I am on sabbatical, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to stop going to campus. Sometimes I just need to stretch my legs. And there are certain inspirational qualities it provides: today, these included the light, particularly as experienced outside the Stopford Building on Oxford Road this morning.
Prof. Alexander’s bust has long graced the entrance hall of the building on Manchester’s campus that bears his name. This kind of thing happens most years, to be honest. He seems to bear it with stoic dignity. I don’t think he looks all that unhappy — a bit resigned, maybe.
The last class of the semester, and as I’m on sabbatical for several months next year, the last one for me until late September 2024. And that’s just fine by me. I do — generally — like teaching but it is tiring, time-consuming work and if I want to do some proper thinking I can do with taking a break from it. The last class of the semester also gives rise to the annual ceremony of ‘having pictures taken with one’s professor’ — I make people upset if a 20-minute window isn’t offered up at the end.
At this time of year you just take what comes, when it comes to the weather. This week it appears to be coming sunny — though cold. As you can see, most of the leaves are gone, but a few trees are still determined to sustain their blaze of glory for a little while longer yet.
Look, it’s got my name on it (on the pink bit), my handwriting and everything. The ideas were those of everyone around the table however, and things are not yet finished, either. I can occasionally still be motivated to think about things that matter to my employer — and thus my students — rather than me personally.
I guess if you are the kind of incredible natural acrobat that a squirrel is, it’s easy enough to adapt to features in the urban environment — like this fence next to one of the bike sheds on campus. It looks almost as if I have used a flash to catch this shot but it’s actually a brief flash of wan November sunlight. (In fact there are almost no shots taken with a flash on this blog, as I never use it: maybe, literally, two or three out of all 4,463.)
Autumn has hit in Manchester too, of course. These steps are to be found on Princess Street, as one arrives in Manchester city centre on the walk back from work (my walk, anyway). I think of them as the wonky steps because they are, aren’t they? Why those slopes or mini-ramps are present I have no idea. Accessibility-wise they would only take, say, a pram or bike up to the first platform, with three-quarters of the steps left to go after that. Maybe the builders were just having a creative moment back in the 1970s.
It’s the first week of the semester, so the following things traditionally appear: lots more people (students); a collection of marquees with various AV equipment and heaters; and rain. It always seems to rain in Welcome week, year in, year out.
Dina was last seen in Toronto in October 2021 and, as part of a project which has been (so far) a wholly positive development but with which I won’t bore you here, has been visiting Manchester this week. Other than myself, Clare and Joe this makes her only the second person to appear on this blog in two different countries and the first on two different continents.
Campus is not exactly an over-used resource at this time of year but there were some signs of life today. And at least the sun put in an appearance, although whatever these guys were planning they still felt they needed additional illumination, and it’s the apparently floating light that offers this shot enough appeal to make it today’s choice.
Being 42 