Goodbye

Hello. My name is Kostas Economides and I am a lecturer in the Department of Economics at the University of the South of England (USE for short). Well, actually that is not true really as the names of individuals and institutions in this blog have been changed to protect the innocent - and the guilty!

What I am about to tell you will come as a bit of a surprise. This is going to be my last blog post for a while. For personal reasons I am having to go back to Greece and so I have handed in my notice to Mike Rowe. I won't leave officially until the end of December but I won't have time for any more regular blogging for a while. I shall however keep the blog account open so there may be the odd post from time to time keeping you up to date with my news.

The problem is that my mother is very ill after having suffered a stroke and my father is finding it difficult to cope. I have been lucky enough to secure a job at the University of Crete starting in January. Although my parents live in the Pelopponese I shall probably have to live in Crete but travel to see them on a regular basis.

Mike Rowe has been very understanding. He has told me that he is really sorry to see me leave but that he recognises the circumstances and that personal and family matters must come first. He has told me that I can spend the rest of the summer in Greece - I shall travel out on Sunday - and that he will try to arrange my teaching commitments for next term in blocks so that I can go back to Greece for a few days every now and then.

I have asked Jenny to come to Greece with me. Understandably she says that she can't give me an answer straight away on this. She needs time to think about it. But she has said that she will try to get some more time off before term begins to join me there for a week or two.

I am going to miss the USE and the UK a lot. As many people have told me I have become more like a Brit during my time in England.

To finish I would just like to thank all you loyal readers of this blog. I hope that you have found it interesting and even entertaining at times. It has given me the opportunity to sound off abut certain things going on here at the USE and at other HE institutions that annoy me. And it has been fun to tell you about some of the characters in the economics department and elsewhere at the USE.

Goodbye for now.