7 un-interrupted hours of...

...reading! Yesterday I had a total of 7 hours on cross-country trains going to and returning from giving a seminar up in the north west of the UK. This is what I acheived:

• reviewed a paper for a journal
• read and critiqued a 6 monthly progress report from 1st year PhD student
• read and critiqued a draft paper from a postdoc
• read "good practice guides" on PhD supervision and examining issued by our new university Grad School
• read the documentation for the "Research Development Framework" which is a national scheme to encourage career and professional development of research staff
• read the guidelines for applicants to an EU funding scheme so as to understand what a Spanish postdoc who wants to come work with me will need from me as the host supervisor

At my destination I gave a 1 hour research seminar, and spent 3 hours with a collaborator thrashing out the structure of and roles in preparing a consortium proposal due 1 July.

If only every day were so productive. I think most faculty in my department appreciate the pleasures of long distance (relatively) comfortable travel as an opportunity to catch up on things without interruptions. Of course the downside is usually a morning fire-fighting to clear the "emergencies" that happened while you were away, but I got home last night with a curious amount of adrenalin in my system given the length of the day in total.

Actually there was one interruption on the trip up north. A gentleman decided that it would be a good idea to put an open bottle of red wine horizontally in the overhead luggage rack. By the time he realised it had leaked, it had soaked through my rucksack. The contents were ok, but the bag itself smelt like the aftermath of a particularly good party and was dripping red wine. In an unusually assertive moment I extracted compensation from the gentleman concerned (he turned out to be a rather elderly Australian academic which made me feel a bit guilty - should it have?) and purchased the largest "bag" I could find that didn't look like a beach bag at the station forecourt branch of an "accessories" shop. I guess some of my colleagues would just have decanted everything into a carrier bag but I am searching for that elusive "stylish female academic who is still taken seriously" image at the moment. If anyone out there has found it, please let me know!!