Friday 16th February 2024, 11.30am (day 4,558)

Students often give me gifts. Nothing major — I have never received an outright cash bribe, in case you were wondering — but things like tea, or things representative of their country somehow. I don’t solicit these, in fact I often wish they wouldn’t because I’m just doing my job. But some of them are nice and have made it into a kind of permanent residency status in my office at uni. This little idol is an example, and to my shame I can no longer remember who gave it to me or even, with any certainty, what country it is from, though it might be Indonesia.