Resolutions

How are your New Year's Resolutions going?

I stopped doing the push ups within two weeks, but I'm still mostly keeping up the steps on the step counter. I'm not writing on the new novel as actively as I could, but I've almost finished writing another chapter of the graduate textbook. I've spent much less time on social media, but I've spent much more time playing video games. I stopped participating in a group that was more painful than helpful. But I'm missing the good people whose lives brushed against mine because of that group.

So mixed. 

But on the purely goodness side, I've made it to the art museum.

Watched the sunset over the river.

Sent the boy off to camp.

And then sent him off for the first day at a new school.

I've watched a mob of kangaroos scatter before sunrise.

And awakened to the chatter of cockatoos. Magpies. Currawongs.

So while maybe some of the resolutions haven't yet stuck, it hasn't been a disaster of a year so far.

In fact, I'd call it a pretty good one.

New Year's Eve

My favourite holiday in Australia has become New Year's Eve.

This year, we played some board games as a family until about 9pm, then walked up to the Yarra River. The huge fruit bats were out, circling the fig trees at dusk. We arrived at the river just in time to spread our blanket on the grass and watch the family fireworks at 9:30pm.

From there, we walked up the river a bit, enjoying the crowds and the lights over the river. I had brought a jacket, but it was just a little too warm to wear it.

Just past the Botanic gardens, we climbed up a hill to King's Domain, one of four city sites where official New Year's Eve events were happening. We spread our blanket and enjoyed the music: New Year's Eve dance party in the park. Only Australians don't seem to be big park dancers.

Jonathan and I joined in anyway.

And then the countdown: 10...9...8...7...6...5...4...3...2...1...

FIREWORKS!

Guys, the fireworks were awesome. There were huge fireworks right above us. And the entire Central Business District was lit by fireworks, over all the tallest buildings as in previous years. From King's Domain, there were 360 degree views of fireworks.

We were spinning in circles watching them all.

And when they ended, the dance party continued!

We only stayed for a few more songs, then walked home. The traffic was awful. So glad to be able to walk.

So sad that the holidays are ending soon for me. 

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.