March 1. Day 60. Head above water

It's game on. The students have arrived and finally the main game of teaching can begin - I just need to clear the backlog of paperwork. I'm up to my neck in it. My head is above water but only just - a bit like this lizard at South Bank this morning.
I'll let you in on a big secret. I hate paperwork. Never has the need to fill in a form, write criteria sheets or complete appointment documents motivated me to get out of bed in the morning. Indeed if that was it I might never crawl out from under the doona. But there's a mountain load of administrivia in my and I suspect every job and it only gets worse. Efficiency drives seem to mean the phasing out of administrative staff. Sure I can make my own coffee and phone calls and do my own printing. I've never dictated anything to anybody. But more and more of the complex administrative tasks seem to be finding their way into my inbox. I sometimes wonder about the wisdom and indeed the cost of shifting responsibilities from specialist office staff on to academic staff.
Don't get me wrong. These things are not beneath me it's just that I'm not very good at them.
Surely it is better to have someone who is fast, efficient and experienced at a task do it rather than farm it out to those who are slow and inefficient.  It's prematurely aging me. Beady little eyes and scaly skin are other things I share with this lizard. I may also be growing horns.
Humph, if only I got to laze on a rock or wade in the water at South Bank every day. Perhaps this fellow could fill in appointment forms and we could swap. He couldn't be much worse at it than I am.