Recently I’ve had explain to more and more people what I do in my job as a University Lecturer.
This is tough, because no matter how much I try to jazz it up, until I get another ‘big research project’ that I can talk about, the description just sounds like ‘oh, you know – reading and stuff’. And ‘my head is like a giant computer that mostly knows about teaching English’ just sounds a bit loony.
Up until last week I was still in teaching time. This made life easier – I could describe giving lectures and grading essays. But now that I’m on the research clock…well, things are a whole lot less defined.
I saw a great summary in a faculty email today of the three core criteria comprising our definition of research activity:
- publications,
- HDR supervision,
- research grants/consultancies.
That’s a nice list to use I guess. And given that I don’t have any students to supervise yet, or any research grants, I guess that leaves me with publishing over the summer.
So, in terms of what that means I will do with my actual time? With the actual minutes of my day?
Looks like I am up against a lot of computer time, more self-directed learning, lots of getting to know journals in the field, and reassembling bits of old writing into new hopefully interesting things to read…so much to do and so little to talk about, in short. But, so far, I still love it.
I wonder if my blog will get boring?
I wonder if I’ll need glasses soon?
Too Much Reading
Kelli McGraw 