I am a mostly employed academic.
How lovely! Of course, 'mostly employed' is crucial here - but one of my two teaching posts does have prep and marking time built in, which is a nice evolution. Combined, they will leave precious little time for research. The painful fact in my postdoctoral life is that teaching pays the bills - but research is what employers want to see. I'm hoping that my schedule will leave one day free for research and hoping too that I won't be so shattered on that one day that I'll spend it in bed.
And I've quit my solid, rent-paying, dependable library job to venture forth on this academic gig. Which is scary. I'm only sure of employment until next July. Then - into the deep: summer: the long dull winter of the part-time lecturer's soul in which paycheques dry up and stress levels skyrocket.
But why anticipate such times? The recession is over apparently and I'm sure the demand for critical thinking skills is as high as ever and likely to rise, given the current trendy status of a satirical Weltanschung. So I'm having a celebratory dinner tonight, which I'm cooking - along with Allegra McEvedy. I went purposely (and purposefully) into town this morning, clutching my list of ingredients, and blew £20 on fresh fish.
It's possible I've bitten off more than I can chew... (oooh bad pun).
Results will follow.
Thursday, August 27, 2009
new beds for old heads
After a strenuous evening of wrestling with Ikea furniture (seriously, it was almost a cliché), we have a new bed, courtesy of a friend who moved to France. It is so big that we've had to move into the larger room, temporarily displacing our office. We seem to have this urge at least once a year: the desire to turn our living space upside-down and reorganize. At least we're not moving house this year - the rent didn't change so neither did we.
Our friend Susan took this photo of Nas in Dublin - I'd forgotten in my last post about Guinness and oysters: a combination Nas assured us was not to be missed (we just watched in any case). Yes, August doesn't have an 'R' in it so we squashed that handy aide memoire but no harm seemed to come of it (at least not to Nas - the oysters likely felt differently...).
We've been watching The Shield to quell our ongoing sorrow that The Wire only went five seasons. It's interesting - no comparison with The Wire - but it's kept us watching nonetheless. I can't tell if it is being 'edgy' just for the hell of it, or if it is aware of its problematic representations of race and gender. And some of the writing is just so...so...Fox. Michael Chiklis turns out to be far more watchable than The Fantastic Four would suggest at any rate. In lieu of a The Wire Christmas special (which I don't really want to see...), I'll likely see it out.
This week we've eaten fewer courgettes than we should have, given the rate at which we're producing them at the allotment. Nas made some truly divine zucchini bread the other day. I wonder if I shredded courgette, would it freeze well enough to make such delicacies in the dead of winter? Worth a try? And I'm making 'fritto misto de mari' tomorrow night as a celebration dinner: I am a mostly employed academic. Nothing says woohoo like fried fish.
Monday, August 24, 2009
Dublin and ever after
Somehow, once again, the summer is nearly over - not quite though, I shouldn't be too pessimistic - still a month until the teaching term begins.
Dublin was fabulous - what a splendid city. And what better way to visit a city than in the company of great friends? And we kicked the whole vacation off with a fabulous wedding in the countryside. I would have to recommend the self-catering option; Dublin is ferociously expensive. Besides with the wonderful cooks amongst us, the food was better than our budget options in the city centre. Is it childish to visit the zoo in every city in which it's an option? Actually, I'm not particularly concerned - the Dublin zoo was a grand day out. It's small and remarkably compact and the animals were very obliging with antics: frolicking elephants, fighting rhinos, and a hilarious sea lion pup had us in stitches for the whole afternoon. Do you know how sea lions sleep? With their front flippers tucked into their back flippers. Watching a just-fed and clearly rather cranky pup try to get comfortable for his afternoon kip was the funniest thing I've ever seen. In all seriousness, the look of absolute frustration was very human. It was clearly a good year for the breeding program at Dublin as there was also a young gorilla and orang-utan, two sumatran tiger cubs, baby giraffes, a young rhino, and a little chimpanzee - oh and the elephants!
The wedding in Trim was gorgeous - weddings are much more fun when I'm not the involved party. And the wedding entertainment was a ceili - my first in 32 years of carrying this name. Alas, none of us were experienced ceili dancers - though some of our friend's family and family-friends were - but we gave it a go. The late-night disco was more our style and the even-later-night singing and whiskey drinking even more suited to our musical and thirsty group. My offering was a shakey rendition of 'Northwest Passage' ...
And then home and back to work with the rain and increasing numbers of students. Luckily we broke back into routine slowly with a weekend of watching The Shield.
Dublin was fabulous - what a splendid city. And what better way to visit a city than in the company of great friends? And we kicked the whole vacation off with a fabulous wedding in the countryside. I would have to recommend the self-catering option; Dublin is ferociously expensive. Besides with the wonderful cooks amongst us, the food was better than our budget options in the city centre. Is it childish to visit the zoo in every city in which it's an option? Actually, I'm not particularly concerned - the Dublin zoo was a grand day out. It's small and remarkably compact and the animals were very obliging with antics: frolicking elephants, fighting rhinos, and a hilarious sea lion pup had us in stitches for the whole afternoon. Do you know how sea lions sleep? With their front flippers tucked into their back flippers. Watching a just-fed and clearly rather cranky pup try to get comfortable for his afternoon kip was the funniest thing I've ever seen. In all seriousness, the look of absolute frustration was very human. It was clearly a good year for the breeding program at Dublin as there was also a young gorilla and orang-utan, two sumatran tiger cubs, baby giraffes, a young rhino, and a little chimpanzee - oh and the elephants!
The wedding in Trim was gorgeous - weddings are much more fun when I'm not the involved party. And the wedding entertainment was a ceili - my first in 32 years of carrying this name. Alas, none of us were experienced ceili dancers - though some of our friend's family and family-friends were - but we gave it a go. The late-night disco was more our style and the even-later-night singing and whiskey drinking even more suited to our musical and thirsty group. My offering was a shakey rendition of 'Northwest Passage' ...
And then home and back to work with the rain and increasing numbers of students. Luckily we broke back into routine slowly with a weekend of watching The Shield.
