back to work...

so this week i started back at teaching at uni after having last session off to concentrate on the phd (i did get 3 chapters written so that was probly worth it). but now there is no scholarship and no govt assistance and still some chapters to write, and poverty has lost its romantic glow, so its back to work. i sometimes dread teaching, if its straight history they still expect to have to just deal with the facts (as though there are such things) and will sit in a tute for an hour with horrible blank faces, , so i am pleased this session to be teaching australian studies (more contemporary, theoretical) and a third year subject 'debate in australian cultural history' which is all about the black armband history debates etc, among other things. i had four hours straight wed afternoon and was very pleased with most of my students. readings had actually been done, questions were asked, discussions had. the hard one will the last one at 430, full of primary school teachers-in-training for whom aust studies is compulsory. i know our public education is very good but the 'uncriticallness' of some of these students brains worries me sometimes. but thats ok, its first year, they'll get better.

here is a picture of my office which i share with the lovely deborah.


we have the best decorated office in our corridor, thankfully we are very alike when it comes to making cosy work spaces. all the pacific paraphenalia is from debs many travels to samoa etc.

and this is my desk. it was covered in about an inch of dust and my profile had been wiped from the computer which is running like a dog but anyway...


i took my knitting with me but got absolutely none of it done. so i just carried my new knitting bag hopefully around with me. like bells, i wondered whether it would be appropriate to take it with me to class and knit while my students discussed the readings. or to the lecture i dont get paid for. i decided against it.

but here is a picture of the bag anyway.


as some of you know, i constantly dilemma over the knitting bag. i would like one big multi-purpose bag that i could take everywhere with knitting plus all my other junk but i cant afford one of those jordana paige bags and i would end up carrying around about an extra half a ton. so i have settled for this 'rights at work' bag that i got from the bathurst show of all places, full of 'rights at work' stickers which i put along the corridor at uni. it has all my current projects in it:


but i still have to carry a hand bag as well. sigh. one day the perfect solution will appear.

now i must go do housewifely things.

later
k xx