Noticeboards

The noticeboards in the Department are immaculate.
The order and energy of the display impressed me
when I walked through the door for the first time.

1.
A handwritten message from a tutor:
"Hello again!
I hope that you had a great summer.
Please come and see me to discuss
your course choices for this year."

2.
An advertisment for a seminar:
"Why Denim?"
(Why not?)

3.
The Student Soc poster:
"Around the World Pub Crawl.
A different drink in every pub."

4.
Newspaper cutting:
"Great Dust Storm Shuts Sydney"

5.
Poster of Department Staff:
There is an empty space
where the China expert should be.
He was in Corsica
when the photos were taken
Tsk.

6.
Health and Safety sign:
"It is Strictly Forbidden
to Eat or Drink
in this Room"
which is on the wall above the table
where the birthday cakes are shared out.

7.
Outside my office:
Pictures of the bones of
a Woolly Rhinoceros.
I know the person who dug them up.

8.
Notice of Important Meeting:
to give details of Field Trip, January 2010
for the first years
who read it anxiously,
not sure what to expect.

9.
Collage of Photographs of Field Trip, January 2009:
Much laughter and chatter from second years
as they recognise themselves
smiling out from the display.

10.
On my noticeboard:
a postcard from the University of British Columbia
sent by the Professor of whom we spoke.
It shows a granite arch stranded on grassland.

11.
Small notice in foyer:
"The sarsen stones outside the front door
were found during excavations for the M25.
They are similar in size and age
to the sarsen stones at Stonehenge."

12.
A competition to design a sari:
I wonder if my friend, Gina, would be interested...