Should We Stretch Our Boundaries?

Yesterday, Sunday, a wonderful person who shall remain nameless used the whole of his Sunday to be supportive in stretching my boundaries.

I mention this because I think that it is worthy of mention due to the fact that (1) it was a human kindness I want to acknowledge and (2) it was done in an effort to help me stretch my boundaries and I want to quickly question how much I'm stretching them and if this is a good thing.

The 'selfless Sunday' action was driving all the way from the depths of Wiltshire to Milton Keynes and back. Not a huge deal perhaps but this selfless act was performed to give me an idea of the route that I will be driving tomorrow to take part in a Senate meeting with the Open University and without this kindness I may well have headed off full of nerves and trusting a satnav app on my iPad. The latter proved itself to be wholly wrong on every prompt it gave on the trial run ('take the 5th exit' on roundabouts containing 2 or 'bear left then take the next left' on a dual carriageway without a single exit visible except through trees or over a bridge taking me over the motorway - really!) and had I not known this beforehand I would have trusted its madness and ended up God only knows where. In trouble no doubt.

The boundaries I'm stretching are those of not only driving to Milton Keynes on my own - something I would have done years ago but somehow got out of the habit of doing - but that of taking part in a large and time-consuming two-year role as a student representative whilst studying for my degree. I have taken part in two other consultative committees, a regional one that has informed some of the decision-making behind the present Senate subject matter, another concerning disabled students within the university; but this is a larger and far more demanding role. The paperwork involved was something of a shocker and how anyone reads it through whilst studying I have no idea but I'm going to try.... overnight and in the morning after I arrive and try to unwind.

So, what I'm going to ask is this: Why, are roles on the student representative body still unfilled and not being flagged up to others stretching boundaries for the sake of their university and their own experience?

Personally I think its a shame that other students aren't aware that the roles exist, or that they still need filling.

Okay, those are my musings for the day and now I'm going to stretch my boundaries in the direction of a glass noodle soup that is a glorified cup-a-soup and what with the thought that I have a chair that has fallen to pieces and needs me to stretch myself to mending it.

Before I forget to mention it I'd better add that I'm still writing lots of haiku and am now seriously thinking that this has become an addiction. Once I've posted a few on my student forum I'll post others here as there are self-plagiarism issues apparently if I post in both places using the same haiku.