The Imbalance

There's an imbalance. The total given out has far exceeded the amount absorbed, and now a correction must take place. Five hours of teaching in one week may not sound like much but it actually is enormous once you consider the amount of preparation that goes into two lectures, a practical and a tutorial. That is a massive amount of writing if you haven't taught your course before! Tiredness springs eternal.

Funny events of the week: On Wednesday evening (or perhaps Tuesday) there was an Irish blokey student with a gaggle of five French female students in tow touring parts of Wales in my hotel. Five French accents and one Irish being blokey as they prepared to go out on the town. It was strange and funny and odd. The practicals were very strange too, as it seems that typing the commands one at a time into R is infinitely more understandable than writing a list of commands in a text file. What alien madnesses! Also there were bird migrations and a massive amount of walking.

Away from the copious work there was a bit of reading, a bit of listening and a lot of staring at the sea from the promenade. The high tides continue seemingly endlessly whenever my feet turn toward the sea, and there's never a chance to go down to semi-solitude near the waterline and sing a little or talk to oneself with the correct abandon. What a nuisance it is to not have that vital avenue of unusual self-expression! Correspondence and communication have largely dropped by the wayside too, with the consequence that some blues may be in the offing. The blues must be averted, for no good can come of them, but whether now is a good time to steer into the curve or not is questionable.

Continuing to read Patrick O'Brian's naval series the idea of reaching the bitter dregs at the end is becoming very worrying. Obviously it must happen but the approaching cataclysm of the last few books is scaring, especially for an author with such a clear sense of time and age built into his characters. What will Aubrey and Maturin go through before that final ordeal in 'Blue at the Mizzen' in eight novels' time? At least Sayers apparently ended the Lord Peter Wimsey novels gracefully. Such drivelly thought on my part is negative though; There are still eight novels to go and they're bound to be awesome! Positivity, positivity, positivity.

Pessimism shall be cast out.

"Press the button, Max."
O.