Thursday, April 08, 2004

Domesti-cat

Today's the first day of the holidays that I haven't had to go to school or do anything official. So, I decide to stay at home and mark.

It's 4.26 pm and for the record, marking has not been done. At all. And I have to go out at 5 so I don't think there will be anything marked today. So much for great plans.

One week is never enough. In Melbourne, mid term breaks were two weeks. That made a whole lot of sense. You use the first week to clear whatever you need to clear and you use the second week to have fun. Here, with just one week, by the time you need to clear whatever needs clearing, best bet is that it's Friday already and you have the weekend to have fun before school starts again.

I'm slightly panicky because I haven't done the marking I have to do and next Thursday, I have to launch the psychology elective I'm teaching. So that's more work that's waiting to be not done. I did plot out how I was going to do it, today, when I went running.

A few days ago, a marathoner in my department told me that the 57 minutes I clocked for a 10km run last year was a "nice jog". Yeah, just because he's got legs up the wazoo and he runs everyday. Pissed me off enough to make me go running and run far I did. It took me a good hour to get back from the moment I started. Amidst the roaring trucks and buses that careen by and in between deep breaths of polluted air that is more likely to do my lungs more damage than good, I plotted.

I shall have 5 weeks of lecture for my course and 5 weeks of whatever the students choose to present on psychology. I'm supposed to have a selection trial for the students I take and I suspect I'm going to take students who are much wiser than that dumb counsellor we had two days ago lecture us on counselling. So, I am setting my standards quite low but I aim to impart interest and awareness. I don't aim to make them full fledged psychologists after that.

Just found out also that in Australia, you need to be registered annually as a psychologist and that registration is like a couple of hundred dollars a pop. Apparently also, an academic psychologist does not need to be registered but has the same access to information as the other one does. How cool. Gives me more incentive to be the latter and not even bother with practicising psychology. Horror of horror, if I did, I may end up like that counsellor. *Gulp*

So, to end the non entry of the non day, this week is going to be an enriching arty week. I have a play tonight, Mixed Blessings, my colleague is in it. It's forum theatre so it might be quite interesting to see what other people do with the play. We've heard about nothing except this play for the last few months. The poor kid's exhausted and is complaining that he lost weight. Personally, I don't see what the complaining's about. Anyway, that's tonight. Tomorrow night is the Complete Works of William Shakespeare by the Reduced Shakespeare Company. And on Saturday night, we're seeing Cinderella, the ballet.

Somewhere in all this, I need to find time to get work done. I need to mark. I need to mark....

Ondine tossed this thought in at 15:37

0 thoughts...

0 thoughts...

Post a Comment

" Far in the stillness, a cat languishes loudly"