Tag: personal

rolling

dwmbinns1 Comment

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It’s been ten years since I owned a bike. I started, as so many kids do, with a little BMX, then around my late teens I was gifted a refurbished hybrid to get about the backroads of the Hawkesbury hills. When I moved on campus, the hybrid became a handy mode of late-night transport between my 4×4 cell room and the computer labs (that had better internet, and printers).

But given the lack of space available, the only place I could store the bike was lashed to a post outside my room. It wasn’t ideal, and it wasn’t too long before rust started to appear on some of the more delicate-looking bolts and parts. Before it progressed too far, I decided to throw it on ebay. Since saying goodbye and handing that bike over to some rando who frankly could’ve looked happier to acquire such a beloved machine, I’ve wanted another bike.

Cue several years of stop-start savings, getting close only to have some life event empty the coffers, getting up there again, repeat ad infinitum. A couple of weeks ago, I finally got one: a mid-range cyclocross bike that handles road and trails with ease. It’s a joy to finally be out there again — it’s cliched but I really have missed that mixture of agony (uphill) and bliss (downhill). Melbourne is good place to have a bike, too, with a surfeit of dedicated paths and trails and bike lanes on most major arterials.

Here’s to many happy spins henceforth.

What a difference…

dwmbinnsLeave a comment

Sometimes the gurus get it wrong… it may not be best to ‘mark’ down when you feel like your life is on a trajectory. Since the last blog, the contentedness I felt at managing things vanished.

In its place was left a gaping hole of uncertainty. Doubt. Fear. And most keenly felt of all: a crippling lack of productivity.

Bottom line? I think it’s important to acknowledge what things work and when; it’s also just as important to note when the train has derailed.

Deep breaths. Multiple cups of tea. The train is back on the rails; now carefully re-stoking the boiler.

Priorities

dwmbinnsLeave a comment

I am lucky to have a job that I love. But in the eighteen months of settling into full-time academia, I seem to have lost sight of the ‘love’ and become fixated on the ‘job’. A weird thing has happened in recent weeks, in that I’ve tried to become more focused on what is actually important about my work — and what feels the most rewarding.

There are two main strands to the workload of an academic at my level: teaching and research. Research covers the writing and publication of scholarly work — be it journal articles, book chapters, conference presentations, monographs. Teaching is what it says on the tin.

In 2011, mid-PhD, I took my first class at Western Sydney University (then UWS). It was a boring compulsory course, but I caught the bug, and have loved teaching ever since. With the transition to full-time employment, I’ve always tried to have time for my students, time to sink into my pedagogy, but that time has always felt sapped by other commitments. I say felt, because I’ve realised that the sapping of time has only occurred because I’ve let it.

This semester, I’ve turned a corner. The most important commitments I have, during semester time, are my students. Everything else is secondary. To be clear, I don’t think the time I spend on teaching or research will change this semester (I have a book chapter to finish, a presentation to write, and a monograph to approve all by September). Rather what has changed is where my head is at most of the time: ensuring my students are, if not blissfully happy, then at least reasonably clear about what I’m trying to teach them, and the experience I would — ideally — like them to have.