East Coast Roadshow: Which way is up again?

I’m starting to suffer city overlap as a form of spatial disorientation.  I’m certainly feeling a serious case of campus blur.  Since the start of the East Coast Roadshow, I’ve visited the following University Campus

UQ| QUT| Griffith University Gold Coast| Swinburne (two campus)| Monash| RMIT| UTS| U Syd| Macquarie University|University of Wollongong

This leaves three West Coast universities left to visit.

UWA| Curtin | Edith Cowan

Then there’s the return leg to Melbourne to pick up LaTrobe and a sequel in Sydney for Macquarie University.

There’s also a sense of dislocation in that I’m in Melbourne, I catch a cab, go to the airport, and now I’m living in Sydney, and tomorrow I catch a flight to Perth and live in Perth for a week.  Dropping down to Wollongong from Sydney overnight added to the sense of dislocation – I met up colleagues who I probably won’t see again for several years – friends at UoW who I haven’t seen since 2006, and probably won’t see again until 2012.  Yet, having traveled through the university campus systems so frequently recently, I’m able to stride around a new campus, know my way, and help lost first years. (I do take a small note of pride in having been mistaken for a local in Sydney and Melbourne.). Still, it’s unsettling to know your way around a place, then leave, and just start to get settled again in time to head out to the next location.  I can see why political campaigners get weirder as the campaign gets longer – the only constant is the suitcase, handluggage and knowledge that it’s not entirely useful to learn your way around if you’re just going to leave again.