It is raining today, the first time the skies opened on us since Christmastime. It’s a purgative kind of rain – washing dust from the streets and buildings, providing a measure of much needed relief for the parched soil. After nearly four years in soggy Britain, I firmly believed that I would be happy never [...]
Posts Tagged ‘work’
From Thunder Bay to Saskatchewan
I was in the office for my writing job today. For those of you who are new around here, one of my jobs is as a scientific writer for a company that tests anti-cancer therapeutics. There are a couple of people in the office of whom I’m particularly fond. Our receptionist is a young Canadian [...]
I get slandered, libeled, I hear words I never heard in the Bible
I’ve spent I don’t know how many hours at work lately revising a set of reports for a, shall we say, precise (pedantic) client. Every time I send it back to her, she comes back with 9,000 other new little problems that she’s discovered. I’m fairly certain that this is some kind of karmic just [...]
A job, well, done.
Yesterday I gave my last lecture for the course I’ve been teaching and finished up the final practical session. It’s all over from a teaching perspective, though a pile of administrative muck and grading is slowly taking over my desk. But the bulk of the actual teaching is done and with that A Free Man [...]
And for a minute there, I lost myself, I lost myself
As many of you know, one of my jobs has me teaching Biotechnology at one of Adelaide’s three universities. It involves one three hour lecture and two five hour practicals every week. We’re about two-thirds of the way into term, so I’m starting to run out of gas a bit. After a long day of [...]
In cold dark places, I dream of Spring
What a difference a day makes, or insert your favorite random cliche regarding the fickleness (fickility?) of time here. After spending the earlier part of this week in the peaceful bliss of fatherhood and idle days of the University break, I was barraged Tuesday afternoon with a slew of frantic e-mail from Job Number 2. [...]
This Week On The (Dr.) O’C: The “L” Word
You’ve got to love happy endings. In what could be Dr. O’C’s final post here on A Free Man, we get just that…
At some point my attitude to motherhood started to improve. I don’t know when that happened, but it did. I am a better mum than I thought I would be. For the [...]
Well child, are your lessons done?
I. Am. Tired.
The two job situation in which I find myself has ramped up to the point that I actually have to do two proper jobs. Properly. I spent nearly eight hours teaching yesterday and while my acquantainances who are real teachers may snort derisively, that’s a lot of teaching for a slack university lecturer. [...]
And your feet are shaking cause the earth is shaking
There was a crazy guy on my bus home last night.* I’ve encountered enough people that have crossed over that invisible line that separates “sanity” from madness line in my time to recognize one when I see one. As we were getting on the bus we briefly made eye contact and I saw that slight [...]
Who was that masked man?
Not thinking things through is sort of the story of my life. I prefer to call it charmingly impulsive, others (the glass half-empty gang) call it recklessly impetuous. Either way, I’m here today with all limbs intact, so who are you going to side with?
When I was setting this blog up, my friend Nichole was [...]
















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