Tuesday 18 November 2008

For the record

I'd like to set this down in writing somewhere, because I know that no one else - particularly those administrators who have asked me and my friends about this for FIVE years now - will make a note of it anywhere:

There is NO postgrad conference organiser folder. It was never created. There wasn't one last year, or the year before, or the year before that, or even the year before that. There is not one this year. It unlikely, before you ask, that there will be one next year (see above about one never being created). In its place, I suggest you encourage communication between the postgrads who are running the conference this year and those who did it last year. This might help to re-instate the sense of postgraduate community that we had when we spoke to each other and did not need to create a folder.

I hope this is now clear, and uncomplicated, and the folder (which really does not exist - if we were trying to hide it from you we would have lost all amusement in this by now) will not be chased around again this year. Or next...

Wednesday 12 November 2008

Having Brunch and Talking Seriously About Work

On Monday I came back to the City where the Castle is also Prison after spending the weekend with my friends in the Beautiful Scottish City that I Miss. On Saturday, I had lunch with Aspiring Author, and later I had a lovely evening at Amy's birthday ceilidh, where I danced (a lot) and giggled more than I have giggled in a very long time.

After such a wonderful - but late! - night, September Blue (with whom I was staying) and I had a very lazy Sunday morning. I got up after a lie in, which is something of a luxury for me because my Little Dog doesn't usually sleep that long, and spent an hour or so sitting in my pyjamas finishing a novel (the one for job 4, but reading a novel doesn't feel like work).

When we were both up and dressed, and after a little time spent checking emails and playing scrabble on Facebook, we decided to go out for breakfast. I looked at my watch and said, 'I suppose we could call it brunch now, really'. 'Yes,' said September Blue jokingly, 'we should Have Brunch and Talk Seriously About Work'.

We walked down to the diner that makes cooked veggie breakfasts (including vegetarian haggis!), ordered the food and talked for a while about the prevous night's ceilidh, how much fun we'd had, and how different our social lives are since our cohort finished our PhDs, and I moved away from the Beautiful Scottish City that I Miss. And we talked about how we're doing juggling jobs (she has had more practice at this than I have; she's been doing it longer), and how very exciting it is that she is hearing positive things from a Big Named Journal about an article she has submitted to them in hope of publication. We talked about our future publication plans, our research plans, the job market and the poor conditions of TAs in all institutions.

I pointed out that we were actually Having Brunch and Talking Seriously About Work.

The waitress offered us dessert / coffee, and looking out of the window and seeing it was raining heavily, and not being inclined to move anywhere, we ordered more coffee.

And talked about deadlines, and friends, and thesis submission (ours and theirs)...

[pause to order vanilla cheesecake with two spoons, and 2 decaff coffees]

...bad boyfriends, former boyfriends, potential boyfriends, and our mutual friend who is Young and Fashionable, and the advantages and disadvantages of internet dating.

The diner was starting to get busy, and we were nearly finished with our coffees; it was no longer raining so heavily, and we'd probably been there around 2 hours, so we decided to pay the bill and leave. We were back in plenty of time for me to pack my bag and catch a train to Road Grid City to spend some time with The PhDLitChick.

It was a very luxuriously lazy and lovely way to spend a Sunday (and a whole weekend).

And I realised how very much I miss spending time and being silly with my friends in the Beautiful Scottish City that I Miss, and Having Brunch and Talking Seriously About Work.

Thursday 6 November 2008

Email circulars.

Here is a conversation I had with the IT helpdesk today:

Me: Hello. I've just started work as a temp in the Philosophy department office. Would it be possible to set up access for me to the office's email account, please?

IT guy: You want access to the office email account?

Me: Yes, please. I am covering the sick leave of the two people who usually have access, so I need to be able to check the emails in their absence.

IT guy: Hold on a moment, please.

[He plays BAD 'on hold music' to me]

IT guy: The procedure for that is that someone who already has access has to contact us to ask to have you added.

Me: But I only need access to it because they are both on long term sick leave.

IT guy: The procedure is that one of them has to ask us to have you added. It's a security measure.

Me: Yes, I understand that. But, if one of them were here to be able to contact you with that information, then I wouldn't need you to give me access to the email account. I only need access because they are both away ill.

IT guy: Well, maybe you could email them. Are they checking emails?

Tuesday 4 November 2008

An almost beautifully balanced day

I've been juggling jobs today. I'm not the first post- (or indeed pre-)PhD academic to be doing this, and I definitely won't be the last. And although it's been a very long day, there was something strangely pleasing about the order of things...

This morning on the bus to campus to attend a first-year lecture (part of the expectations of job number 1), I was reading a novel. It's currently on a module I will be teaching after Christmas at the other university in the City where the Castle is also a Prison (lets's call this job number 4). I have some control over what texts I teach on it, so because the topic of the course is not my usual area of research - in fact it's far from it - , I'm reading the current booklist so I can decide what to keep and what I might like to change. I need to make this decision at some point this month, I think.

After the lecture, I went back to my office in the English Department to continue to do a time consuming but not particularly difficult administrative task for which I am being paid by the hour in order to lighten the load of the office staff (job number 2). After a couple of hours, I went across campus to start my new part time job in the Philosophy Department office (job number 3). I suspect this may, at some point, be confusing for those of my students who take both English and Philosophy. The department is quite small, and seems to be friendly, and I spent most of the afternoon just finding my way around. I'm sure it will get busier though! I will usually do this job Wednesday -Friday, but tomorrow afternoon I have a meeting for job number 1, so had to move job number 3 to this afternoon to make up the hours this week.

When I'd come to the end of the working day at job number 3, I returned to my English Department office to continue with job number 2 for a couple of hours - actually until I ran out of the cards I was completing. And then, on the way home, I read some more of the novel for job number 4. If I'd just squeezed in a little bit of teaching prep or admin before that, I'd have had a beautifully balanced day:
4, 1, 2, 3, 2, 4.