Falling Leaves

Irresponsible TV.

2011-12-24T07:54:00.003Z

Bullying does not make good TV.

This might seem like an obvious statement, but it was provoked by a programme I watched yesterday evening. I usually enjoy 8 out of 10 Cats; the panellists are witty and play off each other very well. There is sometimes a certain amount of good natured banter, but no real harm is meant. For last night's festive edition, the panellists were Sean Lock, Micky Flanagan, Jon Richardson, Greg Davies, Liza Tarbuck and Jedward. Very little of the show was funny. I was disappointed.

I don't like Jedward, for several reasons. I don't think they are particularly talented as singers, dancers or performers in general. (I also don't like that as twins they present themselves as one entity, even conflating their names, but that's a separate issue.). I also don't like the 'celebrity' culture they represent: they are, actually, famous for their lack of talent, promoted by the UK X factor show. They are young, and have been thrust into the spotlight with managers/agents who get their faces on anything and everything they can. X factor expoited them for viewing figures - not to listen in awe to their vocal brilliance, but to see what new crazy thing they would do - and they continue to develop their own particular 'brand' in this way. It might be good for their publicity, but I doubt it is good for the boys themselves. Last night's programme was a good example of this.

Most of the programme consisted of the other panellists (and the host, Jimmy Carr) joking amongst themselves about how terrible and how stupid Jedward are. There was a lot of name calling, and a lot of highlighting their 'faults'. And the boys just kept pushing through. They kept trying to join in in answering the questions, but each time they were made to look extremely foolish at best.

I don't think they did themselves any favours on this front. And I don't think that their managers / agents / parents are doing them any favours either in encouraging them to keep doing these things. There is a limit to how long they will be able to continue presenting themselves in the way that they do, and they will also struggle to create careers for themselves when the 'Jedward' bubble bursts - which it will, sooner or later.

But, the 'grown ups' on 8 out of 10 Cats (their term, not mine) did not come across any better in their dealings with the boys. The funniest moments were those of quick wit, mostly directed at other targets than Jedward. There is nothing quick witted about verbally bashing or humiliating an easy target. And the boys themselves, although they kept smiling through, looked at times like they were genuinely hurt by some of the comments. There was nothing funny about grown men (I'm excluding Liza Tarbuck, because she actually said very little, and would add that Jon Richardson behaved better than the others) bullying teenage boys.

Jedward were well out of their depth. They knew it. The host and other panellists knew it. And I knew it. And it made for very uncomfortable viewing. .

The TV programme that created 'Jedward' was irresponsible to do so. They are not well equipped for the world that either loves or loathes them, and whilst they are 'good sports', there is a limit to what they ought to be expected to take in the name of publicity.

Presenting this as a Christmas comedy programme gives out the wrong message. It suggests that bullying is witty, or funny. It isn't. If those sorts of comments were made in a different forum we would all agree it was bullying and wrong. But because it was a comedy show - and because Jedward are Jedward - such behaviour is allowed to pass by uncriticised. It shouldn't be.

Such blatant bullying on TV is not funny. It is cruel and it is irresponsible. And it should be far beneath the witty comedians who made two teenage boys their target as part of festive fun.

Hello Again!

2011-11-25T19:53:00.002Z

Hello again!
It's been a long time since I've been here, and so much has happened. I won't write it all down here today but intend to post more regularly from now on, so maybe we could catch up as I go along... I've started writing many posts since the last one, but never quite finished them. Some are just on pieces of paper tucked into the books that inspired them, and some are now so far out of date that I might as well start again as try to adapt them.
I'll be back soon.

Clearing Out

2010-06-22T16:59:00.002+01:00

OK. I admit it. I have been somewhat lax in 'putting things away' for some time now. I have frequently explained this by saying that the flat is small and is therefore untidy because I have no where to put things, but, in my recent attempts to make space I have discovered that much of my previously 'necessary' clutter is rubbish. Magazines I have failed to throw away. Smaller bits and pieces that I kept at the time 'just in case' and can't now remember what they relate to.

I'm making some progress clearing out. Slowly but surely surfaces are reappearing in my flat. I intend to keep it that way, but we'll see. Habits that have developed over the last couple of years living by myself might be difficult to break. But, I do have more motivation now the Physio has come to stay with me for the summer. I am more aware of the clutter now that someone else sees it every day than when I was living by myself. I really do think that when your mess affects only you, it is much harder to remember to be tidy than when your mess affects other people. Added to this, the Physio is a very tidy person, and I know that the state of my flat bugs him, even though he doesn't say anything. So, I intend to make the effort. I used to be a tidy person. I can do it again.

Besides, I actually like living in a clean and tidy space.

Making (some) progress

2010-06-15T18:06:00.003+01:00

Well, the conference paper on 'new stuff' went reasonably well, although there was very little discussion of my paper after the panel. I suppose if the audience had felt strongly that my reading should be challenged they would have done so, either during questions or afterwards, so I'm taking this as positive. Perhaps the audience were all just tired though.

I ran out of time to write some more 'new stuff' for my second conference in May, but managed to find a section on my thesis to present instead, without looking too much like I'd shoe-horned it in. That conference was an extremely interesting day on one topic, with plenty of time for discussion, and I enjoyed very much being back in the Beautiful Scottish City that I Miss.

Now my plans are to turn the first paper into an article, reasonably quickly. I wanted to carry on with it immediately after the conference, but with exam papers to mark, a further paper to produce and then twelve 4000-word projects to mark, I've sort of lost the momentum. But, my co-organisers have managed to find an avenue for publication of the conference papers as a special edition of a journal, and I'm excited about producing something to publish. Hopefully my writing nerves won't impede me too much.

I might revisit the section taken from my thesis for the second paper to produce an article too, but I might just leave that one in order to develop it when I turn my thesis into a book (book proposal part 2 of summer plan). I also have an article I've been sitting on for nearly twelve months that needs some referencing amendments and that's article no.2 or 3.

So, I feel I'm making progress. Not a lot, but some. And that is better than no progress at all.

Getting back out there...

2010-05-10T16:14:00.005+01:00

I am having a major crisis of confidence over a conference paper I am writing.

It's the first piece of new research writing I have done since I submitted my thesis a LONG time ago. My last conference paper was taken from my thesis, so I knew before I went to the conference that that reading of that play has already been 'approved' in a variety of ways. This is new. This is mine. And I haven't had a supervisor read it, or an examiner tell me it's good enough to pass.

I think my paper will be one of the last on the day, and I'm concerned that, after everyone else's, mine will look very thin. There are so many other things I would like to do to it / add to it, but there just isn't space in a 20 minute paper. I'm also worried that I have fallen into 'lecture writing' mode, since lectures are the only things I have researched and written in the last 2-3 years. I work hard on my lectures, to produce informative and critically engaged / engaging material for the students, but I also think that this is a different discipline from research related writing.

I made a deliberate decision to produce something new for this conference, to boost my research self-esteem (when you've produced nothing other than lectures for a few years, you start to wonder if you'll ever be able to get back into it). But at the moment I feel more academically (and professionally) vulnerable than I have felt in a very long time.

I suppose the only real way to overcome this is to expose my paper to the questions and criticisms of the conference delegates and see what happens.

But I admit, I'm a more than a little bit scared.

Election time

2010-05-05T18:53:00.004+01:00

I know this is going to be the tightest run election in a long time, and the resulting government structure is somewhat uncertain, but in some ways, I have to say, I am bored with it.

I am bored of not being told exactly what each party's policies are, and I believe this is because being told exactly what they plan for us would make them less 'electable' / popular. This is not a high popularity contest; this is an election to government.

I am bored of getting SO many leaflets from Political Parties in the mail that all tell me why I should not vote for 'the other guy' but not telling me why specifically I ought to vote for the leaflet sender ('because the other guy would be really rubbish' is not an answer).

I am bored of answering my door buzzer to find that it is someone who wants me to give them access to the building so they can leave yet more unhelpful leaflets in my mailbox.

I am bored of being treated like I am stupid; like I don't know that I'm not being told true facts. My least favourite tactic assumes that I will be swayed to vote a particular way by a leaflet full of photos of famous people who think I should. I may be a fan of many of these celebrities, but as I said before, this is not a popularity contest; the support of famous people does not necessarily make your policies the best ones.

I will go to vote tomorrow, and I hope I make a sensible choice. But I suspect, if I do, this will be inspite of, not because of, the information I have been given.

Edited to add: since the result gave us a hung parliament, I'm finding it a little more interesting!

Seeing differently 2: confidence and criticism

2010-03-23T18:06:00.002Z

I know I said in my previous ‘seeing differently’ post that we shouldn’t judge by each other’s standards, but in this post I’m going to suggest that we take into account what others think we are capable of (only if it’s positive!). We are often so much more ‘down’ on ourselves than we should be.

We all have insecurities about our abilities. I’m just going to take one, teaching related example from this academic year. For the first term, I taught two theory classes. One group is very friendly, interested, relaxed and open to new ideas. In the other, I had two or three students who spent the whole class looking sullen, responding to my questions with a certain amount of diffidence, and in general looking at me like I didn’t know what I was doing, either as a tutor or in relation to the theoretical concepts I was teaching. I admit, I am not at my most confident teaching some theories (Lacanian psychoanalysis on the mirror stage is one of them) but I know I am a good tutor. I have student feedback forms that say this. I have peer reviews that say this. I have several years of experience, and have learned some useful techniques for running seminars, and also, for teaching theory. But three sulky students managed to bring out the underlying theory-related securities that I have. Half way through the year, a colleague whose specialism is in philosophy and literary theory returned from sabbatical and took over teaching the group with the sullen students. (I have since learned that these students behave the same way in his classes as mine, suggesting it was not my teaching that was their problem).

Since I was teaching them at the time they handed in their essays, I had to mark them. These essays allow students the freedom to do a theoretically-informed analysis of any text they wish, and this makes the assignments difficult to mark. I also am not involved in setting the questions for this team taught course, and I think most people would agree it is easier to mark questions that you have set. However, I marked the essays and then passed them over to Theory Confident Colleague. I worried that he would look at them and think my marking was terrible, and my knowledge and application of theory was poor. I found myself avoiding him, in case he challenged me on this. He has never given me any reason to think that he thinks I am not competent, but because I know this is his specialism, and because I am not 100% convinced of my abilities in this area, I project my insecurities onto him, and turn it into his potential judgement of me.

I have marked theory essays and projects before and my marks matched up with the moderator’s mark. Other colleagues think I am a good tutor; I have been peer reviewed in theory classes with positive comments. I don’t say this to blow my own trumpet. I say this to emphasise that I, and I think we, are more inclined to listen to - or indeed invent - negative criticism that is in tune with our own insecurities than we are to take on board the positive things people say.

But we need to start taking on board positive criticism too. The reason colleagues say nice things about my teaching / lectures / marking /research (cross out until you get the one that applies to you) is because I have done something else – or this before – that gives them the impression that I can do it. Why don’t I believe them enough to be confident? I need to start seeing myself, my work, my abilities differently.

I was going to write this post some time ago, but one of my Shakespeare students questioned her grade and complained not to me, but to a senior colleague, who, as course convenor, then asked to moderate my marking. Because I had come out from under a mountain of 130 essays, and several of my students had got lower grades than I would have expected of them based on seminar performance, I assumed that it was my marking rather than the student’s complaint that was in the wrong, and lost the confidence I had found to write this.

My senior colleague agreed my grades, and the student will have to work harder in her exam revision to raise her final grade. But the fact I so nearly didn’t write this is testament to the fact that I needed to write it. I’m not saying we ought not to take on board comments that may be critical of our practices; everyone has things to learn. But we shouldn’t focus exclusively on the negative, or project our insecurities onto colleagues’ possible opinions. If your colleagues tell you that you are good at something, believe them!

Walking through the mist

2010-01-18T23:04:00.002Z

As I left the University this evening, a fairly heavy mist was hanging in the air.

I know from friends and family who drive that this sort of weather is not good for driving, but for me walking to the bus, and then home from the bus stop, it isn't really a problem. In some ways I quite like it. It's atmospheric. Literary. It feels a little like walking through the pages of a Victorian novel.

But on the other hand, it also feels a little like walking round when I'm not wearing my glasses.

Seeing differently 1: making your own way

2009-12-17T22:08:00.002Z

As Christmas and then the new year approaches (one of my students recently said that 2010 sounded scarily futuristic, and she may be right), this is the first of a few posts on seeing differently.

This one began as an email to a friend responding to his Facebook status update on feeling ‘behind’ in comparison to his colleagues.

I wanted to say something comforting in a comment his update but all I could think of was that I am now 2+ yrs post-thesis submission and don't think I will ever ‘catch up’ with some of my friends who have only just finished theirs, and already have a couple of articles, or book chapters and a variety of editing experience. But I realised that this sort of side glancing, side-swiping at ourselves – that others are making better, faster progress – is a normal part of academic life, and we have to find ways not to let it get us so far down that we only see 'failure' when we look at other people, rather than a track along which to progress.

The only way forward is to look forward in our own 'track' and not look sideways at other people's. So I’m adopting a new attitude: what's the next thing *I* can achieve? Finishing my marking is a thing off the 'to do' list (and counts in experience) but isn't a positive goal in my career progress track. So, now I’m aiming to finish an article I was nearly done with in the summer and then sending it to a journal. Voila, article 'under consideration' on my cv. Then on to writing my book proposal. I have written on so many job applications that I am ‘working on’ this, now it’s time to really do it. And not just work on it, but get it done and on its way to an academic press. And then I’m writing a conference paper which I can turn into an article. That will be new research, and I hope it will remind me how much I like my research topics and texts.

I know I can’t do all of this at once. And, yes, I do have to do my marking (about 130-140 essays) over the Christmas holidays. But since I managed to finish a big project this term, along with my heavy teaching commitments, I’m starting to think that I might be able to do it. But I won’t if I keep letting other people’s achievements hold me back. So from now on, in time for the New Year, I’m going to start seeing my work differently.

Building up to Christmas.

2009-12-05T16:27:00.004Z

Ok. I admit it. I am now starting to get excited about Christmas. I have to keep a lid on this, because I have a ridiculous amount of work to do between now and the end of term next week, but Christmas is definitely coming, and I don't mind.

I mind in October, when I can't find a birthday card in the shops for Christmas cards in the way.
I mind when adverts for Christmas presents take over my TV.
I mind when a major department store has its 'Christmas sale' at the beginning of November.

But it is now December, it's nearly the end of term, and the frosty winter weather (when it is not raining cats and dogs) and darker evenings make the delicate Christmas lights in the city centre twinkle just enough to suggest some magic for the season. I think the City where the Castle is also a Prison do a very good job with their decorations.

That isn't to say I'm entirely ready for Christmas. I'm not. But I have now got a little 'Bag o' Christmas' where I'm putting the Christmas cards and presents I have already bought - so I know what I've got, where it is, and for whom I have still to buy a gift. And as my little 'Bag o' Christmas' fills up, I realise I'm really looking forward to Christmas this year (despite the fact I will have 140 assignments to mark over the festive period). I'm even playing Christmas music as I'm writing this!

I was doing some reading in the Red Coffee Chain shop this afternoon, and the poor staff didn't get a break for the 3 hours I was there. They are very efficient, but the queue never seemed to get any shorter. Outside I could see people struggling their way around town with big bags of shopping, and they would come into Red Coffee Chain and show each other presents for mutual friends. There was a fair amount of pushing and jostling going on too - that's one part of the build up to Christmas that I don't enjoy. It's not about getting to the counter first, people. It's about peace and goodwill towards all people. And the lady in front of me in the till queue at the shop that is not 'just a shop' where I had stopped in for milk and vegetables looked both surprised and grateful when I offered to steady her precariously balanced basket while she unloaded it.

There is no need to be grumpy with the random passer by who is also trying to get their shopping done. In fact, a bit of co-operation would make everyone's Christmas shopping experience a little more, well..., Christmassy!

Phew

2009-11-27T11:27:00.002Z

Having spent a little time (whilst washing my hair) yesterday planning exactly what I was going to say to the Department administrator / HoD / HR / Payroll today if I did not get paid, I checked my account this morning, and actually - to my surprise - found money in it.

Payment. Finally.

I'm relieved.

I don't like using my cross voice....

Waiting for the bus

2009-11-24T22:51:00.004Z

I left work late this evening. My Little Dog is staying with the Artist for a while so that I can dig myself out from under a mountain of work without adding in the guilt of not spending enough 'quality time' playing with her. It also gives me a bit of time back, especially in the evenings.

So, because I didn't have to be home to walk the Little Dog, I stayed at work until about 7, getting some bits and pieces finished. I made my way down to the main campus bus stop and saw a long queue of people waiting. And it got longer and longer. I say a queue, but actually there is no sensible queueing position there. Stairs lead from the centre of campus at both ends of the long bus stop. No one knows which end is the right end to queue. It was more a gaggle of people really. A rapidly expanding gaggle.

And there were people who had clearly been waiting some time. Everyone looked up the road when we heard a vehicle, and there were some disappointed sighs when one turned out to be a coach dropping someone off on campus rather than a bus to take us all away. As the gaggle got bigger, I could see people watching each other suspiciously: "are they going to jump in front of me to get on the bus first? will one single decker bus be able to hold all of us? (probably not). Will we all fit on a double decker bus? (well if we're lucky). I was in this queue first, and no one is getting to the bus doors before me. Especially the pushy person, who has repositioned themselves in this gathering 3 times, so as to get closer to the usual door opening point...".

When the bus arrived, the gaggle pushed together towards the door. So much determination to get on first meant that those wanting to get off were fighting their way through. A young man near me carrying a long case (musical instrument? snooker cue?) positioned the case to make sure no one could get next to or past him as he made his way to the front of the queue.

Waiting for buses makes people very selfish.

He got on and said "single to town". "Please", I added for him in my head. (Apparently bus queues make people very rude, as well). Eventually, I got on and found a seat towards the back of the bus. The double decker bus filled, and before we left there were people standing in the aisle. A few stops on from campus, an old and clearly frail lady got on the bus. She stood holding on as the bus set off. I was pleasantly surprised when a young lady sitting in one of the fold-down seats at the front offered her seat. At first Frail Lady refused saying she was only going a few stops, but the young lady was clearly uncomfortable sitting whilst Frail Lady stood, so she stood up and offered again. Frail Lady sat down. A few more stops and Frail Lady got off; the young woman took her seat again, but only briefly as she almost immediately offered it to another older (but not old) lady with shopping who got on. Shopping lady, however, found a seat much further back, and she sat down again. At the next stop a young man with learning difficulties got on, and again the young woman offered her seat. He didn't take it. But at every stop the young woman watched who got on, and offered her seat to another older or frailer than herself.

So I revise: Waiting for the bus makes some people very selfish.

Essay questions

2009-11-11T20:12:00.003Z

My Shakespeare students have essays due at the end of term. The course convenor set the essay questions - they have a choice of about 12 - and I think they are really interesting and thought provoking questions. The students do not, at this stage, have the option of making up their own questions, so we make sure they are offered a variety of topics. Nevertheless, I have never had so many students email me to ask if they can change the questions as I have had this year on this course.

In some ways I might consider this a good thing - students thinking about ways in which they could talk about the texts, pursuing their own interests. However, most of the changes they want to make are ways of making the questions we have set easier. They are not pursuing new, interesting areas of research. Now, these are final year students. On this course they only write one essay and then have an exam at the end of the year. The essay questions are meant to be challenging. I am happy to look over my students' plans, and to discuss their possible approaches to the questions with them, but - even if I could, and I can't (I don't have the authority to do so) - I am not prepared to make the questions easier.

And I truly don't believe I would be doing my students any favours if I did.

Matters of Urgency

2009-10-29T16:25:00.003Z

Dear Dept. Administrator,

Thank you for the email you forwarded to me yesterday. Prompted to do so by the red exclamation mark which usually denotes urgency regarding emails, I read this at my earliest opportunity. I am so glad that, four weeks into the term, my attention has been urgently drawn to all of the wonderful services the campus travel agent can provide for staff.

Unfortunately, I cannot afford to take advantage of these services, because I still do not have a contract, and will therefore not be paid until the end of next month at the earliest. Unless the travel agent facilities are able to cover funding me for my rent, phone, electricity and council tax bills, which I see from their multi-font poster attachment they do not, I will, for the moment, not be running over to their offices in any kind of hurry.

I would suggest that the request of the travel agent to circulate their promotional poster (which does not have a time limit on it) is not actually a matter of urgency, whatever the little red exclamation mark may tell you, or me. The lack of university network access, library borrowing rights and bill paying facilities that I and the other TAs are currently experiencing is, however, worthy of a little red exclamation mark. Please.

Autumn

2009-10-02T22:08:00.005+01:00

I like autumn.

I like crisp mornings, and changing leafy colours. I like the start of the academic year and the new start that it brings (it's actually better than New Year to me). New first year students looking lost, new courses to teach, new chances to 'be more productive this year'. I have agreed to take on a lot of work this year - not only teaching - but I am feeling much better about it now I have finished the admin job and can make my focus entirely academic. Teaching starts on Monday; the need to be better organised to fit things in around it is always a motivating factor.

My Little Dog likes autumn too. She likes the crunchy, swishy sound fallen leaves make when she walks through them or kicks them up, and the way that the wind floats the leaves around for her to chase. She also likes rain, because it means cuddles with towels (otherwise sensibly known as 'getting dried') when we get back.

She wasn't too sure this morning, though, when a leaf dropped beautifully and silently from a tree and landed squarely on the top of her head. Or this evening, when the same thing happened again (this second time was, judging by the look she gave me, seemingly ALL MY FAULT). Apparently autumn is not so much fun when the leaves take you by surprise.

Yielding the floor

2009-10-01T22:27:00.003+01:00

I was going to write a new post this evening, but having done some blog reading elsewhere, I've decided it wasn't important.

This post over at Victorianitas on the other hand, is important. I wanted to leave a comment there, but I didn't know quite what to say. So today I'm yielding the floor entirely to September Blue.

Preparation

2009-09-28T19:09:00.003+01:00

Teaching starts next week, and in the first 10 week term, I'm giving 6 lectures. But trying to manage my time and get started on one or more of these is proving difficult.

'Why?', you ask.

Because although teaching starts next week, I do not yet have a contract. Not a problem for preparation, in and of itself, you might say. And you'd be right. Although it will undoubtedly mean that I am not going to get paid in October, this seems to be standard for teaching assistants now - we go to the bottom of the contracts pile - and not getting paid at the end of the first month of teaching is not new to me. It's a problem I can grumble about, and it might affect my ability to pay bills, but it doesn't actually affect my getting organised preparation.

Not having a contract does, however, mean I also cannot have a library card. This is because the university prioritises money over teaching and research, and cut me off at the end of my last 9month teaching contract. (You may not borrow books or use the e-resources off campus if you are not paying money to or being paid money by the university.) Officially, then, I can have a library card from the start of my teaching contract, but not before. So I can start preparing for teaching as long as I do it after I've started.

The very helpful lady in the library said she could bypass the systems for me (by which the library are notified by HR that I exist after I have signed and returned my contract) if I bring my contract to the library enquiry desk.

I would do this. But I don't yet have a contract. And I am unlikely to have one before the start of next week - last year I didn't have one until 2 or 3 weeks into the term. So if that's anything to go by (and if my friends hadn't today offered me space on their library cards), I could probably start preparing for my Monday lectures in week 4 and week 5 in the middle of week 4.

Helpful, eh?

Soundtrack

2009-09-25T20:27:00.005+01:00

You know sometimes times you start singing a song to yourself, and it takes a while to work out how it got in your head - particularly if it isn't a song you've been listing to deliberately? Usually these are TV or film soundtracks, or music on an advert that have surreptitiously found their way into your head. It might take a while, but eventually you figure it out.

This week I've been wandering along, or sitting down at my desk, or having a shower and these songs have popped into my head:

'The Multi-coloured music bus'
('All aboard, the multi-coloured music bus. Its the most fantasic bus you've ever seen. The driver is a man called Sam, his brother George the ticket man...')

'Let there be peace on earth'
('Let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with me. Let there be peace on earth, the peace that was meant to be...') [I can give you all of the words for this, but I won't]

'Sweetheart tree'
('Won't you come with me, to the sweetheart tree; come and carve your name next to mine...')

The first two were from Junior school - we sung them in the choir. The last one was the music that my ballet class danced to in a show. We had pink 'princess' dresses. I think I was about 7.

I haven't heard these on TV recently. I haven't heard them at all recently. But for some reason, my brain is playing bits of the soundtrack to my childhood. How odd. Any suggestions why?

Time Out

2009-09-11T19:08:00.003+01:00

The Physio and I are going on holiday together next week - a whole week of holiday rather than a long weekend snatched away from work-time. We're going to spend some time in Festival City and in the Beautiful Scottish City that I Miss. I'm quite excited to be going there with the Physio; he's already shown me a lot of his favourite places, and I'm looking forward to sharing this place that I love with him. I was very happy living there, and there are lots of places I want to show him - calm places, beautiful places, slightly quirky places. I am a little nervous though: things will have changed there since I last visited. I hope it isn't too different. I really hope he likes it too.

I'm also looking forward to taking a week off work. The last two weeks at my admin job have been quite difficult. The admin manager has changed the programmes for which some of us are responsible so that now, in the last 3 weeks of my position there, I'm learning new processes and getting to grips with new courses. One is only new to me, the other is new to the Faculty. For the second, no one in the office knows how it works. The transfer from the other Faculty was poorly organised, and there has been no sensible hand over from office to office - at least not to those actually doing the administration. I discovered after a few days of frantically trying to track down information that my manager (and his manager) knew where some of that information was, they had just failed to pass that information on to me.

Added to this, the rearrangement of responsibilities has led to some ill-feeling in the office amongst my fellow administrators (not aimed at me, because I am temporary). This is largely due to very poor management. I would suggest that inventing a meeting to go to, and saying "sort this out amongst yourselves" is not really the best management plan when you already know the issue is contentious. No one wants to make difficult or unpopular decisions, but doing that - "sorting it out" - is why the manager is paid significantly more than we are. This ill-feeling is taking over the office. The team-work and co-operation of getting through the Exam Boards seems to be falling away. It is not a happy office any more.

I find dealing with stressful atmospheres - especially over things which need not be stressful - very difficult. I like my world to be a calmer place. At lunchtime yesterday I had planned to do some research related reading, but after a very busy morning combined with the tension in the office I couldn't focus through the brain-fog. Instead I sat staring into space, not really thinking about anything. I used to have that kind of calm time out at yoga classes (I must find some more!), where I could just focus on stretching and breathing to relax. It was quite odd to find that I could create that 'time out' space without the yoga class - and without actually trying. And I went back to the office feeling much calmer and managed to get a lot done in the afternoon. Still, I am looking forward to not being there next week. Hopefully, by the time I get back the busy-ness of the start of term will force harmony upon my colleagues.

Term is soon starting at the University in the City where the Castle is also a Prison, too, and I have been given a lot of teaching (for which I am very grateful - I shouldn't have to do admin on top of teaching to pay my bills this year). It is going to be another busy year, and before it starts taking time out to spend with the Physio in a place that I love seems like an ideal way to charge my batteries.

Sillyness.

2009-09-10T19:25:00.003+01:00

I just read this.

It strikes me as odd that those in authority have suspended the Doctors concerned. Why? They say that it did not involve patients, and patient care was never compromised during this sillyness. If this is true, then sillyness is all it was - no harm done to anyone. But now, a presumably busy A&E is even shorter on staff because these doctors and nurses have been suspended.

That's not sillyness. That's madness.

Writing

2009-09-06T16:07:00.003+01:00

I like writing.

I'm not talking about the process of academic writing, although I do like the sense of achievement when a chapter, paper, article or lecture is finished (this does not happen often enough - especially the personal research related ideas there!). I enjoyed writing my PhD thesis, although the final deadline and the re-writing processes immediately before that were not too much fun. What I'm talking about here is actually writing. By hand. With a pen.

On my way to my admin job the other day - I know this sounds strange - I felt an almost overwhelming need to write something. Anything. And I realised how much time I have spent at a computer, or shuffling papers, scribbling quick, untidy, notes or using mini post-its to mark pages relevant to lectures. It's been AGES since I have sat down and written by hand anything longer than a sentence or two, a 'happy birthday, love from me' in a card or a brief phone message scribble. And at work I had to go straight back into scribbling notes, emailing, filing etc.

Today I addressed an envelope in my very best joined up handwriting and I felt strangely pleased. I like how my careful handwriting looks (not wanting to boast too much, it is quite pretty) and it is much more satisfying than typing a letter or an envelope.

Marking undergraduate exam scripts earlier in the summer, I realised how few of them hand-write anything (either that, or the teaching of handwriting in schools has declined since I was taught 'joined up writing' and then allowed to use a fountain pen). I know no one does their best writing under the time-pressured conditions of exams, but still, some were barely legible.

I think the decline of handwriting is very sad. Not that I would do away with the wonders of word processing packages for my academic writing - cut, copy, paste makes drafting so much easier (even if sometimes starting to draft is actually easier for me with a pen and paper). But I am going to start doing more handwriting - letters to friends for example. I think - even in the increasingly computerised world where communication is almost instant through emails and social networking sites - people like to get mail. I know I do. And perhaps that is precisely because it is so rare for people to take time to actually write anything these high-tech, high-speed days.

2009-09-01T15:43:00.002+01:00

I find this article extremely worrying.

I may save it for the next time any of my students tell me feminism is an old-fashioned out-dated concept.

I don't think that was what I said...

2009-08-27T19:35:00.004+01:00

After some serious consideration, weighing up how much work it will be and balancing that against making my CV shiny, and generally looking like I know what I'm talking about in the world of early modern literature, I agreed to take over writing the summary of the year's work in renaissance literature studies. Someone I know by association with Supervisor emailed me out of the blue saying he now has post doc funding and his project means he is too busy to do it now, but if I was interested he would suggest me as his successor. It is one of very few times that 'who you know' has actually worked for me. (I say this with some hesitation, knowing how much work I'll have to do in quite a short time, but it will be very shiny on my CV).

The guy who is handing over to me sent me an email saying he'd already sent for some of the books to review, and he would post them on to me, but he would like to keep two of them for his own research. So he suggested two options and asked which I would prefer:

a) He would keep the books, read them, write a short review paragraph for each of them and send that to me to be silently included in my own review

or

b) He will send the books to me, I can read and do my own review and then send those particular ones back.

As much as I was tempted to option a) - less work for me - I decided that I was uncomfortable passing his work off as mine both because I fundamentally object to plagiarism, and because if the comments are going to have my name to them, then I want to have read what 'I' am commenting on. (And you know that the one time anyone asks me about anything I've written, it will be about one of these books that I actually haven't read). So I sent him an email supporting option b), and promising to read those ones first and get them back to him ASAP. I told him I'd be on holiday for a couple of weeks, and asked him not to send anything until after I got back to make sure they don't get lost in being held at the post office. He said that was fine.

Today I got an email telling me he had put the books in the post, and could I let him know when they arrive. [Fine; yes; no problem]. But it also said 'I have kept a few as I mentioned earlier - shall I send you the reviews to add into your piece?'

Erm... I don't think that was what I said. And really, if you'd already decided what you were going to do, why did you even ask?

mini updates

2009-08-24T18:36:00.004+01:00

Once again it's been a long time since I wrote a post. It's not even that I haven't had things to post about:

- I've been on a holiday with my family
- The physio and I are now attempting a long distance relationship
- My admin job has had certain ... quirks
- I am attempting to turn a conference paper into an article
- Until today I was looking unemployment in September squarely in the face
- I am still negotiating the evil world of the academic job market

I really must get back into the blogging habit!

Is someone trying to tell me something?

2009-07-16T21:36:00.005+01:00

Last night, I dreamed that the university to which I was attached (in the dream - it wasn't a university I recognise from my waking life, so I don't know what position I had there) had moved me into a different office. Without telling me. I had to ask a friend (one I did recognise from my waking life, but whom I have not seen for some time) where my stuff was and why I'd been moved. He didn't know why, but took me to what can only be described as a cupboard with bookshelves and a chair, where I found that all of my boxfiles of printed off articles, notes and my own work had been drenched in a large scale leak. I tried to get them out to dry them, but couldn't do it quickly enough; there was no space to spread them out and suddenly there was no one there to help.

Oh dear.

In case of emergency, take laptop

2009-07-13T10:28:00.004+01:00

My conference accommodation which they claimed was a hotel on campus was really a 'done up' halls of residence. We did get en suite rooms, but we also got halls-sized single beds (about 2/3 the size of an ordinary single), a grotty old wardrobe, a desk with a lamp, a chair, and central heating over which we had absolutely no control.

Sound familiar?

One night - having taken ages to get to sleep because it was so hot due to the heating over which I had no control - I was woken by a very loud siren. A little disorientated, I initially thought it was the alarm clock in the room and I tried to turn it off, but when I had woken up properly, I discovered it was, in fact, the fire alarm. I got out of bed, put on my jeans and shoes which I had put on the chair (I don't remember consciously laying them out for speedy dressing, but I think I had subconsciously slipped back into 'living in halls' mode, and we had so many fire alarms that I got in the habit of doing that) grabbed a cardigan and left the building.

Postgrad students, TAs, lecturers, senior lecturers and big named professors all standing outside at 2am in their pyjamas is a great levelling experience. Some with no cardigan / coat, some with no shoes etc - but 60% of them were clutching laptops to their chest. In the middle of the night, the fire alarm sounds and the very first thing they thought of was picking up their work.

So I wonder, does it make me a bad academic that I can honestly say that had I taken my laptop to the conference, I would have left it in my room?

[In case anyone is concerned, there was no fire - false alarm]

An Imposter

2009-07-11T08:28:00.003+01:00

Earlier this week I went to a large conference of early modernists. It's the first conference at which I've given a paper in a few years, and I was very nervous about it. I know many academics have fears of being revealed as frauds at these things (imposter syndrome) - even if they really do know their stuff - but I've not done much in the way of my own research for quite some time, and I was convinced everyone would be able to tell. I felt like an interloper at this gathering of early modernists. Most of my teaching recently (and research for lectures) has been on topics much more modern.

I sat through the conference, listening to lots of other academics whose paper were clear and impressively constructed. My paper was in the penultimate panel, so I spent much of the conference worrying that my paper wasn't as good, that I'd never be able to answer that sort of question, that I'd forgotten everything I used to know around the topic on which I was speaking (I took the paper from a chapter of my thesis), etc. Thankfully, the paper went well, so I think I got away with it.

I also met someone else who is working on the same parliamentary bill (in a different context) as I discussed in my paper - we plan to share work on this when we have written the articles. I'm planning to, no, going to turn this paper into a journal article. And then I'm going to start on a book proposal based on the thesis and / or a new article from scratch. That way at the next conference, I'll still worry about being exposed as knowing nothing, but I'll at least have some new research to discuss so that I can trick other conference delegates into thinking that I do know something.

Erm...?

2009-06-18T19:23:00.001+01:00

Notice on a pub/hotel wall:

FREE

FUNCTION ROOM

FOR HIRE

Mail

2009-06-08T12:56:00.003+01:00

Today at work I received a bulk mailing email containing this text:

"A number of personal items have been sent to the Mailroom recently in University PPI envelopes. Please note that PPI envelopes are to be used for business purposes only and MUST NOT be used for personal mail. Any personal mail found in PPI envelopes will be returned to you and your head of department may be informed. Thank you."

And I find myself wondering several things: how do the mailroom know that it's personal mail? How would they know to whom specifically it should be returned? And what terrible fate would await me if the headmaster - no, wait - Head of Department were to be informed?

The only answer to the first two questions - if the mailroom are sure that it's personal mail sent in university prepaid envelopes - is that they open the outgoing mail. I'm not sure that's entirely legal (but do correct me if I'm wrong, here). Nevertheless, their choice of the verb 'found' in this message - "any personal mail found in PPI envelopes" - implies that they do indeed open mail to find such things.

Well, this is possibly a poor choice of words on their part. And I'm pretty sure that they don't open all the mail that goes through the postroom. If they do, they have far too much time on their hands, and cutting down the number of staff there might well pay for the odd personal letter that goes through the system. But if they don't open all the mail, then really, the Powers That Be (and Complain) in the mailroom are just guessing that it's personal mail. And their policy of returning it to the sender could result in significant delays in important communication to, for example, external examiners who choose to receive mail at their home address rather than at work. I have sent several such packages / letters that might look suspiciously personal through the mailroom in my administrative job. A thank you card to a guest speaker could also be classified as 'personal', and would look so, although it would technically be official university business. On the other hand, I could, but don't, send personal mail to friends at other universities that looks official through the university's pre-paid post (for example officially addressed to Dr September Blue, University in the Big City etc. etc.). Mailroom might never know.

And that brings me back to arguing that the only way of knowing this would be to open all the mail. In which case, surely you can find something better to do?

The wearing of jeans to work

2009-05-06T00:29:00.003+01:00

Whenever I begin teaching a new group of students, I make an effort not to wear jeans on seminar days. This, I think, stems from my days as a postgrad teaching assistant, when I felt I had to look semi-authoritative because I didn't have any Dr. title to provide this authority. I tried then to project to the students (and myself?) an image proving I was qualified to teach them. I suppose I now do this as a confirmation of that. I set off with the intention of wearing 'tutor clothes' every week, but as term goes on I start to slip, and by the end of the year I'm wearing jeans to seminars. I figure by that point if they don't see me as their 'tutor' jeans won't make a difference (and I do like to promote equality of ideas and opinions between tutor and students in my seminars!). I have never given a lecture in jeans. This, I know, is a matter of maintaining my own confidence.

For my new admin job, I wouldn't wear jeans to work. Not as a spur to my confidence, but because my image of office/secretarial workers is smarter than that (smart casual, not necessarily suits). None of the other ladies in my office wear jeans either. Presumably they feel the same as I do.

There are only three men in the administrative unit in which I work. One at my level (lowly admin assistant), one is my line-manager's manager, and the other is my line-manager's manager's manager. Both top level administrators wear suits and ties for work. Lowly administrator wears jeans and a sweater or a casual shirt. No one seems to question this. No one seems to object. But I wonder what would happen if I turned up in jeans and a hoodie tomorrow? I'm sure someone would notice, and probably they would object.

So, ignoring my seminar jeans issue (which is, I acknowledge) entirely of my own imposition) what do you think about wearing jeans for work? Do you think its appropriateness is gendered? Am I imposing my own rules again?

Student comments - about me

2009-05-02T11:05:00.003+01:00

This week was the last week of my Contemporary Women’s Writing course. It has been a lot of hard work, and attendance at the classes has been pretty poor, but other than that, I have actually enjoyed teaching it. (And I have learnt that I can research and write two lectures in a week, and teach a 3rd novel on top, but I wouldn’t recommend this if there is an alternative.)

I jokingly said to those who turned up one week that I was going to start taking it personally if attendance continued to be as low as it was (which it did), and one of the students offered as an possible explanation that there was too much reading on the course. This is a complaint I think I’ve heard about every single course I’ve taught – the only difference with this is that I chose the texts and their number. But I don’t believe that there were too many texts. When I taught a long(ish) novel, I scheduled it over two classes. Shorter texts (poetry, a play, a novella, and a collection of short stories) got a week each. If the students planned ahead they had plenty of time to get the reading done. And I did point out to them that I managed to do the reading and produce a lecture for each text. (And in fairness, one of the other students did agree with me).

Last week I gave out the module evaluation questionnaires to the five students who turned up. Two of them – my best attenders – are visiting overseas students. They thought there was too much reading, and the lectures were too difficult. I suspect both of these comments have some connection to their language difficulties; they both struggled a little with their English at points. But, if lectures too long had been a complaint shared by the other students (which it wasn't), then I'd be happy to write shorter lectures! Of the others, two were very positive, and it’s nice to know that I hit the right level with some of the students. The other had some good points, and some bad, and I think it’s unfortunate that convenors don’t get the opportunity to respond to students on the points they raise on evaluations. Had they been raised at a consultative meeting, here are the points, and what I would have said in response:

1) the tutor quoted from critics and used their words rather then her own.
2) some of the texts were too modern so it was difficult to find criticism.

Well, yes, in response to 1. I did indeed quote from critics in my lectures. But I did contextualise, and I did explain, comment on and argue against their comments. Engaging with criticism is an important part of academic writing; I was trying to demonstrate to you ways in which you could do this. And this also relates to 2. All of my critical quotations were fully referenced on the PowerPoint slides I made available to you, so I have done some of the research for you on all of the texts, including the more modern novels. I also put links to / electronic copies of relevant material on the Virtual Learning Environment for you to help with the criticism that was particularly difficult to find. By third year – which is the level of these particular students – you should also be capable of doing a little bit extra on your own research, but if you’re struggling, then ask your tutor. And dealing with the more contextual part of the second comment, I’m not sure I have any need to make a defence or give an explanation: you chose a course called contemporary women’s writing.

Student comments - not about me

2009-05-01T19:49:00.003+01:00

I started a new admin job last week in the Education Faculty at the other University here in the City where the Castle is also a Prison. It's three days a week, and should take care of my bills over the summer, which is a relief.

As part of this, I minuted a staff-student consultative meeting this week. It's very interesting to hear what students think about courses in a department where you don't do any teaching, and see how different departments run. This is one in which a lot of the teaching is practical stuff, rather than book based - I'm used to consultative meetings in which all of the students on all of the courses complain about having too much reading to do. In fact, my Women's Writing students at the same University have complained about this to me (more on this another day). But, as an informed observer - I have some thoughts on how seminars work from both a student and tutor perspective - some of the students' complaints revealed much more about students' 'faulty' expectations than about the tutors. For example:

"Our tutor didn't know enough about his subject to teach us anything. When he asked a question and it stayed quiet he just kept waiting for someone to answer rather than telling us the answer himself. And sometimes, when he had us doing group work, when one group asked a question, he asked the other group if they could answer it. He was waiting for us to tell each other because he didn't know the answer himself."

Now to me, waiting for students to answer rather than answering your own question immediately, and having them think for themselves and discuss with each other rather than treating the tutor as a teacher, seems to me like very good tutorial practice, and something I try to implement in my own seminars. They are not the place for me to give the students information - that happens in lectures. But what I found really odd was that the Chair of the meeting did not attempt to address this complaint. He just moved on and left the accusation of not knowing enough about the topic to linger over the head of the absent part time tutor. And I wanted to interject. But I was not wearing my academic hat to the meeting, so I had to just write down what was said and leave it alone. But it does emphasise that students expect university to be like school: that they will be spoon-fed information and won't have to do any independent thinking or group work. What worries me is that these were second year students. I don't know why this idea wasn't shaken out of them in their first year, but it should have been. And the course co-ordinator ought to have put them right at this meeting too, otherwise the same sort of complaints and expectations will continue.

So, for the record: your tutor may well know what he is talking about. He may also know what he is doing in running his seminars like that. You have to do some independent thinking. At least some of the time...

Application enthusiasm.

2009-04-19T14:14:00.003+01:00

Gathering up the enthusiasm to complete another application for a full time, permanent lectureship that I'm pretty sure I've got no chance of getting is very tough. I'm sure that lots of you reading Falling Leaves know and understand that feeling. And that you will also recognise the little nagging voice that I can hear in my head, saying "but this one might be the one you could have got, and if you don't apply then you won't get it and will have missed an opportunity. You will miss out and it will be your own fault".

So here I am, trying to finish marking a pile of essays by Monday morning (so that they can be moderated whilst I am at my admin job in the middle of the week and then can complete the marking admin processes and get them back to the office for the unmoveable deadline of Friday), attempting to prepare a lecture for 9am on Friday morning (my admin job takes 9-5 on Tues, Weds and Thurs), and trying convince myself to squeeze in completing the application for this job that I'm not going to get ("but might be the one I could have got if only I made the time to apply for it").

I just happened to check my mailbox on the way back from the shop today for mail from yesterday, and I had received a rejection letter for a job for which I applied some weeks ago. You may think, "At least they said thanks but no thanks, which is more than most places." And I'd agree with you. But I received a rejection letter from the same institution for the same job last week. Now, I know this is proabably just an admin error - maybe through a change of staff - but, being rejected twice for the same job seems particularly harsh. They really don't want me.

And it's not helping my levels of application enthusiasm.

Tourist attractions

2009-04-08T18:07:00.003+01:00

Last weekend The Physio and I went for a weekend away together in a Historic City. The weather was lovely, so we spent some time wandering around looking at the old buildings, some of which look like they are falling over. There is a strange mixed of ancient and modern there, but somehow it all seems to work together.

We went to some of the tourist attractions too, including a castle tower, which looked very small in comparison with the Scottish Castles I'm used to, but was very interesting nonetheless (and, in fairness, is only part of what used to be the Castle). But what most surprised me was this medieval townhouse, which is, for the most part, full of modern replicas, which means that you can sit at the banqueting table, handle the pottery, and sit in the parlour at the merchant's desk. They do have some original artifacts under glass - you can't handle those, but you can look at and read all about them. There are also lots of files containing information about literacy, games, fabric and all sorts of interesting bits and pieces. But they also have a fascinating exhibition on prayer, pestilence and plague, detailing the medical and dental facilities in the area in the medieval period, showing medical equipment, describing hospitals, and giving 'home remedies' for things like headaches and chapped lips (you can actually pick up a leaflet with the recipes in them if you want to). All in all, it is well worth a visit. As is the Minster. Give yourself plenty of time for that though - there's so much to take in. Perhaps too much for one visit.

The Physio and I might have to go back to that City to explore some more. Those are only a sample of the places to visit. So much to do; so little time.

All Change, please

2009-03-31T10:55:00.003+01:00

I suppose for background to this post you need to know that I have been dating The Physio for around two months now. I've kept it a bit quiet, because it's very new, and it seems to be going well, and I didn't want to jinx it!

Last weekend The Physio was going away to North Eastern City for a stag night. Aspiring Author, my friend from the Beautiful Scottish City that I Miss, wanted to come and visit me and the Little Dog, so I thought that would be an ideal weekend. I could then spend the weekend with Aspiring Author without neglecting The Physio, or not spending enough time with Aspiring Author because I'm also trying to include The Physio (and I thought that Aspiring Author might be a bit uncomfortable sleeping in my living room if The Physio was in my room).

The Physio joked about me spending the weekend with another man the first time he went away, but did add that he wasn't really the jealous sort and that I "don't seem like the cheating type". I'd say this makes him a reasonably good judge of character, although I'm not entirely sure what the 'cheating type' is like.

But I'm pretty sure that I must have looked like the 'cheating type' at the train station on Sunday, when I walked into the station with Aspiring Author, hugged him (he's a good and long standing friend) as he got on the train, bought a coffee, walked over to the next platform, sat for 10 minutes waiting for the next train, hugged The Physio as he arrived and left the station with him.

I wonder what the station staff thought...

I agree.

2009-03-29T17:05:00.003+01:00

I was just reading this post at Victorianitas, and was writing a comment, and realised that it was turning into a post of its own so I brought it over here to Falling Leaves.

I agree with everything September Blue says about the job market and her response to those who already have permanent jobs - and presumably salaries - who are not being sufficiently sensitive to the worries of PhD students and post-docs. (This does not apply to all salaried academics, I hasten to add, only to those holding those opinions to which she rightly objects).

I was talking (casually, on the bus) to a very bright masters student the other day who was planning on doing a PhD, and had had several meetings with members of the academic staff to talk about it. I asked her why she wanted to do one, and she gave two answers 1) She's interested in her subject and 2) she would quite like an academic job. When I said to her that the job market was very bad, and having a PhD is necessary for, but won't guarantee you, an academic job, she looked at me in complete surprise and said surely there aren't that many people with PhDs to take the jobs? I told her that the last short term teaching job I'd applied for (because there had been NO permanent jobs for 6months) had had 180 applicants, and she was speechless. No one explains to pre-PhDs that the job market is rubbish. And no one explains that it's not just any vacancy either, it has to be one in your area. You seem only to learn this from those who have been there / are there / are struggling to make post-doc ends meet whilst trying not to be totally disillusioned about an academic career.

I taught this student last year as a third year undergrad. She is not stupid. She is doing well on her MA. But you can't expect undergrad and MA students to KNOW things about academia if no one in a position to know tells them. At best, many academics who are settled in their jobs aren't aware of quite how bad the market is; at worst (and I don't think this applies to any of the departments with which I am associated), universities NEED postgrad students, and being honest and realistic in meetings with potential applicants won't bring in the money.

Yes, we should do PhDs because we are good at the subject and because we love the subject. But we should make sure that students know what they are getting in to. Those who really want to do it will do it anyway. Those who aren't sure might think twice about the investment of time and money they will have to make without any job guarantees. That does not mean they don’t love their subject. But loving your subject, as September Blue rightly suggests, does not keep a roof over your head, or put food on your plate.

Re-reading and re-thinking

2009-03-19T20:29:00.004Z

For the course I am teaching on Contemporary Women's Writing, I'm re-reading (and preparing a lecture on) Jackie Kay's Trumpet.

I have taught this novel before, a long time ago, to first year students at the university in the Beautiful Scottish City that I Miss. I remember thinking it was a useful text for teaching (identity/gender/sexuality/narrative structure), but that I didn't like or enjoy it very much. I chose to put it on the Women's Writing course because I thought it worked well with some of the other novels I'm teaching, because it's a gift if you want students to engage with theory, particularly Butler's arguments on performativity, and lastly because this course is a LOT of work for me, so I put on as many texts as I could that I had already read / taught. I know the last reason is not a good pedagogical reason, but when you are only being paid a TA contact-hourly rate to write a new lecture every week on a subject which is well outside your research area you need to give yourself a break sometimes! And I wouldn't have put it on the course if it did not work well with the other texts and provide excellent theoretical discussion possibilities etc etc.

I'm hoping that my third-year women's writing class will find it interesting, and engage with it on a level which my former first-year students could not, just by virtue of being first year students. I'm hoping that this group will not ask me how Millie and Joss had sex. I'm hoping that the essays will not include painfully embarrassing sentences which end with "but as my tutor pointed out, we don't want to know about that" ("Dear second-marker, I did indeed say this, but not in this context; I was making a salient point about difference, privacy and instrusion, rather than being totally prudish as this implies"). I'm hoping that these students will all have read the novel, and already have some opinions on how we might talk about it in a women's writing class.

But what has surprised me about re-reading the novel is how much better I like it this time round. And not just because I myself am now much more confident dealing with the ideas with which it engages, and the theories we might use in discussion. Or because I am now a much more experienced, confident tutor. More that I like the novel. I've actually found it so moving in places that I had to put it down so I didn't cry into my latte whilst reading it in a large coffee chain's comfy chairs.

I have realised that the last two novels that I have put on this course are not happy novels (the next one is The God of Small Things, which is not cheery, but is one of the most beautifully written novels I have ever read). I think I'll have to take them chocolate at the end of the course to raise the happy levels.

But I stand by my course text choices. And I'm glad I have the opportunity to look at Trumpet again with new eyes.

Monetary surprises.

2009-03-03T13:10:00.005Z

In light of September Blue's post commenting on warning students about the academic job market, this post seems particularly timely.

I am timetabled to teach 4 hours a week and am paid for 12 to account for prep time. Of course, it's token "prep time" - I work many, many more than I have ever tried to count (if I worked out how much I get paid per actual hour worked it would be too depressing to think about).

Setting aside, for the moment, my second teaching job - 2 of those 4 scheduled hours are taken up by this - for which I have not been paid at all yet because of their different pay claim system, I'm pausing to think about my pay slip from the big University in the City where the Castle is also a Prison.

When I openend it the other day I had a pleasant surprise. More money than I was expecting! And it wasn't even a mistake that they would take back from me; I had forgotten about the three days I had worked as secretary in Philosophy. Bonus money! (Well, already spent on bills, but bonus in being there when I wasn't expecting it). But what was more of a surprise - and not quite so pleasant - was that I discovered that I got paid almost as much for 3 days of secretary work as I did for a whole month teaching in English.

I know I'm lucky to have any sort of academic job at all. I know I'm lucky to get paid (however little at the moment) to do something that I really enjoy doing. But if I didn't love the teaching and the research - when I finally get to do some - I'd be very tempted to be a secretary full time.

So yes, tell MA students the facts and figures about the job market. And about how flexible you need to be both in terms of type of institution and of place in the country / a country / any country. And about the pay for part time TA work (if it's available - and it may not be).

No one should go into this with their eyes shut. Especially if they would rather be a secretary.

Sharing poetry

2009-02-11T14:48:00.002Z

I heard this poem for the first time in a lecture yesterday, and found it so interesting that I thought I would share it with you. Enjoy!

La Figlia Che Piange
O quam te memorem virgo...

Stand on the highest pavement of the stair -
Lean on a garden urn -
Weave, weave the sunlight in your hair -
Clasp your flowers to you with a pained suprise -
Fling them to the ground and turn
With a fugitive resentment in your eyes:
But weave, weave the sunlight in your hair.

So I would have had him leave,
So I would have had her stand and grieve,
So he would have left
As the soul leaves the body torn and bruised,
As the mind deserts the body it has used.
I should find
Some way incomparably light and deft,
Some way we both should understand,
Simple and faithless as a smile and a shake of the hand.

She turned away, but with the autumn weather
Compelled my imagination many days,
Many days and many hours:
Her hair over her arms and her arms full of flowers.
And I wonder how they should have been together!
I should have lost a gesture and a pose.
Sometimes these cogitations still amaze
The troubled midnight, and the noon's repose.

-- T. S. Eliot

Confession

2009-02-02T17:23:00.003Z

OK. So here is my confession:

I am in love with one of my students.

Before you condemn me to an everlasting academic underworld torment of never finished book-reviews, undergrad essay mountains which grow taller the more you mark, and TA peanuts pay for evermore, I should probably explain.

He a mature-ish student (mid 20s), he’s tall, he’s slim, he’s quite attractive. He has small glasses and floppy hair. He wears shirts under tidy jumpers under neat jackets. He looks like he ought to be writing poetry in a garret room. He attends all of the lectures, and he usually has an exceptionally good (or politically interesting) reason if he misses seminars, and he has missed very few. He is informed, he is articulate, and he wants to learn. He has actively sought help from me with his analytical skills. And – and I’ve saved the best until last – he LOVES literature.

You might think this is a strange thing to say, when I earn my peanuts teaching literature students. But it seems to be becoming increasingly unusual to find an English Lit student who actually likes reading books.

The garret poet loves reading. He reads things that are not on the reading list, and he wants to talk about them. And he exudes an enthusiasm for literature and literary analysis, that sometimes leads him astray in his essays, but at least his essays are not in any way mechanical.

The tutor in me wants to nurture and train this enthusiasm into good academic criticism (hopefully without squashing the joy). My younger teenage self, who loved literature and was also fond of floppy-haired boys, is hopelessly in love with the garret poet.

So can I just say: if, after this confession and explanation, you still want to condemn me to the above mentioned academic purgatory of never-ending TA pay, please – pretty please – could it be teaching students like him.

Markers of folly.

2009-02-01T16:50:00.003Z

From The French Lieutenant's Woman (chapter 34):

He did not like her when she was wilful; it contrasted too strongly with her elaborate clothes, all designed to show a total inadequacy outside the domestic interior. The thin end of the sensible clothes wedge had been inserted in society by the disgraceful Mrs Bloomer a decade and a half before the year of which I write; but that early attempt at the trouser suit had been comprehensively defeated by the crinoline - a small fact of considerable significance in our understanding of the Victorians. They were offered sense; and chose a six-foot folly unparalled in the most folly-ridden of minor arts.

Cakes

2009-01-31T10:10:00.003Z

I was going to write a serious post about teaching women's writing and feminist theory. Perhaps that is to come - I'm still thinking it through.

In the meantime though, this is a frivolous post about cake.

I like cake. I'd go as far as to say I am a fan of cake. I was talking to someone the other day and he said chocolate cake is best. I think a well made Victoria Sponge could stand up to most chocolate cake, providing the cake-eater is not a chocoholic. Black-forest gateaux, however, is possibly the Queen of Cakes (any suggestions as to why I think cake is feminine?).

So, what is your favourite cake? And why?

Refreshed

2009-01-25T18:02:00.003Z

I've have spent the weekend eating interesting, healthy, fresh, homecooked (but not by me), delicious, vegetarian food.

I have spent time sitting on a comfortable sofa in front of a wood-burning stove, and on a garden swing near a waterfall in the cool, fresh, winter air reading a book (which I have to read for work, but didn't feel like I was working).

I have gone to bed early and got up early, and spent most of the day wearing no shoes.

I have spent time with a close friend, whom I do not see as often as I would like.

I have spent hours practising yoga, meditating and doing pilates.

And I feel refreshed.

Professional dilemma

2009-01-12T22:10:00.002Z

I marked all of my students' essays over Christmas. They were an OK batch - none dreadful, none brilliant, but most in the 'pretty good' to 'good' to 'very good' scheme of things. There are a lot of students, and quite a few tutors on the course, so we moderate the grades by swapping a few essays with another tutor, and today I have been looking at 4 marked by another teaching assistant. I find myself with a professional dilemma: some of her comments are, for want of a better word, 'incorrect'. On one essay, she has not corrected a series of factual errors and confusions, and in another the punctuation / grammatical corrections she has made are wrong (in the latter, the student's version was actually correct before she changed it).

Now, for the first essay, I think this is because the essay is on a topic which is outside the tutor's area of expertise (and inside mine, so I would speedily recognise the mistake). Although there is not much in the way of alternative on 'survey' courses, this is one of the disadvantages of having the same tutor teach all topics - there is always going to be something that might catch us out. I'm know that I don't know everything! So, for this essay, I'm not too worried. I don't see it as too much of a dilemma, because I can point this out as being something I might reasonably know that she doesn't. The only problem is that she has written 'good points!' next to some of these errors. Maybe that could be altered to say these would have been good points, if this were true?

But, what about the grammar / punctuation 'corrections'? I feel it is important that student errors in this area are highlighted and corrected. And with this in mind, I don't feel comfortable ignoring the incorrect corrections. But I'm also a bit uncomfortable telling a fellow teaching assistant (who is mid PhD in English, and should be able to construct sentences) that not only is their punctuation poor, but they have done this on one of their student's essays. In black biro. I don't hold a supervisory position over her. We are merely peer moderating. I know I shouldn't be correcting her grammar.

I don't know what to do...

New Year Activity

2009-01-02T11:55:00.003Z

Well, this is my first post of 2009, so I guess the first thing to do is to say "Happy New Year!" to all readers of Falling Leaves. I hope this year brings you health and happiness, in whatever form that might take.

Today is also my birthday, so for me the beginning of January is not just the beginning of a new calendar year, but also a new year in my life. I'm not just making New Year's resolutions for 2009 because that's what people traditionally do at the beginning of the year, but because there are things that I would like to have done before my next birthday (it's a major one - you know, of the kind that end in 0) and I shall have to be organised if I'm going to do them.

So my New Year's resolution is to be more active this year. I don't just mean physically active, although that wouldn't go amiss. I mean active in a more general sense. Below is a list of what I intend to do. These are not my resolutions; they are the means to achieving my one resolution.

1) I will manage my time better.

2) I will do more research (to be honest, it will not be hard to do more of this than last year) - this will make me more research active, and I will be taking more positive action towards getting a permanent job.

3) I will arrange to meet up with my friends more often. This will stop me talking passively over the internet / text messages, and will help me not to spend my evenings inactively on facebook.

4) I will listen to more music. More can be accomplished when listening to CDs / radio than when watching television.

5) I will find a Yoga class so that I can be active and still at the same time. Yoga also makes me feel physically and mentally better, so I'm hoping that it will contribute to a more positive outlook to help me achieve other things. And adding more activities into my life-timetable will mean I have to be better at time management.

That brings me back to the beginning of the list. And it seems to be enough to be getting on with for now!

May 2009 bring all you wish for, and good luck in sticking to your own resolutions!

Packing

2008-12-23T08:39:00.005Z

Well I'm just about packed up for my trip to Supermum's house for the - to use an Americanism - "holiday season". I had to pack last night because I am at my secretary job all day today, and am being picked up straight after work. But now I have packed, I seem to have an awful lot of stuff for the two weeks I'll be there. It looks like I've packed for months!

Two of the bags are work-related stuff, though (a note to the London Busdriver - I may not have to be at work for two weeks, but I do have to work during that two weeks) to finish a couse handbook, write a review, mark essays and prep. for teaching. The good news about the latter is that I get to read novels and call it work. The bad news is that I need to read at least 4 of them. I have also packed a couple of pairs of fabulous shoes. Because at Christmas, New Year and on my birthday, I will get the opportunity to wear them. And I won't be able to wear them if I don't take them with me, will I?

The rapidly increasing number of bags I found I had packed reminded me of a friend from school, who would always pack two bags when she came to stay, even if it was only for one night: the bag of stuff she actually needed (nightdress, washbag, change of clothes) and then the stuff she brought just in case she needed it. Her "just in case" bag. It usually had other clothes in it, in case we went anywhere that required a particular outfit, and there had to be at least two outfits to choose from in case one didn't look right. And a variety of make up. And other strange items that I have now forgotten.

Because I can't drive, I tend not to pack a separate "just in case" bag. In much train travelling, I have learned that the smaller your bag, the better for ease of bag storage on the train, and - and this one is important - only pack what you can actually carry. That said, my New York friend once said to me, as I juggled suitcases onto a train to Newark airport, "my, you're strong for a wee thing". Well, I don't know about that, but I can usually carry my own suitcases.

But this time, for my Christmas trip to supermum's, I am very grateful I'm being collected. I have packed way more than I could possibly carry, and none of it is in a "just in case bag".

OK. Maybe I don't need all of the fabulous shoes. But if you can't wear fabulous shoes during the holiday season, when can you?

Navigating feelings....

2008-12-22T15:15:00.003Z

Whilst reading a collection of essays on Shakespeare's sonnets, I came across this quotation from William Reddy's The Navigation of Feeling: A Framework for the History of Emotions (CUP 2001) and had to share it:

'Suffering that results from goal conflicts is seen also in love relationships... Seeking out a loved one may realize a high-priority desire to be with the person, but it may also expose one to rejection - and thus to the knowledge that one has not embraced the loved one's own goals. This happens most obviously when the loved one makes clear the desire to avoid the lover... When and in what ways ought one to seek out the loved one in order to bring about a change of heart? When and in what ways ought one to accept the loved one's expressed aversion for oneself? Emotional suffering occurs when high-priority goals are in conflict in this way'. (p.123)

Unfortunately, the quotation ends here without answering these questions. Anyone tempted to seek out the book and see if it has any good suggestions?

Essay requests

2008-12-18T22:23:00.003Z

I've had enough of undergraduate essays. And I haven't even started marking yet.

The Philosophy Department had essays due at the end of term. Lots of essays. For some reason, and I don't know what it was, 8 courses had essays due by 5pm last Friday. So there was a mountain of essays to date stamp, mark in as submitted, and sort out for tutors. Usually all of that wouldn't be my job. But early on Monday, the undergrad secretary had to go home ill, so she sent me an email asking me to deal with them. When I got to work on Tuesday morning, I started sorting them out; first into piles for each course, then into piles for each tutor for the courses where there was more than one. They are submitted anonymously, by Student ID rather than name, so logging them as submitted was a two stage process - matching name to ID and then marking the date of submission next to the name in the file (the ID number is also there, but it would take hours to match them manually).

One of the lecturers came into the office and said she needed to collect her essays for marking, and she had told the undergrad secretary this. I explained she was away sick, and I was processing the essays and I'd get to hers next but someone else had already asked for theirs. She said OK, and started to leave, and then muttered that his could wait and she needed hers urgently today. I said I would do them next. And they were all done in plenty of time for her to catch her train, but it did confuse my system because I had to do her option unit and then some of the first year essays (sort out hers but not do all of them because that was the largest set, and none of the other first year tutors had asked for theirs; I knew other lecturers were waiting). It's a very boring job, but also requires a certain amount of systematic concentration to make sure no one's essay goes astray or doesn't get logged. As a general rule, though, please have some patience when only 2 of 4 office staff are working, you aren't the only memeber of staff asking for essays so that they can go away for Christmas (I am working until 23rd) and one is trying to catch up on something that would have been done the day before if another wasn't off sick.

I wasn't working on Wednesday, so today I had to finish off the essay organising. On Tuesday, I'd made a list of what I'd done for each course: stamped, noted as submitted, contacted tutor, given to tutor etc. I started on the courses that I hadn't already noted down, and when I'd done that I began to send out emails to tutors.

Until I couldn't find a batch of essays.

I looked all over my office. I looked all over the undergrad secretary's office. I checked my list to see if I had actually marked them as in (and I had - I'd even left a note to myself about a student in the records). And I panicked. Out of all the essays I had sorted and moved around I just couldn't work out where I might have left them. So I went to see the tutor who ran the course, and asked if I'd given them to him. "Oh! Yeah," he said, "I came in and took them yesterday. I probably should have left you a note, or something". Yes. Yes you should. So for the record:

NEVER, under any circumstances should you just TAKE essays out of a pile in the secretary's office without at the very least leaving them a note. EVER.

Please.

Counting down.

2008-12-15T21:39:00.006Z

Someone told me this morning that it will be Christmas day in ten days time.

I was inclined to laugh, until I realised that it was actually true.

Ten days to Christmas.

I am, at least, almost prepared in terms of presents. I'm afraid most of my shopping was done online this year. Not very Christmassy, I suppose, but I have put thought into presents and / or got people what they've asked for, so I guess that is what counts, rather than the going out and making my way through the Christmas shopping crowds. I will go out and buy Christmas cards for family, though; I like to spend time reading the cards until I find the right one. I've already got the ones to send out to friends, although I haven't sent them yet. It seems I might need to buy some more - it's nice to realise you have more friends than you thought!

But I haven't been feeling very Christmassy. This term has flown by so quickly, and I'm just about still afloat. I'm making a concerted effort to clear the 'left overs' from my desk before Christmas, but more stuff keeps being added on to the list (not metaphorically - I've actually written a list so that I don't forget things, and can tick things off it).

I don't think I'll get through all of it - I'm working in Philosophy for four days before Christmas - but I'll have a go.

Ten days isn't very long...

Philosophical conversation.

2008-12-05T08:45:00.004Z

Yesterday morning, I arrived on campus much earlier than I need to for work in the Philosophy Department office. I stopped off at the coffee shop to buy coffee and a pastry, and then took both to my office 45 minutes before work start time, so that I could finish a task for a small job that I didn't list in my earlier post, and that should have been done some time ago. If I'm honest, I had just forgotten about it. So here is the conversation that I had in the corridor outside my office with a member of the academic staff in Philosophy.

Philosopher: You're in early!

Me: No, I'm not really here.

Philosopher: Ah, Ok. I haven't really seen you.

And I ducked into my office, and he continued down the corridor.

This struck me as particularly appropriate conversation to have in a Philosophy Department corridor at 8.15am.

I'm not even here now, actually...

People

2008-12-02T20:39:00.003Z

I like people. I usually trust people until they give me reason not to - yes, sometimes I get hurt that way, but I think it's better that than living in permanent suspicion and cynicism. I believe that most people are good people most of the time.

But today I'm disappointed. Today, people - specific and general - let me down.

One of my former students who is academically Very Bright had asked me to write a reference for his postgraduate applications. I learned through various grapevines before I agreed to this that other members of staff had refused because of his appallingly bad attendance. I decided, particularly because his attendance had not been too bad in my classes, and his record showed that his attendance this year was much better than last, that it would be unfair to condemn someone so Very Bright forever in academia because he didn't have his act together in his second year. If he were a student in Scotland, he would have had another year to redeem himself before such judgements were made. So, I agreed to write his references. He asked that I mention the particularly high grade he received for an independently planned and researched extended essay, and I said I would, of course, but to maintain my own and the Institution's academic integrity, I would also have to mention the disciplinary action over his attendance in the previous year. I would, I said, try to make this more positive by emphasising the drastic improvement in his attendance this year. I haven't been able to write them before today, and I happened to mention this to Colleague Who Worries Too Much (she is teaching this student this year), and it turns out that since I said I'd mention that his attendance was much improved, he has missed 3 or 4 classes without giving a reason. Now this may be a coincidence, but I'm not sure I haven't been manipulated here. I am taking the comments on his drastic improvement out of my reference.

More generally, I slipped and fell down some stairs today. Nothing is broken, and there is no major injury, although my ankles are aching a little. But I was in a very public place, and there were lots of people around - in and outside shops, standing in groups, wandering past - and not one of them, despite my loud shout of surprise / pain even looked to see if I was OK. Not a single one of them.

You let me down today, people. You let me down.

Where I've been.

2008-12-01T18:55:00.003Z

Well, it's been a long time since I posted, so I thought I should say something. It isn't that nothing as been happening - it is just that I haven't had much to say about it.

I've finished reading Regeneration for job number 4, and thoroughly enjoyed it. I'm very excited to be lecturing on it next year. I've set the reading list for a course on Contemporary Women's Writing I'm teaching after Christmas. I've just about found my way around the Philosophy Dept. for job number 3, and seem to be getting a handle on the job I'm expected to do there. I've been teaching first years, marking essays on sonnets and trying to get around to writing references for a former student. I've been walking the Little Dog, and going to my ballroom / latin class.

Oh, and playing scrabble on facebook.

For the record

2008-11-18T20:09:00.002Z

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...

Having Brunch and Talking Seriously About Work

2008-11-12T19:12:00.004Z

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.

Email circulars.

2008-11-06T23:35:00.003Z

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?

An almost beautifully balanced day

2008-11-04T21:06:00.007Z

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.

Scared students: a fitting title for Halloween.

2008-10-31T20:11:00.004Z

"So, how are your classes going", asks the Creative Writing tutor with whom I share an office. I only really see her on the day she has an office hour, and she isn't usually this chatty. I was worried she felt left out of the 'early modernist faction' that is the rest of our shared office, and I'm really pleased that she doesn't seem to be quite as cut off as I thought.

I say mine are going really well: chatty students (not always on the right topic, but easily steered back on track), good attendance, reasonable amount of preparation (although we'll see - so far they haven't had a vast amount of prep to do...). All in all, I'm quite pleased with how they're doing. "How about you?", I ask.

"Well, not too bad. Although they aren't coping very well with the virtual learning environment - and when I look at other tutors' folders there, their students seem to be coping much better". I point out that this might not actually be the case - the other tutors might just be tidying up their folders. "And," she says, "they've taken a vote and decided they are scared of me, and that wasn't the sort of atmosphere I was going for."

"Well, no.... Taken a vote? How did they tell you this?"

"Just that they'd taken a vote and were scared of me. Are yours scared of you?"

I'm fairly sure my students aren't scared of me. If they are, they really don't show it. Maybe I'm just not a scary person - not that Creative Writing tutor is. Maybe I just have more confident students. Maybe I'm not scary enough. I guess time will tell - will they read the novels for later classes / hand in their work on time / continue with the good attendance...?

But I think that if your students are prepared to tell you that they have taken a vote and decided that they are scared of you, then they can't be that scared. My advice would probably be to find a way to make them laugh; a shared giggle goes a long way.

Any other suggestions?

A post of sad news.

2008-10-24T09:05:00.004+01:00

Yesterday my family had to say goodbye to a much loved pet: our collie, Rosie, who had been ill for some time. It is always difficult to lose such a clever and affectionate member of the family, but it is comforting to know that she is no longer in pain, or struggling with a rare doggy disorder (an extraordinary dog like Rosie wouldn't settle for a common-or-garden illness).

I'm sending extra hugs to Sees Through the Eyes of Children and The Artist to whom she 'officially' belonged, although really Rosie was always in charge.

Rosie taught my Little Dog a lot of things - some good habits, some bad. And we will all miss her very much indeed.

Taming the Shrew

2008-10-23T15:51:00.004+01:00

*** Spoiler warning if you intend to see the RSC Taming of the Shrew ***

Yesterday I went to see the RSC production of The Taming of the Shrew with a group of students. I had been told it was a controvertial Shrew (you can read reviews here and here) but didn't know much else about it.

It is a particularly brutal production. There is a lot of physical violence throughout, and Petruchio's 'taming' of Katherina is shown deliberately and overtly as acts of mental and physical cruelty.

The production was not without comedy, particularly in the scenes with Bianca and her suitors, with Tranio and Biondello, but the comedy was rarely with Petruchio and Katherina. I think this is what has caused such controversy. Petruchio's scenes of 'taming' have, in other productions, been played comically. And, I think, some audiences do not want their Shakespeare - particularly their Shakespearean comedy - to be so harsh / brutal / condemnatory of patriarchal values. But the RSC did not show anything in their Petruchio / Kate scenes that Shakespeare did not write. It was only their interpretation in performance that seemed to be shocking.

Despite his brutality on stage, Petruchio's speech in Act IV still provoked some laughter:

Thus have I politicly begun my reign,
And 'tis my hope to end successfully.
...
She ate no meat today, nor none shall eat;
Last night she slept not, nor tonight she shall not.
As with the meat, some undeserved fault
I'll find about the making of the bed,
And here I'll fling the pillow, there the bolster,
This way the coverlet, another way the sheets.
Ay, and amid this hurly, I intend
That all is done in reverend care of her.
And in conclusion she shall watch all night,
And if she chance to nod I'll rail and brawl,
And with the clamour keep her still awake.
This is a way to kill a wife with kindness,
And thus I'll curb her mad and headstrong humour.
He that knows better how to tame a shrew,
Now let him speak: 'tis charity to show. (4.1.175-198)

I wonder whether it is an audience's need to find comedy here that provoked the laughter, or whether it is related to a modern, western understanding that the idea of an husbandly 'reign' or 'shrew taming' should be absurd. But there was nothing comic in the delivery of this speech, or in the scene that preceded it. And the emphasis put on killing his wife with kindness, even metaphorically, was deeply disturbing. The most painful scene, for me, was one in which Katherina was shown to offer sexual favours to Petruchio's downtrodden servant Grumio - who himself had been shown, up to this point, to be the very lowest of the characters in the play - if he would give her food. He both humiliates her and denies her the food he has shown to her. Although Katherina delivers her final speech of wifely obedience with dignity, her subsequent on stage almost lifeless submission to Petruchio's sexual appetite leaves no doubt in this production that Kate is a defeated woman, however much scope for ambiguity the play itself might allow. It is a very dark production.

But that said, I thought it was an extremely good and thought provoking production. And I wish my class of Shakespeare students from last year had seen it. It might have made one or two of them think more critically about their uncritical, 'un-scare-quoted' use of the word 'taming' in their essays. Their unquestioning acceptance of it as a term was slightly concerning to me, and my suggestions in seminars that this was not necessarily presented as a good thing in the play went unheard in several cases.

They would not have been able to dismiss this production's interpretation quite so readily.

Dear administrators of various departments and offices.

2008-10-16T20:07:00.006+01:00

I was distressed to receive your recent email informing me that due to a number of factors causing a delay in various processes (which means that I cannot pinpoint a nameable person whose fault this is) my contract will not be through all of the necessary administrative hoops in time to pay me this month.

If I were not at the very bottom of the academic ladder, it's unlikely that I would be in this position (either with my personal finances, or dealing with the consequences of your delays). It seems that Big Named Academic brought to the University using the Magic Money Pots has signed his contract, which is, I have no doubt at all, going to be processed in time to pay this Big Named Academic as they agreed. Big Named Academic would create a bigger stink about this than I am able to do.

I understand that I will be paid for two months at the end of the following month, but by that point I will have been teaching for 7-8 weeks, and marked a quiz, an exercise and a batch of essays. I will also have had to pay two months' rent, bills, and travel to work expenses, none of which will accept a note that says 'I promise to pay you as soon as my employer, with whom I have not yet signed a contract and thus have no enforceable way of making them give me any money, actually pay me'.

I know my bills are not your responsibility. But processing my contract on time IS.

And it strikes me as slightly unfair that I will have done my job this month and I will not get paid. You will get paid in full, whether this part of your job is completed or not.

In the dark

2008-10-14T12:26:00.005+01:00

Because I liked it, today I'm sharing with you a short passage from Jo Baker's novel The Telling that I'm reading - and thoroughly enjoying - at the moment. (No spoilers in the comments, please. I haven't finished it yet...):

"Sally and I made our bed up on the rug, and lay down. She fell instantly and deeply asleep, and began to snore.

A light continued on upstairs; it filtered down between the floorboards. I lay awake, looking up at it, my eyes gritty with fatigue. Dad knew, and Mam knew, and Sally knew, and Thomas knew, and everybody knew what was going on, everybody but me. It was not a pleasant feeling, to be alone in the dark."

Tempting...

2008-10-08T19:29:00.007+01:00

This year, at the beginning of the academic year, I thought I'd try to stamp out my problem with student abbreviations of my name very early on. So, in the very first class when I introduced myself (sorry, the pseudonym makes this hard, but bear with me...), I said: "Welcome to First-Year English Lit. I am [Dr. Autumn Song]. I'd like these seminars to be quite informal so please call me [Autumn]. If I get you to call me [Dr. Song] you won't talk to me. Please don't call me [Aut], though, I'm not a big fan."

They seemed to accept this in the first group. In the second a very bright young man said "Can we call you [Dr. Song] if we want to? It sounds really cool."

I'm not supposed to say, "Yes it does!" at this point, am I...?

Across a crowded room...

2008-09-26T18:03:00.007+01:00

The other day I was sitting at the back of a coffee shop in the City where the Castle is also a Prison, checking some transcription work I've been doing (I'm not good at working at home at the moment, and the Department is mid-move so I have no office). I'd just finished a section and I looked up from my papers, catching the eye of a very attractive man who had just come in.

I smiled at him and he walked to the back of the room, and put his bag down at the table next to mine. He then seemed to change his mind, and moved to the front by the window on the main street. He looked over to me again; I smiled, again. He smiled, left his bag where it was and walked towards me.

He stopped at my table, and I'm starting to think that the amount of time I've spent sitting in coffee shops might be about to pay off in a big way, and then he asked, "Are you Alexa?"

Well, no. I'm not.

And now I'm also kicking myself for giving in to the thought that eyes meeting across a crowded room might actually happen to me.

Tricks of the academic conscience

2008-09-23T12:01:00.005+01:00

I often have vivid dreams and I have, before, woken up screaming in a nightmare, or found myself out of breath when I woke up from shouting at someone in a dream.

On Sunday night I dreamed that I was trying desperately to finish my thesis before the deadline, and no matter what I did, or where I took my papers and laptop, I couldn't get it finished. Some people tried to help; others just kept getting in my way - not deliberately, just unthinkingly. And I wasn't sure whether I'd be able to persuade Registry to take it after the deadline. And I'll never know now, because my alarm went off before I got it there. And it took a good 20 minutes after I woke up from this panicking dream for the panic to subside and for my heart rate to get back to normal.

This would make sense if my thesis was due, but it isn't. Those of you who have been reading Falling Leaves for a while will know that I submitted my thesis over twelve months ago, and that submission day was a nightmare. But I didn't have such vivid panic dreams about thesis submission before I handed it in, and I haven't had them since. Until Sunday night.

Now, I have a couple of small projects that have to be completed soon, and I wonder if this dream is a way of making my get on with those things. When you are in state of perpetual finger crossing, motivation is hard to find. My academic conscience can't convince my subconscious to care about whether I get this book review finished on time, so it resorted to reminding me of a time when I really did care that something was finished on time, and it almost wasn't, and the panic I felt then.

Seems a little drastic though, for a book review deadline (extended twice though it may be). Nevertheless, it was a good trick; I'll be getting on with the review now.

I don't want to get any more reminders of a deadline like that one.

Spooky...

2008-09-15T22:43:00.002+01:00

In light of my previous post, I think it's quite funny that my horoscope this week contains these words:

"Career matters also demand your attention. Getting back into your old work routine feels blissful. It's also possible you will be offered a promotion or pay raise. Your employer may not have realised what a wonderful contribution you made until you left for your holiday."

I neither entirely believe nor absolutely deny the veracity of horoscopes. But still, this one goes with the perpetual finger-crossing, doesn't it?

State of perpetual finger-crossing.

2008-09-11T19:14:00.004+01:00

Reading September Blue's post on academic glass cleaning, I entirely sympathise / empathise. Finding motivation to do any research this summer whilst not really being attached to any academic institution has been nigh impossible for me.

I have also spent a fair amount of time completing job applications for Institutions several of which not only did not short-list me (fair enough) but did not even bother to reply to my application (I know this is standard practice, but that notwithstanding, it is still very rude, and unnecessary in the modern world of inexpensive email communication). I also put a tremendous amount of work into a funding application which in the end I could not submit because of a variety of problems with the electronic submission system. That did not fill me with inspiration to continue with such fellowship applications. And the sense of being set adrift this summer has hardly been motivational.

That said, my colleagues at the University in the City Where the Castle is also a Prison have been very supportive and encouraging. And I have never been sufficiently down or hopeless about all this to give up on academia as a career path. I have a friend whose academic CV is shinier than mine who is thinking of giving up; her work is excellent and innovative, and I hope she reconsiders. I do understand her frustration though. I try to be positive about the job market picking up, and continue to hope that something will come up for me, but some days it is very hard to keep up that sort of optimism. Some days the effort to stay optimistic takes all the energy I can muster, and that doesn't give me much enthusiasm for research. In fact, it leads mostly to watching box set DVDs of American TV shows.

I have been offered some TA work for this academic year. On the plus side, this will keep me attached to an Institution, return my library borrowing rights, give me a shared office space on campus, and, I don't have to move house and try to half-settle on a short term contract again somewhere else. On the other hand, it will not cover even half of my monthly rent, it will not pay the electricity bill (which I am told by letter today has just gone up), or feed me and the Little Dog for the next twelve months. So I need to find an alternative source of income, that hopefully will not take up so much time that I can't make research progress (which is an advantage of not having full time teaching).

I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Again.

Still.

Lessons in Dog Walking 2.

2008-08-22T11:41:00.002+01:00

"WAIT!" bellowed a woman somewhere round the corner from where I was walking with the Little Dog.

"Well, you hurry up down on your side to match then!" yelled back a small boy, who suddenly appeared at the edge of the curb.

After a period of time, not very long, but obviously too long for an energetic young boy to wait, the woman of the previous bellow appeared level with him, but on the other side of the main road. She said, "OK, NOW you can cross" and as he ran across the side road I was walking down, she walked the same distance, much more slowly on the pavement on the opposite side of the main road, simultaneously shouting, "Don't run... Don't go any further... Stop!"

(Boy climbs on low wall at the park)

"Don't climb on the wall!"

"Yeah, DON'T! Get Down! Stop It!" shrieks a smaller child I hadn't noticed until now, standing with the woman.

It strikes me that there is an awful lot of unnecessary yelling going on here.

"Why not?" shouts the boy.

I try to pretend I'm not seeing / hearing any of this. The Little Dog is distracted by it, but with a few quiet words and a click of my fingers by her ear to get her attention, we safely and calmly cross the road with the Little Dog walking at heel, sometimes looking over her shoulder to see what all the commotion is about.

"Because I said you can't", shouts the woman, beginning to cross the main road so that she will be on the same side as the boy, "and quite frankly, I've had more than enough of you not doing what you are told! See, that poor little dog is better behaved than you are!"

Well, yes. But I'm not sure I'd call her a poor little dog. She is not the one being yelled at. And I suppose the Little Dog is at this point, slightly better behaved. BUT, I give her clear and calm instructions when to do / when not to do things, and she's not usually far enough away from me in the street that I have to yell these instructions. And I have her on her lead on main roads, so that even if she does want to run across a dangerous road, she can't.

Now, I'm not suggesting that keeping children on leads is a good idea. Actually it isn't. But giving them calm and sensible instructions before they do something is a good idea. And keeping them near you (holding their hand, perhaps?) on a main road seems like a good plan to me.

I wouldn't usually use the good behaviour of my Little Dog as a means to discuss good parenting. It really isn't a very sensible comparison in many ways. But this didn't start as my comparison; the yelling mother made it. And if she thinks it a valid comparison by which to teach her child something, then maybe it's sufficiently valid to teach her something too.

Wise Words

2008-08-12T19:20:00.003+01:00

These wise words are borrowed from a conversation I had with a friend today. I thought they were important enough to be published somewhere, and hope she doesn't mind:

"Instinct: not always eloquent, but usually right"

So, even if you're not sure exactly why your instinct is telling you something, it shouldn't be ignored.

Reading suggestions?

2008-08-11T11:49:00.004+01:00

I spend a fair amount of time on buses. And bus travelling time is the time I now use to read non research related literature.

My bus books include some my favourite series of novels set in the Napoleonic Wars and some books that I bought a long time ago to read 'just for fun' and didn't get around to. But I want to start interspering these 'for fun' reads with 'proper' literary reads. Books that any self-respecting literature academic ought to have read. I've just finished reading Orwell's 1984 as part of this drive to be a better rounded lit. person. The novel actually made me feel physically ill in parts, but, it is something that most people would think I would or should have read by now.

So now I'm looking for suggestions. Novels or collections of short stories that Autumn Song with a PhD in Literature who is hoping for a career in academia ought to have read / ought to read. Failing that, any book that you think is absolutely worth the read, whether it's an academic must or not. Any period, any author. Please leave suggestions in the comments...

Going forwards. And backwards.

2008-08-05T23:19:00.003+01:00

I am putting in an application for some research funding. The forms are long and complicated and there is a fair amount of work to do in a pretty short time. I am applying in conjunction with Supervisor, who will be the named person in charge at the Institution where I do the research, and will therefore be back in the role of Supervisor. He seems to be pleased about this arrangement, and if I have to move again (and I will to get the funding) then moving to somewhere where I already know someone seems like a good idea. And we do work well together. He's a good guy. Overall, this seems like a good arrangement.

But as well as being a good way to move forward, this reseacrh funding proposal seems to have sent me backwards. To a time when schemes to avoid Supervisor in order not to have to explain why I haven't done something were planned carefully in advance. To a time when I occasionally dreaded opening emails or answering phones just in case it was Supervisor, and I hadn't finished / read /written something.

This can't be right. Surely there is a way to get over this. I am officially Dr Song now, with certificate from graduation ceremony to prove it. Fear of Supervisor must be a thing of the past. Surely.

I have to go backwards to go forwards. Or is it go forwards to go back...

Time keeping

2008-08-01T21:48:00.005+01:00

This morning I went to the dentist. My appointment was at 10am. I never expect these things to go exactly on time so I wasn't surprised, or even particularly cross, when 10am came and went, and I was still waiting.

At 10.20, the dental nurse came into the waiting room: "Autumn Song?" I stood up. "We're running about 20 minutes late. Are you happy to wait?" I was a little confused. It's a bit late to ask if I'm happy to wait the 20 minutes I've already waited.

"You mean it will be another 20 minutes?", I asked.

"Yes. We're running 20 minutes late".

"But I've already waited 20 minutes. So you're running 40 minutes late?"

"What time was your appointment?"

"10am"

"What time is it now?"

"20 past 10".

"Well, we'll be another 20 minutes".

"So, you're running 40 minutes late." I confirm.

She asks again if I'm OK to wait, and I say yes. She turns to the lady whose appointment is after mine.

"Are you also OK to wait?" she asks, "We're running half an hour late."

A Plea from a Pedestrian

2008-07-29T10:59:00.004+01:00

I don't drive. I had lessons a long time ago. I hated it and I gave it up. I plan to learn again one day (this is one of those very vague at some unspecified distance from now, 'one day's), but for the moment, I am predominantly pedestrian or a public transport user. I have already posted about the joys of using public transport. Today I want to make a polite request to road users from a pedestrian.

When the traffic is busy, you know you have to use indicators to indicate that you intend to take a particular road at a junction (having travelled in cars, I know that not all of you actually do this, but you should, and you know you should). However, some of you feel that this is not necessary when only pedestrians are anywhere near. There are no other vehicles, so you choose not to indicate your intentions because no one else needs to know where you are going.

Well, that's not true.

I need to know where you are going if I am trying to cross a road. Any pedestrian needs to know where you are going so that they can make a sensible judgement as to whether to step into the road. If you don't tell me you are turning up that road, and I step into it, it is your fault if I am in your way. It is not my fault. I think - reasonably so, because by not indicating a turn you implicitly indicate to me that you are not turning that way - that you are not turning up that road. Equally, if I am trying to cross the road you are already on, and you don't indicate but then turn off anyway, I have lost an opportunity to cross a potentially busy road safely whilst you are holding up the traffic. In the rain, or if I'm in a hurry, this is extremely annoying.

It would be much less stressful, and much safer for all of us - drivers and pedestrians alike - if you drivers always indicate your intentions at junctions.

Please.

Fashion?

2008-07-21T17:07:00.003+01:00

I've never really been into fashion. I wear clothes that I like, that are comfortable and that, I hope, suit me. Even when I was a teenager the girls my age wandering around in the evening / at night wearing tiny dresses and no jacket because "coats aren't fashionable" puzzled me. I'll take unfashionable over hypothermia any day. So, clearly, I'm a lost cause when it comes to fashion.

But last week, when I was in a fairly fashionable high street store, looking for something specific, this lack of fashion understanding was pressed home to me in a big way. I looked at this 'item' (I was going to say 'garment', but I'm being deliberately vague) and thought "What is that? A skirt? a dress? a top? an Elizabethan ruff collar? How would one wear this item?"

I think I won't shop there again. It makes me feel very old. And I'm not.

Waiting

2008-07-16T09:13:00.003+01:00

Today, I'm waiting.

For two things.

For my new passport to arrive through a secure mail service where I had to confirm a day when I would be home so that they could hand it to me when I provide identification (funnily enough, they list passport as an acceptable form of this), and for the chair of the panel who interviewed me yesterday for a short term teaching post to call me with the good / bad news.

The first will happen some time 'between 9 and 5' today. The second, either 'late morning' or 'early afternoon'. No doubt they will both happen at exactly the same time.

In the meantime, I am filling in another job application for another short term contract that needs to be sent off today (the PhDLitChick has applied for the same job), and I'm writing a reference for a student I taught at my previous post because he wants to take an MA course next year.

So, off I go. To keep waiting...

At the next table...

2008-07-13T10:53:00.006+01:00

Working in the coffee shop yesterday was more productive than I expected. Having got over (well, just about) the fear that a random stranger would steal my notes on incest in 'Tis Pity She's a Whore, or my copy of the New Casebook on Revenge Tragedy if I went to the counter to order a new coffee or left the table to go to the toilet, I settled quite happily into reading and note taking in a corner of the room by the window. I like to work outside, or at least outside my flat / the office (when I used to have one) - it's good to have a change of scenery, and I'm much less likely to watch TV if I'm not sitting on my sofa!

Some environments are not good for working. I used to work at the Castle in the Beautiful Scottish City that I Miss, but during the summer tourist season, there was too much noise. I admit to feeling slightly resentful that noisy families had invaded my peaceful castle, but I also know that's the chance you take when you choose to work in a public place. And as much as I like to think of it as such, it is not my castle, and I have to share it. And if those people didn't visit the Castle, then Historic Scotland would have to close it. So, I don't get too cross when there's noise around me when I'm working in a public place. In fact, some noise in the background often helps me to concentrate, as long as it's at reasonable levels.

So I did feel a little guilty when a man with his two small daughters sat at the next table, and from the moment they arrived he kept "shhh"-ing them whenever they opened their mouths. I don't expect or ask for silence, and his daughters seemed to be very sweet and well behaved children. And, as she kept trying to tell her dad - she really did have very cute new shoes. I tried smiling at them when they looked over, especially if they were talking, so he didn't feel he had to keep them quiet but it didn't seem to make a difference. So, I feel bad about it. I didn't want to spoil their morning out.

After he left, two ladies with a baby and two young boys sat across from me. The ladies were so busy talking that they did nothing about the boys screaming and shouting , and running in and out of the toilet, causing a queue without actually needing to be in there (there is only one multisex toilet in the cafe) except occasionally shouting at them. By this time, another lady had set up her laptop elsewhere and was also working. When the ladies noticed the boys jumping up and down behind her, one of them said "that lady is going to get very cross and shout at you, so come and sit down". Well, yes, maybe she would get cross with him, but surely "come and sit down" is something the boys should be doing in a coffee shop anyway? They left. The other studying lady and I looked at each other and breathed a sigh of relief.

Another two ladies with two small boys arrived. They two were shouting and screaming and running around. They entertained themselves by playing trains noisily all across the floor, particularly at the top of the stairs and by trying to climb over the window guards behind me, put up specifically, I would guess, to stop people falling out of the windows (we were on the second floor). The women made little if any attempt to calm their boys down, or move them out of harms way for some time. Eventually they made them sit down, but only to then allow the older one to climb all over his mother, with his legs flailing dangerously close to my face. And this time I was cross. Not because I was trying to work - it would have annoyed me if I was only there for coffee with friends - but because this was disruptive, anti-social and potentially dangerous behaviour. They could have been hurt on the windows or on the stairs; people carrying trays of hot coffee, small children, trains on wheels and narrow staircases is not a good combination. If I could see that, why couldn't their parents? I grumbled quietly to myself, giving the occasional glance of disbelief toward the boys / waitresses / parents. Another sigh of relief when they left.

Finally a group of teenage boys came and sat down. They weren't noisy or disruptive, and I settled back to work. They were just chatting and then suddenly one of them said abruptly "Oooh, look at her!". "Where? Where?" was the rapid response. They were looking out of the large window by their table. "Ah, the one in the little blue skirt?... Yeah, she's well fit. But I'd rather have her friend with the pink shoes..."

I guess I wasn't the only one people-watching in the coffee shop.

On a shop door:

2008-07-10T16:05:00.002+01:00

During the summer, opening hours will be:

Monday: 10.30am -4pm

Thursday: 10.30 - 4pm

Friday: if it's raining

Who are my friends?

2008-07-07T16:22:00.003+01:00

Well, I finally gave in and joined up to Facebook. Joining didn't seem to be difficult, but there is so much stuff on the screen that I'm finding actually using it very complicated. No one who told me to join told me it would be confusing. I think they should have.

But I have to say the strangest thing about it, is being told who my friends are. "Autumn and ThePhDLitChick are now friends", it tells me confidently at 11am; "Autumn and the Italian Speaker are now friends" it tells me slightly later. And I find myself thinking surely this was true before? Does it take linking to them through an internet networking site for this to be true? Does linking on Facebook suddenly make this indisputable fact? And then I think, can friendships be facts? And then I think, perhaps I should be thinking about something else...

Cut Adrift

2008-07-04T15:33:00.005+01:00

I went to my graduation ceremony in the last week of June. I can now officially call myself Dr Autumn Song, and am slowly but steadily changing information so that my mail comes addressed to Dr Song. Hurray!

Graduation day was lovely, the ceremony wasn't too long, and several of my PhD peers graduated at the same time. I was a little disappointed that most of them didn't hang around for very long, though; I wanted some group photos! (If any of you are reading this - you know who you are - consider yourselves told off...) I can't blame them too much though - the department did forget to let us know that they were having a party for their graduates...

So, I have now officially left the university in the Beautiful Scottish City that I Miss. I am still, of course, emotionally attached to it. I have friends who still live around the uni, and of course, friends and former colleagues in the department. But officially, I have no reason to be there. And just to make sure I know it, my network username has been deleted; my email access has been cut off. I remember asking about this some time ago, and I was sent an email telling me I would be given notice before this happened. I wasn't. And I can't prove that I was told that, because I can't get into my emails. Clever, eh?

As of July 1st, I am also unemployed. My contract at the university in the City where the Castle is also a Prison ended at the end of June. Fortunately, my computer access is still active and, they tell me, will continue to be so for a couple of months. We shall see. I did, however, have to clear my office and surrender my key, and my library card ceased to be valid at the end of my contract. I now finally have time to get on with my own research, and don't really have the facilities with which to do it. I believe I can join the library as an external reader. This means I can borrow three books at any one time, and for this privilege I have to pay £60 for the year. Sixty pounds.

"Congratulations on your graduation. Get out."

"Thank you for your help teaching our undergraduates. Please don't now do any work here that we can't use to our advantage / for our ratings."

I'm feeling decidedly cut adrift...

The Winter's Tale

2008-06-28T14:27:00.003+01:00

Well, it should have been a summer's tale. A group of early modernists from the English Department went to watch the play outdoors in the middle of June at the Large Public Park here, the name of which is curiously appropriate, although not exactly right, for watching Shakespeare. The weather had been fine all day - not hot and sunny, but dry and not not too overcast. Colleague who Worries Too Much was convinced it would be a glorious evening, and we wouldn't need to go home for our raincoats. I was much more doubtful. I did go home for mine, and was very glad I did. It waited until the performance was about to start and then the rain came. The theatre company carried on regardless, and I passed my picnic-carrying plastic bag to colleague who Worries Too Much so that she could at least cover part of herself with something waterproof.

The acting company worked very hard. Each of them took more than one part - something I suppose is essential if a travelling company wants to keep costs down - and they acted well enough that it was easy to forget they were really the same person. For the most part, the doubling up of parts seemed purely practical, but I thought one of the choices of pairing was particularly interesting. The man who played the shepherd's son, adoptive brother of Perdita, also played Paulina, wife of Antigonus, who speaks plainly and abruptly to King Leontes, pointing out his faults to him. Again, this was probably in part due to practical considerations - none of the actresses could play her because they would have to be on stage playing two parts at once at the end of the play. Of course in Shakespeare's day all female parts would have been played by boys, but if only one in this production is not played by a woman, it is, I think, critically interesting that it should have been the outspoken Paulina. She does not behave like an early modern woman should - she is not quiet, she does not keep herself and her thoughts private, she is not obedient to her husband (or to her king). She is, in fact, a "manly" political character - indeed, she is more outspoken than the courtiers. So, does having a man play her serve to emphasise her difference from courtly ladies? Does it attempt to trouble ideas of what being a courtly lady actually is? Or does it serve to emphasise the lack of action, the lack of questioning of the king, by the male courtiers? And, can all of these questions be asked of the play anyway, if Paulina was originally played by a boy actor?

I don't want to answer these questions here. I merely want to pose them as questions interesting to me, and I hope to you, raised by this production. I am very fond of the The Winter's Tale as a play. It raises issues of power and authority, truth and fiction, religion, gender, genre and representation. As I think all good productions should, this one just added one further facet to a complex and fascinating play.

Magic Money Pots

2008-06-19T22:46:00.004+01:00

I think Universities have these. Magic money pots.

I know that budgets are tight. I know that most universities are unable to take on more permanent academic staff. Some are not replacing staff who leave. This is, in part, the reason the job market is so bad. This is why I, and other newly conferred PhDs, find ourselves staring unemployment / redeployment squarely in the face. The money pots are empty.

But the empty money pots are only empty sometimes.

If, for example, a Big Named Academic wants to work at an Institution, only being on campus and holding only a few postgraduate seminar workshops for two weeks of the year with the occasional guest lecture, and being attached to them for the RAE / REF, thousands of pounds can be found in the money pots.

The money pots are magic.

I know there are a variety of reasons why they can find the money to employ Big Named Academic and not me. Big Named Academic will, they say, attract students. "Really?" I ask. Do potential Undergrads even know who this is? "No", they tell me, "but postgraduates will. And that will bring in money for the empty money pots".

Well, maybe. Maybe not. Maybe one day in the future I will attract postgraduate students. And until that time, I would be willing to teach your students - graduate and undergraduate - for every teaching week of term. I would mark essays / exams, do admin and generally be a part of the department, and I won't retire in the next five years. I might even produce and publish research which would be useful for your RAE / REF submission and ratings.

But this will never happen if I have to work a full time non academic job to pay my bills because universities aren't taking on early career staff, because the money pots are empty.

The magic money pots.

Qualifications

2008-06-17T20:04:00.004+01:00

As I graduate in under a fortnight, I don't see a problem with giving my title as Dr rather than Ms. I have worked hard for, and been awarded, my PhD. Before that I worked hard for and was awarded a first class BA (Hons) and an M.Litt with distinction.

I'm not writing this in order to boast. I'm hoping someone can shed a little light on a question.

Why, given my undergraduate and graduate qualifications and my not unsubstantial teaching experience, does the university to which I am applying for a Teaching Fellowship need to know in full detail my GCSE results?

Breakfast talk

2008-06-14T22:17:00.003+01:00

As I said in my last post, I've recently come back from my annual trip to Haworth for the Bronte Society AGM. In fact, it's exactly a year since I wrote my very first two blog posts, one of which talked about last year's AGM events. I'm afraid there weren't many more young people there this year - perhaps one or two - so I'll just keep hoping!

As always, I met up with old friends, and I made some new ones. One morning I got up for breakfast and met a man I hadn't seen before in the B&B breakfast room. He said "Are you a Bronte person?" (This is not a strange question to a society member in Haworth in the first full weekend in June). "Yes, I am.", I replied, "Are you a Bronte person?". He said he wasn't, but was doing some work on the gravestones at the Church - photographing, making notes, cross referencing in a database. It seemed like a good idea to me. I asked where he was sitting, so that I didn't steal his table, and he invited me to join him. I said I couldn't, because I was expecting a friend (she was staying in the same B&B) and I sat elsewhere. We continued to talk, but it was awkward with the table arrangements, so I went to sit with him until my friend arrived. When she did, she joined the conversation, and we talked about the merits of the Society (friends all over the world, coming to Haworth, shared interests, among other things), and he commented that everyone had been kind and helpful to him. I agreed, "Yes, most people in Haworth are very friendly". "I know", he said, "just today, a lady came to sit with me at breakfast".

Buzzing

2008-06-10T22:42:00.002+01:00

Yesterday I came back from a lovely weekend away in Haworth at the Bronte Society AGM weekend (more on this another day). I spent most of yesterday and all of this morning frantically trying to catch up with marking to meet an exam board deadline this afternoon. I had too little sleep last night and I have drunk far too much caffeinated coffee today as a consequence of the two previous problems. I also had to finish all of the associated exam admininstration with my colleague who Worries Too Much and get back into town to go food shopping (both for me and the Little Dog) before the shops closed and then get home before the Little Dog needed to go for a walk.

I managed to do all of these things. I'm not telling you this to elicit congratulations. I'm telling you this because it turns out that this particular combination of events and activites (along with a strawberry tart for lunch) makes me just a little crazy. Luckily a walk in the sunshine by the canal with the Little Dog and a quiet evening of detectives on TV seems to have stopped the buzzing.

I'm back on decaf tomorrow...

Friends and Colleagues

2008-05-28T19:22:00.003+01:00

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...

2008-05-22T09:50:00.004+01:00

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...

2008-05-15T11:24:00.006+01:00

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

2008-05-12T14:51:00.006+01:00

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?

2008-05-01T20:57:00.004+01:00

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.

Strange amounts

2008-04-29T19:38:00.003+01:00

Yesterday I went to two different shops, at different times, and bought a variety of different items.

On both trips, I spent exactly £3.39

How odd.

Flowers at the bridge

2008-04-22T20:50:00.004+01:00

I was going to write a letter to my students here today - one of those polite letters verging on ranting that I'd never want them to read but would like to share with others who would understand. But... whilst I was walking my Little Dog I saw something that changed my post entirely: a young man, mid to late teens, with a small bunch of flowers in a deep purple cone.

Little Dog and I passed him as we walked towards the canal. He was walking along the street holding his bunch of flowers out slightly awkwardly in that way that anyone carrying a bunch of flowers and trying to go somewhere always holds them. They were upright, and held forwards and slightly to the side of his body, and there was an air of determination about him. Perhaps it was teenage awkwardness; perhaps something else. His flowers were clearly a token of something. It was a small bunch, and I wondered if they were for his mum, who might live in one of the houses along that street. But we were walking in opposite directions and I thought that was the last I would see of him. I would never know any more.

As Little Dog and I turned a corner at the canal path, I saw a figure half sitting on, half leaning against the canal tow-path wall, at the gateway by the bridge, with a small bunch of flowers in a deep purple wrapping cone. He looked at his watch; he took out his mobile phone. Reading a text message? Sending a text message?

I kept walking.

I hope she showed up.

Parties

2008-04-18T21:58:00.002+01:00

Over the last few days, it's been quite noisy around my flat. On Wednesday, from about mid-afternoon until 11pm, and last night from tea-time until after I went to bed around 1am, there was loud music. On Thursday it was definitely from the flat upstairs; on Wednesday I wasn't sure where it was from, but it was pretty much the same music both times, so I guess it was coming out of their window and bouncing back off the nearby buildings.

That doesn't necessarily mean anything, you may say. A lot of people listen to similar music. But not these songs. Here's a list of what they were playing, amongst others:

Agadoo (at least 4 times)
YMCA
Time Warp (twice)
Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka Dot Bikini
So Macho
Wake Me Up Before You Go Go

And there was definitely dancing to the Time Warp - I heard the thud on the floor upstairs when there was a 'jump to the left'.

Now, it's been a long time since I heard all these songs at all, let alone all together. It reminds me of birthday parties when I was younger. A time of kids' party DJs giving out prizes for the best dancer (I won one once - and upstairs were only missing the 'Superman' song to match the music combination for that party). I wondered if I should go upstairs with party bags.

But the thing about those parties was that there was always at least one or two responsible adults present. And the kids wouldn't have been allowed outside the building (yes, they were singing "So Macho" without the backing track outside my window). And everyone would have gone home and been in bed WAY before 2am.

It's all very quiet upstairs today. Ah, yes. When we aren't eating jelly and ice-cream, and, more importantly, drinking multi-coloured juice, the hangover is much more likely.

But I bought it...

2008-04-17T23:28:00.004+01:00

I was reading this post over at Acephalous, and for some reason it reminded me of a conversation I had with a student during a tutorial. I had asked the students to do some small group work, and listened in on the conversation. I knew two students weren't discussing what they should have been, so I deliberately went to their group first. After an attempt to avoid my question, and then a further attempt to bluff by giving the example from the text given in the lecture, I asked for their own example:

Student: We couldn't find one.

Me: It's full of them!

Student: Well, there's that other one where [... ].

Me: That was also in the lecture. Do you have one of your own?

Student: No.

Me: Are you telling me that you haven't read the text?

Student (rolling his eyes and waving his book at me): Look! I bought the book.

Me: Buying it and reading it are not the same thing.

Student (confidently): Why would I buy it, and not read it?

This is a question which troubles many a university tutor, no doubt.

"Except that one. Or that one"

2008-04-16T16:36:00.004+01:00

When I was standing at the checkout waiting to pay for my bread roll, milk and rainbow fruit pot, the queue was delayed by a woman who wanted to buy a gift voucher. I wasn't really in a hurry, so I didn't mind. She and her friend had already been looking at their watches, although not impatiently, whilst they waited their turn in the queue.

For the gift voucher, she had been to the stand where they were displayed and picked up a card to take to the till along with her shopping. She said to the Till Assistant, "I'd like a £10 gift voucher, please".

"Oh, we don't do those any more. You need to get the other kind," replied the assistant, who then helpfully added, "They're on the stand."

Shopper: "I got that one off the stand."

Assistant: "Yes, but that one shouldn't be on there. You need to get one of the others."

The lady walked over to the stand not far from the till, and picked up another card.

Assistant: "No, not that one. That's the same sort as this one. On the bottom."

Pause

Assistant: "Left. No, not that one. Left!"

Shopper: "These ones?"

Assitant: "Yes. You can have any on that stand you like".

I raised an eyebrow, looking at no one in particular. I seemed to be the only person to notice the incongruity of the customer-pleasing "any you like" and the previous refusal followed by lengthy directions.

The shopper looked to her friend waiting by the till and said "Which do you think?"

Other shopper: "Candles?"

Shopper: (decisively) "Candles".

As she picked up the card and returned to the till, the assistant left the till and went to the card stand. Collecting an envelope, she followed the shopper back to the till.

Assistant: "How much do you want?"

Shopper: "£10"

She added the ten pounds to the gift card, and then tried to show the Shopper where she should write on the card. With a wave of her hand, the Shopper, by now understandably out of patience, said "I know how to do that!"

A man appeared at the end of the till, and spoke to the shopper and her friend, "Have your watches broken?"

Shopper: (in a resigned tone) "No, we had some trouble with some of the shopping..."

They paid, and left. I moved down to stand in front of the Assistant.

Assistant: "Hello. I'm sorry to keep you waiting."

Me: "That's OK. I'm not in a hurry."

Assistant: "If I hadn't have gone to get it, they would never have found the right one."

I resisted the urge to say, "Yes, it's hard to find the right one, on a stand where you can have any card you like..."

Equal opportunities

2008-04-10T21:47:00.004+01:00

Today I've been filling in job applications and writing cover letters. I've sent off the one for which the dealine is tomorrow, but I've still to finish writing the 'why you should give me this job' section of the other one. I was planning to do that tonight, but I can't make my brain do it. Clearly there's only so much blowing your own trumpet you can do in one day.

This is what it said on the top of the equal opportunities form:

"This university wishes to promote equal opportunities in all its employment practices. To do so, information is asked of candidates which will help us eliminate any practices which may be discriminatory"

But the questions asked me for my gender, nationality, ethnic origin, religion and sexuality (this is new - I don't remember ticking a box for that before). I don't see how this will help eliminate discriminatory practices. They say this information is kept separate from your application, so it can't be used positively by selection panels (not that I agree with positive discrimination - it's still discrimination, whichever way it works) but it could, if the personnel department were not entirely honest, be used negatively. What boxes I tick at this stage in my application process can't be of any help in suggesting to them ways in which they are or are not discriminatory. It doesn't say 'In your opinion, are any of our advertising or selection practices discriminatory? Discuss.' What they actually have, with my gender, nationality, ethnic origin, religion and sexuality, is a way to figure out statistics on applicants / employees. That is all they have. Why pretend it's anything else?

Multiple choice TV

2008-04-08T21:49:00.003+01:00

I got a new TV this week. It has Freeview, so I can watch digital TV. So, here is your multiple choice question:

I decided to get digital TV because:

a) the digital switchover is coming, and I want to be prepared...

b) I have only had 4 channels for 10 years

c) it will allow me to watch the later night repeats of programmes I would usually watch during the day so I can get more work done before I turn on the TV

d) a particular programme that I really like which used to be on two channels, one terrestrial and one digital, is now only showing on the digital channel (meanies) so I had to get digital to watch it.

I'm afraid there is no prize for the right answer, but have fun guessing!

Right. Have to go. New TV to watch!

Healthy cynicism?

2008-03-29T14:07:00.003Z

A fortnight ago, a friend who is Naturally Beautiful but Doesn't Really Know It came to stay with me. I was watching an episode of Dr Quinn, Medicine Woman when she arrived (I have several of the seasons on DVD - it's one of the programmes that I really enjoy watching, however corny we may all agree that it is). I left it running in the background and turned down the volume while we caught up with each other's news. At one point Naturally Beautiful, who had just looked up at the TV screen, said "Oooh, he's a bit tasty!". I was fairly sure who she was talking about, but I turned to look and agreed - yes, he is. This is one of the reasons I like watching Dr Quinn.

We started to talk about the other reasons I like it, and she asked me a question which I have previously asked myself. In fact, SuperMum asked me something similar last week when we watched Bulletproof Monk (which I also like). Why is it that I like this, with its many 'happy endings' but that romantic comedy films make me cross. I watch these romantic comedy. They make me smile - often they make me giggle - but in the end they usually make me cross. Why? Because the world is not like that. Not all relationship problems are surmountable with a hurried drive to the airport to stop her getting on the plane, or a New Year party where if you kiss someone you'll be with them all year. Lots of relationship problems are not fixable. Sometimes life kicks you - hard - in the stomach and you just have to stand up and move on. This is not the stuff of romantic comedy.

Why doesn't Bulletproof Monk make me cross? Because it doesn't ask me to buy into 'love conquers all'. It asks me to suspend my disbelief, pretty much from beginning to end, and doesn't really make a secret of this, and doesn't present itself as 'real'. Romantic Comedy asks me to buy into 'real' happy endings. And these happy endings often just 'forget' about the previous problems. They haven't been addressed, dealt with and overcome; they've just been set to one side - outside the genre of the romantic comedy ending - and the writers, producers and directors expect the audience to forget these problems too. It sells the fairy-tale romance, and we [are supposed to] buy into it. I'm not sure I do, anymore.

Yes, this might be cynical. It might be, as Naturally Beautiful suggested, entirely different were I dating someone. But for now I'm not, and I don't want to be fooled into buying into 'Hollywood love'.

So, what is it about Dr Quinn that I am prepared to buy into? Well, I think it's an advocation of an old fashioned, pulling together, community spirit - it's not just about romantic relationships. Things don't always work out and it doesn't often ask me to conveniently forget problems for the purposes of a happy ending. But it does have happy endings.

I'm not really against them. I am, in fact, looking for my happy ending. But if / when it comes, I don't want it to be romantic comedy contrived - partly because at some point those problems we conveniently forget will find us, and by that point everyone's in too deep not to get hurt. There's nothing wrong with a bit of realism. Even if it at times it seems cynical...

The significance of everyday things

2008-03-18T17:05:00.004Z

Yesterday morning I was putting on a different necklace - I usually wear the same one for 'everyday' activities and change it only when I'm going somewhere, or if the top I'm wearing requires a larger pendant / longer chain etc. I decided the new one didn't look right, took it off and reached for my usual necklace. It's a short silver chain, on which hangs a silver cross, anchor and heart, attached together on a very small silver ring.

People I meet wonder what's on the chain, as these items usually hang one on top of the other. Friends who have known me for a long time suddenly reach over to get hold of them and take a closer look. "I have worn this almost every day of the four years you have known me!", I said to The Piano Player. "Really! Well, maybe it's usually hidden under your jumper", he said. "Maybe", I agree, but I wonder if it just because I do wear it everyday that he's never noticed it before. "What is it?", he asked. I explained it's a cross, an anchor and a heart, representing Faith, Hope and Love/Charity. I've had a similar conversation on several occasions. "Why is the anchor Hope?", someone asks. I'm no longer entirely sure, but I say something I remember from junior school assemblies about Hope being your anchor: "May your anchor hold in the storms of life" goes the song I remember singing, but don't remember any more lines. But however vague my memory of this may be, I do believe that an anchor of Hope is a wonderful and positive image, and one I like to hold on to.

The necklace was given to me when I was still at school, by a friend with whom I have long lost touch. I don't remember why she gave it to me. We weren't best friends, but we were good friends (I think we bonded over dental braces). I'm fairly sure the necklace was not a birthday or Christmas present. Its overt significance as a gift has been lost somewhere along the line. But every now and then as I reach for my everyday necklace, I remember that she bought it for me and wonder what she's doing now. And I wonder what she would think if she knew I still wear it at all, let alone everyday.

I wear my necklace of Faith, Hope and Love without thinking much about its significance. It's only when I'm asked, that I am consciously aware of the meaning of the cross, anchor and heart symbols I wear everyday. I don't know whether Also Had Braces meant me always to have Faith, Hope and Love with me, or whether it was a pretty and affordable necklace for a girl in her early teens to buy for a friend. But that's not to say I feel no connection to or responsibility for the beliefs, ideas and friendship tied up in my necklace - it's just that my wearing of it is not a fully conscious or deliberate demonstration of these things.

Sometimes, I think, it takes an inquisitive eye, a new perspective, or indeed the 'wrongness' of an alternative necklace, to remind us all of the significance of everyday things.

Little Dogs

2008-03-14T15:39:00.004Z

It's hard to check your email with a dog on your knee.

And I'm discovering that it's even harder to write a blog post.

You see, at the moment my Little Dog spends most of the week at Supermum's house and usually the weekend at mine, although I haven't had her for a while what with reunion dinners and interviews down South. And when she's with me, she likes to be with me. She likes me to sit in the same spot so that she can comfortably go to sleep without fear of me not being there when she wakes up. And she likes to sit on my lap at all available opportunities. Usually, this would be on the floor - she likes to curl up on my legs if I sit crossed legged. I don't allow her on the bed or on the sofa - not that she takes any notice of this rule when I am not in the flat (or indeed in the room). But it seems today I'm not allowed to sit at my desk without company either. She has done this before when she was much smaller, and actually clicked send on an email I hadn't finished writing. Luckily, my employer to whom I was writing had cats and understood the problem when I sent the second part of the email with explanation.

You do have to understand though, when I say my Little Dog, she is not a lap dog. She's a mixed breed border collie sized dog. She was little when I got her and she still thinks she is. Hence, I'm typing a post with the (not so) Little Dog sitting on my knee...

Fellow Travellers

2008-03-12T23:57:00.004Z

Opposite me on the train sat an older man, who got on, got out his laptop and set about whatever it was he was doing. He had no time to smile. Next to him, sat a woman wearing large Victoria Beckham type sunglasses. I guessed she was a fair amount younger than me; I find putting an age to people tricky anyway (particularly women), but this one didn't help because she was wearing far too much make-up (a trait sadly not always confined to young women who have yet to learn that less is more). She got out a book - The Intimate Adventures of a London Call Girl - and left it lying out on the table whilst she spoke to a friend on the phone. Her conversation confirmed she was around 17 / 18, not only because she seemed to be talking about her plans to go to university, but because I've noticed that more mature women leave private conversations for a more private place than a train carriage. Or, if they choose to conduct such conversations in public, they do it though text message to avoid letting the world know about their love-life confusions. The man with a laptop visibly tried not to listen. I went back to reading Shakespeare. I had a lecture to write.

I made my connection in good time, and found the right train. Unfortunately, I didn't find the coach in which I had a seat reserved - as often happens, that coach wasn't actually part of the train on this journey. I wandered through and found an empty seat opposite a man with Beautiful Eyes and Business Cards. There were too many of different kinds to all be his businesses, and he didn't look like a sharp suited businessman. I wondered what he did for a living. Someone whose MP3 player was too loud sat across the aisle. Two young men started a conversation:

Boy1: I've not been out in Northern English Town in ages.

Boy2: No? You've got to. There's this really great club where all the drinks are One Pound! All night!.

Boy1: Really?

Boy2: Yeah, you can get really drunk on... er... fifteen pounds.

I giggled at this seemingly unconscious display of asserted 'masculinity'. Boy1 didn't seem sufficiently impressed for it to be effective in changing pack positions. I don't think he knew they were competing.

Beautiful Eyes and Business Cards got off at the first stop. I don't blame the Youthful Competitors or the man with loud music, but I was disappointed. Smiles from Beautiful Eyes make a long journey much brighter.

Looking at the positives

2008-03-10T16:19:00.006Z

Well, I didn't get the job.

But, I'm telling myself that the academic job marking being as it is, I've done well to get an interview. And the feedback from my interview was very positive - in the end, apparently, it was down to experience and I had less than the successful candidate (others were not immediately post-doctoral, which, although it didn't help me get a job, confirms I did well to get an interview).

And it is interview practice. I don't want lots of interview practice before I get a job - that would imply I have lots of time to find a job - but some practice has got to help. It's all experience.

Keep fingers crossed for the next one...