This will hurt me...

School of Health Sciences, UTas, Campbell Street. September 2013. The Wackadoo Meme, part 1 1.] What age is your youngest aunt? Cripes. I'm not sure. Somewhere abouts the mid- to late- 40s I'd guess. 2.] Do you miss someone right now? My babies. 3.] What can you see North West to you? The Tasmanian Riviera! 4.] Do you like bowling? In small doses. 5.] Can you pronounce Italian words? Non molto bene . 6.] Do you prefer black or beige coloured jackets? Darker would be better. 7.] Do you own a hoodie? I own a few. 8.] Do you like roasting marshmallows on a bonfire? I do indeed. 9.] Do you like cheesy puffs? What are they? 10.] What's your name without vowels? Krs McCrckn. 11.] How many layers of clothing are you wearing? Approximately a half. 12.] When was the last time you got a take away? What did you have? A few weeks back the boys and I got some hot chips and potato cakes. 13.] If you could climb any mountain ...

UTas. Sandy Bay. August 2012. As you know, the Internet is a wonderful place filled with the rich and varied treasures of the world holds (and stuff.) The following are some things that I've had a look at in the last week. I call this: a Compendium of Click-throughs for Monday Morning... Unfortunately, this morning the Internet appears to be broken...

Here we are on Hunter Street, outside the University of Tasmania's Art School looking towards what remains of the working port. It's an interesting nexus of ideas at work here, and is replicated in Launceston, where their Art School is located with an old railyard. Deliberate? Who knows! Here's a romantic poem today. Woman Her hair... shimmered. Her eyes... sparkled. Her smile... glimmered. Her neck... glistened. Her pancreas... excreted.

A child of my time, throughout my life I have on occasion taken to imagining my daily humdrum existence in cinematic terms. I’d think about lighting, angles, character arcs and plot development. This was no more prevalent than in those blissful days of University. Not very healthy, perhps, but it managed to pass the time when all one had to do was drift into university, crap on a bit, and then back home for an extended session of Syphon Filter 2 on the Playstation with a glass of cider set to one side and a jazz cigarette at the ready. In those heady days of youth (well, early-twenties), life was terribly easy : lots of reading; writing the odd poem or bit of prose; waxing lyrical on the subject of political theory and historical understanding a few hours a day; exceptional [if I do say so myself] marks and – most importantly – scholarship money . Of course, this lifestyle afforded moments of deeply serious reflection amongst a select group of esteemed colleagues , very few of them a...

Don't worry, I'll put a stupid ad up soon, but I was interested to see this post from Andrew Norton on the HECS/HELP program. I guess in some way this is related to my previous post. On the whole, I am supportive of the notion of user contributions to higher education, provided policymakers get the balance right, which I am not sure has been the case over the past decade. As a result, I am interested in the broader impacts of that balance/imbalance. My own anecdotal experience (dangerous, I know) of teaching at UTas over the past seven years tends to support Norton's assumption, if anything it seems like more diverse backgrounds are being represented through the School of Government than was the case in my undergrad days (1996-99). Obviously the reasons for this are complex and wide-ranging, but it has provoked my interest whenever I read another attack on HECS/HELP. I'd like to see the figures drilled into a bit, and wonder if it is reflective across the states, and ...

Back at the Uni again, ready to start talking about terrorism yet again. This won't be pretty...