Seems timely to repost this #nzpol

A different location (in sunny end of house) but same loyal cat companion. I will admit, Maisie is my favourite colleague. I'll also admit, I mostly work from home.

No is the short answer. I was a committed Wordle doer for quite a while (although I preferred Octordle). I've been known to resort to Sudoku on a rainy holiday. Not sure when I last played a board game bit it was probably tivial pursuits.

My colleagues while working from home. I will make no comments regarding how they compare to my human colleagues.

Definitely a cat person. I have always had a soft spot for snails 🐌 which conflicts with my desire to grow vegetables. And the whole process of tadpoles turning into frogs has fascinated me since childhood

Not a big movie watcher these days - mostly see them on planes. Love most of what Taika has done, and quirky &/or atmospheric dramas. TV - gentle British/NZ murder mysteries (Midsomer Murders, Brokenwood etc). WDYTYA, Time Team. Not horror or US sitcoms, most of which I don't find funny

I read a lot. Mostly fiction (there's enough non fiction at work). Have lots of favourite authors/ books but mostly into classics and contemporary fiction. Five favourite 5-star reads this year include Orbital, A Farewell to Arms, Nesting, Dune, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.

I don't think I can do this one... TOO HARD... but I'll try. Music - all sorts of things... very dependent on mood and what I'm doing... if I was to name three artists I've listened to the most this week it would be: Bach, Fat Freddy's Drop, boygenius.

No allergies, but white chocolate isnt chocolate... dark chocolate for the win. Not a fan of asparagus. #SecretSantaAoNZ

Taking time to stop and enjoy the little beautiful things in nature 🌼🪴

While I might not know what day Black Friday, I would definitely make a better guess than the 2 Gen Zers on the news: "is it next Monday?"; "is it Thursday?" 🙄

Due to an 'excessive leave balance' I am taking Fridays off for the rest of the year. Decided to take my first trip of the season to our boatshed. There are worse places to be at 2pm on a warm Friday

Very happy with my giftee, but I wasnt already following them, so I'm now going through BlueSky and happily following a lot of other lovely humans (and their cats) also taking part, to cover my tracks #SecretSantaAoNZ

I have a big vegetable garden, so I spend a lot of time on that, out of necessity really. I read a lot, and have dabbled in pottery over the last five years. Im not particularly good st it, but I find it very relaxing and a nice change from my day job.

I don't wear jewellery on a regular basis - maybe earrings and a necklace if I'm 'dressing up' Just did a stocktake of the current jewellery I'm wearing on a regular workday... absolutely nothing.

Books. But I really don't need more 😂

The colour of the waters of Whakaraupō Lyttelton Harbour. That colour changes, but they are all lovely. Sometimes D'Urville Island, sometimes Manu Bay, sometimes Rārangi [if we are going with the Dulux paint colours 🙂 ] www.dulux.co.nz/colour/greens/

No food restrictions or things I can't eat. If I were to think about ideal food gifts they would probably be: 1. Interesting cheese (but logistics in shipping/storing perhaps?) 2. Coffee beans/ground coffee from quirky small producers - the stronger the better. 3. Interesting spice mixes.

Signed up again! After the year that's been spreading a little joy seems more needed than ever

My feed this morning is so depressing this morning - all our useless government doing dumb stuff, racism, climate change and Trump. So here is my happy fat cat Maisie, helping me weed the garden.

At the annual Tourism Summit Aotearoa ... very different from the Adaptation Futures conference. Struggling with the dissonance... but nice to catch up with some really good people.

Let Adaptation Futures 2025 begin #AF2025

FFS... as if this weekend needed to get worse politically

"Selwyn should carry a travel advisory warning from now on" 😳 There are many intelligent, sensible and kind people in Waikirikiri but due to voter apathy we have a new council dominated by VFF climate change deniers, racists, conspiracy theorists, Trump-lovers and Jacinda-haters. #nzpol

So when I hear of students being encouraged to use GPT in college I don’t hear innovation. I hear cognitive atrophy, the inability to think critically for oneself, and total dependence on vulnerable centralized repositories of data for knowledge without ever understanding how knowledge is generated.

Waikirikiri Selwyn has just voted in ALL the red flag candidates #nzpol

Sitting in Lincoln Library... huge numbers of people coming in to vote in Waikirikiri Selwyn #nzpol

Really excited to be one of the social scientists funded to be part of this. Looking forward to hearing my friend and colleague Nick talking about the project on Checkpoint 😊

Turn the sound on and just take a moment to breathe...

The good news is that this pronouncement has been enough to motivate my 18 year old to enrol to vote next year.

You know, this is such a common perspective in our contemporary neoliberal late-capitalist context. But you know what? Anyone paying attention to history, or economics, or the social world, knows this hasn’t always been the case at all. And that its persistence is something we should address.

"I do not take offence from people I don't take advice from" You mean like voters, taxpayers and 'bottom-feeders'? How's that going for you? #nzpol #soLuxon

Very much an 'Oodie and Uggboots' kind of day in Waikirikiri Selwyn. #WFH

Mate, I don't know if you have ever been to New Zealand, but "pride" isn't a national value even on occasions when the government isn't Pontiusly auto-piloting a denial of genocide. www.rnz.co.nz/news/world/5...

“To refuse to provide a symbol of hope and promise during these dark days is akin to arguing that we need to wait for the genocide to be completed before we recognise the place Palestinians can bury their dead,” he said. “Shame on us.”

This only happens to you once

Four words I never thought I'd use in England: "It is too hot". Still, Oxford is ancient and beautiful.

This seems a sensible move, given a quarter of the new Institute's staff are already based in Lincoln. I love living in a town that revolves around science and knowledge. www.odt.co.nz/star-news/st...

I crossed a dateline and postponed it as long as possible, but my birthday has caught up with me. My daughter is turning 18 so she wants to celebrate her birthday asap, on NZ time. First, and likely only, time she and I can legitimately say it is our birthday on the same day. Thanks Rarotonga 🎉

Academics!! Does your organisation have a workload model, i.e. some way of quantifying how much time you spend on research, teaching, admin, and external roles (all of these, not just one of them)? Please respond below (and repost)! (unfortunately Bluesky still doesn't have a poll option)

FFS...

I've escaped the world for a week. No TV/radio and limited wifi. Just lots of novels to read.

Today I went to many places I've never been before. Including here.

Seriously need to get out of bed but one cannot disturb Maisie

Bluesky's decline stems from the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 the world in which you are not sure what you are going through with the process.

Almost all Nobel Prizes are awarded for work that is exploratory, or absolutely basic science with no obvious commercial or medical benefit. You cannot predict where advancements come from, so you have to invest in science and scientists. Targeted (corporate) science investment will never do this.

Woke up to a message from AirNZ saying that due to dodgy weather approaching my lunchtime flight might be disrupted, offering me an earlier alternative which I took. As I boarded my plane the first snowflakes have started to fall...

Maisie provided moral and emotional support while I weeded the garden. Here she looks disappointed because I stopped working to take her photo.

This is why I have abandoned exams this year. If they were pen and paper/face to face it would work, but my uni encourages online exams. When I asked my students if they could cope with handwriting an exam they looked genuinely horrified that it could be a thing.

We endured six months of submissions and process for the Treaty Principles Bill, a bill cabinet knew would never pass. Yet the Govt gives just 12 hours for radical changes to pay equity laws that directly impact hundreds of thousands of workers, mostly women, & their families.