Is it summer- is it autumn?

The sky is dark now at 9 o’clock and summer, that time that we all yearn for and want to cling on to, is edging into autumn, the time that school years begin but the time that blows the leaves off the trees and that reminds us of our own ageing and death. The earth’s season’s go round and round but we, obviously, have only one life, and once we are in its autumn, there is no waiting for the spring, just a savoring of where we are, finding new things in it, a way to inhabit it (or maybe we dye our hair).

A holiday without a holiday. Four weeks off work but without an expedition. Holiday’s aren’t always what they are talked up to be. The Proms end in the first week of September, then the summer is over. Bartok’s Bluebeard’s Castle is playing now on the radio. I know the story but don’t have a clue which door we are about to open, they are clearly doors into the unconscious. There is some passion and terror happening at this moment! O no, do not insist on opening that last door!

Please can I hibernate?

What with the drama and tension at work in the university that has taken the name of the county of my birth, I lean toward 15th december (our early last day so that the uni can save money on lighting heating and security men and so that according to our vc we can all ‘spend more time with our families’) when I can float off on a haze of sleeping till almost midday, a gentle infusion of alcohol, reading the backlogs of paperbacks on Buddhism and er.. spending more time with my family.

For some reason I have started eating the packets of Japanese food that I bought on a trip to Hong Kong in October. Tonight its my NISSIN RETORT POUCH which my son has just heated up and which is disgusting and which I am about to pour down the sink.

I am team leader

Now that I am Team Leader for nursing and midwifery research at my esteemed university, I am responsible for everything, not just ‘vision’ of course for our research but other things too. Here’s an email I got this morning:

Dear Michael

I would like to say how disappointed I have been with the whole set up following our move here. Yes, we are in a ‘mess’. It seems to me that there is a need for someone to take full responsibilty for the staff here of which I am one of many. I am not alone in voicing this.

I thought following our meeting with you, and [name removed to protect the innocent] there would be an action plan drawn up with timescales and clear lines of communication with relevant H & S/Fire and Security managers as well as day to day running of this place such as ordering of papers etc… Could you please clarify for all of us who and what is currently being followed up and timescales involved. We probably need to see an action plan.

There are still unresolved and outstanding issues related to the above and it would be helpful and timely for all of us here in [name of building removed] to know what you (& [name removed]? )have decided. It has been a complete waste of time for all of us to be in dialogue with different people at different times.

Hopefully basic requirements are being actioned now; We need to know what is happening with the rest.

M[name removed] has been here looking for you and I am unable to tell him where you can be contacted. I have asked him to email you!

With all good wishes
[name removed]

Dr [name removed]
[other identifier removed]
Middlesex University
Highgate Hill
London N19 3UA
[further identifiers removed]

Any other ‘team leaders’ of anything out there with similar expectations to share?

back after summer and redundancy threat

This summer actually made a difference. It came just after Middlesex University sent this letter to all its professors (See letter below). Many of us were spared summary redundancy. Yes I know its hard times in the UK public sector yet again but could there have been a marginally less alienating way of handling this? So I staggered into the summer with low morale and panic attacks (and a newly bought coffee grinder which is temporally laid off so to speak). I emerged having read Dharma Bums and Siddhartha and determined to give up work at the soonest opportunity and scale down my Cambridge terraced house for an isolated shack in Norfolk or Suffolk where I can live the life of solitude, more building projects and contemplation. The (re)discovery of [tag]Buddhism[/tag] for me came as a kind of answer to a prayer for some waft of spirituality and meaning in a degenerating life. So today I am back and what has three weeks of meditation and seeking refuge brought: my first row with a colleague in my working life. I am pleased. At last I am behaving differently.redundancy061.jpg