serious conversations

I don't do much teaching of undergrad cohorts any longer. so, much of my teaching consists of conversation with postgrad students about their projects. I think that meetings one-to-one with students are interesting and perhaps misunderstood. Certainly for me, they require the putting out of a lot of ideas and energy, within the constraints of my particular research roles with individuals. I've had three conversations today: talk with jeanne about her fieldwork, talk with Lenore about her masters thesis which I am just looking in on since her principal supervisor is ill, and talk with a recently acquired student who is close to confirmation. head space is the operative term. i talked with people for over five hours! I'm serious about them all, but have varying degrees of involvement with each. exhausting stuff really. I'm very conscious of my supervision role with each individual - how much to say and what might eventuate as a consequence of conversations AND what i should be doing within my particular role as supervisor (and all conversations differ, as a consequence).