time to sleep now?
May. 21st, 2009 10:03 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
llywelaThis week so far has been pretty manic. It doesn't look like it will slow down much until after bank holiday weekend. I'm looking forward to next week as a possible change of pace!
Had Small over for the weekend. We went Shopping, with a capital S, to spend her birthday money. She bought herself clothes, jewellery and makeup – so definitely a teenager now! But just to prove that she is still herself, she also bought a new football, because she always has to have a new ball for every occasion. 'Cept then, of course, when we got home we had to play football. In the rain. Great fun.
Work has been crazy all week because the divisional Open Forum I've been organising was on yesterday, so there have been days and days of last minute details and crises to sort out. Tuesday afternoon we had another dry run of presentations for the Forum, plus set-up of the accompanying exhibition. Therefore: an afternoon of manual handling. Good training for moving house!
We held the event at the Glamorgan Building in the civic centre, just behind the Crown Court and across from Alexandra Gardens. Built in 1905 as Glamorgan County Hall, it was acquired by the university after the county boundaries were changed in the 90s (and the new Cardiff County Hall was built in the Bay) and it has to be said, as university buildings go it is pretty stunning.
Also just another of the buildings in the civic centre that has been used on several occasions as a location for Doctor Who!
We were using the Committee Rooms for the event, with the Council Chamber as an overflow – all original fixtures and fittings (with just a few modern additions in places) and terribly impressive to look at.
The pictures came out a bit too dark to really show the rooms off to best effect, alas. These were taken on a visit a while back; I didn't have my camera with me to get any pictures of how it all looked for the actual event. It was a lot of hard work shifting chairs and big, heavy 100-year-old tables around, assembling boards for posters, hooking up plasma screens and whatnot, but we were dead impressed by how good it looked at the end of the day!
Tuesday evening, once all the heavy lifting was done, I went to a lecture organised by the History Department as part of the ongoing celebrations of the university's 125th anniversary. There was a wine reception beforehand, which was all very nice and social – I sat and chatted for ages with the always delightful Professor Gwynfor Jones, who taught me many moons ago when I was an undergraduate but is now technically retired (I say technically because old historians never really retire, they just stop teaching). He's a real character, ever such a sweetheart, and it was great fun reminiscing together. The lecture itself was given by Professor Linda Colley of Princeton University, who was born in Cardiff. 'Empire, gender and obsession: The world-wide political thought of Philip Francis', Philip Francis being a politician and pamphleteer of the late 18th century. 18th century history is not my forte, but the lecture was really interesting, and I caught up with quite a few people besides Gwynfor, so I'm glad I went.
Yesterday was the day of the Open Forum itself, so I was up at the crack of dawn to get to the Glamorgan Building as it opened at 8am. Absolutely manic all day. We'd made it clear in the advertising that space was limited and attendees had to book to be sure of a seat, but inevitably loads and loads of people just turned up on the day without having booked, so the rooms were way overcrowded. And Finance had stuffed up my order for the refreshments, so I had to run around getting that sorted out at the last minute. Didn't hear any complaints though – everyone seemed to thoroughly enjoy all the presentations and exhibition.
I didn't get to see the presentations myself, in the end – too busy getting the refreshments set up out in the foyer and taking care of a myriad other details. Just as well I'd seen them all before, in various iterations, at the rehearsals – the Media Resource Centre presentation I saw the most times, and now feel I have a very solid grounding in their work on forensic odontology! Their dental and opthalmic photography is fascinating, if a little gruesome at times – here are a couple of images of eyeballs they've produced.
Amazing, no? Having had my eyeballs photographed in great detail just recently, I now know something of what they look like up close!
After the event, of course, everything had to be pulled down and returned to its proper place, which meant another solid afternoon of manual handling and physical labour. Again, good training for moving house! Didn't get lunch, and also didn't really sit down all day, and wow do my legs know it today!
Slept like a baby last night at the end of it all.
Today, touch wood, should be a nice quiet day. Tomorrow is rampant with meetings, and then I'm spending bank holiday weekend helping my parents to (hopefully) get the bulk of their moving done…
Boss is on leave next week, along with what seems like half the department. I'm hoping that means it will be a nice quiet week for dozing gently at my desk!
Had Small over for the weekend. We went Shopping, with a capital S, to spend her birthday money. She bought herself clothes, jewellery and makeup – so definitely a teenager now! But just to prove that she is still herself, she also bought a new football, because she always has to have a new ball for every occasion. 'Cept then, of course, when we got home we had to play football. In the rain. Great fun.
Work has been crazy all week because the divisional Open Forum I've been organising was on yesterday, so there have been days and days of last minute details and crises to sort out. Tuesday afternoon we had another dry run of presentations for the Forum, plus set-up of the accompanying exhibition. Therefore: an afternoon of manual handling. Good training for moving house!
We held the event at the Glamorgan Building in the civic centre, just behind the Crown Court and across from Alexandra Gardens. Built in 1905 as Glamorgan County Hall, it was acquired by the university after the county boundaries were changed in the 90s (and the new Cardiff County Hall was built in the Bay) and it has to be said, as university buildings go it is pretty stunning.
Also just another of the buildings in the civic centre that has been used on several occasions as a location for Doctor Who!
We were using the Committee Rooms for the event, with the Council Chamber as an overflow – all original fixtures and fittings (with just a few modern additions in places) and terribly impressive to look at.
The pictures came out a bit too dark to really show the rooms off to best effect, alas. These were taken on a visit a while back; I didn't have my camera with me to get any pictures of how it all looked for the actual event. It was a lot of hard work shifting chairs and big, heavy 100-year-old tables around, assembling boards for posters, hooking up plasma screens and whatnot, but we were dead impressed by how good it looked at the end of the day!
Tuesday evening, once all the heavy lifting was done, I went to a lecture organised by the History Department as part of the ongoing celebrations of the university's 125th anniversary. There was a wine reception beforehand, which was all very nice and social – I sat and chatted for ages with the always delightful Professor Gwynfor Jones, who taught me many moons ago when I was an undergraduate but is now technically retired (I say technically because old historians never really retire, they just stop teaching). He's a real character, ever such a sweetheart, and it was great fun reminiscing together. The lecture itself was given by Professor Linda Colley of Princeton University, who was born in Cardiff. 'Empire, gender and obsession: The world-wide political thought of Philip Francis', Philip Francis being a politician and pamphleteer of the late 18th century. 18th century history is not my forte, but the lecture was really interesting, and I caught up with quite a few people besides Gwynfor, so I'm glad I went.
Yesterday was the day of the Open Forum itself, so I was up at the crack of dawn to get to the Glamorgan Building as it opened at 8am. Absolutely manic all day. We'd made it clear in the advertising that space was limited and attendees had to book to be sure of a seat, but inevitably loads and loads of people just turned up on the day without having booked, so the rooms were way overcrowded. And Finance had stuffed up my order for the refreshments, so I had to run around getting that sorted out at the last minute. Didn't hear any complaints though – everyone seemed to thoroughly enjoy all the presentations and exhibition.
I didn't get to see the presentations myself, in the end – too busy getting the refreshments set up out in the foyer and taking care of a myriad other details. Just as well I'd seen them all before, in various iterations, at the rehearsals – the Media Resource Centre presentation I saw the most times, and now feel I have a very solid grounding in their work on forensic odontology! Their dental and opthalmic photography is fascinating, if a little gruesome at times – here are a couple of images of eyeballs they've produced.
Amazing, no? Having had my eyeballs photographed in great detail just recently, I now know something of what they look like up close!
After the event, of course, everything had to be pulled down and returned to its proper place, which meant another solid afternoon of manual handling and physical labour. Again, good training for moving house! Didn't get lunch, and also didn't really sit down all day, and wow do my legs know it today!
Slept like a baby last night at the end of it all.
Today, touch wood, should be a nice quiet day. Tomorrow is rampant with meetings, and then I'm spending bank holiday weekend helping my parents to (hopefully) get the bulk of their moving done…
Boss is on leave next week, along with what seems like half the department. I'm hoping that means it will be a nice quiet week for dozing gently at my desk!
