P-cubed Newsletters

Contents HeadsUp This week sees the winter solstice roll around on the 21st June and Matariki to follow shortly after on 14th July.  Time flies as they say, but the darker shorter days of winter also bring delights….the crispness of the stars on clear nights, the fog...

Contents HeadsUp Gratitude I am grateful to George Perry for ‘holding the fort’ as Acting Head while I was away in North America for 2.5 weeks. And to Michael Groom for assistance in diverting various delegations so that I didn’t need to be typing that ‘approve’ word...

Contents HeadsUp Robin is away (last I heard, sampling the delights of north-eastern Mississippi), so he has asked me to write a piece for P3. It’s the pointy end of the semester when marking ramps up, as do requests for extensions, so I will keep this short. First, I...

Contents HeadsUp One of the perks of knowing someone in the corporate sector is learning of various quirky attempts to sharpen the delivery of service. Some seem cheesy but on occasions something resonates. Like that word ‘perk’ as an acronym.  Once capitalised, PERK...

Contents HeadsUp I trust everyone managed a bit of a ‘breather’ over the Easter break as well as perhaps catching up on fieldwork and teaching prep, marking etc. Somehow over the last two days I managed to write a book chapter and now am about to head for the hills...

Contents HeadsUp Pink leafless belladonna lilies seem to be popping up everywhere. The nights are cool but, mercifully, the sea is still warm. Autumn is emphatically here. With the imminent end of daylight saving, it feels like the gritty business of the semester is...

Contents HeadsUp The semester is well and truly underway, with weather-related interruptions hopefully behind us.  I for one have been enjoying brushing up my lectures and engaging with a  refreshingly enthusiastic class of students. It’s been an enjoyable...

Contents HeadsUp Well, it’s been a bumpy start with rain, wind and power outages, but we’re underway. Semester 1 is upon us. Expect the unexpected should, perhaps, be our motto. This last week brought three moments in which I caught myself feeling unexpectedly buoyed...

Contents HeadsUp I jotted the last Heads-up in the wake of the floods. Two weeks later, I’m doing so on a laptop with a fading battery as the house shakes in Gabrielle’s grip. I am grateful for a cup of tea brewed on my tramping stove, the power and wifi having been...

Contents HeadsUp This was going to be the “welcome back, hope you had a great summer break” commentary. Well, there were some days that were glorious and quintessentially summer. And in due course I look forward to hearing how you spent them. But for now, here we are,...