A Village

It was my son's birthday party today, and it was glorious seeing six little toddlers playing together and only occasionally toppling over each other. Now, you might think it would be a bit crazy having that many toddlers roaming around, but you would be forgetting that they each brought on average two adults with them.

Being and Not-Being Smart

At a recent gathering of like-minded postgrad lady folk we got to the topic of being, and not being, smart. Specifically the kind of smart that makes one postgrad or academic stand out from the rest: we can assume some basic level of intelligence in the cohort as a whole, but there are some people who make the rest of us wistfully sigh with an envious "She's really smart (not fake-smart like me or even normal-smart like him)."

What goes "Create New Folder" in the night?

This weekend I've been caught in the crossfire of different aspects of teaching (class preparation and marking), research (thesis and non-related entirely new whizz-bang sparkly article projects), job search and social life (I have one, who knew?).
 
And you know what? I'm loving it.
 
I got home from a party with my own kind, oddly inspired by the general relaxed camaraderie that naturally forms among the overeducated idle poor. I had ideas. I even had to get out of bed at 2.30am to write down a rough plan for an article. I'm now looking at expanding my sights into ghosts, the public sphere, peer learning and volcanoes.

I should go out more often, yes?

For she's a jolly good fellow...

Today was a somewhat sad day: my buddy Sandra is moving back to Germany, so we had a last quick catch-up at uni with lots of friends. Sandra and I met at a scholarships information session the year before we started our studies, we've been office neighbours all this time, lived along the same street for a while (okay, so it's a long street), did the teaching Internship and worked on Limina at the same time, and we both had Big things happen to us last year. I've met lots of charming, witty and sparkly people through her and my postgrad experience has been better for her presence.

Perth will be a gloomier place without Sandra.



(on an unrelated, but cheerier note: Sebastian curled up to sleep tonight cuddling... a spoon.)