Walking in My Shoes.

The new academic year is now 3 days old. It is Wednesday night and my current interest in Beethoven's String Quartets, no 13 Opus 130 in B Flat Major, carries on. I'm calm and relaxed despite a bumpy 2 days that followed a curiously quiet arrivals weekend and day 1. I'm fine and world is still spinning.

Yes we have had 2 significant crises, the first of which I dealt with with some aplomb. The second passed me by initially as I was teaching. But what a day for my manager who had to step in. An utterly flawed system, the constant buck passing, the panic and frustration were all so evident. By the end of the day she was shattered. That is what it can be like walking in my shoes if only for a day.

Tomorrow I will pick up from there. There are also 9 new referraals waiting. But I'm managing. Oh so different to a year ago.

Early days indeed but I'm growing in some confidence even without the buzzy mini mania of my early days there. I hope I can sustain it.

With that done and cast aside for a few hours my music and reading night has commenced. I didn't manage to start Our Man in Havana the other day as I'd hoped-got stuck into other things. Juggling 2 books and 2 magazines at once does not always work. That's partly why it takes me so long to read books. Add in 5 either live or recorded NFL games a week and my time disappears rapidly. But I must persist. Music and reading are good for me.

And that other great passion of mine, the beef was triumphantly rare, the Chinese dish of cucumber and pork stir fried with chilli bean paste, Szechuan peppercorns, chilli flakes and rice vinegar was magnificent and now I'm run out of cooking steam. With pay day arriving on Friday-the results of recent profligacy and buying spree have been largely repaired-my culinary adventures will continue to give balance to my life. And balance is so very good.

I Heard a Voice.