Avoidance tactics...

Like September Blue, I'm having my VIVA soon. Very soon (under a fortnight, in fact). And I'm worried.

I mean, my supervisor did not read the final version of all the chapters. I'm not even sure if he read the final version of any of the chapters. The thesis was finished in a hurry - so hurried that I actually don't know what my conclusion says.

I do know that the thesis has some items missing from the bibliography. And a page of abbreviations missing from the front. And I have barely opened it since I submitted it. I dread to think what little cringe-worthy gems of stupidity I'll find when I actually read it.

And that, I think, is why I have spent most of today saying I'm going to do some work, but not actually doing any. That could be why I'm here, posting, now. My family is watching Christmas present DVDs in the living room, because that's what you do in the Christmas holidays. But I am not, because I have work to do, and to watch DVDs is to deliberately not work.

To sit next to one's thesis, blogging and worrying, well.... it's not work, but it's closer than animated movies...

To the previous owner...

Dear Previous Owner of my New Flat,

Everyone leaves loose ends when they move house. It's almost inevitable. Things we forget to do / change / arrange. I am aware, also, that the speed of the move, which was down to the necessity of me moving in quickly, will not have helped in tidying these up before you left. Nevertheless, many of these could have been dealt with by now, by informing various organisations and offices of your new address (which, although I have asked for it in order to forward your mail, you choose not to give to me).

So, I have telephoned the TV Licensing people to explain to them that I do have a TV licence, and that you moved out, so they need not send anyone to the flat to interview the 'legal occupier' under caution regarding their failure to pay for a license, or respond to their letters.

I have telephoned the Debt Collection Agency, who sent you a postcard informing you of their intention to visit, to cancel their appointment to see you.

I spoke to the lady from the Magistrates' Court who came to the door looking for you, and explained that you do not live at the flat anymore, and I have no forwarding address. I then telephoned her after she left a card explaining that it is in your interests to contact her, a week later. She clearly did not believe me the first time when I told her you were not here. I have just received a further call from the same lady, and directed her to the Estate Agent, so that they can put her in contact with you.

Although I tried to set up a landline telephone from which I could have made these calls, I can't, because when you left, you did not cancel your account. They cannot let me take over the line (unless I also want to take over your bill) until they get in contact with you so that you can tell them to close your account. Thus, I can have no telephone or Internet connection at home, until you see fit to tidy up these loose ends.


I am beginning to understand why you do not want me to have your new address....

Also...

I've visited this site a few times since I saw it at Lawmummy a while ago. If you have 5 minutes to spare, this is a great place to go. You get to expand your vocabulary and help fight against world hunger. Not a bad way to spend your time.

Unless you're supposed to be working.

But still, it's a good cause...

Update 3

Well, it seems Argos got their act together and my bed arrived this morning. It's in pieces - Supermum and Creates Beautiful Paintings (who is also very handy with power tools) are coming to visit this afternoon to put it together for me. I might actually wake up in the same place I went to sleep tomorrow (see post below). Hurray!

Bed-hopping

Here is the back-story: I am awaiting the delivery of a storage bed for the new flat. The flat is small, and any storage space will be much appreciated. This bed will solve a variety of storage issues. Although Argos claim in the catalogue that delivery usually takes up to 14 days, my bed, they tell me by letter 2 weeks after the order, will not arrive until mid to late January. They are taking full advantage of the usually and much less notice of the up to parts of their claim, I think. Anyway, I'm not impressed.

In the meantime, I am still sleeping on an airbed on the floor. It's fairly comfortable, but feels very temporary, and does not solve any of my storage problems. But the most interesting thing about sleeping on this airbed is that every morning I wake up and the bed is two or three inches closer to the wall than I went to sleep.

Not so much bed-hopping, as bed shuffling, I guess...

Unusual tutorial activities

Last week, I was knitting in a Theory tutorial. Yes, knitting. Not metaphorically, but actually, really, with needles and wool.

This is the set up, as I arrive at my 5th out of 6 theory classes this week, one of the earlier ones was described in the previous post):

Female student: What are you doing over there?

Male student: Knitting [and he was]

Female student: Why? [my thoughts exactly]

Male student: Well, it's feminism this week, so I'm subverting stereotypes.

Me: Very good, Student with Welsh Name, carry on!

Male student: Actually, I've got a problem - look, that bit's gone all loopy, have I dropped some stitches?

Me: Looks like it.

Male student: How would I fix it?

I explain how I would fix it.

Male student: Could you fix it for me?

I point out that this might in some ways re-institute stereotypes, and I also suggest we should get on with the class - other students are extremely amused by this interchange, but aren't learning much (other than how I would fix the dropped stitches). He doesn't object, and we turn to feminist theories. Shortly afterwards I set them some tasks to work on, without me, in small groups.

Me: Student with Welsh Name, would you like me to fix your knitting whilst you're group-working?

Male Student: Yes, please!

Goodness knows what the Head of Department whose office is across the courtyard and whose window looks in on my tutorial room will think if he looks over at this point. Some time elapses, and I give the knitting back to the student.

Male student: It's fixed! how did you do that without undoing it all?

I'm tempted to say 'By Magic', but the truth is that, on closer inspection, there really wasn't anything wrong with it - he'd just pulled some of the stitches by sticking his needle through it in an odd place. I just knitted a row or two and then gave it back.

Theory. It isn't all dull, or such hard work as the previous post suggests. Thank you to Student with Welsh Name for making me smile so much this week, both in your lively attempt to subvert stereotypes, and in having faith in my knitting skills.

This will not happen again...

I have previously had classes when there have been a few students who haven't done any of the reading. And, I think, this gets increasingly common as we go through the term / semester. We are now in the penultimate week of term, so I expect a few excuses, essays due, etc. etc. And I am used to "speaking to" the odd student who is a persistent offender in such matters. But I was not prepared for today's class...

What do you do when no one in the class has done the reading? Yes, you read that right. No one. They had been set 3 relatively short chapters on feminist theory to read this week. And not only had they not read all of them, but they, collectively as a tutorial group, had read the sum total of nothing in preparation for the class.

I played my usual card in similar situations (most often to do with them not bringing the texts with them): "What do you expect me to do for the next 50 minutes when you haven't done any reading?". This is not a rhetorical question. They suggest taking a stab at passages from the reading anyway, and with this I struggled on for half an hour, pointing at bits in the texts, trying to get them to extrapolate. I tried to discuss with them bits of the lecture, that some of them claimed to have attended, but they could only repeat their notes without any sort of engagement and we got no further than my additions, explanations and examples.

And then I realised that I was working far too hard for this class who had done no work, and I left them, after having them repeat after me "This will not happen again."

We'll see...

Quiet lawyers...

I have been teaching The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde this term. A group of my students took a dislike to the lawyer, Mr Utterson. Here is, amongst other things, a description of him:

"A fortnight later, by excellent good fortune, the doctor gave one of his pleasant dinners to some five or six old cronies, all intelligent reputable men, and all judges of good wine; and Mr Utterson so contrived that he remained behind after the others had departed. This was no new arrangement, but a thing that had befallen many scores of times. Where Utterson was liked, he was liked well. Hosts loved to detain the dry lawyer, when the lighthearted and the loose-tongued had already their foot on the threshold; they liked to sit awhile in his unobtrusive company, practising for solitude, sobering their minds in the man's rich silence, after the expense and strain of gaiety."

(text taken from bibliomania)

He sounds like quite a nice man to me...