I am distinctly uninteresting at the moment and I’m blaming it on work which is Crazy. Teaching starts next week for which I am also distinctly unprepared. This may have something to with the phone which never stops ringing and the email which never stops dinging. Working with a bridging program is slightly different to teaching in Proper University Programs. Our students don’t just appear in our classes through the magic of QTAC. They ring us directly with their initial inquiry, then they come onto campus and do an assessment. This assessment is then marked and then they all come back one by one for an interview at which time I tell whether they have a place in the program or not. Then they come back for two Orientation days before they start the program proper next week. All this takes lots of paperwork, phone calls (thank goodness for amazing administration staff) and general organisation type stuff. This year on the Bundaberg campus we are starting three classes of 29 students each. We are Full to the Brim in terms of numbers.

And don’t even get me started on the External version of the program which it is my job at present to coordinate as well. This involves even more inquiries (we have probably had 500 inquiries) that will translate into approximately 250 students. They ring, they email, they do an assessment which is sent out to them, then sent back to us and we mark it. We then have to a phone interview with each one of them. Then we send them multitudes of letters/paperwork some of which has to be returned. And then we sweat bullets as to whether the organisation to which the university in its wisdom has outsourced the printing of resource materials will actually get the study packages delivered to students once we enrol them. So capturing one student is something like a minimum 3 week process. Times that by 250 all happening at once and just imagine the fun it produces.

So with the days consisting of endless queries like “when will my books arrive”, “when am I getting my ID card”, “my password won’t work”, “can I get an enrolment advice for Centrelink” there’s really been not much time for thinking interesting thoughts about anything.

I get home every afternoon and promptly fall asleep on the lounge for anything up to an hour.

Oh yes, it’s quite the life. Bring on the teaching I say.