Briefly

The new chiropractor seems nice.  And favours deep massage over just 'poking the hurtiest places' which makes treatment more pleasant, so we'll see if that works.  It hurts differently this evening which is, I guess, a start...

Post Doc F is off on holiday next week - and I have 59 statistics reports and 8 independent research projects to grade, with more to come.  ::pout::

The work level in the department has been very low the last few days, because a flotilla of ducklings (not sure if that's the right word but it ought to be!) hatched out in our building's courtyard, the duck having hidden herself away under some ornamental plantings, and we have been advised to let them stay there for a few weeks, safe from most predators.  They seem unphased by cooing students with cameras, have been enjoying the puddles left by the recent rain, and are being fed special food for baby chicks from a farming shop that a colleague who is usually very rigid and formal insisted on rushing off to buy from his own pocket the day they hatched (in case there wasn't enough food in the courtyard).  When I left this afternoon, the post-grads were arranging a duck feeding rota for the weekend.

I finally began a horrible administrative task that I've been putting off for weeks now - everyone in my department of senior lecturer level and above is expected to read the possible REF submissions of other colleagues in their research 'supergroup' and rate them on the REF scale, then the results will be compiled (everyone's work having been read by several other people) and used to decide who is REF-able and who isn't.  If that doesn't mean anything to you you are lucky! (REF = Research Excellence Framework, formerly known as the Research Assessment Exercise).  I was assigned three colleagues' papers to read: Very Difficult Colleague (who is a Bully), Touchy Colleague (who has already told me what score their papers should get - surprisingly enough, they're ALL of top international standing!) and Colleague I Teach With A Lot.  So it's been really hard, in that I know these people, and I find it tricky to separate that from assessing their papers, and also that I am kind of scared of one of them and wary of the others (in that if they take agin me life could be harder for a while, and it's happened before, so...).  Plus, I think the whole thing is STUPID.  Another reason I may never get to be a Prof!