Pictures of food today

Sorry, I have been a blogging failure, promising blog posts and then not delivering. I could be Nick Clegg.

Lots of work been going on, lots of swimming too, and procrastinating. And being in Belgium. And Norfolk. And Glasgow. And Oxford. And Manchester. My tour is on pause now, phew.

Ok, so, the pictures of food.

This first one was sent to me by a lawyer friend today. It's what's in her staff kitchen today.

[Sorry stupid blogger isn't letting me upload the pictures, so I have to do lame descriptions until I can get the pics up.]

[PICTURE OF LOTS OF CAKE]

Note not only the sheer amount of cake, but also the fancy branding. And that there is a dishwasher in that office.

Second, a tax consultant's response to the cake picture.

[PICTURE OF SAD RICE CAKE]

Rice cake does not count as cake. I think most of the 85 calories are coming from the dark chocolate.

Third, my brother's response to the cake picture. His words:

As a comparison this is my freezer and what 15kg of frozen "emergency rations" curry looks like.

[PICTURE OF 15KG OF FROZEN EMERGENCY CURRY RATIONS]

Hope there are lots of lovely pictures of food (and actual food) in your day today too.

ADHD diagnoses and getting into Oxford

Here are two pieces of research that I have enjoyed this afternoon:

The first one's about the lower likelihood of children being diagnosed with ADHD in the UK compared to the US.

The second one's about the A-levels studied by students who get offers to read PPE or Maths at Oxford.

I'd really like to do some work with the Millennium Cohort Study data (with an ethnicity focus, of course), and also with HESA data on university applications.

Maybe campaigning for things does work

The death penalty is totally stupid, so well done Maryland for repealing it.

Thank you for contacting me regarding your support of repealing the death penalty in the State of Maryland. As you may be aware, the General Assembly passed Senate Bill 276 - Death Penalty Repeal - Substitution of Life without the Possibility of Parole (Chapter 156 of the Acts of the General Assembly of 2013), and I signed it into law on May 2, 2013. This bill repealed the death penalty statute and makes life without the possibility of parole the harshest sentence available in the State of Maryland.
In 2008, the Maryland Commission on Capital Punishment, led by former United States Attorney General Benjamin Civiletti, found that the administration of the death penalty clearly showed racial bias and that no administrative fixes could end the racial disparities. In addition, it reported that the cost to taxpayers of pursuing a capital case is three times as much as the costs of pursuing a non-death penalty homicide conviction. Lastly, the Commission determined that the risk of executing an innocent person was extremely high and that the statistics did not prove that the death penalty was a deterrent. The death penalty did not make us stronger or more secure as a people. Nor did the death penalty make our laws more effective or more just. Capital punishment was expensive, and it did not work.
Your feedback and opinions are important to me I benefit greatly from your thoughts. Working together, we will continue to protect our shared priorities of expanding opportunity for more Marylanders rather than fewer, strengthening and growing our middle class and small businesses, securing public safety, and improving the health of our environment.
Sincerely,
Governor O'Malley

A return to the blog

Wow, I thought I'd taken this blog down. But I guess not. It's right here, just as it always was. And I think it's time to start writing again. The 3 year embargo of all things social media related can end now. I have my doctorate. There is no more thesis to write. Only the rest of life to be getting on with. And that's pretty nice. So before I think of something actually relevant to write about, here are some interesting things I have learnt since logging back into here: 

1. You no longer have to actually log in. Google owns the internet, so once you've logged into one thing, well, you've logged into it all.
2. I have FTP blogs. I don't know what those are exactly, but it's sign of being old skool I think. Anyway, they are to be migrated. At some point.
3. Blogger has stats! I love stats! So I have found out that there have been 8,843 page views of this blog, the majority from the US but also a large number recently from Russia. This creeps me out. Russia is a scary place, as far as I know. 
4. Also, you can see the search terms people use to get on this blog. Whilst a lot of people seem to actually search for the blog by name, other people are looking for "circle time" resources, which is something I used to use with my tutor group. And yet more people are looking for pancake recipes, and ways to eat pancakes, specifically with nutella. I don't remember writing about this, but I guess that was popular.
5. I suppose the rest of the people who looked at it were trying to find some help with their teaching, or maybe just wanted to feel that they weren't the only one who found teaching pretty damn hard. I hope it helped them.

Ok so just to get you back into the spin of things, some updates about me:

1. I am now 29.
2. I am still a Virgo looking to ramble and rant. And I still have the lovely X by my side.
3. I have moved from Oxford back down to good old Walthamstow, where I went to school myself and where I taught before (I figure enough time has passed since leaving my school to risk saying where it was).
4. I have a post-doc at the University of Manchester, at their new ethnicity research centre. So I am gearing up for academic life. Sort of.
5. And I'll be writing about all sorts of things on here, when I remember.

Summer!

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

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!)