April 2009 Episode 14 "Operation Kill is standing down."

[AuldAlliance]

Voici FWs!

on the upside i did get to cuddle a colleagues new baby today.

off now
leaving spare snickers unguarded in office drawer for tomorrow

line manager? wtf does a line manager do in a university?

hope you got home OK and are feeling a little better, Boff

Lemme at em Boff.

I hope you are tucking into a good bottle of wine right now?

Sorry Boff. The pants thing always helps me. As does a double G+T.

I have had some dinner and a yoghurt and a glass of fizzy water and I am watching a documentary about King David to cheer me up a bit. Auld, you make a very good point. I am required to be responsive at all times for organising social events, filling in key performance indicator grids, trying to organise staffing arrangements when I do not hire the people concerned, am not allowed to see their files, and do not know their availability, and generally pushing paper around. I spend up to three days a week doing this. I have been allocated three weeks a year to do it. I am also expected to teach three modules, get an academic paper published every year and a book every 4-5 years, and bring in about £100k worth of research funding a year. It's all a bit much. I was getting more positive about things but her snotty emails put me right back where I was. She keeps telling me I am no good at managing my time and that it's all my problem. I've been running departments and courses for two decades now and nobody's ever implied that to me before, so she's wrong, but there doesn't seem to be anything I can do about it.

Grr Boff. Seems an impossible task with her 'help' :( How do does she intend you to do your job? It's very stressful I can imagine. I wish I could help with useful suggestions but I've not got any. So I'll ramble in hopes of distracting you...
Lovely getting to cuddle a new baby. I'm really missing my little sister's new baby. Being away from family is so difficult. However there's another new baby due any day now back in the UK with some of our close friends. She's already a week overdue and going a little nuts because she's a bit of a control freak and when things just don't come when they're timed... (got to love her, it's her second, you'd think she'd realise by now)
I've managed to get my writing organised and so I'm hoping to buckle down with my own writing and get something 'out.' Ideally if I could finish it by the time we're done here in Germany...then I don't know I guess revise with the new beebs on the breast and maybe by the new year have something to send out.
Which reminds me, how's your housekeeping book going?
Weather here is finally changing for the better so we've been getting out more which is better for us. I'm trying to get more healthy during this pregnancy because I really wasn't properly recovered from Moo's before this one. Today I'm going to start some gentle exercises in addition to our daily walk/store run/going to the park.
(I'm hoping with all these positive things I'm trying to implement I'll shake this cloak of blah I've seem to acquired)
Right, off to get dressed and do some writing while Moo enjoys a little TV.
Hope this day finds you a little better Boff (and that your emergency Snickers is still there just encase) If you think of anyway I can help from here in Germany I'd be happy to -maybe I could build a death ray on a balcony but I'll need the proper coordinates of nasty lady's desk/office...
Hugs!

Ah Bebe, you are sweet.

Have had a chat to a colleague and I am going to call a summit about the working relationship. This can't go on.

Book is now a blog and waiting for the world to spot it.

Is it the blog you posted on fb? I love linking to people's blogs; must link to that one, tho most of the people who I know who would read it are other MNers ...because everyone else I know is in the States and it doesn't always pertain to them :)

Good idea about the summit. Hope everything still looking positive.

We're abt to sit down to our lunch...more fishsticks, I cannot get enough of them recently then off for our walk/store/park time.
x

No, google the title of the book and you'll find it.

There's a link to the blog on this site but they only want me to have posted the one

Ooh, bookmarked for when I have some time.

AIBU to be furious with DH for PROMISING he'd be home at 6.15 to take over so I can go out for a swim, and then calling at 5.45 to say he couldn't be arsed to get on the early train and he won't be home until 6.45? What use is that - that's only a little bit earlier than he usually comes home anyway

Please tell me if I am overreacting... but I have felt recently that he simply can't be bothered to help any more. He even had the cheek to complain about there not being enough food in the house, when I am the one who does absolutely everything.

[Wants to cry]

You know what I say flame him. The weather is nice no? have a nice bbq and flame his ass.

(that's the way I'm currently feeling abt dh's since mine said, we really should try to clean up the flat more and then has left his god forsaken biking crap and meal all over the place when I worked hard picking up and doing all kinds of other work today)

You are not overreacting, Schulte.
I sympathise.
Don't get me going on DH's who are never around and do bugger all to help. Mine has had not transport since his motorbike died on Nov 12th. Cue hours spent looking at car magazines for a lawyerly car, but no purchase. He has been borrowing my car or getting the train to work: out the door at 6:30am, home at 8:30pm, then he sits down at his computer and goes to bed. I know he works long hours, but so do I.

God, I am beecome sooooo Frrrench zat I can no longerrrr write ze Engleesh. That should read "no transport", naturellement.

Ha ha Auld, I read 'no transport'. I blame it on the beer

Well, I blame it on the G&T.

(even more blushsome, but I am still using my lab's macbook and I swear it has no square brackets so no emoticons possible.)

I was meant to tell you about the bilingual setup here.

Basically, I always speak English to the kids, with a very few exceptions (when I am actually addressing everyone present, or when we are having a joint conversation with someone who speaks no English; recently I have also given in to DS1's pleas for me to read some books in French he's dead keen on at bedtime, since his dad is never around to do it).

I speak to them lots, and try to ensure DS1 only watches DVDs in English. We don't have a TV, so there is no input there in French.

My Mum comes to see us quite often and I try to go to my parents' as often as I can, so he speaks English to other people than just me, and the last 2 years he has gone to Scotland alone with her for October half term.

That's it, really. It's not always simple, but it seems to be working, as his English is really very good. When he comes out of school he speaks French to me, because he has just experienced everything he is describing in that language, and often doesn't have the vocab for 'telling on someone' or 'kicking someone in the shins', and so on. I just answer in English, and we have a dual-language conversation for that bit.

He speaks English to his little brother when he's with me and French to him when he is with his dad...

TBH, one of the only positive aspects of DH's absence from the home and family life is a linguistic one, as it means the boys get a lot of time with just me.

I think it helps that English as a language has kudos: people are admiring of his ability, older children say "you'll always get good marks in English", and so on. I doubt kids who speak Arabic or the gitans who speak a form of Spanish get the same positive feedback.

I am dreading next year when he will probably start "initiation English" at school, since it is done by the primary teachers with no training and most are not very good and are aware of it. Not sure how that will work out...

Ahem. That was a bit long.

Ooooh thanks Auld. Well I have gone very wrong then... been singing English nursery rhymes, and let them watch English telly (there is no Charlie & Lola in Germany), and read English books to them. Hmmmm. Do I need to change that then? Whenever I try to get them to watch a German DVD, DD1 tells me they are boring and I sort of have to agree

Hello.
Less tearful today but working towards summit with boss.
We are currently trilingual in a random inaccurate fashion at Maison de Boff - German, English, Turkish, depending on what people feel like and whether someone is a good speaker of whatever language seems appropriate at the time. We are very rude about people who only speak one language and call them 'monolinguals'.

Schulte, can you get British DVDs and set the language to German? Or do they mean that even then they think it's boring, because German seems so to them?

I don't know if you need to change really, it kind of depends on what your aim is... If you're speaking only German to them, I think the songs don't count all that much. I think books, TV, etc. are more important because then they hear other models, instead of just the one. And actually going to the country, phoning grandparents and so on gives them links with the place and connect the language with it and with people. My Mum takes DS1 on the train down to Berwick-upon-Tweed when he goes to visit her, because she has a friend there with a grandson his age, and he is very proud to have an English-speaking "friend." Sadly, he has no cousins his age in Scotland and is not going to.

Boff, I really meant it.
What does a line manager do? How do they fit in with heads of dept/schools/faculty, etc.?
Good luck for the summit.

Everyone at my lovely workplace is close to burnout: we had 10 days off at Christmas, followed by exams then classes immediately after (good for marking, good for students to read set texts, etc...), and then 1 wk's holiday in mid-Feb. We'll get another week off in May, and that's it till July.
We have more and more admin and paper crap to deal with, and no idea when we are even meant to do research. Oh, and the reforms that the strikers were protesting against are to be re-reformed, because they are not working, largely for the reasons pointed out by the strikers.

Now they have announced total reform and rehaul of the 1st 3 years of university, so students will do "general" study in 1st year, work placements in 2nd yr, and begin to study their actual subject in 3rd yr. Spot the logic of doing work placements before actually studying your subject... Reform to be implemented in September, apparently.
We spend our whole time being reformed, and no one knows what the rules are any more.

Sorry, that turned into a big rant. It's midnight and I have to get up at 6, so I must go to bed. But I am longing to see Sarko's face tomorrow when he has to publicly deny that Gaddafi financed his election campaign (!)

This is true. WildRumpus does the same with Spanish dubbing.

The English DVDs we have only have random languages on them... Finnish, Danish, Czech.... not German

Want me to look for something Schulte?