Days 161 to 170

Finally, the PhD interviews arrived. Frantic last minute organisation and trying to remember who is available for conducting the interviews. Of course a lot of staff have already headed out on holiday, leaving the rest to take on the candidates and act all professionally. Mostly it worked and there were some keen potentials. Students that is. And perhaps staff too who may have missed this aspect of academia. We’re pinning a lot of hope on these students to do some research and remind us of why we all really wanted to do PhDs in the first place. A bit like trying to live your missed childhood through your children.

Had a visiting Professor over for a week whom I met in Krakow at a conference last year. Nice guy and also an entertainer of my children as we all went out to sample some of the restaurants in Astana.

So day before Ali and the children are due to fly out, Rebekah is sick. Ali was somewhat frantic trying to get everything organised and I don’t think my “chuck it in the suitcase and do up the zip” attitude was helping. They flew out from Astana on the 26^th, Rebekah was in floods of tears, which were kind of prolonged. They had to wait 10 minutes at Passport Control to be allowed out of the country and hung around waving goodbye throughout. When Ali finally waved me away, I get a phone call with Matthias sobbing in the background. He didn’t get to do his last goodbye wave. At least Fred was on the same flight which made it easier for Ali to get the hand luggage on and off the plane and keeping the kids in check.

I went back to university and had a chicken sandwich and chips, mulling the next 13 days without my family. But I had some companionship. The next day I must have caught whatever bug Rebekah had and became ill, which put a stop to the longer distance running I planned to do for about a week.

It’s so quiet at the university. Hardly any academics around. Most have got a longer break. This just leaves me, a few extraneous members of Faculty and the admin team. Really unfair for them. One administrator was sent to China to chaperone a whole load of undergraduate students, to sit in meetings and then head back to work to debrief. And this was considered their holiday. Must always remember that whatever the expatriate staff suffer, the locals probably have it worse and because of their culture they do not complain.

Still not too long to wait for the Tour de France to start. Got to keep occupied until I get to fly back to the UK.