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?