Transitions
2007 seems to be the year for transitions.
In the ASO Biology program, there’s a new director and deputy director. I spent the last three weeks in Canberra with a great bunch of staff teaching a keen and tight-knit bunch of high schoolers. Our new director hasn’t been through the program before so it was a bit tough for her to get accustomed to our teaching style, our culture, and our strange sense of humour. But Sarah, the new deputy, did a fantastic job of holding things together during the transition. Nevertheless it was a bit tough for everyone, especially after losing three key staff members, and losing another one after this year.
At church, Ernie our student pastor left us after two years to go work for a church in Eastwood after graduating from SMBC. Because of his high level of involvement with the youth group, his absence will definitely be felt. The new youth pastor, John Menzies, returns to Australia with his family after 5 years of mission in Uraguay. He’ll be working with the youth ministry at ND, but again, a challenging time of transition is in store. Especially since I’m apparently heading up the youth group team this year, with a diminished number of leaders after losing a fair number of experienced leaders.
And starting a PhD sometime in March. The first year of a PhD, people say, is mainly spent poking around not achieving much. I guess I’m fine with that, as long as I can do other stuff apart from just PhD work. Honours was difficult because I basically had no life apart from research - squeezing in youth group was hard enough. Hopefully this year my time will be more balanced.
Also, moved to a new server after getting sick of the slow speed of webhostingbuzz. With hostgator now, which provides faster speeds but the price increase is also noticeable. Took a while to migrate to the new server though; especially difficult doing it through the ANU connection in Canberra.
Big movements in 2007. It will be an interesting year, that’s for sure. Meanwhile, I’m still zoned out from spending the last 3 weeks in Canberra, and can’t actually think or do much. Will take a bit to recover.