Given the extreme low frequency of substantive posting around here, I figured it might be worth trying a different tack. Not a replacement, more a sort of parallel stream of nugatory nuggets, tossed carelessly into the æther without a moment’s thought. Quick and easy enough to, you know, actually get posted.
I’d imagined setting them apart in some way, styling or layout, and have already procrastinated through pages of WordPress plugins that entirely fail to hit the spot. Which defeats the whole purpose of the exercise, obviously. So fuck it, let’s just begin and see if it can stick at all.
After all, I was so prolific on Old Twitter, just as I still am on Mastodon.
A more-or-less-inevitable-but-on-uncertain-timescale consequence of May’s retinal detachment surgery was the development of a cataract in that eye, which indeed duly developed. One eye operation being never enough, apparently, on Wednesday I had the requisite cataract surgery and am now miraculously restored to sight. Which is quite a nice feeling, actually. That half-blindness was really beginning to grate.
The surgery itself was pretty straightforward, as befits the nation’s most commonly performed operation. It’s the chicken tikka masala of ops. And with a much less onerous recovery regime than the previous one. I am already back teaching today. Joy.
No pictures this time. I mean, there are some, but they lack drama, so what’s the point?
Hopefully this will be the last we hear of any of this for quite some time.
It’s Halloween, so y’know. Eek. And you don’t have to look far afield to find reasons to be fearful.
Let’s not look far afield.
It has been awhile here. Not that there’s anything unusual in that, in general, and in especially as the teaching juggernaut ploughs without mercy into its shiny new year. It has been an exhausting term, and not even half over; though the more difficult half, probably.
That undergrad module, encompassing almost 1000 students — thankfully not all on my watch — is nearly as much of a goatfuck as anticipated. It’s quite fun in its way, but also stressful and overwhelming and, as the young people say, a lot. I’m running on fumes, frankly, and have spent most of the last two months on the threshold of running amok with an axe. Probably only a metaphorical axe, but still.
Since being nudged into this teaching lark a few years back, I have consistently tried to maintain some boundaries, to draw lines in the sand. I’ve refused offers of more time (I’m nominally on 80% FTE, ha ha ha), declined to put in for promotion, done my best to abjure additional responsibility. Teaching is the sort of job that metastasises without limit, has no compunction about filling every waking hour and waking every sleeping one. And UCL is the sort of institution built on the expectation that things will work that way, that it can suck every living instant from your life and scatter your desiccated husk in its wake. Perhaps all institutions are.
I’m too old for that bullshit. I don’t want your fucking money, I want my fucking time.
And yet, here we are. Refuse, decline, abjure; to no avail. They can’t — won’t — take no for an answer. It’s a constitutional impossibility. The ratchet must be ratcheted, the screw turned, the corpse drained to the very last drop.
So here we are, as we likely will be all year. Used up and on edge. Weighing the metaphorical axe.
I’m a little stuck, honestly. A little overwhelmed by all the things I need to do, to write, to prepare, to learn for the coming year.
Only a little. I haven’t taken to my bed. I’m not lying in a darkened room for days on end, hand on clammy forehead, gazing heavenwards with a martyred expression, off my bodiced tits on laudanum. I’m not — quite — in hiding. I’ve managed to trudge through some chores, eking out gradual progress towards being able to survive the term. Just not enough, not fast enough.
It’s nearly fucking September, for crying out loud.
Not lying in a darkened room, but still. Displacing a bit. Should I write this lecture about communications protocols, or order a box of dodgy op amps from Aliexpress? Hmm, let’s see.
Yes, chances are I’ll never get around to using those knock-off MCP6002s, but that’s for the best since they probably won’t work anyway.
That lecture already features C-3PO, the Ferrero Rocher ambassador and a game of Simon Says, btw. There might be video evidence at some point. Assuming I live through this one, that is:
First week of term. First year undergraduates. Twice. God help me.
