Wednesday

Yesterday was taken up with meetings, some of which required follow-up action. Felt like a wasted day, apart from the Scholarly Connections meeting which went well. A good turnout and two presentations which stimulated quite a lot of discussion. I forgot to collect the coffee machine tokens but people brought their own refreshments. I was delighted to receive a box of fancy macaroons from a colleague who had just come back from visiting our French connections in Dijon: I was less delighted about having to share them... I think the lunchtime slot works better than breakfast so will plan for that in future.

Arrived at work today at 8 am and by 10 am had read through and made detailed comments on the MSc dissertation draft for the student with the medical resit. He writes quite well and he has read a huge amount but in some ways this distracts from the poor structure and lack of theory. Framing the comments positively took a lot of thought. Each student is entitled to 4 hours of my time so he's had more than his fair share. And now four undergraduate dissertations to mark. Sometimes these are better than the MSc ones. One looks very thin indeed, perhaps I'll start with that one.

More meetings, formal and informal, and more listening to complaints and unhappiness. Cheered by a chat with a colleague who now works on the other campus so we hardly ever meet. She is always ready for a laugh, although she has plenty to worry about: her son is a soldier serving in Afghanistan.

The last of my academic advisees finally turned up for a meeting. He seems quite happy with everything although I was a bit worried when he asked me what an accounting standard is. After several weeks of the Accounting & Society module I would have expected him to know. I do wonder what goes on in that module. The module leader has sent me a paper to read. Over 11000 words on principle based accounting standards and judgement. I expect I can cut a good deal of it for him. He has taken on board some of my suggestions about the development of his ideas in this area which is gratifying but I'm not sure that I agree with his argument, on first reading at least.

Read a couple of pre-proposals for ICAEW and finally achieved Nirvana - a completely empty inbox!