Category Archives: Stuff!

Study – it’s a marathon not a sprint!

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It’s a marathon not a sprint is a term often used when describing a challenge or task that covers a significant period of time. So for me I need to understand that embarking upon study is a long term activity which hopefully ends up with me achieving my goal of a PhD a few years from now. I can’t allow myself to get burnt out by going to hard to early.

My week is a packed with 4 days work a days annual leave to attend University and then the weekend with study packed in around some social activity. I’m glad I’m an early riser otherwise my bike riding would be going by the wayside.

This week has seen the submission of my first assignment only 4 more and an exam before 30 June. About 10,000 words by my calculation and heaven knows how many more journal articles and pages of text. It’s quite overwhelming.

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It’s better to give than receive

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We had dinner with a friend recently. Someone my wife and I see through my work. It was a fabulous dinner with maybe more wine than we should have consumed for a work night with an early start the next day, however it was fun.

Whilst much of our talk with our friend has been about where I’m at with my life, this time as the conversation and wine flowed we turned to where my wife was at with her life.

Too often this involves running around after our adult children. Bluntly she seems to be their unpaid PA! Whilst I know she is happy to take on that role it seems that she doesn’t have enough of her own time. That was a theme we discussed at length.

Through the conversation my wife talked about writing.

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Let’s face it, I’m a petrol head!

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We live about 250 metres from Adelaide’s Street Circuit. Each year in late February it comes alive to the sounds of V8 Supercars. For many it’s a time to get out of the city, but for me it’s an added bonus of living in the city.

Adelaide for a short while hosted an F1 Grand Prix which was lost to Melbourne quite controversially in the late 1990s. The loss of the race is something South Australians still regard as “dirty darts”, Continue reading →

I’m entering the Twilight Zone

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I feel like I’m entering the Twilight Zone, a place where I will be in two worlds both of which in their own ways will be all consuming.

The first is my job and the second is one I’m both excited about and very nervous about – University!

I’m used to the ups and downs of my life in professional practice as well as it’s demands. It’s been my life for the last 35 years, but University is different. Whilst I completed some post grad study about ten years ago it was quite straight forward as was dabbling in study last year, just a subject a semester.

It already seems that I need to operate in a parallel universe. Scheduling my time is already a nightmare but would be so much easier if I operated in two universes. For example, I could be in both Sydney for an important client meeting and on campus learning about the approach to research at the same time.

If I operated in parallel universe I could attend to my work emails, proposals and client demands in the evening whilst also preparing for next week’s seminar.

It would all be so much easier with effectively 48 hours in one day, but alas that isn’t going to be the case; I’ll be stuck in the twilight zone flipping between two equally demanding universes.

Who do I write for?

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Who is your Reader?

My blog is not a Dear Diary, however it is my own personal reflection. It’s not my goal to reveal my inner most secrets, but an opportunity to write about what matters to me.

It was as I have posted before a way for me to keep myself honest to my personal challenge of writing a thousand words a month. I have achieved that goal in each and every month whether through this blog, via my articles for The Adelaide Review or in my University assignments.

I write because I enjoy it. It’s both intellectually stimulating and relaxing at the same time, although as I am reviewing and editing a post the relaxation aspect can get lost in my desire to get the grammar right! That’s why I enjoy my personal fifteen minutes and then post challenges, of which this is one.

Also I think My writing has got better. Maybe that’s not surprising because it’s like everything – the more you practice at something the better you get. I’ve even tried to write some fiction which is a long way out of my comfort zone.

I haven’t written my posts to necessarily have them read by lots of people, which is fortunate because they haven’t been. That said, I have been gratified that sometimes my posts get some comment and the occasional like.

So when I answer the question who do I write for its Me!