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[08 Jul 2009|09:46pm] |
woah, another serious-y post, all apologies!
So. I've been doing my PhD for over a year and a half now and will be coming to my 3rd year in September, arg!
I know I want to teach afterwards. I love it, even though I've got a lot of improvements to make. I really enjoyed it last term and felt like I got on fairly well with my students (on the whole!). It was weird, usually I do new things and it's a lot of trial and error to begin with before I become a bit less rubbish at it. With teaching it was the closest I've got to feeling instinctively like I could do something. Even though I was really nervous I felt fairly comfortable in front of large-ish classes. I know I've got a lot to improve on, as I'm just starting out, but I feel like I could get better if I have more practice. I think it helped because I made sure I was well prepared, which calmed my nerves a lot.
I'm not sure what level I want to teach at though, I'd love to teach at degree level but I think my chances of getting an academic position are slim to none. Jobs are even harder to come by now than they were when I started, and in careers talks etc it's constantly being reiterated how competitive it is.
i.e. how it's IMPOSSIBLE to get a job unless you've got articles published in the best journal ever or got a book published (which is pretty tricky at my level, but you'll be up against other - more experienced - people who will have had substantial things published).
It's making me a bit despondent really, which is silly - I know it'll be impossible, but being pessimistic is rubbish. I always think if you're too pessimistic it can be paralysing, so even though it's unlikely I need to do a sort of (happy) double-think to try and motivate myself into focusing on my research, trying to submit articles to journals and going to conferences etc etc.
If I'm really struggling, I'll see about doing an on the job PGCE for 6th form level - English is one of the jobs they're struggling to get teachers for so at least I know I'm qualified to do that! I'm sure I'd love teaching A level English and I could always do media and/or communications too (which is more or less what I've been teaching at uni).
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| bikes, hoovers and swimsuits |
[05 Jul 2009|02:04am] |
Cycling is my new exciting thing. I went for a bike ride in my swimsuit* the other day, to see a friend who needed us! It was pissing down with rain, but cycling was the quickest way to get there. At least it was invigorating. I don't think we helped our friend very much, but at least the drowned rat look made her laugh :) The rain was so heavy we had to stop at one point as we couldn't see (which on a busy bus lane probably isn't a good thing).
In other cycling news, we went camping the other weekend for a friend's birthday and cycled a 50mile round trip to get there - it was ace. I know it's not that far, but I've only got my bike recently so am just learning the ropes really.
This week's been a bit manic as my Mum was visiting. It was really, really lovely to see her but we had to tidy the flat before she arrived so she didn't see the squalor we live in, argh!
As we were cleaning, we sort of noticed a smell of burning plastic, and realised Henry Hoover had caught fire! Out of the window he went. I feel a bit guilty. He had such a nice smiley face.
Now I've got a few days to chill out I can get back to work again and sort social things that I've been neglecting! Arg, everything's always backlogged for me. Suppose I wouldn't want it any other way though.
*I was wearing a dress too.
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[24 Jun 2009|05:31pm] |
Livejournal seems to have eaten my life this week! I haven't spent this long on it since living in Edinburgh, when I wasted many a happy hour wearing out my refresh key on my friends page when I should be writing essays.
Talking of which, that's exactly what I should be doing now... but it's all sunny outside and I want to go and play! I kind of want to practice poi in the garden, but I'm really rubbish at it and I'm scared the neighbours will see. Some of our neighbours are a bit cool... they 're nice but it makes me feel like I'm back at school, so I don't want them to really see my poi ineptness/general lack of coordination.
Back to the essay it is then! Er, in a bit...
When ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) windyworld was visited, he showed us this TV program he used to watch in Australia. We really enjoyed it but were resigned not to see it anymore, then magically it appeared on BBC 4 last night! Here's a bit of it that I though was good. Mainly because the music and the trojan horse go so well together.
( Read more... )
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| feeling the earth begin to move and my needle hit the groove (maybe) |
[23 Jun 2009|11:05pm] |
I felt like I didn't stop today... I tried (in vain) to sort out computer stuff at (filing) work, ate food whilst walking home, helped my neighbour write her covering letter for a university teaching position, then went for a run with mrcameraman. YES! ME! RUN!
Er, actually it was more of a slow jog because running makes me flip out, although it doesn't make me flip out as much as deceptively simple mathematical problems that give me flashbacks of school maths lessons, the horror, the horror.
On another note, I am loving my new bike. It makes going places a joy. I can get out of the sticky, boring city into some green-ness. We had an amazing bike ride on Saturday, we accidentally tagged ourselves onto the back of this charity bike ride and had a good 20mile-ish ride whilst being entertained by cyclists dressed as Batman and Robin.
arg. I sound so boring (as ever). I'm feeling a little guilty because I haven't done as much work as I planned after handing in the last chapter draft. However, I did have a totally ace weekend with lovely people, so I don't feel quite as bad as I probably should do.
Anyway, one of those lovely people was Flo - who I haven't seen for 3 years! It was soooo good to catch up! I did have a minor cooking disaster though, due to being slightly too drunk to make tempeh burgers properly (at the time it seemed like a good idea to 'fix' them by adding as much curry powder as possible, arg) and deciding to try and make vegan gooseberry cheesecake for the first time ever at midnight. Oh well, it was still a lovely night... for me anyway - I'm not speaking for Flo and Robin as they were subjected to my food!!
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| celebrity masterchef |
[17 Jun 2009|10:47pm] |
I got an email from our departmental secretary saying mail had arrived for me, so I went in and got it and it was a DVD from the real news network about the 'war on terror'. I was a bit confused as there was no letter with it or anything, it freaked me out a bit initially as I hadn't ordered it and hadn't given anyone my uni address or anything.
I asked my supervisor if he knew anything about it, but he didn't either. So I spent a little time being puzzled, then suddenly it struck me that perhaps a certain Norwegian speaking friend might know something about it. And it was from cr4k, yay!
I went to Liverpool on the train today (for a failed work visit) and was a bit knackered, but we've just hung out with the lovely missanthropii and alii_cat which perked me up (even though I failed to finish most of my sentences) and eaten Christmas pudding, which made everything better!
I've realised that because I write in such long sentences with my work, I can't be arsed writing properly in any other context so every livejournal entry for the past few years sounds like I'm 12. Saying that, all of my livejournal entries prior to that sounded like a 12 year old too, although perhaps a more enthusiastic one as I say 'immense' and 'best thing in the world ever' and 'he/she/its really nice' less often now. So I suppose, stylistically, this must be a journal of a more subdued 12 year old. Although paradoxically I'm happier now than I was when I did say 'immense' and 'yay' a lot more.
I got an exciting bicycle for my birthday. I can lift it with one hand! It makes me feel fast and silver and happy.
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[25 Mar 2009|01:26am] |
aaaaaaaaaaaargh, I found a worse one!
(again, don't watch if you're not a spider fan)
I actually screamed when watching this one.
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[25 Mar 2009|01:21am] |
oh god, oh god... the other day llamarines was going on about knightmare and I was thinking of the bit that I found scariest... well, I found it on youtube and it's still terrifying! Well, terrifying if you put yourself in your 6 year old headspace. Don't look at it if you hate spiders.
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| new ways to procrastinate |
[24 Mar 2009|07:46pm] |
eeeeeeeeeeeurgh! I should be doing work or cooking or something...
but I discovered last night that almost every indie chart from The Chart Show has been uploaded onto youtube, complete with graphics that make all writing unintelligible and dodgy photos of bands with music played over the top when there's no video. Bliss.
As ever, I'm loving the Suede. S bands in general really, there's lots of smashing pumpkins and sundays too.
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| memories |
[16 Mar 2009|04:19pm] |
blah blah blah
"Leave one memory that you and I had together. It doesn't matter if you knew me a little or a lot, anything you remember. Don't send a message, leave a comment on here. Next, re-post this and see how many people leave a memory about you. It's actually pretty funny to see the responses."
(Stolen from Matt, Dee and Kate.)
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| when boo were young |
[07 Mar 2009|11:24pm] |
Nottingham's a funny city. I wonder if I'd feel more into it if I'd had a proper summer here (as in hot summer, as opposed to grey and cold summer). One of the things that always comes to mind immediately when I miss Edinburgh is just sitting on the meadows with people in the heat. :(
I've felt rubbishy this weekend, however, I've baked pizza (kneading dough always gets the annoyance out) and made a plan of action for my future (if I fuck up on the academia front). So at least that's something, or two somethings.
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| my favourite books |
[05 Mar 2009|08:58pm] |
I used to read things (normally neoconservative things) that annoyed me a little, or came across things in daily life that pissed me off, or watched the news and felt like crying. I'm trying to channel those emotions into my research now, instead of getting angry. It seems to be working, as a side effect of my work I'm mapping out what I think a bit more in my head. Having your every last thought or opinion peer-reviewed is good in terms of pinning down inconsistencies and working through them.
As a result though, I can't really be arsed arguing and debating anything in day to day life, I dunno, I feel like I don't want my entire life to be about social and political theory. Even though it is.
By means of contrast, here are my top 5 favourite books from when I was little :)
( Read more... )
This should be 'the very hungry caterpillar, but I couldn't find a copy of the UK cover, boooo :(
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[03 Mar 2009|09:25pm] |
I've had a bit of a militant regime recently, basically to fit in teaching, my own research and - well - living in a more basic sense (in terms of cooking, eating, sleeping etc).
Exciting things this week include:
- My Mum getting to the final (top 5) of the Times children's book competition with a novel she wrote (she got ace feedback from authors she likes and stuff, which was amaaaazing for her - I'm really proud).
- A's 12th Birthday, yay! It was ace, we went on a teenage shopping trip and baked raspberry blackout cake. However, she also turned into a teenager overnight and started taking the piss out of us. She informed me that she saw a condom in our room and while it was 'disgusting' (n.b. it was still in the packet so it couldn't have been that disgusting) she'd still told all her friends about it at school. Arg.
- Going to Skegness. It doesn't sound that happy (as soon as the bus arrived it started pissing it down). But we saw a whole array of delights when we were there, including sticks of rock that designed to look like genetalia of all shapes, sizes and genders, and shops that sold crossbows and throwing knives (as well as the usual postcards and cinder toffee). The sea was grey, the chips were greasy, the arcades were expensive, the tequila was astringent... all in all an ace day. Our friend had hired a bus so a load of us went, which made it fun. We left at 9am and a couple of people had already had a bottle of wine between them by the time we arrived.
- Teaching being really enjoyable. I hope I'm doing the students justice.
- Getting to levels of focus in terms of work that make me feel, I dunno, OK about myself I suppose.
- The best book group book choice in ages! One Hundred Years of Solitude. It was missanthropii's choice and I was naughty and had already read it... but I'm glad we did it anyway, as it's a lovely book.
oh, bollocks, I never post and when I do it's all tldr. Maybe I should post more regularly. Alas, I cannot, I'm too busy making giant mind maps relating Pierre Bourdieu to Actor-Network Theory.
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[17 Feb 2009|08:43am] |
I sometimes want to post a picture of everything in our tiny, messy, nice flat. At the moment I'm sitting in front of a shelf with lots of happy things on it, each of which have memories, some of the things are:
- A giant six-eyed, purple papier mache mask that mrcameraman made, wearing a crown saying 'murdering scum'. He was given the crown at an arts event when two people dressed as policemen took polaroid pictures of 'suspects' and got people to vote for the most sinister looking person (he won).
- An inflatable pikachu that R and A brought back for me from Goosefair when I was feeling ill (it also squeaks).
- A wavy hand cat our friends Sam and Mark brought back from Thailand.
- Underneath the shelf is a piece of string holding up loads of cards that people have made for us or just given us that have sentimental value.
I've been really busy and focused recently. Focused on work, focused on teaching, focused on helping mrcameraman get through a work contract he finds exhausting and generally not-fun. (My way of helping him through that is via making exciting packed lunches and getting up early and heading in with him each morning.)
I'm teaching Introduction to Communications Studies, which I like whilst facing the simultaneous problem of worrying about whether I'm doing ok at it. I hope so. It'll inevitably be a learning curve though. Suppose all I can do is be prepared and go in with confidence (or at least feign confidence).
Life's been very up and down, but I've actually managed to stay fairly constant in terms of mood-management, for possibly the first time in my life. It's been like that for the past couple of years, and is probably due to a combination of things: getting older, being in a stable and happy relationship, learning restraint etc etc etc. One of my friends said he thought I seemed older than I am because I always act like I'm happy. I dunno if I agree with that, as I know I can be really immature sometimes.
All I do know is that happiness, for me and possibly for a lot of people, is something to be worked at. My problem's always been having the right attitude about stuff, as in the past I've often seemed balanced on the surface but been knotted up inside - which hasn't been good when people have got close to me. I think I'm sort of internalising the external stuff though and forcing myself to be balanced, optimistic, pragmatic etc etc etc.
So while there's a lot of awful external stuff that's upset me, particularly in political terms, I've been able to cope and do what I can.
I'm still feeling really nostalgic at the moment though, I miss Edinburgh and Edinburgh people.
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[10 Feb 2009|08:51pm] |
lots of things lots of things, too many things to talk about really. I've had lots of firsts. I did my first bit of teaching this week, running seminars for one of our undergraduate courses. But I can't think of what to say about it all really, or my life in general, as I just read and write too much work-wise to write anything of interest on a livejournal level. If I try I'll just start inserting essay speak and being even more pretentious than I actually am.
So instead, here's a picture of my great-grandfather (or great-great uncle - I can't remember which!!) with Winston Churchill, Charles de Gaulle and President Roosevelt.
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| Christmas eve happy things |
[26 Dec 2008|02:25pm] |
Christmas Eve was a mixture of chilled and manic.
We got up at 2pm, go lazy us, and I made our Christmas dinner. We'd decided to have it then, as we were going to a party on Christmas Day itself.
I made:
Butternut squash, leek and seitan pie with walnut pastry
Red cabbage with apple and pecans
Roasted potatoes and sprouts
Peas
and loads of onion gravy, which I made with the previous day's veggie stock.
I'm such a geeky cook. I spent about three hours on it all, and loved doing all of it (I did force Robin to sort out the sprouts though, as sprouts can be a bit frightening).
The seasonal spirit was just about hitting us after we'd finished eating and watched a bit of crap tv, so I decided to regress a few years and spend an hour playing my <>new sonic the hedgehog game</b>, which is ace, don't listen to the reviews. I got a bit over-excited though and kept smashing the Wii remote into my legs when I was fighting Dr Robotnik's army of villains. So I'm a bit sore now.
I felt a bit guilty about spending the day just eating and playing sonic though, so we decided to add drinking to the mix too, and headed out to the pub with a couple of friends. We spent a good chunk of the night sat in the smoking area of Nottingham's most salubrious metal pub, huddled next to the bins, as that was where the only working heater was. Chatting and drinking and trying to keep warm. Good times :)
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| christmas eve eve happy things |
[26 Dec 2008|02:17pm] |
It was a good day, mainly because we decided to just spend it together. I fairly often feel a bit over-stretched and like I'm not having enough time to relax and just hang out with mrcameraman, so it was good to spend a bit of time together. Go out for lunch, get a few bits and bobs for each other, talk and generally relax. Even though town was stupidly busy, it didn't stress me out, because we hadn't got any real objective other than wandering around.
I'd been at work for a couple of hours before that and was really touched, because my employer gave me a bag full of presents, which was a total surprise. She's ace, I've learned a lot from her this past year and a bit, it's been a massive learning experience and kind of inspirational too.
I still felt fairly chilled during the evening and spend ages happily making stock and inventing Christmassy food. (And forcing R to take pictures of it, which I'll probably stick up here at some point.) I like smashing vegetables.
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[22 Dec 2008|08:35pm] |
There've been lots of happy things today!
yay 1:
We'd only just woken up when we received a phonecall from our friends Eireann and Matt saying they were outside!
Their morning plan was to make their friends happy by dropping by people's houses with home-baked, beautifully gift-wrapped goodies. We got a big bag of cranberry and orange scones and some Christmas cookies. Yay! Nicest possible start to the day :)
yay 2:
When I got to work I had another happy moment when I gave my boss a toy giraffe I'd made for her, I think she liked it even though it looked more like a diplodocus than a giraffe.
yay 3:
Christmas food shopping in town should have been hellish, as I had to go to the mall, which is not only fully of aggressive people but also has animatronic reindeer, the horror, the horror. However, my resolve to stay chipper held out and I bumped into my friend Jenny who was determined to buy me a massive soya hot chocolate.
yay 4:
Another one of my closest friends, Ying, joined us and we headed back to ours for long chats. Was really good to spend time with her. I always feel like things are in perspective more when I've chatted to her.
yay 5:
Hanging out with mrcameraman.
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[21 Dec 2008|01:34pm] |
I was trying to post about this yesterday, along with the 2008 meme, but tooootally messed up a load of html and had cut and paste disasters so had to get rid of it! Here it is again!
Happiness!
"For 8 days you have to post something that made you happy that day. Tag 8 people to do the same."
I got tagged by mrs_cinnamon and jahoel to write about something happy in my life for the next 8 days.
Today I feel good because, despite having loads of lovely mulled wine and mince pies at missanthropii and alii_cat's and staying up late talking to nice people, I don't feel hungover! I woke up and watched mrcameraman sleeping and it made me feel happy right in my tummy.
I felt so happy and in love that it made me motivated enough to get up and clean the kitchen, so I feel like I've got a day ahead of me to chill out without having to think of all the household errands I need to do.
I also didn't feel hungover yesterday, despite going to a tapas party that involved several different types of veganized cocktails, called things like 'grasseater', 'hadon colada' and 'long eaton ice tea', and eating exciting tapas including veggie Christmas dinner kebabs (with gravy dipping sauce) - yay for sprouts on a stick!
So, I suppose, today happiness is moderation. And love. And friends.
Arg, why is everything I write so vomit inducing, this is why I never write anything!
I tag:
__whitetrash__
missanthropii
mrcameraman
_meganekko_
alii_cat
year_x
aliiis
and... arg... want to put a load of people...
bunnyphone (maybe you can tag Ian :P)
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[27 Nov 2008|10:49pm] |
ooooh... I hadn't properly used last.fm since leaving Edinburgh, but just logged in and saw my top songs and it made me nostalgic!
Here's what my top 10 was:
1) Smashing Pumpkins (904 plays)
2) AFI (407 plays)
3) Deftones (255)
4) La Quiete (223)
5) Rage Against the Machine (221)
6)Atari Teenage Riot (167)
7) Transistor Transistor (166)
8) Alec Empire (164)
9) Foo Fighters (147)
10) Sepultura (146)
11) Aphex Twin (136)
12) Pixies (133)
13) Alice In Chains (124)
14) Nine Inch Nails (114)
15) Faithless (112)
Aww, it reminds me of sitting in my little room in Thistle Street procrastinating over essays, crying over boys, deciding what to bake next and hanging out with cr4k :)
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