can someone tell me why its so important that ALL THE THINGS get done before christmas in australian universities? all universities? all workplaces? seriously, we are all killing ourselves from working too hard. more studies released this week show australians work far too much unpaid overtime, and i have seen more than one academic start to unravel the last few days. why do we get so caught up in this? why do we think any of it really matters?
me, im so tired i could cry. you know that feeling, where your eyes sting and every bone and muscle aches. 24 hours sleep would still not be enough. im not stressed per se, just tired, and running out of steam. thankfully, my head of school approved a substantial chunk of leave over the break, and i will be off work from december 19 to january 13. the uni shuts down between christmas and new year so im still only using 11 of my 40 annual leave days and i can not wait. someone asked me at lunch today what was i planning to do and the first thing i said was ‘try not to work too much’. sigh.
speaking of lunch today, we had a lovely afternoon at the good food-woeful service diggies down at north beach with the usual suspects!
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its been raining on and off again, and it was a bit cloudy, so not really ‘first day of summer’ like, but it was still lovely to sit outside in the soft salty breeze
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and knit and talk
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and drink and eat too much as usual
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we’ve been meeting together as friends and knitters for a few years now. lots of things have changed in the group, and we’ve had our fair share of issues, but we always seem to work things out. i was a bit weird today, jane was teasing me about something, and i snapped at her, and then felt terrible. i apologised, and we’re fine, and it made me realise how real friendships are the ones that survive disagreements and differences, where people accept each other for who they are, and how lucky i am to have people like that. and just in case you think im getting too zen, here is a picture of jane being jane. because i can also be a bitch!
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(she will get me back for that im sure).
i had a lovely evening last night too hanging out iwith samantha and stuart and the boys, for whom i made pavlova with the stroke of genius topping of mango and smarties (artfully decorated by the 5 year old).
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taste sensation i tell you. all these reminders of how many good people i have in my life at the moment. i showed the boys some of the war memorabilia i‘ve been using in my war nursing talks – they both looked very FETCHING in the replica nurses uniforms, and i posed myself this week for the local newspaper
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i’ve been on tv and the radio twice as well. its been a good way to drum up some attention and i have a couple of world war two nurses to speak to (one is 92 and the other is 97!) but i still want to talk to any service nurses from korea/vietnam onwards – if you know of any (in australia) please do pass on my details. they can contact me at work on kyliesm at uow dot edu dot au.
its been a bit disconcerting to have all this media attention, it doesnt sit easily with me and at least one of the reasons im attracted to history as opposed to sociology is that i mostly get to deal with dead people, hiding in dusty stacks and underground archives, reading, not talking. so lets just hope thats my fifteen seconds of fame.
its good to come home to happy dogs,
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who just want to be fed and cuddled and dont care whether im anyone other than just me. i think we might all have a nap now.
k xx
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