All in a day's work

[strange_complex]

Yesterday, leaving work at around 7pm, I realised that I had spent three hours of the day teaching (lecture on sources for Julius Caesar; lecture on Roman houses; seminar on issues and problems with Pompeii) and three and a half learning things (2-hour Italian class¹; 1.5 hour Leeds Classical Association lecture on ancient entertainments as illuminated by inscriptions from Aphrodisias and Ephesus). And I wasn't even going home, either - I was going to have dinner with some colleagues and the lady who had delivered the Classical Association lecture, Prof. Charlotte Roueché.

I'd not met her before, but wow! She was amazing. A firebolt of energy, fantastically interested in everything and everyone around her (related to her subject or not), extremely insightful and superbly well able to communicate her specialist area in all its complexity to non-experts, and have them laughing along and utterly absorbed in what she had to say. That's what I want to be like when I grow up, please.

It was a great day, though. One of those where you feel wrapped up and stimulated by everything going on around you, and it's all so exciting that you don't feel tired at all. Well, not until the end of our meal, anyway, by which time I had faded like a wilting violet, and was fighting unsuccessfully to suppress yawns...

Now today I have just spent the whole of the last two hours writing important emails and filling in a rather silly risk assessment form for the trip I will be taking students on to Lincoln: "Is the area politically stable?"; "Are at least two members of the party competent in the local language?"; "Have the local police been consulted?". Um... I know Lincoln has its dodgy areas, just like any town, but seriously - the most dangerous thing my students will be doing on the trip is crossing the road... just like they do every day.

Time for a bit of lecture preparation, I think.
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1. During which we made origami penguins and told each other how to make our favourite recipes.

Comments

[primitivepeople.livejournal.com]

What if Lincoln turns out to be a hotbed of revolutionary activity?

Love the icon. :)

Oh...and I love it when you come across people who have an infectious enthusiasm for their subject. Enthusiasm for anything tends to be sneered at by some people, who think it's cool to be cynical, but enthusiastic people are usually happy people.

[strange-complex.livejournal.com]

Well, Lincoln seemed pretty quiet when I went over there for a recon trip in January... but things could have changed, who knows?

Thanks on the icon - it is a bit of a favourite of mine. It's my plugged-in, 'high on knowledge and intellectual stimulation' icon. The look on Cathica's face just says it all.

[primitivepeople.livejournal.com]

The revolutionaries will be plotting underground.

[rosamicula.livejournal.com]

How I loathe, despise and abominate those fucking H&S forms. As some of my students are under 17 i have to complete a separate one for each pupil ensuring that we have explained how to cross the road etc.

[strange-complex.livejournal.com]

God, how tedious! This sort of stuff is not exactly designed to encourage us to offer stimulating and horizon-expanding activities to our students, is it?