The Quirk of today...

Today, I realised quite how much I love my job.

This will take a little bit of explaining for fellow bloopers... Haha... Sorry, I should really correct that spell check to blippers..

I really have 4 jobs... Well, since I resigned from my accounts admin job I now have 3.

I am the Honorary Local Representative for ABRSM Music Examinations across Aberdeen City, with candidates coming in from about a 40 mile radius. Can you tell I've just blurbed out all this jargon completing my CV Although we had students from St Andrews in yesterday! Anyway...

As I am super sleepy having just got in the door and it is 1.09am... cheeky wee back blip, sorry! I am going to do a quick list...

Why I love my job as HLR for ABRSM

1 I get to meet most all of the music teacher accross the country which has opened up a few doors I would never have got opened without this job

2 I'm in charge!! What I say on the day, goes! No boss to moan/ look down at me, no one to answer back at me, no one to intimidate me or judge me. I get treated with a huge amount of respect and I get a lot of thanks for what I do. 99.9% of the time

3 I get to see the transformation between a kid/adult entering the exam room looking paler than an ice cube quite often being sickand walking out like a little Rae of sunshine! It's a magical thing to watch!

4 I get to know people who come back tirelessly year after year and develop and grow, I have a specific few adults especially who enter the exams. One I know as a cancer survivor and she is a true inspiration, she should be sitting her next violin exam soon. Also a, I'd say in his 30's, 30 year old man who came into the exam centre with a full blown firefighter outfit to sit his grade 1 piano exam, appologising that he may have to leave during it as he was on call. He made it through the exam with no buzzers going off. This man, was looked up at by the next 7 year old boy going into do his own grade 1 piano exam who came out exclaiming he wanted to become a fireman!

5 Getting to wear a suit

6 Meeting all the examiners. As a musician who has sat a total of... 17 ABRSM examinations since I was 6 years of age... I was always scared of examiners, the first question a lot of people ask when they come in is "is the examiner nice"... Sometimes... I say yes and really mean NO but the more I have worked this job, the more I realise that examiners are humans too! Even this one! Who's little quirk was to always match his socks to his tie!! It made for a funny conversation in the waiting room but a simple way to make the nerves subside with a smile and a giggle!

7 The silly stories you get told for instance, one examiner told me the story of a little girl who when on her aural tests, the examiner played a phrase and then repeated it with a slight change, he asked what the change was, she leaned around the piano and said "you quavered" the examiner nodded and gave her the mark

8 The sheets of manuscript that get returned at the end of the theory exams. I normally find 1 every exam that I keep, i plan to get a few i have framed, as it is priceless. Each candidate recieves a piece of yellow manuscript paper to write notes on or test out rhythms before they write them onto the exam paper. One boy had clearly finished his exam early as when he handed back in the manuscript he had drawn a full blown dinosaur wearing surfing shorts onto the manuscript! I had to not laugh in front of a room of 120 other candidates!!!

9 The job, I love the job itself!! I get a few trips away every now and then, mainly to seminars and conferences about music, safeguarding, professional development and as it is all musically related. I actually seriously enjoy it! It doesn't feel like work! It makes my brain think outside the box and constantly keeps me thinking of ways to improve my exam centres.

10 I can't not mention the ABRSM Annual Lunch. Each year during summer. ABRSM have their Annual lunch which last year for example was in the Hilton on Park Lane in London. We all dress up really fancy, guys in suits/the odd kilt and girls mainly in frocks/suits. We have seminars/meetings in our job title - every HLR from accross the whole of the world is in my seminar so I get to meet some amazing people. We then have a Champagne reception - which starts about 10am no joke! Where we then all mingle. Office Staff from the HQ in London whom I have some great friend there, all the 600+ examiners, 200+ HLR's and so on and so forth... There are literally HUNDREDS of us. We then sit down to a 3 course lunch, which by this point most of us have had a bottle of champagne each... after which we sit through some speeches on where ABRSM are at where it's going, new plans, new developments. Then we have the awards. ABRSM is a charity, HLR's are not paid, we serve ABRSM i suppose. I do get expebses and stewards/invigultors are paid, i can work it all myself if i wanred to. So after 5, 10, 15, 20 and 25 years service there are awards... I was offered the job when I was 20 and I also got told that they may have to rethink the years service awards if I took up their offer abd stayed onto 30 years + as I am the youngest HLR there is... Most HLR's are retired, the age gap between me and the rest of the HLR's is 20+ years... It's something that has never phased me which is I suppose why I have been kept in the job... I feel I can put as much if not more into ABRSM exams and do just as good a job as any of the other HLR's. I truely love what I do and I plan to continue doing it for as long as I can! :-)

The spring is well and truely back in my step.

Have also sent my CV into a job, FINGERS CROSSED. I nailed my CV so I just have to hope they offer me an interview!

"if you don't go after what you want you will never have it. If you don't ask the answer is always no. If you don't step forward you are always in the same place.
Nora Roberts