Life And Other Prime Numbers

Summer!

2010-07-06T10:35:00.001+01:00

It's summer! At least, in my head it is. I am packing up and slowly disentangling myself from academic and work commitments in preparation for freedom! Of course I will be back and forth to Oxford, not least because the house needs to be prepared for Michaelmas (my first building project!) and that alone will mean a month here. But, crucially, it will be for a reason aside from my thesis, yippee! I have redrafted my transfer documents again, and they are with my supervisor, so hopefully only minimal work will need to be done after his comments, and then I can submit them and forget about work for the summer :) Come September, I will get back on the case, but I think it's time now to stop.

It's been a good year.

Nature kicks

2010-06-06T13:42:00.006+01:00

I only have ten minutes to write this due to the library's policy of "quota" time to stop you messing about on websites for too long. Thus I must be zappy.

I have decided to revive my blog (again) as I have a new passion in my life. The world outside of Oxford and books and thinking and writing and academic stuff. And it's not sports either. It's nature and enjoying the world and getting back in touch with the things around us. This transition has happened slowly but I think I only became fully aware of it this past week. It must have started with the amazing How to be Free, which is a book I seriously recommend to anyone thinking that they need a break from the world. But How to be a bad birdwatcher has also recently played its part, as has Real England. We took a big step forward on the nature-loving front over the Bank Holiday weekend by going walking and camping in the Gower. The last time I camped was out in Africa, but the last time in the UK was during my Silver D of E, where I think I might have not liked it that much really (blister problems). Our camping holiday was full of wind and rain and leaky tents and 45 minutes to boil water for a cup of tea and rolled over ankles and paranoia about tent pegs and naughty children kicking footballs against out tent and it was brilliant! Who cares about all that stuff, we were free! I can't wait for the next one. Walking out and about in the real world, and especially visiting Weobley Castle, was just fantastic. And cooking outdoors and carrying all your stuff in just one pack is really freeing. We had a map and compass and some supplies and off we went. It's so nice to get away from the city for a bit and then just reconnect with the way we might be meant to live, it's so thoroughly restorative. I can't wait for our next trip in the summer!
Watching Springwatch on the BBC this week has only added to the addiction and yesterday we bought some binoculars and christened by viewing our first ever wild kestrel off the cliff at Rhossili! Amazing stuff.

So now I want to become a massive outdoorsy geek type who can identify bird calls, recognise star constellations, predict the weather, and live wild and free. Step by step of course :)

Here are some pics to inspire you (Rhossili Bay and the kestrel!)

2010-05-18T23:14:00.002+01:00

New Year's Resolutions!

2010-01-03T14:03:00.002Z

Firstly: to write my blog again and keep it up to date!

So let's begin again then. I'm back in Oxford, at Nuffield College, now reading for a DPhil in Sociology. My project's to do with second generation children and their integration into society and how this may impact on their educational and psychological outcomes. That's the simple version anyway.

I'm also working on another telethon, which explains why I'm back in Oxford so early. Things still going strong with X - we have a place in Waggytown too so I'm trying to split my time between Oxford and Waggy. Must be better at this this year.

Still reffing, playing a bit of footy (depending on how my knee is behaving), doing some yoga, about to start my term as Welfare Rep. Working hard on the research project I am attached too. Generally keeping busy.

Anyway here are the rest of my resolutions:

2. No meat or alcohol throughout Jan (de-tox time!) Should be ok as the food here is ace, but Jonno's hen night is in Jan too so I'll have to be determined to keep it up. Can't believe I also thought about giving up caffeine at the same time, that's just madness!
3. Make Armful for April happen. More on that in another post.
4. Complete my Transfer of Status by the end of the academic year.
5. Write Reggie the Veggie and Brontosaurus Bus.
6. (Re-) learn my Tamil letters and speak more Tamil.
7. Do a good deed every day.
8. Stop worrying about money (also known as be more responsible with money!)

A first-hand account of life on Menik Farm

2009-10-08T10:49:00.002+01:00

Life in Oxford is good and has resumed at a moderate/fast pace. I'll blog about that soon but first I wanted to put this up. I got it from my uncle and it's a first-hand account of life in the Menik Farm IDP camp in Sri Lanka. It's pretty tough reading, but hopefully will inspire you to help do something to get these people out.

Menik Farm: in the experience of an inmate from March to July 2009

Figure

The maps of the Menik farm based on UNOSAT maps

CE-2009-999999-LKA & CE-2009-999999-LKA

Name of area	Population	Area in km-sq	Population in Menik Farm size area
Jaffna city	80,000	30	2000
Colombo city	650,000	37	14,000
Menik Farm	250,000	0.8	250,000

Table

1. Introduction

A quarter million people, who have been on the run from artillery fire for more than a year, are now restricted by barbed wire inside an area less than one kilometre square. A comparison with the size of some heavily populated cities (Table) gives some idea of the congestion that is made even more acute by restricting the freedom of movement of the inmates. The scenario has drawn the attention of United Nations, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, governments of many leading countries and several other local and international NGOs, as well as all the major media. The scenario has continued for over six months and there is no end in sight despite pressures applied on and promises made by the Sri Lankan Government. The account below adds to the existing descriptions of the camp conditions and is based entirely on my first hand experience as an inmate in the zone-3 camp (Figure) for more than four months.

2. Administration

The administration of each camp named zone-0 to zone-5 is conducted by one sub office inside each zone. These sub offices in theory comes under the Assistant Government Agent Division (AGA) of Cheddikulam-Vavuniya. Each sub office has a “figure head”, a Tamil, who used to be the head of an AGA division in Vanni prior to displacement and as a rule these “figure heads” are not interned inside the camp. Scores of staff, all of them Tamils, who worked under these heads in Vanni, who are presently interned inside the camps, staff the zone sub offices and live in fear and are eager to get out just like any of the other inmates. Above each of these “zone figure heads” are another head who are all Sinhalese and are employees of the Ministry of Resettlement. The military units that support these “Sinhalese civil servant heads” work in close association with them. The Tamils inmates, “the Tamil figure head” and all other interned staff, take orders from the military.

Once when I was in the sub-office a convoy arrived with the Minister of Resettlement and several personnel with video cameras. While the minister took photographs standing in front of the sub office we, the inmates, were chased out. Then a van with video cameras drove by and started throwing bread and some “sambol” at the inmates crowded behind the office. The inmates rushed competing for the bread while the amused cameramen were videoing. Observing the scene it seemed to me that these video shots will be screened on the state television that night with the news of the minister’s visit to the camp for the pleasure of the Sinhala viewers. Inmates on many occasions have told me of seeing similar scenes being videoed.

3. Military

(“When we risked our lives to escape from the war zone we viewed the Sri Lankan army as our saviours. Just three months later we hate them and see them as “masters”- a 40 year old male inmate)

Gun and stick (long baton rods) wielding military control the inmates at all times. I have not witnessed the guns being used on inmates though I have heard guns being fired on many occasions. The sticks on the other hand were used regularly reminding me of the way black slaves were beaten in the “Roots” television drama. Being treated worse than animals is a very accurate description. The following incident is typical.

A medical employee inmate was regularly carrying some refrigerated medicines from one OPD clinic to another inside the same camp. The employee used a short cut through the tents instead of using the longer gravel road. One military duo attempted to stop the employee suspecting that he is a seller of some goods. Such sellers are treated like criminals as described later. When this employee in question failed to stop because he never suspected that the target of the military order to stop was him. The angered military duo drove their motorbike through the narrow space between the tents; bringing down clothes that were hanging on strings stretched cross the tents; and endangering young children playing in that space. They reached the employee, stopped and got off the motorbike and walked angrily towards the employee shouting something in Sinhalese. The Tamil employee who does not understand Sinhalese kept repeating “hospital.. hospital”, which is a word most of the people in world would understand. (Indeed 95 percent of the inmates all of whom are Tamils do not understand Sinhalese where as 99 percent of the military all of whom are Sinhalese do not know Tamil and give their orders as “masters” in Sinhalese which the “slaves” do not understand.) The enraged military man kicked the employee on his face and stomach several times with his boots while the employee kept repeating “hospital.. hospital”. It was only after the military man was too tired to deliver any more kicks that he stopped to look at what was in the box that the employee was carrying. Several of us witnessed this in close quarters frozen in fear. When the scene cleared I asked one senior government employee inmate if this misconduct by the military ought to be reported. I was told that if I attempt anything like that I will “disappear”.

I have on many occasions taken the trek on the gravel road from one end of the zone-3 camp to its sub-office. This gravel road also separates zone-3 and zone-2 camps. It is therefore an area where the master-slave scenario is played out frequently when the inmates of one camp attempt to go to the other through the barbed wire to meet family members and friends. Anyone caught while attempting to cross are beaten brutally and the degree of brutality became worse as the inmates appeared undeterred by the military brutality. In reality, the people were desperate to see and help family members and friends in the adjacent camp who have arrived at different times from the war zone and have lost close relatives in the war. Military brutality in such circumstance was ineffective. Though some procedure was instituted to let a limited number of people to crossover to the other camp for the day, this was ineffective and people continued to defy the military and breach the barbed wire behind its back.

4. Living area

It was obvious when we arrived in the camp that even the basics like water, toilets and tent were not in place to hold the people they are detaining. Many of us drank the water that were not meant for drinking and ended up with diarrhoea almost immediately after arrival. One could go on about the conditions at the start. There were improvements as time went by but only in comparison to what was there to start with.

The tent was unbearably hot once the sun came out but there were hardly any shade to take shelter from the sun; the place was like a desert with crowded tents. Within two months the tarpaulin material used for the tents were shredded to pieces by the strong winds that started in June. For more than a month we lived in shredded tents with no privacy at all until they were replaced. The wind during June/July was extreme and it was like living permanently in a sandstorm. Everyone was covered with sand that will come raining down every few minutes. There were a couple of heavy downpours soon after we arrived in the camp. Some of the camps in the lower lying areas were flooded. The wind that came with the downpours lifted the roofs of some of the tents. Fear of the monsoon rains was often expressed by the inmates during conversation. I had left the camp before the August heavy rains.

The toilets are only less than five meters from my tent and the smell was strong when the emptying of the toilet pits is not carried out in time which is always the case. When there is water shortage, which is frequent, concern about how one is going to use the toilet becomes the most serious problem of the day, surpassing the problems of food, health and other major issues. Queues for toilets are common in the morning but is usually not so during the day.

Each camp is divided in units of around 300 tents, averaging 2000 inmates, with most units having an enclosed bathing space for 20 people, one for males and one for females. The spacing of this bathing area is such that the water running off the bathing of one person runs into the basin containing the bathing water of the person next to them. Majority of the inmates therefore prefer to bath in the open though lacking in privacy.

I have never seen flies and mosquitoes in such numbers in my life. While eating, one hand is fully occupied with chasing the flies; a practice that children will not adopt thus consuming food contaminated by flies that come straight from the toilets very nearby. Inmates attempted with no success to keep the flies out of their tent by cutting the mosquito nets given to them and draping it around the tent. A few weeks later when mosquitoes were on the rise inmates did not have enough nets to sleep at night. Once the sun sets, one can literally sense dust falling on the face while sitting inside the tent which is in fact the swarms of mosquitoes flying around.

The camp sites are zigzagged with open canals that take away the dirty water. This is the best breeding area for the mosquitoes and the water in the canal is always covered with a thick layer of mosquitoes lying low during the daytime ready for swamping once the sun sets. These canals are always more than a meter wide and there are never adequate cross over points to walk over. Older people and young children frequently fall into these dirty canal water while jumping across it.

5. Retailers

The very first commercial event in the camp after our arrival was the bank. First came the state run banks, with loud announcements of caring for the people. This was quickly followed by other private banks. Banking advertisements were the most prolific in the camp and everyone knew that they were all competing for the savings of the war refugees now interned in terrible conditions.

The trucks of items for sale were first brought in by the Multi-Purpose-Cooperative Societies (MPCS). The struggle people went through to buy small quantities of sugar and tea were stories in their own right. The reason is the huge number of people dying to have a hot cup of tea and the tiny amounts that were brought in for sale. This situation lasted for a few months before more trucks of items for sale and more retail outlets were installed.

Other sellers came along and curiously all of these sellers were Sinhalese except for an odd Muslim seller. A large supermarket style building was erected by “Sathosa” chain to sell mostly expensive items. Ice-cream and Soda outlets were erected. Vegetable and fruit sellers came in substantive numbers. The camp inmates attempted to buy some of these items and resell it with a small profit in order to generate some income for themselves. This was banned by the military and thus was the basis for the frequent cruelty of the military against inmates. There were regular incidents where the military will scatter the wares of these inmate sellers and beat them severely. The inmates came to understand this as a deliberate effort to stop inmates making money whereas selected Sinhalese sellers were given all rights to sell what they like at the price they chose. There was always a market for these wares because the camp inmates included regular salaried people like teachers, health workers, administrative staff etc. Most of the items brought in for sale were those that could be sold with big profit like ice-cream, soda, and biscuits. Basic needs, such as sun hats for children were not sold. Anyone who visited the camp could see very young children roaming around without a hat, one cause for the frequent illness suffered by the children. It was a profit driven retailing with no concern for the people and the inmates understood this clearly.

I was once in the zone-3 camp office when some UNHCR staff were talking to the senior Tamil staff in the office. This was at the time when zone-3 camp was moving from large scale cooking to family level cooking. WFP had started providing the basic dry items (rice, white flour, lentils, sugar and vegetable oil). The UNHCR staff inquired the Tamil officers about vegetables and they were told that Tamil officers have been instructed by the Vavuniya District Secretariat that no vegetables are to be given to inmates. This remained the case until I left the camp. The people with regular salaries could afford to buy the vegetables which were very expensive and the others, the majority just survived with the dry rations.

Majority of the children including infants did not have milk (powder) except an occasional packet handed out by some charity. Once a father of a seven month old baby came begging for some sugar to put in the plain tea (black tea) to be given to his seven month old baby because the mother did not have enough breast milk and the baby was hungry. Plain tea had become the regular diet for this baby.

The remnants of trees that were chopped to clear the forest to set up the camp were initially used by the inmates for firewood. This quickly ran out once self cooking was begun with WFP dry rations. No axes were given to the inmates to chop the wood and people could be seen going around pleading a few who had bought an axe for loan of the axe. People were forced to go to edge of camp to collect firewood and were often beaten up by mindless military personnel. Collecting firewood also thus became synonym with military brutality.

6. Health service

Each zone has two or three OPD clinics of varying sizes. Most of the doctors attending the clinics are non-Tamil speakers. Most of them are Sinhalese and sometimes Indian doctors are in attendance too; necessitating an interpreter. Skilled interpreters are rare and anyone with a minimum knowledge of Sinhala is recruited from the inmates. Older women not wishing to use the young male unskilled interpreter have approached me to explain their reproductive system related illness to the doctor in English.

The queues are very long and the doctors work at break neck speed. I have seen a doctor writing a prescription to a 12 year old boy without finding out what is wrong with the boy. The medicines that are dispensed are arranged in a table and the total list of medicines consists of around 30 different medicines. The medicine dispensers too work with breakneck speed in dispensing them. Once an educated mother told me that she visited the doctor for treatment for her baby as well as for herself. The medicine dispensers mixed up the medicines and gave the baby what should have been given to the mother. Since the mother had some awareness of the medications she spotted it. Most mothers in the camp who do not have such awareness would have given the adult medicine to the baby. God only knows how many babies, children and even adults died due such medical negligence. Who is there in the camp to watch, monitor and investigate? Deaths are just that, deaths and no investigations are done as to the cause of it.

Patients often queue up for doctors for hours even before the doctors arrive from outside. No one in the OPD clinic will know when the doctors are likely to arrive. One just waits around taking one’s chances. For all this the level of sickness among inmates is far higher than among the population at large and it is obvious.

Take the eight tent group where I was staying. Five of the tents out of the eight had children under 10. One child died; one became seriously ill and taken away to Vavuniya hospital and all the other children had frequent fever, vomiting and diarrhoea. The children were wasting away and it was visibly obvious. Some of the children had persistent skin disease despite several visits to the doctors and treatment. Four of the children contracted HepatitisA and the parents were told by the doctors to just take good care of them and give lots of fruits because the hospitals had no medicine. Fruits were very expensive in the camp. There is a native treatment for HepatitisA involving a plant named “Keelkainelli” in Tamil. Even to get this plant was a struggle because it meant someone has to bring it from outside and handover to the inmates at the meeting spot as described later.

People young and old suddenly dying after a few days of fever is a common occurrence. All of us were left puzzled as to the cause and no one gave any explanation. All of us without exception have suffered diarrhoea at least once and most of us many times.

I used to keep telling myself during the stay in the camp how lucky I was that I do not have any young children under my care. The unhygienic living, especially the play area and the continuous illness is an ordeal for the young mothers. Even thinking about the condition of newborns and their mothers who are sent back to the camp conditions soon after birth is an ordeal. Perhaps the most telling scenes of the camp conditions and the health service can be found by visiting the OPD clinics and observing young mothers with very sick babies waiting for long time in queues with tears trickling down their face.

7. Family separation

Family separation caused by many factors is yet another ordeal that runs through the community. Contacting family living elsewhere also became an ordeal because most people have lost the addresses and phone numbers during the escape. Until after May, the camp postal service was non-existent and the camp phone service that permitted a three-minute call required standing in queues for two days; most of the time without success. Possessing a mobile phone was a crime and remained a crime until the time I left the camp. For a short period during July the military was even confiscating radios because of the rumour that the Voice of Tiger radio service had restarted.

Hundreds of injured people were taken by ICRC ship throughout the war period from Vanni. Often an adult family member and sometimes young children who had no other care giver left in Vanni accompanied the injured. The injured person and the accompanying family members were separated within a day or two of arrival and the family members were taken to the camps while the injured was sent away to some hospital. I have known family after family desperately trying without much assistance from any authorities to locate the injured family member who could have been transferred to any number of the hospitals. Many a tearful months were spent by these families not knowing anything about the fate of their injured family member. Reunion of the injured with the family in many cases took place purely by the efforts of the family with next to no help from the authorities.

The war conditions and the eventual escape from the war zone separated families. Often while escaping part of the family would cross over while the others failed to cross over. Again many families wrote dozens of letters and made many tearful trips to the sub-office trying to locate the missing members. The success often came by sheer luck and not through any set procedure. It was chaos all around. The most heartbreaking scenes prior to June was when bus loads of refugees were just arriving in the camps. People in the camps would run behind these buses hoping to catch a glimpse of a missing relative. If someone in the bus waves at them, there would be endless speculation on to whom the wave was directed and who that person was. These were all signs of longing that the family members who were not already in the camp had survived and made it across.

It is these people suffering intense anxieties about friends and families who were brutally stopped by the military from entering adjacent camps to checkout if the missing loved one has arrived there. The number of times inmates were brutally beaten when caught attempting to cross is countless. The camps were full of stories on how even women were beaten up. Walking down the gravel road that separates zone-2 and zone-3 one can see the barbed wire being breached at several places where the determined people have made spaces to crossover. The military would at gunpoint gather young men to mend these breached places and the people kept breaching them again and again. Once I saw an old man just squatting on the zone-3 side of the gravel road watching through the barbed wire the goings on in zone-2. A military person walking past called the old man on to the road and started beating him. It was clear to me that the beating on this occasion was purely for sadistic pleasure. I have seen a few more instances of sadistic actions by the military. The beating of the hospital worker described earlier also was of this category.

The military also separated families by taking away people suspected of LTTE membership at Omanthai where all refugees were first recorded. Trying to locate the whereabouts of such members was the most traumatic. In many cases families did not even know if the member had perished in Vanni or were taken away by the military. ICRC played a part in giving information to the families whenever it managed to find out the whereabouts of the missing person. If the names are not in ICRC list then locating such cases is impossible. Many families were still searching for members in this category when I left.

If there was any doubt that the Menik Farm camps are anything other than prisons the procedure in place for outside visitors to meet inmates will clear away any doubt. Each zone has a space allocated where outsiders must come to seek face to face meeting with inmates. There were times when they were barred from brining anything to be given to the inmates. This was relaxed later. The visitor gives a piece of paper to the personnel manning the place with the names of the inmates they wish to meet. This will be announced in the public announcement system. Mind you, not every tent is within the audible limits of this announcement system. By the time the inmate hears the announcement and takes the long trek to the meeting place anything from one to two hours would have passed. Across a divide separated by barbed wires the inmates and visitors must identify and signal to each other that they will enter the meeting area on the next turn. A fixed number of inmates (around 50 in zone-3) are permitted into the meeting area at a time and their corresponding visitors are also then permitted in. The actual meeting area is divided by iron sheets up to the chest and above it are wooden grills similar to what one would find in a prison. The visitors and inmates can talk through this grill and also exchange items over the grill. One is permitted only around 20 minutes maximum to talk because there will be hundreds more waiting. Even within this short time one is often interrupted by the military demanding the national identity card of the visitor and details about the relationship to the inmate. The waiting area for the zone-3 visitors has no shade and they will be waiting in the burning sun for hours.

8. Deaths

If an inmate dies in a hospital outside camp to which the inmate was transferred earlier, there is a small chance he or she will get something resembling a funeral. Of course there must be a relative who is a permanent resident of Vavuniya who is willing to hold the funeral in their home. If this is the scenario then only three relatives from inside the camp are permitted to leave the camp to attend the funeral. A police person is sent with them and the very next day this police person must ensure that the inmates are back in camp. A three and a half year old boy died near my tent and his aunts who brought him up were not allowed to even go and see the dead body of the boy. Any death within the camp has no chance of a funeral. The body is just removed by the military and nothing is heard of after that.

Even in death families have no privacy to mourn. While people close to the deceased mourned onlookers would gather around because it all had to be done in the open space.

9. Mysterious happenings

Once there were rumours of three to six bodies of young women floating in the river adjacent to the camp. There were speculations as to the reasons for the presence of these bodies. There were rumours of white-van abductions within the camp. There were also stories of a young man disappearing while going to collect water. We were not treated like people with intelligence who deserve to find out what is going on. There were only rumours based on such facts and no way of finding out anything else.

There were these people whom the camp inmates called ‘CIDs”. They were apparently senior LTTE members who had been taken away and then “released” into the camp to be with their families. Their job is to spot LTTE members and LTTE Police members who have not reported to the military. One such CID man was living close to my tent. I have seen him interrogating other men suspected of close liaison with LTTE. This CID man has apparently said that he is doing this after he was beaten severely until he agreed to do this task. We also heard another well known female LTTE member coming in Sri Lankan military uniform to the camps and identifying LTTE members in the camp.

10. What inmates talked about

Until end of May, till the last of the displaced arrived, most people talked a lot about who were killed since they had left. Stories of entire families being killed were common in the conversations of the inmates. Especially when extended families or people from the same locality met for the first time since getting out of the war zone, they had numerous stories to share about the fate of the unfortunate relatives and villagers. How best to trace missing relatives was always part of this topic of conversation. Descriptions of the experience of crossing over from the war zone were the ones described in minute details by those who had displaced in March. While crossing over people faced intense fears of being shot at either by the military or by the LTTE. Families often got separated when they were fired at. Wealthier people hired boats to cross over. One mother lost all of her four children when her boat was fired at by the military suspecting it to be an LTTE boat.

Those who arrived in May described the experience of the last few days of the war in great detail. Many said that during the last few days they never walked erect due to fear of being hit by shelling. When making the move to exit the area they said that they had to walk over dead bodies.

Other topics included the amount of money they had wasted in transporting their possessions as they displaced again and again in Vanni. The loss of their entire possessions was acutely felt and discussed over and over again. When feeling a little less tense the inmates never tire of describing their yard and all the trees and vegetables that would be growing in their yard. The soothing shades of large mango and jack trees in their yard were frequently remembered and contrasted with the lack of shade from the scorching sun in the camp.

The going on in the camp itself also dominated the conversation of inmates who were living near each other. The most common topic is the fights among inmates that always took place at the water collection queues. These fights indicative of the tension caused by competition for the limited availability of water created a very bad atmosphere among the inmates who were otherwise very amicable and helpful to each other.

Alumni weekend

2009-09-28T11:33:00.004+01:00

Just a quick note to say that Alumni Weekend in Oxford was fantastic, if entirely random! Lots of old boys in proper college suits and ties, and then lots of internationals and hot young things all over campus. I didn't get to take part in any of the actual events because I was working, but there was a nice buzz around the place, and hopefully everyone who came had a good time.

The Wolfson dinner was brilliant - I realise I love chatting to old wise people who teach me things! Food was awesome, very intimate venue too (only small numbers turned out, which was fine with me!) and we got free Isaiah Berlin t-shirts too, albeit in super-large sizes! Every now and then the evening felt completely surreal, with me wondering how I had somehow ended up in this room in Oxford with poets and dames and all sorts of people I would never encounter in my regular life. I guess that's the joy of Oxford. I only wish more people could experience what I get to take part in. X looked super pretty :) We had a good time together, it's nice to have someone to go to these things with, who you can show off and be impressed by :) It was also nice not to be drinking - meant I could communicate coherently and not be hungover the next day, bonus! I did miss the port though.

Another week of telethon-ing to go. So far so good. Still loving being at Exeter and enjoying the lack of academic work. A bit nervous about starting next week but hopefully it'll be ok. Looking forward to being back in Waggytown for a wee bit to get my stuff. Also looking forward to doing some exercise soon - been eating far too much junk on the telethon!

Roy vs Bandula

2009-09-28T11:01:00.002+01:00

From the Toronto paper, The Globe and Mail

Bandula wrote:Sri Lanka â€” From Thursday's Globe and MailÂ .
The Globe and Mail, which I held in high esteem until now, disrespected and distorted Sri Lanka's flag in the illustration accompanying the article Let's Help Sri Lanka Win The Peace (Sept. 17). This is not the kind of journalism one would expect from a respectable newspaper. The Globe should not forget that many Canadians are of Sri Lankan origin.Â

Bandula Jayasekara
Consul GeneralÂ

Roy's response.

Dear editor,Â

Sri Lanka is a country run by pesky racist zealots. Despite Sri Lankan Consul General's lament that The Globe disrespected his country's flag, I on the other hand, along with many other Canadians of Tamil decent (not Sri Lankan) wouldn't wrap fish with Sri Lanka's flag, out of respect for fish.Â

Some links on Sri Lanka and diaspora activities

2009-09-28T09:58:00.007+01:00

Article about a rich Tamil dude giving money to rehabilitate former Tiger cadres. Not sure if I'd be giving money to the GoSL just yet, but I guess he thinks he is helping.

http://transcurrents.com/tc/2009/09/raj_rajaratnam_sets_example_fo.html

Article on the history of Tamil secessionism in India and also good information on the caste system and ideas of Dravidians.

http://dbsjeyaraj.com/dbsj/archives/1076

An article on Sri Lanka

2009-09-24T10:39:00.002+01:00

Today I am in the Old Bod. It's beautiful in the sunlight and also pretty empty, which is how I like my libraries. Unfortunately the computers are achingly slow. But hey, you can't have everything you want in life.

Work was good last night, I was much more on top of things and made sure I ate this time! I'm getting on well with the student callers and also my fellow ambassadors and my bosses too. It's a really hectic job but I like it. I particularly like the jokey atmosphere we share there.

So I thought I'd post up an article I wrote on Sri Lanka for a writing competition. Now, I don't consider myself a writer as such, and certainly when you read this you will realise I have no natural flair for writing or anything like that. But I thought I'd enter this competition just to raise awareness of the situation in Sri Lanka, especially for the Tamil IDPs (internally displaced persons) in the camps over there. Don't judge the piece on its style or literary standards - rather just take in the information and the ideas presented. Ok, caveats over.

Benjamin Franklin House Literary Prize – Young Writers’ Award Entry

"They, who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety".

I read this quote and I thought immediately of Sri Lanka. I know that Benjamin Franklin intended these words for the Pennsylvania Assembly but it seems to me that they should be spoken to the Government of my mother country. While they hold my people hostage, seemingly endlessly with no ransom note and no explanation, I sit here, safe in British luxury, and wonder if I too have played a part in the loss of their liberty? And, by extension, my liberty?

Known as the pearl of the Indian Ocean, the island named as Ceylon by its British colonisers has had a beautiful and violent history. Paddy fields and tea plantations, crystal clear lagoons and travel brochure beaches, ancient temples and bustling street markets – all have acted as landscapes to warfare. Ceylon became Sri Lanka on the 4^th February 1948, but the country’s new found liberty did not lead to safety for its citizens. The British had kept a lid on disagreements and divisions between the two main ethnic groups but in their absence these quickly escalated into a battle for power between the Government of Sri Lanka (GoSL) and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). The resulting decades of conflict claimed thousands of victims - Tamils, Sinhalese, and others.

The war reached a bitter and bloody climax earlier this year. Although the hostilities have been declared over by the Sri Lankan administration, thousands of internally displaced Tamil civilians remain in militarised “welfare camps” in the formerly controlled LTTE areas in the North of the country. The Government declares that it is necessary to keep these people under its control so that any remaining Tiger supporters can be weeded out. Further, the Government argues that it needs to make the LTTE areas “safe”. As such, the Government can justify withholding the freedom of the Tamil civilians, forbidding them from leaving the camps, claiming it might be dangerous for them to return to their villages, and arguing they might be dangerous to others, to the citizens of Sri Lanka that count. Conveniently forgetting that the Tamil people are citizens too.

For the Government of Sri Lanka, the establishment of safety, no matter how temporary or limited in its scope, is worth the sacrifice of the liberty of the Tamil people. But this utilitarian perspective is not a long-term solution to the problems between the people of this island. The removal of the freedom of the Tamil people is not conducive to the promotion of future safety and security for all people. Rather, the captivity and the oppression of the Tamil people will only fuel their desire for liberty and for justice.

The problem in Sri Lanka, as in many other countries, is that there are multiple groups competing for power and control. These groups each see their own goals as independent and exclusive to the goals of the others. As such each group believes that in order for them to achieve safety and liberty, it must be at the other group’s expense. This is what causes the tit-for-tat style behaviour by opposing groups, because they think of safety and liberty as resources, which are scarce and finite. Further, the treatment of safety and liberty as “either/or” options results in a blind-eye being turned to the possibility of maximising both. But for safety and liberty to prosper they must not be considered as goals independent of each other and exclusive to each group. Rather they must be considered as dual aims for everyone. A balance must be achieved – freedom and security go hand in hand so you cannot have one without the other. And you cannot give one to one with giving the same one to the other. Freedom and safety are not resources – they are basic human rights that are infinitely available if those in power choose it to be so.

In Sri Lanka the Government continues to treat Tamils and Sinhalese differently – giving freedom and security to one but not to the other. In Sri Lanka liberty and security come from the hands of those in charge, to distribute as they wish. By denying the Tamils their essential liberty, it is easy to see why the LTTE came into existence. No doubt the LTTE would agree with Benjamin Franklin – by giving up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, the Government of Sri Lanka has made a terrible compromise and thus deserves neither freedom nor safety.

Beyond Sri Lanka too, the treatment of the Tamil people has raised awareness and concern among the Tamil diaspora, who share this mindset. However whilst Franklin would most likely not support the strategies endorsed by the LTTE, the Government of Sri Lanka must surely be wary of the popular mentality of many young diaspora Tamils, who have become politically conscious and active as a result of the recent atrocities, and who agree with the notion that those who are willing to trade freedom for temporary safety are not worthy of either. The young Tamil diaspora have never had to fight for liberty or safety in the many different countries of their births, but by taking freedom and security for granted, they forget the suffering of their people. New generations of freedom-fighters will be born when this suffering through the suppression of liberty is realised. When the freedom of the Sri Lankan Tamils is considered our freedom too, we will fight.

The uncertainty and instability prevalent in Sri Lanka provide evidence of the difficulties in maintaining the temporary safety gleaned at the expense of liberty. But it is the loss of the independence of the Tamil people in the first place that has caused this island-wide insecurity, which in turn drives the Government’s desire for safety, no matter what the cost. Why this liberty was taken away is unclear but certainly its reinstatement is an essential step on the path towards peace. Further, the root causes of the issues between the groups need to be addressed rather than just the symptoms – only then can liberty and safety be fully achieved.

Franklin’s words allow a straightforward interpretation – that liberty takes priority and should not be sacrificed, even for safety. But if one looks deeper, one can also interpret this quote as an argument for the duality and interdependence of safety and liberty. The people of Sri Lanka deserve the peace that can be achieved by the provision of liberty and safety for all. But if we do not use the safety and liberty we have been granted to secure these same rights for others, we are in danger of losing what we have. And if we do not use the safety and liberty we have been granted to secure these same rights for others, then we do not deserve them either.

Libraries and Exeter College

2009-09-23T10:01:00.004+01:00

I just wanted to take a moment to note how much I love libraries, particularly when they are mostly empty. I am in the Rad Cam right now, just minutes walk from Exeter, and it's beautiful in this light. I think I am especially liking it because I don't have pressing academic work to do in here so I can just enjoy it!

Also some things I like about Exeter:

1. It's a real old college, the fourth oldest in fact, so it is small and traditional-looking!
2. Breakfast - awesome, I love cooked breakfast and strong coffee.
3. JCR has sky, oh yeah.
4. Beautiful fellows' garden with a small terrace with lovely views over the Rad Cam quad. I've never seen a view like that before.
5. My room, which is actually really big and well furnished for 1st year room. Not even minding sharing the showers or the loos (something I have pretty much never really done before, except for that summer at Dartmouth!)

So today I am going to do some drawing and some reading and some tea drinking and some relaxing, before another hectic telethon session. Life is pretty peachy, am just missing X is all. Oh and I shall try and blag my way into Exeter library as clearly it will be wonderful.

Birthday highlights and being in Oxford

2009-09-22T14:20:00.005+01:00

Helllloooo! I am in Wolfson library! So yes, I am back in Oxford now. I don't think I have ever posted from here before. Exciting times! It's cool to be back in college and catch up with people here...I can't believe there are new students here already and that a year has passed since I started here myself.

So firstly, the highlights from my birthday, which I don't think I've done yet:

1. All the love and attention given to me by X. Such a special birthday :) Probably my best and most exciting since I was maybe 11!

2. A cool shiny and stylish brilliant DAB radio. I have named him Oscar.

3. My lovely little cyclomen plant (Hermione). She will certainly brighten up my room here.

4. The rest of "birthday corner" featuring helium balloons, a badge, cards, a banner, and GOLD STARS! (and a big wrapped up present box with piggy wrapping paper! This contained Oscar.)

5. Birthday tiggerific cupcakes. YUM!

6. An amazing birthday dinner at The Bay View, such good food and drink and fun!

7. Walking along the beach. I've never done that on my birthday before.

8. Birthday sunshine.

I had such a great day, really I can't convey it properly here, but I remember waking up on the Friday (a bit hungover!) wishing that it was my birthday again because it was so great, so it must've been a good day. So thank you X, you are very special and make me feel very special too.

Other exciting things since my birthday:

1. Winning £10 on deal or no deal in the KA. Finally, a big win! And we almost won £20, it was like a dream!

2. Working on another telethon. Hard work but I realise I like helping other people and chatting to strangers and stuff like that. Plus the money is good and so are the rest of the team, even if some of the students ARE a little immature.

3. Living in Exeter college as a conference guest - it's nice to stay in other colleges and see what they are like.

4. Having a nice shiny red bike that works. Hope it stays that way!

5. Having the time to write on this blog and do my campaigning for the Tamil people and read books and walk around and enjoy life. I like being in Oxford without having to do academic work yet. I do miss being in Waggytown though. I can't wait for the weekends, but hopefully they will come quickly and we will do ok.

That's all for now. Nap time!

PS I did well in my exams too, which makes me happy!

Read and sign

2009-09-17T12:38:00.002+01:00

It's my birthday today! I'm feeling pretty good - it's sunny and fun in Waggy. I'll post an update on stuff soon but just thought I'd share these with you, as even though I'm having fun over here, in Sri Lanka there is still suffering. Sign the petition and read the articles. Thank you.

Amnesty article and facebook petition (at the bottom of the article)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/sep/15/sri-lanka-war-on-tamil-tigers

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/sep/16/sri-lanka

Boiler and the boiler room

2009-09-09T12:49:00.005+01:00

Our boiler is on the blink. The gas people have temporarily done some banging to it to make it work, but we fear it needs a big and major operation to fix it. They will be back with some kind of replacement part (organ donation) to fix it up and help it last a bit longer. Being with hot water is gruesome (hot soft am I?) but it was sort of fun bathing out of a bucket with one third boiling kettle water, two thirds cool cool tap water. Reminded me of being in the village in Sri Lanka and also a bit of my time in Africa. Crucially though, those are hot places so the sting of the cold water isn't so noticeable compared to chilly Swantown. We hope it will be fixed up soon.

With regards to the boiler room, well, my brother has been working in what pretty much seems to be a boiler room (he got made redundant, which some of us are not as devastated about, given the terrible macho atmosphere there) and I have just been listening to a report about "fake boiler rooms" where con artists trick innocent people into spending hundreds and thousands of pounds on non-existent shares. I can't believe how convincing the people sound - it makes me realise that if you have the gift of the gab, you can sell pretty much anything. I only hope my brother wasn't working in a proper boiler room - and that he was actually selling real shares!

In other news it is sunny today, which obviously makes me chirpy. To make the day even better:

1. I have been shopping. This simple act of hunter-gathering (simple so long as you have some money) is wonderfully satisfying, particularly when BARGAINS are to be had. Today bargains included two pairs of TU trousers and also some new potatoes.

2. We have a Weds-date later, to the cinema, whoop! Time Traveller's Wife, no doubt will be terrible as most book-turned-films are, but it'll be fun.

3. England are playing Croatia tonight and we finally have ITV on our telly so we can watch it directly rather than through a dodgy internet connection. Probably the game will be dismal but I am excited for now.

4. Fish and chips with green peas and tartar sauce. Enough said there.

I am pleased for Speech Debelle, who won the Mercury Music Prize last night. I am also a bit gutted that it wasn't Jij who won the prize.. Don't get confused, she wasn't even in the running or anything, but they seem to have had really similar lives and Jij is so talented, I want her to win a prize and make her music too. I will listen to Speech's album later to see what it's like.

Finally, I'm enjoying the holiday having finished A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius - very good, if rambley, but true to life and impressive too - and so now have started Making History by Stephen Fry - the main character is annoying me already - and watching lots of good old telly and listening to Radio 4. Aaah holidays.

Thesis in and so I'm back

2009-09-08T10:38:00.002+01:00

Hello. It's me again. I'm back. Almost 2 months since I last posted. I have been slack and busy with the dreaded THESIS. Actually, it wasn't so bad after all, in that it is done and handed in and I can forget about it, at least for another week until we get the results of our MSc course. So now I have no excuse.

I was reading my cousin's Ghana blog the other day and it was really good, he's a great writer. Thus I was inspired to try and make mine live again. We shall see how that goes.

I'm in Swantown now, my new half-a-week home with X. It's lovely, right near the coast and cheap as chips (comparatively). We even have a study and a pretty large living room and it's all walking distance to the centre and cycling distance to uni and the station for X and me respectively. Downside is that it's not been let out in ages so there are lots of niggling problems with it here and there, which are getting fixed, but still cause inconvenience. The most tedious one (so far, but hopefully it's the last one) is the boiler and it's not working. Not having hot water is a total bum, particularly when it comes to not being able to wash my mane, err, I mean hair. Hopefully they will fix that up.

Alongside my thesis I've been to two weddings this summer, both of which were exciting and fun and also a bit stressful. My cousin's was in America and had loads of family present. We went over for 9 days and have now had our fill of family over there. Washington is a pretty cool place though - I'd love to go back and just visit all the museums. The other wedding was X's best friend's (X was the "best man"!) and that took place in Bath and was just beautiful. It was really small and intimate and the venues were awesome - the Bath Assembly Rooms and then around the old Spa buildings. It was really cool.

I have another week or so off before I start working on a telethon for the university (this time helping manage it, woo!) and then my DPhil starts on the 30th September, exciting and scary! I already have my first team meeting booked in in October so I am rather scared but hopefully I won't be too out of my depth.

That's all for now, I have to get back to my busy life of watching Sky and reading books. Oh to be a student. It'd be nice with some money though!

Thesis-ing and stuff

2009-07-19T14:12:00.004+01:00

Still been working on the thesis. Stata and data work is taking over my life. Not for much longer though - we're away in Scotland this week, hurrah! Going to Edinburgh and Aberdeen, exciting!

Finished Sex and the City series 5, very good, I liked it a lot. Am thinking of watching it backwards now i.e series 4, then series 3 etc.. Also saw Harry Potter 6, which was entertaining. We saw it at the 5:15pm showing, thus it was full of tiny children and their parents (or, given that this is Oxford, more likely nannies). It was funny to watch with them, they were captivated and so excited! Have now been inspired to borrow the books from the library and read them again - they're just so good!

What other news? Now potentially staying in Oxford for my DPhil. Well, certainly not going to Cardiff any more as I've turned down my offer and studentship (yikes!) So we went to see a funny old land lady in Oxford, who has a room to let. It's pretty bargainous I think, but the woman was a proper old Oxford lady so I'm not sure how well we'll get along. Haven't got anywhere else to stay as yet though, so might have to commit there. Hopefully will have paper confirmation of my place and the studentship here soon....

Listening to the cricket while doing some Sri Lankan campaigning. Things are still bad over there. I've been having my head in the sand for a while but it's time to do something useful again. Especially after Friday and yesterday, where most of my time was spent feasting and drinking and having fun - I'm lucky to have all of this so I should try and help others too.

I'm back

2009-07-11T18:14:00.002+01:00

I've been away for ages. Not from Oxford, I mean, but from the blog. EXAMS.

That says it all really. They came and went and they were ok.

Last stages now of the MSc. Writing my thesis. Busy with Stata sorting out all that data. But that means I'm at my computer a lot again so I can type some stuff up now and then. Cool.

Been reading all about gangs and inner-city American poverty and that kinda thing. Well into the "conscious" hip-hop nowadays, wondering how we can harness ourselves to help the people in Sri Lanka. The Tamil people I mean.

What else? Still got my ESRC at Cardiff but thinking about staying in Oxford. It's all a bit complicated and so I'm avoiding thinking about it.

Saw my old maths department last night - good and bad memories of teaching are in my mind now. Seen the same people, doing the same thing really, but enjoying it.

Thought I'd post this one as I liked it. It's the intro from Lupe Fiasco's Food and Liqour album.

Food and liquor stores rest on every corner
From 45th and State to the last standin Henry Horner
J&J's, pale chicken, good finger lickin
While they sin, gin, sin sin at Rothschild and Kenwood Liquors
The winos crooked stagger
meets the high stride of the youth searchin for the truth
They rebel and raise hell across alleyways and in classroom settings
They get high off that drum bass and 20/20 rims
They rock braids, Air Force Ones and Timbs
They drink Hennessy, Hypnotiq and 40's
They call they women hoes, bust downs and shorties
They keep funeral homes in business and gunshot wards of hospitals full
Prisons packed, bubblin over in brown sugar
They keep empty, Westside lots crowded, hype's powdered
The well is running dry, the days of Malcolm and Martin have ended
Our hope has descended and off to the side
Waiting for the reinstallment of the revolution
Because we are dying at the cost of our own pollution
But God has another solution, that has evolved from the hood
I present one who turns, the Fiasco to good

5-aside cuppers champions!

2009-05-28T11:05:00.002+01:00

Finally! I can say I've won football cuppers competition. Yeah!

Some great games and great team spirit. Was especially good to beat LMH/T in the semi-finals. A conclusive win really all the way through though. And we got to play Keble again in the finals, woo!

The come-down from playing all that football then having to return to studying hit me pretty hard yesterday. On the plus side, I dedicated my time to working on solving the cryptic crossword from Monday's Guardian. We'd been doing it for three days, but we completed it yesterday! Hoorah! I am going to keep practising at that.

So now I have to get properly on the revision train. It seems possible. Kind of.

Also very pleased that Barcelona won the Champions League final last night - they are good team and I agree with their ways.

Lots of sports!

2009-05-26T10:27:00.004+01:00

A whole weekend of sports, am pretty achey! Played korfball for Wolfson, which was totally awesome - it's kinda like a netball/basketball cross over but boys and girls can play together and the net is huge. It's still hard to throw the ball in though! We came fourth (out of four!) but it was lots of fun. Then we played an epic game of cricket against ChCh, which was really close, but they beat us with just 10 balls to spare. Shame but was nice to hang out in the sun.

Yesterday we completed our group games for 5-aside and finished top of our group. Today we have the quarter-finals (ironically against the team in our group we beat yesterday to come top) and then with a bit of luck a semi-final and a final too. Am excited about that a lot.

There is a giant fat robin eating at our bird-feeder right now, it's totally exciting! Although I just moved to try and get my camera to take a photo, and it flew away. Maybe it'll be back? Oooh I can see him sitting on the fence nearby!

What else? Have learnt that it's much harder to sleep by myself now - I'm very used to having X around. My revision is going ok, still not doing that much work, but a bit now and then. Finished Gang Leader for a Day and also The Namesake (which I've just found out has been made into a film too!), both of which I enjoyed, the first because gangs and ethnographies are very interesting to me, the second because I love stories about second generation Asians and identity. Now reading Outliers, which is very good in terms of concepts, but annoyingly is written in a really popular science style with a very sensationalist use of statistics.

Ok back to work. Fingers crossed for the football!

Monday 4th week

2009-05-18T11:20:00.002+01:00

It's mid-morning. Just settling down to Social Stratification revision. Not really feeling too much in the zone, but am hoping to cover the income inequality topic.

Mostly been spending my mornings campaigning for the war in Sri Lanka to end. Writing to MPs and MEPs, newspapers, commenting on articles, signing virtual petitions, feeling sad for the Tamil people there. They say the war is over now and that the LTTE have been destroyed. But the Eelam dream is still alive, the Tamil people want their freedom and their own land, and they will keep fighting for it.

There are thousands of people (some reports say upwards of 250,000) in displacement camps in Vanni at the moment, where there isn't enough food or water or medicine. People live in cramped conditions and don't have freedom of movement. Once you're in the camp, you can't get out, and while visitors are allowed, it's a bureaucratic nightmare to dissuade visits. Further there is still no independent media access or access to the war zone by NGOs. All so the government can continue their dirty work without having anyone question them. It's a terrible situation, poor Tamil people in Sri Lanka...it's like the Jews except here the Tamil people were caught between the LTTE and GoSL - a rock and a hard place it seems. I only hope it gets better.

Aside from Sri Lanka my time has been occupied with revision and cricket - played my first game last week and while my batting was terrible (1 run!), I managed to bowl someone out in one of my five overs, and also bowled a maiden over (where no runs are scored), which is cool for me! I'm enjoying that a lot.

Ok I will get back to work now. Exams in 5 weeks!

Thursday 2nd week

2009-05-07T12:00:00.002+01:00

Been working on my thesis and revision. Thesis is going ok. Had a meeting with my supervisor on Tuesday (after a lovely long weekend at home) and have some changes to do but think it'll be ok. Ignoring it for now as she recommended spending most of my time revising.

Have two exams (nothing compared to finals!) so trying to figure out which topics to revise etc.

Home was awesome, first BBQ of the year! Saw lots of family and ate really well :) Saw my Granddad too - he's back in the country for six months, woo! He's 89 now and still going strong, which I'm really grateful for. Played poker with the girls and 304 too, good times.

Made plans to go to Washington for a week in August with my Dad and my brother - it's my cousin's wedding. Will be good to see all the family over there as it's been a while.

What else? X is home full-time - woo! Good work ethics will hopefully rub off on me with regards to revision and stuff. Been watching a lot of football. Controversial football for sure. Poor referees in the Champions League - they are making all sorts of mistakes. My brother made a strong case for video referees in the box when I was watching footy with him on the weekend. Now I'm really starting to agree with him. Wrong decisions in the penalty box happen far too regularly. Poor Fletcher will miss the Final for the red card given because of his excellent tackle. Shocking decision and even worse that it can't be appealed against. He behaved really well though - the Chelsea players could learn a thing or too about respect in football from him. That's the other thing, football doesn't have any respect in it, people dive and complain and argue with the ref all the time. Yesterday Ballack was actually chasing and flapping at the ref! There needs to be a system like in rugby where only the captain can talk with the ref and also if people show dissent then decisions should be reversed or they should lose ground on the free kick or something like that. The FA and UEFA and FIFA all those groups need to sort out the refereeing and get some respect back in the game because players and fans are acting like thugs.

Rant over. Saw In The Loop last night, which was great, so funny and actually satirical. Would recommend it for sure. Also click here for Pizza Express vouchers, which are buy one main course get the second free.

Ok I will get back to reading the sequel to The Knife of Never Letting Go. It's called The Ask and The Answer - harrowing stuff, kinda like the situation in Sri Lanka at the moment for the poor oppressed Tamil people caught up in the war zone. I hope this book has a happy ending. I hope in Sri Lanka there's a happy ending too.

1st week

2009-04-29T12:13:00.002+01:00

No classes this term! This should be a good thing. And indeed it is. Except it means that all structure to my life has gone. Well, as much as it can go for a semi-serious Virgo like me.

So I have revision for my 9th week exams to do. And I have my thesis to do. And both of them seem due so far away, and both of them are such big tasks (in my head) to even start, that I am failing to do anything properly productive. I know that once I am in the zone of things it'll be sweet, but just getting started is so tedious.

I think it's error working at my desk in the flat. I need to be somewhere where other people are working. That said though, I am loving having this kinda free time. It all feels like I'll get it done someday, so in the meantime I'm just gonna enjoy things.

Finished The Knife of Never Letting Go, which was so awesome. Am very glad that X can get me the sequel before it's released (good stuff those bookshop proofs). We're going to see X-Men Origins:Wolverine tonight, which am pretty psyched about, I love X-Men and Wolverine and Beast are my faves. Sometimes I wonder what I'd like to have as a super power, and I reckon it would still be Prof X's and Jean Grey's ESP-style powers, I mean, they seem really useful in whatever situation.

Was listening to Asher Roth's Asleep in the Bread Aisle - really funny album, would totally recommend it. Now listening to his mixtape The Greenhouse Effect, which I reckon is even better than the full on album! So we will see how the work goes today then.

Nice holiday but very bad in Sri Lanka

2009-04-21T21:03:00.000+01:00

I am back. Lille was awesome, lovely beers and mussels and fun all day, I loved it!

Thesis presentation went well this morning, I'm pleased. Will crack on with revision and thesis tomorrow. Exam dates in 9th week - Monday 22nd and Weds 24th.

Horrible things happening in Sri Lanka, hope it all stops soon, those poor people. Saw some terrible terrible photos of dead people, it's so sad. Worse though are the ones that are still alive in those concentration camps, they're alive now as I type this, and as you read this, suffering in a hell-hole. I don't know what to do. There's a mass protest again in London tomorrow, but even when other government's put pressure on Sri Lanka, they just keep doing what they want, they don't care about whom they kill along the way. It's heart-breaking.

Sad about Sri Lanka

2009-04-16T12:00:00.004+01:00

I am a bit despairing. The ceasefire is over in Sri Lanka and the shelling and firing have begun again. I keep reading reports about all the tragedy and devastation and human suffering and I just feel terrible. I don't even know what I can do to help apart from going to these protests and writing to politicians. I sign all the petitions and I comment on the news articles. But it's not enough.

I sometimes think about giving money to things like Vanni Mission and other organisations, but part of me is always fearful that secretly these things are funding the Tigers. I don't know where I stand with them. On the one hand I am glad they are fighting for our people and trying to reduce the discrimination against us. I can see why they exist - people can only be pushed so far. On the other hand, when I read that they are preventing civilians from leaving the war-zone, and when I hear about child soldiers and extortion and human shields and all of that, well, it makes me understand why they are condemned.

I just want the war to stop and the international community to step in and mediate and sort out a political solution. Ideally they need to devolve power in the North so that the Tamils finally have their own homeland. It's funny you know, when I read all the news articles and people complain about Tamil protesters and argue that this conflict is external and not the concern of the British people and why don't all these people just go over to Sri Lanka and protest there, I just think what idiots these people are. Of course we'd love to go back and live in Sri Lanka if we could, if we weren't discriminated against and treated as second class citizens. And of course we'd protest there if we could. Except if you speak out against the government you get silenced. Look at all the journalists and people who have been abducted in white vans never to be seen again. So Sri Lanka is a complete no-go if you've got any sanity. The problem is that there are millions of Tamil people who can't get out of there and so are stuck in the suffering. I wish it would all end. I know I'd love to live somewhere where I was actually meant to be, not just some immigrant.

At least maybe this war is doing one good thing in that it is highlighting to the world all the suffering in Sri Lanka. Perhaps a good solution will come out at the end after all.

Read more here from the BBC and here from the Independent.

My cousin's blog

2009-04-15T17:25:00.001+01:00

Also check out my cousin's blog here.

It's about his summer in Ghana working with Engineers Without Borders.

Inspiring stuff!

Some random things

2009-04-15T17:21:00.002+01:00

Am confused by some of the new icons on the blogger sign in page. Can people text me now? Or does that mean I can update my blog by phone? Hmm...

Should be working on my codebook, which is actually going ok, but am being a bit distracted. Liverpool vs Chelsea last night was so dramatic, I love watching football when it's like that. Been a bit of a housewife yesterday and today, doing all sorts of chores. It's funny how when you want to be distracted there's always something to do.

Very impressed to hear that Obama visited the MyBnk offices, that's awesome! Also pleased that there was a ceasefire in Sri Lanka - hopefully some of the trapped people made it out. Am still campaigning although it's slowed a bit. I want that war to end and end now. The Tamil people need their own land and then things will be ok.

It was Tamil New Year yesterday so am thinking and wishing for positive things this year. Starting with getting my work done!

Four days in Cambridge

2009-04-12T13:01:00.003+01:00

Quick blog due to limited time! Am back at home in London and it's very nice indeed. I love hanging out with my brothers and parents, and also seeing lots of my friends from back home around here. Oxford isn't so far away but I still find I don't see people enough. Very much looking forward to seeing my girls this afternoon and playing some poker with an indoor picnic too (boo rain!)

Spent 4 days last week in Cambridge as a staff member on the Teach First Higher Education Access Programme for Schools. Basically we had 120 really bright 16/17 year olds on the residential course, where they undertook sample lectures and classes, completed workshops on interview skills and university applications, and lived a bit of a Cambridge student lifestyle for a few days. Selwyn college hosted us and were lovely. The food was awesome as was the punting and formal dinner and casino and debating and all the other exciting things we did. I led the Physics and Engineering group (NOT my subject specialism) and I have to admit, I learnt some stuff. My favourite part was the night trip to the Cambridge Observatory where we saw Saturn through a telescope made in 1927! We learnt some constellations and about space, it was totally awesome. Am inspired enough to take an astronomy course at some point.

Another poignant part of the trip was when we had to think about our lives and how they are finite and what we really wanted to achieve by the end of them. The kids made lists and we shared ideas. It got me thinking about some of the things that maybe I'd like to change and to do. It's good to reflect I think.

The kids were all really inspirational, really bright and exciting. I was impressed with their manner and attitude and work ethic. It made me want to teach again, but I guess it's unreal as this trip was it's own little bubble and real school isn't like that.

Ok best get on to some work, have a hectic afternoon and evening of socialising!

Some plans and general ramblings

2009-04-05T15:19:00.002+01:00

We are making a butternut squash soup with our new blender, Glenda. It's the weekend and we have been super relaxy - doing cooking and playing squash and laying in bed and reading the papers and watching silly films. Awesome!

Have been back in Oxford for 4 days after going home and then having a meeting in Cardiff. Am currently debating whether to take Cardiff's funding offer or to take a year out and apply for the Civil Service. Have got it into my head that I should work for the government, and maybe eventually become an MP (fits my initials and all). But then again I have three years paid for in Cardiff and I can be near X there, so it's a tough decision. Oxford are "re-evaluating" my application, which doesn't sound promising, so I think I'll have to sack that.

Spurs threw away a win against Blackburn yesterday. Admittedly there were some dodgy reffing decisions, including Palacios' second yellow card, which led to him being sent off and Blackburn capitalising on our chaos to score two goals, but even accounting for that, Spurs still were lacklustre. I think Redknapp should have brought on Pav instead of Bent after about 70 minutes rather than sticking with him when nothing was happening. Spurs' goal only came from a debatable hand-ball penalty award so really we are not doing enough to finish in a decent position. My eyes are on next season now.

Next week I'm in Cambridge on a higher education programme with TF. We're helping Y12 kids get in the zone for uni applications, which I'm looking forward too. It's a packed programme, and I've forgotten what it's like to teach/manage people, but we'll see how it goes.

Been planting in the allotment, now about to watch No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency. Back after Easter!

My children's books!

2009-03-27T12:46:00.002Z

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!

2009-03-25T12:11:00.005Z

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!

2009-03-19T17:32:00.003Z

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!

2009-03-08T22:08:00.003Z

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!

Essay done!

2009-02-25T21:41:00.001Z

Got up early this morning and started stage 1 of my essay. Stage 2 took place between 1545 and 1638 in the SSL. Stage 3 has taken place in the last 30 minutes back in the flat. It is done. It is poor, but it is done. Roll on 9th week I say.

Reffed again this afternoon, girls' football is hard to ref, it's just so different from the boys' game. You have to be looking out for all the big dramas in a boys' game but in a girls' game all the issues are about whether the ball is in or out of play, and also whether the throw-in is a foul or not! There were some free-kicks, but I find my attention lapses. Also it's near impossible to predict where the ball will go - there are loads of those "whack it, whack it back, whack it again" sets of kicks that just confuse me entirely. Luckily I didn't get hit by the ball today, although I did have one player run into me once. I guess I'm just out of practice.

Classes were ok, just tired a bit really, need it to be end of term. Haven't done my redrafted proposal for Cardiff yet, crumbs! It's due on Monday and my supervisors need to see it before then. Will do it in the morning.

We watched Waterloo Road on BBC tonight. It was dramatastic! Literally every single scene had some issue in it, it was gripping stuff! A girl got shot at the end though, and there was also a storyline about a boy who was trying to sell babies, yuck, how wrong is that?!

Ok to bed with me. Rest time :)

Updates

2009-02-23T22:48:00.002Z

This weekend:

1. Went to Cardiff. Tiring. Academics are weird. I have a lot of work to do if I want them to give me funding. Humph. Oxford is nicer...I'm a villager now.
2. Old school reunion at Teddy Hall. Brilliant. I love those things, especially the chat, it makes me laugh.
3. Old Furies game! Yeah! It was funny, I really liked reffing, even though I was knackered. Wish I was fitter. At least I could run though.
4. Dinner in the Mitre. Had the ribs, yum, I love ribs.
5. Not too hungover, despite having silly Rouse shots and also some pear cider. I think it was the lovely banana and nutella toastie back at Jij's.
6. Lined at cuppers semis, I like reffing, it's good to be back in all of that.
7. Went to the allotment with X. We did our first digs, I am very inspired.
8. Made a wicked king prawn noodles dinner, and had a lovely soak in the bath.
9. Did chores and some work today, but mostly chores. We have started a 3-day weekend. Oh dear.

Very hectic week this week, so no doubt I'll be updating things on here rather than working.

Wednesday...

2009-02-18T15:14:00.002Z

Wednesday afternoon. So we are officially half way to the weekend. WOooooooOOOO!

This morning I went to the fruit & veg market at Gloucester Green and bought loads of veg. Like this:

I also went to Sainsbury's and bought lots of food. I am feeling like a good hunter-gatherer provider for the nest.

Having X get up at half seven each day for work has been good for my discipline. However, not having X around to make me work has meant that today I have become a bit distracted. I really should be writing my stratification essay (on occupational sex segregation, so something I care about and figure I can actually write about) but I am planning a nap first.

We're going to see The Curious Case of Benjamin Button tonight, which seems like it could be very interesting. Am pleased as we have bought a cheapy Orange PAYG sim so that we can get the Orange Wednesdays vouchers, a total bargain, two tickets for the price of one means twice as much cinema for us.

Yesterday I managed to get all my reading done, was very efficient, so I got to hang out with X in the evening. We played Scrabble. I won, it was close towards the end, but not close enough.

In our qualitative methods class this morning we were given our course assignments. Our project is to do with cultural consumption and whether it is stratified by class. We have to go to different music venues and interview someone from the audience about their music consumption. It's really cool, as well as the interview (using a schedule designed by us and digital sound recorders), we do an ethnographic style write up of the observations we make, and also make a transcription of our interview. Then we get to see everyone else's interviews and make a codebook for them (a way to kinda generalise the findings into a table with variables and evidence). Finally we use what we've learned to write our own qualitative research proposal, which will be cool as I'm well into all this interviewing and ethnography stuff.

Last thing. X and I were discussing baby names, and we added Winston to the list. It's funny though because when I was talking about this name with some people from my group today, the Americans said it sounded really posh and aristocratic, while the Brits said it sounded more Jamaican/Afro-Caribbean - real opposites! I like the name anyway, and everyone said that they thought it would be a good name for an entertainer, and that he would certainly be a character with a name like that, so I'm keeping it on the list!

Ok I'm off for a nap, just a quick recording of some stuff from today!

V-day and other things!

2009-02-16T14:25:00.002Z

It is a Monday but I am treating it like a Sunday i.e doing chores and being distracted. I have lots of work to do, as usual, and so am procrastinating, as usual.

Went on strike on Friday and didn't write my essay on transition theory. Turns out no-one really understood the topic anyway, so that's one question I won't be choosing on my finals paper. My other two essays turned out to be good, so my hope that I CAN actually write a half-decent essay has been restored.

Got an offer from Cardiff to read for a PhD there, woooo! Now have to revise my proposal so I can get funding, fingers crossed on that front.

Took X to Bodyworlds on Sat for V-Day, which was really cool. The plastinated models were amazing, seeing the insides of people, all organs and muscles and bones was unbelievable, not to mention the giant giraffe, which was really something else! We learnt loads and I think X enjoyed consolidating the pre-med work. We only got into London around 4ish, but it was nice to have a lazy morning and read the papers/do the crossword on the way down. We missed all the parties and bops in college on Sat night, and I got into a strop cos I'd lost my lovely purple and pink stripey gloves that I've mix-and-matched with X, but I got over it on Sunday. Shame I couldn't be less of a kid on Sat night, but I guess we were both cold and hungry and tired, so that was a bit of a write-off. The pirate pepper grinder that X got me is perfect for our new nest, I like it a lot!

We played our much-vaunted cuppers quarter-final against LMH/T yesterday. Alas we lost in extra-time, it was 4-3, very dramatic! The knee mostly held up - one rather painful moment when I put a cross in and it clicked rather horridly, but it's no more sore than the rest of my very achey body today. Playing 120 minutes of football after having done nearly no exercise (apart from cycling) for about 2 months is a bad plan. I am very naughty when it comes to being good and taking care of myself.

What else? I bought us a TV licence, making us officially grown-up. We have been doing lots of house-based stuff like tidying and doing laundry and food shopping and making it nice. I am gutted to be missing our first book club meeting this Sunday, but it's our old girls' football match on Sat and the dinner too, so I just can't get to London in time on Sunday, oh well. I've been reading Q&A for it, which is singularly awful in my humble opinion, Slumdog is so much better.

Ok I best try and get some work done. Just a quick update to keep the records complete!

The new nest!

2009-02-09T20:09:00.004Z

Monday of 4th week.

Some points of note:

1. We have moved into our new NEST! Hurrah! The move was a bit of a stress, but much better than it could have otherwise been. I woke up at 7am that morning and we just about finished unloading the last lot at the new place around 11:30pm - looooong day! Luckily no snow and minimum iciness (although enough for the GIANT hired van to get stuck in college!) We now realise we have a lot of stuff, but already our nest looks good and homely and we are going to make it even nicer. I'm excited to be doing this!

2. Spurs drew with Arsenal after a dreadful performance from the Gunners (including Eboue being sent off for being just persistently annoying and naughty). Why Spurs couldn't capitalise on the full three points I just don't know - they had so many shots and attempts but just couldn't break through.

3. I want to mention the GIANT van again, just cos I'm so pleased that I could drive it ok, albeit with X dealing with my freakouts about whether it could fit in gaps, whether I was reversing it ok, where the petrol tank was etc. It's cool to be driving up from a high position, and also it was surprisingly manoeuvrable! I named her Blizzy. Diesel-wise she was excellent value - used up £20-odd of fuel having driven all over London and back and forth from Oxford, plus a few little drives. Good stuff.

4. SO much to do this week and I think there'll be even more next week, but I just don't really have time what with trying to sort the nest out, a knee appointment on Weds, and lots of social stuff. Still, am looking forward to V-Day next weekend!

5. Our battle with LMH/T was cancelled due to more crazy snow. It's on for next weekend though, I wonder if I should play...?

Ok I'm going to go and make us some dinner so we'll be nice and energised for more nest-organising. Hope all is well with you.

SO MUCH SNOW!

2009-02-06T17:45:00.002Z

SNOW. That is all that we have at the moment.

My relationship with snow is pretty turbulent. Up and down, love and hate, right and wrong. And more annoying opposites.

Right now I am not happy with the snow. It is stressing me out as moving weekend is here and moving is going to be tricky. BUM.

What else? Very hectic week. All my essays were written in dramatic last minute/pressured fashion. Wrote possibly my worst essay of the term at 1pm today in 55 minutes after having a super long journey from London to Oxford because of our good friend, SNOW. Oh and also the Oxford Tube, which has become a bit substandard. Anyway am glad classes are done for the week, and also that Sociological Analysis is nearly done as the class has become really tedious, mainly cos it's a massive lecture, but also cos our essay topics are really odd and so it's difficult to well in them.

Went to X's father's birthday dinner last night, was very nice, we had Indian food. I like going out for Indian food, partly cos it's ironic, partly cos restaurant Indian food is different to actual Indian food. I liked the "manly flowers" I took X's dad - I think men should get flowers too.

Aaah packing, I knew there was something I had to do. How can I avoid it? Maybe whoever gets my room will want my stuff and then I can buy all new stuff??

So the next time I post it'll hopefully be from our new nest :) Wish us luck!

Protesting and other things

2009-02-01T21:57:00.002Z

It's Sunday of 3rd week already, I can't believe it! And it's February! And it was snowing in London today.

Have had very busy weekend. Was in London on Sat - went to the Tate Britain with X, which was cool, and then we joined my brother for the Anti-Genocide protest march against the war in Sri Lanka and the wrong-doings of the government there. It's some bad sh*t going down over there, but because the Tigers are listed as terrorists, no one else will intervene, even though the Army is basically destroying civilian infrastructure, and displacing and killing thousands of people. It's a terrible thing, I hope they can at least reach a cease-fire soon, if not granting us Tamils as separate state. Anyway, apparently 50,000 people turned out for the march from Tate Britain to Temple, which is loads of people, and all the roads were closed for the walk, with a petition being handed into parliament, so fingers crossed that our voices can help the voices being silenced in Sri Lanka.

After the march we went bowling in Finsbury Park, which was fun, and in stark contrast to all the serious thoughts of the protest. Then we went to one of X's house-mate's friend's gigs in Great Portland Street, which was also really cool, I love live music, especially when it's something different. Then today we chilled for most of the day and managed to complete the Observer speedy crossword - a success compared to last week where we really struggled! Now am back in Oxford, but disappointed since the bar is closed and so Scrabble Club has been cancelled. At least I'll get an early night!

Managed to do the whole of January without drinking, good stuff! Celebrated with a pint of ale with X in Notting Hill, yum. We are excited because next weekend is moving weekend, thus only have a week left in this place! Hopefully all the drama of moving won't be too much - this time next week we want to be nice and settled.

Lots of work for this week, as per usual. Let's keep this train going!

An evening off.

2009-01-29T21:23:00.003Z

Hurrah! I've finished my work for the week. Well, the actual writing of essays. Obviously I have loads of reading for next week's classes to get on with, but that's besides the point. I feel free :) This is a good feeling as since the start of term I've mostly felt pretty snowed under with work.

So it's nearly the weekend, and therefore nearly the end of January. Can't believe it's gone so quickly! Excitingly this means I've almost done my whole month free of alcohol. In truth, apart from a couple of nights out, I've hardly noticed not drinking, I think my personality's back! That said, a nice pint of ale would go down a treat. I think I'm going to break it early as it's a friend's leaving drinks tomorrow night, but we'll see, maybe I can hold out till the 1st proper.

We saw Frost/Nixon last night, which was really good, the dude that played Nixon was just brilliant. The script was also really good, with some quite funny bits and then lots of seriousness too. By the end of it I kinda even felt sorry for Nixon rather than just thinking of him as another "Bush" type. So yeah, worth seeing.

In other news I signed the lease for our new place today, yippee! It's ours from tomorrow. Also I have an allotment from Sunday in college! I'm super excited about this, mainly cos it means I can do some exercise outside again, yeah! Plus it's the perfect time to do some gardening and start sowing some veg for the summer.

Finally, today I had a sixth-former shadow me to see what Oxford is like, which was cool. I'd completely forgotten how much fun it was to show kids around Oxford and inspire them to come etc. so I felt like I'd done my good deed for the day. I think I'll sign up to the Access Scheme again and try and get more involved.

Phew so one day to go before the weekend, let's keep going! Oh wait, I don't have to, it's my evening off!

Week 2 begins

2009-01-26T18:18:00.004Z

Another weekend gone and the start of another busy week. Last week saw loads of hard work, but I'm not sure how sustainable it is. At least this week I'm only writing one essay, but the reading lists are still massive. Phew, hard work, roll on the holidays!

At lunchtime today we had a seminar on internet dating and use, and perceptions of married couples of internet use, and also characteristics of people who had met through online dating versus traditional forms. It was really interesting stuff, although now we're so drilled into thinking quantitatively that when these guys presented their work, we were kinda disparaging of it. They showed that women generally were more suspicious of men's activities online, and even went to the extent of surveillance (covert!). They also found marked differences in the ages of people who used online dating sites, and also differences in the ages between the two individuals in the couple, and differences in education too. Interestingly people who used online dating seemed more keen on all aspects of attraction e.g. physical, emotion, personality etc. suggesting that they were really "shopping" for a partner. I'd like to know what the outcome of relationships formed online are in comparison to offline - do they last longer, are people happier, are they more similar to each other etc.? Also their sample was only of heterosexual married couples - I wonder what they would find if they broadened their search?

X was around after the interviews so we had lots of good fun. Spent too much money but we feasted and dined in Oxford and in London (some really great food, particularly at the birthday dinner we went to in Angel on Sat, but also at my little favourite, Luna Caprese, on Fri too). We had cocktails at Raoul's, which was lovely, and we saw Slumdog Millionaire, which was a really good film, although in no way at all could be reasonably described as a "feel good film", except for maybe the last 10 minutes or so. It was pretty sad and quite harrowing stuff, I guess because it's so real and happening right now. Not the millionaire stuff I mean, but the stuff about child orphans and slums and exploitation and a lack of welfare and just cruelty. It was hard to watch but a brilliant film nonetheless.

Spurs are out of the FA Cup, as to be expected. What are we going to do? Our performance is so lack-lustre - we can't even perk up for cup games now it's pretty demoralising. At least we beat Burnley I suppose, and Man Utd are TOUGH opposition, but right now it still hurts to be a spurs fan.

Yesterday we tried to do the RSPB birdwatch event, but the view from my window was dominated by geese and crows, none of the cute little birds on their leaflet, so we had to abandon the challenge. Later in the afternoon though, we could hear them so beautifully chirruping away, it was lovely with the sky all sunsetty too. And I won Scrabble in the evening, hurrah!

Ok I'm off to dinner now, before hitting the library. I ambitiously want to finish the rest of my stratification reading tonight - 5 more articles - leaving me with just one book and a chapter to somehow sneak into tomorrow's schedule, along with my analysis reading AND education class AND bike workshop. BUSY. And at some point I need to go shopping and also do some work on my knee. WHEN?! Heehee just this afternoon I was doing a psychology experiment for a friend and circled the box that I "mostly feel in control of my life"....is this still true?

All work and no play...not yet anyway!

2009-01-22T18:00:00.003Z

Phew it's Thursday evening and my work is almost done for the week! Two essays, so so much reading, lots of coffee and books and late nights and library hours. And now hopefully some down time.

I'm about to do my Sociology of Education reading, which along with reading the ethnographic studies on my qualitative methods list, I consider to be "fun" work. I think Thursday night after my stratification class will have to be my new Friday night! Except I have a lecture at 10am on Friday morning, boo!

So I'm impressed with Obama and all the nice bits and pieces of his inauguration - boy does he have a good speech writer! Also think it's really bold and brave of him to speak about closing down Guantanamo, about time too.

In other news X is coming to visit after the climax of the interview today, which is cool as it's finally done and X can hopefully go back to normal and then just wait to here the outcome. We are going to try and see Slumdog Millionaire tomorrow after we failed in our attempt last Weds when it completely sold out at the Phoenix - dang Orange Wednesdays and their free tickets! And we have a very busy Saturday of social obligations, but it'll be fun, am looking forward to cutting loose after such a hard working week.

Ok best get back to it for a couple of hours, yippee!

Sunday 1st week

2009-01-18T20:11:00.004Z

Good evening. It's Sunday of 1st week, term has officially started! A quick recap then:

My stats exam on Friday went ok - there were a few obvious things that I just forgot how to do e.g. find a confidence interval for a proportion, but mostly it was cool, and at least I finished it in time.

I met up with a potential supervisor, which was very exciting. My research proposal has been second drafted and I think it's ok, so it's staying as it is for the Oxford application. Just waiting on references now so that I can give my application in.

Research design essay is printed out and ready to go.

Have realised that this term that for three weeks I will have four reading lists to get through - sociological analysis, social stratification, sociology of education, and qualitative methods! Yikes! For the other weeks I'll still have three reading lists to get through, loooooads of items on each too! Over the term I'll only have to write 13 essays though, which isn't so bad, although I guess there'll be assignments from qualitative methods to do, not to mention attending the intermediate stats lectures. It's going to be a very busy term I suspect.

Am trying to manage my work better by doing some now, hurrah! Also am pleased that most of the SA reading seems to be posted online, which means it'll be easier for me to get hold of. My laptop is now back and working in my room too, which is cool!

What else? So on Friday eve I headed down to London to see X - we went to dinner and saw Twilight, which was very funny, mainly because the acting and script were just SO BAD! We chilled on Saturday, it was really nice! We've found a nest too, from the university, which is really cool - we'll be in there in three weekends time :) Saturday night I was at home with the family, which was good, although some bad family news (a divorce and also a very sick close family friend). But my cousin is getting married in the States in the summer and we get to go, hurrah!

Today I caught up with some TF-ers at a lovely cafe in Fulham called Aziz, very nice food, although I "accidentally" ordered a giant choc meringue, and am still trying to finish it! The amount of sugar in it has got to be dangerous! Was very much fun to catch up with my friends though, who are all doing exciting things, it seems like ages ago when we were teachers, but we can still all chatter about it like it was only yesterday.

So I best get back to my reading for tonight, before some scrabble fun, but would lastly like to note my pleasure that Spurs didn't lose today, we drew, thus we are out of the relegation zone! Let's hope we can stay there!

Some grumbles, but the library's been fun!

2009-01-12T21:15:00.003Z

This morning we woke up cross due to loud noise from one of my neighbours. Grrr. Noise pollution is very annoying and people are very selfish to play video games or watch TV oh so loudly till 2am on a Sunday night. This hasn't happened before at my place, although it happened at lot at X's and also when we were house-sitting. A disrupted night's sleep ruins the day.

Luckily X was able to have today off, and so we had a bit of a lie-in and then did some work. X has a lot of work to do for some interviews shortly, and I have my various research proposals/essays/exams to work on. It was nice to be back in the library. Sounds funny to say that but there's something cool about the start of term when work is still exciting and you feel productive.

Two estate agents have let us down so far in our search for an Oxford nest. I can see why people get cross with them. It's just inconsiderate not to turn up when you have arranged a viewing with someone. At least call to cancel.

Spurs lost against Wigan. They held out for 90 minutes and then conceded, although I guess we were weakened once Dawson had gone off injured, and Gomes hurt his leg. Sigh, back to the relegation zone it is. Defoe probably could've wanted a better debut.

I'm having an early night tonight, hurrah!

The return of Scrabulous

2009-01-09T18:32:00.003Z

It's Friday! This time last week I was recovering from my knee surgery. Now I'm sitting at my desk with my right knee bent across my left foot, cool :) Hopefully it'll keep on healing smoothly. I can get the dressings taken off tomorrow, and the stitches should be dissolving soon too!

I finished my stats paper, yeah! It wasn't so hard, I'm pretty confident about the paper, it should be cool. Also just got my reading list for qualitative methods, and that looks really interesting, particularly the stuff on ethnographies. Ever since I read that ethnographic study of American gangs, I'm well up for a bit of ethnography myself.

I'm still reading Twilight, it's got loads more interesting, and now I really want to see the film. It could mostly do without all the description of the looks and glances and lots of the feelings stuff too, just cos it's very repetitive, but I like the drama now, so let's hope it stays interesting.

Am also very pleased about the return of Scrabulous to Facebook - now called Lexulous! I do love my online scrabble, and since I have to take my old laptop back up to college, I don't think I'll be able to be distracted too much, just cos I'm not sure my laptop can keep up!

I'm back in Oxford on Sunday, which is cool, I want to get back into the swing of things there, although being at home has been brilliant, such comfort! X and I have a house-viewing on Sunday afternoon, which is exciting, my first ever one! It's all getting a bit serious now, what with the nesting and all, but I'm happy about it, although I guess sooner or later I'm going to have to come clean to the family. Hmm, I'm sure the right time will come round eventually i.e. when I stop being a wimp.

So happy weekends to everyone and hope January has been treating you well so far!

Working ok today!

2009-01-08T13:18:00.003Z

I have done all my stats reading now, hurrah! Just have to do part B of the paper :)

Nest-hunting is also on the list today, must get on the phone and sort some of that stuff out.

Am annoyed that my stats exam now requires us to wear sub-fusc, this is all getting a bit serious, and tedious.

My eyes and head hurt, I can only presume it is from being inside at my computer rather than running free in the cold air. Bring on the knee, it's healing well but I want to run again!

Paid my credit card bill. I've spent around £700 on that card just in November and December! I can see why people have to tighten their belts in January. I vow to be more frugal.

Right I am going to update my links now and get back to work i.e. nest-hunting.

Still no stats

2009-01-07T19:14:00.003Z

I am doing everything I can to avoid my stats paper. I did the first part of it, but really only concentrated for an hour of so, and most of that was just copying out of the notes. My distractions include trying (and failing) to do the Guardian cryptic (this holiday has made me even slower), repeated knee exercises and green-pea icing, searching for a nice nest for X and I, cutting vegetables, reading Twilight, just staring out of the window. Today must still be part of the holiday.

Spurs beat Burnley 4-1 last night, yeah Carling Cup! Still have the second leg to go, but it's looking good. We also have Defoe back, good stuff, although our strikers seemed to have woken up a bit. Would sell Bentley like THAT though, what a waste of £15m.

X stayed over, it was nice have some time together again. We have been planning our nest, it's very exciting!

Twilight is pretty drivel-full in that it's clearly something I would have loved at 13, but right now it's just boring, I want to skip through to the dramatic vampire bits, but instead I keep getting stuck in all the teenage angst and swooning, BORING.

Oooh dinner-time, a justified excuse! I also signed up to Twitter, finally, but I think I preferred just popping in and out of the special forums on it rather than having my own account. I loved the US elections forum, hmmm, maybe there's one for the transfer window....

Thinking other things today

2009-01-06T15:58:00.003Z

I am having another quite unproductive day. Unproductive in the sense that I am ignoring my uni work. I am thinking once I wake up from my nap I HAVE TO DO SOME STATS but who knows whether that will happen? There's no real sense of urgency at the moment.

I've done some thinking about my research proposal at least. You would think this is a good thing. Actually it's not, in that I am thinking whether I really want do my research after all. Having looked at the WWOOF-ing Christmas newsletter I now have a fantasy of taking a year off and WWOOF-ing my way around the world, or the UK at least. Hmm. Must focus on something and stop daydreaming. Or, better yet, make my daydreams into real things.

In other news I have done some reading of AS Chemistry, all the while remembering Mrs Fine and all the fun "secret" end of term parties we used to have, ace! So far so good with the reading, although this is stuff for kids so it shouldn't be too hard. It made me realise how low-level it was when on p34 the sentence " 'inter' means between" appeared, followed closely by "van der Waals really is spelt with a small v - even at the beginning of a sentence". Oh dear.

Finished A Thousand Splendid Suns, felt very sad for Mariam and Laila and also all the people in Afghanistan and other places where women are treated so poorly and things are so bad. Went on to feeling bad for Sri Lanka and all the people in the war and the killings and bombings and destroyed stuff. Decided to stop feeling so bad and instead really appreciate what I have here and how lucky I am to have a loving liberal family and all the things (and more!) that I need. Perspective, yes. But still, poor people, and it's just luck where you're born, unless you believe in serious long-term karma. I don't know if I do, but then why else would people have to suffer so? I guess we just have to do the best we can with what we have and try and make use of our opportunities and help other people.

Also...

2009-01-05T16:35:00.000Z

...I was just thinking that perhaps I should update my blog a bit. For a start, the heading still talks about maths teaching, which is over two years old now. And my age is wrong and there are no more disasters...well, not in the classroom at any rate. Hmmm, I'll add that to my to-do list. The updating I mean, not the disasters.

Happy New Year!

2009-01-05T16:18:00.002Z

Once again I'm back! Similar to one of those small shoe factories, I "closed down" over the Christmas break and am now forced to return to work on this first Monday of January. Except I'm not really at work, heehee!

So what's been happening? Some highlights of the vacation (note: I am still on holiday regardless of what my books or the people around me try to tell me)!

1. Christmas day - a true feast of food and presents, so much fun
2. Boxing day football - Fulham vs Spurs, a poor game, but a cool anniversary celebration with X
3. The Nutcracker - nope, not at the Royal Opera House, but instead streamed live at the independent cinema in Notting Hill, very cool and we could take in our own beers and sweets to, aaaah
4. House/cat sitting for D&W and Stripeypants in Shebu - essentially lots of festive fun times with X, brilliant!
5. Our Christmas dinner at Hudsons and stocking swap - the coolest presents and the nicest dinner, we are SO doing that every year
6. Poker party - held at Shebu for my friends to kick off some festive fun, was ace!
7. Knee arthroscopy - this wasn't as much fun, but was def better than when I had the ACL reconstruction and it's healing up quickly too so hopefully my knee will be back to feeling better soon
8. Academic work - so much work, I have done so much work in the break. Ok, fine, I know it seems like I've not really done work but I have, honest. I submitted my last STATA assignment, wrote my Sociological Analysis essay, wrote my Research Design essay (all day Saturday just gone, but I had to do like 3 days of reading before that), two PhD proposals (yes, they are the same basic proposal, but that took ages, like 4 days of solid work). And now I have to refine my proposal and revise some statistics for my exam next week.
9. Chilling out with the family - our house is busy and noisy again and you know my folks are very sociable so we've been busy but having a cool time with just us (and my aunt, uncle and cousin from Canada)
10. Reading and watching films and Christmas telly! - we don't have Sky or cable or any actual TV at the moment so I've finally been able to do some leisure reading again, which is ace. I read The Carbon Diaries (Saci Lloyd) which was really thought-provoking and so I'm trying to be better with my carbon usage. So far this is going well since I'm essentially house-bound. I also read Henry Tumour (Anthony McGowan) which was funny and emotional and for kids so I liked it (as was Carbon Diaries). Now I'm reading A Thousand Splendid Suns (Khaled Hosseini) which X derides because it's populist, but I don't care, it's a good story! Have also been watching things on BBC and ITV online players, which is brilliant!

So yes, that's what I've been doing. My new year's resolutions are similar to last year, including doing something nice for someone each day, not using God as a cuss word, not drinking in January. I'm also going to try and make a plan for my life, and I've been doing some research into that today, so we will see if I can actually go through with it this time! Finally I will try and update my blog more regularly. YES!

Back home!

2008-12-15T17:30:00.002Z

I'm back home! Where did the term go? I can't believe Christmas is in ten days time! If only I had those ten days off - I've brought all my work with me!

It's funny how familiar and strange it is to be home all at once. I guess cos I've only really been back for a day or so in the last 2.5 months that lots of things seem different. New furniture, ways of laying things out, routines in the house etc. Nothing too major but it's enough for it to feel different. At the same time, it's lovely to be back in my own bed and to have the wealth of food and general stuff that I have at home. And obviously to see my Mum and Dad, who are just the same, but lovely to chatter with.

Coming home makes me feel all holiday like, and also makes me feel like now's the time to unwind, when in fact it's not, I have lots of work to do this week, namely my DPhil research proposal. However, for some reason, coming home has made me super tired. Actually, that's a lie - I had a very hectic weekend with the Wolfson Ball and all kinds of general fun stuff, so that's probably why I'm tired. Also the house is really hot, which makes me sleepy! Thus today has mostly been admin and resting, but I'm trying to work now (with little success it seems!)

The Ball was brilliant, really bargainous but good fun! I had a dress drama and got in a strop but X was very good and patient and got me to go after all and then it turned out to be lots of fun. We had massages and tarot card readings and watched a really really amateur magician and had chocolate fountains and lots of drinks and enjoyed a swing band and also fun DJ, it was really good fun. And I finally broke through my little barrier with the help of some cherry drops, so I'm feeling good about that too ;)

So this week I need to get my work done before going house-sitting from the weekend, so best get back to focusing. Hope your Christmas shopping is going well and that things are winding down for you!

Monday 9th week - term's done!

2008-12-08T13:52:00.003Z

I have been very naughty and let this blog go to pot. It's now Monday of 9th week - term ends in 8th week, woo, so no classes or lectures until Jan! However, I have loads to do over the break. Happily I've done my Stata assignment (the last one!) so that's one thing off the list. I have a critical essay for research design, which counts towards my final grade, and also a term essay for sociological analysis, which doesn't count but is good exam practice. On top of that I have to study for a stats test right at the start of next term, which counts for 50% of the stats course (the other 50% is made from our three stata assignments). I also need to sort out my DPhil application, and by sort out I mean actually do it. AND I have to get some more research done for my thesis work. So really, a very busy "holiday".

It's cool though because I really like the Christmas holidays and I'm trying to get lots of this done before taking some time off properly. I'm hoping to spend lots of time with X, it's our anniversary and also we might get to do some house-sitting over the break too. The hospital are trying to get my arthoscopy sorted out for December, which might well be cool to be fixed up a bit more, but then it wouldn't be awful not to have it since I'd like to do fun things over December rather than recover from an op.

What else? Been busy with social stuff and end of term stuff, things are livening up, so really I should get focused on getting this work out of the way. But this morning has been a bit of a write-off, so I reckon nap-time and then will try again.

Wow, my life is all about studying now. Well, not completely. I also have my kingdom outside my window, all my bird soldiers and peasants etc. They need attention too.

Week 6 update

2008-11-20T18:47:00.003Z

I thought I would do a spot of blogging, but actually my eye's hurt from looking at the screen, and I have to read some articles for research design after this, so I guess I'll keep it short.

What's new? Nothing really. STATA assignments keep us busy, along with Sociological Analysis essays. Busy weekend rushing about seeing old friends, playing football, going dancing for a friend's birthday, chilling out with X, just spending time really. Boy do I love weekends though!

It's almost 7th week, can't believe the time has gone so fast. Went to London last night to hang out with X, was lovely. Have brought X's bike up here so we can cycle around together, good for health, pocket and the environment!

Scored a cracking header off a corner last weekend and got "chihuahua of the match", which was totally cool!

Repaired one puncture for the whole session at the bike workshop on Tuesday, but did it in the end, so feel good about that! Am on for my first shift on the bar rota tonight, which should be exciting, except I've forgotten all the things we learnt at training, so it might be tricky, but hopefully I'll get the hang of it ok.

Refereeing's going ok, I'm mainly doing it for the money, but I do appreciate the run around, and also a good game of football (if it works out that way). JCR games have mostly been really good; MCR less so, but I'm not doing them really any more, so that's cool.

Right, best get to work, but will do my best to update sooner in future. Oh and I watched The Bourne Identity for the first time on DVD yesterday, and it was really good, so now I can't wait to see the other two!

Working in the library

2008-11-08T13:09:00.001Z

I am in Wood Green library. This is very exciting for me, mainly because it is the middle of a Saturday and it's REALLY BUSY, all over the computer area and in the quiet study area (where I am ) and also in the books sections too. I'm pleased, I like it when a community uses a library! What I like most about the people around where I am sitting is that there is such a huge demographic of old and young and ethnic minorities. Everyone seems to be working hard on various things. I also particularly like the presence of school-age kids, mainly sixth formers I imagine, who are studying too, and helping each other.

This library is a good working environment, it's warm and well-lit and spacious and airy and there is a good atmosphere of work. I am pleased with it, and pleased that we have libraries like this in this country, and any old joe can just walk in and enjoy the facilities, particularly the free wireless, brilliant! I am loving using free wireless all over the shop (at X's house where they are using a nearby neighbour's, a bit wrong, but still, and also on the Oxford Tube).

Anyway, I best get to work as X will be back from the lunch thing later and I want to get this done before that. We are going to fireworks tonight and then to a BBQ Halloween party, wooooooo!

Some stuff that's been happening

2008-11-06T18:05:00.002Z

I don't usually work on Thursday nights, well, not properly anyway, but I'm pretty busy this weekend + lots of the readings are books (which luckily I have managed to get a hold of) so thought I'd better make a start.

What's new? Been refereeing still, that's going pretty well. Working hard. Went to London last night to try and watch the fireworks at Clapham Common with X, except the traffic and then awful delays on the underground meant I was too late and so we missed it. We were all grizzly but then cheered up after some KFC, naughty but yum.

Stayed up really late on Tuesday for the elections, which were super exciting, although had a bit too much to drink, which meant I couldn't write my essay, as originally intended, hence having to scrape bits together on the coach journeys to and from London. Am super pleased Obama made it - it's funny how something like this can be so moving, I don't really know why, it all just seems so hopeful, as if things could really change for the world. I hope they can. I hope he can do it.

Also helped out on the bike workshop on Tuesday, which was cool, I like fixing things, plus it's good to know a few things about bikes and how to fix them.

Went shopping today for the first time since being in Oxford (not food shopping, actual shopping). The town is getting Christmassy and it was pretty busy. Bought some absolute bargains, including fun stuff for X to celebrate the GAMSAT scores! Also sat and had some tea and read the paper in the common room, which was nice, it's good to chill a bit sometimes. Someone was playing Moonlight Sonata in the piano room, which was a lovely accompaniment, I love that piece.

Oooh I forgot to say, I scored the first goal for Wolfson at our game on Saturday, and it was so much fun! I played in goal for the second half, and my knee held it together, and it was just so cool to be playing again. I won joint player of the match, and we have a little chihuahua to play with for the week (except I've not seen it yet, the other winner has it!) Alongside that X and I had the most lovely weekend full of fun times, even plodding in the rain for ages was fun - we did lots of cooking and relaxing stuff, and it was just cool to know that our time wasn't fleeting as it usually is. Mmm, happy.

Ok, that's about it, except Spurs are having a revival and I hope they keep it up!

What's been going on?

2008-10-29T22:36:00.002Z

Wow, it's been aaaaages since I last posted! What's been going on, you may well ask. Well, I've been super busy with academic work and then extra-curriculars in my spare time, so really I've just had no time.

Work's been going well - our schedule is pretty packed and there's loads of work to do, but I'm trying to be disciplined and stay on top of it. It's really interesting though and I think I'm doing well so far so that's good.

Been spending lots of time with X and also playing a bit of footy (naughty, I know, I really shouldn't, but I want to so much!) and also doing lots of reffing (I can't really not ref as I need the spending money). All in all things are well. Except I have a cold, but fingers crossed that'll pass soon.

Have thought a bit about my thesis, but not so much as to actually be able to do anything with it yet. Am thinking now thinking about finding out the value of the A-Level with regards to those people who do their A-Levels but then don't go on to uni - does it make them more productive/able to demand a better wage/get a better job? Could be interesting and there's probably a lot of analysis I could do there.

Went to the fruit & veg market in Gloucester Green this morning, which was ace since I hadn't been there for years. Bought lots of good stuff, which bodes well for my new "cooking regime" (a bit of experimentation never hurt anyone...so long as food poisoning can be protected against!)

Right, have just finished up my STATA (IT statistics programme) project so am gonna reward myself with a bit of MOTD - Spurs drew with Arsenal in a super dramatic game, woohoo!

Quick weekend update

2008-10-19T20:43:00.003+01:00

Sunday evening. Aaah. It is second week already, how comes? Where has the time gone?

Have had a lovely weekend not doing any work, which means lots of it in the week to come, but none for now. Spent most of my time with X, making bread in the bread maker and playing lots of sports, so was in a bit of a funk cos of the comedown after the weekend today, but playing some squash and helping a mate unpack sorted that out. My calves really ache from refereeing yesterday (which was a bit dramatic, but worthwhile nonetheless) and also playing a bit of college footy, which was loads of fun (fingers crossed the knee holds out). So have done lots of sports, which makes all the feasting justified.

Spurs are doing shockingly in the premiership, still rock-bottom and just lost to the 19th placed team. We are yet to win a match, it is getting a wee bit hairy. Hmm.

Ok, I have to run to see if anyone will turn up for Scrabble club tonight. Not entirely sure they will, but better try and see! Have a good week!

Classes and stuff

2008-10-16T17:12:00.002+01:00

So I've been very busy, what with it being 1st week and all. Lots of classes and work and reading and new society meetings and dinners etc. Nice and busy, I like it.

Had my first Sociological Analysis class today. Managed to do most of the reading, so felt pretty prepared, but once the class started I realised my essay was actually full of rubbish, whoops. That said, I think I did ok in the actual class, having had previous experience of the argumentative and on the spot pressure style of tutorials. Lots of other people looked kinda caught out, but once I realised he was choosing people to answer questions, I got my answers and points across early so I could avoid the trickier stuff! It was a difficult essay though, especially since it had a fair bit of economics in it as well as sociology, so that could've stumped people. Still, now we know what to expect, next week should be easier.

Apart from that had a tough and long stats class in the computer lab yesterday. Again it was a pretty steep learning curve, especially for people who had no experience of programming. Hopefully it'll get easier, but it was just taught so badly yesterday, in my opinion, that it scared people. Everyone looked totally stressed etc. but people seemed a bit calmer today.

I've noticed that masters students are a lot more serious and hardworking than regular undergrads. Maybe cos we're all paying lots of money to learn this stuff? I dunno. I like the challenge but am not into competing with people, I'd rather more collaboration.

Ok, better run, have lots more society meetings to get to. There's so much to do here that I wish I had more time! Not to mention even more work for next week...roll on the weekend!

Lots of Work!

2008-10-13T21:33:00.002+01:00

Phew. I have just finished a super-long reading list. I'm in the library. People are still working. We have a lot of work to do. Phew.

Thought I'd do a little relaxation through the medium of blogging. Particularly salient as I went to a seminar today on Networks and how people use different types of media to maintain contact with one another. Apparently the people who you are closest to don't necessarily get the most contact from you. Also, there are some people who have very small personal networks and use only a few media to keep in touch, whereas others are "heavy users" and are considered hubs of planning and contact.

I wish I had loads of time to attend seminars as they are all on random but very interesting and specific areas of research. Far better than lectures, which are pretty generic. Although I am a bit biased in that today we went to a scary one on statistics and the computer programme we have to learn to use (50% of that module is based on three assignments on Stata, the programme, and the other 50% is based on a 2 hour written exam in 0th week next term, yuck!).

I have pretty much been working today. Caught up with a few people, but my schedule is so busy (especially with the reintroduction of a 4 hour computer lab on Weds) that work is DOMINATING. Plus it's 1st week and no-one really knows what they are doing or how they are doing it yet!

Aside from that Oxford has been really beautiful and autumnal today. I am liking being in a north Oxford college (when I have my bike) because I can escape to the quiet of a more residential, and some might say rural, area. I was whipping my way through the leaves that have been falling like rain here, and I could hear the birds, and the kids from the Dragon School chattering away, and it was just lovely. Plus I gave myself a pat on the back for going shopping before lectures this morning, and not using any carrier bags and cycling there and back, making me feel eco-cool. It's much easier to be in control of that here.

Anyway, I'm going to go and chill for a bit. No doubt will be back with more tales of work soon.

On the bus

2008-10-12T18:26:00.003+01:00

I am sitting on the Oxford Tube on my way back to college. The tube (underground) journey was pretty rubbish, what with my losing of an Oyster last week (meaning that to transfer the lost balance I had to tap in at a certain tube station) and then part closures on the central and jubilee lines, and then the silly oyster machines debiting too much money due to rail replacement confusions. I finally made it to Victoria but the journey took more than twice the usual time, yuck. Still, I am half an hour away from Oxford proper so nearly there now.

I must say technology has advanced a lot since the last time I was at uni, doing this same occasional commute between Oxford and London. The coach has wireless on it (which is how comes I get to do this on the road) and also plug sockets. I have a new laptop that actually works, so whilst updating this blog I can also play on facebook and check my emails. My phone is plugged in and charging too, so really despite being on the bus, I am as contactable as in Oxford (not including actual face-to-face communication. But then, who does that any more??)

I started doing some work earlier in the journey but then fell asleep. I have my first essay due on Thursday. Interestingly it is about sociological analysis i.e the research and analysis and evidence itself rather than what the theories say. We were told how to write an essay (something that never happened during three years of undergraduate work!) and I've been able to download lots of the articles from the reading list on to my laptop meaning I don't have to sit in the library as much. Despite these advancements, I am still not quite putting work at the top of my list. It's closer to the top though.

Apart from impending academic work, I went to a brilliant day of seminars on Football in the Social Sciences, which consisted of all kinds of junior-ish academics presenting their various economic and sociological theories regarding phenomena in football. For example I saw some really interesting work on match-fixing and the Italian football scandals. I also enjoyed the talk on the decline in the home advantage in premiership football (they attributed it to the televisation of football, but I'm not so sure). In any case, it was cool to see people putting theory and evidence together when it comes to football - it was inspiring to see academics combining their passions.

Last night X and I went to see Zorro at the Garrick Theatre in Leicester Square. It was awesome! Lots of the music was by the Gypsy Kings so we were loving the songs and dancing, especially the Spanish guitar. The cast was excellent, particularly the Gypsy Queen, and the script was funny and serious at the same time. I loved all the stunts such as the fire juggling and the rope swinging (from all over the theatre, including over the heads of the audience), but my favourite scenes had sword-fighting in them, which had been wonderfully choreographed but with real swords so you could hear them clinking and see the sparks fly, wow! We had great seats right near the front courtesy of lastminute.com's half price ticket deals (making the tickets practically two for the price of one when you ignore the booking fee!) It was lovely to have an evening like that too, with dinner and the theatre and then drinks afterwards, it was a proper date.

Ok, my battery is low so best sign off. Have a good week!

Busy in Oxford

2008-10-07T18:23:00.002+01:00

I'm in Oxford! And that is why I haven't been posting. I've been busy. Two full days of induction into the Sociology department and lots of work and reading and things to sort out already. Phew, good thing it's almost dinner time.

I've settled into college well and made myself be a little bit sociable, which has been good. Freshers' week is loads different this time round in that there seem to be fewer big opportunities to get everyone together, but then on the other hand it doesn't matter as much to try and fit in and meet everyone etc. People are much more relaxed and so we can just get on with things.

I've met two of my flatmates, who seem nice although I hardly know anything about them at all. Have also met lots of people from my course (there are 28 doing the MSc this year, which is loads!) Some of them are super keen and some of them are super shocked by all the stuff they've been overloaded with. My respect for international students continues to grow, especially those who come from a country where English isn't the first language - how brave and dramatic to come over here! I'm really glad to be returning to Oxford because loads of things are already much easier (you forget how much you've absorbed over the years, and also how nice it is to have a supportive family and people you already know and who will help you out over here). Hopefully all those people will settle in and be ok here too.

What else? Last week was ace, some good educational fun at MyBnk, and some great dinners too. I had loooooads of curry, but it was nice to eat it with X in Brick Lane, and also to see my maths department again (they're all just the same so it was awesome to see them, but then after that I did really miss school, especially after having a cheeky pint with Rosie). Saw the girls on Friday night too, which was good fun, but they are all fed up with work and looking to change jobs etc. It's the quarter-life crisis that seems to be hitting them all at the moment. I'm more than glad not to be in the city, that's for sure. Had a mini bit of drama on Friday night with X after seeing Mohs in the morning and realising I have quite a few things I need to sort out and be better about. Am still mostly ignoring it, but I reckon this year will sort a lot of things out and then I will have to be brave and just get on with it.

Right, it's dinner time and then we have a little pub quiz, and I wanna crack on with some work too because I'll be back in London later this week, so will sign off now. Hope all is well with you.

Back in Oxford!

2008-09-30T14:53:00.002+01:00

But about to go back to London!

No, not cos it's bad or anything...I'm working tomorrow at MyBnk.

So, I know I was supposed to be blogging more regularly, thus I figured I'd better make a quick note before I jetted, or I should say coached, off. In my defence again, my laptop was packed up and I was very busy before I moved up late Sunday afternoon, and have only just managed to get the internet working in my room, so really my turnaround time hasn't been too shoddy at all!

I'm at Wolfson College, which is a big graduate college in the north end of Oxford (between Jericho-ish and Summertown). Its a 1960s/1970s college and so the buildings have that style to them (not quite the impressive overbearing nature of Keble's red brick!) but inside it's beautiful. I have a lovely room in the Main Buildings on what is quaintly known as Tree Quad (even though the other side has far more trees than this quad). Best of all it's been entirely renovated and all the furniture and kitchen appliances are brand new! I have an en suite bathroom with a tiny shower (still, MY shower) and also a balcony with the most gloriously green view! I can see the river and the island (Wolfson has a little island) and a little bridge and a big bridge and the punt jetty and, best of all, a meadow across the river where cows can be found grazing! Countryside style, yeah! When compared to the proximity of the houses and the small garden full of building stuff at home, well, this is just wonderful.

So far no-one else has moved into my flat (there are four rooms, but Freshers' Week doesn't start until next week, so they could be coming at any time) but the room rent is quite pricey (£17.25 a day or £120.75 a week) so maybe I'll have it all to myself?? Unlikely, heehee. It'll be nice to have some flatmates if they are nice, else I will have to work hard to mould them.

What else? I've met a few doctoral students and a couple of other new guys too, who have all been nice. I've been hanging out a bit with MT (who has been a superstar in helping me settle in!) and her friends, who are all funny and lovely and smart. They did the Telegraph cryptic crossword last night, which was awesome since I always completely skip over the cryptic as something much too hard, but in fact it seems like something I could do after all. We had dinner in hall and went up to the common room afterwards, which is a nice way to wind down on an evening. Apart from that I've been setting up my room and unpacking and sorting various things out and filling in forms etc. The most exciting thing is putting my name on the waiting list for a college allotment! Hopefully I won't have to wait too long (there ARE two people in front of me though). Also watching the ducks swim in the river, doing some recycling, and generally finding my way around. There are loads of kids here (there's family accommodation in college, which is great!) and also two cats, bless.

So yes, so far so good. Am back in London for a little while now, with work and family and various social engagements (although no longer a knee appointment - grrr they've cancelled my operation so I'm back on the waiting list, rubbish!) but will return for Freshers' week. Will do my best to give you an update then.

Vancouver!

2008-09-21T20:33:00.006+01:00

Hello hello hello! It's me again, I'm back, and this time ready to keep my blog up-to-date, after that slight hiatus over the summer.

So, first things first: Vancouver. Brilliant!

Good things:

The people: so laid back and liberal and friendly - returning to London and its relative misery was a bit of a shocker (not to mention the cold over here!)
The surroundings: mountains, ocean, trees and lots of sun cos we were lucky
Vancouver Island - amazing, especially Qualicum Beach, Cathedral Grove and Tofino (where we went whale watching and I saw my first ever proper whale out in the ocean, wow!)
Kitsilano - the whole area, like Notting Hill, only less in your face
University of British Columbia - a lovely campus
Wreck Beach - a nudist beach at UBC, hahaha
Stanley Park - huge and all along the coast, with lots to do and see, and so much space to walk in, and nature right there in front of you
Aquarium - all the stuff in tanks were great, although I felt a bit sorry for the beluga whales, orcas, and other large creatures. The butterfly room was brilliant though!
The bus and transport system - really efficient and effective, although I guess Vancouver IS smaller so it's easier to cater for
Food - I love food and I love all the delicious pancakes and waffles and biscuits and sugary things, and also all the multi-cultural food too, yum!

Could have been better things:

Walking around China Town and near Main Street - this area is dodgy, you can sense the poverty and also there is a general feeling of edginess in the area, like anything could happen. Didn't feel happy there at all. Even in the day time it felt dodgy, so imagine our mistake of wandering through the first time late one evening! Luckily we found a restaurant quickly, and the bus system is good so we got out of there straight after supper!
Museum of Anthropology - now I'm sure most people found this awesome, and we would have too, except that it closed for renovation for six months starting the day before we landed and so we couldn't go! I was gutted as all the tour books really rated it, and it sounded really good, especially with regards to its work on First Nations people. Oh well, an excuse to go next time.
Money - the falling pound meant we needed lots more money than we thought we would, plus Vancouver IS quite pricey. Still, we spent well and had a good time!

Hmm, I have just had a super long and hilarious conversation with a ex-TFer and now I can't remember my thread at all. I'm sure that's enough stuff to tempt you into visiting Vancouver anyway. X and I had a brilliant time so hopefully you will too.

Right, so next Sunday I move up to Oxford for the week before term starts so this week will mostly be packing and organising and catching up with people. Where does the time go eh?

I'm Back!

2008-09-18T20:54:00.002+01:00

I'm busy listening to Spurs play Krakow in the UEFA Cup plus I have clicky wrists, so just a quick note to say that I'm back safe and sound from a brilliant holiday in Vancouver, and that I'm getting ready to go up to Oxford next weekend (oooh exciting!). So fear not, faithful readers, the blog will be back to normal shortly, so keep your eyes peeled (what a gross phrase).

Culture Shock

2008-09-02T10:05:00.003+01:00

It is one day to my holiday, woo! However, annoyingly, I forgot about my final Learning Log. The deadline was yesterday, thus this morning I have some work to do. In keeping with tradition, I will ramble on my blog first.

Yesterday was little brother's 21st birthday, I can't believe it! It was a pretty quiet affair - my dad had some of his friends from work round for dinner, but lil bro had lost of work etc. to do, plus he doesn't really like socialising with family-type people, so he made several swift escapes. I baked him a cake though, hopefully he'll like it when he tries it today. Both my other brother and I had huge family 21st birthday parties but lil bro refused. He missed out on some good fun in my opinion!

My dad's friends are from India and it was really interesting and odd to meet them. Really, I think I was a little bit prejudiced. Against the men at least. They all smoked and treated me like a servant person (one of them even handed me his dinner plate when he had finished eating and then stated that he wanted some water!) and also said that in their houses they don't do any of the housework etc. I am really glad I live here and not in India, where it seems even educated people treat women as inferior.

Coincidentally I was just reading a book of short stories/mini snapshots of the lives of various young asian females who live in Britain. Lots of them talk about the difficulties of trying to balance two cultures. I guess I am really Westernised so I find it hard to even accept some of the cultural traditions that maybe people born and raised in India/Sri Lanka would do. Maybe I'm just a bit spoilt?

My mum told me a story that made me sad, about how when she first came to the country, she had to live in a one-room bedsit with my dad, and she only just knew him, and she had no job and no friends here (there were no tamil people) and so when he went to college everyday, she'd be all along for the whole day with nothing to do. And she used to have to wash her hair in hot water cos it was so cold here, and also because they had to put money in a meter to get hot water and she didn't want to waste it because they were really poor, so all her hair used to fall out (she had a lovely thick long plait of black shiny hair when she first came here, which she used to wash in cold water back in Sri Lanka). So she used to sit at home everyday and collect up her fallen out hair and make a plait and just cry with sadness and homesickness. The culture shock must have been huge, plus in those times they were poor and there were no phones up in the village where my mum's parents were, so she was so far away from them and couldn't even speak to them. I don't know if I would have been able to get through that homesickness, but she did. She said that she used to look at apples in the market but was too shy to ask my dad to buy them so she just used to be quiet. I can't imagine that now, she is so out-spoken, but back when she was a brand new young girl from Sri Lanka, well maybe that was how she was. Such a shame about having to be all alone at home when she was a fully-qualified doctor - stupid bureaucracy. Still, she is happy now and she has her own surgery and now my parents have everything, so really I can see how we are spoilt because we will never have to (touch wood) go through the kind of struggles and strains and sadness that they did.

Sometimes I wonder if it would have been easier for us if we'd just grown up in Sri Lanka because them maybe we wouldn't feel so lost between two worlds. I don't know though, when I think about the civil war and some of the poverty and "trappedness" I've seen over there, I just now that we are so lucky to have all that we have, and I couldn't give it up.

Right, to work with me. If I don't post before it, have a lovely short break without me, and I'll be back after Vancouver!

Holiday time!

2008-08-31T19:36:00.002+01:00

I'm back! After being a bit slack with the ol' blog, I'm making a new effort to update more regularly. This will be easier in approximately one month's time, when I go back up to Oxford, as then I should hopefully be a wee bit more free, and life may be off more interest to you. Heehee, it's obviously always of interest to me :)

We've been doing lots of Tamil-type stuff this weekend - hosting some Tamil concert singers and then a wedding today. It's been quite full on, but good fun, and good feasting too! My mum is an excellent good and yesterday lunch was awesome (in particular tamarind rice and fried fish, yum yum!).

In other news, I am finally unemployed! Well, I have one day outstanding of consultancy work at MyBnk, but apart from that I won't be working again until around Christmas time, and then only if I need to. I guess I will need to as this MSc is costing loads of money - uni fees and college fees alone come to about six grand, which is a third of a year's NQT salary, yikes!

On Wednesday I am off to Vancouver for a little holiday, should be awesome, I can' wait! Have been browsing my guidebooks so we should have an action-packed time over there. I especially want to visit the aquarium, the museum of anthropology, and also the beach and gulf islands. Yeah, holiday!

I'll leave you with this article, which made me laugh, and has also given me yet another thing that I'm interested in researching - the public's attitude to state education. The author of this piece seems like one of the may people who view education as glorified baby-sitting. I love how she complains about what to do with her kids in the summer and how she wouldn't know what to do with them if she had to have them around any longer. Take a minute for the poor teachers who spend all year with them! My favourite line is towards the end, when she starts harping on about how the government should have more discipline when it comes to the scheduling of the school year - maybe she should have some discipline over her teenagers, then she wouldn't be so resentful over their summer activities!

Last day of term. Err, I mean work.

2008-08-22T12:17:00.002+01:00

Woo hoo! It's Friday! And it's about to be Bank Holiday weekend! Woo hoo!

It's my last day at my temping job too, so really I feel like it's holiday time! I've conveniently forgotten that I've got one more week of work after the weekend (but that's at a social enterprise company - MyBnk - and it's to do with teaching type stuff, so that could be interesting).

I'm house-sitting at the moment out in Goldhawk Road with Mouche, which is ace fun, it's so cool to have some space and live a bit more independently. The flat is beautiful and really cosy with loads of books and CDs and stuff like that. AND it's a garden flat, so sitting out in the sun yesterday with cups of tea was wonderful.

Apart from that I've been pretty busy seeing people and just having summer fun, apart from the complete lack of sun of course. I can't remember if I mentioned that I went on the ward round last week, which was super interesting, and sad. After that I felt like becoming a psychiatrist, but this week there have been so many bonkers incidents that I don't think I could do it after all.

Last point of note - there's a cat called Stripey Pants, which is really used to the house we're sitting at, and just comes in and stuff, and yesterday I totally freaked out and thought it was coming to get me. Usually I like cats, I mean, I'm not super touchy-feely with them, but still, I get on with them. But yesterday I couldn't bear it, it was so odd. I have decided that I was just a bit stressed and took it out on the cat (stressed because I broke their curtains, accidentally of course, but now want to fix them and can't so it bugs me).

I looked up the word neurotic yesterday. I think this is what I am.

Weeeeeeekend!

On the job training!

2008-08-12T11:43:00.001+01:00

It is eleven o’clock and I am listening to Radio 4 and sipping a nice cup of Earl Grey. I could be a middle-aged lady. Perhaps I am. In fact, I have just been visited by a middle-aged lady – one year off retirement, so maybe more than middle-aged. She is one of the other med secs and she’s nice enough but really rather bitter about her work and life. Her conversation is littered with expletives, which are spat out with such force that I like her less.

I have completed my work for the day (so far anyway). I have done well to stretch out that work for these two hours as really I could have done it in about 20 minutes. In any case, I feel I am now suitably free enough to document the events of yesterday afternoon, namely the ward round and SHO supervision.

The ward round is when the consultant goes and meets the patients and chats with them about their progress and treatment plan. We met a young lady, who looked so sad and pitiful and a product of her history that I crumpled a bit inside. She was admitted after setting fire to her apartment as she thought there were spy cameras in there, through which people could watch her, and ultimately clone her. She was on crack cocaine at the time and in the past has been a heroine and cocaine addict. She left school at fourteen and her baby has been taken into care. She lives in council housing and was given the crack by a man who comes to take photos of her to put on a website (you know the kind I mean). The doctor thought that maybe she had a psychotic episode through the crack. She said she had to drink and take crack to help her stop thinking about her problems. During the ward round she seemed reasonably upbeat and wanted to sort things out for herself. All they could really do for it seemed was to give her advice and contacts to help her e.g. adult literacy classes, drug rehab, council housing phone numbers etc. She won’t be discharged until the end of the week.

The consultant told me that a lot of the time the inpatients get better by themselves, or with a bit of medication, once their episodes are finished. The hospital gives them some time out from society and reality, with people who are focused on their care and wellbeing, so that they can feel strong enough to get better. For the manic patients it is a calm place where they can just be more controlled.

I was looking at the ward list and listening to the briefing meeting and so much of it just made me sad about how these people have come to where they are and what was wrong with them. Granted we are in a deprived area but really for people to go through some of the things that seem to happen here is just inexcusable.

On a more positive note, the new SHOs have started in the department and so yesterday I got to sit on a supervision. We learnt about mental state examinations and the five indicators people check for. These are: mood, energy levels, suicide risk, hallucinations, and delusions (thought disorders). Delusions were postponed until next week because apparently they are the most complicated. For the other four there were loads of definitions and case studies to talk about. Really it seems you can only properly link all the different aspects together after you’ve seen lots and lots of patients and so you know what symptoms constitute what illness. Most interesting to me was the discussion of suicide risk. Apparently a lot of patients say they are a suicide risk but you don’t really need to take them seriously unless they have a plan i.e. have thought through the logistics of their intentions. Otherwise they have only vague ideas, which aren’t so much to worry about. The exception to this, obviously, is the impulsive suicide candidate. In both cases there is usually a precipitating, or trigger, factor, which will set off the suicide, or in some cases, save the patient. The doctor gave the example of a woman who was going to jump in front of train, but decided to have just one last cigarette before plunging, and then by the time she had finished her fag, she had changed her mind. Who would’ve thought cigarettes saved lives?! Another interesting thing we learnt was how the expression “one for the road” came about. It seems that there used to be a prison on Tottenham Court Road, and prisoners that were sentenced to death were hanged down at Marble Arch, so when they had their last drink it was to pluck up the courage to make the long walk down Oxford Street. Again, interestingly, there is a lower risk of homicide amongst mentally ill patients compared with the general population – so low in fact that the risk of homicide is hardly ever formally assessed unless the patient has a forensic history.

The stuff on hallucinations was also really interesting. Hallucinations are perceptual abnormalities i.e. people actually sense these things through touch, sight, hearing etc. Sufferers don’t normally have gustatory, kinaesthetic or olfactory hallucinations – auditory and visual hallucinations are far more common. Hallucinations are a major symptom of paranoid schizophrenia. It was interesting to hear that normally when sufferers hear voices they are simply commenting on what is going on e.g. the voice might say “you’re typing, good, you’re typing” or something like that. The voices are supposedly without emotion or inflection and speak very simply i.e. no clauses or conditions or complicated syntax structures. Sometimes they can even be positive – when people hear “nice” voices it can be difficult to treat them (the doctor said he only treated people who were actually in distress, and not if they didn’t want him to). Normally the voices are not positive though – they are either neutral or derogatory. Often they encourage the sufferer to harm him/herself which is why there is a big risk of self-harm amongst schizophrenic patients. The doctor gave many examples of patients he had had who experienced hallucinations, especially those with alcohol withdrawal symptoms (the ones who see snakes and spiders and all of that).

The final thing I looked at yesterday was a twenty-four page document by a manic patient about how he was going to save all the world’s problems through crying and having a nervous breakdown. It really was a rant of the most fabulous proportions, ridiculously grandiose (he mentions marrying Barbara Bush, and also being given $15 million from the US Government) and repetitive. Mostly I found it sad, that this man was so convinced he could fix the world. Imagine being in such a frenzy and imagine the pressure you could put on yourself at that point. No wonder manic episodes are often followed by major depressions.

Right Radio 4 are doing a programme on controversial books, maybe I’ll have a listen.

Good weekend, and another week at work

2008-08-11T10:09:00.002+01:00

So it is Monday again. Another week and weekend have zoomed past. I don't know where the time is going. Luckily I'm not back at school in September, else I would be a bit panicked that THREE WEEKS of the summer have already gone, meaning only half of the holiday is left. Not so for me thought, woo!

I'm at work, but I've done it all, and so I'm wondering how I can secretly read my book/sleep without being noticed.

Weekend was lovely and busy. Disney crew were down from Oxford so we had a nice reunion; went to a fancy pants family thing with X, which was full-on (in a good way) and awesome to be part of; missed some birthdays though, whoops. Will have to make apology phone calls about that.

Aside from that then, haven't been at home all weekend, and so am unsure about this week and what I have to do. I know I have quite a few fun things to do though, so I guess I will consider myself on holiday :) Perhaps I will go to the gym a bit though, what with almost being ready to cancel my membership and all. Really I'm getting old though, my hip and knee are playing up, hohoho. I wish I could still play football, that would be fantastic.

Speaking of which, the Premiership starts again next weekend, WOOOHOOOO! Oh, except I have a weekend of wedding action, thus negating chances of watching live games, boo, but at least Match of the Day will be back.

Anyway, I better save my typing fingers in case I have some actual work to do. Happy Monday!

No desk job for me

2008-08-07T19:52:00.003+01:00

I shouldn't really be typing now. After a loooong day of tapping away at a keyboard writing up various clinics etc. the last thing my poor fingertips need is more clacking.

Just a quick one though to say my rage was short-lived and I am back to chirpy. I watched a Beautiful Mind, which was awesome and just let all the rage go (mainly because the rage on the screen was worse).

Also I thought it worthy of note to say that after sitting down all day and typing for the past 11 working days I can safely say a desk job is not for me. The only good thing is finishing and then leaving your work behind you. I don't like commuting or being quiet at a desk all day or sitting down. In fact my arms and wrists and back and legs HURT from sitting down and typing away. So this is the end of this post.

Roll on the weekend! Super busy fun, woo!

Stupid phone companies and people

2008-08-05T18:13:00.003+01:00

I am in a rage! Grrrrrrr!

I am currently on hold to Three Customer Services, having already been on the phone for ages to stupid Dial-a-phone Customer Services to cancel a contract that I didn't even order! Well, they sold it to me as an upgrade, except apparently it's not possible for them to do upgrades, so now I have two phones and two SIM cards and two numbers and two direct debits and loads of stupid bureaucracy to go through to undo it all...and all because the stupid cheating salesman told me one thing when he quite patently knew he was wrong and was lying and just did it anyway, what a knob!

So now it has cost me premium rate to get through to their Customer Services, and then I have to send the phone back at Special Delivery Rates, and then I have to pay some random connection charge bill, and then I have to cancel the phone insurance I didn't even want but had to take, and then I end up where I started before I had even tried to upgrade i.e. on hold except considerably more pissed off and out of pocket. It's all a con, I swear it. Plus they spelled my name wrong, idiots. And they charged me £23 for a bluetooth that I don't even have so now how can I return it to get my money back?

This is the highlight of a pretty mediocre day. The weather is gloomy and so it makes sense for all this hassle. I am also pissed off because I had a knee appointment today, where the Consultant I was referred to told me I shouldn't have been referred to him because he can't do the procedure I need, and so he is referring me back to where I was originally referred from 5 months ago, how stupid is that?!

Really I think I am fed up with all the ridiculous systems we have and why can't people just do their damn jobs and be a bit honest and stop passing the buck rather than trying to screw over the average person on the street?

Hmmmm. I am a bit jaded I think. That is probably what comes from doing someone else's work while they take super long tea breaks and chat on the phone. It is also what happens when loads of scummy people swear and argue on the bus and when the company you are working for doesn't send you a timesheet so you have been working for free and again noone will just do the simple part of their job so you can get on and do yours.

On a positive note, I did see a shade on a car with a smiley cat face on it that made me laugh. So maybe all is not doom and gloom after all.

Monday again

2008-08-04T22:35:00.003+01:00

Points of note:

1. My laptop is fixed (just about!).
2. I'm thoroughly enjoying my new hobby - learning about psychiatry.
3. I am getting more broke - have not yet been paid for my temp job + I had to fork out a LOT of money today in prepayments and fees for uni.
4. I am a bit scared about uni but also excited but also scared but also excited. Phew.
5. I spent ALL weekend with X, literally, and we saw Wall-E, which was hilarious, and we went shopping and we played jigsaw and we cooked/feasted lots, and had a great time generally. I am pretty much besotted here.
6. I finished Psalm 119 and now am battling between Othello and Midnight's Children.
7. I have a knee appointment tomorrow, where I'll hopefully get my surgery date, and hopefully this won't clash with my work or my trip to Vancouver. Fingers crossed.
8. I have a new phone contract after not realising mine had expired in May so I was back to paying full price for no benefit (this is what happens when you choose paper-less billing!). I get my new phone tomorrow and am hoping it won't be a hassle but instead be the bargain it has sold itself as being.

That is all really. Oh, except I chopped my hair quite a lot shorter, so now it looks like a crazy big Afro, which is partly cool and partly annoying as it can't be controlled AT ALL. Heehee, it's fun for summer!

Another week of summer

2008-07-28T19:22:00.004+01:00

Monday evening. It appears my once daily blog has deteriorated into a weekly ramble. Apologies readers, I really am trying to keep this up, it's just that my laptop has lost its Internet connection, so I can only blog when my folks' computer is free.

Also I am lazy. And enjoying summer. And having fun. And then realising that I have forgotten to obsessively document all of this on my blog. Whoops.

It was 30 degrees today, wooooo! Actually, that's a bit too hot, particularly if you're in an office being teased with the use of a fan, which you then can't plug in because there are no spare plug sockets. Also it's too hot if you only have a winter office wardrobe and thus have to resort to black trousers and long-sleeved shirts. It's odd I don't really have any summer wear, given that we had a "summer" term and all. Anyway, I made my peace with the heat by walking around barefoot and eating lots of oranges, yum yum.

Apart from working semi-hard (I left at 3:45pm today, I find it near on impossible to work after 3:30pm, my mind just starts to shut down) I have been busy trying to get fit again after realising that eating lots of junk, drinking lots of beer, and generally being slothful isn't the best way to stay in shape. I'm also reading this, which one of my friend's wrote, and to whose book launch I attended last week. I can't really remember what else I did last week, I spent most of it with X, so it kinda went by in a blur. I think I won a lot of things though (apart from the moon points game, where whoever spots the moon first wins. I am so bad at this, I think the moon hides when I am looking).

Oh yeah, I remember, my friend Jonno finally got engaged, awesome, how exciting! She will be getting married in winter 2009, but she's been waiting aaaaages to be proposed to, so I'm really pleased for her. Am also pleased with all the family stuff I've been doing, I love doing family stuff (well, most of it, unless it's boring) and also getting the house back in order after the builders etc.

So yeah, generally things are good, just ticking over really. I'm going to go and open my leaving presents now, whoop whoop! They are wrapped in such nice maps of London paper though, I'm going to have to try really hard to keep it nice and pretty.

I'M FREE!!!

2008-07-22T10:09:00.005+01:00

Woooooooooo! I made it! It's the summer holidays and my two years on TF are over!!!!!!

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm so pleased and proud!!!!!!!!

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Wow. I can't believe it really. All that is left is one final learning log and the TF graduation. Wow.

I cleared out my classroom yesterday and it was kinda sad. It reminded me of finishing university and having to empty out the room for the next inhabitant. I left some of the maths posters up, and also random useful things for the new TF-er who'll be based there, but still, it felt odd. Also because it was the first working day of the holidays and I was in school, along with a fair few other teachers, heehee, whoever said teachers worked till 3:30pm was soooo wrong!

You know, it feels really good too, to know that I have stuck at it for two years and actually done some good and useful stuff. The memories and achievements and dramas and tragedies and all the rest of it, they are all there still.

Two years worth of work and laughter and grief. Done.

Right, my laptop is broken and I have loads of other things that need to be done today, so I will come back and post properly later.

But just to remind you.....I'm finished, it's summer, WOOOOOOOOO!

Highlights from the week

2008-07-13T13:37:00.004+01:00

I'm putting off the gym for 20 more minutes because it's been a whole week and no blogging action from me. Time to update this wonderful record of my rambley life.

Good things from the week:

8E stepping up for sports day and doing the business (every single kid in the tutor group bar one took part in one event or another, excellent...fingers crossed we finish well in Year 8)
non-uniform day - yeah I got to wear flip flops!
playing tangrams and Nubble Express with loads of my classes (hope I haven't started the "fun lessons" too soon)
telling all my classes that I'm leaving and them all being sad about it - maybe I'm a good teacher after all
teaching 8E a PSHE lesson based on the role of education in society (something that I taught my Y12s in AS Sociology) and having them respond really well to it
spending most of my weekend with X, and also a midweek meet-up too - aaaah it makes me happy. As does winning two pairs of knickers in a bet over dominoes
reverse parking into a tight tight spot the first time round, and then being told by the parking attendants that I was the best lady parker they'd seen all morning
the end of year staff boat party - a free bar = shocking hangover, but it was loads of fun to celebrate the almost end of year with my colleagues. Not to mention getting muchos compliments for my "bap dress"
having the new TF maths teacher in for his London week, and hearing that having watched all the maths teachers teach, the one he most wanted to be like was me!
seeing my American friend Braden from my summer at Dartmouth, and also reunion-ing with all the kids from our exchange that year
our final TF workshop, which was a bit lame, but so ace to see all of our year, and also to know that we've almost completed the programme, yeeehaaaa!

Not-so-good things

not getting the money back from that ridiculous Wing Security towing my car away - grrrr
being so busy that all the mundane chore type stuff has just not been done
having to a learning log (boring)
still not knowing about my knee operation and so not being able to book anything proper for the summer
waiting for my WWOOF-ing booklet so I can finally contact some people about that

Aside from that, it's been a stellar week, I'm feeling awesome and happy! Five days of school to go, which will be crazy and emotional, but this time next week, well, I'll be at a colleague's BBQ celebrating the end of a mini-era. Hope all is well with you.

Monday - 9 days to go!

2008-07-07T19:52:00.003+01:00

Wow, I am oddly free, and it's partly wonderful and partly overwhelming. Having even a few hours to spare is such a rare sensation that it almost makes me anxious to be that way. Nah, not really, I am enjoying it!

I was meant to be meeting up with a friend who's just come over from the States, but he's totally jet-lagged, so now I am contemplating whether to be productive in this time or just chill. So far the latter is winning, in that I lay down with a book and then promptly fell asleep. That didn't last long though - my house is SO loud + the sun was shining brightly through my window (a nice change from the practically torrential rain that trapped me in school around 5ish) + my phone kept going off, that I decided to just get up. Really I think I need the rest though, I've been pretty hectic the past few days.

Before I give you an update, I'd just like to point out that I wanted to write my blog earlier when I was stuck in school, but Blogger is blocked on the server because it's classified as pornography, how ridiculous! Also, the new TF maths kid started today, bless him, and he seemed so young and fresh and keen, I couldn't believe it. Just now I sent across a lesson template for him, and yesterday I collected up some useful stuff to give him, and it really hit me, how much time and effort and work has gone into these last two years in teaching. So much really.

I've spent a lot of time with X really, every day since last Wednesday, which has been ace. In retrospect it's probably an error to try and invite X to every little thing that I get invited to do, but I can't help it, I'd just rather have my time with X than without. Consequently I feel a bit at a loss today, in that whenever I have a bit of free time, I want to give it to X. I wonder if this is something to worry about...?

Saw Berts on Saturday, was awesome, him and his friends are just so lovely and friendly and fun, I always really enjoy my time with them. He dealt well with my lecturing, or so I thought. It was good seeing Keble kids on Friday and Thursday too, good fun. Have been doing some gym stuff too, good for me. We saw Cous Cous last night, which was sad actually, I think I am a happy ending kinda person, and Cous Cous was far to "real" to have that.

Just noticed that my F key is a bit messed up, boo, I don't want to buy a new laptop yet. Hopefully I won't need to use it so much. Except now it seems I need to use it all the time.

Ok so I think I will do some chores and then have an early night, woo! Ironing here I come...

Nearly NQT!

2008-07-01T19:42:00.002+01:00

I'm listening to MistaJam's show on 1xtra - perfect funky house and bassline tunes for this HOT Tuesday. School was roasting today - the kids were all irritable and whiny cos it was so hot. More of this will clearly happen before the end of term, but it's ok, 13 days left! Plus all the exciting stuff is starting to kick in e.g. sports day, non-uniform day, the summer fete, the charity fun run etc. Woo!

I got my NQT induction forms today, which means I have almost passed this year! Two hurdles remaining - my transition point 3 conversation with my subject mentor (not too tricky) and my NQT folder (more tricky). In theory I can make up some stuff for this folder, and really I don't think it'll be too heavily analysed by my school. In practice though, I need to make it good because my absence total was 28 days (the maximum allowed is 30) meaning the GTC (or whoever scrutinises this stuff) may want to look through it. Hmmm. Should be ok.

Tomorrow is the TF celebration evening, which should be lovely. I think it's about time for TF fix, remind us what we're all fighting for etc. I was kinda reminded today period 4 when I taught the Y12 sociology taster lesson, which was basically an introduction to the course and what it was all about. The kids were pretty enthusiastic and I think I got a lot of them thinking about stuff, so that was good. I enjoyed it actually, making me think really sociology is what I should be teaching.

In final news I am officially a WWOOF member today, and I figure I have enough money to not bother temping that much this summer, so maybe I will WWOOF my time away!

Continuing the weekend aka not working now

2008-06-30T20:02:00.003+01:00

It's just gone 8pm and I am contemplating an early night. I'm pretty tired and the thought of creating my NQT folder isn't that appealing. I have fourteen teaching days to go. FOURTEEN! How crazy is that?! I don't know where the time has gone. I guess though that by the time those 14 days are up this NQT folder needs to exist. Hmmm. It's pretty annoying that the teaching standards changed this year - it means that we can't just use the folder we made last year, with a few changes here and there. Oh well, I suppose I must have made some progress and development this year...

I went to Brussels with X this last weekend and it was lovely. I love Belgian beer and waffles and mussels and chocolate. Food generally. I also like walking around and sleeping in the sun in the park and doing cultural stuff and lying in bed and generally being away, it's ace. My bro went to Glastonbury and said it was wicked so I am adding that to my list of things to do.

Today I did some research, after visiting La Musee des Beaux-Arts, on the crazy dude that is Brueghel. I went to see his Fall of Icarus but was then completely captivated and freaked out by The Fall of the Rebel Angels, which is too bizarre for me to want to post up here. I also did some research on croquet, which I need to write up in the BoK. Really I should have been working on various folders/presentations etc, but I couldn't be worrying about that what with all the fun stuff to. I did however prepare for the Y12 taster lesson on Sociology I'm teaching tomorrow, using this website as my inspiration. Who knew so many movies had a sociological element?

In other news the tutor group were good today despite lots of behaviour drama. R is back from her second 3 day exclusion and immediately playing up. A is 5 days on blue report still (the pre/post exclusion report). C is being excluded from tomorrow, and K is shortly to be excluded. I am convinced my form has had more exclusions/kids leaving than any other. We have two kids transferred in from other forms now though, so the numbers aren't too low (18 in the class on a good day).

That's pretty much it for now, except this rather dramatic horoscope:

Satisfying as it’s been to deal with unsettling issues and personal dilemmas you thought you’d just have to live with, you’ll be relieved to learn that Tuesday’s move by Mars into Virgo ends this demanding cycle. What you’ve learnt while you’ve delved into these tricky situations since early May will prove handy when you must make swift decisions. True, it won’t be until you consider your reactions in retrospect that you’ll realise just how much you’ve changed. Note these developments, since they will fuel the lively discussions — and occasional disagreements — that end this week and begin the next. As far out as what’s being considered seems at first, within days those ideas could become solid plans.

Midday Blog

2008-06-24T13:03:00.004+01:00

I just read this article about "The Death of Pleasure Blogging" and so thought I'd get on here and ramble a bit.

It's the middle of a school day but today I teach lesson 1 and lesson 5, meaning the middle of the day could be usefully spent catching up on marking etc. or even more usefully spent in the park. Which is what we did. Went to the park and chatted and ate sweets and sat in the sun. Now I feel super chilled and in no way refreshed to work. Mmm, there's something about feeling my bare feet on the grass and my face warmed by the sun that is so pleasing.

I have also read this poem by WH Auden and the Breughel painting too, to feel sad, and then tried to memorise this piece by Simon Patterson, to make me feel inspired. This is exactly the kind of art a Virgo would produce. I suspect anyway.

Lunchtime, yeah!

Three Mondays to go!

2008-06-23T21:06:00.003+01:00

Another Monday down. Three more Mondays of term left. Hopefully in the future I will never have to "work" on a Monday again.

Weekend was lovely, as usual. Went to Oxford, and also spent lots of time with X, lovely. Legs are very achey after a pretty hard-core gym session, but it was worth it for an excellent night's sleep last night.

Oddly felt a bit restless during the day, but made up for it after my nap in the afternoon, being super-productive marking and writing complaint letters-wise, giving me lots of time to work on the BoK and also look up some WWOOF-ing in the summer. Have decided I want to work at a rural educational centre, so will hopefully learn some agriculture and also work with kids too. Three potential ones in Somerset, Devon and Snowdonia, so would be ace if I could get two weeks or so at each.

What else? The ICT systems failed this morning after a power-cut on Friday so we were left with no means to do registers, use phones, access email and student data, no internet, no access to servers (and thus files/programs stored on servers) and no IWB access. This was the most critical, since our super-high-tech school has made no provision in most classrooms for ordinary white boards. This means that should the network/your PC crash, then you can't use your classroom board. Believe me, it's pretty difficult to teach maths without having something to write on. Luckily only had two lessons to teach today, and I enjoyed having an excuse for not writing my Y10 reports or my Y8 tutor reports. Plus it was pretty ironic that we were told in the staff briefing this morning that we will be having an ICT inspection next week, hahaha.

I have to make my NQT folder, which will be a tedious paper trail I suspect, but I guess it has to be done. I also have to have my "transition point 3" meeting to talk about what I have learnt this year and what I will do with it. I made the joke that I am "transitioning to freedom" in the staffroom today, which got some laughs. It's true though.

Apart from that, nothing major to report, except little brother is back, which is really cool as he is fun, but also a bit tricky since we argue a bit and I nag a lot and he does things that wind me up a lot. Fingers crossed we will get on alright. I think we are just too similar as people. Oh well, I will try and be a bit more easy-going.

Right, time for some Stephen Fry.

WWOOF weekend

2008-06-17T11:47:00.005+01:00

So I got accidentally distracted by the joy of getting my glasses back. I made the impulsive move to drive home and take my contacts out, and then I started sorting the laundry and reading my mail, and before I knew it it was an hour gone and so I decided I best come back to school.

It's so good knowing I don't have to teach until period 5, excellent :) It means I can usefully spend some time beginning my Book of Knowledge - I've done the entry for Mongolian Tents :)

Before I begin the ramble on our WWOOF weekend, I thought I'd mention that I had an excellent observation with my "special" Y7s yesterday, which was just so good to hear because my teaching has been a bit up and down this year compared to last year, but it's great to hear I'm back to being ranked a 1 for "outstanding" as opposed to a "3" for satisfactory. It's so strange how we have the mentality that satisfactory means not good enough. On a downer though, lesson one today was a write-off since one of my top set Y7 kids threw a penny at another one and so the whole lesson was spent trying to sort out who had done what etc.

Anyway, on to more exciting things, my first WWOOF.

We (me, X, one of my maths colleagues, and one of her friends) spent the weekend working on a farm in Polstead, a small village on the Suffolk/Essex border. It was simply lovely. They were an old French and Australian couple, and they lived in a beautiful thatched cottage that is heaped in mystery and intrigue as there was a murder there many years ago. You can read more about all of that here. They had 18 acres and worked the land, which was what the area is historically famous for, but sadly has experienced a real decline in local agriculture. Two of the couple's children live locally still and all three are creative souls, suggesting that country life brings out the more interesting sides of people. P and D themselves were terribly interesting and knowledgeable - full of stories and experience and life.

The work itself was wonderfully satisfying manual labour, enough to make you feel a pleasant ache, but not so much that you grew fed up. We preserved the water around young trees using straw; we scythed down thistles using scary Grim Reaper style scythes; we cleared a meadow of logs; we worked hard in the vegetable garden (my favourite - planting, weeding, making compost, picking fruit, pruning roses, learning all about living off the land, ace); we learnt about the sheep and the animals and the day to day workings. They were such lovely and generous hosts and I really enjoyed working in the morning and having the late afternoon and evening free for fun. We played football with their grandkids and ate glorious feasts full of home-grown ingredients, yum, so tasty. If anything I have a new found inspiration to grow a herb garden too.

On Saturday night we had a cheeky ale and played some darts in the village pub, and then got scared in the dark on the way home by "ghosts" (really a drunk old man), which to me seems like proper country life. The only thing I would change would be the "guard geese" as they were scary and mean and kept chasing me around. I realised I was being a wimp when I saw a 6-year-old just kick at them and then walk past, but by then it was too late, they could sense my fear. Heehee, apart from that though it was excellent, I can't wait to go again!

The whole concept of WWOOF is so clever and useful - workers trade their physical labour for shelter and food, alongside the joys of good company and conversation. We weren't quite back to basics, but far freer than we are in the city, and it was really pleasing and comforting to know that life like that is possible. I urge you to go, just to try it, just to see what life could be like.

Feeling a wee bit freer

2008-06-17T09:51:00.002+01:00

Good morning :) I don't usually blog in school but now that my Y10s are off on work experience, there is such a glorious sense of relief and freedom that I feel tempted to post my controversies through the school server. Risky business perhaps.

Yesterday, today and tomorrow I only have two periods that I have to teach, which leaves me ample time to do my school work. Supposedly. Realistically I find plenty of more entertaining things to do rather than mark books, plan lessons, or write reports. My latest pet project is called The Book of Knowledge (notice I have written it in italics, as if it were a real book), which I have decided to make after finding that I spend a lot of time not knowing things and then trying to remember to look them up and then forgetting what they were within days of my research. Thus the book of knowledge will hold all the "useless" facts and concepts that I look up, making them forever concrete and available for perusal.

I finished How To Be Free and am inspired by 90% of it. I think I was subtly trying to be free before, but now I am making a conscious effort to do things right. The weekend WWOOF has started me off in fine stead for this. More on WWOOF-ing in another post to follow shortly.

Now that I am slightly more free than usual (despite having meetings/detentions/clubs every day after school this week) I am due to make a long-awaited return to my urban dance class tonight. This will be exciting since after Into The Hoods I feel my calling is in dance. It's perhaps more of a whisper than a calling, but good fun all the same. Hopefully I will make it there, but not being around on the weekend + the imminent return of LIL BRO means all kinds of household chores like sorting and tidying my rooms may have to take precedent. I hope not.

Right, I will do a little bit of admin work and then return to ramble on the joys of WWOOF-ing. Stay tuned.

Words of Wisdom

2008-06-11T19:37:00.002+01:00

Pretty tired and busy with the usual stuff, so instead of my rambles, have a read of these sent by my mother instead. I particularly like the last bit.

Anger is only one letter short of danger.
Great minds discuss ideas;
Average minds discuss events;
Small minds discuss people.
To handle yourself, use your head,
To handle others, use your heart.
If talking is silver then silence is gold.

The tongue weighs practically nothing,
but so few people can hold it
Many people will walk in and out or your life,
but only true friends will leave footprints in your heart
He who loses money, loses much;
He who loses a friend, loses more;
He who loses faith, loses all.

Beautiful young people are acts of nature,
but beautiful old people are works of art.

If someone betrays you once, it's his fault.
If he betrays you twice, it's your fault.
Wealth is found in contentment
Peace is found in isolation
Freedom is found in abandoning of desires
Love is found in abandoning inclination
Pleasure of a long life is found in patience and contentment in a short life

Watch your thoughts, they become words.
Watch your words, they become actions.
Watch your actions, they become habits.
Watch your habits, they become character.
Watch your character, they become destiny.

The weekend

2008-06-09T19:44:00.003+01:00

I am going to do my marking in 16 minutes. I hate marking. In six weeks I will be free from marking, woo!

A glorious weekend, with an interesting share of drama. Went to see Into the Hoods on Thursday night on a school trip, was awesome, made me want to be a professional dancer, see it if you get a chance. Then went out drinking and went back to X's as I had a doctor's appointment on Friday morning, thus could have a lie-in. But drama strikes - my car got towed on Friday morning so had to go and rescue it from Hornsey and thus missed everything, whoops! Was WELL ANNOYING, can't believe some loser called up to get my car towed, they coulda just left me a note or something. Made me bemoan the state of society.

Anyway Friday went ok teaching-wise, then went home to bed, then went out to see SATC, which again was good and funny and I liked it a lot. I watched SATC a lot whilst at school and uni, but then kinda stopped, but it was good to see the film. I really want this book from the film, but apparently it's fictional. This is the closest I can get to it. We bought pick'n'mix (which I am loving at the moment, along with whippy ice cream from ice-cream vans) and it cost almost £3! The next day, whilst rambling around Epping Forest and then along Wanstead High St, we bought a similar amount of sweets from Woolworth's and it cost only 13p! So the cinema was a complete rip-off, am gonna sneak my own in in future.

What else? Yesterday tried to go to StokeFest in Clissold Park, but it was rammed, so went to Finsbury Park instead, and basked in the sun with X, lovely. I am loving all this X time :) Interestingly, apparently when I was small I used to ride my tricycle around Clissold Park, wow.

Teaching was ok today, but tiring. Some awful Y8 drama - a girl that was excluded for carrying a knife filmed herself with a boy in Y11 doing you know what, and it's been spreading like wild-fire across the school on mobile phones. Technically it's child pornography since she's only 13, so it's sad and shocking and illegal, thus we have been busy trying to stop kids getting hold of it, and also getting the police involved. Poor girl, she's a mess, I wonder what will happen to her?

In other news, I have looooads of work to do. Part of the joy of not working all weekend means I have loads to do tonight, when it's so nice and sunny that I just want to go and sit outside and read Sunday's papers/ It's ok though, I've been napping, now I'm gonna blitz it. Woo! Then I will read all the match reports from today's Euro games.

29 teaching days to go!

And some wise words from Dinky...

2008-06-04T22:08:00.001+01:00

A blind girl hated herself because she was blind. She hated everyone, except her loving boyfriend.

He was always there for her. She told her boyfriend, 'If I could only see the world, I will marry you.'

One day, someone donated a pair of eyes to her. When the bandages came off, she was able to see everything, including her boyfriend. He asked her,'Now that you can see the world, will you marry me?'

The girl looked at her boyfriend and saw that he was blind. The sight of his closed eyelids shocked her. She hadn't expected that. The thought of looking at them the rest of her life led her to refuse to marry him.

Her boyfriend left her in tears and days later wrote a note to her saying: 'Take good care of your eyes, my dear, before they were yours, they were mine.'

This is how the human brain often works when our 'status changes'. Only a very few remember what life was like before, and who was always by their side in the most painful situations.

Life Is a Gift

Today before you say an unkind word -Think of someone who can't speak.

Before you complain about the taste of your food - Think of someone who has nothing to eat.

Before you complain about your husband or wife - Think of someone who's crying out to for a companion.

Today before you complain about life -Think of someone who went too early to heaven.

Before you complain about your children -Think of someone who desires children but they're barren.

Before you argue about your dirty house someone didn't clean or sweep - Think of the people who are living in the streets.

Before whining about the distance you drive -Think of someone who walks the same distance with their feet.

And when you are tired and complain about your job -Think of the unemployed, the disabled, and those who wish they had your job.

But before you think of pointing the finger or condemning another - Remember that not one of us is without error and we all answer to the Divine.

And when depressing thoughts seem to get you down - Put a smile on your face and thank the Divine you're alive and still around.

Serious things then liberating things

2008-06-04T21:56:00.003+01:00

Last night I went along to a poetry rehearsal for my mother's old school reunion show. I was welcomed by two lovely old ladies, who proceeded to sing a rather odd version of what I thought was a poem. This was all very funny and amusing, particularly when I got my mobile out and tried to record them so my mother could hear it when I got home. But then I started to take it more seriously as one of the old ladies told me the story of the poem. When she was a small girl in Sri Lanka, she studied at a convent school established by Irish missionaries. They used to sing a song about Ireland and how beautiful it was and how much they missed it. Even as a little girl she understood the strength of their feeling and felt sad for them. Later when she was forced to leave Sri Lanka because of the civil war, she composed her own variant to express her sadness at having no place to call home. Once I realised the real tone of the poem and the longing they both felt to return to where they grow it, things weren't so funny any more. I guess I'll never know what it's like to have to be uprooted from all that you know, but I hope that one day they can go back, or at least they can go somewhere where they feel at home.

The old lady was a teacher and quoted Sir Walter Scott's Native Land word for word, which was lovely and made me feel it even more. In the end I realised I couldn't read that poem or sing with them after all, it wouldn't be right, those words coming from me.

In other news I had to unexpectedly take the bus into school today and thus was 40 minutes late, meaning my tutor group weren't registered and my Head of Department had to cover the start of my lesson 1. A lot of people get quite stressed when they are late, and I do sometimes too, but today was liberating since I knew that I was going to be late and there was nothing I could do about it, so once I had accepted my fate it was lovely. I think it was also because I have just started How to be Free and it mentions letting go of time and unnecessary pressures/obligations and instead just enjoying things (including riding on the top of a bus...if you have to use public transport that is). I also continued my research on WWOOF-ing and have decided I either want to go to Wales or to the South West. And I found this lovely little blog on the Times to do with allotments, or what the author affectionately refers to as her "lottie".

I have been marking lots of exam papers recently. One of my colleagues, who I share a class with, did one exam paper in her lesson with the shared class, but then asked me to mark the papers. I reluctantly said yes, feeling pretty resentful that she had the free lesson but then gave me the work. Later however, when I mentioned my protracted bus journey, she immediately offered to give me a lift and was really lovely and generous, making me think that 1. I shouldn't be so bitter, I should just get on with it 2. when I do good things, good things will come back to me. Plus I gave someone a lift home on Monday so I have been collecting up my good deeds.

My knee keeps popping and clicking, which is discomforting and disconcerting but hopefully it'll stop soon. Last lesson with Y10s tomorrow before a two week work experience break, woo!

A good day's worth of ramblings

2008-06-02T21:22:00.007+01:00

I was going to lesson plan but I really wanted to ramble on my blog first so here I am.

A good first day back, mainly because my head of department came and shouted at my Y10s again and then they were good (albeit perhaps for one lesson only) meaning that we actually did some work and I didn't have to shout over them and thus the rest of the day was good. Disappointingly I had to move my classroom tables from the group work formation they were in back into rows of desks so that I could split up the kids and hopefully stop them talking a bit. I also had to go back to seating them in alphabetical order. Two kids just wouldn't conform to the new set up and so truanted, while one was kicked out twice. Thus I spent some time calling parents today, but that was ok.

In other news the general incompetence of the people in charge of internal exams meant that the maths exams for Y7 and Y8 didn't happen today after all, and so we had to teach them. My impromptu lessons were ok though, I am pleased and I managed to write up one set of Y7 class reports, meaning only one more class to go there, yay!

Most of the day was spent thinking random thoughts that I wanted to post up. Firstly R, one of my colleagues, told me about WWOOF, which is this cool organisation whereby volunteers go and work on organic farms and gardens in return for food and accommodation. She went to Norfolk over the half-term and had an awesome time, so I am thinking maybe I will get a bit more self-sufficient by learning some of this stuff myself this summer. Secondly she told me about a book called "Grow It Eat It" about fruit and veg growing and recipes to cook with, which was a lovely book (made for kids!) and really captured my imagination.

I also spent some time contemplating how relaxed my holiday has made me in that things that normally stress me out haven't (and hopefully won't). For example I was called up in assembly today to give out merit certificates for my tutor group and accidentally had the clip on my trousers undone and the kids pointed it out to me, which should have been mortifying, but was actually quite funny. Also facebook keeps messing up when I try and load my Malta photos, but that's ok, I can do it another day. Also my little brother is running for the Cambridge Union, meaning he is now officially a hack, yuck, but oh well, whatever makes him happy.

Going back to assembly, it was on the environment and the UN World Environment Day. In an exciting move forward our school is finally going to get its recycling sorted, yay! The assembly itself was pretty inspiring and carried the message "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle" which I am going to try hard to do. I made my first big step today by switching my credit card, bank account and mobile phone bills all to digital versions, meaning less paper posted to me.

The last thing I was thinking about was how much drama there is with football managers at the moment, what with Mourinho going to Inter and Sven formally getting the boot and maybe being replaced by Mark Hughes, and also how great it is that we have the Euro tournament to tide us over until halfway through August when the Premiership kicks off again. Football is so dramatic and ridiculous sometimes. I mean, can you believe that the Glazers would potentially turn down £70m from Real for Ronaldo, even if he refuses to play for Man Utd, and instead just force him to sit on the bench just cos they can?! Talk about trying to prove a point.

I had a nap at 7pm today after dinner, against my usual belief that 7pm is too late if you still wanna go to bed at a decent time, and am feeling mighty refreshed from it. There was an article in the Metro about sleep spas and how 39% of people surveyed said that they felt so tired at least one day a week that they just wanted to go home from work. There was also this woman that lost 3 stone over a year simply by taking power naps. I knew naps were good for the soul.

Right I really should get back to my lesson planning if I want to read any of the books I am browsing through at the moment. I currently have three and picked up a fourth today that I want, so I think maybe I will put the other three aside and read this new one, and then come back to them. Hmmm, but perhaps that is the mistake I made each of the other times? Perhaps I should just focus on one.

Oh and finally, I can't remember if I mentioned it already, but please make sure you see Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull just because it is so awful it's funny. And if you're still bored after reading all of this you can text 'JOKE' to 118118 today for free to get a nice joke from them, hahaha!

End of Half-Term Blues

2008-06-01T21:04:00.002+01:00

It's been a while since I blogged I think. Have been wonderfully busy doing fun stuff, yay!

It's now Sunday evening right at the end of half-term and I am feeling all kinds of glum. End of half-term blues I suspect.

I had the best week in Malta and generally an awesome 10 days (I think because I spent every single one with X and am now suffering quite severe withdrawal symptoms), but alas all good things must come to an end, and so it's back to school tomorrow.

In the spirit of my general feeling of tedium when it comes to my Y10s, I have decided not to plan any lessons for anyone at all this week until tomorrow. Good drama. Hopefully there will be the promised exams for at least some of the kids. Relying on this is a recipe for disaster but frankly not worth worrying about right now.

35 days to go. I can't wait for the summer holidays! But first reports and marking and planning and naughty kids to deal with. Sigh. I need more half-term. But I can't get that so instead I will distract myself by looking at the myspaces of some of the excellent acts we saw at ID-Africa last night. I think my personal favourite was Last Mango in Paris - wicked Streets like socially conscious/humorous/comedian chatter.

Hope you're feeling good wherever you are.

A tough day

2008-05-20T21:28:00.004+01:00

Today was quite a stressful day. Luckily I am calm again now, and also the stress was pretty well managed I would say. Kinda anyway.

The general poor management of my school is really annoying and puts loads of stress and pressure on the staff. Things keep changing all the time and the systems don't work and so we, the people on the ground, have to deal with loads of rubbish every day. It gets really tedious and starts to grind you down. On a daily basis we get a lot of abuse from the kids on the one side, and on the other side the teaching itself becomes difficult because of poor management from above. An example of this is how the internal exams this week in maths were simply postponed till after half-term, except we weren't told until Monday (in fact, I only found out accidentally from a colleague when I went to ask her where the exam papers were) and so now I am teaching loads of lessons that haven't been planned. Even more annoying though, tomorrow we have interviews for maths posts in school, and part of the interview process is watching a teacher teach and giving them feedback. However, due to all kinds of inconvenient issues, I have to be observed, which is ok, except I have to be observed teaching a lesson I don't teach on a normal Wednesday just to fit into the the observation schedule. How stupid and unnecessarily stressful is that?

My Y10s made me really mad today. I have lost the battle with that class I think. They have no respect for me and we don't do any work any more, I just spend all my time trying to get them to behave. Again this is tedious and stressful, I dread my four hours a week with them. It's almost similar to being bullied I'd imagine, having to face a group of people who just cause you hassle for no apparent reason. Anyway, today lots of them were rude and defiant. One of them was trying to get other students to poke me so that I would lose my temper. Another one just outright ignored me when I told her to spit out her gum, then shouted in my face, and then refused to leave the room until her head of year came to drag her out. It's got so that even the good kids have become bad because that's the general negative horrible atmosphere in the classroom. I don't know, when I was filling in all the pointless incident reports after the lesson, at the bottom there is a section where you tick the sanction you have given the pupil, and you can choose reprimand or detention or extra work or accepted apology etc. and there is one called other and I wanted to tick that and then describe the sanction as simply giving up on that student. Hmmm.

The thing that worried me the most today is that for a minute or two in that classroom I was close to really losing my temper. Some of you know that I have a shocking temper when it is unleashed, of which I am thoroughly ashamed and regretful. I have been known to completely lose the plot, to the point of blind white rage entirely masking my actions, and it's not until afterwards that I come to again and realise the devastation I have caused. Once I think I could even have been expelled from school for one incident, which to this day I still can't explain where it really came from, I just switched and hit another student, I couldn't control myself. I'm so angry with myself for even letting someone get to me like that. It shouldn't have happened.

Anyway, obviously I am much older and wiser and better in control of myself now, but today scared me because I could see that I could lose it, I mean really lose it if I was pushed too far. I spoke to my mentor, which I now think may have been an error, but she told me if I ever felt like I may snap then I should just leave the classroom. Hopefully this would never have to happen, I'd hate myself so much if I ever let these stupid kids enrage me to that point. Anyway, after half-term for the first week another teacher is taking that class, then there's two weeks of work experience, and then we will see how it goes. From today though, I feel like simply refusing to teach them, we are done, they don't want me, I don't want them, so let's just move on.

I have no imminent work, but looooooads of upcoming work. I could do it to be organised and take it off my head. But I can't be bothered. Idleness beckons. I think I deserve the chill time.

Virgo this week

2008-05-19T21:22:00.002+01:00

Also my horoscope this week. From The Observer. For a change. And because it's true.

Mercury's about to turn backwards, meaning your chances of getting straight answers are twice as good this week as next. At least your chances of finding someone cute to lean on are high - just your luck you have to fall for a rebel or oddball, leaving you to play it straight.

The album's done.

Pink Vision

2008-05-19T21:02:00.004+01:00

I have been intending to have a shower for about 30 minutes. But I have Shine on my stereo, and I keep meaning to get upstairs, but then end up staying for just one more track. I love Estelle, this is such an awesome banging album full of proper soaring vocals and beats and stuff, I love it.

I had a super busy but good weekend. My legs are achey achey from an epic squash session on Saturday morning, two days of achey, but it feels good. Totally burned off all the indian food from our maths department social on Friday night (if not all the booze). Last night I had an amazing night's sleep. I swear the world is just that bit brighter after a good kip. In true me style I don't think I slept much on Thurs or Fri or Sat night (I guess maybe about 7 hours over the three nights), plus on Saturday I had lunch at 1pm and then didn't eat again until 2pm on Sunday, which is treating my body quite harshly. So I think it is feeling good today after food and rest to remind me that if I treat it well it will be well.

My vision is entirely rose-tinted at the moment. I mean, forget just the spectacles, it feels like my actual eyes themselves have pinked up (not in a gross infection type way). Things feel good, like my soul is singing. It's lovely. School-based dramas rolled off me today. I want the feeling to last. And I think I now how to do that. I will just keep the source; keep you.

I'm going back to Oxford in the autumn, I can't wait, I'm really looking forward to getting back into education and figuring out a way to make a difference to our disadvantaged kids. If I couldn't do it enough in the classroom, maybe I can do it from the outside. I like it when I have plans.

Man, I can't get over this album. Oh, but also the Juno album, beautiful beautiful stuff. My absolute favourite lines are from the closing song: #I kiss you all starry-eyed, my body's swinging from side to side#. I just googled that for laughs and there's about a million sites quoting it. The first blog quoting it is just full of lyrics. It's weird to read lyrics without hearing the songs, I guess then it's just poetry rather than song. I dunno, maybe everyone's souls are singing too.

Minimum effort

2008-05-14T20:36:00.003+01:00

Just finished marking my Y8 books. A lovely procrastinated jobbie. My new strategy of getting the kids to mark in class, and me just do the comments in my frees, is working a treat - I almost have some time back in my life. Combined with my 50% effort as a teacher, well, school life is going pretty well. I am just either stamping down on things straight away and being super efficient, or just ignoring them entirely.

It's time to start counting days to half-term. Six more teaching days, plus one training day. Annoyingly I can't go to the HSBC maths day this Friday due to stupid bureaucracy in my school, and the megalomaniac tendencies of the one ultimately in charge, meaning I was led on a silly wild goose chase, and thus my kids have to miss out on the trip. Boo. On the plus side, this means I'll be around for our PGCE student's last day in school, and the maths' department curry in the evening, which will be good fun, despite all the DRAMA of our department (both in and out of school) recently.

What else is new? I'm being a hermit this week, returning to relaxing, which is wonderful. It's good to spend some time by myself, thinking a bit about some things. Not too much thinking, obviously, this will only lead to worrying and then stressing. Some gentle pondering and daydreaming is ok though. I am also addicted to Radio 4 now that we have no TV. It's ace, I feel like I am just accidentally passively absorbing all this stuff on American law while typing this, weird. I started listening simply for a news fix at 6pm, then kept listening for the 6:30pm sitcom, and now I've taken to leaving the radio on.

I had peanut butter on toast for dinner. I'm not sure this counts as a proper dinner, and I can smell chicken and mushrooms downstairs, so I shall go investigate.

Living in Dust

2008-05-12T20:28:00.003+01:00

Our house is a SERIOUS BUILDING SITE. It's full of dust and making me sneezy. And other dwarves too. I wish I could move out while all this was taking place. I also wish I had a huge storeroom for all my tat so I could just store it away and be happy with my hoarding, rather than having to sort through it and throw some of it away. I hate throwing things away. I do like sorting though.

Today was a good school day. Mondays are getting better, mainly because I am still on a high from the weekend. That said, this was the first Monday I've actually taught this term (one training day, one bank holiday, one sick day) so perhaps it was novelty value.

I spent the whole weekend doing fun stuff, and also the whole weekend with X, which makes me smile tremendously. I am now plotting ways to make the weekdays as good as the weekends. This is going well with regards to this half of term, but patently next half will be far busier, what with report writing and exam paper marking and not having any lessons planned etc. Still, that's the final push, so it'll be ok. This is despite the fact that teachers seem to be leaving the school in waves. Poor kids, no teachers want to stay there, but that's what happens when your school is nuts.

This week's word of the week is METICULOUS, which I like. Last week's was EMANCIPATE and the student sentence that won the prize was "Abraham Lincoln emancipated the slaves, but why did he wear that ridiculous hat?" Hahaha.

I'm off to shower now after playing with all that dust. Then I am going to sit and chill now that most of the ground floor is completely uninhabitable. Woo.

School and Sun and Books

2008-05-08T19:23:00.003+01:00

School was school, and it was ok. We did some work on religion and prejudice in PSHE - again my kids surprised me with their deep and insightful comments. I can't believe how perceptive some of them are, or even how well they can justify their opinions. They were stars - if only they could be that way all the time. The rest of the day was pretty much normal, and then the Year 8 incentives (good behaviour) club session in afternoon tutor time ran again, and I took sports again, and it was out in the sun and all the kids were running around, and it was just lovely to be a teacher right there and then. Obviously taking the Y7 girls' football club after school kept the high going.

That said, our school is a greenhouse at the moment. The company that installed the ventilation has apparently gone bust, and so the bits that are broken can't be fixed yet. Given the massive glass roof and the number of rooms without external windows, well, parts of the school are unbearable. AND it's only May. Luckily I have windows that don't get too much sun, and I can prop open my classroom door to get a breeze going. Still though, it's going to be a long term heat-wise.

The builders are back and seem to be digging a trench round the front of the house. Exciting times, especially when it comes to having to practically vault across said trench to get home. Fun.

I looked up some good info today about cyclones, tornadoes and hurricanes, what with all the drama and sadness in Burma/Myanmar. Here it is for you, courtesy of Yahoo Answers:

All areas of low pressure are cyclones. So technically a tornado and hurricane are both cyclones. The terms hurricane, typhoon and cyclone are all used to describe the same type of weather system. In the Atlantic and East Pacific they are hurricanes, in the West Pacific they are typhoons and in the Indian ocean and Australia they are called cyclones or more specifically tropical cyclones.

It is also true that some people in the midwest will call tornadoes cyclones, which they are.

I finished reading Inheritance of Loss. It's a sad book, but wonderfully written. I wish I could capture moments and create visions like Kiran Desai has - there are parts where you can't escape, that's how vivid it is. I felt the same kind of apprehension reading this book as I have only mostly felt with films/tv before, that's how into the story you can get. But, like I said, despite a little glimmer of positivity and hope at the end, really, there's too much turmoil and unsolved difficulties for me to be happy about it. Anyway, I am done with that and by chance in the library I found The Stone Diaries, which the guy in our photocopying room recommended to me. Given my recent criticisms of Pulitzer prize winners, I have decided to re-open my mind and give it a go. An easy place to start - this book was short-listed for a Booker as well, so I don't have to leap too far in my first few steps. I love the opening quote:

nothing she did
or said

was quite
what she meant

but still her life
could be called a monument

shaped in a slant
of available light

and set to the movement
of possible music

(From "The Grandmother Cycle" by Judith Downing, Converse Quarterly, Autumn)

A Ramble From School

2008-05-07T13:55:00.000+01:00

I have 48 more teaching days left. This seems like a lot. I prefer to think in smaller goals – 18 days to Malta for example, yay!

Actually I am having a stellar day today. It’s lunchtime at school and the sun is shining and the report writing software isn’t quite working so I can’t write the 150 odd reports I have to do, so instead I am enjoying myself. I taught a good lesson with my Y8s – dividing with decimals, something I thought was difficult, but which they really jumped on. My Y10s too were good, mainly because loads were absent, and because I changed the seating plan, and because I was stricter and they just decided to work today. That was all good.

The best thing about today though is how I just woke up on the right side of the bed, and it was sunny, and so I am happy and smiling and feeling cheery. I think it is also to do with my new found ideas of survival and sufficiency and “taking it back to the old school”, in that so much of what modern society does seems pointless to me, so I am eventually going to just rid my life of it, and instead live on a nice tropical island by the sea and spend my days doing productive things like growing my own food and securing my own water and energy, and reading and writing and playing, just working on living rather than doing some pointless employment to get money so that I can live in our modern society. Sure, there are things in modern society that I value, like medicine and education and welfare etc. but there are lots of things that I would change, but seemingly can’t, so I guess I will just escape from them.

Anyway so I decided I would spread my good cheer and vision around the staffroom, which has genuinely worked wonders, if only with regards to making people smile. Loads of people shared their own visions with me, like moving to the Caribbean, living in the country, breeding dogs, not being hungover(!) etc. which was really cool since just on the news this morning they were saying how fewer than 50% of people meet and speak with at least one neighbour in a week – we are all just too busy rushing around to be involved in the neighbourhood. Thus I have decided that today I will reach out to my school community and plant little seeds of peaceful rustic life in them.

What else? I had an awesome weekend in Oxford and London, making me realise there is loads more to life that the daily stress and strain. I realised though that I have been bailing on things, like drinks and socials and stuff like that, mainly because other things have more priority. I think that perhaps I will have to stop the bailing and return to trying to do more things, since I know time is limited, but so are friends and so I should try and do more of their things with them. Just a bit more, but more all the same, I’m sure I can fit it all in. Besides, it’s only polite J

Right, it’s almost time for afternoon lessons. We are going to watch a maths video and do worksheets since the Y9s have had SATs all day. Plus it’s sunny outside, why work too hard?

Yay I made the weekend!

2008-05-03T14:26:00.002+01:00

Phew, it's been a looong week, but woo, it's the weekend! I made it through :)
Am off for fun and games in Oxford tonight, but before that, some things I've learnt:

1. Taking the piss out of students is a risky strategy, but occasionally works a treat when it comes to managing behaviour
2. If I was hyper all the time, no learning would ever get done
3. Staff seem to like me bouncy
4. Doing good deeds for other people makes me feel really good, so I can always try and do things for other people when I feel bad myself
5. Shopping and tidying and exercise always make me feel good

I went to bhangra with my mother this morning, that was hilarious fun, I really enjoyed it, and I love how keen my mum is about her dancing. Also, I got ID'ed in Waitrose trying to buy Pimm's and beer, which is also hilarious since in 4 months time I will be a full SEVEN YEARS over the legal drinking age, hahaha, and yet I still can't pass for 18.

Nothing else major to report except that I'm feeling good. Oh, and as a sign of my positive commitment to trying to pass this year after all, when I had my knee appointment on Friday and they offered me potential orthoscopy dates in June, I told them I couldn't have two weeks off until July 20th - check me out! Turning down two weeks of paid medical leave AND messing up my summer travel plans all to try and do my best to pass this NQT year. Keep them crossed for me, as always. Have a good weekend!

PS LOVE Adele's Cold Shoulder, it's a tuuuuune!

A turbulent day

2008-04-29T19:05:00.003+01:00

Today has been interesting. To say the least.

Firstly, Berts, lovely to chatter with you last night, deep & meaningfuls are all the more so with you.

Secondly, this ramble is going to be decidedly frank and bold, so beware. Take it with a swift measure of something stronger than Fruit Shoot.

Good things:

I got my offer from Wolfson today, which is exciting. I think going back to uni will be good fun, so it's a relief to know my plans are starting to be sorted (albeit loosely)
I had my second round interview at TF and that went ok I think. I was a bit hyper, but hopefully that will be interpreted as enthusiasm. We'll see how that goes, but fingers crossed.
I spilt beetroot juice all over my top, usually a bad thing, but it was so funny to see the big purple splodge that I have decided it is a good thing.

Bad things:

This won't really be in list form, and is also where it goes a bit serious, so stop reading now if you want light-hearted banter and not really any substance. So I got sent home/decided to take the option of going home early today because I was in a bit of a state. Really, I suppose I've been in a bit of state (with regards to this current state) for about 2 weeks. Up and down pretty much, which is tiring and odd. I remember when I was coming back from Canada I was pretty miserable and that first weekend back was outright despair. The less said about that the better (unless it's with some kinda trained professional I think). But then pretty soon after that I started getting high, I could feel it all last week, and then the weekend was just stellar, I can't remember it really, just that I know I must have been ticking some of the manic boxes. Even reading back on my posts I can see it. Perhaps that is partly why I am writing this one, for posterity's sake. Not that I'm planning my kids any time soon, or even whether I'd want them to read this. But that's an aside.

The last two days have been quite turbulent I think. I am feeling rational and kinda ok and normal now, but yesterday I was pretty reckless and then today I was back to despairing. I taught one lesson, feeling all fragile on the inside after waking up kind of numb. I guess I was acting oddly anyway, so when I said that I felt unpredictable, the alarm bells started ringing and an early finish was offered. I'm glad I took it, despite running out of time off, as I wouldn't have got through the day, I can feel it know thinking back, and it makes me shudder I was so off-key.

Unpredictable is how I would describe how I feel and all of this. I was quite upset and so I went to bed when I got home (10:30am, shocker!) and then when I woke up I felt empty again, but this time it was nice because it's a relief to feel nothing rather than have to feel everything all at once. The turmoil and the intensity and the pressure of the feelings is what gets to me, in that everything is all about NOW and it's difficult to get perspective, it's all impulsive and spontaneous and extremes. I don't like the extremes too much, and while I feel I am coping (badly, but still) at the moment, I am terrified of the time when I may not cope, or may not be as rational, and then lose the plot in an even bigger way.

That's why I called up the psychology people again and ask to be re-referred. I think it's time I properly attempted to sort this out since it's not going away and if anything it's getting worse, it's messing things up and I can't seem to control it, it just controls me. It will be tough to go through it all, and inconvenient, and arduous etc. but while I am holding on to being rational, I can see there is so much potential in me for destruction at both ends of the scale that it would be wrong and selfish not to try and fix it a bit.

In the meantime I am just going to try and take it a bit at a time, and not let myself get so high or so low, and keep reminding myself that once upon a time I did feel "normal" and that these times will come by again. It's just really hard to keep a grip when it starts to take over - life is just something that happens around it it seems, like I am just the vehicle for my "insanity". I wish I could keep my perspective and stay objective about it. In fact, when you read this now you probably think this can't really be happening since it seems pretty factual and disengaged, but it IS happening, and this is me trying to keep a lid on it.

Anyway, two more days of school, and we will just see how it goes. I have decided that if I fail my NQT year because of too much time off, then so be it. I can't push myself through it when I'm rollercoastering inside, so I should just let that pressure go, and concentrate on the little things.

Ending on a good note, the one lesson I did teach today was really good, top set Y7s on co-ordinates, so clearly I can put on the smile and do the business if I am forced too (although doing that all day wouldn't have been possible). Let's hope I wake up on the right side of the bed tomorrow. And failing that, that I can feel a bit in control of the rest of it, and make it back to bed at night.

Thinking of school even when not at school

2008-04-28T20:05:00.003+01:00

I thought that now all the parents' evenings were out of the way, things would relax a little. Err no.

Three things that I don't want to do that I will have to do this term:

1. Full reports i.e the comment reports for EVERY class I teach. This means writing 150 paragraphs that are all pointless since the kids mostly don't read on them, and certainly don't act on them. Plus the computer program that you have to do it on is stupid, and the whole thing takes ages. In other words, boooring.

2. Marking - the real bane of my existence. How on earth can I get rid of this rope around my neck? My favourite and best solution is to get the kids to mark their own books in class. Sure they learn less maths this way since lesson time is used for ticking, and sure this means they can cheat and copy homework and just fill in the answers as we go along, but the ones that are inclined to do this would have found some way to get out of homework anyway, so I think this is the strategy that I will have to pilot. There's no way I am spending next weekend marking silly exercise books. No way.

3. My NQT folder - I have nothing of value to put in it, and I can't be bothered to collect/make up "evidence" of reaching the teaching standards. Stupid paperwork. I only have 5 more sick days anyway, and then my NQT year will be rubbished, so I am ignoring this folder until the very end.

10 more weeks of school is too long, fire me now, I want to be unemployed! Aaaaaarrrrgggghhh.

I think I should go to bed.

At home today

2008-04-28T14:12:00.005+01:00

Number of teaching days left to the end of term = 54
Number of sick days this term = 1

Boo. I have spectacularly failed to go to school today, and now I feel guilty, and restless. I think it's because I was only half-hearted about teaching today, so really I could have forced myself in, and yes, had a rubbish day, but at least done it. I am not pleased with my recent lack of discipline and will. In the past I was always able to make myself do things I didn't particularly want to do, but I have noticed that I have started giving myself the easier option and just getting out of things. Hmm, I need to work on that.

Actually it was good this morning to think that I had a free day. I need one in some ways. When the weekend is busy and intense and a bit unreal, then returning to normal routines is a challenge. Routines are very important for me I think, so I should try my best to stick to them.

Really I had intended to go to school today, it wasn't a planned skip, as I have been known to do in the past. What happened was I missed the last central line tube home last night, so then ended up with no way home (didn't want to take the crazy night bus by myself on a Sunday night, didn't want to take the tube to Walthamstow and get a cab from there, didn't have enough cash to pay the HUGE cab fee home) so stayed at X's, which gets me high a bit I think, and so in the morning when it came to getting up and going, I decided not to.

I think part of being a bit high might be the impulsive decisions that I seem to make. I have been making other ones today too including turning down my city job properly, booking a random holiday, and just generally not behaving as I would expect myself too. I am at home because I felt I was too tired to teach and so would be a bit hysterical, but in reality I am struggling to concentrate or even stay in bed. The idea that I have a whole day with nothing that I have to do is rather odd for me and, as such, unsettling.

This is the first thing I have been able to focus on. I should really be prepping for my interview tomorrow, but another side-effect of feeling high is "thinking deep" about things, and in more casual moments I find myself thinking that I don't really want that job, or any job, and that really I just need to do nothing next year. This is making it hard for me to try and win that job - a big part of me is either apathetic or actively stopping me succeed at this.

Thinking deep-wise, I was just having lunch with my grandfather. He's 88 and a lovely old man, but I realised today we have nothing in common, there is a such a sea in the 64 years between us. I don't understand how we can be so different, how he was a village boy and school master and proper Tamil man, and I am what I am now. How can so much change in two generations? It makes me sad to think that I will never really know him, but also happy because he is with us even with the sea in between. I wonder what my grandchildren will be like and whether they'll ever feel like aliens to me?

I am going to try and read a book now. Should that fail, I think I will hit the gym. Just doing nothing is too difficult.

Having re-read that post, I see that it's full of contradictions. One part of me wants just to do nothing, the other part of me just won't let that happen. Like most internal battles, I will probably end up the casualty.

Feeling awesome

2008-04-26T14:53:00.005+01:00

It's Saturday afternoon, sunny sunny sunny, wearing shorts and t-shirt, feeling pretty damn awesome. Really awesome, it's great!

Have done all my work for the weekend already, somehow accidentally woke up at 7:45am and just decided to get on with it. Am now planned all the way up to exam week, which means no more long sessions of weekend lesson planning for me, woo hoo! Spent some good "work" time dancing around my room and looking out at the neighbour in the blue skies, lovely.

Lovely rice and curry lunch, yum yum yum, just what I need to set me up for a good afternoon nap. Was contemplating taking the nap to the park, but then realised this probably wasn't the safest, so am going to my "sauna" loft room instead.

Can't really get across how good I'm feeling at the moment. Was partly worried that maybe I was getting high again, but I don't think so, I think I'm just going back to being that person I was back in school, just happy about lots of things at the same time. Things seem to be working out my way for the most part, and the bits that aren't, well that's not so bad. The sun's shining, it's the weekend, and I'm going to have fun for the rest of it, yay!

School was all good this week, and last night Avenue Q was great, so so funny, the songs are just hilarious, and it's a really good concept. Like half black comedy, a quarter completely politically incorrect, a quarter naive optimism. I loved the puppet/people dynamic, was very well done, and all the characters and storyline were engaging. Only downer was the seats at the Noel Coward Theatre - would advise you to bring your own! Was also really good just to sit and chatter with the girls over dinner, lots of stuff to catch up on, and some quality time always makes me feel chipper.

This morning, apart from doing my work, we had guests round, so I was playing the good girl, and that was good fun. I made the tea and served things, and I cleaned and did the laundry, and help my mum cook, and she taught me some bhangra moves from her class this morning, and my dad and brother were messing around and joking, and my grandfather was happy because we were all there (we're really busy in the week) so it was just nice and good. Like how a weekend should be.

I've decided that this has all stemmed from feeling like I'm in control of things (and also not being hungover!) and also from feeling like I'm achieving things, and just seeing the good in things, like appreciating things I don't normally take the time to appreciate. And also just being close to people and being honest with them. It's all making me feel really happy, the happiness is in waves, they just keep coming and filling me up and making me feel really glad to be alive. This probably sounds nuts, but I hope the feeling lasts.

You know what? I think I would take a few days of feeling utterly miserable to feel like this afterwards. If it is this bipolar stuff making me like this, right now, I love it.

A Secret Socialist

2008-04-23T22:33:00.003+01:00

I am thoroughly enjoying myself this week. School is cool. I'm ahead of my planning, and doing my best to keep on top of my to-do list, so things are mostly working out. Plus, NO MARKING, yay! I really think it's the naps and knowing that I will have a few hours each evening to do what I want in, it really makes a difference.

As I mentioned yesterday, I'll be in school tomorrow, but I'll be striking in spirit. I think I am becoming progressively more left wing. Back in the day I used to think striking was an absolute scandal and a disgrace, and thought that trade unions should have been banned. But now I see why they are really important, and fully support the NUT's actions tomorrow.

Further, I was browsing the London Mayor Election booklet, and found that the most appealing candidate to me was Lindsey German of the Left List. This was based purely on campaign policies, but then having done a little bit of research on the Left List, I have realised that I have been secretly socialist all along (at least, on most aspects) and just never acknowledged it. How odd. I wonder if this will last, or whether I will stray back to the centre once I leave school?

I am reading Monkfish Moon and it is making me crave Sri Lanka. I want to finish it tonight so I can go back to The Inheritance of Loss and get really into it. I feel like this week is still a bit like a holiday, so I better enjoy it while it lasts. Even if I do have to work tomorrow.