Well, still in Sydney

Well I didn't get the job. Which means that I was not meant to get it.
Destiny seems to be keeping me in Sydney, at TAFE, doing PhD. Not sure what it all means but there's no use railing against it.
Work has started for another year, another batch of 70 or so students to inspire. Yay the creative arts!!
Back at the farm, Kate has learnt how to dive. Trying to get her to breathe properly when she swims. Trying to get her to do the arms. Diving, quite successful.
I'm getting there with the writing too, slowly slowly. A bit too slowly, methinks.
In other news DJ has been selected for Jury duty. No more information forthcoming. Don't know how long he will be there, don't know anything about the trial.
Which means all is as it should be.
Summer is slowly winding to an end. We're having lovely weather. Warm enough to swim, interspersed with cooler days.
And so life continues....

Job interview

Just went to Canberra for a job interview at my old uni, no less.
Really went well, but I guess it depends who I'm up against. Really encouraging, however.
Actually had a really nice time with Mum and Dad too, so it was all a bonus.
Tan is looking a bit happier than I saw her last, which is fab. Saw Natalie's dad Norm, it was his 80th birthday.
So all in all, very exciting.

On verra. Let you know Monday when they let me know.

Now. Back to the thesis. Write write write.

Chapter three

Thesis chapter three, starting to sort it out now. I seem to be repeating myself over and over and over.
Deleting heaps and rewriting.
Helps.
I hope.
Let's see what Andy thinks of it next week.
I think it's all a bit more clearer now. In other news...
There is no other news. Thesis is where it's at.

Write or wrong?

Chapter 6 nearly done, just the comments to do.
Chapter 3, I'm up to my sixth revision. It's a mess.
Structure structure it's all about the structure. Maybe I need to work out the structure of each section before doing the mind dump.
In other news, been swimming a lot with Kate, but the weather has been mightily variable.
Bought her some new swimmers. DJ's been spending a lot of time with Joseph.
Got an interview on Friday. On verra.

Chapter finished!

WEll in as much as I've done the revisions, now to wait for the revisions on the revisions, if you know what I mean.
Halfway through the next chapter, it's really starting to take shape. I was right to go through the expense of quantining my time. It does appear to be working.
So, stage 3&4 halfway through write up. Only half of stage 6 to go and conclusions.
Then the horrible revisions.

The best Xmas eve...

So we go shopping today. Markets, Coles. Bought a ridiculous amount of food. Yesterday when I was at the shops I ran into Ron, neighbour. Had Kate's Santa present with me, and asked him to smuggle it home so I can smuggle it inside without detection.
Tonight we put cookies and milk out for Santa and Kate went to bed. Around half an hour later, another neighbour, Dennis, knocks on the door with a present for Kate. Kate's still awake and calls out, so I tell her to be quiet because I'm talking to Santa.
Oh what fun! So I put her present in the stocking and put Dennis's out too. What fun!
So Kate gets up a little bit later and finds her presents. I quickly get one of the cookies and put it in the bin and take a gulp of milk. She's so now convinced Santa came. I tell her she has to go back to bed or Santa will take them away again. She's asleep now.
I think I'm going to remember this one for years. So much fun!

Marking is over, the journey begins

SO the interminable ordeal is over! Calooha callay! Now for PhD in all seriousness. I've got to get the bum down, the head down and get super serious over summer. I wonder how successful I shall be?
In other news, the lovely Martin Thomlinson had a research project in the inner city where he and Andrew had residents display their energy usage on blackboards in an attempt to reduce power usage. It worked. Well done guys!
Andy Dong has won a research fellowship and will be doing that for the next few years. And Rob Saunders is writing a paper on computational creativity. It's all good news on the University front.
Except Irene has lost her supervisors, which is not good news. She's a bit stuck in her project, and I don't think anyone there works harder.
Lucila graduated. Hooray for the Brazilian! But unfortunately her mum died and she didn't make the ceremony.
We had our screening night at TAFE last night. About 10 minutes into the first half the fire alarm goes off and we all had to evacuate! How funny! I'm very proud of Paul Beattie and Shaba Sanai for their animations. Wow. I feel either I am getting better as a teacher, or they are just two exceptional students. Well done on the animations, guys.