Philieselphy

It seems prospects for universities are pretty grim. What can we do to prevent further "brain drain"? Straight after my PhD I moved to France, and am looking for my next job overseas too. I'd like to stay in Australia and do my research here, but the jobs and funding are just not there.

My dad was a friend of Geoff Schafer (spelling...) Apparently he founded the Bibbulmun. He was a fascinating and kind of odd guy. Do you want to hear the 2 or 3 things I remember about him?

Hmm can't tell you much about the track itself... but my dad says Geoff was very good at ballet, and once did a very nice rendition of the Dying Swan after a few drinks in their cabin on the Bibbulmun. He apparently had quite a bit of money, but never spent any. We could never get in touch with him, he had no phone and no address, he travelled around in his truck all the time, dropping in on his friends around the country. Once he showed up at our house, and didn't seem to realise it was Christmas day. So he joined us for lunch and Christmas crackers and went on his way.

I am an expat in France and they start kids in preschool as young as 2. I have 2 and 4 year old girls starting at school soon. The 4yo has spent a few months last year at school here and adjusted quite well considering she had zero French. The 2yo I am a little worried about, as she can't really grasp the concept that her teachers and friends don't understand what she's saying. Even the 4yo chatters away in English sometimes to people who clearly don't understand her. Any advice?

My husband and I are struggling to agree on what country our kids live in. We'll be separating physically to opposite sides of the world (but not emotionally, at least that's the plan) and we have 2 kids (2 and 4yo). I don't think either of us can really take on both kids, but we don't want to separate them from each other...

How can we approach this? It's been months of talking this over and we're both pretty emotional about it (understandably I think), and we're getting exactly nowhere.