Insiders v. Outsiders

MrsM
Please check the proof copy of your exam paper
and sign against your name.

Awkward pause

Junior Lecturer
I am afraid that there are mistakes.

MrsM is genuinely shocked.

Junior Lecturer
The full stop should be INSIDE the quotation marks.

MrsM is aghast

MrsM
The Examinations Officer has specified
that it should be OUTSIDE the quotation marks.

Junior Lecturer
Well, he is wrong.

MrsM’s eyes grow as large as saucers.
Nobody EVER questions the Examinations Officer
and especially his opinion on punctuation.

MrsM
He has stipulated that the full stops
should be outside the quotation marks
and he feels very strongly about it.

Junior Lecturer
Well, I feel VERY strongly about it too.
I have researched this issue in great detail.

MrsM
I think this conversation is moving above my pay-grade…

MrsM goes to see her friend,
the Deputy Examinations Officer,
and asks his advice.
They decide that there is only one answer:
a joust in the long corridor outside the offices.
The Deputy Examinations Officer
suggests that T Shirts are made available
so that staff can indicate if they are
Insiders or Outsiders.

Just another thing to organise...
Sigh...

original post

Tuesday Morning

I love driving onto campus...
This is what I saw this morning...

1.
The roofing contractor's lorry
with silvery piles of scaffolding rods.

2.
The students rushing across the pedestrian crossing
on their way to the first lecture.

3.
The fruit and vegetable man unloading his lorry
which has come straight from Covent Garden.

4.
The UPS guy, immaculate in brown.
In my heart I believe that his next stop is Tuvalu.

5.
The fierce lady from the Exams Office
walking through a patch of sunlight under the arch.

6.
The student from my old Department
serenely cycling on the wrong side of the road.

7.
The Estate workers already busy
clipping, trimming, digging, brushing.

8.
The lecturer trying to carry a large cup of coffee,
and lecture notes
and smoke simultaneously.

9.
The Security high wheel base 4x4
with fluorescent strips and flashing lights.

10.
The elderly cleaner from my old office
whose sari drapes and folds under her warm coat.

11.
The postgraduate student in a white lab coat
absentmindedly strolling across the road in front of me.

12.
The Head of Department freewheeling down the hill
looking like Darth Vader
with his black shades and cycle helmet.

At the top of the hill
the clock in the tower sounds nine o'clock
and the day is ready to begin.

original post

Terms and Conditions

The Geological Society is in a grand building off Piccadilly and I stood among the crowd of Geologists in the library and asked myself "Why am I here?". It is an impressive room filled with leathery smells and oil paintings and it is not a good place to have a personal crisis

In one sense the answer was straightforward - I had come to hear my friend, the academic who took us to Stonehenge, deliver a lecture about the discovery of a hand axe.

In another sense it was more complex. We live in a world where a job is about money and entitlements, absence management and equal opportunities, tasks and objectives, family-friendly working hours and health and safety policies. These are all worthwhile things but none of them are the reason why you work. I know that you might think that money is the reason why you work but if you have ever been really miserable in a job you will know that is not true.

In the library of the Geological Society I realised that I am very fortunate indeed. I am not well paid and I do have to work long hours; there are petty frustrations and there will be difficult times for Higher Education as the budget cuts bite in the years ahead. But somehow, almost by accident, I have ended up in a job that matches my mixed bag of experience and interests.

None of the things that I love about the job feature in my contract - it does not say "You shall eat canapès in the library of the Geological Society" or "You shall make friends who give wonderful lectures about hand axes" or "You shall go out to dinner with a man who studies snails on Tristan da Cunha" or "You shall laugh at risqué jokes about prehistoric bear skeletons". I don't recall them being mentioned in the job advert or the panel interview but these, and countless other similar examples, are the reasons why I go to work every day.

And all this became clear to me in that moment, in the library of the Geological Society - which shows that you never know when inspiration will strike. And then I turned back to the person I was talking to and carried on our conversation about Thor Heyerdal, feeling very grateful for my good fortune.

The Cartographic Imagination

Today, I watched an academic reading a map
and it seemed to me
that he had the same intensity that you see
in an artist looking at a completed canvas
or a musician reading an orchestral score.

I wanted to ask him
if the rivers actually cascade
in the landscape of his imagination,
if the gridded paper buckles
so that he sees valleys and mountains,
woodland, marshland and beaches,
if the churches with their towers and steeples
are just little map makers' symbols
or become solid stone with people inside.

Or if it stays two dimensional
and the contour lines swirl and curve
over the ridges and folds of paper
as they do when I look at a map.

But, of course, I didn't.

Friday Evening

The windows are steamed up
and when the front door opens
the sound of laughter spills out.

"It's been such a loooong week;
I'm so glad that it is Friday."

It is the end of the first week of term
and the pub is full to bursting.

"Can you get me a pint of the Cornish,
a pint of orange juice and lemonade,
a glass of red wine
and whatever that man in the black coat
on the other side of the bar wants."

Every seat is taken,
latecomers must perch on the end of benches
or lean against the wall, clasping their drinks.

"Have you packed for the Spain field trip?"
"Are you kidding?
I'm a bloke - I'll leave it to the last minute."

We are squeezed around a corner table,
academics and postgraduate students,
celebrating the submission of a thesis.

"We are going away for the weekend
but I don't know where...it's a surprise...
he says we need a tent but I hope he's joking."

The academic who has just turned 40
looks pleased with himself,
organising excellent nights out is his speciality.

"Of course I have more hair than him.
He has a wig.
You watch carefully...
if he turns his head sideways
the hair stays still."

And then it is time to wrap up,
walk out into the cold night
and start the weekend.

On the way home I remember
that I was worried about making friends
before I moved to this Department.

And it seems a long time ago.

Midwinter

In the midday sunshine
I left the Department

and climbed over the safety barrier
onto the path through the woods.


Very few people had walked that way
and the snow was soft and clean.

The Founders building looked like
an enchanted castle
hidden among the snowy trees

and the stone balustrade
was the perfect setting
for Cinderella or Sleeping Beauty.

It was a brief respite from the preparations
for the start of term,

examination papers,
staff shortages
and field trips.

The Christmas Lunch

1.
40 members of staff are in festive mood
surrounded by crackers, wine and good food.

2.
The Admissions Tutor is in San Francisco.
We miss his cheerful banter.

3.
The academic who took us to Stonehenge
is giving the closing speech at the Royal Society.
He claims that he would rather be with us.

4.
The enthusiastic academic
describes her family Christmas
on a farm in the heart of Wales.
It sounds noisy.

5.
I turn around to see the deputy Exams Officer
and the academic who dreams of golf courses
looking like identical twins with their paper hats.
They have worked together for a long time
and they are very good friends.

6.
One end of the table is all Professors.
The conversation sparkles.

7.
We say farewell to the young academic
who will be starting a new job
in the snowy north of Norway.

8.
The academic who shall be nameless
has just won a large Research Grant.
There is much applause and raising of glasses.

9.
The academic who has just turned 40
leads a crowd
down the street
to the nearest pub.
I hear later
it was only the beginning
of a long evening.

10.
I pay the bill,
supervised by the Head of Department,
who hasn’t been drinking wine
so he can still add up.

11.
The Head of Department leaves
to chair a session
at the Copenhagen Climate Change summit.

12.
I go home to look after MissM
who has acute tonsillitis.

*****

These are good people.
They are dedicated to their students and their research
but they know how to party too.