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September 1999

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Late Edition

This is a "Late Edition" because it IS just that - Late!

Why is it late? - Well - I just didn't find time in the last month to write anything. And its not that things weren't happeneing - indeed they were.

And I guess this highlights the difficulty of an on-line journal - it requires sometime and effort to sit down at a computer (not an easy task with so many other things pressing in on my time - like a young family, and a job and stuff like that) - and thats just the time to put things onto local draft - let along get on line and publish the page to the web hosting server. It has been an increasingly frustrating time getting things uploaded to Geocities.

But I digress - I am here now - even though it is sometime in October - and I need to tell you about September - the month that was!

So, where to begin (I want to avoid a boring list of facts and figures and events in chronological oder). Probably the single most significant thing in the last month was the changes at work. This is partly why I haven't been able to write here as regularly as I would have liked.

As I mentioned earlier - there was a call fro early retirements from the campus here as a means of cutting costs and trying to at least slow down the debt, if not actually reduce it. So, we al waited nervously to see who would put their hand up for the "Golden Handshake". In the end it was a bit of a surprise as to who went from the Computing section - two of our senior lecturers finally announced that they would go. Overall, there were sufficient voluntary retirements so it is unlikely that any retrenchements will occur.

However, the consequences of loosing two of the five computing lecturers means that the three of us that are left have to take on additional classes so that the students at least can finish this semester. I inheritied an Operating Systems class on Wednesday morning and a tutorial for the School of Mines students on Wednesday afternoon. All in all I am now actually teaching 23 hours each week - more than enough to reach my contract quota of 800 hours for the year. This is all in additon to the necessary lesson prep time and administration and assessment time.

So, as you can prpbably appreciat, I have been one busy little devil this past month. And there is more to come, no doubt.

On the family front, things continue as ever. I'm still madly in love with Leonie, even if we do have our ups and downs like most couples. She has been very busy too - preparing for two elections coming up.

Kathryn has shown great signs of growing up well - she is doing fine at school - at least thats what the reports fron the teachers say. But she seems very settled and confident. She is down in Perth with Nanna for the school holidays - I drove down at the end of the month for a Cadet Challenge weekend (see later in October), and took the kids with me.

Thomas is now 9 months old and very nearly ready to walk - he enjoys standing and trying to take steps (but is too nervous to let go of hands or coffe tables! After a very unsettled beginning to the month, he has developed into a pleasure to be with - I certainly enjoy the time I have with him - and he is usually very glad to see me when I pick him up from day care.

So, there you have it - I WAS alive in September - just too busy to sit down and write about it.

Never let it be said that I need to "get a life" - I have one - a VERY busy one.