LHC, 140 students, sanity!

Morning All

Well, today is Big Bang Day! Fingers crossed that this won't be my last post! Of course, there is more chance that I'll be slapped in the face by a live, smoked haddock than the world will end, so those of you who are worried (Donna and Amanda) need not!

I'm tired this morning so this post is a bit dry. I just wanted to air the fact that my major stress at the moment is organising things for the arrival of ~140 students for this coming year's First Year. Five years ago we had around 60 students - if only my salary scaled at the same percentage. I guess we lecturers shouldn't grumble too much about wage rises though since the paydeal worked out a couple of years ago means that we get inflation this September and inflation is HIGH! So we should get about 5% which is pretty good really!

Been invited to my alma mater (Durham Univ) to give a talk in November - that will be nice to go back again. I have this secret hope that one day, there'll be a Professorship there for me to fill, but then again there are a number of places I would love to go to be a Professor at: Bangor Univ is one that you might be surprised about, but there is a magic about the place and of course nearby Anglesey, that is often in my mind. Durham I've mentioned, Sheffield another (this place isn't so bad after all), or somewhere like Canterbury either the UK one or the New Zealand one! Our friends Paul and Caron are going to NZ and they say that when we visit, we'll never want to come back.

Well, that's it for now - just got a lot to do now as I'm sure most of you reading this have. Have a great day!