Day 208: Just ordinary, really

Day 208 (2 Jul) Tuesday. The weather is on the improve, but still cool and damp. It's another day up the Coast in the office, trying to attend to all that admin work which has been delayed because of computers...which were supposed to make life easier. 

The bonsai, at 6.12am

It is still quite dark at 6.12am and the bonsai (which has lost all its leaves) looks a bit eerie in the early morning. 

This non-teaching time of the academic year, contrary to popular opinion, is actually the time when we like to try and catch up on reading and research, finish off articles for publication, and increasingly, there is actually time it seems, for us as colleagues to actually stop and talk for change, rather than rush past as is so often the case. I also have some matters to follow up now that the old/new/reinstalled minister for higher ed, Senator Kim Carr, is said to be reviewing the contentious cuts to the sector, just at the same time my colleagues at ANU are hearing about 230 jobs to go. 

Hansard, at 6.12pm.
(Doesn't everyone?)

I spend a good part of the day looking over some of Kevin Rudd's statements to Parliament about the Brisbane Airport second runway. It was a key part of his election platform...it is turning into a political point and I've been asked to wade through the 'politics' of it...that's what I was doing at 6.12pm, reading Hansard...gotta love my job.