Friends and Colleagues

I've just been to see the Sex and the City Movie. I wasn't sure what to expect - I had mixed feelings about the ending of the TV series because of my doubts about overly tidy happy endings and I wondered where they could possibly go with the relationships in the film that wouldn't have me tearing my realistic hair out. It turns out that I really enjoyed the film. I wasn't annoyed and I laughed and cried in all the appropriate places. I'm not going to say any more so I don't need to give a spoiler warning. All I will say is that I'd recommend it to those of you who enjoyed the TV series. I don't think you'll be disappointed.

I went to see it with two of my colleagues from work. They've worked together for at least 18months, have offices next door to each other and seem to be good friends. After the film they talked to each other about it. I threw the odd comment in to the discussion, but I didn't play any significant part in the conversation. We'd got out of the cinema screen, out of the cinema and half way across the street before either of them asked me what I thought. I'm sure they didn't deliberately exclude me. It's just hard to 'break in' to established friendship groups, and I'm sure I haven't been here long enough to be one of 'the girls'. And having come out of a film about a close network of 'girl-friends' and just returned from a trip to the Beautiful Scottish City that I Miss where I met and spent time at the cinema, having coffee, dancing and giggling til the early hours with old friends, it's tough to adjust to a place where you aren't one of the insiders. And I think I'll probably have to move elsewhere before I've had time to 'fit in' here.

It's not that Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte and Miranda have something I don't (apart from boyfriends!) - I do have a group of very close friends. And actually several of them are men, so I have something that the Sex and the City girls don't seem to have. And I feel very lucky to have that. But I'd like to be close enough to those friends to go out for a drink in the evening, or a coffee in the afternoon, or a trip to the cinema where the immediate conversation after the film would include me.

It was lovely to be back in the Beautiful Scottish City that I Miss last weekend, with the friends that I miss even more. And seeing a film essentially, although not explicitly, about friendship with a group of people that I'm not yet quite a part of makes it harder to be away, but I know my friends are there for me, if not here, and I hope they know that I'm here, if not there, for them.

Anyone fancy a coffee...?

Even with lots of coffee...

Today I'm off to take the hard bound copy of my thesis to the University in the Beautiful Scottish City that I Miss. I arranged the trip to coincide with a conference in the department, so I'm staying for the weekend, and going to a ceilidh. (I've missed ceilidhs too!).

The trip won't be all fun though; I have to take some marking with me. Due to an unfortunate combination of when I am away and when my second marker is away, she needs to have the essays on Monday morning at the latest, and I won't be back until late on Sunday night. I'm sure I can get them marked around panels and in free time - definitely not during panels because that would be very bad conference behaviour - it just means I shall be a nervous wreck about misplacing them on my travels. I'll be counting them at regular intervals, just to be sure I've got them all!

I did try to get the theory essays marked before I left, but didn't manage it. I planned to stay up late last night to get through more of them but I discovered that even with the best of intentions, and more caffeine than I've drunk in quite a while, it's impossible to make sense of a theory essay in the early hours of the morning. I tried. I really did. I have marked essays through the night before without struggle. But some of these are hard to make sense of when I'm wide awake. I had no chance at 1am...

Dear HR...

So, I'm taking a brief break from the umpteenth job application (yes, I am grateful there are jobs I can apply for, but it gets a bit wearing when you work hard at the applications, which take time, and then you don't hear anything at all from these Institutions) and I wander down to the staff pigeonholes to see if I have any mail. I do - sadly it's not an invitation to interview; it's a letter from Human Resources here confirming that my contract comes to an end at the end of next month.

Thank you, HR. I understand that. I am already aware of that. In fact, I am painfully aware of that, and have been since I moved at short notice away from the Beautiful Scottish City that I Miss for a short term contract and started the job.

Please, stop telling me.

This may seem like an over-reaction to one letter. But, you see, this isn't the first letter. A month or so ago I received a letter from HR reminding me that my contract was due to expire at the end of June. I then had a meeting with the Head of Department to confirm my appointment as I had passed my probationary period, at which he told me we would soon have to have a meeting to discuss my impending contract termination ("Yes, good timing, isn't it?"). Then, I had an email to arrange this meeting, and then a very formal letter confirming the time of the meeting and its content - to discuss the termination of my contract. We had the meeting, at which we discussed, to the Head of Department's credit, the sad but unavoidable termination of my contract, and then I received a letter from him containing the outcome of this meeting - my contract will be terminated at the end of June.

So today, mid-job application, HR have written to me to say that after my previous meeting with Head of Department, and the written-up content of that discussion they had received from him, they would like to formally confirm that my contract will expire at the end of June, and thank me for my contribution to the university. "Please return all University property (including such things as office keys) to your Head of Department or other authorised person no later than your last day of employment".

Do not let the door hit your behind on your way out.

Please mark 6 dissertations, 40, 4000word projects, and 70 exam scripts before you leave.

I like this job. It's been tiring, and challenging, and difficult to adjust to a new place, but I like the University and the Department, and I feel like I've just started to settle in and be happy here, and soon I will have to leave. I know this. And I know that the University is legally obliged to remind me of this. But, enough is enough. So please, let me get on with with my other job applications and my marking without any more reminders, discussions or confirmations.

I really don't need to hear it again.

Lessons in Dog Walking

Since teaching finished, the Little Dog has been spending more time with me. I can now get home at a reasonable hour to walk her, and I don't have to be in the office five days a week. As the weather has got better, I thought we might go exploring to see if we could find some different or longer walks to go on (I like a circular walk, so we don't have to stop and go back on ourselves). So, on Friday we crossed the bridge.

I've seen other dog walkers cross it, and thought it looked semi-promising as a dog walking route. I had decided to work at home, so I wasn't in a hurry to get into the office, it was a sunny day, and Little Dog and I like to be outside, so I thought Friday morning was as good a time as any to go exploring. So we explored.

I have a pretty good sense of direction, so I wasn't too worried about setting off on an adventure, and if we did get a little lost we could always turn around and go back. I was a pleasant walk alongside fields full of sheep - one of them eyed the Little Dog with great suspicion, although she was oblivious to this - then through some trees, along the railway line and then we arrived at a main road. I shortened the lead and we followed it in the right general direction. I was just starting to worry that we might soon end up in a different town when I saw a building I recognised, and thought I was on track for home. Then as we walked further it all seemed a little less familiar. We'd been walking for 40 minutes, and I was just about to stop and turn round when I saw a sign for a cycle path to the City Centre via the Canal and thought that was promising, so we turned off the main road and I slackened the lead so that Little Dog could scamper around if she wanted to, which she often does. We followed the lovely canal-side walk, looking at the moored canal barges and the ponies in the fields, meeting several other people out cycling, or walking (with or without dogs) and I let Little Dog off her lead to play with another dog we bumped into, and I chatted with her owner as they ran up and down between us. We then said goodbye, and carried on walking in opposite directions until Little Dog and I ended up back beneath the bridge we had crossed. A full, if large, circle.

All in all the walk takes around 1hour and 15minutes - although it depends on how much sniffing and playing the Little Dog wants to do - and we have done it every morning since Friday. I figure we might as well make the most of the lovely weather and the available walk.

I'm so glad we found the path, and didn't just turn back when I first started to doubt my direction. The last section of the walk down the canal path is so beautiful and peaceful, particularly early in the morning; it would have been a real shame to have missed out on it because I didn't go just that little bit further.

Maybe there's a lesson in that....

Flashbacks?

Today I had to re-open the thesis.

I have to fix the typos and print off the version to be bound and submitted before the university will let me graduate. I didn't think it would be difficult. I didn't think it would be stressful.

But it is.

Suddenly I find myself terrified that the computer will crash and it will eat a whole chapter. Or worse, when I move it into one document to create a pdf file, I will lose all of it. I do have back-up copies of all the chapters , but they are on the university network in the Beautiful Scottish City that I Miss. I don't have time to go and get them. I should have done these corrections ages ago, and then there would have been no rush. But a couple of months ago I thought that there was no rush.

Perhaps I'm finding this so difficult because an impending thesis deadline - one which makes a difference to when / if I graduate, despite the fact I have passed the VIVA - reminds me of thesis submission day. I did not have fun. It wasn't a triumphant moment. It was hurried, and stressful and exhausting. And I don't remember it fondly. I don't think I ever will. And another hurried print out and submission - and this time I have to travel some distance to take it where it needs to be and present it in three different formats - does not fill me with joy.

So, I'll hit save every time I change anything. And I'll pay the extra to have the bindery turn it around quickly so I can take it to the Beautiful Scottish City that I Miss in plenty of time. And I'll ask the IT people for help creating the pdf document. Hopefully, they will know what they are doing.

This time I'm hoping for a happier memory of thesis submission. Fingers crossed.