Matters of Health, Work, Rick, and Time

After spending a couple of days fighting off a cold, I have finally succumbed and decided that I really need to spend a day or two at home. So here I am wrapped up in several layers with Mac the cat and the laptop to keep me entertained as I doze in and out of a foggy delirium. Still, it is not nearly as a bad as the poor state that co-worker Martin P., has found himself in. A few weeks back he was admitted to hospital with loss of taste and fading vision; turns out he had a tennis-ball sized brain tumour on his frontal lobe. He has a mighty scar, like Frankenstein's monster, and is in very good spirits, despite having issues with short-term memory. We both took some delight in the discovery that a brain sample is being used on our Spartan HPC which of course he has done a bit of work on. It will make a great talking point for the next course.

On work matters, I think I have seen my desk once this week. Monday I worked from home whilst dealing with some Rick B. matters and Tuesday I had off as time-in-lieu. Yesterday I was at one of the University's internal management development courses, specifically 'Authentic Leadership'. It wasn't bad, but not really as challenging as I would have liked it, although I do speak from a privileged position - after all I did do a trimester course on the subject as part of my MBA. In other work-related matters, had a very good meeting with the internal staff teaching group (curiously linked with the above) on website accessibility. They were quite open to the fact that they had problems, and appreciated the irony that their anti-discrimination learning module was, in fact, discriminatory.

The Rick matters this week consisted of a one-hour meeting with his financial advisers (we're going to have to sell his flat), a quick visit to his lawyers, taking him for a check on the state of his facial skin cancer (all good), and finally organising access to his accounts. Having paid some $30K of my own money to cover his expenses, it is good to have turned that corner. There was a meeting with VCAT this week as well as UnitingCare had initiated proceedings due to my refusal to pay the full-rate until the Dept. of Human Services had made their assessment, which I told them every time they contacted me on the matter. Well, the Tribunal wasn't going to put up with their nonsense and despite them bringing three of their managers to the party, I walked out with guardianship intact, plus an opportunity to open the will (one wouldn't want to automatically sell it if it had already been bequeathed). As for UnitingCare, well, whilst I can be magnanimous in victory or loss, there is also a side of me that is vindictive towards those who negotiate in bad faith.

This week also witnessed a visit to The Astor with caseopaya and funontheupfield to see the film A Brief History of Time which they were showing in honour of the recently departed Stephen Hawking and donating part of the proceedings to MND Australia. The film covers both life and cosmology, and is hard to dislike on that basis, and often is quite funny. He was, at least in his early university days a somewhat indifferent and rapscallion genius. Notably, at this stage missing his estranged first wife, Jane Wilde, although notably it is remarked that without the combination of MND and Jane he probably wouldn't have achieved what he did. Also found Holly and Luke after the film who had been in attendance. I also took the opportunity to re-read the book - it has been some twenty-five years since I last turned those pages, and despite the title it's not just about time, but rather cosmology in general.