Academic Research into Female Music Producers and Engineers

Oops: there I was thinking that yesterday's meeting would be serene.
I exploded, right in front of the student representatives and all the staff. But boy, did it feel good! I hardly ever lose my temper, although I do get angry about things. I feel so much better now, after weeks of unbearable pressure. Who knows what will happen next: a reprimand?
At least I had a peaceful evening with all the pent up fury left in the meeting room, sitting on a blue plastic chair with a tubular steel attachment for putting your writing paper on.
There may it rest in peace.

I have been writing all day, since about 10.30 It has been fun. I had an hour off for lunch and a charity shop trawl, before sitting down to the books again, all 21 of them, plus numerous academic articles.
I have written seventeen pages so far, with more to go, but the computer has started being silly so I'm going to switch it off for an hour. All the frustration of the past few weeks has turned into writing energy; I do hope I manage to do this paper justice at the conference on Friday.
Almost all of it, I could tell as a string of anecdotes about my own life, but that's not what they want.

Lucy's partner made a very good point about student grants last night. If students pay their own fees, they are thinking about 'learning for me', whereas if the grant comes from the Government (i.e. all of us who pay taxes) they have some sort of social 'thumbs-up' for what they are doing- and possibly, some sort of greater social awareness as a result. I have actually had a student come to me saying 'I pay all these fees and what do I get? 60%! I expect a first for all that money!'. I pointed out to them that:
1. We pay for a Driving Test, but do not pass just because we have paid. Imagine what would happen if we did!
2. They would not be happy to go to a doctor who had passed their exams purely because they had paid for their training. We need benchmarks so we can trust people in whatever situation: cultural, medical, scientific, whatever.
3. 60% is a good mark anyway.

Anyway- bye for now!