September 2025
Catching up on the blog after a bit of time off and time away (which I’ll share in the upcoming October update, which will certainly come out before the end of November!).
The Vibe
I'm no longer doing the pre-dawn dog walks. In the morning, the sun's up, it's light and generally been pretty pleasant. Still quite wet and alternating between blasts of winter and the occasional beautiful spring day. September Iis a complete scattergun approach to weather patterns,which probably mirrors the mood quite a bit in terms of emotions and well-being just in general.
As always, the turmoil of the merger continues unabated. The work though seems to have fallen into a bit of a pattern – but it’s not something I enjoy. I'm not what you would call a ‘maintainer’; my preference is to work as more of a Pioneer, exploring new spaces and defining the patterns others might follow. So I’ve adopted more of a coping strategy, switching off a bit more about that part of the work and focusing on some of the more engaging bits which has been around the new university's Common Core.
I've been working on the Entrepreneurship and Design Thinking course, Igniting Change: Ideas to Action, and it's been a breath of fresh air in terms of something challenging and engaging from an intellectual perspective. Part of that has been the realisation that one of my strong points is working through the details to operationalise what, in essence are just good ideas, but also ideas that are new and don't exist as things that we can copy, (which appeals to my pioneering spirit!).
It’s probably useful to unpack the Common Core courses a bit. They are a range of six courses that students are required to complete as part of the degree studies at the new Adelaide University. Students need to complete one of these six courses each year of their study, which has been built into all the new programs and curriculum. They are aimed at being cross-disciplinary, skills development, experiential, and (hopefully) transformative learning experiences. Which is awesome to aspire to - but it's challenging to put into practice!
Part of the innovation in the courses is that their design is almost contradictory to how universities generally operate. For example, these courses are non-graded, meaning you either pass or fail. This might indicate to students that these courses have a lower value, but how else do you enable students to have a transformative learning experience and take risks?
The assessment process that's been decided upon is that we would have two formative assessment tasks for students, followed by a single summative task, which takes the form of a portfolio. Wanting to increase the risk appetite for students and having a single summative task that accounts for 100% of the course is somewhat contradictory. It's the single point where we can actually see that the students have met the learning outcomes. A single point of assessment also means a single point of failure in my books. So that’s where I’ve spent quite a bit of time working on this month - dwelling on the question of how to make this work. This is the stuff that I can actually engage in – problem-solving and being creative. I think I've come up with an approach that seems logical and achievable within the constraints of the learning management system and the tools we have available. I need to write more about this because I think it's actually really important, and it would be a valuable addition to my portfolio, as there's a lot of detail and nuance surrounding this topic. I'm not even sure if it will work 100%, but part of this risk appetite that the university has is that they seem like they're willing to take risks on these courses. So it's not just on students' heads, it's on ours as well.
All of this has compelled me to truly reflect on how work makes me feel. Being engaged in two quite different types of work – mundane, repeatable, templated work vs more engaging, challenging, and creative tasks – has really pushed me to think about work beyond skillsets and competencies, but about feelings and what makes me happy.
I've also started to get a bit more organised, because when I recognise that being organised makes me feel better and more relaxed. This is opposed to when I feel reactive - not necessarily a lack of control, but the sense of input into what I am letting into my life. I've certainly tried (and failed) to do this on a few occasions - and while I haven't maintained it during each attempt, I was far more productive, I felt better, and I was a lot clearer about what was going on. The problem is that once I had that clarity, I just continued forward without looping back around on why everything was clearer, and maintaining that organised process.
So a big chunk of September has been about thinking through what it is that I need to be and do and want in life. It's been interesting because a couple of years ago, while I was completing the focus course, I got a better sense of the bigger picture of where I wanted to be and where I was going. The problem came in the actual implementation of those big-picture ideas. I came across two people in my Mastodon feed who were spruiking the benefits of OmniFocus and a more whole-of-life view of organising things, rather than just random, disconnected to-do lists. I read up and watched a few videos about this approach and it felt right and made a lot of sense, helping to explain some of my previous failures. So I've started the journey of setting these things up and starting to put things together in that space. I don't think I've got a system per se, but I feel like things have started to progress fairly positively in that space. I've got a lot of stuff out of my head, and to be honest feel like I've created more space in there as I'm not needing to keep a million different things at front of mind. We'll see how that pans out!
And I think that's probably where I'm at the end of September – starting to make some more conscious decisions about life in order to put myself back in control of things and not purely be reactive to the world around me and the situations I find myself in. I want things to change – particularly at work. I need my career to actually be something that gives me joy. I'm not feeling my talents are being utilised – I think more strategically and operationally, but I'm not in that space right now. Since the merger really kicked in, I've had zero ability to be that person, and I'm not sure the opportunity to do so exists in the upcoming restructure. I'm not sure if there are future roles or future projects to align myself to... but rather than just let it devolve and for myself to burn out in this space, I need to be a bit more proactive and take the bull by the horns and be the change that I want to see.
Events
Had a great dinner out at the local Argentinian restaurant - very meat heavy :-) - but was nice grown up night out with friends Dave and Jane.
The in-laws came for a visit and to watch Ms A's first performance with her local acting troupe. It was a fun nights performance (I can appreciate this a bit more than the "theatre" group performances).
Photos
Very light on in the photo department for the month ... only two made it into the favourites!
Watched
Really enjoyed the first season of Peacemaker and Alien: Earth. Completely missed the boat on The Outlaws and have enjoyed bingeing episodes when some I needed something a bit lighter and fun. Finally got around to watching Kingdom of Heaven as a few people mentioned it online... it was fine but I don't think I missed anything. Stuck through Black Rabbit for Jude Law, but I am not a fan of this farce-based "what 's-the-worst-thing-this-character-could-do" genre of, well, anything. Had potential, but missed the mark.
Listened
These episodes on 'The Rest Is History' were really enlightening in terms of explaining the almost hidden agenda at play in geopolitics - oil.
This podcast episode shared by Doug Belshaw on Anxiety was really interesting, explaining it as normal cognitive behaviour
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