the rest of it

My friend Tucker Childs died this week.  Tucker interviewed me for my first real academic job. I applied as 'practice', a year before I planned to finish my PhD. I was shocked to be offered the position. I can think of nothing that affected my life as absolutely as the decision to move to South Africa, sight unseen, to be a linguist. And I can't think how I would have survived it without Tucker. I had a wonderful Head of Department in Tony Traill, who was a bit of a father figure, but Tucker was the person who could tell me what's what. There's a lot you need to know when you move to a new university and a new educational system, and Tucker knew what I, as a product of the US system, would need to know. There's a lot more that you need to be taught when you're a 20-something American with a newly minted passport living in a very different society than the only one you've ever known. I needed someone to tell me when I was being an ugly American. In a way,...

I have survived my first day of online teaching. Not everything went right, but it was ok. I need to get serious about building some walking back into my life, though. My excuses for the past week have been "but I have so much to do", "but it's so cold", "but it's dark already".  It's been a week since my last note, so I feel like I'm forgetting a lot of things I should have expressed gratitude for. I am grateful: For the service on our Envirovent . They came to clean it (small fee), found it wasn't working and so we get a new unit and an extension on our warranty. For students taking part online, being cheerful, and (many of them) turning their cameras on. For a lovely Zoom linguist party on Saturday. For the newly installed (2 weeks) routine of Friday night film (must be a new-to-us one) with Phil.   For Lynne C finding and saving (in two senses) my purple glove! For Phil dealing with the tradespeople.

Having had my handover meeting with LC, I now feel like I've had my first real day of being back being Head of Department. When I've been doing an admin job for a while, I end up feeling like "I always want to be in admin", but then when I've not been doing one for a while, I think "God, I'm so much happier when I don't have an admin job to do." I can see that I'm going to have to work out ways to work efficiently on lots of different things after a year of working inefficiently on one big thing. I am grateful: That I've received no emails from anyone at the university after 6:30pm. (The only evening email I received was from the US.) It does feel like there's been a culture change re emailing mostly in working hours. I hope that's the case and that it carries on. For a kind offer of a not-my-home place to work from home while my home is a building site. I also have an appointment to view what might be a very affordable office spa...

Tomorrow I go back to university work. Coincidentally, it's on Lynne C's birthday, and I'll be taking the Head of Department role from her. I am a very good friend that way. The last almost-week of my leave has been pretty good. I'm setting my goals in a slightly different way and feeling less stressed, but it's always true that Monday is my best work day of the week and things fizzle after that. It kind of makes me wonder if I'm wrong to think that you should work on a project every day so that you keep your mind in it. Tuesday, after my most productive day, is usually my flailing-about day. I've only left the house two days this week: once to collect some eggs and the other to drop off some egg boxes. I don't mind staying inside in winter.  I am feeling grateful: For the leave that I am leaving. For Joanne Rogers , Fred Rogers' wife, who died this week. I really grew to appreciate her when I read The Good Neighbor . For the Dark Sky weather app. ...

 pandemic forty-second Sunday I thought I was done with my 2020 Year in Review posts, but then this week I had my penultimate phone meeting with my coach on the (outsourced) NHS-prescribed diabetes prevention programme. I had my end-of-programme blood test the week before, but no one's told me any results yet, so I don't know if it's worked, but I have met the goal set for me: to lose 5% of my starting body weight. They say that my risk of developing type 2 diabetes is 50% lower. I hope I'm in the good 50%. I've done the whole 9-month programme in pandemic times, while on leave from teaching. I go back to university work as of Friday. Our house becomes a building site a month from Friday, and we won't have normal cooking facilities for up to three months. So I've been reviewing what I've learnt during the programme and thinking about how that can serve me as things shift. So here's what I think I've learned, expressed in both the first and the se...

the card I was waiting for It's been an eventful week, culminating tonight with the news that the soon-to-be-ex-president has been permanently banned from Twitter. Not the most important news of the week, just the most recent. Closer to home, Phil's birthday is coming to a close. He's already in bed. I went out for the first time in days to go to the bottle shop and the fish & chip shop for the lockdown birthday meal, which was much enjoyed. Miraculously, his birthday cards all(?) showed up today after days of no mail. Do you think the postie knew which day to save them for? I'm self-sabotaging (workwise and healthwise) and beating myself up about it quite a bit this week. I could be using this quiet time to catch up a bit, but instead I'm rationalizing writing a gratitude note instead.   I am grateful:  For Phil and his having of another birthday. the back-up card For the Christmas tree that we retired today (it really was perfect) and for the service that'...

So, we're going into another full lockdown.  It will be harder this time for various reasons, but we will get on with it. I'm feeling grateful: That the school decision was taken out of parents' hands. G wanted to go back to school, but the idea of it was starting to freak me out. That her online schooling seems to be involving more teaching, and not just setting them lots of work to do alone. For friends on Zoom. For many laugh-out-louds today. Clever people on Twitter. Wonderful interviews in the Humans of New York: Stories book. For the book I read before that, Trevor Noah's Born a Crime. What an incredible life he's had so far. Much fun to read about places I recognised too. For the Royal Mail's "click and print" postage and for their parcel collection service. I may never stand on line in a post office again. For the service from the two places I ordered teaching clothes from, including the fact that both were plastic-free and the important fact ...

This year started like most with a bunch of theatre/comedy/concert tickets in hand, many of which are still tacked, unused, on our corkboard. It was a different kind of year... Books   In 2018, I was disturbed to find that I'd only actually finished one (very short) book that year, so my 2019 new year's resolution was to finish the books I start. (Unless of course they were horrible.) In 2019, I finished 10. In 2020, I finished 27. Our 20 minutes' reading after dinner in autumn helped a lot. (I've just finished my first book of 2021!) Here's the breakdown: Six fiction, half of which were kids' books read to G. All of the adult fiction was language-related and relevant to the book I'm writing: The Grammarians by Cathleen Schine (recommended), Babel-17 by Samuel Delaney (made me feel like my brain is no longer agile enough for SF—too much world detail to keep track of), and Flaubert's Parrot by Julian Barnes (re-read because Flaubert is a big presence i...

 forty-first pandemic Friday Continuing my year-reviewing, I'm thinking about *things* in my life. How did staying at home (and pandemic travel) affect what we consumed this year?  Here are some very 2020 purchases: Wifi extender : very happy with it. It means I can work in the upstairs office (soon to be the only office) and out in the garden. Got two on a deal and sold one to a friend. Replacement outdoor table : same one we had before (from IKEA), but not falling apart. Unfortunately, we couldn't replace the bench or chairs (out of stock).  Cushions for outdoor seats : to cover up the missing slats in the seats we couldn't replace. All of the above helped me make the garden my office during the spring and summer, and I really loved that. Seems a long time ago. New mattress : replaced our memory foam mattress with a sprung one. Always a bit dicey, replacing mattresses. You can't really know if you like it till you've slept on it for a few nights. Happily, we like ...