areiamus

Received through student email today. I’m surprised they even have an all-students distribution list. Imagine sending off an email to Ally declaring how you’ve really liked her for quite a while now and maybe she’d like to go out for a drink sometime and realising, oh just one single heartbreaking moment too late, that Outlook (or is it Entourage now?), in its ever-earnest attempt to be helpful, autocompleted To: AllStudents; instead. What would you do? What could you do?

Requirement to hold Semester 1 examinations on Monday 9 June Queen’s Birthday public holiday

Dear Student

I am writing to advise you of a recent decision taken by the University to use the Queen’s Birthday Public Holiday on Monday 9 June, 2008 as part of the Semester 1 central examinations period.  The purpose of this email is to give you as much advanced notice as possible that you may be required to sit examinations on Monday 9 June.

This unusual situation has arisen because the UQ Union (ie the Student Union) had decided to hire out one of the large venues usually used for examinations for private functions on two Saturdays in the end of Semester 1 examination period.  This will affect access to the function venue as well as two other adjoining Union venues usually used for examinations that are likely to be disturbed by noise and other activity associated with the private functions.  As a result a significant number of examinations need to be re-located to other suitable examination rooms during the central examination period from Saturday 7 to Saturday 21 June.

The University considered carefully, a number of options for compensating for this loss of scarce examination space, and a decision to schedule examinations on the Queen’s Birthday public holiday (Monday 9 June) has now been made.  This was considered to be the best option available to ensure examinations are held in the most suitable venues, students would benefit from fewer examinations being scheduled for consecutive sessions across consecutive days and to avoid scheduling examinations during the final session on Saturday nights when public transport is limited.  The University’s aim is to schedule only two sessions on Monday 9 June, thereby reducing as much as possible, the potential negative impact on students and staff.

The examinations timetable is in the final stages of preparation and will be released to students via mySI-net not later than 4 weeks prior to the start of the examination period, that is, by 9 May.

The University regrets any inconvenience this situation may cause you.

Linda Bird

Academic Registrar

I’m really not sure how I’m supposed to respond to this. Woe as I am to leave issues of incorrect word usage (advanced instead of advance notice), grammar (’had decided to hire out’ instead of ‘has hired out’), or even punctuation (one hundred million unnecessary commas), the subtext (which is so overt I may be tempted to call it ’supertext’ if it didn’t so neatly undermine my previous asides regarding writing style) is clearly one of blame towards the union.

Blow-by-surreptitious-blow:

1. UQ Union (ie the Student Union)
   Not our fault. It’s the union’s fault. In fact, it’s not only the union’s fault, it’s the student union’s fault. That’s like the most belligerent, unreasonable and useless anyone can be. How can you put students and unions together and expect anything other than misery, heartache and scheduling hassles to come of it? I ask you, how?
2. has decided to hire out
   Didn’t even run it past us first. Us, the Academic Registrar! And not only did they do it without asking, they did it in a such a way that we were completely excluded of any hope of giving our valuable input until after the fact.
3. likely to be disturbed by noise and other activity
   Even though it’s possibly not the Union itself attending the function, it’s a pretty safe bet that anything even mentioned in the same sentence as the Union is guaranteed to be wildly out of control. Also, all students know that we would certainly never provide anything less than ideal exam conditions, such as giving students 25cmx40cm in which to work, or sitting you so close to each other it’s easier to read your neighbour’s exam paper than it is your own OH WAIT HAHAHAH
4. compensating for this loss of scarce examination space
   Dodos are scarce. Brilliant, musical, argumentative, self-aware-postironic-sort-of-slightly-alternative-indie-dressing short-haired glasses-wearing women are scarce. 1.1km² of campus means examination space is not scarce. Put the engineering students in the gym! They won’t complain (don’t have the social equipment to know how) and I won’t have to see them where I take my examinations. Sorry, I’m supposed to be writing this from the uni’s point of view, aren’t I? Ahem: they stole it, the precious, it’s ours, we wants it back, gollum, gollum.
5. reducing as much as possible, the potential negative impact
   I can’t believe we have to step in and make this right, when it’s the union’s fault (UNION’S FAULT) that this happened - but we will, because we’re better than them, we’ll fix this mess they’ve made, not to worry, we’ll make it all right. Good thing we’re here, huh?

Employ me as Registrar. Hell, employ me as Email Writer For Academic Registrar. I’ll do it for free. Sending out an email as above is not only unprofessional, it’s undignified (almost worse, really) and unsightly. Unacceptable.

When I catch the train later in the evening, which is any time after 6, I have a tendency to doze off. This seems to happen more often when I’m sitting in the aisle seat and the unfortunate window seat occupant must either: tap me awake, mutter ‘excuse me’, or lift their arms (and bags, I suppose) high in the air and attempt to navigate the 15cm gap between my knees and the seat in front of us – all of which rouse me and spark an awkward moment where it’s clear that they’ve broken the commuter code of non-interaction, and I’ve broken the social convention of impersonal helpfulness without acknowledgement.

The aforementioned happened at Taringa this evening, just one station from my destination of Indooroopilly. As I struggled to gather my thoughts and decide what to eat for dinner, salmon attacked - not grilled or fried, but perched atop ribbons of pasta with fresh basil. Inspired, I set off to Coles.

Ingredients:

• 200-300g salmon fillet (preferably not actually from Coles)
• 300g or 5 small or 3 big tomatoes
• 3 fresh basil sprigs
• 200g linguine
• 3 garlic cloves
• sea salt & cracked pepper
• olive oil

And so:

1. Set 2-3L of water to boil. Add linguine, stir briskly and cover until water reboils. Cook for the rest of the time uncovered, around 10 minutes. If you bite a strand and it’s the same colour all the way through, it’s ready. Tip some of the water off to a spare pot. Drain pasta in a colander, toss with a little olive oil to prevent sticking. Return the saved water to the main pot, set the colander in the pot and cover until you’re ready to serve.
2. Finely chop garlic, dice tomatoes and wash basil. Add garlic, salt & pepper to 2-3 tablespoons olive oil over high heat. As the garlic starts to sizzle, turn the heat down to medium and add tomatoes. Cover and simmer for until the tomatoes have softened and there is some liquid in the pan.
3. Cube the salmon not smaller than 2cm a side. Lower the heat and evenly space the salmon pieces in the pan - there should be enough liquid that they’re not frying. Scatter basil leaves over the mix and cover for 2 minutes. Very gently stir, turning the salmon over and mixing the basil into the sauce. Cover for another 2 minutes.
4. Serve immediately.