I don’t mean to blow my own horn but, well, actually I’m going to blow my horn!

Course experience surveys were returned to RMIT staff today. Students’ experience of the course I taught this semester was at 75% overall satisfaction. About 25% higher than in 2007 and 45% higher than in 2006.

Woo hoo!

This is gonna look great on the CV.

One of the things I hate about my job is this the amount of time I spend in the car. A couple of weeks ago, for instance, I had a 9am meeting in Wodonga, a 1030am meeting in Yackandandah, a 1230pm in Benalla and a 4 o’clock in Melbourne. However, one of the things that I love about my job is that I get to drive from Wodonga to Melbourne through the high country. My phone camera sucks arse, but these might give you an idea of the type of country I get to drive through. It’s actually quite breathtaking.

I really shouldn’t complain about being a rural worker among a whole lot of city workers. On the one hand, my managers sometimes forget that I can’t just arrange a meeting with my volunteers, since they may live as far as 500km away from each other (and will be 1100km from each other come February 2009), and so it may take me four days to do what my metropolitan colleagues can do in one. On the other, I have mates who work in WA’s Pilbara who have told me how they can’t get to meetings in the rain as they find it difficult to land the plane.

I do miss having nights at home though. I miss not being around all the time if AJ or Megan need me, and expense-paid meals and accommodation lost its appeal a little while ago. I wish my car didn’t use up so much fuel and I could get some work or study done while travelling for hours at a time. But getting around the place is a great experience, and my volunteers and police are the best. And a relative few people can say that they’ve driven as many kilometres as National Highway One is long in only seven months of work.

Click on the link above marked “paul at work” if you’d like to know what I do, and get involved yourself (sorry, Victorians only).

Today is the last day of my classes at RMIT. While I will enjoy the extra day to study and sleep and whatnot, I no doubt will miss the extra cash that’s been coming my way. *sigh*

Anyway, if you click on the link marked “articles” at the top of this page you’ll find more links that will lead you to the powerpoint slides I used for lectures. I know one of you guys is interested. If they don’t make sense, don’t worry, there’s no shame in being stupid. Ha ha ha ha, kdding, I mean I’ve been asked to compile a course book for RMIT based on my lectures and when that happens I’ll add notes to these slides.

So the sixth conference on religion, media and culture called me up to invite me to speak at a plenary session, based on the exciting research I’ve been doing in the field of online religion.

Well, that ain’t so true. I was going there anyway, so they thought I might like to speak at a plenary session.

Actually, they were really stumped to fill in a gap so they asked me.

Well, to tell the truth, they asked my supervisor, who refused and palmed the gig on to me.

Still, I’m feeling really excited about it. On top of a couple of other presentations I’m doing in sessions, I’m offered the chance to share what I think about stuff ‘n’ stuff to the entire conference. And given it’s like the flagship of research into media and religion, there’ll be a lot of university departments who’ll say “So, who’s this guy then?”

In my other life in Shepparton, weird shit is happening all over the place. I got a call yesterday from Victoria Legal Aid over an issue they have with one of their clients whose residential service worker appeared at a police interview. So I’ve been asked to be at a meeting to give Crimes Act information to Legal Aid and advice to a local youth work agency on how youth workers should conduct themselves in consult with young people.

So many things I am so unqualified for. I even surprise myself what I can get away with. So far nobody’s worked out I’m a dickwad, and I reckon the new haircut has something to do with it.