The Sporadic Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 3238 by Angharad Copyright© 2018 Angharad

---

Most of the staff love it when the students have gone, which was the case now. Sadly those of us employed by the university have to work and don't get the same holidays as the students do. There's exam papers to mark, preparation for next term regarding the syllabi, liaison with UCCAS - the clearing agency for unplaced students, if we run full courses we stay in the black and it seems money is all education is about these days, we're a business. I try to think back to my own student days and things were better in that regard, Sussex University was still interested in educating its charges, but since the government stopped student grants and changed them to student loans, and also stopped paying the fees, it has all gone crazy.

I can understand the short sighted tax payer agreeing with the new system, why should they pay for all these youngsters to idle three years or more away. It's odd that they don't seem to associate this as possibly being a cause of the shortage of doctors and nurses when they want one. Effectively, graduates tend to earn more money than those who didn't do uni, so they repay any debt to society in the taxes they cop for when they do manage to get decent jobs. Sadly, it won't be the case for everyone and I agree that some degrees are more useful than others, but then presumably some of those with media studies qualifications go on to make television and radio programmes not just watch them.

As the problems with global climate change worsen, we'll need all sorts of scientists to try and understand and possibly ameliorate what is happening, some of which will be biologists and ecologists; so I justify my own existence here on those grounds.

To Diane, I'm just someone who dictates meaningless letters which she types and I sign and she then despatches via Royal Mail or carrier pigeon, whichever is quicker, probably the latter. However, this morning I was perusing the new books that the staff have ordered. The prices make your eyes water and how the library copes, I hate to think.

High Street Bank does run a charitable fund for cash strapped students to rent books for the term or year rather than buying them, a deposit is taken and returned depending upon the condition of the book. I've been shown some which look like they were dropped in a slurry pit while others look as if they were never opened, which is quite possible and judging by some of the coursework marks, looks very likely.
My time at university as an undergraduate was, as I've said before, rather strange with half my peers thinking I was an effeminate boy and the others thinking I was a girl pretending to be a boy. But I whiled away three years dissecting things, making microscope slides for other students and passing exams. My social life was practically zilch and I had few friends. Given I'm now who I feel myself to be, sort of living the dream, I should have more friends but I find that I still only have a few possibly because my work and family supply most of the social contact I need and I never actually learned how to make many friends, spending my time trying to avoid being sussed for what I really was which also made me something of a loner, sort of content with my own company, solitary but not lonely--most of the time.

Why am I thinking about this? Well tonight I do have to go out with Simon to a fund raising dinner for St Claire's. Apparently their library needs refurbishment and this is part of their fund raising scheme. Guess who has to sing for their supper as well as pay for it? Yeah, me. So once I've finished my coffee break and perusing these tomes, I have to write some ideas down to bore the pants off a pile of parents who equally won't want to be there. I did suggest to Sister Maria that she might like to offer a different option next time, that for an increased fee, they could opt out of the whole thing. I know I'd pay for it instead of having to find something to wear as well as do the speech thing.

What will I talk about? God knows. I'll probably start with why the need for books of all sorts is still important for school libraries. That children learn from all sorts of sources but those who have acquired the reading habit, have not just another source of information, but another dimension, another world to mine for data and for enjoyment. When you have a good book, you also have a good friend.

I've been reading a book by Professor Steve Jones from London University, called The Single Helix. Initially I thought it was a book about genetics, which is his field, especially those of snails, but it's not; it's a collection of short essays, a hundred to be exact, about various elements of science and written with a sense of humour--though he does save some scorn for creationists, which I agree with. I've also been reading Richard Dawkins, The Greatest Show on Earth, which is the evidence for evolution, written in response to requests from readers of his previous books. His contempt of those who deny the science of evolution for religious reasons is well known. He labours the point that grumbling about missing links and why don't monkeys have human babies if we're descended from them, shows a wilful disregard for the evidence and principles of evolution and that of the scientific measurement of the age of the universe and the earth in particular.

He actually explains very well how physics and chemistry have cracked the way elements form by half lives and the use of isotopes to demonstrate the age of rocks and also life forms--carbon being the main one involved in the latter, but they can also tell us where something is from and to some extent how it lived.

Evolution is a fact proven by genetics and assisted by the fossil record. We have so much information now compared to Darwin's time although he was a part contemporary of Mendel, he appeared to have never heard about the monk's experiments with peas and his conclusions. Given that we treat this sort of thing as everyday knowledge nowadays, we forget just how difficult it must have been for people like Darwin and even the revolutionary ideas of Einstein in their lifetimes, to gain acceptance for them. In fact it's still difficult if you have a really revolutionary idea which challenges the conventions of science or politics or even society.

I've been reading articles in the Guardian and the i newspaper about the government's consultation on updating the Gender Recognition Act. Some of the ideas seem helpful, some perhaps help less recognised groups and some seem off the wall.

Does it worry me? If I try to be more acceptant of those who don't fit into a binary system, it's sometimes uncomfortable because it's beyond my experience but then, I can't throw stones because not so long ago, I was grateful when society enabled me to be myself, which would have been outside most of their experience. I don't think I'll be talking about that at the dinner tonight.