We've started planning a holiday for the upcoming half-term school break that Victoria has. We found a cheap flight to Dublin from Manchester, so we are going to Ireland. Neither of us have ever been before, so it should be interesting. We are arriving Saturday and returning on Tuesday. The flight is only an hour, which shows you just how close Ireland really is to England. More details to come as we plan the trip. We might stay in a pretty nice hotel if we find a good deal. I think Victoria's earned it with all the work she's been doing (especially on top of a cold this week).

My master's course is going pretty well. One class has launched into a wiki activity for the next few weeks which I need to start participating in. The other one just got past introductions this week and has been working on some e-learning scenarios. I need to think about the assessments a bit ahead of time, as both the big ones are due a few days after Keith's wedding in December. It would be good to have at least one of them done before the wedding.

Our friends Francisco and Fatima (whose wedding we went to in Madrid last year) sent us these photos they took at the wedding.

Victoria found a baby to play with at the wedding.

This weekend featured yet another wedding, which was on Sunday. It was in Manchester, which was good as we would have a hard time spending the night if it was too far away, as Victoria needs to work in the morning. A lot of people could take the day off, but she wasn't really able to. The wedding was really nice and we went to a place called Mere Court Hotel for the reception, which was an old family home turned into a hotel. Unfortunately the band took a long time to set up and started about 2 hours late, so we had to leave right when they got started. There aren't many trains on Sunday night, so we had to be careful not to miss the last one.

It was the wedding of two of Victoria's friends, Gisella and Chris. They met while in Salzburg when Victoria was there. Gisella lived with Victoria as well when she was at Leeds University.

Two big things have happened this week. The first is that I started driving lessons with a two hour lesson on Thursday. It went pretty well, in that I didn't drive the wrong way down the road. Chris, my instructor, said that I drive very confidently, but I will need to watch out for certain things that the examiners wouldn't like (you can't go over the limit at all he said for instance, which is not the way most people actually drive). Also, they expect you to do some strange steering method that nobody does anymore and seems to be from the days before power steering. So I will have to relearn how to steer. Near the end of the lesson I think I was getting tired, because I let the car get too close to the curve and the side of the wheel hit the curb. It is more exhausting driving here as you have to think about it more. I kept looking to the right for the rear view mirror and once I grabbed the door handle to try to change the gears (luckily the door did not open). My next lesson is Wednesday, so I just need to internalize his suggestions into my regular driving, and get used to the wrong side of the road. The large amount of roundabouts will take some getting used to as well.

The other thing is that at work they have introduced a new pay modernization scheme, which is based upon a national framework system of evaluating job roles at work. The theory is to ensure equal pay for equal work across the jobs at the university, and doing this nationwide. However, the result here has left many people disgruntled. About 24% of staff got a pay increase as a result of this. 14% have gotten a pay cut, though the pay cut won't happen for 4 years as part of the bargain. Then another group is not having their pay changed (I am in this group), though the number of advancement points on the pay scale may have changed positively or negatively. Some people, particularly those in IT jobs have gotten significant pay cuts (8,000 pounds one person said they were cut). That must be at least 25% of their current pay. I can't see how many people will stick around too long if their pay is going to drop that significantly. My department was particularly badly hit with something like 40% being negatively affected in some way. It will be interesting to see what happens with all of this. I am just thankful my pay is fine.

At the Sheffield Fayre thing I went to I ran into a driving instructor who seemed really nice and had the best rates I have seen so far. So I have now arranged with him to have some lessons, starting with a two hour lesson on Thursday. I am hoping to set a date to take my test soon, as it must be scheduled in advance, and it can take a couple months to get an appointment. If I could have it before Christmas that might be ideal.

I went to the ALT (Association of Learning Technologists) conference in Nottingham this week, and I had a poster there about the e-learning starter packs I worked on last year. It turned out to be a very popular topic, as I had over 30 people come to talk to me during the hour of the poster displays and the tea break afterwards (which wasn't really a break for me as a result). Having such a pack seems to be something a lot of universities were thinking about doing, so we had taken the lead on it a bit. In fact, the poster was so popular that someone stole part of it. I had some white space on my poster, so I attached pieces of the starter pack so people could see what it looked like. Between when I arrived Wednesday morning and the 2:30 poster display time, someone stole one of the guides right off the poster. It kind of pissed me off, especially doing it before the poster display time. Luckily I had brought some extras to give away, so I was able to replace it. When someone from SHU went to take down the poster on Thursday, she found the guides had all been ripped off the poster and taken again! Good thing we didn't mind people having them.