Wrenching this thing back on course

I've been away from regular blogging for a while, I realise. Partly that's been the fact of coming back to Australia for the holiday season and getting over my usual vicious jet-lag.

But, regardless of jet-lag, Couritng Disaster has been adrift for a bit. I've been very busy of late with the PhD and my first ever semester's teaching and have felt a bit - well, busy to be blogging.

Strange, though, that I could always find time for it when working at a much more time-constrained desk job and even - more or less - through the chaos of my masters year.

First, I think blogging was simply a novelty, and my writing was mostly humourous pieces, reviews and the odd legal issue. Then it was a document of what could well have been my one and only year in Cambridge.

Now, with my life beyond blogging gathering steam, it seems important to re-focus on what I expect to do with this blog.

I think I really want it to be, rather more self-consciously, the blog of a PhD student. This is in itself a weird experience, and one worth recording.

So expect stories of teaching undergrads (including the odd mildly humilatiing piece of on-the-job learning), failed efforts to do PhD reading on long haul flights, and the trials and tribulations of trying to get a few publications out there.

Dammit. I have a book review to finish over Christmas as well.