Summer

The conference went well. All issues that arose were sorted. The talks were great, and I learned about a lot of cool things happening in my world of work.

The weather was cool, a bit rainy. Several people told me they had expected Melbourne to be warmer in the summer. But I told them it is Melbourne and summer weather is variable.

Sunday, however, the sky was finally clear and the air warmed up. We walked to the Botanic gardens and watched the birds.

And I watched the sky. Below is an actual sky photo.

Today it is even warmer. Shorts and t-shirts and sandals and maybe the beach later today. Tim and I went to the market this morning and bought a lot of fruit, and some sausages to grill in the park. There were a lot of people in the market early in the morning on Christmas Eve.

This is exactly the weather I hoped for on Christmas when we moved to the Southern hemisphere. We maybe should have picked a warmer city to guarantee warmer Christmases. But this year, the weather is looking just right.

Conference

I know that I have not been writing frequently, and I know that you are desperately missing my considered and thoughtful commentary on my boring life. I know that. And yet even knowing that I still haven't been writing.

That is because I have been Stressed Out.

Two nights ago, I dreamed I was walking on the side of a massively rushing river. The rapids were huge, and the water was swollen to the very edges of its banks. The river was on my left. And then on my right, I noticed that I was walking past a building, and through the windows of the building I could see that the water was also rushing inside. And then as I walked further, the windows strained and cracked, and the water crashed down to sweep me into the huge rapids and Certain Death. I woke up.

For more than a year, I have been planning and organising a conference to be held at my university. My co-organisers and I have written grant proposals, invited speakers, evaluated applications for funding, send myriads of letters, collected abstracts, posted schedules, designed websites, ordered catering, booked rooms, re-booked different rooms when the preferred rooms went offline for AV upgrades, arranged accommodation, dealt with last-minute cancellations of accommodation. It hasn't been difficult, but it has been a huge mental load -- lots of little things to remember to do.

And tomorrow, the conference starts. Tomorrow!

Last night I dreamed that I was setting up for the first talk, and people just kept coming into the room. All the chairs were taken. Standing room in the back was taken. People were crowding around the door. There was no space. I had to run out and try to book a larger room at the very last minute. I woke up before the arrangements were made.

My conscious brain is doing just fine. I handle the tasks one by one as they arise. I make last minute funding decisions off-the-cuff (sure we'll pay for that taxi, that extra night of airport hotel). I get others to do a lot of the hard work (A. has saved my life by making all the accommodation arrangements, and yesterday J. and S. spared me an hour by assembling the portable whiteboards, and thanks so much to D. for organising the talk abstracts!). My conscious brain is handling it.

My subconscious brain is clearly not handling this conference organisation thing at all. It thinks I will be dragged under the river.

I've decided I'm just going to wait it out. In a little over a week, the actual conference will be over.

Of course, then I'll be dealing with conference finances throughout January and February.

Maybe the next time I talk about organising something like this, you should talk me out of it.

Promotion

I found out this week that my application for promotion has been successful. In January, my title will change from Associate Professor to Professor.

About twenty years ago I decided I wanted to be a professor. And in a couple more months I'll finally be one -- twenty years later. Pretty awesome, eh?

And how will my job description change, you ask? Well, I'll be expected to reach higher performance targets. But I'm mostly meeting those already. (That's why I asked for the promotion.) There will be a little more money coming my way -- maybe. Some money that I negotiated on startup here will be expiring around the same time as my official promotion. So things may just even out so that I don't get a pay cut going into the new year. And that is a good thing.

But the best part of the promotion, honestly, is being able to use that Professor title on things like airline tickets. I never liked using "Doctor" because even though I have a PhD, I would be pretty useless in a medical emergency. I've calmed down a bit about letting people know I'm married ("Mrs" vs "Miss") but I still think it's none of the airlines' business. Now I can officially fly as "Prof" and in the event of a medical emergency, everyone will know that I am as useless as everyone else. But if anyone needs help, say, taking the derivative of a trig function, then they will know that I am the one for the job. Unless they mix me up with an English professor. I could see myself running into problems in the event of, say, a Shakespeare emergency. But I've never heard of a Shakespeare emergency, so I think I'll be ok.

Good news all around!

In other news, I attended a workshop on self publishing today. I have written three novels, and I am seriously thinking about getting them published on my own, because eight years ago a round of submissions to mainstream literary agents went nowhere, and I haven't bothered to try again. Unfortunately, even to do the self publishing thing I need a cover design -- for each of them. The workshop lady didn't think it was a good idea to reuse the same cover for different books. So that means three covers. Finding three covers is a paralyzingly difficult task. So maybe we'll wait another eight years and then think about publishing again.

And the last other news is that we have been having very Serious Conversations about blowing all our life savings, and also our future savings for many years, and actually buying that spectacular luxury apartment we toured yesterday. It is right on the side of the large urban park, with easy access to the city, stunning views, extra storage space, and a full sized bathtub. It also has crazy luxuries like ducted heating and AC and double glazed windows. And the building has a fabulous infinity pool looking out over the city. Serious calculations say that we could really make it work. Paying off the bank loans might get in the way of other things coming up in the next few years like "paying for college" or "visiting family ever again". But that infinity pool!

What do you think? Should we buy it? Maybe to celebrate my promotion?

Poop in the grout

Last night I dreamed about poop. My poop. It just kept coming and coming, and it was all over the bathroom floor. I was trying to clean it up with toilet paper, but that just smeared it into the grout. I woke up with a stomach ache.

***

I applied for a promotion this year. A week ago I had an interview. Me and a room full of provosts. I think I answered most of the questions well, but not all. I gave the true answers, but possibly not the best answers or the correct answers. You never know in a room full of provosts.

***

November means spring. Late spring. The trees have full leaves. The magpies aren't swooping anymore, as they're spending their time shoveling grubs into the beaks of nearly full grown juveniles. Sunset gets later and later. We can walk in the park after 7:30 and it is still sunny. The boy has allergies, and there have been spring rainstorms. But spring was always my favorite season, even when it happened in May rather than November.

***

I have a great fellowship at work that allows me to devote 80% of my time to research. By contract, I must devote 80% of my time to research. Because of that, I've been cut back from a 40% to a 15% teaching load. But then on top of that, I've had a pretty heavy admin position in the department, overseeing research. I did a little math, and added up the numbers, and realized that I was working at least 115%, and no one was paying me for that extra 15%. So I said some words, and I'm now officially getting out of the admin research role. But not before the poop gets smeared all over the floor: see first paragraph. We are updating our list of what counts as  a "quality" research output. While the decisions ultimately fall upon someone else, communicating those decisions falls on me. And I just can't get the gunk out of the grout with only a roll of toilet paper.

***

A post for October

I have decided that I should hurry and write at least one post in all of October, because I haven't yet.

I could write some commentary on the world, but instead I think I'll just post a bunch of photos.

Batch one: Pictures from Cape Shanck, where I had a work retreat. We sat in a hotel conference room for two and a half days attending meetings. Then when it was all over, I caught a ride with a group going to see the nearby lighthouse -- because we'd been there for two and a half days without seeing anything....

Batch two: The Melbourne Marathon! No one in the family ran the marathon, or the half marathon, or the 10K, or the 5K. We didn't run any of it. I forgot all about it, in fact, until I dragged Jonathan out to walk to the art museum, to get the two of us out of the house. And there they were. Thousands of runners all through my neighbourhood. These photos don't do a good job of showing how many people there were. They just kept coming and coming and coming. And on the plus side, all the roads were closed to traffic, so our walk to the art museum was extra pleasant.

Batch three: Jonathan received his certificate for passing the French Diplome National du brevet, from the Ambassade de France en Australie. Some sort of French dignitary presented the certificates. He is there in the front in the middle. Jonathan is there in the back in the middle. The red blazers are the students. The others are teachers. Go Jonathan.

And that's it. It's almost like October never happened, it has gone so quickly.

Looking forward to November, when the weather should be even warmer.

Heater

Our heater broke.

When it first broke, we were having some really nice warm spring-like weather, so it wasn't a very big deal. Sure it was a little chilly in the mornings, but the day warmed up nicely and we didn't even notice the fact that the heater wasn't coming on.

And then it got cold again.

All last week, temperatures hovered just above 10 for the high, near 3 for the low. The living room grew colder and colder.

First we built a kotatsu: we put a couple of chairs around a space heater, draped a large blanket over the whole thing, and sat with our legs under the blanket. That was cozy enough for watching a football game in the living room.

But then it got colder.

My face and fingers were frozen at the dining room table.

We moved into the smallest room in the house, the office, closed all the doors, and cranked up the space heater. After a few hours, it was warm in there. We left to go fix dinner, and froze! All meals moved into the office. All leisure activities in the office. The chairs weren't so comfy, but the alternative was too cold.

Today the heater repairman came by and finally fixed the heater.

Since he left, the heater has been cranking non-stop, for hours, trying to get the apartment back up to 18 degrees.

Ironically, tomorrow the forecast is a high of 23.

Hopefully we fixed the heater just in time not to need it again until April.

Introspection

Dn died on Monday.

Not so long ago, before anyone knew he would be dying, his grant proposal was funded, to spend a year in Australia working with me on research. He came with his family, with plans for his wife to finally take her turn to finish a PhD, also working with me. His sons enroled in school. They started making friends. His back kept hurting. Chiropractor didn't help much. Pain medicines weren't working. After a few more weeks, a new doctor did some more extensive tests, and found that his back and body were riddled with aggressive cancer. The family left Australia, and went back to their home country. Surgery. Drugs. Treatment. The wife dropped out of her PhD program to take a job to support the boys. For a few months there were occasional messages. A draft of a paper, to work on together remotely. Some positive news. And then there was silence for several months, until I heard the sad news Tuesday morning, from another colleague. It had been just over a year since the diagnosis.

Our paper isn't finished. I haven't found the time to work on it.

How does one find time to find the time?

Changes

We said goodbye to Jonathan earlier this week. After nine years of learning French, he is off to Paris for three weeks for an exchange program. Lucky boy.

I felt a little sad at the airport. I travel a lot on my own. Tim travels a lot on his own. But this is the first time Jonathan has been gone on his own. It's like a preview of being empty-nesters. We've forgotten what it is like to be only two and not three.

The report from him so far: Day one he took an hour long walk around the Eiffel tower. And he sent photos. And he wrote, "Jealous much?"

Tim wrote back: "We did chores. Jealous?

Jonathan has also decided to attend a new school: a science magnet school near my work. That means we'll be commuting together in the mornings. I envision mornings spent in deep conversation as we walk hand in hand to the train station, where we smile and laugh as we find train seats near all his school friends. Because that's how it works with teenagers in high school, right? Actually, I'm just hoping that he won't ask me to please walk 10 steps behind, so no one knows we know each other. Because high school. Things change.

And with the change in school, we've been asking ourselves whether we are ready to buy a house rather than rent. If Jonathan and I are both commuting to the same place, perhaps we could move there, and shorten that commute some. So Tim and I looked online, and picked out a few places that looked nice a little closer to my work, and wrote down the times of their open houses this afternoon.

And then we went to exactly one open house, in the building in which we currently live.

It's a nice place here, where we already live.

I honestly don't mind my commute: the walk through the park, the train ride, the shuttle bus to campus.

And just think how nice it will be next year, when my sweet teenager shares it with me, bonding the entire way every morning.

Creswick

The family is in Creswick this weekend, which is a town to the west and north of Melbourne. I have learned things while in Creswick. I have learned that Creswick was overrun during the gold rush of the 1850s. Deforested, dug up, washed over.

I learned that the prime minister of Australia during the second world war, John Curtin, was born in Creswick. I learned that John Curtin was the prime minister during the second world war. I had heard the name John Curtin before: there is a Curtin University, for example. Only I learned (by looking it up just now) that the university is actually in Western Australia, on the opposite side of the country.

I learned about the Lindsay family. They lived in Creswick in the late 1800s. There were ten Lindsay children, five of whom became artists. For example, Daryl was a curator of the National Gallery of Victoria in the 1950s. But the most famous of the ten is Norman Lindsay, who was an illustrator, artist, and children's book writer. On a bet, he wrote a book that is now regarded as a children's classic in Australia, called the Magic Pudding. I learned this by walking into a room in the somewhat crazy Creswick Museum, open only on weekends from 11am to 3:30pm, that was entitled "The Magic Pudding."

The book was written 100 years ago, which means its copyright has expired. Which means that you can download it for free.

So I did. It is here: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/23625

Wikipedia says that "Philip Pullman has described The Magic Pudding as "the funniest children's book ever written" and as his favourite book."

So there you go.

I haven't finished, because I just downloaded it this afternoon. But so far, I have found it a lot like reading Alice in Wonderland, which is also supposed to be a funny children's book. All I can say is that some people have a strange sense of humour.

 Here are some pictures of Creswick.

The creek through town. 

Mama kangaroo and a joey. I don't know if you'll be able to see the joey because alas, my phone camera does not have optical zoom.

Sunset. It looked nicer in real life, as sunsets often do.

Same for those white things. They are sulphur crested cockatoos.

The wattle trees are in bloom. They smell wonderful.

It is spring here, finally. Although still cold. The trees know it is spring anyway.

And there you go. Creswick. Did you learn something?

Quick trip

Quick trip to Sydney starting yesterday morning.

Tram to train to bus to Airport! Boarding pass. Security. Plane.

Land. Top up Opal card. Train to train across the bridge.

Exit train. Walk in a large circle trying to find which direction will take me to building E7A. Google maps spins round and round until I tell it to stop trying to point in the direction it thinks I am pointing. Ok. That way. 

Floor seven.

Hi! I made it!

Lunch. Cockatoos across the lawn. I order the chocolate pudding.

Forty-five minutes to look over my talk.

Talk!

Reception.

Small tummy ache. Stinky noises. Excuse me. (Maybe it was the chocolate pudding.)

Hotel. Alone in the room decorated in browns, grays, and beiges. Evening on the plastic chair in the corner, writing a test for the class I'm teaching next week.

Clean teeth. Pajamas. Bed.

Sleep.

Cold!

Fumble in the dark for the button to turn on the heater. Put jacket on over pajamas. Lump all the pillows on top of the blankets. Shiver.

Sleep.

Hot!

Fumble in the dark for the button to turn off the heater. Throw the pillows onto the floor.

Sleep.

Alarm. Sigh.

Clean teeth. Clothes.

Call home, briefly.

Hotel breakfast in browns, grays, and beiges. Sticky floor. Spots on the dishes. Room key doesn't work. Hotel desk. Room key works.

Pack up. Check out.

Lovely weather. Brief walk around campus.

Back to the train station.

Surprise! Train station closed. Buses replacing trains.

Cross street, find bus. Board bus. Sit on bus. Sit on bus. Sit on bus. Check time. Heart rate rises!

Pull out phone and start mapping alternate routes. Sit on bus. Sit on bus.

Escape bus!

Hurry to taxi rank. Hop on taxi.

Sit on taxi. Sit on taxi. Sit on taxi. Check time. Sit on taxi.

Onto the toll road!

Tunnel to tunnel to traffic to tunnel to tunnel.

Airport!

Seventy-dollars.

Print boarding pass.

Security. Phew! Made it.

Wait.

Board. Fly. Sleep. Headache.

Lunch. Juice.

Land. Headache.

Disembark.

Bus to train station ---

Wow, the weather is great! And the fresh air helps the headache.

Skip the train. Walk along Southbank.

Tram.

Home.

Ah.

The end.

Since the holidays

Tim has been gone this week. But it has been ok.

Because before he left, we installed an electric blanket on the bed. All I have to do is remember to turn on the blanket about 90 minutes before I go to bed. Then, after climbing into those cold pajamas and brushing my teeth, I crawl between the covers and they are ... Oh! So snuggly warm! I forget to miss Tim.

The weather hasn't been too bad. Highs in the 15s, lows in the 5s. Occasional rain. But the bedroom is still very cold at night. Having an electric blanket keeps me from getting too cold and lonely.

As for Tim, he has been missing a lot. For example, last weekend was Open House Melbourne, when a lot of buildings all over the city and suburbs open their doors to the public. I put it on my calendar, and I dragged Jonathan with me to see as many buildings as we could in two hours.

We started at Parliament House, where the state government meets.

And then we visited a couple of churches nearby.

And a historic residence.

And then more churches. And then more churches. There were signs for Open House Melbourne all down the street, meaning a building was open Right There! I would tell Jonathan, "Let's go in!"

He would roll his eyes and say, "Another church? Please no!"

There must be about fifty churches on Colins Street. Eventually even I gave up on the idea of seeing them all. And we went home. Next year, we'll go see the churches on the next block over!

We had three other adventures as well, in between snuggly nights with my electric blanket.

The first was our first ever university open house, on Sunday. Jonathan has decided to go to more, so I think I may save them all up and write in bulk later.

Our second adventure was Wednesday evening. On Wednesday, I had a visitor from France who spoke in my seminar at work. For dinner, he suggested that Jonathan and I meet him at the Queen Victoria Night Market. Now, Jonathan and I have gone to the Queen Victoria Market many times on a Saturday. But on Wednesday, for the night market, it is completely different. There is food and music and some shopping, but mostly food and music.

And people. It was very crowded.

That picture does not do justice to the crowded-ness of the market. After elbowing our way through the crowds, we grabbed food at a Brazilian barbecue and found a bench to eat it on. As we ate (and ate and ate), the visitor began chatting with Jonathan in French. He suggested that Jonathan should take all of his university funds and head to France for a degree, because university there is basically free. Wait, free? Even for international students? That sounds pretty good to me. Who can argue with free?

Although there was more food than we could eat from the Brazilian barbecue, we made one more stop on our way out:

Early the next morning, Jonathan came running down the hall in excitement. It turns out that Katy Perry was at the Queen Victoria Night Market on Wednesday as well! His news feed said so! Go look again at that crowd picture I took. Do you see her? She must have been Right There... somewhere.

Adventure three. Thursday, Jonathan had no school because of parent-teacher conferences. Wait, you ask, wasn't Jonathan's last parent teacher conference on a day that Tim was gone? Yes. Yes in fact it was.

So Jonathan came to work with me and decorated the whiteboards and adjusted all my office chairs to tip too far forward.

And then we caught a train to the parent teacher conference. But the bus that was supposed to meet us at the train station and take us to the high school never arrived. So we took a taxi.

Wait, didn't we have to take a taxi last time, too? Yes. Yes indeed we did.

And was the parent teacher conference worth the effort of getting there?

Well, we had five minutes with each teacher. None of them had much to say. And then we got home late and tired. ...

I don't know. I know you're supposed to go to these conferences to get your parental badge of honor. But I really think these are a waste of time....  Don't tell that to the parental honor badge people. My badge is already in jeopardy for feeding the family too much Mac and Cheese from a box. And I've already forfeited entirely the spousal badge of honor.

But that's ok, because I have an electric blanket.

Margaret River Coast

Thursday. One more day in Western Australia. And an entire state one-third the size of Australia still to see. What to do? We opted to drive around the Margaret River area, south of Perth.

We first drove to the very bottom of the region, Cape Leeuwin, and its lighthouse -- mainland Australia's tallest lighthouse, said the sign.

It is also the end of a somewhat famous five day, 150 km walk -- that we did not take.

The lighthouse lies at the most southwestern point of Australia, at the meeting of two oceans. But it's still a very long way to the South Pole, as this sign pointed out.

We totally lucked out on the weather. Bright blue skies and 20 degree days (that's Celsius -- in Fahrenheit it was about 68 degrees).

The sign points out the two different oceans. I don't think I've ever stood on the border of two oceans before.

Some people at the lighthouse said that whales were breaching in the distance. Our tourist map also had a picture of whales at Cape Leeuwin, and stated that whales migrate there between June and August. We were between June and August. So we spent a very long long time staring out at the ocean trying to see a whale.

Grandma thinks she saw one. Tim thinks he saw one. Jonathan and I just shrugged our shoulders.

Do you see any whales out there?

I forget why I wanted to post the next picture. I guess it looks pretty?

Anyway, this is the best we could do on the whale spotting that morning.

So back in the car, we headed to our next stop.

If we can't see whales, maybe we can see some sting rays? I read on the internets that sting rays patrol the beach in Hamelin Bay. Not just the small rays -- we're talking about the rays that are a metre across. Huge and beautiful and right there on the internet pictures. Right there! So we had to go find them.

Off to a good start -- rays have been seen there before, says the sign above. Below, Tim scanning the water for rays.

Tim, Grandma, and Jonathan still scanning for rays. Or maybe just walking/jumping.

But again, the sign at the beach was the best we could do for ray sightings: (I don't think they hang out there in the winter.)

The beach was gorgeous. White sand, empty of people. Beautiful waves. But it was windy -- some rain was on its way in. I did not regret having no swim suit. Too cold.

Goodbye Hamelin Bay with your white sands and summer sting rays. Back in the car, we headed north again along Caves Road.

This area of the country is full of limestone caves. You can sign up for tours in about six or seven different caves all just a few kilometres from the coast. We stopped at Mammoth Cave, which did not require a pre-booking for a tour, and was reported to be large and wide to keep all the claustrophobic people in our car sufficiently happy.

Here is a picture of Jonathan and Grandma with their Mammoth Cave Audio Tours.

The mouth of the cave had teeth.

The inside also had teeth. And ribbons and flow stone and columns. It was impressive.

Although most of my photos did not turn out well, as is typical for cave photos, taken in the dark.

Here is Tim, climbing out of the cave at the end of the audio tour.

And the exit from the cave -- also a hole with teeth.

From the cave, there was a short nature walk back to the car. I finally got a picture of one of the cool grass-palm trees that we had been seeing earlier in the day. So there was that.

And there was a small stream crossing, absent the stream -- which, apparently, usually flows by July. Hopefully the stream comes back or that may be bad news for the cave.

In any case, that was the end of our cave tour.

Final stop: Redgate Beach.

Jonathan likes to scramble on rocks on the side of the ocean, so I picked this beach for him. It was supposed to have some nice rocks to view and climb. The sign at the beach reminded us that there were also strong rip currents, large waves, slippery rocks, and SHARKS!

There were indeed some rocks.

And SHARKS! Someone had very recently spotted a shark in the ocean there. So the beach was closed to swimming. We weren't going swimming anyway. But maybe we would see a shark??? That would be cool!

Here is a picture of Tim, looking for sharks.

Jonathan went scrambling on the rocks (mostly well away from the water -- he was safe).

(See? Being safe. And plus, I climbed along after him. Because I am a paranoid mother.)

Tim and Grandma, contemplating life and looking for sharks.

We did see some large waves, crashing in a most impressive manner over the rocks further out to sea. Even my phone camera makes the beach look spectacular. A better camera would have made it look amazingly spectacular.

But alas, no shark sightings. No whales, no rays, no sharks. We did see a large number of crabs. So that counts for something.

Oh, I forgot. There was one more stop: our road home passed by the Tuart Forest National Park. So I instructed Tim to drive along the road through the forest, parallel to the main highway, so we could check out the trees there. They looked like this:

There were supposed to be two kinds of possums living there, but it was too bright outside for possums. We did see ring-necked parrots, which only live in Western Australia, so even this stop was a success -- right up until Grandma spotted a single mosquito, and we all ran screaming back into the car.

And that was the end of Thursday.

And Friday we flew home. So that was the end of the vacation.

Phew! I hope you enjoyed re-living our adventures through my photos.

The End.