Reflections on a Wednesday morning

The banquet is still catching up with me, I think. I didn't reach the office until 10.50am and so will have to be here until late in the evening. Yesterday will have to be written off as a day off, as I didn't do anything for TGW as planned. This is a pity as there is so much I'd like to get done in the flat; even when I manage a weekend without anything happening it takes a while to adjust to not being TGW-PK, or DSoc-PK. The latter incarnation is one I'm particularly keen to relegate to the back-burner, which was part of the thinking behind my becoming senior member. I'm really pleased that there is a new generation coming in, and I really want them to seize the reins and do what they want to do; but (as I might have said before) I feel a real clash between my sense of fan culture and that of the rising crop of undergraduates. There is no hostility, just a contrast between someone who grew up in the world of print, and a group of people who grew up with the internet, video and multichannel. I can only bridge the gap up to a point.

Tomorrow I'm off to the north-east, as it's my goddaughter's third birthday on Saturday, and I will take my place among the supervising adults at the leisure centre as the children devour various items of food, with the fruit and yoghurt alternating with chips, jelly and ice cream. It's good to go and enjoy being in an environment where priorities are different to those in Oxford; my cousin and her husband are busy in the day to day life of work and bringing up children and aren't assailed by the difficult intellectualizing that Oxford people can't avoid by our nature.

EDIT: I can only bridge the gap up to a point.

I think I'm wrong about this, or hope I am. It would be a pity if I can't adapt and stress common ground over differences in method. I'm retreating into a monastic cell again, and that isn't where I belong.

Qualifications on a Wednesday evening

I just wanted to say, to all the undergraduates and indeed all the students I know, that you are all fantastic and you shouldn't read anything negative into my musings on any half-generation gap or what have you which I might be perceiving. There's a bit of a grey cloud over the light at the moment.