The thought was: to start the day with some warm-up scribbling; but it’s 6.15 pm and I’ve just got here so to speak. Not that I’ve done nothing until now. I’ve been marking(markingmarking) in an attempt to clear the decks for a fortnight of student-free writing. I’m about 2/3 through the current batch of submissions, which because very small, I’ll finish tonight. No doubt tomorrow will begin with a deal of displacement activity as I settle back into my own work – much desk tidying, filing, and so forth. I’ll probably also map out a timetable of sorts. But as long as it’s all devoted to MY work I’ll feel a little less panic stricken than I do at the moment.
Weather has helped keep me at the desk today. It’s been bitterly cold all day: sometimes cold and sunny, sometimes cold and wet, but always cold. It’s cold and sunny, now, but a huge mass of rain cloud is slinking in from the east. The view from the front is weather past and present - blue sky and white fluffy clouds; from the back is weather future: much rain and, given the temperature drop, possibly snow. In MAY! One year, when I was an undergrad, I was as brown as a berry when I sat my exams, having spent most of May revising outside in the sun. So far this year I’ve spent a couple of afternoons in the garden, reading, wearing a sun hat and sun specs plus a scarf, heavy jacket and fingerless mittens...
Tomorrow I have to go to Edinburgh for a meeting; on Wednesday I have a meeting here. Then – oh then – nothing very much for a fortnight. Lovely! Lovelylovelylovely!!!
The university is quiet – well my building is anyway, no doubt the library and computer suites are brimming with revising students. Corridors are light, bright, quiet and completely empty. I always feel most like an academic at this time of year. Odd. You’d think that teaching would have that effect, but it doesn’t. I enjoy teaching enormously, but prefer being able to work to my own timetable ~~~
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