Long time no see

Real life has kept me away for far too long. That and university students just aren't as blog worthy as adolescents. Anyway, where was I?

• University teaching has finished already. The upside to this is nice, long holidays (even longer than schools) but the downside is very intense teaching terms (one reason for the silence on the blog front) and loads of exam marking.
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• Lots of strikes in the French university sector, but not where I work (unfortunately) in protest against Sarkozy's latest reform plan, that would give a lot more power to Vice-chancellors and punish researchers who don't publish enough by making them do more teaching. You can imagine how people like me who only teach feel about that attitude to our work, but, frankly, it only reflects what far too many researchers feel about lowly teachers.
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• Oh joy, a suspected case of swine flu in the Paris area. People returning from Mexico should be made to wear big sombreros and shake maracas wherever they go so the rest of us can avoid them.
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• Biggest reason for my absence: Mme le Prof and I have become proud parents. The Proflet, as he shall be known on this blog, is doing very well and the race is on to see if his first word will be in French or English. I've also found out just how fantastic maternity care is in this country, and will never moan about my tax bill again.
  

Anyway, I'm now on Twitter, so you can keep up with my bletherings here, or on the new feed in the right margin.Tweets are so much easier than blog posts, so I'll probably update it more often. Don't expect it to be all France/teaching related though.