It’s Sunday 27th October 2024 and in the early hours of this morning the clocks went back, bidding goodbye to Summer Time. You can tell I’m an oldie because I have quite a lot of time-keeping devices around the house that need to be set by hand. My computer updates itself, of course, but I’m not sure if WordPress does. I’ll find out when I publish this post!
I’ve written before about the silly business of moving the clocks backwards and forwards (e.g. here) so I won’t repeat it all again. I will mention, however, that some time ago, before the Covid-19 Pandemic, the European Parliament approved a directive that would abolish `Daylight Saving Time’. Unfortunately that plan has been ‘paused’ and there’s no sign of it happening for the foreseeable future. I’ve long felt that the annual ritual of putting the clocks forward in the Spring and back again in the Autumn was a waste of time effort, so I’ll be glad when this silly practice is terminated. It would be far better in my view to stick with a single Mean Time throughout the year. I’m disappointed that this hasn’t already happened.
Anyway, talking of time, we have now completed five weeks of teaching in Semester 1 at Maynooth University. Tomorrow (Monday 28th October) is the October Bank Holiday and next week is Study Week so there are no lectures or tutorials. When I took the train into Dublin on Friday evening I noticed it was much less busy than during term-time. I think most students had already left for the week.
Normally Study Break comes halfway through the 12-week teaching term but this year it splits 5-7. Since I’m teaching two new modules this term I am not unhappy to have an earlier break to allow me a bit more time for preparation and to catch up on some correcting, but I am conscious that this is going to make for a longer run-in to the Christmas holiday. We are supposed to teach up until Friday 20th December, on which day I do have a lecture scheduled, though I suspect attendance will be low!
I’m not sure how much studying the students do during Study Week, but it’s not a holiday for academic staff even though there is no undergraduate teaching. Among other things we have examinations to write for the January examination period, which must be checked and printed well in advance. The break from teaching will also allow me a bit of time to work on my retirement plans and figure out how much Time I can afford buy with my Savings…
