Loads of things!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Updates

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.

Sunday 1st week

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!

Happy New Year!

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!

Some stuff that's been happening

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!