My children's books!

Wanted to come on here to note some of the children's book titles I've come up with, as I'm starting to forget them. At some point in my life I'll write them, hopefully.

- Reggie the Veggie (the tale of a vegetarian lion)
- The Brontosaurus Bus (dinosaurs discover eco-friendly transport)
- Indiana Bones (a skeleton travels around the world to collect the long-lost bones of his pet dog)

There were more, but I have forgotten them!

Just about to tighten up my Oxford DPhil ESRC one page proposal before submitting it, woo!

Have an annoying pain in my right shoulder, right elbow, and right wrist. Probably slept funny on it. Not good for typing.

Think birds are finally coming to the bird feeder, hurrah!

Looking forward to the weekend, lots of fun to be had in Oxford and London (not including my last shift of work!)

Am still in weekend mode!

The weekend was so good (we had lots of time for us, plus X's family came up to visit for the first time), and contrary to the weather forecast, Oxford is still full of sun, so I am finding it increasingly difficult to get into work mode. By work, I mean academic, not telethon. That work is going pretty well. Spent the weekend trying to speak with loads of overseas contacts, in places as far flung as Taiwan, Hawaii (didn't actually call them, they are 10 hours behind us!) and West Coast America. Was really interesting speaking with some of the African ones and also ones in Europe. I can't believe the range of activities Old Wolfsonians are up to nowadays, it's awesome!

Have only had a few people who are straight out "hard nos" - people who just won't even consider contributing to the Annual Fund. Most people seem ok to spare at least a few minutes to hear about the college and also let us update their contact details and invite them back to college and that kind of thing. Had a really good session yesterday - I won the wine prize from the day before for writing the best follow-up postcard, and then I also got three pledges, one of which was £100 a year until further notice on direct debit, which earned me an extra bar of Toblerone and a Kinder egg! Bonus!

Only two more evening shifts and then Saturday to go at this job, then I'm done with it. It's been really good though, a lovely bunch of people, plus in theory it should make me focused in the day time (not happened so much in practice this week!). On the plus side though, I have been doing lots of email campaigning directed at our politicians to try and get them to put pressure on the Government of Sri Lanka to stop the genocide and war going on there. It's really terrible out there right now, they have to stop it soon, so many innocent lives are being lost. So I feel at least I am trying to do something, however small, that is useful and maybe will help. I have had a fair few decent replies back from MPs and MEPs so hopefully some big action from our government or an international organisation will happen soon and the suffering can stop.

We are going to London this weekend to watch the boys' varsity football match at Fulham. Craven Cottage is a lovely little stadium, I'm looking forward to it. It's also the boat race in the afternoon, which should be fun. Then on Monday we are planning on going to the London Transport Museum - they have an exhibition of lots of their old posters there, which I really want to see! Then I'm at home for a few days and then going to Cardiff. Why am I going to Cardiff....well, because I got one of their ESRC studentships to do my PhD! Woohoo! It's ace, it means I can study and be fully funded too! I can't believe it really! I'm probably going to take it, but I also have an application in for Oxford, and the one page summary proposal is due this Friday, so that's what I should be getting on with now. Should being the operative word. But classic fm is so relaxing and the room is full of sun, I just want to take my book out and relax!

I finished Call Me By Your Name, which was really good and so intense and accurate at the end, that a little tear drop escaped my eye. Find it if you can. Now reading The Road Home by Rose Tremain, which has had lots of good reviews. Hopefully it won't be too sad, although you know I have a weak spot when it comes to stories of immigrants.

Right, to work with me!

Finally holidays!

Term is done, woo hoo! And I have done the first of my four part qualitative methods project, and nearly the second part too, so things are looking good! We had some nice end of term things with my class, which was great, it's cool to meet everyone's partners and also to spend some non-stress time together, they're a good bunch.

Am shortly off to do my third night of alumni calling on the Wolfson Telethon. The first night was tough, but last night was more optimistic, and I got my first pledge, yeah!

Yesterday was X's birthday so I was busy doing lots of nice things. X liked the presents and we had birthday burritos for lunch and went for drinks in the KA in the evening with some of our old friends, it was a nice birthday. I love seeing our old friends again, they are good people and really make me laugh. X seemed to have had a great day, which makes me happy!

We went to see John Legend in Birmingham on Saturday night, which was totally awesome! This was part of the birthday package :) The Carling Academy is a pretty small venue so we got to see and hear him pretty well. He is really talented, his voice was lovely and he played the piano really well all night too. His backing band were excellent too! I had a great time, and even enjoyed the many trains we had to take from Oxford to London to Birmingham to get there. I'd definitely see him again next time he's here.

I've become a good little housewife I think. Now that classes are done, my days are up to me to manage. Obviously I have my qualitative methods project and also I have to do my ESRC proposal summary for Oxford (which will patently never make the cut, but I guess I should try) and also I have to get cracking on my thesis. But apart from that I have more time to do laundry and clean the kitchen and cook and do the shopping and work on the allotment. All nice things to me, physical work certainly has a good feeling to it sometimes.

I'm reading Call Me By Your Name by Andre Aciman, and it's ace, I really like it, but it's totally intense. I won't tell you what it's about, but just encourage you to pick it up. You can google it to see the praise.

What else is new? Nothing really, just enjoying the sun and looking forward to having a chilled weekend with my favourite and my best.

Loads of things!

Things have been really busy lately. I mean really busy. It's a Sunday night now and I'm knackered, really looking forward to an early night! We should be at Scrabble club but I've cancelled it this week so we can chill a bit.

So obviously since I've not been on here for aaages it'll be tricky to tell you everything I've done, so I'll just mention some choice highlights (which will most likely be the most recent things, since that is all I can remember!)

We had our housewarming last night, which was great! It's the first party X and I have hosted together and I think it was a success! It was lovely to have lots of our friends in one place and see them all and have fun together. I was really pleased, and felt really happy to be there.

I've played one footy match this weekend, and have run the line for three other games, so I'm just exhausted. Playing that much footy, including one game that went to extra-time and penalties, is serious hard work on the old knees and thighs. Still, need the money and it was a great experience - today was women's cuppers' final, which was a big game, and yesterday I did the Colleges XI and Centaurs varsity games, which are also very high profile games, so it was cool!

I got the Wolfson telethon job, which should be good fun (and again good for the money situation!) Basically it means working in a call centre calling up old members of college and asking them to donate funds, and also finding out what they're doing and keeping them involved in college life. I've never really done anything like that before, but I'm sure it'll be a good experience.

X took me to see Swan Lake on Friday night. It was a belated valentine's present, and it was just beautiful. I love the music and the ballet - it's all so elegant and graceful, like people are flying sometimes. It would be awesome to have that kind of skill and control in your body. I really enjoyed that too.

Spent last weekend at home as it was my Mum's 60th birthday, which was also great! My parents are pretty sociable and since the building works finished in the house, they've been trying to get back into organising things at home, so the party fitted the bill. Food was excellent and it was good company too, plus both my bros were back, so great to chatter with them too. Mum was glowing, I can't believe she's 60, she seems so much younger!

Went to the Blues night for our qualitative methods music consumption project. Managed to get someone to do the interview about music tastes, but then they bailed when it came down to it, so have to go and try again. The music was really good though - I've never been to a blues night but I'd def go again, the band were totally talented. They were the Sean Webster band - I think you can find them on myspace if you're interested.

X and I baked a fish pie from scratch, I'm very proud of this! We also saw Gran Torino this week, which was really well scripted and seriously moving, I would recommend it, Clint Eastwood was a real star and it's sad but also hilarious at times!

Lastly I've been taking part in some experiments - social science ones, not chemical ones! It's been good fun and quite good money, especially since for the past two I've got there too late so the experiment has had enough participants, so I've just pocketed the "show-up fee" and saved my time, cool!

It's 8th week now, one more week of classes and essays and then a bit of a break, yeah!