and with the project well on track, I still flick through my grant proposal document but do so much less frequently- perhaps only twice in a three-month period. This week, I revisited it when preparing for LMC6.

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Hello world!

‘Hello world!’ – It was the default first title but, actually, it’s a pretty perfect introduction for me to a world of blogging and you to a world of KTPs!

Eighteen months into my KTP project, now seems like a really good time to give you all some first hand experience of what it is like to be a KTP Associate- a little-known but nonetheless, very exciting job!

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