Tag Archives: teaching

Strange happenings at the University of Newcastle recall scenes from 1984 (Rousse)

Posted on February 5, 2014 by Dreamaticus

TPR and I called in for breakfast at my sister S’s hall of residence at Newcastle University. Each morning Barton Hall put out an elaborate spread for its undergraduates and I couldn’t resist returning to the buffet for yet another … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged action, bar, barton, battle, bell, buffet, building, cereal, cheese, classes, cream, department, doors, dorm, film 1984, food, foot, formation, George Orwell, hall, March, movie, names, Newcastle, Northumbria, residence, resist, seat, spread, squads, staff, strange, students, teaching, toast, troops, tutor, undergraduates, university, walls | Leave a comment

Pudding wine and a patient (Rousse)

Posted on January 5, 2014 by Dreamaticus

I winced when TPR ordered pudding wine. He was a last-minute guest at our business dinner, and it certainly wasn’t his place to make demands of the waiting staff to meet his expensive personal tastes. I hoped that BR and … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged bill, blanket, business, care, client, clients, demands, desk, dessert, dinner, expensive, flat, indiscretion, infection, mission, money, office, owe, pale, patient, pay, personal, pudding, puffy, questions, recovery, request, requests, staff, taste, tastes, teaching, team, throat, TPR, transport, waiter, waitress, wine | Leave a comment

How to post a brick (Rousse)

Posted on January 24, 2013 by Dreamaticus

I was busy packing my teaching box to send to London. I really needed to include the house brick. However, I was worried that the brick might get damaged in transit (or damage the other contents of the box), as … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged advice, best, box, brick, colleague, damage, house, London, mail, post, teaching, transit | Leave a comment

Simon Cowell and Outlook calendar chaos (Rousse)

Posted on November 25, 2012 by Dreamaticus

Simon Cowell gave me a big hug and congratulated me on my recent work. Then I got back to the Sunday afternoon business of working out how on earth I would fit in a visit to the University of Birmingham … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged calendar, modules. semester, Monday, news, Outlook, PhD, Simon Cowell, Sunday, teaching, University of Birmingham, work | Leave a comment

A tale of courtly love (Rousse)

Posted on November 14, 2012 by Dreamaticus

I read the new module descriptor with glee. I was being asked to teach a class on etiquette to computing students. This would give me the chance to use my first degree in my job (at long last), tracing the … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged computing, courtly love, degree, descriptor, knight, knights, love, medieval, module, napkins, student, students, tablecloth, teach, teaching | Leave a comment

Melvyn Bragg’s editor, boasts about the Sound of Music, and other distractions keep Rousse away from class

Posted on September 29, 2012 by Dreamaticus

Now that it was December I no longer objected to the Christmas displays in the shops. I was even becoming more tolerant of the members of the sect who queued up every day in their drab black uniforms for the … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged camera, campus, Christmas, church, cinema, class, colleague, country, December, Dee, editor, freelance, guest, job, lecture, Melvyn Bragg, Radio 4, religion, River Dee, sect, Shetland, sound of music, students, teaching, term, Thursday, town, TPR, tyranny, undergraduates, uniform, uniforms | Leave a comment

Rachel wins Ross back – again (Rousse)

Posted on March 25, 2012 by Dreamaticus

My name is Rachel Green. You may remember me and my friends from a television documentary broadcast 1994-2004. We don’t see each other so often now – perhaps about once a month. Monica and Chandler are still married, have a … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged business, Chandler Bing, Courtney Cox, David Schwimmer, finance, flirt, flirting, Friends, hair, inspector, Jennifer Aniston, Joey, Joey Tribbiani, make-up, makeup, Manhattan, Matt LeBlanc, Matt Perry, Monica Geller, nails, New York, New York University, Rachel, Rachel Green, Rachel Greene, Ross, Ross Geller, school, schools, teach, teaching, trainers | Leave a comment

Babies, text mining and Any Questions (Rousse)

Posted on December 2, 2011 by Dreamaticus

All the middle-aged married women at the conference looked so much bigger than they did this time last year. Puzzled at first, I eventually worked out that all of them were either about to give birth, or had recently welcomed … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Any Questions, babies, baby, BBC, bed, birth, campus, conference, downstairs, guest, Indian, knowledge management, lecture, married, middle-age, middle-aged, module, motherhood, pregnant, producers, Radio 4, robes, seat, stage, students, teaching, text mining, turban, weight gain, wives, women | Leave a comment

How to survive the first week of term (Rousse)

Posted on September 8, 2011 by Dreamaticus

My work life was falling to pieces: the only computer available to me for running a complex statistical package was an ancient XT; my first tutorial of the academic year lasted only 30 minutes because I hadn’t prepared enough material; … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged academic, booklet, complaints, computer, drug, drugs, green, hooch, office, pirate, pirates, print room, software, statistical, statistics, stats, stress, student, students, teaching, term, treasure, treasure hunt, tutorial, typos, university, work, XT | Leave a comment

How to find love: happy relationship remarriage (Rousse)

Posted on September 7, 2011 by Dreamaticus

I trailed the country as a guest at numerous weddings as all my school and university friends signed up to the new craze of “happy relationship remarriage”. This wasn’t about finding a different life-partner, nor renewing vows with any incumbent … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged attic, campus, church, craze, divorce, divorced, funeral, Glasgow, guest, happy, happy relationship, hat, how to find love, husband, Italian, laptop, laptops, life-partner, love, MacAir, magic, meeting, meetings, middle-age, middle-aged, network, networking, nuptials, PC, PCs, PhD, pie, pork, pork pie hat, remarriage, restaurant, school, straw, students, Sunday, teaching, university, violet, wedding, weddings | Leave a comment