Work and play

Everyone knows that outside term time, academics enjoy unhurried leisure. I'm trying to figure out where I'm going wrong. The end of August was hectic as I tried in vain to clear my desk before a week's enforced absence following surgery on 31st. Students in the final stages of essay writing needed comfort and encouragement, and the pre-term paperwork was starting to need some urgent attention. But then for a whole, glorious week, I slept 18 hours out of 24 and moped uselessly around the house in between as the stitches healed and the pain eased. I managed to complete a journal paper but gave up trying even to read much as I fell asleep over anything in print. A week of half-time work followed, which at least gave me the chance to start making inroads into the pile of paperwork on my desk, but the counterweight to that was the arrival of essays to mark and a continuing tendency to doze off after lunch for up to four hours without troubling my nighttime sleep at all.

Part of the problem was a long-planned change to our office email and web site. Re-arranging the email was easy, but setting it up and helping staff to get the hang of it was more stressful, and the detailed work on the web pages required more undisturbed concentration than I had available. I regret to say I became rather ill-tempered as the process wore on, but at least it is done now, and staff in general seem to prefer the web-based interface for email.

Staff absences since have padded out my job description to include temporarily premises management, office clerical work and general dogsbodying, all tasks which I shall be glad to relinquish when various members of staff trickle back in after the weekend. The prospect of the arrival of taught students for induction and a new batch of research students on Monday has already lifted my spirits if not my productivity.
Meanwhile at home, second-youngest son has found a job which pays well and fits around A level studies, and he has already proved himself to his employers as a reliable and serious worker. Both he and youngest son have tackled their schoolwork with more determination this term than previously as well, so we have a studious and productive household at present. In the same spirit of the learning, I'm exploring further possibilities for my own study as well, and am considering a part-time Master's degree in Canon Law from next September, if they'll have me.

However, play rather than work has caused a headache as well. Just as I was going out, I said the the boys "Please don't kick the ball towards the house. Sooner or later, someone is going to break a window." Minutes later, the prophecy was fulfilled, and we're still waiting for the new glass.

Following on from my last blog entry, we have just acquired a Sheffield Monopoly. The boys were delighted to discover that Bramall Lane is worth more than Hillsborough. Do I detect a little local point-scoring?

One of the real pleasures of my research field is the opportunities it offers to make work playful, and play academically, if not financially, profitable. Expanding my explorations in cyberspace to social networking has nudged me to join Facebook, where to my surprise I have discovered colleagues, friends, family and students all quite happy to exchange silliness as well as sense. My excuse is that I am working on some Key Stage 5 RE resources and need a more comprehensive overview of all things cyber - so it is work, honest! And it does my ego no harm at all to discover from a Facebook quiz that one reasonably good acquaintance thinks I'm SIX years younger than I am.

I was also lucky enough to steal a day with my lover. The Met Office promised bright periods and low temperatures, but it turned out to be warm and unflinchingly sunny, with just a whiff of autumn freshness. We walked along the towpaths and out into open fields, lunched by the locks and poked around village churches, ending up on the bank of the canal lazily watching boats chugging by as the evening chill descended - a warm, happy day of sheer joy and the most relaxing kind of play.