Deeper and deeper

Quieter days are upon me, and not before time, so I thought I'd take the opportunity to provide a general update on life in our nations capital over the next few days.

The ANU Postgrad Association (PARSA) continues to survive, despite current low numbers on the council. The executive officer positions have seen quite a shake up, with the resignation of our president/treasurer and vice-president in the space of a few weeks. This created quite a stressful situation for me, because with these resignations, it became immediately apparent that I am now the longest serving council member. While this realisation came with a sense of pride, it also came with a far greater sense of pressure as I realised I was being targeted for the presidency. I have toyed with this idea for sometime, foreseeing such a situation may arise where I would need to make a choice. The issue for me is timing. With a wedding to plan, a 6 month trip to Italy looming, plus my current list of extra-curricula activities, taking on the mammoth task of leading the Postgrad Association was just not an option. Thankfully another active member, Grant, eventually accepted a nomination for him to take on the role. As a compromise, I accepted a nomination to be Vice-President. So now I'm the VP of PARSA. As Pietro, the previous VP put it - no one ever wants to be President or Vice-President. For some reason I find that a heartening thought, because apart from timing, my other concern with taking these sorts of roles on is that I may not have the passion and energy to put in the time and effort required.

So far I have not experienced any great influx of responsibility. I attended a meeting a university committee meeting on information strategy last week, but I have been on this committee for months already. In some respects, the VP position might be an easier job to manage than chairing the social team, where organising people and putting on very public events really did require a lot of time and effort. Time will tell.