harryunbirthday1I’ve been informed that Not Max is six months old today and that I need to write a post commemorating this because I did so for Boy Z. So, well done Not Max. Well done for keeping a smile on your face despite dealing with the negligent parenting that is the lot of the second child. Hang in there, Boy #2, one of these day you’ll get one of those beamers back.

unbirthday4Today is also the first day of Autumn in Australia and appropriately the first day of a new semester. I spent a good part of the summer herding failing nursing students through their first and second year subjects and most of the one week break between semesters listening to twice-failed nursing students beg for mercy. The new semester is going to be a bear. A grizzly. A kodiak. I’m involved in teaching six different courses. Those of you who teach secondary school will have little sympathy for me, but for a delicate university lecturer this is a crippling load. I’m also taking a couple of courses for my back up plan.

harryunbirthday2I recently started working toward a back up plan B, which involves me keeping the job I’m in by doing what the university wants me to do – produce research and research money. I’ve started tinkering around in an immunology lab, hoping to pull some quick publications out of my…hat. I’m not an immunologist. But I’m also not a pathologist and that hasn’t stopped me teaching pathology, nor has the fact that I’m not an anatomist stopped me teaching anatomy. Etc. My real enemy is the time, or lack therof, in the day to fit in all these back up plans as well as doing the job for which I was hired. I fear that things are going to start to suffer. Like this blog.

What the hell? This was supposed to be about Not Max and here I am blathering on about me. Shut up, Chris.

Happy un-birthday, boy #2, the neglected one, laughing boy. Keep working at it and you’re bound to get you father’s attention over the next six months.

Finally,  I couldn’t resist this photo of Boy Z. He’s learned to trust his cape.

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This is the second track from R.E.M.’s 2001 album “Reveal”. I’ve never thought of it a a great R.E.M. album, but it’s sounded pretty good this summer. As an aside, one of my students told me that R.E.M. was “old people’s music” last week, to which I responded with a suggestion that she could kiss my backside.  R.E.M.’s “Reveal” is available from R.E.M. - Reveal.

 

 
icon for podpress  R.E.M. "The Lifting" [4:39m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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