Low resolution

Making new year's resolutions in September may seem a little strange, as Sarah* points out but, believe me, when your life is organised according to the academic year, it really is the only time that anything is ever going to change. After October, we're caught up in a demented rush of teaching, class preparation, meetings, conferences etc. so there's no time for innovation or change. Anyway, here, for what it's worth, is my non-exhaustive list of things that need improvement:

I will not
write down what I did in class on scraps of paper which then disappear and only turn up as screwed up paper mâché at the bottom of my bag weeks later.
I will
buy a(nother) nice new exercise book and keep accurate records of class activities so that I don't have to keep asking students: "Are you sure we haven't already done this?", "As I may already have told you..." etc. ( I may have to think about a similar system for dinner party conversations)

I will not
spend ten minutes in the middle of each class scrabbling around at the bottom of aforementioned bag looking for a marker pen that works so that I can write a vital item of vocab on the board.
I will
lobby for the purchase of new interactive whiteboards for our department (and pigs will hit the stratosphere around about the same time they actually appear.

I will not
take the car to work a) because there is a perfectly good tram line that we are currently paying for, apparently singlehandedly, through our local taxes b) parking is now prohibitively expensive c) because it will do me good to walk a bit d) I now take the children to one place not two and it's on my way to work, so that excuse has been blown**.
I will
therefore be consistently late for any important rendez-vous such as the exam I was administering yesterday — it took me fifty minutes to get from one part of the universtiy to another by tram and bus, a journey that would have taken twelve or so minutes by car.

I will never, ever
consult my Bloglines account while at work, not even at lunchtime.
I will
only read online articles from scholarly journals, and preferably only articles with titles I don't understand (and will therefore spend all free time at home reading blogs without feeling guilty.)

How much more time do you have?............

* I've just discovered that I can't link to my own comments box so you'll have to look for what Sarah said, all on your own. Sorry
** Update on the playpiece dilemma. It turns out that mid-morning snacks are now forbidden in shools as part of France's fight against childhood obesity. It is considered far healthier for a three-year-old child to go for five hours with nothing to eat.

Category: resolutions