I might feel rather like the row boat in the image; floating in the midst of a lot of stuff. But I don’t feel aimless.
In conversation with some colleagues, it’s clear that there is a decline in the availability of work in the English language teaching publishing industry. However, I’ve had a relatively good summer, boosted by working with some amazing people and companies (and long may it continue!), and it just turns out that I’m currently in the middle of a small natural pause between editing drafts.
So what have I been doing with myself? For one, I’ve revamped the website a bit to reflect my expanding interests in the world of editing; you can see my updated services page here. As well as this, I’ve updated my CV to reflect my expanding interests. To go with this, I’ve been hunting out potential prospects within (and slightly outside) these interests.
As I near the next birthday of 48, I do start to think ‘Am I too old to explore different opportunities?’.
And my resounding answer is ‘NO!’. My editing and associated skills that I’ve worked on since 2017 (alongside the almost 20 years of teaching) is something that cannot be taken away, but can be transferred into varying topics and industries. Perhaps I’m maturing like a stinky cheese.
One area that I’m really keen to explore is heritage and genealogy. In my maturing era, I’m finding my interest is turning into much more than that.
I’m examining the large family tree I’ve amassed, pruning where necessary, and finding sources for those people that have no evidence. A few weeks ago, I had over 7,000 people on the tree without any credible source – yes, when I started, I was too eager and accepted hints all over the place. With careful research, multiple online locations and digital pruning shears, it now stands at just over 2,500.
When looking for evidence, I’ve found mistakes I made years ago when accepting unverified hints from other trees, and now I can really start correcting those mistakes. I feel like I should be on the BBC News advert (‘We don’t just answer the questions, we question the answers.’)
And if I’m really honest, I love this kind of family history research. And really, it harks back to my work in ELT when representing the LGBTQIA+ community; everyone has a story, and everyone deserves to have their stories documented and preserved correctly, and to be valued for it.