12th and 19th Oct: The End of the Beginning

Yup, these posts are definitely looking more fortnightly than weekly! I keep meaning to write some more specific posts, and get some images in - but hey, given some of the lengthy gaps in posts I had in the early days  (or, ahem, the first couple of years), I'll settle for getting an update in every couple of weeks!

It's a funny time of year. Every time of year is funny/odd/busy/exciting in some way, but Week 4 of teaching (for that's what this is here at Leeds) definitely stands out as one of the more unusual. I think of it as the End of the Beginning. Hence the post title.

See, the start of the year is busy: modules to be set, projects to be allocated and started, lectures given, teething problems addressed - all against the ongoing background of research. The end of this term and start of next will also be very busy: the end of year will be exceptionally busy. Of course it will: every level 3 and 4 student must be examined, every piece of coursework assessed, mitigating circumstances allowed for, marks aggregated by the Exam Boards or absolute chaos will ensue.

But this week is an interesting point: exams have been written, coursework set, projects started: all the early effort required to build momentum. And coursework hasn't yet arrived for marking. Just for a moment, there's a lull and this afternoon I actually ran out of things to do.

Which isn't to say there aren't things on my To Do list, but I've finished reading the Thesis I'll be examining next week; I've interviewed three prospective PhD students and got their research proposals finalised; I've finished reviewing papers for next year's  CWUAAT conference. There are plenty of things to pick up next week, but in the last chunk of Friday afternoon, there's no sense starting them.

Next week a raft of new things begin - research proposals picked back up; a paper to write; a journal article to review. Still, it's nice to appreciate the odd moments of calm when they come along.

28th Sept and 5th Oct: Groundwork

These weekly updates are starting to get more like fortnightly, aren't they? Well, such us the way - especially in the first few weeks of teaching. There's never a time that's not busy, of course, but this time of year is particularly hectic. Lectures have to be delivered, projects allocated, detaiks checked. Lecture Capture isn't available in the lecture theatre I'm teaching Mechanical Systems in this year, so I'm trying to make last year's lectures available through our virtual learning environment. Doable, and worth doing, but it's never trivial.

Likewise, I've been grappling with LabVIEW's simulation and control module. A great system, but apparently corrupted on my version of LabVIEW 2013. After much ado, I installed LabVIEW 2015, and that's working a treat.  Also, trying to sort out an external live brief has been hard work. Companies tend to assume that your time is free, while theirs has value - so will merrily chop and change things, then complain when you won't rearrange the timetable at the last minute, despite the fact that this has enormous repercussions for admin staff, lecturers and students who don't stand to benefit. Sometimes you have to stand your ground, even if it makes you unpopular.

Technical difficulties and a couple of days of sick and carer leave aside, work has been mostly good, if rather routine: we're just getting to the stage where we're moving from introducing, setting up and clarifying to getting to the interesting stuff: solving problems and reviewing designs.

Two high points have  been writing an exam (I enjoy finding practical case studies of mechanisms and posing myself the questions), and preparing to act as external examiner for a PhD viva. Reading a thesis is always thought provoking, and gets you thinking deeply about a subject.

So, lots on - and it's all good stuff,  even if the main achievements are things like "Set up the VLE", " Set assignment", "delivered introductory lecture". None are ground breaking, or exceptional - but you get nothing done if you don't do these first.