The twice-yearly graduation ceremonies give us the chance to dress up in our finery and enjoy some pomp and circumstance. Opportunities to do that are getting fewer in the world so let’s embrace them while they still exist. And as ever, congratulations to all the students as well.
It’s that time of year again. It crossed my mind today that it’s now twenty years since I first graduated, in July 1997. Gosh…
How many generations of students have spent their time waiting around in corridors, until the time they are called into the room? It doesn’t change. Did I get the job? Not this time.
Have been a Mac owner for nigh on a decade now but realised today I had never before seen inside one — this realisation coming about when my student Mansour turned up in my office and started dismantling his, for reasons that are too unnecessarily complex to reveal here. Anyway, there you go, that’s what it looks like inside. I somehow feel there should be more to it.
It was time today for the monthly staff development workshop that I organise. Why the Lego? Well, ask the speaker… but the talk was about creative innovation, so always good to have some toys to spark interest. I always try to do something creative each day — the proof has played out over the last five-and-three-quarter years on here.
It’s getting toward the end of the academic year, and our students would like to get jobs of some kind (I presume) so we ran a ‘careers event’ this evening featuring students old and new. Annalisa, on the left, graduated from the degree a decade ago now: Irene, on the right, last year. Kenji behind seems excited about something. Good luck to them all in their various futures.
Office-wise I’ve been based in the Ellen Wilkinson Building for nearly 12 years now but have little reason to venture up to its sixth floor (if you live in most of the rest of the world, its seventh). When I do I am reminded what a decent view it has, even if today the light wasn’t as it could be. But there’s quite a distance in sight here, south to the Derbyshire Pennines, and the tower of Manchester Royal Infirmary nearer the camera.
I post this picture also to launch myself on one of these mini blog-projects that sometimes motivate me. Coming up: eleven different photo locations in eleven days. Let’s do it.
Found myself in the Physics and Astronomy building on Manchester today, named for Arthur Schuster, physicist and coiner of the term ‘antimatter’ whose bust in the foyer currently sports a rather fetching pink bow tie and fluffy rabbit ears. And why not.
I am here to work rather than just swan around visiting shrines, so here is a picture of that side of my life. We are trying to persuade Japanese potential students to come and study in Manchester — many of whom are vastly intelligent, fluent in English and would be obvious assets to the intellectual community, only you try telling this to certain elements in the reactionary press. Anyway, ignoring this aspect of our lives my colleague James, on the left, and his temporary client, seem happy enough as they discuss how to arrange this. I like this picture, it makes it feel like our presence here has a real positive point.
Not the most exciting photo either but at least it indicates I had schlepped my way down to campus for the first time since March 2nd. Which, like most of Manchester has been throughout the whole lifetime of this blog, is being rebuilt — here, the Business School, part of the whole ‘campus masterplan’ that will turn us into some world-leading something-or-other, if the money doesn’t run out first, anyway.
Being 42 