Boxing St Stephen

We had a delicious haunch of venison with gorgeous yummy gravy with a good French red wine which I hadn't heard of before, with brussels sprouts - tradition innit? - and organic leeks and steamed Golden Wonder potatoes. I then had cranberries and yogurt but my friend declined.
Then we watched a film about Che and his friend taking a motorcycle trip through South America and getting radicalised en route. It was odd to compare it to the Long Way Down with Ewan McGregor, a Scot and Charlie Boorman who is just so Dutch. They were both pretty lightweight compared to the Argentines. Different times and different aims of course. I like Gabriel Garcia Bernal - he is a really appealing actor.
We went for champagne over to the Big House - I felt like a poor relation of the poor relation, weird. R made some odd comment about lefties not knowing anything about wine and I nearly retorted about champagne socialists, then he got on even more dangerous ground talking about drink driving. We soon left. Now they are back making so much money I think they have become coarser and more capitalistic but I suppose everyone who is on the right side of the property market and the jobs/careers side of things is increasingly separated from those who are the have-nots by any criteria.
I wish I need not meet anyone at all really but this antisocial behaviour seems unlikely to be allowed free rein, given my choice of research.
I read a little of John Evelyn's diary but this may not help at all if I set the start date at 1700. I wish I could sort myself out; I am still all over the place and it isn't helped by the fact I have promised to house-sit over New Year.
I see this time of reading and contemplation being eroded further. I am not at ease with myself. La Donna called and suggested I should research Islamic garden influence; it seemed impossible to explain that I would like to and had considered it but thought it too difficult to find an Irish connection. If I do manage to do so in the future, she will now insist on the credit for it!

Blue Christmas

This is really carried on from the last post, but that was so out-dated, I had to restart.
I have been invited to the Awards ceremony next March - at first I thought I should not be able to attend because we would be in Venice but it turns out to be the Friday before, phew! - because I want Roy to attend and have invited him - and the girlfriend (if you are still around, I felt like adding) to come as my guests. She looked a bit doubtful I have to say. I was quite elated although it was pretty much a given, since I won the award but with this college - you never know.
I went in to get the paperwork signed for the reimbursement of trip expenses and the whole 'non-EU student' thing is apparently still on the computer and although the CC didn't seem to know about it, the college thought that they had been billed the non-Eu amount (which I doubt, the CC wouldn't be that free with their money). So I hope it is sorted out but I wouldn't be surprised if it comes back at me again. I returned the paperwork, with 3 signatures, 2 stamps and all sections filled in by 4 different people. This was in addition to the letter detailing all amounts and giving full travel details which the secretary had already supplied. I felt embarrassed going back to her with all the further demands knowing she will have to repeat the whole process for each student on a grant.
Contacted my ex-lecturer about problems with thesis topic and he very sweetly responded speedily and to the point with many practical and theoretical ideas - but I think I will have to stop asking for help and just simply get to work. Having said that I have another round of calls to make to try and contact people over garden visits and Christmas/New Year is a very difficult time to try and do it. No response from 2 tried so far.
Was feeling up yesterday but came crashing down again later. Affected by my son's moodiness too and his impossible-to-live-with habits.

Busy but not happy

Busy having a cold AND invigilating exams exactly a year after having to endure taking one myself at the same miserable venue.
It took quite a bit of doing even to land this far-from-prize seasonal jobbette. I applied months ago at the suggestion of someone who had done it the summer before, having graduated at Christmas (you need to be a graduate in order to hand out papers, point out the way to a loo to a candidate and collect the papers in again). I heard nothing from admin and went to inquire at the end of the term, was told that I was on the 'spare'list. I dutifully attended the information session anyway.

I was not assigned any shifts. Three days into the exams I went to admin and was given a week's work at the larger venue, the small on-campus sessions for the disabled, much-prized, were all full. Despite this, the friend I had on that team, was constantly given so many further shifts to fill out her 'dance card' that she was almost overstretched (but unable to refuse the chance of relatively easy money). So - it isn't meant to be fair - rampantly disorganised and at the mercy of croneyism, more like.

Anyway, as soon as I entered the place I caught an upside down sort of cold from their strange form of heating and the combined mass of hundreds of students heaving with fear and last night's beer.

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My post was rudely interrupted by some power problem at this - or rather a later point - but this is all I found when I checked back a few days later.
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I cannot remember what I was going to say... I am about to go away for a Christmas break to a friend's house. It will be good to get away but whether I can really get the thinking-space I really need is doubtful. I have been so mentally volatile recently that it is quite alarming, alternating beween wild despair and quiet confidence, which is quite exhausting.

Another hellish time before managing to log on

Maybe it's my shocking memory but every time the computer loses my user name and password, I instantly forget them too, making me unable to post until I reset the password and go through a variety of hoops to identify which blog I am trying to recover. It has been known to take me up to several weeks, but tonight it took about one hour of being connected to several abandoned blogs before I managed to get back to this one. Let's hope the computer holds onto my details for a while so I don't have to repeat the whole miserable process again.

I have been in a state of Grand Funk for a while now and have not entirely pulled out if it yet, but I am cheered to get the good news that I have been awarded a postgraduate award of €€€, which, if I understand the terms correctly, will be extended into my PhD years, if I can continue getting good grades. So I had better deliver a good thesis...
The slide exams and the presentation are done and dusted; I have had only one essay back so far but that was an A grade, so all is well so far.
The problem remains the thesis topic and the research. I feel horribly late and behind because I have written nothing as yet - -in fact, I am not at all clear what I am doing at all but am trying not to panic, continue reading and hope all becomes clearer soon.
I am free of lectures as of today until 22 January 2008. I may have some invigilating work but I am on the standby team only, so I may have none at all or very little, I suspect. I'm not sure why I have not been given more but I think they take on those who have done it before first and maybe I didn't apply quickly enough. I don't know - but the award money certainly cushions the disappointment I felt when I realised that I would not have 2 solid weeks employment before Christmas as I had assumed.

I hope I continue to feel more upbeat. The conferring ceremony this Monday, with a poor speech from the President of the College, who failed to acknowledge the graduates sitting in front of him, did nothing to cheer me up. We graduands were cut into 3 alphabetical groups, with no chance to liaise with each other until the evening (by which time most had long since departed, needless to say). The snacks at that time were low quality and unsuitably childish, certainly not worth waiting for. (The Awards ceremony ones were far superior, with wine rather than execrable tea and coffee).
Who knows? Maybe I will be going to that next year; there was no mention of it in the notification of the Award but it is arranged separately so I may hear later.

Winter is here and I must fight a tendency towards depression whatever the excuses are for it. I can't complain about today's news anyway!