Be more moderate in future

You resolve to limit your excesses in future. Yesterday was your first experience of the Rulebook and you think the power went to your head a bit. From now on, you'll spank only as hard as you think is appropriate, although you still expect to enjoy it rather a lot. You write a reply thanking the senior dean for his concern and reassuring him that there won't be any problems going forward, then see the time and realize you need to get ready if you're not going to be late for your lecture.

It only takes you five minutes to take a quick shower and another ten to dress and complete your other ablutions. When you return downstairs, you find Susan has prepared a sumptuous breakfast for you. You tuck in with gusto, but Susan doesn't join you and you suppose she ate earlier. While you eat, you cast an appreciative eye over your senior research student as she clears away the paraphernalia involved in preparing your meal. She's dressed in black sandals, a white blouse and sage green skirt, perhaps slightly longer than that of most of your students, running to just above mid thigh.

Finishing her job, she returns to stand opposite you and starts to speak. "Since you haven't had a chance to mark the essays from your intermediate students, I took the liberty of making some notes for you on the academic network. I hope that was alright. Also, the research group is getting on very well with the amendments you wanted to your monograph, so I'll let you know when we have it finalized and when the bibliography is complete."

"Right," you answer, slightly stunned by the avalanche of information coming your way. Before you found the Rulebook, your monograph was languishing in the limbo of procrastination, but it seems your new, improved graduate students have finished it for you. "Thank-you Susan. Er, how is your own work coming on?"

"Oh! Very well, thank-you for asking, Professor. I think I told you that I'd been accepted for publication? It's not due out until the December issue but after that I just have a few things to tidy up before I can really get stuck into the Katzenberger thing. It helps that our grads are such a dream team. My doctoral students are so competent that supervising them is a breeze, although that's probably why you chose to give them to me, right, Professor?"

You nod as though you remember doing exactly that. You wouldn't have trusted Ashley to supervise a doctoral candidate on his best day, but you always thought they needed quite a bit of hand-holding, so maybe you just have a better cadre of candidates now.

While you finish eating, Susan orders a taxi to take you to campus, paying for it herself as a matter of course. The meal is excellent and the cab arrives almost exactly as you're ready to leave, locking the door behind you and your student. She waves goodbye and sets off in the direction of the college on foot, but you call her back and offer to share the taxi, since she paid for it. She seems quite overcome with gratitude for this simple act of kindness and the two of you have a stimulating discussion about your shared areas of interest on the way.

When the car drops you off at the campus car park closest to the lecture hall, Susan disappears off to the office your research group occupies and you head into the separate lecture theatres at the same time as the previous group of students is leaving. You make your way to the stage and get set up whilst the previous lecturer cleans his notes off the blackboards, which flank the giant interactive projection screen operated by the computer under the dais, a quaint juxtaposition of the traditional and cutting-edge. You place your notes side by side on the three lecterns and check that the correct media are loaded into your workspace on the university server, then quickly skim through the notes to prepare for the lecture. You could do the whole thing digitally, but you find it easier to follow if all the notes are laid out together on paper rather than a computer screen.

The quieting of the general hum indicates that the students have finished filing into the hall and are ready for you to begin.