How now! who knocks? More earthquakes? (John Webster, The Duchess of Malfi). 7.15 am: Mist. Moist. Tightly enclosed. Darkness, still bearing down. Life lived as though in a picture book: This week has had little to commend itself, thus far. 8.00 am: A responsive email was the first priority of the day. I was resigned to dealing with the earthquakes…

‘It’s damp, cold, and misty here! How’re things with you?’ 8.00 am: A communion. Last night, before bed, I’d begun re-reading Stephen Grosz’s The Examined Life (2014). The book comprises accounts of the author’s psychoanalytical sessions with his patients. In essence (and unsurprisingly): past traumas condition our present responses. We are what we were. If you can understand why things…

Rarely do we want what we’ve never asked for. And rarely do we ask for what we’ve never wanted. 9.30 pm: A long journey began for someone. ‘Bon voyage, and love to all!’ Solo, for me, for now: 10.00 am: Back before my desk at homebase: ‘Don’t fritter away the day on minors, John!’, the voice said. But so much…

My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle (Job 7.6). Sunday, January 19. 3.45 pm: I find it helpful to keep company with the dead, periodically. There’s a section of Aberystwyth’s municipal cemetery that I’d not investigated before. The burials all took place during the year in which I was born. Thus, as I’d entered the world, they left. One…

8.15 am: A communion. 9.00 am: A touch of admin, in order to exorcise a demon of injustice from my head. Too much of academic life is a joyless, thankless, and galling nuisance. That’s the result of a systemic problem within Higher Education, rather than the fault of my university or department. I sigh too often these days. But the…

8.00 am: Dismal land. The, now, incessant rain had woke me shortly before 5.30 am; after which, sleep proved elusive: A communion. 8.45 am: A batch of moderated feedback reports awaited my attention in the inbox. There were other matters of admin that pressed upon me; these would need to be addressed before feedback report writing could recommence. (In the…

Take my intellect, and useEvery power as Thou shalt choose(Frances Ridley Havergal, ‘Take My Life, and Let it Be’ (1874).) 8.15 am: A communion. 8.45 am: I looked at the washing-line of Post-its, at the base on my computer screen – covered with ‘things to do’ for this month, and their deadlines – and shrivelled inwardly. Some items will take…

Lean not unto thine own understanding (Proverbs 3.5) 8.00 am: A communion. 8.45 am: My morning was spent marking the remainder of the Abstraction module’s exhibition report submissions. The weather moved between moods. Our states of feeling and mind, sometimes, likewise, shift between obfuscation and clarity, infirmity and resilience, and anxiety and relief. Winds suddenly arise and either bring storms…

You’re just a little girl with grey eyes(David Bowie, ‘What in the World’, Low (1977)) 8.30 am: Off to School for day 2 of third-year painting tutorials. Yesterday, I saw more examples of students engaged in abstract work than I did in the decade between 1990 and 2000. Some principles and observations derived from the morning’s engagements: ‘Avoid using raw…

8.30 am: On the doorstep; off to School: 9.00 am: Dr Forster and I began our first day of third-year painting feedback tutorials. The next few days would be a relentless round of interviewing and report writing through the day, and essay and project marking through the evening. So little opportunity to think outside the tasks. We kept good time,…