Five things this week

This week has been mixed to say the least.

1. The RAC (a British equivalent of the AAA) are very efficient in coming out quickly and fixing ill tyres. Particularly useful when you are driving to the station to take the train into London to give your last lecture of the year. I made it with 20 minutes to spare (to the amazement of the wonderful department admin staff). If I had been late it wouldn't have been too bad. I work on the primary school adage that a child can only concentrate for as many minutes as they are old. Therefore with undergrads I work my lectures in 20 minutes chunks and Monday's lecture was on my field of study complete with cool 20 min video (that is also partly on YouTube). But all panic re-arranging of the lecture was needless. However, I did lecture drinking a cup of tea for the first 15 minutes.

2. There are lots more academic blogs out there than I originally knew about. This week I've been discovering good ones by females in academia which is cool and nice to know I'm not the only one struggling with writing.

3. I have two chapters overdue to my supervisors. They're nearly done and I'm aiming to have them in their inboxes by the end of next week. The large carrot is that once they're not my responsibility (albeit temporarily) I can book my flight to the US for July/August to see the boy (a family wedding of his is a very convenient excuse).

4. I finally feel happy with the new office setup. I used to have my office space due to my job (part-time PhDs don't get desks but part time RAs do). We moved into a new building about 2 years ago into a room for 12 (but there were generally only about 6 of us in). When I changed from p/t to f/t there was a re-arrangement of rooms and the old researchers room became the final year PhD room so everyone moved around me. I loved being with the RAs because of the people but they've all left (bar one) either to permanent lectureships or back to home countries. I've had some amazing room mates who have helped my PhD. The RAs were chatty, final year PhDs not at all (an old resident of the room called it deathly silent when she came to visit me). After 4 years of a very productive but conversational environment its taken some getting used to. However, the new residents are a bit more chatty (I suppose its tough coming from a room for about 35) and we've all got used to each other. I adore my next door neighbour we've got on well since we started together, just never got to talk much and there is a tea rota in place.

5. Three people I know had interviews on the same day this week. All went well but they're all waiting to hear. Fingers crossed as they all really need/want to move.