Surveys for Wednesday 15 June 2011
Uid 13
Wednesday June 15 was a really dull day to Share on the Day Survey. Our semester ended in May, so
it's Summer break now.
My family and I visited family for a wedding in Michigan on June 18. We packed the morning of
June 15, and left that afternoon. We drove until 11 pm. During the drive (when I wasn't driving), I did
work on Powerpoint slides for my textbook and finally finished the User Interface chapter.
Uid 14
Yet again, I forgot about this until days later, so I hope that my recollections are accurate.
It is "Summer 1" semester here, during which I am not teaching any formal classes, though I am
supervising an independent study. Several months ago, I got a Facebook message from an alumnus--a good friend---who was trying to link me up with another friend of his in town who enjoys board
games. Nothing ever came of that, but then a few days ago, I received an invitation from this friendof-a-friend to meet up for coffee to discuss the job opening in my department. We had a tenure track
faculty member retire, but he announced too late for us to do a search, so we have a one-year contract
faculty position open.
It turns out this guy who I met for coffee at 9, whose name is Bob, is also an alumnus, holding an MS
from my department and a bachelors from another department in my university. He works in industry
and is generally happy, but he has been considering a transition into teaching, something he can do to
share his passion and not spend all day behind a monitor (ha ha!).
I laid everything out on the table for him: that it's a one year position; that we really need young
people in the department, especially folks who understand and can teach the practice as opposed to the
theory; that the pay is meager for contract faculty; that a doctorate is necessary for a full-time position;
that I would rather hire someone who loves the community than not. We talked about the system, and
after the meeting, I wonder if I was /too/ honest with him, regarding departmental politics and the
directions of the university.
After about an hour together, I walked to the office and did some work on my computer. I had
downloaded vmware and was hoping (beyond reason and expectation) that I might be able to run
some game engines with reasonable responsiveness on Win 7 using my Linux desktop as a host. The
installation was flawless, but the technology did not work well, as I expected.
As I was wrapping this up, around 11, there was a knock on my door and in came VT, one of our
contract faculty members. A few days earlier, the chair had forwarded a message from the dean about
the need for all departments to audit their master syllabi due to impending legislation regarding a
mapping from credit hours to expected workload. The chair's message asked each faculty member to
submit their course description to the appropriate committee for review and potential change. The
contract faculty member's question was about the timeframe: when would we submit these, how soon
would we have to review them and take the review into account? A good question it is, and not one I
had thought about. I serve as undergraduate program coordinator and am given a "release" for this
service. However, I am not paid over the Summer, and so I don't work for free. Sure, I'll help from
time to time, but by and large I try to avoid sinking my attention into that quagmire. Summer keeps
me sane. As I was talking with the contract faculty member, the chair came around the corner and
butted in, as he is wont to do. They were both in the doorway of my office, and their conversation
transitioned to matters of no import to me, so I tried to tune them out and work on my own stuff. At
this point, one would hope that they would notice that they were speaking---loudly---in my doorway,
and they would take this down the hall or to one of their offices. No such luck, which is again par for
the course in my department. So, I wrapped up what I was doing and pushed myself into the hallway,
closing the door behind me. I wished them both a good day, and neither one acknowledged my
presence.
Lunch at home with the family was nice.
In the afternoon, I finished playing Splinter Cell: Conviction, which had a nice non-twist ending after
some foreshadowing of a twist. I probably played about 1.5 hours.
After this, I started working on an experimental integration of Ruby with Java. There's a specific kind
of Java class I keep having to write for a project, and I thought a Ruby DSL would work well. I
worked this up, with a break for dinner, and mostly completed a blog post about it before I was
interrupted by our evening guests. It was a good experience to try writing something real in Ruby, and
I can see why people like it. However, using the libraries to do things like file I/O was clunky because
so much of that is just a matter of remembering function names. I am so much more productive in
Java just because I remember all the libraries I use regularly. In fact, that was my grand conclusion at
the end of the experiment: an internal Ruby DSL didn't implicitly have any greater expressiveness
than an internal Java DSL, considering I am the target audience and I can write idiosyncratic Java at
blazing-fast speeds.
The guests were two students, one to be a senior in Fall and one who was graduating at the end of the
week. They are two who have come over before frequently in larger groups to play board games, and
this was the excuse for our gathering. We ended up sitting in the living room from 8 until 12:30--much later than I've been up in ages---just enjoying each others' company. On one hand, it's sad we
didn't have a good game together, but it was a great way to spend an evening, especially with Maker's
Mark old fashioneds and my wife's mulberry cobbler.
For what it's worth, I finished the blog post and published it in about 15 minutes Thursday.
Uid 21
3:30 a.m. woke up and couldn't get back to sleep.
Thinking about different approaches I could try on assembling a
mitochondrial genome that has been causing me problems for the
past few weeks. I have over 90% of the genome assembled, but
there is one repeat region that the assemblers have a lot of
difficulty with. I may have enough data (the mitochondrion had
176x coverage in the Illumina run), but the DNA fragments may be
too short to disambiguate the repeats.
I couldn't work on the project, since the computer is in the bedroom
and I didn't want to wake my wife. Eventually I went to the living
room to read for a couple of hours.
Around 6:00? Went back to bed and slept.
10:30? got up, had breakfast, read yesterday's Science Times from the
NY Times.
11:30: checked my e-mail, responded to a comment on my blog, checked a
report that the web service at work had failed (seemed ok to
me), started this time log.
11:40-13:05
worked on the mitochondrial assembly. The
early-morning idea was a complete failure, doing a worse job than
approaches I had used previously.
13:05-13:20
responded to e-mail and blog comments
13:20-14:10
lunch and read NY Times
14:10-14:15
read e-mail
14:15-14:37
shower and get dressed
14:37-14:40
read e-mail
14:40-15:02
walk to drugstore to pick up prescription
15:02-16:26
more attempts at improving the mitochondrion assembly
using hand patching of contigs
16:26-16:28
check e-mail
16:28-16:47
more attempts at improving the mitochondrion assembly
using hand patching of contigs
16:47-17:41
prune ollallieberries and mow front lawn. I've been
putting off the mowing for a while, so the grass and
weeds have gotten pretty long, so the mowing took
quite a while, even though the patch of lawn is small.
I'm dreading doing the back yard, which is larger and
which has grass over a meter all now. By the end of
the mowing of the front yard, my nose was all stuffed
up---I think I'm allergic to whatever is growing on
the leaves of the sycamore trees, since this happens
every time I mow the front lawn.
17:41-17:55
read the newspaper on line
17:55-18:20
read Comic News and drink tea
18:20-19:52
more work on hand-assembling contigs
19:52-20:42
dinner with family
20:42-21:58
more hand assembly of the mitochondrion. I managed to
close the circle (sort of), but I still have a couple
of low-coverage regions in the repeats that indicate
mis-assembly. I may be able to make some guesses and
set variant bases differently in different copies of
the repeat, but I don't know if that will be enough to
fix the problems.
21:58-22:04
read email
22:04-22:18
read blogs
22:18-22:25
sit-ups and leg lifts with my son
22:25-22:43
read blogs
22:44-22:56
took pills, brushed teeth, and prepared for bed
22:56-23:00
read a bit of a fantasy novel before falling asleep
Uid 22
Strange sleep - was sweating one moment, freezing the other. Yep, I got a cold.
Today, big "end-of-school" day today. Daughter finished 6th grade which means a new school next
year and one of the sons 9th grade which mean high-school for him. Of course the schools had
managed to organize the celebrations at the same time and since it's 20 km between the schools ...
Anyway, one of the parents was there ... in wheelchair. He got a some kind blood-cloth in a nerve
center a few months ago which means that he now can't walk and have problems using his arms and
his fingers. Must be pretty hard to go to bed as usual one evening and wake up partly paralyzed.
Makes you think.
Well, trying to work at home for the rest of the day ... which turns out to be pretty difficult since
daughter and friend apparently must be "talking" constantly to know where their heads are <DEEP
sigh>
Tried a learn more about JavaScript until it was time to go into town and have dinner to celebrate.
Became dead tired at the restaurant and almost fell asleep. When I come home I fell asleep in the sofa.
Uid 23
Week 8 of 10 in our Summer Term.
Not sleeping well, keep waking up at 4.30 am thinking of all the work that needs doing - and have
given up trying to get back to sleep. So spent a couple of hours or so giving feedback on the latest
PhD student draft before breakfast.
Started the working day with a BA Special Cases meeting to discuss students with major problems
affecting their studies. One lass has not produced the evidence we need of a major crime against her,
and we are beginning to wonder if it is true, given some other circumstances. If it is true she really
needs our support - aggghhh, so little time to spend on these things that are so important for the
individuals involved. Without our recommendation she'll fail the year...
Then an MA student advice session on writing a dissertation - piloted some materials that arise from
my research project, which worked well. This was followed by an MA disseration project presentation
to the whole group by one of my supervisees who missed our MA conference as she was away
collecting data. A garbled rush - such a pity as she had some good points to make... Spent time at the
end arranging an evening they can all come round to my home for dinner. I always do that for our MA
and PhD students at this time of year. Thought of not doing it this year as I am exhausted, but feel that
is Being Pathetic! Anyway, sods law, the only time they can all come is next Monday, so it'll have to
be then, even though next week is HORRENDOUS on the work front.
Next: office hour tutorials with an anorexic BA tutee who really worries me, and a failing
international student who has to resubmit work to me for two failed modules. This person brought me
a huge box of chocolates and told me they'll lose their job if they don't get the MA. Could not reject
the gift, as it would be so rude in the student's culture to do that, so accepted it on behalf of all the
team... They will fail, I am pretty sure - ghastly situation all round...
Then more feedback on PhD draft chapters.
Oh, and I'm supposed to be writing a review of my work for my Staff Development Review with
someone who does not know me or our programmes in the other wing of the new mega-department
we are in. What's the point? I am sure she wants to do it as little as I want to have it. The only point of
SDRs as far as I'm concerned is if the person reviewing you knows you and your work and can Be
Appreciative and Make Suggestions!
Grrr - sounding miserable. I am not really, just feeling it is all relentless and can only get worse next
year with more students and fewer staff...OK - so I AM miserable, but the real reason for that is the
cancer diagnosis of a much respected colleague and dear friend of many years...
Uid 24
I am creating my entry for June 15th a day early, as I will be traveling overseas for a short visit to my
mother and sister. I will be in airports or in airplanes all day long. While I don't relish the
airports/airplanes, perhaps I can catch up a little on my pleasure reading!
Uid 28
My morning meetings were both held in a different campus to my usual workplace. The journey there
ends with a long hill to cycle up that always leaves me breathless when I arrive. I kid myself that it is
getting easier but I think I just know what to expect now.
The first meeting is to discuss recruitment of Indian students to post-graduate taught courses. We have
an hour or so of discussion, centring on the provision of summer schools providing bridging modules
(which my colleague from another department seems confident of staffing, though I wonder how we
are going to support this extra workload in our stretched department, denuded by voluntary
redundancies). The international recruitment officer then informs us that Indian students will not
come to the UK after the suspension of the Post-Study Work Visa. We decide to strategically suspend
our recruitment activities for a year and attention turns to possibilities of recruitment in other parts of
the world.
I am invited to a further recruitment meeting focussing on a different country but am now losing the
will to live and luckily have a different meeting to attend. This is to finalise a presentation at a
conference the following day about Flood Heritage. Our collaboration is multi-disciplinary, where I
and a colleague provide the technical perspective while others are more interested in the conceptual
underpinnings. We have an outline presentation but some of the graphics are very clunky and I
volunteer to improve these.
The ride back to my own campus is through a park and along a cycle path which is normally full of
dog-walkers, parents and toddlers but the threat of rain and promise of lunch keeps them indoors and I
have a clear run. I have been out of the office on external examining duties for the previous two days
and have a back-log of emails to catch up with. Masters students are worried about producing their
dissertation proposals and call in to discuss them; I catch up with colleagues about the latest proposed
restructuring plan (do more work for less money) and our indignant response and counter-suggestion
(senior management should show a lead by taking less money themselves, first). There is also
discussion about some research and development work – now that teaching has finished we are
starting to have time to think about such matters.
It is late afternoon by the time I start on the presentation and as usual it takes longer than I expect. I
arrive home at about 7.30pm to an empty house. My husband is on a visit to the local sewage works –
fascinating. I hear over dinner that the publicity officer does not feed her children corn-based snacks
as she noticed they survive the journey to the sewage works intact. What do they put in them?
Uid 31
Today is a Wednesday. It's summer.
I wake up when the alarm goes off at 6:30 a.m. At the beginning of the
summer, when classes ended, my husband and I decided to keep our alarm
clocks set for 6:30 a.m. so we would still put in a full day's work even
though I no longer have 8 a.m. classes to teach. (He works at home;
his schedule is flexible all year.) However, our mornings are decidedly
more relaxed during the summer. He dozes while I am in the bathroom,
and doesn't get up until I'm done. I pick out my clothes when I get
dressed in the morning, instead of laying them out the night before. We
dawdle over breakfast and the newspaper (and my husband, his iPad) and
fold a load of laundry together before my husband walks me over to my
office. I arrive a little after 8:30, which has been my usual this
summer, and wave hello to a colleague at the other end of the building
before kissing my husband goodbye and heading upstairs.
I spend the morning working on a journal article that probably should have
been written a year ago...but I needed some distance from the work to see
that there was, indeed, something interesting to say about it. And
furthermore, conference publication is the norm in my field; I've never
written a journal article before. I'm feeling some pressure as I want
to submit it before I come up for tenure in the fall. Miraculously, last
week's article on the Tomorrow's Professor mailing list was a week by
week plan for how to write a journal article in 12 weeks. I decided to
follow it and I'm feeling much more confident about how to approach it. I
spent last week choosing a paper to revise. I had thought I had known
what I was going to write, but surprised myself with the realization that
that idea was not ready yet and a different conference paper was begging
for revision. So I jotted down ideas last week. Yesterday I wrote the
first half of the abstract for the paper - I've never written the abstract
of a paper first before. Today I wrote the second half of the abstract
and I feel really good about it. I also started putting new section
headers into the paper since I am significantly shifting its focus.
Tomorrow I'll start fleshing out notes on what will go in each section.
I got a little distracted by a problem with my revision control system---I
keep all my papers and my bibliography under revision control---but stayed
on task for the most part. I rewarded myself by leaving a bit early
for lunch, at 11:30. I also put a star on my calendar to record that
I put in my writing time for today.
I had lunch at home with my husband. I cooked up a quick dish---corn
fritters---and left my husband to clean up while I went for a walk,
watching the time carefully so I could get back to work by 1:30.
I know...that was a two hour lunch...but I never seem to exercise except
by taking longer lunch breaks. I probably should go to lunch at 11:30
more often. I love having the flexibility to take long lunches, and I
love living so close to my office (a five-minute walk).
I returned at 1:30 for the Daily Scrum with my summer research students.
This is a short meeting, part of our agile software development process,
where we each answer three questions: 1) What have you done since the last
Daily Scrum? 2) What do you plan to do between now and the next Daily
Scrum? 3) What is blocking you? I report out along with my students. As
usual, my students are blocked on some tasks. One is a question about
scheduling an evening meeting with our project client. Another concerns
coding standards - naming files and variables. A third is a small
technical problem. I sit down with one student after the Scrum and we
debug the problem in about five minutes. Finally, they need me to play
the participant in their pilot usability study, which I had earlier
promised to do. But they aren't quite ready yet.
So, I catch up on my email---I hadn't looked at it in the morning while I
was busy writing---while they are preparing. I see that there is finally
an agenda for the faculty development workshop I am participating in next
week, so I print it out, look over the materials, and make sure it's all
on my calendar. My students come to get me in the middle of composing
an email to a committee I chair for my professional organization, but
that is okay.
The pilot usability study is fun. I really enjoy doing these things.
I role play the chatty participant, ignorant of design and just focused on
doing the task my way, while occasionally breaking character to suggest
tips from my experience to make the study run more smoothly. (It is their
first study of the summer---so I expect there were more of these today
than there will be in the future.) I have some further suggestions after
the study is over. But overall the study went very well, and I tell my
students so. Their first "real" participant is coming tomorrow at noon.
I go back to my desk to finish composing the committee email. But soon a
herd of students stampedes past my office. I see it is 3 p.m. - time for
the weekly Science Tea. Indeed, my students have left the research lab.
I follow them with $10 in my pocket in the hopes of making change for
participant compensation from the donation jar. Indeed, I get the $8
I needed (leaving $2 in donations). I spend the half-hour talking with a
peer in math; we end up deciding to go out to lunch next Monday and I
write it on the palm of my hand so I don't forget between there and my
office. I also had a conversation on the way there with another
colleague. I've served on a committee with her before, and I'm interested
in her research, so I asked her what her summer students are doing. We
talked again about collaborating in the future; maybe trying to go to a
relevant conference together in a couple years.
On the way back, I go to the college bookstore to buy envelopes for
participant compensation. Once I get back to my office, I take the
envelopes and cash over to the lab and count it out, asking my students to
keep the envelopes in a safe place for tomorrow.
Finally, I return to my office to the committee email I started composing
more than an hour ago. I finish that and add some faculty development
workshops I had forgotten about to my annual Faculty Activity Report,
which is due at the end of the month. And I start writing this diary,
spending far longer than I probably should. By this time it is 4:30 p.m.
I take a break by going to my institution's homegrown social networking
site, where I keep in touch with alumni and students away for the summer.
In posting my own news about writing a journal article, I discover a group
for academics. I waste far too much time adding some of my favorite
resources---including, ironically, one on productivity---spending more
than 45 minutes in all.
I need to figure out how to be more productive in the afternoons.
I decide to work on a project I am hoping to finish up this week migrating a research-related web server off my desktop computer so the
sysadmin can finally update the OS. I'm still testing the site on the new
server, where it seems to have acquired various bugs. Fix some problems,
choose content to hide, start slogging through security updates. I should
hire a student to do this.
It gets a little out of hand with module dependencies and I end up staying
until 7:00 - an hour later than I meant to. Oof. And oops.
When I get home, my husband is making dinner and fixing one of the kitchen
cabinets. He is the complete package. I change from work clothes into
"play" clothes and we have dinner on the back patio. Afterwards, I pick
strawberries---throwing away more than I keep since it has been
raining, and aquiring one serious mosquito bite before putting on bug
spray---and clean them at the kitchen sink while my husband tidies up
the dinner dishes and then reads on the patio. I waste an hour or so
reading web comics and blogs on my laptop, then pick up my Kindle and
start the next novel in the series I am reading, and finally take a shower
to wash off the bug spray before bed. Lights out a bit after 11 p.m.
Uid 34
15 June 2011
=============
00:01 - 01:00 Work on a script to process automatic marking results from MatLab into a format
capable of being uploaded into Excel and hence into Moodle. If only students would obey the
instructions on what to call their coursework!
01:00-01:30 Write reference for a colleague in the Computing Service
07:00-08:40 Wake up, breakfast (do an e-mail task for a colleague while it's cooking), shave, shower
etc. Kitchen sink is blocked.
08:40-09:00 To bus stop via Waitrose to buy "Mr Muscle". Meet former Medical centre receptionist,
and discuss my visit to a mutual friend last weekend in San Jose last week/weekend: first time I'd
been in a four-robot household.
09:00-09:10 Bus to University
09:10-09:45 Buy coffee, answer e-mail etc.
09:45-10:45 Discussion with research student and other supervisor, interrupted by having to lend
spare house key to a colleague who has locked herself out.
10:45-11:00 Confidential discussion
11:00-11:40 Briefing from PVC(T) on the Open Day next week. There is still a lot of "current plans
are ..." and "unless Government policy changes ..."
11:40-12:10 See colleague with bullying problems (but she's not there), book train tickets for
tomorrow (seminar in Canterbury) and buy lunch.
12:10-13:10 UCU Local Association meeting (I'm pensions rep., and the USS changes have been
formally announced)
13:10-14:10 Alcoholics Anonymous Meeting.
14:10-14:30 Walk back to my office via buying a cup of coffee
14:30-15:00 Check exam scripts
15:00-15:10 Brief HoD on Open Day meeting
15:10-15:45 Weekly progress meeting with part-time research student & colleagues
15:45-16:00 Query from morning's research student
16:00-16:15 E-mail US expert introducing afternoon's research stduent and her query: hope they meet
at the conference in a couple of week's time.
16:15-16:45 Discuss marking scripts (see 00:01)
16:45-17:30 E-mail reading, mail trains times to Canterbury etc.
17:30-17:45 Research student (morning)
17:45-18:15 Trip to Canterbury - find campus map etc.
18:15-18:30 Discuss marking scripts (see 00:01)
18:30-18:37 Administration - Department Review Report.
18:37-22:45 Bus to town (meeting Professor of German & discuss student recruitment), then
Alcoholics Anonymous Meeting, and home via station to collect tickets (see 11:40); start dinner.
22:45-23:15 e-mail: mostly catching up with a redundancy case I've been advising on. irregularities
admitted, but case dismissed.
23:15-23:22 work on dinner
23:22-23:37 paperwork related to consultancy, and more e-mail.
23:37- Dinner!
TRAC return: 11.5 hours work; also 3.5 hours AA and 10 minutes consultancy.
Uid 38
This is the time of year when people say to me "Are your students finished now? So you're on holiday
until September". Well, no actually, I'm as busy as any other time, if not more so - hence the fact that
I'm submitting my diary entry even later than I usually do.
Diary day is the third day of a Microsoft .NET CPD course I'm delivering to other members of staff.
This is a pilot run for a new course which I'm committed to deliver to real clients soon. Delivering
training courses is a very different process from teaching students - easier in some ways, no exam
papers and no marking, for example, but harder in others. The material can be very concentrated and
"techie", and the audience can be very demanding. It's useful to be seen to be generating income - we
have a new Dean and so far I haven't heard him utter a sentence without the word "money" in it.
Traing was cut short today, though, by the need to attend a program leaders' meeting to discuss
induction arrangements for next session, and a department meeting. This may be the last meeting of
this particular department, as we are Reorganising - we don't yet know what department we are going
to be in or who is going to be the HoD.
Finally, the evening was spent running the usual taxi service for kids, and then getting round late on to
preparing for the next day of the training course.
On holiday until September, indeed...
Uid 45
Some faculty don't darken the door in the summer, but I have so much to do! Reports about the
student computer club must be submitted by August 1. I must prepare for a fall course that I haven't
taught in many years. Working on a textbook that might be finished someday. Must work on some
other publications, also, before fall arrives. Signing forms for students. No teaching this summer, but
when would I have the time?
Uid 47
15 June 2011
8:45 am Some mornings can't be described. I made it to work, so that's something.
9:30 Reviewed the job description narrative for the department secretary. Human Resources is
conducting a reclassification process which appears to mean that Human Resources hires a consultant,
the consultant tells all of us to rewrite the job descriptions into a new form, and then nothing happens.
They'll probably do this every few years.
10:50 just became obvious that the edits I did on the secretary job description were ignored by the
secretary when she put it into the online form required by HR. So why did she ask me to look it over
and make changes?
10:55 Oh god, now she sent it back for further suggestions. Do I suggest she use the edits I originally
sent? This is why being a manager sucks.
11:30 Finished today's grading for my TR evening course. Looks like exponential functions are not
everyone's friend and it was clear last night that power functions aren't so great either. Some retrenching may be in order for tomorrow's class. Time to prep, I guess.
11:50 How is it possible that a student asks a question about a grade within two minutes of my posting
it? That's incredible! And the question was whether I meant to record it in the wrong category, so nice
save. Also, trying again with the secretary position description. This time I tried to be more clear that I
had attached a document and that I want this to be what is used. I also changed the name of the
document so it couldn't be mistaken for the same file just because it has the same name.
I'm either not cut out for management or I'm just so tired of being department chair that these are the
kinds of stupid things that drive me crazy.
12:30 Dealing with office space issues. It is nearly impossible to get anyone to commit to giving us
space but I have two new people coming into the department this year and they need someplace to
park their rears.
1:30 Might have a plan for office space but I still don't know how to cover all of the fall courses with
the staff I have, unless an adjunct is willing to teach at both 8:30 am and 4:00 pm. I met with my new
full-time visiting faculty as she winds her way through the hiring paperwork. It turns out I don't have
her transcript because they sent a link electronically and it ended up in my spam folder. So it goes.
My daughter is now visiting, reading quietly in the corner. I guess one of the plusses of working in
academia is the ability to have her at work when necessary.
2:30 Giving up on figuring out the fall schedule. Trying to write a quiz while evaluating transfer
credits and dealing with parents who want their children to have the ideal fall schedule, which of
course is never the one they already have. Time to send the daughter off to visit the doctor.
3:45 Today is the day for massive interruptions. Finally finished the quiz while dealing with an
onslaught of advising questions, helicopter parents, the occasional, "just stopping by to say hi," and
updates on my daughter's doctor visit (for the historical record: her allergy medicine isn't working and
she probably isn't sleeping well as a result). Prior to today, my summer has been pretty quiet and I
could easily schedule time slots to work on course prep, administrative tasks, and office cleaning
(with a glimmer of hope to actually get some research done in the future). Today it has blown up in
my face.
4:50 Forgot to prep some material (a summary sheet of concepts and formulas) for my evening class;
looks like I've got it done just in time to run off and teach for a few hours.
8:10 Let's sum up this evening's class: utter disaster. In lower-level math classes I like to use problems
from the textbook in class so when they do homework they can see that we did similar problems in
class. This particular problem came up about 2.25 hours into what should be a 3.25 hour class, so in
prepping the class I consciously decided to not calculate the values, just leaving boxes in my notes -gives us spontaneity, they know they really need to give me the answer (and this far into the class they
should be able to), we really work the problem together -- it generally works well for me. But
everyone got an error as they calculated. Okay, the formulas are complicated and this is a *very* lowlevel math course, so try again. Hmm, still errors. So I pull out my calculator and, whoops, I get an
error too. Haha, try again. But no, this error isn't going away. Yeah, eventually I pull the problem
apart and realize the error is a real error -- the problem doesn't fit the case we're studying. By this time
the students are mentally out of the game and getting through anything else was nearly impossible.
And all I would have had to do was calculate the values while prepping -- which I consciously
decided not to do.
This fits my overall day which has careened from one task to another, filled with interruptions and
resulting in little of value. But I hate having that experience happen to my students. I understand all
the cute life lessons I could claim they gain from this, but these are adults, they already know life
throws crap at us so having this hit them in the face does not add value.
So now I have to design homework to reinforce the concepts of the lovely classroom learning we just
experienced.
9:05 Homework written. Now I really need to prep the class I teach tomorrow. (This is the class that I
wanted to start prepping at 11:30 am this morning.)
10:30 Wife calls wondering if I'm coming home. Not quite done prepping.
11:00 Class prepped, homework written. Get me out of here!
Uid 52
Today was the final day at a conference for me, so we had a useful set of meetings this morning,
before tackling the 6-7 hour journey home. Most of the day was spent sitting in the passenger seat of a
car getting a lift home from a colleague. However, this opportunity to sit and chat with a colleague
from another institution and discuss relevant academic issues at both our institutions was very
welcome. Whilst we also talked about non-academic things, it was still very useful to have the
opportunity to ask about contrasting ways in which our institutions do things. Unfortunately much of
the discussion was dominated by talk of redundancies and restructuring. Home quite late and over a
hundred emails to catch up on before checking over my plans for an assessment event I am running
tomorrow.
Uid 53
I'm on paternity leave this week for our second child - this is towards the end of the second week - so
of course, it's all plain sailing now :-) I"m getting used to doing most of the looking after of my son,
while my wife looks after the new baby. I'm even getting time to work on a load of things that need
attention in the flat, only three months after we returned from the US.
I'm (almost) not reading work email at all. It seems to have broken on my laptop anyway, so I can
only get it on my iPhone, and I can't do anything serious on that. My wife commented today that the
pretty-well complete break from work, to be replaced with the solving of entirely tractable problems
around the house, seems to be doing me a lot of good.
Is there a lesson in here for me? I love to fix things. Yet so many of my work projects seem to be
either hugely open-ended, or impossibly broken. Hence not much completion going on! But now I
look at it that way, i can see that my approach to the projects is actually the problem - I've slipped into
impossibility. Rather than viewing them as open-ended or broken, I need to identify and take a step at
a time. Oh, and of course, simply drop the ones that I discern to be really truly broken! (Potentially)
simple, really.
Good stuff, this diary writing. I'll let you know whether I've made any progress on my work projects,
as well as my flat projects, next time!
Uid 60
On June 15th, I taught graduate students from 7 to 10:30 pm. Therefore, I spent the morning preparing
for class and clearing my mailbox. In the mail, apart from the usual queries from students and notices
from administration, there was an invitation from the Head of the undergraduate school to join
Yammer. So now we have a university social network site and I have one more daily task to monitor
the discussions among colleagues. I barely get time to surf Facebook and do not quite relish the extra
demand on my time, even if it is meant to "increase productivity".
I spent the afternoon attending a press conference to launch a Business-IT business plan competition
among local universities. I am all for strengthening the links between local businesses and students. It
gives an opportunity to our students to do summer internships and opens up their eyes to local career
prospects. It was time well spent to meet industry leaders and educationists.
My graduate class is everything I hope for. My students are smart, funny, and enthusiastic. They are
so different from my undergraduate students. It is so much more challenging to motivate the
undergraduates. The graduate students are all working professionals and bring a refreshing
perspective to the issues we discuss in class.
Two weeks to summer vacation and hibernation!
Uid 64
I was away from the university on Tuesday, so had to get up at 4.30 to get back to campus for 8am.
I'm teaching all day - we run professional courses at this time of year. Spend the two hours on the
train finishing off the afternoon session planning. Not an ideal situation, but it has been a busy year
and I'm not as organised as I would have liked. In to the office by 8am, which gives me time to
organise the resources I need before going off to the main campus for teaching. I'm encumbered with
whiteboard markers, flipchart sheets and coloured stickers. It's like a flashback to the early 90s.
I have a break at lunchtime, but use it to see a dissertation student. Then, three more hours teaching in
the afternoon. Just as we are due to finish, the heavens open and everyone is tempted to stay for
another half an hour. I wish it was due to my wonderful teaching, but I think it was probably the
weather.
Uid 65
An early start today (again). Up at 5.30am and at my desk in work by 7am. After dealing with my
inbox and collecting up some paperwork, I leave for the train to York. I haven’t been looking forward
to today – a grey, dry meeting is anticipated, around a process that I’ve only been peripherally
involved in. I arrive at the station to meet one of my colleagues to find that the other won’t be coming
as she is sick. This is alarming because I perceive her to be the one with all the answers and
experience. Ah well, we will just have to wing it – something I have become expert at since becoming
a lecturer in HE.
I spend the day at the Higher Education Academy in a small meeting / workshop around accreditation.
It’s a very relaxed environment, very supportive and encouraging, and I find myself really enjoying
the experience. Contrary to my expectations, everyone else is in the same boat – in fact we are
somewhat ahead of the game in many respects. I find that I actually know much more about the
process than I thought I did and come away with a boost to my confidence. I even enjoyed the train
journey with my colleague, with some good conversation and debate. I arrive back at the office
around 6pm and determine to go straight to the car park, not venturing into my office for fear of
collecting up more jobs on the way. All in all, a good day - not at the office.
Uid 67
For a change I was barely in the office today. We’ve had lots of ‘it’s nearly holiday time’ meetings
preparing for the next academic year. Our department is in flux and it’s uncomfortable. They’ve
interviewed for all the posts but no one’s been appointed and there are worries that the new dean’s
misogyny will play a part in making significant changes to our managers. One wonders how someone
who stares right through women assuming they all work in admin and have nothing intelligent to say
could be appointed to head of school in 2011, but then again, nothing surprises me at this stage.
The meetings were followed with a research seminar that was interesting, but not quite as inspiring as
I’d hoped. The discussion that followed the presentations was far more interesting than the
presentations themselves but the ideas it inspired were nothing new.
I returned to my office to late applications and recently submitted digital portfolios only to be
interrupted by a colleague who was about to take her holidays. A couple hours later, it’s nearly 7pm
and we’ve discussed a range of subjects in our uncomfortable office chairs. I kept thinking, we really
out to leave the building and continue somewhere more pleasant, but it would’ve interrupted the flow.
But, this is one of the highlights of this time of year, the chance to talk to your colleagues at length
without anyone having to rush off to teach. So often it is about work, but sometimes it’s just about life
and it’s a welcome break.
Still, with only one more working day before I too take my holidays, I keep thinking there's
something else I should be doing or that I've forgotten...but I guess that's always the way.
Uid 71
A ridiculous day.
I commute to work and stay at a colleagues house regularly. It's great fun and I owe her many favours.
This morning she has to go to a meeting in another city so I take her toddler to nursery. This is the
first time I do this but it will be a regular thing for awhile. I am really pleased that she has this new
project on the go. It is a real marker of esteem and I am pleased that it has gone to her instead of a
(senior, male) academic. I am sure she will do a very good job. Taking her child to nursery is a new
thing but it reflects an unspoken form of solidarity amongst the women. They are much more likely to
volunteer to help each other our, especially when it comes to balancing personal life and work life.
Today, a colleague organised a post graduate conference on ethnographic research. I agreed to speak
about emotions in research. I had not really prepared that well. I spent some time the previous day
trying to write a script but found writing about my emotions very difficult so decided to wing it. I got
a bit emotional in the middle and my colleague asked if I wanted to stop but I carried on. The
discussion was really really good. Supportive and probing and it felt like a very productive experience.
I had to leave before the end of the conference so didn't hear students reactions. My colleague texted
to say that the feedback was good.
I had to run off to hear my PhD student do a presentation (which is routine at the end of her 1st year).
She is in a different faculty. She had come to my office the day before to run through the presentation
and was not her usual self. We had a good chat and she is a bit depressed and can't wait to go home
for the summer. I hope she felt better for having a chat about it.
After that I had to (literally) run for the train. My mother came to visit (this journey takes about 8
hours) - a surprise visit! This was really appreciated but this was the worst time to come as it is such a
busy time. By the time I arrived I was feeling a bit frazzled. A gin and tonic then out for my birthday
dinner. I'll be 30 this weekend!
Uid 72
Working on various admin tasks from 9:00-11:00, firstly at home then at the Univeristy. See research
students from 11:00-12:30ish, then a resitting project student for about 10 minutes.
At 12:30 the first of our external examiners arrives to look through material for the exam board
tomorrow. I take the examiner to lunch at around 13:00 and then return to go through some of the
exam material. I see another research student for around 30 minutes at 14:00, then return to talking to
the external examiners until about 15:30, when I go to a research discussion group, arrive slightly late,
until about 17:00. Then I spend another hour or so talking to the examiners and travel into town with
them. I go home for an hour or so, then head out to meet the examiners for dinner at about 19:00.
Uid 75
8:50am Off to a slow start today but I have been since shifting house two weeks ago and now I am
looking at moving to a new permanent position at the end of the month. My contract was to run out
here at UoB at the end of the month and they did offer a six months extension but Aston offered an
interview for a permanent position almost at the same time so the permanent position has won out.
I will still supervise MSc project students over the summer for UoB but that works both ways since
they need supervisors and I have a personal interest in some of the projects.
It was also a slow start this morning because we went out last night to celebrate with the
demonstrators who assisted with the Team Java module. They are a good group and we had a good
time. A bit sad that there won't be another celebration.
Into a bit of tidy up mode initially this morning as I sort through papers on my desk and work out
what should be kept and what can be thrown.
As I look ahead to the day, I have a series of meetings with MSc students so I should be kept fairly
busy.
Facebook tells me I have a spammy link. Strange but I don't click on many links so who is doing the
spamming? Facebook by any chance!
11am First project student meeting completed. She needed a lot more assistance than I had expected.
11:21am I thought I had a meeting with the lecturer who was going to take over one of the courses but
he doesn't seem to be in. Never mind, I have used the time to sort and discard a back log of notes.
1pm The other lecturer turned up and we talked for almost an hour and a half. Again disappointment
expressed that I am moving on but understanding that a permanent position is better than short term
contracts. Still we had a good talk about the team work course and how it has been structured and
what I might have done differently had I been running it again.
1:30pm Second project student meeting completed. Difficult to determine whether this student
understands what is required. Language barrier is part of the problem but the student does seem
confused. Had to emphasise the importance of understanding the theory behind the model that she
wants to implement and not just understanding the case that she hopes to model.
3:30pm Two more meetings with project students completed. One was concerned about whether his
project was appropriate. The other just needed to clarify the direction of the project. Most do not
consider evaluation when they are preparing these proposals.
In the gaps between the meetings, I have managed to send the Head of School a draft proposal for a
computing education paper. I am not sure what will happen to it now that I am moving on.
16th June, 9:10am Didn't get to complete the entry yesterday. The last student meeting happened at
4pm and then it was off home for a quick meal before coming back to pick up a student and head to
the Wolverhampton Track Cycling League meeting. The student is one of my project students and is
looking at a training system for track commissaires. He had never seen track racing but had watch
some YouTube videos. I ended up as the chief commissaire for the evening. Its a role that I enjoy
because you are more focussed on riding technique and whether fair racing is occurring. You still
have to do the administrative paper work at the end but that isn't that difficult. A good organiser
makes it even easier and these leagues have good organisers.
Last week had been a road race with another student as my scribe. It had also been a fairly easy race
to commissiare so didn't really give a feel for the problems that a commissaire might face. Still both
events seemed to give the students an idea of what is involved.
Uid 77
Share: 15th June
The only problem with this project is that is illustrates with monotonous regularity just how fast the
year is moving. Is it really a month since the last time I completed this?
Quiet morning at home; the only crisis was the lack of orange juice (so driven rather than cycled to
work so as to fit in a visit to the supermarket on the way home). Met a colleague on the stairs and
briefly discussed a career development issue of common interest, before even getting to my desk.
My email inbox has crept up to 200 again! So the first task this morning is to weed out those I no
longer need. The main task of today is my role in a University event for 16-18year olds from local
schools. They come to the campus for the day to find out what University is all about. As admission
tutor I have to give a 45 minute talk on my subject (Medicine). However, I have to repeat it 4 times! I
am not sure whether the large bouncy castle that I saw sitting next to the student bar yesterday has
anything to do with the event.
So several emails later (about 25 removed from box!) mostly queries relating to admissions; the whole
range about application for next year, feedback on unsuccessful application this year, and what to do
about someone to whom we are considering making an offer, but realise we don’t have evidence of
their qualifications! Oh and problem solving when staff have failed to turn up to assist in assessment.
Well I’ve given my ‘admission’ talk 3 times in a row to the 6th formers visiting the University who
are hosting a Higher Education Open Day. I almost know it now! And I’ve one more rendition after
lunch. Actually, it is quite good to be able to amend it and try it out again almost straight away, and I
feel it is much slicker now, and ready for open day next month. I have had the odd moment of ‘deja
vu’; did I say that just now or was it to the last group of students? Managed to grab 5 minutes to pop
over to the shop to get lunch, which I am eating while checking my email and writing this. Also had
my (85 year old) father phone about a family business matter. I hope I am still as switched on and
aware when I’m his age.
4th and final admission talk went well, with several of the young people staying behind to ask
questions; too well really because it meant I was late for my next meeting!
I was supposed to be at a research meeting at 3.30, but as is so often the case the urgent (in this case
exam marks) pushed out the important. We had to check the borderline candidates’ marks (for the
third time) and double check a couple of MCQ answers. It is finals, so high stakes. Currently it looks
like there are 15 or so who won’t be graduating this time round....but the exam board isn’t until Friday.
However, we still haven’t finished the checking and I was planning to work at home tomorrow, but
needs must....
So leaving the office now, only 5.30, to stop off at the supermarket on the way home. A girlie night in,
I think as the husband is out to dinner. After supper we can curl up in front of the TV and watch the
Apprentice!
Uid 78
15 June was my first day back at work after a week on leave (some of it in a very sunny Devon). The
first couple of days back at work after leave are always dreadful. No-one does my work while I'm
away so it piles up. As usual I felt completely overwhelmed and intimidated. I was also a bit sun
burned and annoyed that a sensible person like me should allow herself to get sunburned and I was
suffering with hay fever which involved constant sneezing and feeling very unwell. I spent the day in
the office trying to recover my equilibrium. On the whole - not a good day.
Uid 80
Interesting day. Received the invitation to contribute to the review of the SCQF level descriptors. This
is of considerable interest to me as I put in a tender with colleagues to do this work. Agreed amongst
colleagues how to give a University response. Discovered someone had searched for me on Academia
and thought it was about time I updated my profile - actually put anything in it actually. Along side
this I had a very weird phone call from someone who said they were from Anglia Ruskin. They were
suggesting they were secretarial and asked to check me out for a colleague who had been trying to
email. Received a Linkd in request, and started to sort this out but admit to being quite perplexed by
the whole face book style approach. Managed some reading around learning theory and style. Had a
very constructive conversation with a colleague about the future direction of one of largest
programme. Encouraged by our shared understandings. Progressed the new pathway curriculum
devleopment I am undertaking for RAF staff. Finally, had a conversation with a colleague writing a
discussion paper on the life/expiration of previously gained credit. I had read some research that
tended to suggest that not accepting old credit was probably a political decision rather than one based
on any real data. Need to look into this furhter.
Uid 82
Exam. Board.
That's what Weds 15 June was for me. The exam board was over in record time, thanks to the skillful
management of proceedings in the run-up to and during the board by the chief examiner and the
admin staff. Our students had done their best, and we did our best by them.
I had marked out most of the day for the boards but had some delightfully unexpected spare hours. I
wrote a few emails to students who were trying to work out dissertation topics and then prepared for a
meeting with a colleague from our learning and teaching support team about how to better support our
first years in getting to grips with writing essays at university.
A day involving students at all stages in the undergraduate lifecycle. And pleasing to know - although
the students didn't until the end of the week - that the third years would have cause to celebrate their
hard work. I will raise a glass to them myself tonight.
Uid 95
Marking and Exam. Meetings
The furore of exams. is over and the mark sheets are all done, ready for the internal examiners'
meeting on Friday. My main module is coursework-based so is completed before exams. It's the
admin. and chasing missing work that takes the time. Does my line manager really know how long I
take reading professional skills folders (PDP work plus the start of evidence and reflection for the
students' professional accreditation is about seven years from now)? Like me the students hate the
"reflective review" bit and level 1 students are not very good at this time of creative writing. The
exception is the small number of mature students.
I have also had rather higher number than usual of Level 3 projects to second mark most are in areas
where I have little knowledge but the theory is that second markers are looking for overall structure
and presentation, rather than technical content. We have to agree with the supervisors mark (more or
less) and I always seem way off with management-based reports. I put this down to being a scientist! I
also had a large discrepancy between myself, as first marker, and a second marker for a student who I
had supervised: I am convinced that the second marker only marked on spelling and presentation and
toally mis-understood the aims and objectives of the project. A third marker, fortunately, agreed with
my marks. In another case, in total agreement with the supervisor, we have failed one student. There
will be implications for his visa as he is an international student who won't be able to progress to
fourth year. Then again, the examiners might over-rule our decision. While we try to follow rules and
be consistent, I do sometimes wonder about decisions taken in the examiners' meeting that make life
easier for the staff.
Have made a decision to leave the module file, gathering of coursework samples, and the general
tidying up of teaching until all the examining stuff is finished when the external visits next week.
Being a Student Myself
Surprisingly I have found time to pick up on work for my teaching Diploma. This had been put on
hold because of the heavy marking load. Spent a couple of hours doing an on-line literature trawl for
"action research", updating notes, and starting to write up my own coursework. I am a typical student
with procrastinating tendencies until deadlines loom. Knowing the theory of time management and
imparting this to students is one thing: parctising what I preach is another! At least the interest was
sparked again so I am ready to continue the work and even set myself some intermediate deadlines.
Checked a few emails:
a) UCU encouraging attendance at emergency meeting re pensions. Much as I agree with their stance,
I am against strikes and don't think university staff will gain anything this time round.
b) Anxious students emailing about when results will be published (three weeks), references (not my
tutees so why can't their tutor write one - sorry tutors now on research trips!), and some from
"industrial contacts" who mean well with offers of help but can't fit in with the academic year. Reply
with platitudes as it's important to keep them "on-board".
c) Then I found the email about the workload data!!!
Under Valued
Every year my work load comes back that I only work about 70-80% of the time. This is because I
don't DO research. But what about my diploma research projects which are educational research?
"Research-led teaching" is a joke in this context.
Anyway, this year is BAD - I am only working less than 30% of the time. Given I start at 7.30 each
day and often come in one of the weekend days during the teaching period, I am devastated. Burst
into tears with the lack of support from colleagues and line managers. {I later emailed to make the
point that my role as induction co-ordinator, and year tutor x 2 has not been included: polite reply to
say that they know this). I've work at uni. a long time, am a graduate of this institution, and quite
frankly this is the final straw. We now have admin. people and managers who try to fill in paperwork
for the senior team without even asking what we do, and certainly not appreciating how we spend
time with students, deal with their traumas, and general make sure that the "student experience" is a
good one. With all this pressure to fit in little boxes, the human side of university has gone. Maybe in
2012 when the students are paying £9,000 the university will realise that you don't have to be a
researcher to be an academic, and that teaching involves caring for the students as well as delivering
lectures and amrking assessments.
Home
Travel home with partner whi has also had a bad day (rule is that we let off steam until we reach the
house and then stop). Anyway, he is in IT and reports that "they" are re-structuring again - must be
fifth time in ten years.
Being Wednesday I visit elderly mother who happens to be unwell. Hide my own sadness so I can
cope with hers. Partner out this evening so home to a solitary tea: thoughts racing around why I do
what I do, not appreciated, housework untouched because of all that marking.
Gloom lifts as dog comes over for a cuddle and polite request for a walk. Fresh air helps. Looked at
"The Apprentice" and marvel at so call intelligent people getting current project so badly wrong.
Tomorrow is another day.
Uid 98
The invitation to hearing from the Head of School prior to the Undergraduate Exam Panel was
intriguing enough to get an early attendance. However, it turned out not to be a pep-talk to pass more
students but just the taking of an opportunity to talk to cognate sections of the School.
So to the Panel. A mechanical exercise where there's a ruling not to permit discussion of individual
students. Academics must formally agree marks, even though we're the ones who submitted them
electronically. Is this odd? Well it turns out there were a number of adjustments to be made to the
marks at the Panel. Now I really don't understand that. So, if there is the opportunity of error, how
much stranger that the stated activity can only apply to coursework marks as examination marks may
only be held centrally; there's a mismatch between two regulations - not having a record of exam
marks (so that they cannot be hacked into?) against taking an independent check.
That a colleague was running a laptop during the Panel warned us that next year's Timetables had to
be sorted. The possible free time evaporated in poring over interlinked pages of modules, rooms,
students, staff. Just enought time for a quick lunch on the way to see individual PhD and MSc
students about their studies.
Home, for emails, ending just after half past eight, making a 12 hour day.
Uid 114
Today I have a 2 hour journey to get to campus (I usually work remotely). I decide to head off early
and thenI'll be able to go for a run whenI arrive before a series of meetings. Alas the train system says
no!
Arriving at Euston head of schedule I discover there are no trains. I'm directed to walk to Kings Cross
and catch a train for Bedford. When I arrive in Bedford some time later I'm told that it would have
been better to direct me via Luton instead - the next connection is nearly an hour! I walk into Bedford,
find the coach station, wait half an hour no realising there is a queue forming outside the bus station
and then only just get on the bus before it is declared full! Eventually after the bus and a cab I arrive
on campus4.5 hours after leaving home! Naturally it is my run that has to be cancelled as I'm already
late for the first meeting.
The afternoon meeting is with quite a large group and I have been complaining for months about how
badly run these meetings are and that they always go massively over time. In response to my
complaints I have been made Chair and today is the test or my ability to improve things.
It starts well and we are still on time after the first hour. It's hard to get a group of academics to
reconveine after teabreak and by our second tea break I have been renamed Miss Whiplash!
I'm really chuffed that we are running 5mins ahead of time when I hand over to the previous Chair
who has the final item which should be timed at 10 mins..... the meeting then runs over by half an
hour!
Oh well - it was definately an improvement and I'm pleased when several of my colleagues
compliment me on how well run it was.
Uid 116
9:34 AM: Today is the start of my third week of sabbatical. I'm working as a software engineer with a
mid-sized Mac/iOS software development company. We have just under 50 employees and about a
dozen consumer/retail productivity application. I'm thoroughly enjoying the work so far. It's nice to
not be so driven by deadline pressure—pressure to prepare lectures, to write assignments, to grade
assignments. Because this work is in a new area for me, I have much to learn. That's been a lot of fun.
Last week we went to Apple's Worldwide Developer Conference. It was exciting to see programming
language research ideas making their way into practical libraries and APIs. I'm always intrigued by
the ways in which practitioners choose to simplify and refine academic ideas.
11:30 AM: I spent the morning studying text layout documentation and formulating a bug fix.
12:30 PM: For the past hour I participated in a planning meeting on the next steps for the evolution of
one of our product families. It's a complex problem to balance customer expectations, the evolution of
the host platforms on which the product runs, competition, and engineering resources.
1:00 PM: One of the great perks that this company offers is three free meals a day. For breakfast,
we're on our own to fix toast or cereal. Lunch is a sit down affair with the whole company. For dinner
we can take food home for our families, or our families can join us hear. Communal dining really
helps to strengthen bonds. It's also a huge time saver.
2:00 PM: Completed a fix to a bug in a shipping product. The fix ended up being just 25 lines of code,
but required an understanding of several thousand lines.
2:45 PM: I met with our technical lead and another new engineer to review the code and discuss the
overall architecture of the application. After committing my fix to our source control repository, I
updated the bug in our bug database so QA knows to review the fix.
3:39 PM: After a mid-afternoon coffee, I caught up on email, read some technical specs, and started
looking at the next bug on my list.
5:00 PM: I determined that one of my assigned bugs affects the user interface in two other project
families. I consulted with developers on those teams about proposed changes.
5:30 PM: After dinner, I spent some time looking for code in our libraries that might already solve
part of the problem on which I'm working. Reuse is a challenge when the code base becomes so large.
6:00 PM: I found the code that solves this problem in another of our products. The solution there is
much more general than what is needed for the products on which I'm working. As such, I'll think
about doing this code from scratch. It will still be re-used in three product families. Seems like a good
stopping place for the day.
6:58 PM: The drawbridge on my route home stopped me for 10 minutes, but otherwise the commute
was easy tonight. I hope to start bicycling to work but need to figure out how I'm going to shuffle
clothes and computer back and forth. After I got home, I chatted with my wife over iChat. I'm in
Seattle and she's in Philadelphia until December. Hopefully we'll be done with living in two locations
then. It seems like we have to sacrifice choice of location to find interesting work. I know we
shouldn't complain, since we both have work now. Many, many others aren't so fortunate, and the pols
don't seem to care.
This sabbatical came just in time. I was getting very burnt out by the pace of teaching. Although my
course evaluations and conversations with our graduates told me that I was still touching students'
lives, I was focusing more and more on the parts of the job that make it work. I'll be interested to see
whether I'm missing teaching in the fall when my colleagues had back to the classroom. I'll also be
interested to see how I feel about my industry work in 12 months. Will the novelty wear off? Or is the
pace of change such that there is as much novelty in industry as in research?
Uid 119
The summer is still full of work. My day began with a meeting with administrators at a local high
school about how they might work with us on an NSF grant that we have just received. The meeting
went well, and then it was off to my office. There I responded to ever-present e-mail, and then revise
a handout for an upcoming workshop that I am presenting with a colleague.
One thing that I am able to do during the summer when I'm not teaching is take advantage of the pool
being open for a couple of hours at noon time. At one o'clock I went over to the pool and swim a mile
as I do almost every day. After my shower I headed over to our South campus for another meeting
with my colleagues in Music and a teacher from another local high school. After that meeting I stayed
to work with one of the Music professors and review some new tools that he had recently learned
about for combining computing and music.
By the time I got home and had dinner, there were 38 new e-mails that come in since I went to the
pool at 1:00 PM. It took me a couple of hours to go through all those, leaving some, filing some, and
writing answers to some. I did some accounting on University project as well.
Finally, at 9:30 PM, I got a chance to sit and write this journal entry.
It's been a busy day, but the Red Sox have beat the Tampa Bay Rays this evening, and the Bruins are
leading Vancouver at the end of the second period in the 7th and deciding game of the finals of the
Stanley Cup playoffs, so one cannot say it's been a bad day! :)
Uid 120
I'm on maternity leave! The baby isn't born yet though, so in addition to popping into town and
meeting a group of women I met at my antenatal classes for lunch I have also been trying to finish
writing my book. I had to raise £3k for the production of images for the press, but have since
discovered that this doesn't cover the cost of copyright permissions or scans. Since some of the picture
libraries I have used charge £100+ per image, I'm desperately trying to organise cheaper copies of all
the images as quickly as possible. And I have two chapters which need some pretty hefty revisions
before I resubmit the manuscript.
On top of that I have a museum talk and some prizes to organise - linked to the outreach project I ran
in March. My co-organiser doesn't seem to realise that I won't be able to drive 2 hours to the museum,
give a talk, and drive 2 hours back, when my baby is under two weeks old. So I am trying to help get
everything sorted out before I have the baby and don't leave him in the lurch too much.
I should have been marking exams and essays throughout this period. Instead I have been resting,
giving a paper in Aberdeen, and finishing off my research. I should go on maternity leave more often!
Uid 126
Wednesday 15th June
A long day and very warm. I am out in schools observing students so up early for a banana smoothie
(no strawberries added this morning) and serious fashion decisions to be made: trousers or dress, this
cardigan or that? Just how hot will it be? I project forward to the classrooms I will sit in, perched on a
tiny chair trapped in the hottest corner or by the freezing open door. A visit to a local school allows a
little time for lingering over coffee and e-mails. At this time of the term, there is more emphasis than
usual on student crises and colleague soothing. There is a reference to write for an administrative
colleague who I will be truly sad to lose from the team. The university is making major changes to its
administrative structure which I think will make life much less pleasant for our wonderful, really
wonderful , admin staff, and the lives of academics even more fraught. This colleague feels the need
to move to keep his sanity. I am sorry. I don’t finish the reference because I want to be sure it really
reflects his many fine qualities. And it makes me sad. Staff are going to have to move rooms also and
some of us will have to share. One colleague is in a flap. ‘Moving rooms will give me a nervous
breakdown.’ she says, and is only half joking.
I drive to a village not far from where i live and think, as I always do, about the wonder of small
country primary schools. I am a bit early so sit in the car and watch families arriving with buggies,
dogs, bicycles, precious boxes carefully carried containing some treasure or other and those enormous
rucksacks which look as if they will topple the wearer backwards at the slightest loss of balance. I
know this school fairly well and it is lovely to see al that is going on and the student welcoming me,
and loving it, despite family issues she is dealing with at the same time.
I observe a lesson on non-fiction with a lively well-behaved class and enjoy the way the student
encourages the children to talk to each other and to use talk to develop their thinking. It is something
that she experienced during her teaching placement in France and it is a pleasure to see. Afterwards
we talk, and she is so thoughtful and receptive and is interested by some of the suggestions I make
and sure that her class teacher will help her. When I meet the teacher, I share that view. Here is a
lively, funny, intelligent woman who really engages with the lives of children and the intellectual and
emotional life of learning. We talk about next steps and about the poetry competition held in the
county for children which i encourage her to enter children’s writing for. The student is keen to help
also.
I drive up to Norwich where I am to see the second student. On the way I stop to post a book my son
needs for exams he is taking. I stop off in a village and marvel at the postal service. And how nice it is
to enter the wooden floored room in what looks to be an eighteenth century building that houses the
Post Office. I arrive earlier than expected in Norwich and go to the supermarket to buy a sandwich
and some tomatoes for a dish that I think I will cook for supper. I sit and read the paper and look at
some articles I have on teaching reading. At they appointed time I drive to the large suburban primary
school where there are two students. I am to see a student in a Year 2 class and they will be doing
maths. Oh, it is so hot and the sun beats down. The lesson will be truncated because a postponed PE
lesson will take place. The student is valiant!
The lesson is about estimating and measuring using rulers and metre rules. All goes well, though I
think it is stressful for the student teacher and the final part of the lesson, conducted as children
change into shorts and t-shirts, is hard going. I talk with the teacher and feedback. It is all
straightforward. She is tired. The day before she had taken part in a whole school travelling the world
event and had spent the day making Mexican crafts: lovely, but exhausting!
Back to the university and the flood of e-mails that demand immediate attention scroll down my
computer screen. I talk to colleagues, make decisions, get angry at what is happening, calm down, am
pleased to see a colleague early so we have time to talk about joint projects, speak to a colleague on
the phone, talk to admin staff and so on and so on. I am aware that I am not speaking personally often
enough to members of the team.
And then, hurray, it is the writing teachers group and here is a new arrival –who is also a past student
and there are about eight of us. I am thrilled that two students who are on placement have come to the
group. How tired they both look. We write together and they just want to jkeep on writing. And we
have a cup of tea and there are biscuits, and they talk and talk about writing and teaching writing. I
mention a meeting in London about a national project and they all want to be a part of it. I am so
amazed and thrilled. I am especially thrilled by one student’s enthusiasm and byt he great distance he
has travelled during the year. My colleague and I talk about a paper we will be presenting at a
conference in July. Again, they are interested and want to talk about it and volunteer their own
experiences, keen to share how the writing group has changed them and their practice. And we have
time to hear a little of what people have written and it is always so surprising and affirming and again
and again, people say that they leave relaxed and happy.
A student wants to tell my colleague his story and I run to get a voice recorder and they talk and talk.
Later she says how moved she was by what he has to say. We are finding this work very exciting. It is
quite hard to shape it sometimes; quite hard to explain how deep and serious it is. While they are
talking I talk to one of the teachers about some work we would like him to do to cover study leave. He
is excited and I am able to introduce him to a newly appointed colleague who will share the teaching
with him. They are both excited!
She has come to meet me to talk through her viva to be held at the end of the month. She has just
completed a really interesting MA dissertation and we talk through some of its quirks and what she
might be asked to talk about and conceptual frameworks, data analysis and methodology. It is an
interesting and not straightforward piece of research. I hope that the viva goes well. Our talk drifts on
to her new house and the renovations she and her husband are planning and then she leaves to talk to
another colleague still here at twenty past eight and we go home.
I am too tired to cook anything fancy so chop tomatoes and eat cottage cheese. I check e-mails, again.
Is that wise at this hour of the night?
Bath, bed, an attempt at an interesting book of longitudinal studies of young readers and sleep.
Uid 127
Share Project
Wednesday 15th June, 2011
Marking season, silly season, season of ill-will to all men (and women)? This is the time of year when
academia can really grind you down. The students finished a few weeks ago (with the associated end
of year party) and then we all locked ourselves away to plough through the seemingly endless piles of
scripts. Luckily for me, I’m almost done, so I got to do a few other jobs today.
The first was definitely a lot of fun. I have plans for some lab work over the summer, and one of our
technicians was holding a training session for a piece of equipment I’d not really used before, but
would like to. I spent a thoroughly enjoyable couple of hours being a student again, helped by the fact
that he was a brilliant tutor, able to explain some complex concepts really effectively.
Then I put my external liaison hat on, as I took a group of Year 11 and 12 students around the science
building, talking them through the activities we carry out in the labs, and letting them try out some of
the practical work themselves. I actually run quite a few such visits over the course of the academic
year, and while the organisation and related administration can be overwhelming, actually being in the
labs with the younger children is wonderful fun. While the groups can sometimes be very mixed, I do
get groups where everyone is really enthusiastic and interested, and the questions can provoke really
interesting discussions. I have no doubt that working with local schools and colleges is a vital part of
my role within the University, and I do really believe it makes an impact on how the University is
viewed by the local population, as well as boosting our recruitment.
Once the school group had left, I headed back to my office to look over some corrections with a PhD
student for whom I was internal examiner. I have only examined two PhDs so far, and both have
resulted in a lot of work afterwards to ensure the corrections are up to standard. This thesis was
actually of quite poor quality, but the performance at viva was outstanding, so I’m really hoping she
will be able to bring the quality of her written work up to her intellectual level.
Then it was a question of catching a few colleagues to sort out some double marking, before finally
dragging myself home to sit on the sofa and mark the final two project reports. It’s been a difficult
week, since we found out that there may well be some redundancies coming within our area, and it
has thrown me off kilter somewhat. I keep planning ahead to next academic year, trying to decide
what I’ll do over the summer months and yet at the back of my mind is this question over whether I’ll
still be around to utilise all my advanced planning. There is nothing to be done about it, however; it is
what it is. I realise I need to put on the blinkers, and just keep going, because if I do manage to get
everything done over the summer that I want to, it will make a massive improvement to my working
life from September.
Uid 136
Oh bliss, I am at a conference! and not only that but, having presented my paper yesterday, I can just
sit back and enjoy it. I arrive early and take the opportunity of a bit of summer sunshine to walk round
the lovely green field site before going in for tea. This is a Learning and Teaching Conference, and
one of the great joys is the chance to catch up with colleagues from around the University and beyond
who actually take seriously the commitment to scholarship in these areas. I spend the morning
registration tea 'break' chatting with a friend from Psychology about the best way to approach
teaching new students about learning styles and how to develop more confidence in independent
learning through the transition from School to HE, and together with a colleague from my own School
we work out some induction and tutorial exercises that will benefit us all. Then off to the first session
of the day – two discussions about formative assessment. The first of these, an interactive session,
gives some great ideas on quick and simple methods to help students identify their learning needs and
evaluate whether they have met them – self-feedback, what a good idea! The second session, from a
different Faculty (subject area) with a totally different style of undergraduate project work challenges
me to see how some of their good ideas could be incorporated in our project support. More tea,
biscuits and conversation, this time with an architect about the links between sciences and Art,
ranging from the design of buildings to enhancing the public understanding of science. The next talk
is interesting because during an attempt to engage academics in discussing how to engage students in
learning it becomes clear that academics wish to engage students in attending, a subtly different
though undoubtedly related activity! Agree some follow up activities to investigate this problem……
Last session before lunch stimulates a lot of discussion about group work and its assessment, and I
realise - not for the first time, but it always seems like a fresh revelation – that there is no one right
answer to questions relating to teaching, only compromises. Variation in learning styles, ideal
activities, assessment preferences etc mean that we just cannot deliver the optimum educational
experience for each and every one of our students. I think when students are paying £9000/year for
higher education this aspect of teaching, learning and assessment may be higher on everyone’s agenda.
After lunch (and that in itself is a luxury, usually I grab a quick sandwich whilst answering e mails at
my desk) I attend a couple of talks on research methodology which is applicable to teaching and
learning. I chair this session, which always gets the adrenaline flowing, especially as one talk involves
using interactive technology. We also have good numbers of participants as heavy rain during the
lunch break has turned our lovely green field site into a mud bath and some participants have taken
the opportunity to stay close to the lunch room rather than wade half way across the campus! One talk
is fascinating but not something I can see me using, the other is very similar to my own activities and
we have a good debate at the end incorporating viewpoints from several disciplines. And lo, the rain
has stopped and the sun shines on us as we leave the conference for another year. As always I feel
incredibly buoyed up by these two days, fired with enthusiasm for improving teaching and learning
experiences for students and ideas for new, and some collaborative, pedagogic research. This is what
being an academic is about - reflection, cross fertilisation of ideas..... On the way home on the train I
note down ideas and plans. When I get home I even switch on my computer. Bad idea! Over two days
at the conference so much correspondence has come in that my e mail box is full and I can’t send any
messages to all those potential collaborators until I delete a considerable number of files…….Now
where did I leave my time-turner???????*
*Time turner – a magical device referred to in the Harry Potter novels and films which enables the
wearer to use time twice and thus cram twice as much activity into a given timespan as normal!
Uid 138
What a varied day! With exam boards over, my diary is now my own: what bliss to have a bit of
freedom back. I love the academic annual cycle of activity – especially at this time of year!
Started the day meeting with two very keen summer research students – third year students going into
Senior Honours next year. I am always amazed at how much research can get done with the help of a
10-week summer scholarship: the students may need a bit of training in research methods, but if I
meet with them daily, I can usually ensure that they remain focussed and that we make substantial
progress. The £2500 that the department gives me for a summer scholarship provides much more
research value for money than the countless hours I spend writing unsuccessful research grants. This
year, I have three such students funded from various sources, as well as a very good Masters student
project running over the summer. I have told that that while I am away in July, they have to ‘supervise’
each other, meeting briefly daily, and sending me a short report on progress – written by a different
member of the group every day. Their projects are different, but related enough that they will be able
to talk to each other about them. I am interested to see if this peer-supervision works.
Today was our annual Honorary degree ceremony – I don’t go often, but I do like to attend if I have a
free spot in my diary: it’s interesting to find out about selected famous people (mainly people I have
never heard of, to be honest!), and hear their stories – which are usually very inspiring. I could take
part in the academic procession, but don’t: I just sneak in at the back. Today we had a Very Reverend,
and Baroness, an Emeritus Professor, a Professor Sir, a Professor, and an Rt Hon The Lord. Lots of
pomp, singing choir, and yet another opportunity for our vice-chancellor to tell us how extraordinarily
well the university is doing (the professor doth protest too much, me thinks).
Arrived late at a workshop on Assessment for PGT Masters students, and had to leave early (figuring
it was better to arrive late and leave early than not be there at all). The university push for
‘internationalisation’ (for which, read ‘One year PGT programmes for overseas students who will
bring in lots of dosh’) has meant that lots of schools have proposed new PGT programmes – I believe
the total number of PGT programmes we offer has approximately doubled in the last year - the online
system for submitting PGT proposals broke down in January because it could not cope with the
number of new submissions. I hope that we all know what we are doing – and that we have not
forgotten the importance of the student experience.
I led a review meeting for our level 1 courses next in my busy day – it went fine: we had a good team
of lecturers on these courses this year. I was head of level 1 this year – for the first and thankfully the
last time! I have managed to persuade our Head of School that I would be better placed as Director of
the PGT programmes – taking over from a professor who is due to retire next year and who has held
on, and held on, and held on, to this portfolio for years – while I have not-very-secretly coveted it.
Fortunately our new Head of School has agreed that I can take over that role. Hurrah – I am looking
forward to working at a broader, more strategic level, rather than worrying about the finer matters of
relative assessment weightings for level 1 courses – we do get ourselves into such a mix over small
decisions, and tend to forget the big picture sometimes.
The final task of the day was difficult meeting with a second-year PhD student who has not been
permitted to progress to the third year of his PhD, and has been given the option of submitting for an
MPhil instead. I am his second supervisor, and was instrumental in this decision after I quizzed him in
his progression viva. He was not really reconciled to the fact that he will not be able to progress to a
PhD, and was under the impression that if he worked very hard this coming year, we might change
our mind. He gave me lots of reasons for having performed poorly in the viva: I gave him details of
who he should contact in the Graduate School if he wishes to appeal. I took notes on the meeting, and
gave him some advice on some literature that he might pursue. He told me that he had been under the
impression that the point of a viva was for him to get feedback on his work from us, rather than for
him to justify what he has done – and that this was the reason why he did not answer many of our
questions. I find this all rather confusing, and have a lot of sympathy with the student – who is a really
nice guy. But a student who cannot tell me, at the end of second year, whose work in the literature has
most influenced his own research, is really not on track for submitting a reasonable PhD within a year.
He is too obsessed with programming a system that embodies little real Computing Science
innovation.
And then a swim at the end of the day – ah!
Uid 139
15th June
9am research meeting – went well… but then I end up with quite a bit of work to do.
Afterwards the RES form got modified as required and printed off to be filled in, but I couldn’t find
Jon so left it with Mary to give to him later. Job done, as far as I was concerned.
Tested out a couple of Wordles and the first one looked really good, but they don’t seem to be able to
be copied, so the only way round that seems to be to print them and then scan the print afterwards. I
think there’s some way of doing it by doing a screen dump but I haven’t found it yet.
Almost sorted out the marks for the Technical Conference, but there are some students who haven’t
done their reflective reports, so for the moment they don’t have any marks for that bit. They’ll get
marks later when they get the work in, I hope.
But then there’s the wobbly we get thrown. An OIA case lands back on us and it looks as if we have
to do a re-mark, even if it will make no difference. So we sort out the numbers, or just about. They
need a bit of confirmation.
There always seem to be a lot of jobs on at the same time, don’t there? I’m not sure I’m good enough
at multiplexing…
I need to get out the unit titles for one of our graduates who’s applying for professional membership.
But I haven’t managed to find the course scheme document. I get an email from the Quality unit
saying they’ve managed to dig out the document, so I could come across to them and get a copy done.
Robin said that if I’m going over to the Quality unit could I get a pint of milk on the way back. I get
over there: I can do the copy, but the document isn’t supposed to leave the office. That’s OK. On the
way back stop off and see Ruth and Tom who are trying to sort out how to talk to a group of staff
from the Arts faculty on feedback. So I interrupt them, but Tom offers a cup of tea anyway. On the
way back I remember to get the milk and pop into Tescos where I bump into Jeya who offers to buy
the milk for me. Odd, as she doesn’t drink milk. She thinks it odd that I’m buying milk at twenty to
five. Yes, but I stopped off for the tea so it took me longer than I was expecting.
Uid 140
Exams are over until August. As year tutor I have to write to all the second year Pharmacy students. I
am trying to get the hang of mail merging.
I also need to set coursework for the referrals.
Looking forward to time off. If that sounds like prison, it feels it.
Uid 141
Today was a pretty normal day for me at the moment. I don't have a module to teach but nonetheless
there is plenty to do. So usual day of getting my daughter to school. She was really good.
Then it's back home to wait for the electrician to come. Our house seems to be having a run of things
going wrong. This is just a fan in the shower but it needs doing. My wife is at home but then if she is
looking after the baby then it's hard for her to be sorting out the electrician. As it happened, the
electrician was brilliantly prompt. Didn't stop long though as he didn't have the part he thought he
would need. Hey ho. I did some email while he was doing stuff.
So then I did some reading. I've got a PhD thesis to read. I am not examining but have picked up some
co-supervision with the head of dept. The student is excellent. The problem with excellent students is
that they produce large quantities of sophisticated work. So ploughing through a thesis is no small
task. I've had it a couple of weeks already but I am seeing him on Friday so I needed to crack on. So I
finished chapter 4 which mostly went over my head. Then I went in to work.
At work, quite a lot of email. We need a "new module" to allow us to transfer students who are failing
on the MSc to a Diploma. Admin seem to think the module doesn't exist but I know it does - I wrote it!
So that needed sorting. Then I was sorting out other PhD students, either arranging to meet or reading
abstracts. Nice stuff but it all takes time.
Getting close to lunch time so I thought I would try to do something for myself so I looked up funding
opportunities for a proposal that I am hoping to write with a colleague. He's now at another uni but
we'd met the day before to talk research. It was wonderful! So many ideas. Really uplifting - I miss
that with my current colleagues. Not sure why it doesn't happen. I think because we don't make time
for it to happen. Anyway, we have an idea for a proposal so we were wondering who might have the
money to fund it. The short answer is the usual suspects. If we're lucky. Bit depressing but still - you
have to try.
So then lunch so I took some reading to the cafe. I don't usually do that but I don't get reading done if
I eat my lunch in my office. Also I can treat myself to a pizza so that's my reward. The reading was
another chapter of the PhD thesis - I skipped one which I have read many times already and went
straight for the final chapter which was relatively short. Not so good as the others. I think he's failed
to big up his work enough.
I also read something one of my MSc project students had produced. She's just starting and this is the
first bit of writing. Good start. Not perfect but any writing is good writing in my book.
Then the departmental seminar. I made a special effort for this one as it was being given by a new
member of staff. Missed my daughter's sports afternoon for it. And it was quite good but quantum
computation is a bit beyond me. Still, at least I went.
Afterwards, I worked on a paper that I have been knocking around with someone I don't know well.
She's a usability consultant who comes to teach on our course. When I met her earlier in the year, she
seeded an idea which over the last couple of months has turned into a more substantial argument. So
she and I are trying to write a paper now. Which is great. Unfortunately, I started in LaTeX and she
doesn't do LaTeX so I spent a while converting to Word and tidying up some things as I went along.
Very satisfying.
Then home. Spot of tea with the family. Walked the dog with my daughter. Made the dinner while my
wife fed the baby and my daughter had her supper. Got daughter to bed and read some emails. Ate
dinner. Spot of telly - well can't miss the Apprentice :) And then some more emails mostly doing
some work on admissions for the MSc course and looking at a PhD applicant. Then bed. Oof!
Uid 142
Oohh... might even remember to do this today :)
So far, have managed to reinstall the basic OS on an old Netbook - preparatory to installing
UberStudent - which is meant to be a linux distro for Students - so has lots of studenty things included
(such as Zotero for the referencing & YouTube for the relaxing)
Uid 149
It’s Wednesday. Undergraduate teaching is finished and so is most of the marking. The first task of
the day is to meet a PhD student along with my fellow supervisor. The situation is one which is quite
common in our institution – the student is also a colleague. The people recruited to teach the large
number of practitioner oriented programmes often have practitioner backgrounds themselves and
struggle to do PhDs at the same time as coping with quite intensive teaching loads. Sometimes this
places a good deal of stress on them. They’re often the more experienced and motivated people in
their departments and have to take a lead role whenever there’s a revalidation, a visit from a
professional or statutory body, a renewal of the contract for non-HECE funded teaching an d are also
sometimes at the mercy of cutbacks in the public service. In this case however it seems that my
colleague is making some good progress. She collected her data a while ago and has redrafted her
introduction to take account of the emerging themes and ideas from her participants. Sadly she’s
retiring soon. After that, it is time to try to book some catering for a small conference the following
Monday. I try the number provided by the university a few times but just get a recorded message. I try
another number and speak to a person who helpfully directs me to the number with the recorded
message. I start to compose an email to the university’s caterers but have to interrupt this to go to an
exam board meeting for the Masters students. This is a pleasure as we have a very affable external
examiner who has come over from the North of Ireland and is always entertaining. Sadly it is his last
year of office. The marks are more or less agreed and we have some useful discussion as to how the
Masters students doing biomedical sciences can be motivated to undertake the coursework on our
research methods modules as several of them haven’t and those that have have only performed at a
very poor standard. It’s probably not the background in the life sciences that's causuing the problem.
We’ve got medical doctors on the course and they’ve done really well. After some discussion we
decide we can’t really solve it in this meeting and need to consult with the people who teach the
biomedical scientists or the molly bollies (molecular biologists) as the external examiner calls them. I
feel sad that I won’t see him again. Then it’s back off to the office and further attempts to secure a
buffet for our meeting on Monday. The caterers may not answer the phone but they do respond to
email. Bingo. Buffet booked. It’s complicated by the fact that the refreshments are funded by an
external body rather than a budget within the university itself though. These things are so complex
that I’d often rather stump up myself for a few sandwiches, biscuits and tea & coffee. But I try to go
through the motions. The money’s available, we just have to figure out some way of getting it spent.
Then it’s time to consult with a colleague about a research proposal she’s working on. We have some
discussion about the different ways in which one can appeal to people making decisions over funding
and how to pitch the idea more effectively. Whilst occasionally I have been lucky with this kind of
thing in the past, I’m still fencing in the dark myself, but we end up with some ideas of the kind which
I have seen work successfully in previous applications. With that finished I pop into town to pick up
some rabbit food and some of that stuff you squeeze onto the backs of cats’ necks to stop them getting
fleas. I’m uncertain as to its effectiveness but at least it cuts down the extent to which we get bitten in
the early part of the summer. Once home I get on with some other work – some pdfs of papers to find
for a colleague with whom I’m revising a draft of an article on language in health care, and a paper on
life narratives as a resource to understand the historical sociology of Wales. Both of these are on the
cusp of being accepted at different journals and just need a bit of tinkering to address the referees’
comments. I do as much as I can and then email the results of the evening’s labours back to my
colleagues to do their bit. Over the course of the evening the email inbox fills slowly with messages
from colleagues who are also burning the midnight oil. The university is trying to get ready for the
REF early this time around, rather than the last RAE’s last minute effort. So I shall be writing the bit
entitled ‘environment’ in our particular submission, it seems. I also go hunting on my hard drives for
files for another colleague whose laptop I recently backed up and restored. A few of his precious
documents don’t seem to have copied back over onto his freshly reformatted hard drive. Fortunately I
still have them. Time for bed, and it’s not even 1.00.
Uid 155
I feel oddly bereft – no marking, nor any projects that need any immediate work or planning. It was
the exam board yesterday, and the deadline for most of my projects was on Monday, so I have nothing
immediate to do. Instead of fire fighting I can identify what I would like to do and in what order.
Feels slightly strange ….
We had a lunch time meeting about business development. In my subject area this is rather alien, and
selling the idea to colleagues that they will need to do work (on top of everything else) that will
income generate is going to be tough. That is a fight for a few months away, though.
I also saw a few students who had popped in to say thank you because they were pleased with the
grades that they had received; there were quite a few tears of joy. It is this that makes the job so
worthwhile. Many of my students started their degree hoping they would pass, and so for them
receiving high 2.1s or first class honours is such an achievement. This is why I get so frustrated that
we rank so lowly on the ‘value added’ scales in league tables. If the statisticians from The Times and
The Guardian met our students they would soon realise how transformative the degree is for so many
of them, in all elements of their life.
In the evening I realised that I now had the time (at last!) to find and book a holiday. Eventually I
found somewhere that has the right balance of sun, beach, peace, culture and access to city life (we
are not fussy or anything!), and so we have that to look forward too. Will write a new to do list on
Monday – will enjoy a few days quite before I have a look at all those things that I have been ignoring
for the last few months ….
Uid 157
It was definitely a day of two halves today. My university was running a Higher Education event for
local secondary schools to send their 6th formers to attend. The idea being to show off what HE has to
offer and to give the students an opportunity to hear about some of the specific subject areas. Over a
2.5 hour period I gave the same 15 minute presentation on 'Why study biology?' multiple times. The
challenge was how to fit into 15 minutes the answers to that question whilst also emphasising the
courses our department offers! Whichever emphasis I put on the talk (ecology, molecular biology,
biochemistry, biomedicine or a broad biological sciences approach) the student feedback was that
they wanted something else, even including somethin on chemistry or geography!
The afternoon was spent attending exam board meetings. The UG students have just completed all of
their examinations and now the boards have to sit and look at the marks and make decisions about
progression and classification for example. I am new to this process and so it was definitely a steep
learning curve for me.
Also squeezed into the day was some last minute marking and some planning for next year. And of
course answering a number of e-mails from colleagues and students.
So the day started with speaking to prospective students and finished with discussing final year
students about to graduate. Well actually it finished with a well cooked dinner, a beer and no exam
script marking!
Uid 168
June 15th
The start of the working day was slightly put back after discovering calculator and ruler of son taking
Chemistry GCSE had been left in the kitchen prompting unscheduled trip to School (ironic note:
turned out these were his “spares” – write out 100 times “I must not be a helicopter parent”).
Most of the day was spent delivering a CPD course for secondary school teachers. A small, but very
switched on, crowd. I ran the session with two colleagues. The content was a mixture of subjectspecific content at the points where cutting edge breakthroughs have made it into the curriculum for A
level, and some practical ideas for tackling some of the more controversial elements in a classroom
setting.
I really enjoyed the day, and the delegates seemed to do so as well - the feedback for the day was
great, with the only moans being about difficulties parking.
Once back home, the arrival of a VISA bill was a partial resolution of the great “have we got Olympic
tickets?” mystery. It turns out we do. We’ll need to wait another week for exact confirmation, but
there are only 2 ways to reach the stated amount taken – one family trip to the football and either one
or other of two preliminary hockey rounds we bid for. Didn’t expect to get opening or closing
ceremonies, but disappointed not to get anything in the athletics arena.
Wed night is also "Apprentice" night. Lord Sugar definitely fired the wrong man tonight – Jim should
have gone. As with all "reality TV", I know the programme is edited to give you a selected spin but I
think there's a lot you can learn about employability from the Apprentice. I already use one clip from
last year's series in my first year lectures.
Uid 171
I started my 'work' day by being a subject in a neuroscience study. I'd signed up for it some time ago,
figuring (a) I can hardly ask people to take part in my research if I don't also offer my time for studies,
(b) I teach some things that rely on MRI evidence, so it would be good to have first-hand experience
of being in a scanner, (c) I want a picture of my brain! It was an interesting experience, but since I
was not allowed to drink coffee beforehand, I left my keys at home. At least, that's my excuse. Not
sure if the post-scan headache is from wearing headphones that scrunched my ears for an hour, from
lying still for an hour, or from the lack of early-morning caffeine, but the headache has coloured the
rest of the day.
Sneaked essay-marking into all bits of waiting before/between/after the things I had to do for the
study (I'm about 9 essays behind where I meant to be at this point), then had a phone meeting with my
resaearch collaborator at another university, settling a disagreement about which statistical test to
favour in our study and setting out the next steps of our work. In my field, one submits abstracts rather
than papers for conferences, so now we're in the position of having 2 weeks to the conference, and
only part of the data coded. Oh dear. The upshot of this is that I have to have all the rest of the data
coded (and the database in shape for someone else to work on) before tomorrow. So much for getting
on top of the essay-marking.
Between that and our School Meeting I had an hour to fit in preparation for a training day tomorrow
and Friday's away day for the teaching staff on the degrees I convene--which mostly involved finding
all the relevant papers to go with the agenda and printing/copying. Oh, and eating cake for lunch
because everything else at the tea bar looked disgusting.
The School Meeting agenda was crammed with motions that have nothing to do with our school--e.g.
condemning treatment of student protesters elsewhere (didn't we do this last year?) and the New
College of Humanities. I nearly sent late apologies to the meeting about five times. Instead, I went,
took my laptop and coded some data on the side, and tried to point out some ways in which the NCH
motion could bite us back. Maybe it's my American upbringing, but while I think NCH is a stupid
idea and think the University of London is foolish to engage with it in any way, I also think 'why
should we worry about it?' I've been here 11 years, and there is little in the UK (or English--Scotland
may be different) system that I think is superior to the US system. The English system involves so
much more bureaucracy, so many fewer contact hours with students, so little actual training at
postgraduate level... A parent of a daughter who'd been accepted to English and US universities
recently asked me which I'd choose, and I could only say "That's difficult for me to answer as a
representative of my university". I mean, I couldn't spin it positively for the UK. I just couldn't. My
colleagues point to the UK system of low fees as equitable--but participation in HE is much higher in
the US, and the student bodies of Harvard and Yale are far more diverse than those of Oxford and
Cambridge. So, I'm losing patience with my colleagues on this matter. They like things the way they
were because that's the way they were. And they're all for minimising student contact in the name of
'research time'. I'm not impressed.
After collecting my daughter and the family time before her bedtime, I'm back to work. Coding till
my brain bleeds. Might need another MRI. Or to go to sleep before I actually finish it. Boo for me.
Uid 172
A very long day as a participant in an exam board. Poorly prepared for and poorly run. Much more
briefing needed for the chair and officers. Long and very busy train trip home during which I typed up
my report. Arrived home 9pm. Felt and probably looked like a zombie.
Uid 179
Marking season - will it ever end? It feels like I've been marking for ever. First research proposals and
dissertations, then more research proposals, then yet more research proposals (need to finish them by
noon tomorrow), then one final lot of project reports. I think I should be done over the weekend, thank
goodness. Last week I felt I was getting exhausted: fell off my bike up on the Common and bruised
my ribs. Not a good sign. But then slipped in the shower one morning and fell backwards rather
awkwardly and hurt my shoulder. Definitely not a good sign. Anyway, I took the Saturday off to take
the eldest boy to climbing.
So what have I been doing today? Marking ... this morning. Then on the train to the University to
meet a research student for a first tutorial. Later went to a thought-provoking lecture by a visiting
speaker on how young people construct their adolescence. Back again and more marking - apart from
taking the younger boy to the bath at nine o'clock. No story tonight: well, it was going to be Dinosaur
Pox (one of my favourites), but we chatted instead.
Off to bed now, 12.30 am.
Uid 182
Today is a relentless day of meetings for reviewing courses, policy documents, setting the assessment
schedule for the next academic year etc. I've tried to complete as many student placement reports as I
could in the 5 or 10 minute gaps in between but I got distracted having to reorganise my shelves since
I couldn't find a folder. However, so far today, this practical task has given me the most satisfactior
and feeling of closure as at least I can see that it was accomplished! I spent approx an hour over the
day in various phone calls arranging guest speakers for summer and September sessions. It's 5'o clock
now and I want to get as many ssays as possible marked before I head to a society meeting in the city
centre.
Uid 184
Summer time is recharge and retrench time. After nine months of No Free Time, my three months of
summer are a time to:
* Take some time off
* Get home projects done
* Get ready for fall
I won't bore you with details about my home remodeling. Instead, I'll brief you on what I'm doing to
get ready for next semester.
As the de facto system administrator for our Linux systems, I'm migrating our physical servers to a
virtual environment. Our IT department does there own VM stuff, but I wanted to learn about it, too,
so with their help I procured a couple of cast-off servers and installed Ubuntu Linux-KVM on it.
Since then, I've been having a blast! All this fun will result in something to show my students come
September.
A few of my more enthusiastic students want to work on some side projects over the summer, so I
have been scheming up some things for them to do such as re-write some Java graphics libraries we
use and work on some web-based teaching tools that I've been trying to bring to fruition for a couple
of years.
I've discovered YouTube. Not as a watcher--been doing that for years. No, as a producer. Inspired by
Salman Khan's TED talk, I'm recording a bunch of short problem-solving videos for my some of my
courses. Already I've received positive feedback from all over the world. I want to "flip" at least one
course this coming semester.
I also got an offer to help completely upgrade the PCs and server in an office. I spent a good part of
the day playing with Windows Server 2008, ordering network gear, and planning out the upgrade
process. Maybe I'll even get paid. At the very least it's a chance to do something different.
Uid 186
Ah. Holiday. Madeira. No I'm not yet over 65. but it is nice.
Work? They can just get on with it!
Uid 187
7:20 AM - Woke up.
I'm working at a Boy Scout summer camp as the business manager this summer. While I've been in
camp for most days during the previous three weeks getting ready for the summer, this week is the
first we have had campers in camp. Today one set of campers leaves this morning and a new set come
in this afternoon.
As a result of a very busy and full schedule for camp, I have had very little time to devote to noncamp activities. Therefore, my independant learning (online) students have received significantly
slower response times from me than I like to provide. In total for the day, I may have devoted 15
minutes to them.
5:00 AM Off to bed for a few more hours.
Uid 189
6.40am left home
7.50am arrived at a school where our students are having a placement...did some work on laptop in
car
8.30am entered school and spoke with staff and students prior to lesson observation and feedback etc
10.30am left first school to travel to next school
10.45am arrived at second school...as above
12.30pm left school for university
1.00pm arrived at university and attended open meeting
2.15pm staff meeting in our faculty
3.45pm attended to emails and voicemails
4.30pm meeting with students who are concerned about their studies
5.30pm continued to clear emails
6.30pm left for home
Uid 191
The 15th this month was just after the marking deadline for my second semester module, so I felt like
I was on vacation.
In the morning worked on a Java program that I'm hoping to use in our 'bootcamp' at start of year with
total beginner programmers. I have taken what is essentially a LOGO program and the idea is that the
students will learn about loops - and if statements although that is harder - in that context, and then we
will look at Java proper. The idea originally was to make it as control structured as possible, but as
soon as you introduce the idea of subprogram you get into a bind. Either you put everything into the
main, but then subprograms become static methods .... a dangerous direction. Or you have to get into
instance variables, and constructors etc.
I don't know if this will help. This year we had dreadful results in the 2nd programming module, and
as the teacher of the first I felt responsible. I think I was really low energy. But anyway, I am
reinvigorated AND I am having fun with the program - makes me remember why I went into
computing in the first place :)
At coffee, read an interesting article in the New Yorker about 'why go to college'. One of the things it
says is that there were two old reasons for college (college is for sorting out who is the smartest; or
college is for educating everyone to make a more democratic society of people who appreciate ideas
more). Now we have students going to college for whom neither of those apply i.e. they just drifted
there with no real motivation, so what does that mean? I'm not stating the argument well, but it
certainly fitted some of our students, and some of their behaviours. For instance, first theory students
will work hard in order to get ahead, second theory because they are intrinsically interested. We have
had (for the last few years particularly) students who just seem to want to do no work. I was talking to
the person who teaches the group project module and he says that at one time students underreported
their hours so as not to get in trouble, now they overreport them.
Ah well - I refuse to be depressed - my LOGO program will solve all problems, and yes I know that
this is the triumph of enthusasm over experience! Actually a lot of teaching is that, now I think of it.
Anyway, then took the afternoon off and went to the market in XXXXX. Had tea and cake with
friends, came home, watched the last but 2 episodes of Northern Exposure on dvd. This has been my
trashy entertainment option for the last year and now I only have 1 episode left!
I know, I am a sad old hippy, but I enjoyed my day.
Uid 200
I have a lot going on right now that is keeping me quite busy, but not much of it is academic. I am
leaving my current position at University X and will be starting at University Y in the fall. So, I am at
X today to try to finish cleaning out my office. That is not an easy task. I am down to some of the big
and heavy stuff as well as all of my back issues of the SIGCSE Bulletin and Communications of the
ACM and other miscellaneous publications I have collected over the years.
I am trying to assess just how important the paper copies are to me now. I truly like reading papers on
paper. I have never been able to read as effectively on the computer screen. However, paper copies of
proceedings and the like are not searchable (easily) and they are extremely heavy (when you pile them
up).
So, it will be a tough decision, but one I have to make today, because it is the few decisions left I need
to make for the things in my office.
I met my husband for a quick lunch. It was nice to see another human being during the day. Campus
(of X) is a ghost town in the summer and I can go an entire day without seeing another human being
from my department, which after days and days of the same, gets to be boring. I have heard that
campus Y is not like this.
Dealing with the move has been interesting. There is a physical move and a technological one. Email,
files, etc. all have be thought about and maneuvered in such a way that I have access to what I want
and don't lose anything. It has its own form of logistics.
In the afternoon, I sorted through all my paper conference proceedings and magazines.
I went to dinner with some of my former students and TAs who wanted to take me out to celebrate the
fact that I am moving to a new job. It is always nice when someone is happy for you.
Uid 204
A bit of excitement today - my campus of my university was closed because of the expectation that it
would flood. It's rather low-lying, there's been a lot of rain over the last week, and torrential rain was
forecast for today. I normally go to the main campus on Wednesdays, so I wouldn't have been
affected; but my students were to have sat an exam today, so I'd arranged to stay at my home campus.
Therefore I ended up working from home. This isn't a great deal different from working at work; it's
just like Saturdays and Sundays, when I take a little time out for shopping, housework, etc, but spend
the rest of the day at my desk. (In the event, the campus didn't flood, but I suppose they were wise to
be prepared.)
Started on my email at 7.45, and spent an hour there. One recurring issue was the uni's handling of the
campus closure. They had notified students whose exams were affected that they could do a
replacement exam in the middle of July. For all you northerners, that's in our short winter break, but
even so, many students have already booked holidays in that time. I assured them that the uni would
receive many complaints and would soon be trying an alternative solution. Sure enough, it wasn't long
before the uni told them instead that they can do the exam on Friday! Much needless alarm could have
been avoided with a little more thought.
A couple of hours reconsidering the evidence in a student plagiarism case. The two students involved
insisted that their work was neither plagiarised from a common source nor written in collusion, so I
spent more time than it's worth re-reading all of their work, and concluding that they're lying. The
case will proceed on that basis.
After the luxury of a long lunch break I was brought back to work by a phone call from my Head of
School. A student is concerned that the reason for her poor marks in a particular course is either that
she's female or that she's Muslim, and the lecturer is therefore discriminating against her. The
lecturer's away at a conference, but the course and all the material are mine, so I know it all well. I
downloaded the student's three assessment items from the submission site and marked them all. I was
delighted: my marks were exactly the same as the lecturer's, except that he'd converted the actual
marks to weighted marks and rounded them up. I saw this as vindication of the finely detailed
marking schemes I tend to produce when working with multiple markers.
Another concern from the student will also have to be taken seriously: she says that she's received no
feedback on the assessment items, and that the lecturer has told students not to contact him outside
class and not to email him because he's too busy to respond. This is not the way we do teaching at my
university, and if it's true, we'll need to start working out how to address it.
The rest of my working day was spent solving a hardware problem (I ended up replacing my USB hub)
and working on a teaching-related paper for an education conference. All in all, an incredibly light
day's work - just under 8 hours!
Uid 207
Exam board day. I woke feeling apprehensive. Have never quite managed to stop feeling
apprehensive on exam board days – always feel that the external examiners ‘will find me out’ and
declare that DR XXXX clearly didn’t prepare the exam question correctly, or clearly made a bad job
of the marking on module XXXX. I can easily be as apprehensive as the students. This year only one
personal tutee with a viva – but that is at 8.30 so need to get in to be reassuring if needed and stay out
of the way if not.
Before leaving do an hour of paperwork as executor of a family estate. The experience of recent
bereavement has many aspects to cope with – but it certainly does come with a lot of paperwork.
In office for 8 am – student puts head round the door to say that they are going to sit quietly for 30
mins before the viva. Was very upset yesterday on hearing about it but now looks very composed and
professional. Wish them good luck and leave them in peace. A good student but very hard to know
what a viva tests for and how consistent he process is. I want the student to do well and have this
chance of a better degree classification but do feel a little as though I am being examined myself. All
over by 9am student relieved but not overly optimistic, and it does not sounds as though they gave a
100% first class performance. Reassure with tea and biscuits and then they go of to travel to a job
interview tomorrow. Hope one of these interviews ahs a positive outcome.
9.30-11.00am try to prepare for a piece of outreach I’m doing next week. Very little information from
the school about numbers/level of interest or background of the students. Hope my ‘catch it all’
preparation will suffice. Technicians are away/busy next week so have to ask them to get the entire kit
ready this week.
11am – very early lunch. Colleague in another dept. rings to say that they have just left their exam
board and have a break for coffee and a sandwich (timing fits well with the 6 am b’fast this morning!).
WE go to the only decent coffee shop n campus and talk families. I have for several years had to
commute several hundreds of miles a week to care for an elderly parent with dementia – the process is
just starting for this colleague and their parent but with a commute/flight of several thousands of miles.
When term ends in 2 days they will fly out the next day to try and settle a house sale to pay for the
24/7 care soon to be needed. We talk about how the geographical and social mobility we prize so
highly has a price to pay when it comes to issues like this, I suggest some strategies that I had adopted
that helped me go through a period of being extremely time poor. You are always either leaving or
returning in this game. I take the spare keys to their house and promise to drop by a couple of times a
week.
Noon – back to preparing outreach events – with various interruptions by students trying to get clues
about their marks before the official feedback dates after the boards. Get quite cross with the students
who for 3 years has come in every single time to say that they really really really have to go home
early because of a final crisis. Try to find reference details for an inherited student who hopes to go to
the LSE for a masters next year – I have only met him twice but know that a less than total
endorsement won’t get him this place. Try to get as much information over the phone from my
colleague/their long term personal tutor who has been off ill for the last 6 months.
2pm – Exam board meeting – and not my student didn’t move up a degree classification – and not our
students in general didn’t do that well.
3.30pm – decide that going into just the last 30 mins of the senate meeting would be silly. Try to
finish writing all the references and student recommendation needed before they head off on their
summer break. Head to local supermarket to spend a coup of hundred quid on bubbles and nibbles for
our finalists celebration tomorrow, having initiated this a few years ago I don’t seem to be able to
shake off the job of procuring the supplies – but one of the times I really don’t resent the time put in.
An important occasion to mark.
7pm – Colleague who’s partner is at an external dinner drops round and we get takeaway and open a
bottle of wine. They will emigrate in November but are feeling very shaky about the decision. We talk
about options and how many things this will change for them – good and bad. They just need a
sounding board.
10 pm – Bed /sleep/exhausted.
Uid 213
This should be the beginning of my research time, technically, but grades went out this week so I have
lots of student emails and frantic requests for phone calls. Students who don't understand how they
could have failed, a student who apparently spent an entire semester in my class looking at texts and
reading other students' writing and yet left with the misapprehension that prose should be centered on
the page. How has she gotten to her twenties believing that? Has she ever read *anything* where
prose is centered? This is, of course, not the reason she failed the coursework - that came from the
writing.
I also have a third year student who has had a truly terrible year, and so she's been given deferrals.
She's worked out exactly what mark she needs from my module to get a 2.1 overall. So in our tutorial,
she kept saying 'will this get me a 68?' Asking if work is a 2.1 overall might be possible, but it is
extremely tricky to say yes or no to a very specific mark. It makes me extremely uncomfortable.
My other task right now is planning induction for next year. The OVC decided at the last minute that
all new first years should have a lecture by a distinguished professor, which sounds fantastic, I very
much approve. However, the decision came down *after* all the plans and room bookings had been
made, and we had to scramble to vacate the auditorium and shift our own plans around. We run a
book programme in Induction - we ask all students to read a book over the summer. We then have the
author in to give a talk, sign books and talk to the students in small, break-out groups. We're repeating
the same book as last year - And This Is True by Emily Mackie. Only problem, her schedule clashed
with our induction week, but with some negotiation with room bookings, I've managed to get her in in
week 1, and we'll invite the whole school. Apparently this fits in with School policy of continuing
Induction into the academic year, but partly it's because a. I don't want to find another book this late,
and b. I really like Emily Mackie as a speaker and as a guest - she's lovely. And the students
responded really well to her last year.
Otherwise, I'm trying to edit my new novel, and I continue to send my first novel out to agents and
competitions. I'm trying to squeeze every drop of time I can to do my own research and write.
I also answered queries from international exchange students - part of my job is to approve their
programmes of study. My favourite question of the day: Is the module Romantic Poetry about poetry
in the Romantic era? These tricky titles, I just don't know.
Uid 214
This is the last week of term before the summer 'break' (aka 'period between teaching in which I try to
do everything I don't have time for when I'm teaching'). As a consequence, today was a blizzard of
meetings designed to wrap things up on the student assessment side. Undergrad examiners meetings
in particular took up the majority of the day, alongside more specific meetings about the various
things that need sorting for our ongoing taught and research postgraduates. So a lot of admin but all to
a good cause - ensuring consistency and quality of grading for those graduating this summer, and
ensuring that those who continue on into the next academic year are well-looked-after in the
meantime. In the remaining spare moments of the day I worked on first edits of the draft a book (and
was pleasantly surprised by what I've written, meaning that the end of July deadline is a genuine
possibility), and even had time to stroll along to the campus bookshop in my lunch hour to buy a map
of the area I'm going on holiday to in August. The day ended with a trip to the pub with the two PhD
students I am supervising, to catch up with their latest news and their work plans over the summer.
Total time at 'work' = 8am to 9pm, but well worth it.
Uid 217
A fairly full day to report.
It began with the usual fifty-minute public transport experience. At 10 we had a lengthy preliminary
exam board (the full board with externals present is in a week-and-a-half's time), where we had a
rather awkward discussion of our differences of opinion about the effect of experiments with
participation marks in our modules this year (some people want the marks to be actual - that is,
tangibly to raise or lower the marks for the written work - and some want them to be heuristic - that is,
to function as a means of ensuring that the students turn up and do presentations etc but only tangibly
to affect the final mark if a give student has wilfully failed to show up or present: you'll be able to tell
my preference from the thoroughly biased sentence you've just read). That took two hours, partly
because the chair is either thorough or ponderous, depending on your viewpoint.
A quick sandwich. Then I joined the head of dept and a group of colleagues for a pre-meeting about
the five-yearly programme review and then we went on to the meeting proper, where we were
questioned by a ten-strong panel for three hours (with no break) about the programmes we offer, our
responses to issues with our NSS scores, and so forth. A few years ago I was on the School of
Humanities Teaching Committee, and so have been on the other side of the table for these events.
They serve a very useful purpose, requiring each department (rotated over a five-year period) to
reflect on their provision and to discuss ways to develop and improve the BA and MA degrees offered;
they also less helpfully provide something of a bureaucrats' charter, so (for instance) we had a
teenager from E-learning helpfully telling us how exciting it would be for us to video our lectures and
put them on Moodle so that our students could revisit them (or, of course, though this didn't seem to
have occurred to the teenager, skip the actual lecture and just watch us on a screen). It started rather
badly, the review, with the Dean firing questions at us about statistics that only he had access to (a
pointless activity, obviously), but once he had gone off to some other meeting we were able to have a
proper conversation with the actual review panel. A decent number of useful things were discussed
and we came out feeling reasonably cheered. I was relieved, because I'd written the 'self-evaluation
document' and had then (see earlier entry) had a row with my head of dept about her overwriting of
my draft - so I was relieved the panel commended the document and also that they seemed to think
well enough of my analysis of some statistics about age and ethnicity and the timely completion of
degrees: I'm not a numbers person and I have no training in analysis of statistics, but the issues raised
were genuinely interesting and I enjoyed trying to make sense of what the percentages were telling us
about the varieties of our students' experience of doing a degree.
By this time it was 5.30 and I went, as arranged, with the head of dept for a quick drink with a visiting
professor from Australia and then dashed off to hear a talk at a nearby theatre, ending up going for
dinner with the theatre's head of digital media, its archivist, and my research associate for the
Australian project (see earlier entries) to discuss possible collaborations (e.g. a documentary).
A fairly full day, all round. Tube ride home; to bed, tired but pleased enough.
Uid 219
When I was at school in the 1980s, I thought the feminists that preceded us had done a good job of
preparing the workplace for the modern age. How wrong I was. I've been spending the week
collecting example of sex discrimination experienced by countless female colleagues, as a dossier is
being collated for official channels. It appears our university is stuck in the 1970s when it comes to
equality, despite its protestations and a superficial appearance of equal treatment on paper. The record
seems to be held by one suprememly talented and widely respected woman stuck in the same position
for ten years, despite three worthwhile applications for promotion. She is given masses of teaching
and all the dull, tedious administration to do, while her male colleagues get the plum research-related
tasks that move them on rapidly towards ever greater heights of loot and autonomy. It has got so
obvious, even the most entrenched men in the department are now sympathetic to her plight.
Hopefully the university will now see the error of its ways and address the situation of such
colleagues in a meaninfgul manner before we have to occupy the central administration building and
burn our bras (again). I do despair sometimes at all this, however.
Uid 221
Taking a week's leave this week, so on holiday in Somerset.
Uid 224
I'm at a conference on beautiful Jeju Island, in South Korea. The setting is idyllic and relaxing and the
talks and conversations are stimulating, which is a nice change after a rather frantic 9 months of
natural disasters at home.
I spend the morning browsing talks and touching up my slides for my talk. The talk is in the afternoon,
and is actually a 2-hour workshop. The attendees are really interested in the material, we have a long
discussion that extends past the allocated time, and I come away with some great ideas for developing
the material further. Perfect.
The conference finishes around 5pm, and the evening is spent going for a pleasant walk on the ocean
front, and enjoying some Korean "folk" food and drink. Who wouldn't want to be an academic on a
day like this?
Uid 226
This was a travel day for me. I attended a workshop on the west coast on Monday and Tuesday.
Returning home to the east coast took all day. (Really all day - 8:00 AM Pacific to 8:30 PM Eastern.)
Although I took work on the plane, I read a novel instead.
Uid 231
I have been on Long Service Leave since February. This was enforced for everyone who had over six
months accrued leave. At first I was upset that I had to take it and then I realised it was the perfect
opportunity to get stuck into my research. Hence, I have been working my butt off on my leave apart
from five days last week when I escaped to a tropical island for some R and R. Have come back to
Australia to cold (15 degrees) and wet weather that is so depressing that I am forced to spend all day
on the computer rather than breaking it up with a bit of reading on the terrace in the sunshine. I am
also President of the local branch of the Academic Union, a job that is normally enjoyable but in the
absence of our organiser who is on sick leave, we have to share her work with cases etc.
All of this is just background to having spent today inside on the computer or telphone for 12 hours so
that my body is aching and I am fed up with academic life!
The day started with a call from a distressed academic while I was still in bed. The remainder of the
day consisted of telephone calls about union cases, correcting a dissertation, searching for literature
for three papers that have very close deadlines, arranging research meetings, going through budgets
for research projects and answering emails that go back to just before I went on holidays. I would like
a little variation in my life. I almost miss teaching in the sense that at least it is envigorating compared
to the druge and loneliness of research - what am I saying, most of the time I am so happy to be free
of all the admin and pressure of teaching, but perhaps on cold wet days a spot of human contact
wouldn't go astray. (Live alone by the way, so no family to interupt work and the fridge is empty so
living on black coffee and packets of noodles).
So that's how I spent the 15 June, 2011. It's 9pm and I'm still in my pyjamas! At such times, and at the
recent age of 58, I think it's time I got a life!
Uid 234
My day starts just before 8. I am hoping the majority of the day will be research, and I actually
manage to get all the jobs done on my "To-do list" by 5.
The first hour is spent working through emails. I had a problem a couple of weeks ago when I file that
was originally an email attachment didn't save properly. That time I lost 4 hours work. Today, I wrote
a job reference for someone, but when I tried to send it as an attachment, again it wasn't saved. I
logged a call with IT Helpdesk, but they can't explain it. I suspect they blame me, but are too polite to
say so! Still it's 15 minutes wasted writing the reference & 15 minutes wasted logging the problem.
I then invested 3.5 hours in research work, & this goes fairly smoothly, no hiccups or major
interruptions. Ideally I only want 3 emergent research themes, at present I have 9 {& I suspect one of
those should be subdivided}. It's always the case that you start off fearing that you won't have enough
data and in the end you have too much!
Within the college there is a research seminar, I went along because I was interested in their
methodology. Whilst it was interesting they didn't once mention methodological issues; it was about
security, surveillance, autonomy and care of the elderly. Which in an anecdotal way I am interested in
but has very little to do with my teaching or research.
I bumped into my line manager on the way back in, and we drifted into a discussion about a colleague.
It is a colleague that I have mentioned before - she has "recurrent depressive disorder". The majority
of her teaching load goes to me when she is off sick. She is going downhill again and this raises very
difficult tensions between wanting to be a good friend, wanting to be supportive, wanting to act in an
inclusive manner but simultaneously not wanting to do the teaching load of 1.75 people on a regular
basis. Within a small department we have four people claiming a full time salary whilst rarely coming
into work and carrying a reduced workload. Tensions and disgruntlement are rising.
I manage to invest another hour into research work & complete my to-do list for the day, before
finding 30 minutes to write an entry for the Share project.
Uid 237
Diary entry 10
Wednesday 15th June
Context:
This Wednesday falls on the last week of term, which is tutorial week (exam boards were end of last
week, and all years now have their results). I informed my tutees that I would be around Monday and
Tuesday for tutorials. Only 5 out of 20 odd turned up.
Content:
I was in my office all day, half expecting tutees to turn up saying 'sorry I didn't get back to you, can I
have a tutorial now' but none actually came. I started the day by sending emails to do with tutee
requests from the previous day (checking re-sit work, changing an instrumental teacher, and so on). I
then spent some time tidying my office (can't walk across the floor for paperwork) and clearing the
back log of emails. Basically, doing anything but the research article I am supposed to be writing at
the moment... I went out for lunch, which I managed to make last nearly two hours (impressive
procrastination), and then returned to my office at which point I had a tutorial with one of my Masters
students. Always a pleasure, as she is enthusiastic and brings good ideas to meetings. I was at work
for another hour or so before I went training in the evening. So it wasn't a productive day in terms of
my own work, but it was the sort of day which balances out all of those stressful days in term time
when you are so busy that you don't know how you're going to get through the day!
More on research article tomorrow...
Uid 239
A strange day. I was clearly too calm before the storm. Who'd have anticipated that what I took to be
fairly routine meeting would be rocked with a proposal to cut yet more course and more staff and be
brought up to account for the recruitment difficulties which I was handling perfectly well. One thing
I'm usually good at is anticipating but I didn't see those coming.
So on one goes with the brave face, to deal with the relatively petty squabbles (important for those
feeling them at the time, I know) knowing what might loom ahead.
Anyhow 'we all have choices' as they say.I'm so not looking forward to what they might be.
Uid 241
Since I don't have any papers to grade until August, I have been surfing the Web. Some of my surfing
has a practical purpose: the csprinciples.org Web site and some of the 2010-2011 pilot sites for the
course. Looking at that material has rekindled some of my excitement for the field, showing the
passion, beauty, joy, and awe of computing popularized by Dan Garcia at SIGCSE. The students have
done some cool things with a rudimentary knowledge of Processing. I need to check that out.
Uid 256
Diary June 15th
Today is my 54th wedding anniversary. So it’s kind of special. We’ve done well to last this long.
Rose about 06.30, too early to waken my wife with breakfast. Logged on to the pile of emails still
waiting me from 4 days south to visit with my grand-daughter at Oxford, while she is still resident in
College. Urgent message outstanding since late Monday from a man who wants constructive
comments on a grant application which has to be in today. It’s basically sound, but could be made
much better with a few additions which strengthen rather than weaken. I tried to outline these, and got
them off within the 45 minutes. But I suspect he may have sent it off already. Was it worth my effort?
Then a message from Taiwan about a possible paper by my partner and me, to be presented by her
alone, in Florence. The abstract really needs radical surgery, but the problem is how to tell her that
without hurting CHC feelings. Also the abstract has to be in by the 18th, and time difference with
Taiwan always slows us down. I sent an immediate reply, promising a redraft by tonight.
Next from the principal author a revision of the paper for Active Learning. Quick skim; it needs
thinking about and going back to the detailed editor’s comments. I sent a message to say just that,
promising to get round to it this evening when my wife is at a Kirk Session meeting. But only now
realising that it’s “The Apprentice” tonight – my one TV indulgence. Will I have to miss it? (45 mins)
08.15: Stopped to get toast, marmalade and coffee for us both. Took it upstairs. Re-read the Florence
abstract while eating and drinking. (Call it 15 mins). Back downstairs by 08.45.
08.45: Working on redraft of Florence abstract. Must at the same time be considering:
•
What the paper itself will/can look like, so it’s not just a matter of an abstract, but rather
working backwards from an as yet unavailable paper which is being abstracted;
•
What I can rely upon my Taiwanese partner to contribute
•
What I can persuade her not to contribute as more personal plagiarism from previous papers;
•
What our real message is, and how to convey that to the selectors effectively and attractively.
Keeping an eye on e-mails as I go along. In comes one which deals with a difficult case of a workbased learner who has failed, will be very upset, and who has been messed about by the system, the
module director, and (to some extent) by me. Quick holding message; another task for this evening.
Best get shaved, showered and ready to go. 09.30 (45 mins). Making progress meantime on abstract.
10.15: Ready to leave. Drive into country, walk round a loch (in a smirr of rain), lunch at country park
restaurant (very pleasant), back home via a garden centre which used to be splendid but is now rundown and not looked after. Sad. Maybe that’s a bit like me, run down and not looked after.
16.15: Home in time to miss an e-mail asking me to phone a former colleague before 16.00 about a
matter he has to discuss at Holyrood with a Minister, and on which he wishes my opinion. Apologised
for being too late, and told him I was sure he was right in any case (whatever it is). Quickly cleared
much of the trivia from my emails; my way of cheering myself up that the bundle is not too enormous.
Some time on the diary to date. 30 mins for all of that. Then back to the abstract, 60 mins. Time for
evening meal, almost.
17.45: Evening meal, then discovered when going to wash up dishes that the gas boiler once again has
failed us, only 30 hours since last repaired, and seems dangerous. Ouch! Spent a while phoning them
asking about our rights in this protracted saga, and writing a letter. Didn’t really get back to the
abstract until 20.15, by which time my wife was away at a Kirk Session meeting. Tidied up abstract
and sent it off by 20.45. 30 mins.
20.45: Still to deal with the case of the failed student. Dug out all the documentation, and worked out
what to say and to whom, and how. Took me until 21.25.
Now move on to a curious review case of a paper which has come back again for comment, for
reasons which are not apparent. The other reviewers seem supportive, and I quite liked the paper and
found it useful, though I felt it a little boring. Ended at about 22.15.
A mixed day, mainly centred on formulating/improving grant and paper proposals, and on a difficult
student case. Not much anniversary celebration.
Uid 257
Up before 7am, to leave time to walk in to the campus and get there in time for the start of the
Sciences Faculty Committee meeting. This consists of a few senior officers of the Faculty and mainly
representatives from central offices of the institution, of which I am one, who can report on
developments relevant to the Faculty, so I find it more useful to get familiar with latter bunch rather
than to serve primarily as liaison with the Faculty. I am able to report on our new PGDip/MA and the
imminent MyFolio rollout (the learning technologists’ new online collaboration and PDP tool). I have
to miss one of our own Graduate Studies Committee meetings on at the same time (0930-1100,
shame ;-) - they are becoming very perfunctory. I get back to the office (pop out a bit later and get
slice of pizza to bring back for lunch), catch up with email and telephone queries, planning wrt
resources, much of this to do with our teaching programme next year. I prepare for our practice
oriented seminar series (Academic Practice Forum) event tomorrow, when we are launching a
university wide network for research degree supervisors. I draft a response, under the auspices of the
Society for Research into Higher Education Postgraduate Issues Network, to the HEFCE consultation
on the funding of research degree programmes. I agree to review a paper for a journal, have
correspondence about inviting a speaker to our new research centre, jointly under the auspices of the
Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain, for which I get in touch with one of my group’s
links at the other university next door. He is not playing in the evening event, which is the annual
cricket match between the staff teams of our universities, hosted by them this year. It is just a 20/20
and our team amassed 178 for 2 wickets then to dismiss them for just 38 - just a bit one-sided! I kept
wicket and stumped out their last batsman. I stay a bit for a drink (partly to dull the pain of the bruise
on my thigh, having been hit by the ball hit at me when I was the bowling umpire, fast such that I
could not get out of the way!) with our skipper and most of their team in the clubhouse (not their
institution’s own - they hired the pitch) get a lift back into town and have a swift one in my local,
where I can make notes from the 2010 Good Beer Guide about pubs in the Snowdonia area, since I
and my dad will be venturing out for some hill-walking next month. I am still up until after midnight
but don’t get around to looking closely at the external examining documents which arrived for me in
advance of the exam board on Friday.
Uid 258
It's the time of year when academics jump onto trains and planes and into cars and head off to farflung parts of the world/UK to fulfil external examiner duties.
A friend of mine is currently carrying out EE duties in SE Asia. Unfortunately, my life is not so
glamorous. I make the four-hour journey to a university north east England with Cross Country Trains
who, to my delight, have complimentary WiFi in every compartment. Both WiFi and train are rather
slow and as a result I nearly miss a mid-journey connection, which means no time to grab a coffee.
I work on the train - responding to emails and writing a presentation for a forthcoming conference.
Gone are the days when I could relax with a book or a newspaper; the pressures are now too great and
the need to perform and be seen to perform are too pressing.
Once at my external examinership I'm put in a room with another EE where we review mountains of
scripts of varying standards. It's always comforting to know that students at other institutions are
neither better nor worse than your own, and the unspoken benefit of being an EE is that you can often
'borrow' good assessment ideas from other universities for your own use. It's a lovely day, I'm tired,
and there is a fantastic view from the room I'm in, which means that my mind often wanders. At 6pm
I get a lift back to my hotel (cigarette burns in the net curtains and peeling wallpaper but lovely staff).
Quick change, more emails, chat with husband and daughter on the phone and I'm, er, out on the town
with the programme team - another unspoken benefit of external examining. A Thai meal and a
couple of beers follow - being a working mummy with a toddler, I don't get too many nights out, so I
make the most of this. This isn't the greatest preparation for the Programme Board meeting the next
day, but before going to bed I set my alarm for 6:30 so that I can go for a run before the meeting
(which I do actually manage to do).
Uid 260
A real working day! I get in to the university at 7:15am and peruse my emails. I collect my mail and
find more scripts for me to look at as external examiner. These include a dissertation from a northern
university where there is suspected (but unproven) plagiarism - one internal examiner wished to give
it 35% and another 56%. I am cast in the role of Solomon. The case is complex because the student
has mysteriously used a number of sources not available to Turnitin but which are also not available
in that university's library. There is certainly some unattributed copying, often as footnotes, where the
source appears in the student's bibliography but not as a footnote citation. The student certainly knows
how to cite when he/she chooses to do so - indeed many citations comply with the complex
requirements of the Harvard Bluebook. All of this leaves a very strong suspicion of plagiarism but no
sufficient smoking gun to warrant a referral for cheating. I make my judgment and give it 40%,
explaining my decision as taking account of the fact that plagiarism cannot be proven but marking it
down heavily as being excessively derivative.
I meet with a postgrad student at 8:15am. She is working with me on the expert system I am building.
I brief her on what is required next and fix to meet her at weekly intervals over the summer.
I have volunteered to cover for a colleague as relief invigilator in three exam rooms from 10am. I
check with the invigilators as to when they would like to be relieved but find that there has been an
admin snafu and that each room has two invigilators for an average of just six students per room in
open book exams! All cheerfully wave me away - this is good as I got kudos from my colleague for
covering her duty (plus bottle of wine) but find the task a sinecure.
I return to my room and spend two hours looking at exam scripts as external examiner. I'm happy with
the marking and approve all marks awarded.
I receive an email from Exsys offering me an education licence for their expert system builder
application (Corvid) at a price of $5,999. They include a link to a 30 day demo version and to their
instructional tutorials. I download the application and start the tutorials. It's lip-smackingly good and
is a vast improvement on the old expert systemn shell that I am currently using. All I need do is make
a case to our Dean - and I check to find that we do still have money left in the pot.
In the mid-afternoon an international postgrad student from India comes to see me. I know what has
prompted this visit and my heart sinks. I have given her 0% for an essay and I have to tell her that she
is lucky just to have been given 0% and referred in the subject rather than referred to the cheating
committee. She is a picture of abject misery. Her essay was little more than a cut and paste from
Wikipedia. I explain to her why this is not acceptable. As I probe further why she did this, I learn that
she has apparently never written an essay before. Her entire educational experience has been tests and
exams.
This has been a problem this year. Our Head of School has been almost on permanent tour recruiting
to our Masters programs - but the result has been that we have acquired some very weak students. I
felt that many students on this year's cohort had poorly developed English language skills - both oral
and written. These students seemed mostly from Asia. Their limited language ability made them very
reluctant to engage in seminar discussion in class - it was difficult to gauge whether they had read
suggested materials for discussion or not - or whether they had attempted to read them but the
materials were simply beyond their ability to comprehend because of language problems. My view
was that we may need to to make strenuous representations to the University that there cannot be a
university-wide minimum TOEFL/IELTS score - that some courses simply require a better grasp of
spoken and written English than others do and that law has a high literacy requirement. I have noticed
that some other faculties have a number of Chinese students. I see these students in the cafeteria
where they converse among themselves in Chinese. When they approach the counter for service they
rarely seem able to say anything at all in English - they just point at things. I can't begin to imagine
how a student who cannot ask for a coffee can possibly understand a lecture on a degree course.
We do not seem to have allowed for the fact that some students that we are recruiting to the course
simply have no idea what is required of them when writing an academic essay. We have to accept that
some students come from countries where there is a very unsophisticated higher education system that
relies heavily upon rote learning either of a text or of lecturer's notes. Exam success depends solely
upon an ability to recall and reproduce the approved words. How are we going to respond to these
students? How do we cope with postgraduate students who have never written an essay before?
I return to my flat to continue working on an academic paper. On my phone is a text from Dr
Bluestocking who is in Paris to present a paper. I call her and find that Dr B is not amused - the
airport shuttle that took her from Charles de Gaulle airport to her hotel went to virtually every other
hotel in Paris first and took 2 hours to deliver her. Then she found that she could not logon to the
hotel's internet connection as she got the message "Windows is not configured for this network". She
implores me to contact the university's ICT team for help and support. I pledge to do so.
I have supper, open the wine and watch on video on demand the BBC programme "Poor Kids". I take
my hat off to the programme researchers who managed to find four such wonderfully articulate young
advocates against the obscenity of child poverty. If ever there was a need for clear justification for
widening access to higher education, these children made that case.
Uid 264
I completely forgot to journal on Wednesday so now I'll try to remember what happened based on my
log file and the sent box of my mailer. My official position is 80% of full-time. Each week I try to
pick a day that I call my "day off" and on that day I only do a bit of email or do a bit of work as an
opportunity presents itself. For example, even though it is my day off, I might work on my laptop for
the 45 minutes that I'm waiting for my son at his violin lesson. I can't ever let an opportunity like that
go by. This week my kids both had dentist appointments and one had a doctor's appointment and we
had a whole slew of other errands that were spread across Wed - Fri. So I decided to not declare an
official day off but divide it over the 3 days. Wednesday had the least work and the most off. I started
off at the dentist for 7:30 am and had kids back to school and me at my home office desk by 9. Of
course I worked (prepping for a later meeting) for a good 30 minutes in the dentist's waiting room.
Once home, I spent the next 2 hours reading email and responding. Most of it was either about the
UCOSP program (a distributed undergraduate project course that I help run) or about our upcoming
CS4HS program. From 11-12:30, I chaired a phone conference call for the outreach committee of the
Canadian Association of Computer Science. I remember when I used to be so nervous before those
meetings. Now I'm just frustrated at how the other committee members don't reply to requests for
meetings, don't really want to do anything and mostly want to talk. I've already given notice that I'm
resigning from chairing. It has been almost 4 years and it makes sense to move on and give someone
else the reigns. My previous chair was very keen that I do this but the guard has changed and while
my new chair is supportive, I don't feel the same need to carry on. Time for something new.
After the meeting, I did some more family errands (doctor, shopping trip, ...)
and finally got back to work after 4. Spent another hour sending email messages -- again mostly about
outreach or recruiting.
Looking back, I don't think I did a single stitch of actual computer science work or even thought about
the process of actually teaching computer science. All of the 15th was strategizing about outreach or
administration of programs. I don't mind this kind of work once in a while but what I usually like
about my job is that I get a nice mix of organizing things and also thinking about technical content.
When I'm teaching a course much of the work is administration but not all. For example, yesterday
(not the 15th), I spent a few hours writing code and working out a lab for students to do that exercised
the concepts I wanted them to learn. I think I'd go crazy if all my days were like the 15th this month
and I didn't have the chance to think about CS content at all.
Uid 266
Woke up on my brother's sitting room floor, somewhere south of Stoke (the northerner's equivalent of
"somewhere north of Watford"). Made myself decent, rolled up sleeping bag, had a shower,
decontaminated my mouth and emerged for some breakfast with brother's family. Amazed at
calmness and ease with which his children seemed to be ready for school by 8.15, then played quietly
and cooperatively without recourse to any electronics. Compared with my headless chicken approach
to getting children ready for school. Drove off at 8.30, and headed to Cambridge, to externally
examine a PhD.
Driving into Cambridge, you could be coming into any large town in the unglaciated part of the
country. Even when you go past the Cavendish Lab and the Institute for Astronomy, they could be
just big out of town industrial parks. But once you turn down Queens Road and head along the Backs,
the splendour of Kings et al. means you can't really be anywhere else, and you can't help but be
impressed and a little intimidated. Then you turn down Fen Causeway and, in the middle of the city,
you come across this gorgeously unmanicured wetland, Coe Fen, replete with a herd of cows
mooching about and languidly avoiding the cyclists weaving between them. What a place! I didn't go
to Cambridge, but I grew up in the Fens, used to come here on days out and for Christmas shopping,
and my great uncle, great grandfater and great great grandfather went here, so I feel both at home and
like an outsider. I like this tension.
Park, and walk up to Christ's College where the viva is to be. Swithered over what to wear, but
figuring that they like to dress up at Oxbridge, and since I'm the examiner that over-dressing is
probably better than under-dressing, I'm in full suit (my old wedding suit, the only I've got) and tie
(first time I've worn a tie for over a year, and that was for a funeral), and feel a bit jealous of the kids
in shorts wondering around in the sunshine.
I'm met in the Porter's Lodge by the internal examiner, and the candidate, a nice German guy in his
early 30s, shows up a moment later, so we all troop off to the internal's college room, which is the full
works - oak panels, fireplace, big windows and all that. Pass a very pleasant two and a half hours
discussing the candidates thesis, managing (I think) to tread a line between pedantry, hand-wringing
humility and Oxbridge-sycophancy, unnecessary smart-arsery and all other traps that lie in wait for
the unwary examiner. All ends happily and we send him off a few minor corrections short of a PhD.
At which the internal invites me to have lunch in the college, so we repair to the hall (is that what they
call it?) where I fill my calorific boots with as much dignity as I can muster. Then for coffe in the
Fellows Common Room, where I am introduced to the present Master (who is reading the Guardian)
beneath a picture of the guy who was master in the 1680s (who isn't). For a terminally self-doubting
prole from a northern 60s university, it's all a bit head-spinning. To top off all this kind hospitality, I
am shown the Darwin garden and sculpture, there because Darwin was an undergrad at Christs.
Wonder back down the road to my car, noting how southern and London-esque Cambridge feels.
Bump into a guy who was a PhD student in our department about 5 years ago for a moment (he was in
a hurry).
As I leave, I think about how, actually, I felt I held my own there and, for all the historical
impressiveness of the place, I reckon I'm very much on their level. Also a sense of how the value of
higher education and academic research, which I so often doubt and question, is so utterly
demonstrable and taken for granted in a place like Cambridge. So I leave buoyed up, both about my
own personal worth and that of the whole endeavour of universties.
A long drive home remains. Can find little worth listening to on the radio - an unimaginative
interviewer on 5 live, brainless rubbish on Radio 2, impenetrable plinking and plonking on Radio 3,
tedious waffle on Radio 4, nauseating saccharine dumbing down on Classic FM, and airhead candy
floss on all the local stations. Stop at a service station near Brum, and who should walk across the car
park and get into the car next to mine but Roger Black, Olympic 400m silver medallist, still scrubbing
up nicely in his mid 40s.
Home by 7, get back into family life. Bed at 10.30 and quickly to sleep. A good day.
Uid 267
Not a typical wednesday really as I woke up in Montreal having arrived the evening before on an Air
Canada flight to attend the 13th annual Space Between Conference (i.e. literature 1914-1945) at
McGill University. I did wake up about 4.30am of course but because I had kept awake during the
flight the previous night was suffiociently tired enough to get back to sleep and in the end managed to
doze to about 9.00. There was no worry because the conference didn't actually start until Thursday
lunchtime. I could go through giving a scheduled breakdown but basically I had a lovely day
wandering around Montreal, especially around the old town and the old port and watching the St
Lawrence flow past. With everyone speaking french and the temperature in the early 30s, it felt very
mediterranean.
Got back to air-conditioned room about 5.00pm for facebook chat with family (before they went to
bed), then did some work on my paper (due to be presented on Saturday) because - here is the
teaching-related bit - the week before had been taken up with courses and exam boards. Then went
out for a meal later and then came back, read a bit and went to bed. A good day!
Uid 274
Filling outforms for my annual appraisal causes me to focus on how the job has changed for the worse
in subtle and not to subtle ways - and has led me to wonder why I would want to stay in this post. An
email from a colleague about a vacancy at their university is so tempting - but I have a university
student daughter living at home and can't relocate. Lots of tensions between wanting to escape and
being a good parent, and between her experience as a student and mine as a lecturer. Looking forward
to my kayaking course tomorrow - when I get to leave all this hassle behind and focus on not
capsizing - not so different after all!
Uid 276
We had our Subject Assessment Panels today with our external examiners. It’s a right old hassle
compiling all the paperwork for the module box (I’m on very friendly terms with the photocopier) but
thankfully the Panels went well. The externals made some really great comments (we should post
them on our website for publicity) and it’s good to hear that they think we have got good practice for
the sector. The externals do a really good job but it’s not something I’ve ever wanted to undertake
myself – it’s onerous enough carrying out internal moderation, never mind actively seeking more
from another institution! Still, I guess it helps you to calibrate your academic life and to find out that
the grass is not always greener elsewhere…
Uid 282
8:00 am Got up, dressed and ate some yoghurt. Today is the first Wednesday of this semester when I
was not teaching an all day session on campus. Nice to be home sleeping in. Getting up at 6:00am to
teach from 8:00 to 5:00 three days a week can be so tiring. It takes a tremendous amount of energy to
teach this long at a time.
Made a list of places to go and things to do. First to the chiropractor at 10:00am, then to the jeweler to
have a gift appraised to add to my insurance policy, then to get the windshield chip fixed on the car.
Once the car was done, returned to the jeweler for the appraisal documents to take to the insurance
company.
Daughter came over for a visit, and then the husband came home (summer hours means he comes in
at 4pm). Ran to the dry cleaners to pick up clothes. In between, ate a light lunch.
Answered work emails. One dealt with a student admitted to my online class late as a favor to an
instructor on campus and the girl started her communication with me by asking me if I would like to
make my due dates more consistent, implying they weren't already. Couldn't respond right away, too
angry. Needless to say, she missed the quiz due date and ended up complaining to the registrar
expecting a full refund of tuition and to drop my class. Strangely, she was allowed to do this with no
communication with me by the provost. I will be talking to someone next week when I return to the
office. I honestly think this class was more than she thought it would be so she decided to complain in
order to get her funds back. I am glad she is gone but would rather she had communicated with me
directly instead of complaining about me. Cowardly.
The most disappointing thing was not getting to work on my research. This is what happens with too
much frequency when I work from home. No one thinks anything about asking me to do things for
them, not to mention the things I think of doing.
Uid 289
Funny kind of day. Term is coming to an end. I spent most of the last 3 weeks marking. I got that
finished on Friday. Monday I was away external examining and so yesterday I spent the whole day
clearing through my emails and reacting to them. I have several commitments – some related to marks
and the end of term and some not.
Spent some time resurrecting an on-line project marksheet from 2006 – for a colleague who is writing
a reference for the former student in question. Then I read and reacted to more emails.
This is not a happy department. Redundancies have just been announced, in administration and IT
Support. I am having a technical problem with my laptop, but when I take it to Support (twice) there
is no one there. I presume they are meeting to discuss the situation.
Lunch at the keyboard.
One of the jobs I did yesterday was to fix the date for a PhD viva, so today with some time to spare, I
start reading the thesis.
Seminar in the afternoon. It’s an inaugural for a (relatively) new lecturer, so I want to support him. He
has a difficult job pitching quantum mechanics at a mixed audience, but succeeds pretty well.
Back to the office and some more admin tasks to sort out – most connected with project marking.
Then some time to read more of the thesis.
Home earlier than usual. Enough for today.
Uid 291
An early rise for me, 07:20. Look at the over-night e-mail which was
not very much. Read the on-line paper -- why do be continue to call
it a paper when it is clearly electronic?
Take my wife tea at 08:30. The post brings a newsletter from CAFAS but
I decide I do not have time today to read it as I need to develop the
Open Day demonstration, which is what I do all the ret of the
morning. The demo is of 2D audio in ambisonics, controlled by a
wiimote (at last a controller one can afford). Today's work is to
look at drum loops, which is outside by normal area.
Cycle in to the department at noon.
Talk to my colleague about a possible research proposal. Neither of
us has much belief in it being funded, but sometimes one has to tick
the "tried" box. I should add quickly that the proposal is excellent,
cutting edge, going places unknown, and we are the world leaders in
the area. It is just that the lottery never seems to come our way.
To a UCU committee meeting. Confidential material, but pensions,
government policy, white paper, and university management all
feature.
I forgot to take any lunch, and as our department is so far away from
the main campus I make do with a cup of coffee.
The first part of the afternoon was spent on more for the Open Day
demo, followed by the regular meeting with a research student and
staff. A wide ranging discussion on HPC which is always fun, even if
I am a little behind the others.
The 4pm meeting was delayed as the co-supervisor was busy with another
graduate student, but we managed it at 5pm. An hour with the Iraqi is
always hard; English is not really good enough, but at least there is
now a genuine idea that could lead to a PhD. We have to explain the
necessity of recording experiments even if we do not expect
speedups. Rather a hard hour but afterwards we thought that progress
had been made.
We move the audio kit into the lab for tomorrow morning's
demonstrations, and set up stands and cables, locking away the
expensive bits.
Cycle home -- it started top rain as I left and by the time I got home
I was soaked to the skin. A complete change of clothes was necessary.
A simple supper of pasta and a little more work on the demo completed
a bitty day.
Uid 296
15th June.
Travelled to a conference today, so up at 4am (only a little earlier than on a usual work day) Drove to
the station and then caught the train to London, then underground to Kings Cross where I met a
colleague and we travelled north. A couple of hours later we reached our destination. On the journey
we did discuss student research proposals for an MSc...and the time did go by quite quickly. Walked
through the town and booked into the hotel, had coffee and ambled down to the conference centre and
a 1pm start. The first day of the three day conference was very stimulating and enlightning; didn't
finish until 6pm and then needed to tackle a few e-mails with feednback to students. A very nice meal
in an Italian resuarant and a walk through a very interesting town in the evening sunshine. Really tired
with the travelling but had a very good day.
Uid 301
An all day meeting to discuss the development of a distance learning program. This is a new venture
for the university and we're feeling our way through it. About 1/3 of the meeting is essential
information which I can't afford to miss. The rest is dross that adds nothing. Unfortunately I have to
attend it all, as the good bits are randomly interpersed amongst the rest and can't be easily separated
out. When people take a day of your life, I wish they would value it more by keeping the the schedule
and concentrating on value added activities.
The result is that I have to squeeze all the other daily tasks around the edges of the day (e-mail,
student supervisory meetings, issue resolution with admin, etc.) .
This means a 7am start and finally leaving the building at 8pm. Of course I still have an hour or so of
e-mails when I get home too...
Before bed I take time to read through the latest educational news, but decide that it's all too
depressing and call it a night - after all, I have an early start tomorrow to catch up with some of the
research I didn't do today.
Uid 303
Woke at 6am to walk the dog. A worry walk. Counting all the tasks that need to be managed before
everyone goes on leave. 1500 coursework assessments, exam boards, external examiners. 5 showcase
exhibitions, L&T reports, 10 references, 3 research reports, 5 new Programmes to push through final
stages of validation, module improvement plans, coordinating 40 module reports, 40 module spec
updates, and new module guides to be published for next year in time for the franchise Programmes.
Preparation for the fourth QA audit inside 12 months. Timetabling and first week plans to revise.
Clearing rota to organise. New meetings every week for the planned school merger. I'm just a field
leader, at our University you're not even given the dignity of being a head of department. I'm being
advised to apply for associate Dean. I'd have to get the application in before Friday this week. I'm
taking 10 days leave frpm Monday, as most of the summer has been filled with research objecties and
merger plans. I think I'm headed for a breakdown. His has been the worst year in HE I can remember
in my 15 years. I'm tired and scared that I'll forget to complete a task that'll cost me my job when the
redundancies come. They give the tasks to those who work. Those that don't get left alone, nothin
seems to affect them.
Uid 310
15.6.11
This is a frantic time of year, so an early start. Mostly we are past the undergraduate rush now,
although there are still some around on placement and preparing projects. Things don’t seem to slow
down.
7.30 Greet cleaners and turn on computer. While waiting for the increasingly slow warm up and all
the many firewalls to establish themselves, sort out paperwork for a meeting this afternoon and walk
the length of the building to my mail box, only to discover it is empty. Spend the next 50 minutes
online, organising various journeys and accommodation and trying to find passport number and
expiry date to check into one flight. We are supposed to go through the University travel system, but
this is so very cumbersome that it is worth doing it yourself in the interests of getting the right budget
billed, the right tickets bought and not least maintaining mental health.
8.20 Phone call out of the blue from Saudi Arabia, a prospective student for a masters course who
seems to have found my number at random. 10 minutes and some confusion later, he is clear about the
application process… I hope.
8.30-9.00. Write reports on the progress of three PhD students (all very good) and send off for the
next stage in the process, where they are interviewed to see if we supervisors are doing the job.
9.00-9.40 A variety of PhD and MSc supervision queries dealt with by email. There is one Honours
student still needing a reply, but as she is on holiday this week, that can wait.
9.40-10.00. Suddenly realise I am hungry. Another long trip this time to the canteen, via passing over
some final course work for second marking.
10.00-12.00 Poster preparation. This is for a local conference and it is a joint effort with a colleague
whose first presentation this is. She has produced the content, I just provide the width/ appearance.
12.00 The computer crashed and took another 10 minutes to get going again.
12.10-2.00 Poster continued
2.00 Realised that the meeting had been postponed. 2 hours cleared! Poster continued
3.45 After several email conversations with the colleague concerned, had a break and looked out of
the window. Pouring down, and there is a huge pile of washing out on the line at home. B*****r!
3.45-4.45 PhD supervision. This is with one of the students whose report went off this morning. She is
deep into statistical analysis which is way beyond my, so thank goodness for supervisory teams.
4.45 The final draft of the poster sent out for colleague’s approval, corrections and general admiration.
Well maybe.
4.50-5.00 packed bags and lap top for London and beyond. Remembered to book a taxi for 5 am
tomorrow. Ugh. Then a long and glorious dive across the moors, with views for miles in all directions,
in order to visit family before the next trip.
Uid 314
up 8am
attempt and fail to get daughter out of bed in time for school - leave to spouse to mix bribery and
threats
9-10am run
10-11 am mow lawns, breakfast, get to work
11-12 attend seminar. fall asleep.
12-1 talk to colleague; lunch
1-2 stare vacantly into space
2-3 work on CV for grant
3-4 talk to PhD student & ex-postdoc supervising about submission to doctoral symposium at a
conference in the US
4-430 work on grant
4.30-5pm collect daughter
5-6.30pm help daughter rock-climb
6.30-8.30pm dinner
8.30-9pm wrangle daughter to bed
9-10pm watch backbenchers on soon to be shut-down by the tories public service TV channel
10-11pm watch 'Sherlock' saved on freeview
Uid 315
Lectures have finished, and now the great pile of marking that has built up must be tackled.
I have several Masters theses that need to be assessed, and that should be top priority. However, on
days like this, when I don't have any crucial meetings (other than one teaching & learning committee
meeting, because administration marches on) and the winter weather outside is quite agreeable, it's
difficult not to go on random flights of fancy on the internet, looking for what could be the next
interesting research project.
Great thing about this job - sure there are days when the third extension to the deadline must finally be
met - but there are also days when I can do whatever, wherever, and be paid a pretty decent salary for
it too.
Good day, all up.
Uid 325
Went into work in the morning, having checked and dealt with my email before leaving to avoid
morning rush hour. Did some admin etc, met with one of my students, attended a seminar, had lunch.
Went home early and spend the rest of the day and night marking all the essays for my postgraduate
course.
I am very impressed with our final year (Honours/400 level) students essays. Only a few years ago,
most CS grads couldn't put two English words together unless they were "if then" or "do while". Now
with our Uni having a push to increase our graduates communication skills across the board, our
CS/Engineering grads seem to be learning to write better and better every year. Nowhere close to the
Arts students, but a far cry from the extremes of "This paper show us how implementations of pattern
in wrong contest can cause your design to suffer badly as one should only use the appropriate tool for
the trade as required" or similar pearls of wisdom. :-)
Uid 333
Spent the first four hours of the morning (8-12) dealing with email relating to my two administrative
chairs (I'm chairing exams and undergraduate studies). Lots of email, one phone call, and the editing
of lots of documents, notably the 101-page handbook for those entering year 2 next year.
My predecessor had revised the grade descriptors--already legion because different ones seem to be
needed for different types of assessment--so that they are more bullet point-like and less like running
prose. Having just marked lots of scripts with the old descriptors, I find the old ones more than
adequate and can't see the rationale for the change. I considered just overruling the change and
sticking with the status quo ante, but then decided that implementation of things already passed by the
committee before my tenure as chair should be carried out. However, I 've put it on the agenda as an
item to be discussed. Is it just the case that when administrative tasks fall to academics who stay in
each chair for 2-3 years, history will show a see-sawing of ideas back and forth with change the only
constant? Some departments have chosen to forego an academic post so that they can pay the same to
a high-level administrator who takes on director of Undergraduate studies and graduate studies. This
seems sensible to me and would lead to greater continuity and a strategic plan for change. In my dept,
however, we can't afford to lose a lecturer and can barely afford the lecturers we do have.
Assembled a lunch of smoked chicken with grated raw celeriac and apple plus walnuts and herbs. Cut
a slice of rye bread and ate lunch checking my twitter feed. Having ascertained that HEI matters at
large were going from bad to worse, I got back to my administrative tasks. The need to finish
proofreading the handbook (whose arrival on my desk today--with an 'asap' turnaround time--could
not have been anticipated) meant that I sent my apologies to a lunch meeting of a committee that
discusses student progress. Instead, I sent my updates on students by email, which seems anyway
more efficient. This meeting (which happens twice a term), gathers tutors in different subjects at a
single college and we go through the entire list of students (c.200) by subject. No one else's comments
are relevant to anyone else, so it seems a rather ritualistic event. I was not sorry to have to send my
apologies and might do so regularly in future.
At 2pm I phoned an emeritus professor to agree marks on scripts. He is still teaching and assessing in
the department and would like never to have retired in the first place. If he hadn't retired, however, I
wouldn't have the job I now have, so my feelings on this are rather mixed. As a feminist who's
divorced at least one academic husband for being a workaholic, I think that external prompts to STOP
WORKING are few enough in academia as it is, leading to a culture of workaholism and selfdefinition only through work. This culture is detrimental to relations with family, children, and friends,
and creates emotionally deprived individuals. Removing the retirement age will be, in my view, a
human disaster.
Between 3 and 5pm I finally saw some students: my current second year tutees. This was the third
meeting of term to discuss final year options. In between meetings I'd sent them away to gather
information, talk to other colleagues about dissertation ideas, and generally flesh out their vague plans
for the final year. After the last student had left, I wrote and submitted my online reports on their
progress: all had managed to develop good dissertation ideas, engage a suitable supervisor, and all but
one had put in a title and bibliography to the central departmental committee that needs (for a reason
beyond me) to approve such things.
At 5.30 I met up with several colleagues in a wonderful local real ale pub. One of my colleagues had
organised this event by email--our once-a-term departmental pub trip. About 7 of 14 came along--not
a bad turn-out. (As all too often in this post, though, I was the only woman at the table.) The beer was
good and I we got into earnest conversation about syllabus reform. Given that scheduled meetings are
so full of rubber-stamping and have agendas that are far too long, the pub seems the only real forum
for a wide-ranging, free, and frank discussion. In this it's far better than the departmental away day, at
which battle lines are drawn up in advance and at which nothing is every decided. I'm hopeful that I
persuaded at least two colleagues that a certain paper has to be removed from being compulsory for
student progress. Although whether they'll still be persuaded when they are not the right side of two
pints remains to be seen...
Home again in time for dinner. Read Schiller until bed.
Uid 343
I’m currently at an international mathematics conference on the Ile de Porquerolles, a small
Mediterranean island just off the south coast of France. It is an intensive meeting with a very full
programme of talks.
The conference is at a holiday centre and the centre ‘cinema’ is in use as our lecture theatre. We were
told before the meeting that the only possibility for presentations is to use the data projector. This has
annoyed many participants who have never done such lectures before, being used to overhead
projector presentations or simply blackboard and chalk. In this subject there is much to be said for
such ‘old fashioned’ approaches: it enables mathematics to be done in real time, rather than
mindlessly flashing up one line after another. A strong feeling is building up during the conference
that many presentations are rather clinical, with the data projector slides marginalising the personality
and charisma of the speaker.
This morning the four speakers approach their presentations in different ways; whether their adopted
styles were intentional or not I am not sure. The first, a German, can hardly be seen as he stands in the
shadows at the side of the theatre, reeling off a list of his own results, with the suggestion that nothing
else in the subject is of any significance. Next is a rather apologetic Frenchman who stands on the
stage, partially illuminated by the projector, as he talks through an endless sequence of scanned pages
of almost illegible handwriting. After the coffee break, a speaker from a British university gives an
entertaining account whilst pacing energetically back and forth across the front of the room – he must
have walked at least a mile during his lecture. The final speaker, from Denmark, stands on the stage in
front of the screen, waving a laser pointer at arms length in true Harry Potter fashion.
The afternoon is the free afternoon of the conference. A walk round the island is on the programme,
but only three people including myself turn up, perhaps because with a temperature of 30 degrees
most prefer the beach or sea. The island scenery is spectacular, with steep cliffs and azure blue sea, as
well as palm trees and rather splendid tree heather which covers much of the island. My two
companions soon wilt, and I am left to finish the route by myself and climb to the highest point on the
island, at all of 460 feet above sea level.
When I return there is the poster session, with posters presented by about a dozen research students.
These are extremely professional, both for content and presentation. Their large glossy colour-printed
sheets far outclass the half dozen typed A4 sheets stuck onto a bit of card – my generation’s idea of a
poster.
In the evening we have the conference dinner. The French staff do us proud with about 7 courses and
even more different wines. As the senior member at the conference, I give a short speech of thanks to
the organisers, not least for having selected such an idyllic location. I always find these conference
dinners a bit of a strain – with over 90% of the participants male (which is typical for mathematics
meetings) the atmosphere becomes rather artificial, and certain sections of the company lack selfrestraint when it comes to refilling glasses.
After the dinner a few of us wander down to the shore and watch the moon above the island horizon
as it passes through the final stages of eclipse.
Uid 348
I am away doing external examining so a later start than usual and the luxury of being driven around!
But then back to the relentless pile of essays to be checked. After the marking onslaught of the last
few weeks, looking at 60 more is almost more than I can bear... But made a good start yesterday and
it's always fascinating to look at other providers' and meet colleagues. Good discussions with my
fellow examiner as well. We work on these all morning and then there's exam board. Now back onthe
train catching up on emails and writing my report. Just three days out of the office and, despite regular
checks on emails on my phone, it's amazing how they build up.
Uid 352
Arrival in office around 8:45. Students are already in the corridor to get various responses: what can I
do to improve my computer project and get a better mark? when is the new video software arriving so
that I can get on with my project?
In between time marking the late assignments that come dribbling in and trying to organise Masters
thesis defenses and advise students on their writing in progress (sending documents back and forth via
internet) I am also seeing students that come by to solve these same problems : how to finish this year
(thesis writing, exams to retake or reports to rewrite), what to do next year, etc. etc.
Some time is also spend on our project to re-equip an old language lab and turn it in to a computer /
IWB classroom for training teachers in technology use. The funds have not arrived and if the purchase
order is not processed soon, the room will not be ready for september. Of course the rescheduling of
room users and planning for the use of the room is already well under way!
Uid 354
The quarter is finally over! I submitted my grades by the 5 PM deadline on Monday, and yesterday I
finally had a full day to dedicate to my research yesterday. Without the hovering thoughts about my
course preparation or grading that I needed to do.
Today is my second full day in which I am free to focus on research. It feels great, except that I am
floundering in my research. I feel like a butterfly, finding so many interesting ideas to pursue. Each
conversation with a different person raises another interesting avenue of possible research connected
to the things that I care about. I spent the last nine months, my first year back as an academic after 19
years in industry, exploring what types of research topics would fit in this context, with these potential
collaborators. I got some good clarity about a month ago, when I realized that there are two types of
perspectives that I am continually bringing to every research question that approaches me. At least
this is consistent.
Now it is time for me to sit on one plant (one research project), lay some eggs (testable hypotheses)
and tend them into mature and respectful research projects and papers. My difficulties deciding which
one to choose. This is what I have been struggling with today. My intuition says that there is a rich
area to unfold in this one place, yet it is a place that has almost nothing published in it. And I'm
having difficult time seeing how to take my ideas beyond the thought piece in into actionable projects.
I also find that I have some interesting ideas, that other people also agree are interesting, but I am
having a more difficult time identifying what problems I am trying to solve. I want to solve problems,
not just do something cool.
This morning my wife and I, and our two dogs, went for a walk in the neighborhood and I talked
about some of these quandaries. To survive in the system, I have to find something that I can publish
on. Perhaps, I wondered out loud, I should go back to the work that I had done eight years ago. It is in
the place that has lots of venues, lots of people publishing in it, and is a place where I could make
small steps. I could also connect it to the teaching that I am doing.
At 2 PM, I called my former advisor back in the 80s. He and I still get together occasionally, and he
helped me get my current position. I had sent him a "Help!" e-mail yesterday, and we had arranged to
talk this afternoon. It helped to some degree. Perhaps. I'm still confused.
Time to get back to making my research concrete.
Took a break. Organized my e-mail inbox a bit. Tied off a few loose ends about some coursework I
am associated with this summer.
I have been reading a book called "On Intelligence" by Jeff Hawkins. It is a fascinating book
describing a theory of how the brain works that differs from anything I've read before. It seems so
simple in concept. It fits with the other things I know about how the brain works. I am only halfway
through, and am looking forward to seeing what he says about how to emulate such a system and
software systems.
There is so much to do this summer in order to prepare for next year, and to get my research path
moving that it is hard to take a break and relax. This really is one of those jobs that consumes all your
spare time. All that you let it into.
Uid 362
Phew!!! Marking is finished. My PgCAP portfolio has been submitted - life seems more manageable
even if it's still busy. So, two meetings today - a divisional meeting this morning (the last one of the
academic year), a quick sandwich and coffee and then the pre-exam board. It's good to see how some
students have progressed and I'm looking forward to the exam board next week to see the final degree
classifications for the third years students that I teach. But it's good to know that I can go home
tonight and have a glass of wine, safe in the knowledge that there is nothing more to mark!
Uid 370
Today was a bit different to other 15ths because I'm currently overseas on a trip. My partner is
visiting a university to do some research and I decided to go too. At this time of year I generally sit in
my office all day staring at a computer screen, there's no reason why I can't do that from the other side
of the world!
My goals for June are to finish my dissertation for part of a masters degree in education so I worked
on that for a little while today. I also worked on a couple of flyers for recruitment activities. Basically
being away from the normal distractions of the office lets me catch up with the small tasks that never
become both important and urgent but fall intot he category of 'would be nice to do at some point'.
Would I be doing these things if I were back at my office, not really. I'd probably be dealing with a
looming open day (first for new fee regime recruitment) and probably dealing with an endless stream
of relatively unimportant complaints from people who should probably know better. I am glad to be
away from it all.
I responded to a few urgent emails and spent some time looking through grade sheets to determine
which students should win prizes. I was quite glad to see that 4 students came in with very high
module averages and therefor the 2 prizes is just going to have to become 4 this year. Also, the
students are from a variety of backgrounds and personal circumstances which shows that in some
ways our widening participation and support mechanisms are providing for a high achieving diverse
student body.
Regardless of whether I am here or there, the day was relatively short - I'd probably go home early in
my office and I was back at our accommodation by 4pm. I spent the first few hours of the day
shopping for food at a local market (big sporting fixture on in the evening, so not much chance of
getting into local pub for dinner). That's the best bit about June - more flexibility and less stress, more
time to think and work on projects that have been neglected.
Uid 375
15.06.11
I don’t want to keep going off on a ‘Woe is Me’ theme, but I’m really struggling to keep it all together.
I emailed my Line Manager and said ‘I am extremely stressed and exhausted’. My Line Manager
replied without mentioning what I’d said at all. I thought it was a clear plea for help. Apparently not. I
have interminable meetings, some in my own institution, others elsewhere, where I’m an External. I
want to be getting on with my own writing and research but can’t yet. My Line Manager’s unofficial
policy of punitive teaching allocation means that I’ve got a module in October which I have never
taught before, in addition to other teaching. Despite having a book contract with a top academic
publisher I am not being given the time and space to write. Too much subjective power lies in the
hands of my Line Manager who seems to want to punish me in any way possible – but always in a
‘just this side of what’s not actually proper conduct’ so that they cannot be caught out. I don’t know
how long I can hold it all together. And, if I do, I just don’t know how the book’s going to get done by
the deadline (this is, I can tell, going to be a recurring theme in my Share Project entries). Being an
academic is all-consuming. There is no place where the job ends and I begin. I am so tired and low
and have nowhere to turn. Other colleagues – one in particular – self-medicate by drinking expensive
Scotch by the bottle. That’s not a route that appeals to me – and that colleague, anyway is ‘in’ with
the Line Manager – they’re long-time buddies. All I can do is keep working so that eventually some
space will appear so that I can get back to the book. I love my students and love my research but I
hate my Manager’s bullying tactics.
Uid 379
I did not go to work. My grandfather died about a week ago and we all went to Jerusalem to his grave.
So, I took the day off, cancelled a very important meeting and missed an important vote (for the head
of school). At noon, back at home I crushed on the sofa tried to get some sleep, but two students
called. One needed an immediate advice on her work, one asked to schedule a meeting. I then worked
on my emails: reading students' drafts and guiding them how to improve. So I guess I did work
eventually.
Uid 383
I am an examiner for the Chartered Institute of Marketing and today there was a meeting down in
Cookham. As I was unable to go down the night before due to family commitments, I left home at
4.15am to catch the 5.05am train to London from Manchester. This allowed plenty of time for getting
there, even if there were delays.
Have I set a record for being the earliest time to respond to student emails? I sent one at 5.03am whilst
waiting for the train to depart - it was an applicant to my pg course from Canada who wanted to come
and visit me and discuss the course for 2012 entry. I wasn't the only one working on the train at such
an early time either! After dealing with some emails I read through the very long case study and exam
questions and prepared for the meeting. I had managed to get a cheap first class ticket down, so at
least I got breakfast (even though it was at 5.45am!) and at least I had a decent seat and table to work
from (I do miss first class travel and good quality hotels that I had in industry). After finishing my
preparation for the exam meeting and having breakfast I read through some of the marketing industry
magazines. I read three magazines every week and use these in my lectures, tutorials and they also
help with ideas for assignments/exam questions and case studies.
Unfortunately there was a signal failure at Watford and after sitting on the line for some considerable
time, we went back to Milton Keynes where we were told to get off the train. By now it was after
8.30am and I should have been in London at 7.30am. After some time, there was limited access to
Euston, with hundreds of people trying to get on a train at 9.15am. By this time it was just too late for
my meeting which was only 10am - 12. By the time I had got across London to Paddington and then
out the meeting would probably be over. At 10am I got on a train back to Manchester and went home
feeling very tired.
I had every intention of working, but fell asleep in the conservatory after dealing with a few emails.
This was the first time I had attempted to go to the CIM via train (I normally drive), but I thought it
would mean more time for working, less stress travelling, and better for the environment!