| Pinkstarperson's profilePink star's paradisePhotosBlogLists |  Tools  Help |
|
June 27 My Masters is over and I passed with meritOnly now what? The question every graduate asks themselves... usually too late in the day to actually come up with a convincing answer to any and all related questions put to them on results day. Now you've completed your studies what do you plan to do with the rest of your life? I don't know, did any of our parents know what they wanted to do when they finished school, do any of our parents know now what they want to do with the rest of their lives? While the results were still pending... while there was still some excuse keeping me on campus, still allowing me to claim, im a student I didn't have to tackle the big bad question... only now, I am a Master of Science and the security blanket has been taken away, now I have no choice but to seek out life after University.
Nick thinks that I am a not a Master of Science but a Mistress of Science based purely on my gender... he also thinks that I am not a bachelar of Science but a Spinster... I don't think that it reads like that on the certificate or my transcripts and Im not sure its very politically correct to call any woman a spinster in 2008 but he's not a big believer in politically correct phrasing, he believes in saying things as they are although this may not always be the best policy and may one day get him in trouble with the fairer sex. In his defense though, chivelry is not dead... he holds doors open... ladies first... and shouts at the other housemates when they swear in the presence of "delicate spirits" other wise known as girls. Richard, John and I don't believe we know any girls who could be described as "delicate spirits" buts its a nice idea!!
I've been thinking about what kind of marketing job I'd like to do, when I went for the interview for the Marketing assistant job with Swansea Council they asked me, why were you attracted to the local council? It made me think... I hadn't exactly prepared for the interview but I responded... I don't want to work for a money hungry company, one who treats customers as numbers... markets products that are not needed, or wanted and doesn't give anything back. Richard said to me this morning I'll probably end up marketing for a charity and most likely the BHF. Theresa called it my second home this morning. She was suprised to find me on msn... she said, what time are you going to your second home... without thinking i responded 1pm - 5pm. I caught myself too late!! I do seem to be there a lot lately, although I should be at work right now but im not needed so instead im writing this blog / note and then Im going to continue with the job of clearing up and clearing out my room before I move back home. Its only 3 weeks!!
I will be sad to leave Swansea, its a nice city an the people here are great... maybe I'll come back... when I have some money behind me, when I have some experience of office work / marketing work... finding a job will be easier and then I'll come back... Its a good plan but plans don't always work out. Maybe I'll work for the university... Student Recruitment? I am an abassador now, i like it, full time job with great pay and benefits!!
Watch this space! I have been enjoying the last few weeks, things seem to be coming to a close, acceptance of things ending but its all tinged with a hint of sadness, all the fun and activities, events, parties etc its all sorrounded by the knowledge that its all going to stop soon. End of an era, beginning of new one but I'll hold on to this era as long as possible thankyou very much.
April 22 The full story, the good the bad and the thoughts in betweenIts strange isn't it, I don't write a blog for six months and then in one month I find loads of things to say!
This blog entry is pure rant so here is the official disclaimer. If you are offended by anything you read call 0800-sarcasm and our customers services team will be on hand to tell you the exact opposite of what you want to hear. This is in essence ladies and gentlemen a Rant, a method by which to vent frustrations and annoyance and should not be taken as anything other than the ramblings of a girl with too much time on her hands.
This whole thing started with A, A is a nice girl, a little scatty but nice, she felt that she was making a fuss about a proposed holiday and in order to prevent people from assuming she was making a fuss for no reason explained her need for the requests she was making. She made reference to a wall post on Person D's wall written by person B. Now It comes to light that apparantely person B had a problem with the comments made by person A but it was not person B who commented on this first it was person C. Person A realised her comments had been taken in the wrong way and tried to make ammends. She offered to drop out of the holiady in order for persons B and C to go witout worry of repeating patterns. Persons B and C pulled out of the holiday and refused to return to the group claiming that person A was the main cause. Given however that person A said they would drop out to rectify this problem this excuse from persons B and C held no weight. Person A contacted person E to talk and work out a way forward and persons A and person E contacted person D who was organising the trip and asked her to fix it. She's good, but not a miracle worker and given person B and C and their determination not to go on the holiday for yet undisclosed reasons she was talking to a brick wall. Person A, D and E decided to go on holiday with persons F, G and H instead.
Person B and person D are now fighting. Now oweing to the fact the initial disagreement was between person A and person C why did B need to get involved and why did person D have to try to fix everything and get dragged into a disagreement that didn't involve her in the first place. It may have been suggested that if person B had read person A's comments before person C had their say then this may have all been dealt with and brushed under the carpet. instead person D suggested it was C's over reaction to A's comments that caused a problem that didn't really need fixing. Person D also may have suggested that person C was persuading person B to drop out and go with her on a seperate holiday for financial or personality reasons, either way with no upstanding reason for B's departure this seemed an appropriate assumption. It may have been wrong but as I said given that C dropped out first and C had confronted A and appeared to have made a mountain out of a molehill what are we supposed to think.
D and B have been friends for years. D tried to explain that she was not having a go at B, but annoyed at C for commenting on something that didn't directly involve her in the first place. Person B insists that person C was just sticking up for her as is to be expected but doesn't person B have a voice, and if person B claims to be independent and not hugely influenced by other people why didn't she express her concerns to person A, who, it should be noted have spent approximately fifteen minutes in each others' company and haven't spoken on facebook directly??!
Person D was annoyed at B for not being honest about her reasons for dropping out in the first place and B is annoyed at D for pushing her to change her mind. If B had been honest in the first place and said exactly what ther reasons were instead of blaming a fictional argument with person A then this disagreement with D would not have been so big. Person D may have pushed person B to give up her real reasons, this may have seemed like support for person A but it wasn't it was an attempt to convince person B that she was wanted on the trip and that facebook is eveil. In the mean time person D asked the group for a show of hands and said "your loss" to all those who didn't want to come anymore. Person C asked "why is it our loss" as though if we were losing out because they weren't joining us anymore. It was disappointing but not the end of the world and when I said this and expressed her annoyance at not being given a proper reason to person C she responded with insults and accusations. Person D was not about to allow C to attack her without consequences and published message with a commentary on the comings and goings of the holiday planning much like this one. In response to this more insults, swearing and accusations from persons B and C. D has not sworn or insulted anybody and was not appreciative of this behaviour from her supposed friends.
Since a confrontation (over FACEBOOK) person B appears to be ignoring person D and avoiding contact with her. Person D wonders (and it is speculation) as to why person B isn't putting her friendship above her pride and isn't apologising for her inability to be open and upfront and why she blames D for everything when it was D who was trying to fix everything that happened before she got involved. Person D suggested that person B could be a better friend and while she understands this takes some contemplation time from person B if B and D were good friends in the first place a little honesty should strenghten a friendship not tear it apart. If B and D were any kind of friends in the first place a few heated words over Facebook would not be allowed to destroy what would appear from the outside to be a solid friendship. So were B and D ever really good friends to begin with if this is all it takes to end it? I want to be friends with person B but if person B doesn't want to be friends with me then I have more self respect than to spend the next few months following her around like a lost puppy, I will walk away.
A large part of the disagreement steams from the fact that I made the argument public and from certain people's point of view presented it as one sided and negative. Now this account of the interactions has the actions of persons A, B, C and D laid out for all to see.
A life in the day of .... meA certain housemate who insists that a random bottle of Tesco Value Gin found under the stairs belongs to me, told me to write a story to fill the gaps in my day between eating, sleeping and talking. This housemate, often referred to as "the very loud man downstairs" also told me to take up a musical instrument... or if I was feeling particularly insane to do both at the same time. I haven't written a story since year eight or earlier and so I haven't got the faintest idea where to start. I could start with the old cliche of "Once upon a time in a far away land" but I often think the best stories happen right here so why waste energy. On top of that if this story was set in a far far away land I'd have to describe it to you, its geography, culture, heritedge and to be quite honest I don't have enough imagination for that, so my story is set in a house in Swansea with people you've already met. When we were in year eight, our teacher made us do this excercise called a life in the day of. No you read that right. She said if we started at the beginning, in the morning when we woke up and waffled (although that wasn't her word) until we went to bed we'd describe our activities and maybe something about our own character, our friends and other potentially intereting titbits would appear along the way.
So here goes:
Unlike the days of year eight I don't wake up in the 'mornings' if I can help it. If I'm feeling particularly energetic I'll crawl out of bed at 11am and pretend I saw more of the morning than I actually did. I don't work right now - hence the need to write this - so im enjoying the freedom to get up and go to bed when i like, the nine to five routine will come and I'll hate every early waking minute of it, except I probably won't.
I don't eat breakfast so my morning consists of the following activities. I get out of bed, I turn the PC on, I go to the bathroom, I come back to my room and check facebook. Facebook is evil, it has created a society of addicts who stalk profiles, take meaningless quizzes and play dull games all under the guise of social networking. Half the people classed as "friends" on your profile list aren't really your friends. A large majority of mine I went to school with but don't talk to now, people I met once or supposedly know but wouldn't know if they offered me a drink in Divas. The other half, the half that are your friends, shouldn't need BookFace to stay in contact with you. Facebook can also cause more damage to your social network than it solves, it can be the source of conflicts that if Facebook didn't exist wouldn't have happened, things get posted on walls, sent in messages that if said face to face would be laughed off but written on facebook can cause offense in ever increasingly unpredictable ways. Like I said Facebook is EVIL. By the time I have checked through the 100+ groups I belong to, mostly because the name sounded good, checked messages and wall posts, clicked ignore to the 20 - 30 updates, invites and requests I've recieved in the past 12 hours I realise its an hour or so later and I'm still sat in my PJs. Time to get dressed.
This is where the fact im a girl first rears is head, choosing what to wear! Some days, most days, I have what I refer to as "fat days" days where no matter what I would like to wear my stomach looks bigger than I'd like it to or the button on my fav jeans won't close. On top of that the outfit I had planned to wear today I remeber is sat in the laundry basket on the top of my wardrobe so I have to resort to plan B, which brings us full circle back to problem A. Being a girl is tough... gusy just chuck on the first T-shirt in the drawer and the cleanest pair of Jeans and they're good to go, in fact nobody would notice if a guy wore the same outfit two days in a row but girls.... oooooh big no no.
After this ordeal I have to find something to do, up until a few weeks ago there were never enough hours in the day and doing all the things I do now seemed meaningful and fun. Checking Facebook, watching daytime TV and playing Sims was more appealing because I knew I shouldn't be doing it, I should be doing my dissertation but procrastination is always more appealing than work. I handed my dissertation in on 31st March and so all those things that were classed as distractions aren't distracting any more, they have lost half of their appeal which means I get bored with them much faster than I was last month. I say to myself each morning now, "Im going to find something productive to do today" and so far, not so sucessful. I did manage to have a productive day today though, I gave all of my dissertation books back to the Library, I gave my boss a laugh when I popped in and I bough food from Tescos. Only I got soaked walking back from campus and soaked again walking back from Tescos. I have done a fair amount of walking today! I also managed to completey lose the plot in Tescos today, going past isles i needed and walking backwards and forwards around the shop to find things I'd forgotten and forgetting them anyway. I blame Richard.
Lunch or breakfast is usually my healthiest meal of the day, chicken salad is the lunch of choice. Lisa made fun of me on saturday because I go to the same baguette shop every saturday and order the same sandwhich, but it tastes good and I can't read the menu so leave me be. It is at this point in the day that I realise not only have I not eaten anything I've not drunk anything either. Its no wonder I can't lose weight if all my daily intake of food happens later in the day and im not drinking enough water. I like Nick's attitude though, he keeps saying "ah ah diets are bad for you", "you don't need to diet until you are wider than you are tall" its a form of logic, not one that will wash with most girls but a little self esteem boost is never unwelcome. I get those from Stephen regularly, Its nice to know you can count on at least one person to tell you how good you look even if you've thrown on the only clean top you've got and the only pair of jeans that fits.
My afternnon consists of much the same as the morning. I need something to do!! Anything! Im looking into volunteering with Discovery but having been spoilt by the Friday Night OWL project and BHF I can't seem to find a project I like. The tuesday night club with its highly imaginative title seems my best bet but that would still leave vast gaps in time in which I must find something to fill. I go back to Facebook, knowing that at least two people would have been online between my first visit of the day and now. Two messages in my inbox, one from Liz, one from Therea. I've already had three texts from Theresa and one phonecall so thats at least three distinct conversations happening betwen two people simultaniously. I talk to Theresa a lot, sorry the "other Miss D", she texts me when she wakes up, and I text her before I go to bed and whenver my phone rings I rarely find its anybody besides her, Its a nice surprise when it the caller ID says anything other than "Theresa New".
After a strenous afternoon and probably an unplanned nap - god I sound so lazy - I will venture to the kitchen and cook dinner. This is usually something quick or left overs from what ever dinner I made last night. Thats the great thing about Spag bol, feeds me for days, unless I share it with Richard or Nick. I would like to try to cook new things but I don't have the patience to stick to recipes and I don't like cooking individual portions. Sometimes I'll cook loads of food and feed whomever is in the house at the time. I like doing that, its so much easier to plan and cook for more than one person even with Stephen's dietary requirements and more fun to eat with other people. If nobody else is around i'll eat in front of the TV in my room like a proper student. Our table is unstabled (much like Richard according to Ryan), we have a piece of cupboard siding under one leg so it doesn't wobble too badly. The guy who put it together for us had about as much patiences with instructions as I do with recipes and drilled new holes because he decided the existing ones were in the wrong place!!?
It is at this point that my healthy eating plan for the day goes out the window and I wonder to the shop for chocolate. We have a choice of two shops in the streets surrounding our house, they are affectionately named "the shop of truth" and "the shop of deciet and lies". I blame Richard for this as he's been using these phrases to describe things as long as I've known him, usually moving objects about to run us over - best carer ever. This time though it is based on more than randomness, the shop of deciet and lies has no prices printed on its products and the staff make them up at the till, I suspect that students get charged double out of spite, supernoodles from 85p to £8.50. It was in this shop that I first noticed that space raiders are now 15p and I was not impressed. I found a Facebook group of like minded people demanding the price of the pickled onion alien snacks be returned to 10p, so far without sucess. The shop of Truth on the other hand sells better stuff and the people are nicer, except lately they've taken to calling me trouble. I'd protest at this title but I've been on Richard's bad influence list for months and I often break shop tills with the "card of destruction" or whatever its called. I am happy to report though that our fav shop assistant welcome richard and I as "troublemakers" today so the chaos and blame is spreading - ha!
There is too much TV choice in the evenings. having just done a 20000 word essay on the perils of TV and TV advertising I shouldn't be suprised Im drawn to the "idiot's latern" in the evening to become a statistic along with millions of other individuals. I smile at the adverts, which im supposed to ignore but find entertaining and flick between the channels on the hour to find the next American drama series that I've probably seen at least twice before. My favourites at the moment are House MD, CSI Miami and on the weekends there is space for some British influences with Dr Who and I'll Do Anything. I watch the later mostly so I can to my mum, "I wanted that one to go instead of her" or "I am glad she went she wasn't very good".
I'll check Facebook again before I go to bed because all the sane people have been online in the evening and I'll respond to the wall posts and messages from Liz and Theresa and protest at the comment left by Richard or Liz on the opposite's wall (not that I would read other people's walls) and then crawl into bed, assuring myself i'll have a more productive day tomorrow.
So thats my day... damit I need a job....
April 16 I am rather confused and a little scared!I don't know why it has taken this long for me to figure ths out, but I live in probably the craziest student house imaginable. We don't have all night raves in the shed or anything but some of the things that go on in this house are unbelievable.
I blame the fact i live with boys!
This is my fifth year at Swansea Uni and in that time the majority of people i've lived with have been girls, in fact the same group of girls, it was a calm existence, a few nights out, a few trips to the local drinking establishment, a couple of houseparties but mostly our freetime consisted of watching hollyoaks or the "soap of choice" and reading magazines. It may seem dull to you but it was good, lots of gossip, chatter and frun. This year, this year i chose to live with boys, much to my mum's dismay! Turns out the simplest of things can be turned upsidedown.
There resides in our house a drumkit called Tim and a base called Kiera.
A pink pony named magnito with plaited pink hair.
Our banister is named Brian.
April 14 Blog posts: interpretations and consequences.so im trying this new thing, being entirely honest with my friends about my feelings and opinions, so far, not working out so great. If you can't be honest with you friends then who can you be honest with?
It makes me wonder why people want you to be honest with people when the only thing it achieves if causing aggrevation and bad feeling between the people it is supposed to prevent bad feeling between. A lot has happened in the last month and I am confused by it all and in expressing my confusion i seem to have offended the one person i never intended on offending. Sorry Sam.
I wrote the message on my blogsite and i forgot that it got posted to facebook, nobody really reads my blog so I didn't expect it to be made so public, not that I am ashamed of what I said or was trying to hide my comments from anybody mentioned in the message below. I needed to air out my feelings, mostly so they made sense to me, so that i had the situation clear in my own head so that when Sam and i came to talk face to face there wasn't any confusion on my side and I knew what i wanted to say. Facebook messes everything up. Facebook is evil.
I do not understand why expressing my opinion on the situation has made me the bitch? I am entitled to it, im entitled to express it as well. I set out to make anybody sound like a bitch. I may have commented on the language in the message and that may not have been appropriate but that is the only aspect of my last post i am prepared to apologise for. If Helen wants to threaten me and insult my friends why should I not tell them? I have not, apart from the stab at her spelling, insulted Helen and I am not about to either, it would serve little purpose. I didn't blame anybody for anything, I didn't say anything that wasn't true in relation to the ins and outs of the holiday planning and any opinion that i gave was coupled with a comment such as, this may not be what was intended or I may be wrong.
I could sit here and analyse my own message, point out quotes of particular interest that back up my point that nothing in the message is directly insulting but what is the point? I said what i said, im not ashamed of what i said and i stand by it. If it is miscontrued as insulting then that is a reflection on the reader and not the author. If it is necessary I will go through it line by line with anybody who asks and reitorate what I have said in more userfriendly language. I set out to give an account of the comings and goings of the holiday planning, the changes, the confusions and if I happened to analyse them a little then why is that a bad thing since all blogs are subjective and editorial by nature. A few people have read the message now, two have said im a bitch for writing it, one has pointed out possible causes for negative interpretations, two have said I didn't say anything that I had no right to say. Im still open for critiques and comments.
As i said in my last message, Sam has me as a friend whether she likes it or not. If she is willing to accept that I was not intending to offend her and that Helen and I are not going to get on then we can move forward. Ball is in her court.
A lot of fuss over nothingI recieved this message from a 27 year old sister of one of my friends. Im posting it here because i find it unbelievably entertaining!
"Right that's enough now danielle! I don't think u realise who ur messing with! I'v bin calm up until now but u jus can't seem 2 get it thru ur childish little brain that sam has decided not 2 go 2 rome wi u lot coz the atmosphere wud b horrible coz of small mined people like liz. It was not a minor disagreement as u keep putting it! Ur feelings 4 liz r very clear with regard 2 friendship & u can not c passed her side. if u was ne kind of friend u wud not giv sam grief over this. Cut the jealousy act dani!"
I shall start at the beginning, more so for my benefit than yours becasue if i don't i'll lose track of the roller coaster of events and sooner or later will either crash into ground or shoot off into sapce, neither one would be advantageous.
In january somebody, I believe it was Ryan and I came up with a plan to on a short break to Rome. Sam since claims it was her idea but no matter. Sam asked us to go mid August so that we were in Italy for her birthday. It seemed a lovely idea and I was already looking foward to it. I decided not to start formally organising it until after my dissertation was completed (prioritise the accademics for once), im not a patient person and so it got to the middle of March and I couldn't wait anymore. Sam asked me to look into booking things soon so that we could take advantage of cheap flights which made sense.
Liz posted a website for a hostel, it look OK, not the best but cheap and in roughly the right place. For ages there were 8 people on the guestlist and here is where it may get a little tricky:
Me
Theresa
Louise
Liz
Richard
Stephen
Ryan
Sam
I put the event on facebook and asked people to confirm whether they were going or not. At this point Ryan dropped out so the guestlist read
Me
Theresa
Louise
Liz
Richard
Stephen
Sam A nice number of people, everything looked set. Hannah had been invited but at that point had not confirmed and after we had mostly agreed on the hostel decided she did want to go and if possible to bring her sister Ellie so the guest list looked like
Me
Theresa
Louise
Liz
Richard
Stephen
Sam
Hannah
Ellie
Hannah raised some concerns that the hostel was a bit outside Rome and was there the possiblity of staying somewhere closer to the sights, so i started hotel searching again.
Sam asked if her sister Helen could join us as she wouldn't get a vacation this year. we all agreed so the guestlist became
Me
Theresa
Louise
Liz
Richard
Stephen
Sam
Hannah
Ellie
Helen
At this point, over the course of just one week the group were shown seven or eight different hotels all within the £60 - £70 price bracet within 15 minutes of the sights. We also discussed the option of an appartment. It became obvious that pleasing 10 people was going to be difficult, concerns were raised from all directions about the prices, the distance, the facilities, the room organisation, you name it and i'll bet somebody in the group had said it. Finding a hotel was proving problematic.
Sam found us what looked like a perfect compromise 30 minutes out but with good bus / metro links £55 for the three nights with a lift in the hotel and airport transfers. Ideal. It concerned me at this point that Sam said that if the group couldn't decide on a hotel then maybe it would have to split. I mentioned that the hotel was a way away from the centre and may be problematic for Hannah, Ellie and Liz but i felt like Sam had set her mind on this hotel and that given her point about splitting the group this would be the result if we didn't stay in the hotel she had selected. This may or may not have been her intention. We all agreed to stay in this hotel.
At this point i asked for monies!! £110 for flights and hotel deposit to be with me in Swansea by 14th April.
This is where i get confused so bare with me. I suspected that now that monies were due people may begin to have second thoughts and i was right. Helen was the first to raise the "i can't afford it" card, followed by Sam, claiming they had to budget for Donna's hen do. Fair enough but a little disappointing given Sam's earlier enthusiasm and input into the planning process.
While i was away in Cambridge Liz posted a message on my wall, she wrote that people could be ignorant about asthma and she explained why she was making a fuss about distances and lifts so that people didn't just assume she was being difficult for the sake of it. She referred to a post made by Sam earlier on my wall about her experiences of having to walk up 10 flights of stairs with a suitcase. The post stated that it was ok for some people to do that but not everybody could. This post has caused some controvecy but Im not entirely sure as to why?
Helen again was the first to raise the concerns in relation to this post, claiming Liz was making unnecessary and offensive comments about Sam, which from the post, i couldn't see. Sam and Liz have not directly spoken and while I have later found that Sam did take offence to the post im wondering whether the idea that it was offensive was put into her head from outside sources or whether it was her interpretation of the situation, given that she and liz have not spoken and that it was another who has made the only comments on it, either way it is just another drain on my enthusiasm to go at all. Sam and Helen dropped out of Rome leaving the guest list at
Me
Theresa
Louise
Liz
Richard
Stephen
Hannah
Ellie
Helen and Sam have stated several reasons for not going, i personally believe that isolated these concerns are minor and shouldn't discourage them from coming, the problem I have is that they both flittered between excuses and their reasons for coming seemed to change everyday, this is just my perceiption and may not be how they felt and probably isn't. What got to me the most is Sam's decision to book a last minute holiday with Helen instead, while I have no problem with two sisters going away together (have fun ladies) i do have a problem with one holiday being sacrificed in order to make another possible. It seems such a waste, given that it was Sam's birthday we were celebrating and the fact it was supposed to be a sort of reunion weekend for the girls (this would be unaffected by the pressence of other people before anybody raises ths point). Without Sam the holiday didn't seem so appealing. This is how Hannah felt also, and decided if Sam wasn't going then neither was she so the guest list became
Me
Theresa
Louise
Liz
Richard
Stephen
so from 8 to 7 to 9 to 10 to 6, everybody still on board?
Since then there has been pressure put on sam to change her mind, so be it, it is not because i think Sam is silly for taking offence at what Liz said, im not taking Liz's side. Sam would have enjoyed Rome and to assume there would be more problems is creating agro where none need exist. It seemed an excuse not to come and not a reason. here is teh funny thing Helen and Sam, Liz offered to drop out so you two could come instead if she was the main reason you weren't going - didn't know that did you? Unfortunately a better offer had been placed on the table and we became second best. I realised at this point that I was being forced to chose between friends and that it was Sam and Helen putting me in this position, so i refused. I wouldn't ask another friend to choose between her friends so i won't do it. If Sam was going to come she would come if Liz was there or not, nothing I said at this point would make any difference so why should i offend Liz at this stage to achieve nothing.
Helen couldn't leave it alone, after I had decided to drop the whole thing, like i said nothing could be gained from any more discussions with sam and hoping she could come. I wrote a message saying those of you who want to come, welcome aboard those who don't its your loss. Helen questioned, why is it our loss? err r because you won't be coming to Rome with us so you'll miss out? I wrote this on her wall and decided sarcasm wasn't going to achieve anything so deleted it. She read the wall post from her email and wrote the above message in response.
And this is where we now stand. I know who im messing with and im clearly not phased by it. I do not have a problem with Sam or Liz and my feelings towards helen are irrelevant, not everybody is going to get along are they, would make life very dull if they did. I may have suggested that it was Helen who put the idea of a last minute holiday into sam's head, either way it makes no difference the idea was there, it made no difference in the long run who suggested it, a better offer was on the table and yet again I lost out. It may seem to you that im jealous that Helen gets Sam and I don't but that is a false perception based on assumptions about a person without really knowing them. How I interact with my friends is between me and them and is nobody elses business. I am disappointed that Sam won't be joining us, and of course Hannah and Ellie, it would have been a lot of fun! I am totally fed up of the mess that which has been caused over one post on facebook? Facebook should never be taken seriously, its a website, there are not inflections, expressions or body language, you can't assume a person's words are how you read them, you're missing out on vital verbal and non verbal communication signals that can change any phrase from good to bad and from bad to good. Helen does raise one good point in the midst of her poor grammar and bad spelling though, if i was any kind of friend I would be nicer to sam in one respect, I'd ignore Helen alltogether and let her have her misguided rant about the situation, responding to the message above will only lead to further confrontations and potential problems between me and Sam, I am a better friend to Sam than a lot she has had in the past and i will continue to be her freind whether she likes it or not.
Morals of the story:
never assume anything - it only gets you in trouble
don't judge people without knowing them and once you've gotten to know them only then judge them on their actions, words and decisions if you want to be judged in the same way by them.
Don't get involved in an argument/ discussion / conversation that doesn't involve you - mind your business
Don't take facebook as fact, would you assume wikipedia was accurate?
and lastly
never ever ever try to organise a group holiday - its a headache, one which can be avoided. October 17 A few new thingsPINKATHON, JAKS, WELSH AND CAKES
So this week saw the revival of my social life!! Lets not assume by that, that i don't have one its just its been a little stagnant lately! With the girls gone and dissertation in full swing the weekly trips into town be it Orange House and Flares or something else have become few and far between. The furthest I have ventured in many weeks has been the Rhyddings. According to the facebook group it is the centre of the universe but for a while at least i will have to disagree with them. Sam, Alun, Richard, Stephen and I all headed down to RAG's pinkathon held in Divas on monday night. Sam and I spent considerable time, switching tops, bags and so on until we had the perfect pink outfits which met with the approval of Mr Warr who became the king of all things pink that night. He decided that because he had gone to all the effort of buying a pink t shirt we (as girls) had to be more pink then he was! I think Alun developed a liking for pink (he wore if for his first day in the office today). It wasn't what I was expecting, there was a band which kept Richard happy and a few funny dance routines from Tom Stubbs, Sheryl and others. It was funny to watch!! Mark suggested we all go to Jaks, so around 10.30 Alun. Stephen, Sam and I all piled in a taxi and headed to jaks, armed with VIP bands from ENTS. They didn't pull their weight however, they didn't give us a discount on entry, or free drinks in fact they were pretty worthless! We did get a matching red band curtesy of Jaks which meant if we wanted to go down to SinCity we wouldn't have to pay again which is always good! It was nice to have a few drinks and a dance again, haven't done it in such a long time!! May have to repeat it on a much more regular basis.
I don't know how I managed to ignore RAG for so long, its been a huige society on campus far long then I have been at university so how did i not join it five years ago! I went from being Charities officer at HRSFC to having nothing to do with charities at University? That doesn't make sense to me at all. I suppose being such a big society it was quite daunting in the first year. I didn't join anything I don't think and then by the time you get into second and third year the routine is set! My time in the third and masters year was taken up with all things welsh and of course the BHF. I spent sunday afternoon/evening making pink fairy cakes for the Breast Cancer Awareness day cake sale. As far as I know we raised £160 which includes the money raised from all the hundreds of cakes we sold!! Its nice to have something to do that helps out other people and doesn't involve another language.
Speaking of another lanugae i've been learning welsh for a couple of weeks now. Alun says im doing good, but he's somewhat biased in his praise of me! I think im finding it easier then others in the class bbut at the same time there are others finding it easier than me and want us to be progressing faster then we are. I don't think the majority of the class agree with these few individuals!!! I have learnt a few phrases, beth ych enw chi (what is your name?) and I can say Danielle dw i in response. I think we have progressed far enough for 3 weeks if you ask me!!
Oh well best get back on with my dissertation! Wish me luck!
April 14 10.500 words in countingWell its the easter holiday and under the usual definition of the word I should be relaxing, feet up, a good book, better TV and absolutely no thinking, doing, or worrying about work. So much for that plan. They should rename the easter holiday or spring break as it is called in America to the Easter time study leave. Thats what we're expected to do for the three/four weeks we're away from lectures, maybe reading month would be a better term for this time period. I worked it out the other day, if you ignore the 10 page market research report i have to write and the 35 pages of group work currently underway each student on the MSc marketing course has to write 10,500 words. If any of the 24 people left on our course, and I suspect that they are then most of the 10500 words have yet to be written and time is running out! March 27 Balancing the quest for achievement and popularityThe category of this blog post is University, work and exams, and to all intents and purposes this has been the contents of my life for the past few weeks.
Last year when I ran for SWD in the exec elections (and lost) Alun tried to convince me I should run for welfare sabatical officer in this year's elections. It wasn't until three days before the close of nominations that I finally decided, yeah why not, what have i got to lose! It look me less than a day to find 15 people willing to second my nomination and I tried to get people I didn't know to sign it, get the word out that elections were coming. The hard part was putting a campaign together!
I started working on the printed material as soon as I knew I'd be needing them, I put together a well written but badly formatted leaflet and a not so stunning poster. I got 1000 leaflets printed up and 50 posters by K2. It was a nightmare trying to carry them home! I also worked on 20 hand drawn posters. I had both mum and Theresa hard at work with me, much to the annoyance of Louise who just wanted to draw scribbles all over the big paper. It must have looked strange to her as we were tracing the design through up against the window! It was gutting though on the first friday morning of campaign week when 10 of my hand drawn posters that I had so carefully put up the ngiht before were taken down and removed from existence. I was fuming! I should have put up the posters I had been given by the SU, I mean they took far less effort to create and nobody saw them anyway!!
I handed out all but about 8 of my leaflets in the week preceding the election days. I spoke to hundreds of people. I though I had them on side, I went round JCs most evenings, I knocked on house after house in the Student village. I seemed to be getting a good reaction from the people I was talking to, I was interested i think more in getting people interested in the whole election process then about getting me elected. It worked as well, I didn't get elected but more than 2100 people voted this year which is the highest count on record for the SUSU and one of the highest counts for Sabatical elections accross the UK. Even mum and Theresa voted over at APU for their sab elections. Theresa doesn't really care about these things, she was offered the manefestos of the candidates but couldn't be bothered to read them and ticked random names. I bet she voted for her RESPECT candidates without realising what that would mean for her union.
There were 29 of us who ran in the elections 28 who actively campaigned. For those of us running for welfare, Nick, Shem, Liz, Mat and I, we had all assumed that the RESPECT candidate would come last and that coming last was not a concern we had to face. To everybody's amazement Gilly didn't come last in fact she came fourth out of six. It was a real shock to the system, especially since the girl had no posters, had distributed no leaflets and did no visable active campaigning. It was really hard work! Trying to balance between the desire to get elected and the desire not to annoy my group members and get my share of our academic work done as well. I think I failed on both counts.
The two election days were amazingly hard going. We had been warned that it was going to be the longest couple of days in our life and Stuart wasn't wrong! Wednesday 14th March from 1pm I was standing with Richard, Marco and Alun asking people for their votes, trying to clamour some kind of attention away from Ipod Costumes, stilt walking guys and hidden shouters. Alun decided I needed a gimic, so I bought a Tweety bird costume, he insisted on wearing it. He got some attention granted and was called a legend and recieved high praise for his bravery. It did little to help my campaign! The photos are good though!! He was asked several times on wednesday evening for snap shots with various girls. I really wish he'd had the idea sooner, we may have got more votes!
Thursday, was a very very very long day. Richard stayed over and we all piled onto campus at around 8am to put up the recently constructed banner and claim our space in the corridor of campaigners. Richard, Alun and I had gone up to Dining room C to put our banner together, We discovered upon moving it into a less central place that we had tarnished the floor with the word WELFARE in big black letters! It was washable paint but I was still panicing! We can all laugh now, the cleaners washed it off and there is no lasting proof it ever happened.
The weather didn't help matters that day, it was cold and wet and I bought a jumper for Level2 which meant I didn't have my campaign T shirt on show. The depressing thing was I was asked several times - who are you representing? I think I managed to get a few voters to agree to put a one next to my name, but I discovered that by the time the ballot boxes are open that most people have already decided for whom they are voting.
There was some controversy with the counters. The names meant nothing to me but some people pointed out that Tom was Candidate X's boyfriend, Dick was on Candidate Y's campaign team and Harry wasn't trusted by some un named individuals. It meant that counting was delayed and the first result wasn't issued until after 12. The Welfare result came out around 4am and president wasn't announced until nearly 6am!! Im glad Alun wasn't the one translating the results this year, it would have been hell!
I have promised to help out on the campaign next year for somebody else, I can't run again but I think I'd like to enjoy the experience one last time before I have to go enter the real world!
March 05 my fine is...Smoked pot -- £10
Did acid -- £5 Ever had sex at church -- £25 Woke up in the morning and did not know the person who was next to you -- £40 Had sex with someone on MySpace -- £25 Had sex for money -- £100 Ever had sex with a Puerto Rican -- £20 Vandalized something -- £20 Had sex on your parents' bed -- £10 Beat up someone -- £20 Been jumped -- £10 Cross dressed -- £10 Given money to stripper -- £25 Been in love with a stripper -- £20 Kissed someone who's name you didn't know -- £0.10 Hit on some one of the same sex while at work -- £15 Ever drive and drank -- £20 Ever got drunk at work, or went to work while still drunk -- £50 Used toys while having sex -- £30 Got drunk, passed out and don't remember the night before -- £20 Went skinny dipping -- £5 Had sex in a pool -- £20 Kissed someone of the same sex -- £10 Had sex with someone of the same sex -- £20 Cheated on your significant other -- £10 Masturbated -- £10 Cheated on your significant other with their relative or close friend -- £20 Done oral -- £5 Got oral -- £5 Done / got oral in a car while it was moving -- £25 Stole something -- £10 Had sex with someone in jail -- £25 Made a nasty home video -- £15 Had a threesome -- £50 Had sex in the wild -- £20 Been in the same room while someone was having sex --£25 Stole something worth over more than a hundred dollars-- £20 Had sex with someone 10 years older -- £20 Had sex with someone under 21 and you are over 27 -- £25 Been in love with two people or more at the same time-- £50 Said you love someone but didn't mean it -- £25 Went streaking -- £5 Went streaking in broad daylight -- £15 Been arrested -- £5 Spent time in jail -- £15 Peed in the pool -- £0.50 Played spin the bottle -- £5 Done something you regret -- £20 Had sex with your best friend -- £20 Had sex with someone you work with at work -- £25 Had anal sex -- £80 Lied to your mate -- £5 Lied to your mate about the sex being good -- £25 Tally it up and title it: "My Fine Is..." copy and paste, then repost as a new bulletin. My fine is £55.60 thats not too bad really February 16 According to EleriI seem to be writing a lot of blog entries these days that begin with the line "according to", i can see a pattern emerging. Sooner or later I'll get back to blog entries that start "as far as I'M concerned".
Eleri wrote on Liz's wall some chain mail rubbish, but for the first time ever, it wasn't rubbish, in fact it was quite amusing. Here is why
Find a guy, who calls you beautiful instead of hot. (Alun calls me gorgeous does that count?)
Who calls you back when you hang up on him. (This one not so great but he'll pick up when i call him back)
Who will stay awake just to watch you sleep. (he does this and it disturbs me greatly)
Wait for the guy who kisses your forehead. (forehead kisses, I like those)
Who wants to show you off to the world when you are in your sweats. (Alun and I met up again at the beginning of the 3rd year, I was wearing my Cheerleader hoody, comfy pants and buckets of post practice sweat and he still found me attractive - strange strange man).
Who holds your hand in front of his friends. (he won't blummin let go)
Wait for the one who is constantly reminding you of how much he cares about you and how lucky he is to have you. (Love you, love you more, love you the most....)
Wait for the one who turns to his friends and says, "...that's her." (I am Alun's girlfriend to pretty much everybody on campus even my 3 year old niece knows im Alun's girlfriend).
So... According to Eleri, Alun is probably the perfect guy (if we ignore the whole phone thing). Don't go getting a big head Alun, You only scored 6 / 7, there is room for improvement! (He steals the covers at night and rolls over to the middle of the bed when i go to the bathroom. ) February 13 What my name means to me...When I joined Facebook, I vowed it was only because everybody said it was good, now I find that Im being judged by everybody in every direction. According to a Miss Samantha Bevan this is what my name means about me:
I like to drink (a lot) this statement occurs more than once (ok so it occurs cough five times) which probably suggests I am an alcoholic. According to this little test thing though I am also an awsome kisser and great in bed! Yay go me! Its reassuring though that this thing also tells me that people adore me (roses, where are my roses people!) and that Its easy to fall in love with me.
Did I mention though that it tells me I like to drink?
If i had a Y in my middle name though i'd be the best girlfriend in the world. Shame I don't really.
A : You like to drink B you like people. C : You are really silly. D : You like to drink. E : awesome kisser. F : You are dead sexy. G : You never let people tell you what to do. H : You have a very good personality and good looks. I : You are great in bed. J : People Adore You. K : You're wild and crazy. L : You like to drink. M : best kisser ever. N: You like to drink. O: Easy to fall in love with. P : You are popular with all types of people. Q : You are a hypocrite. R : Easy to fall in love with. S : Fuckin crazy. T : Easy to fall in love with. U : You really like to chill. V : You are not judgemental. W : You are very broad minded. X : You like to drink. Y : Best g/f b/f anyone could ever ask for. Z : Always ready. February 12 According to psychologyOn my emails today was a pyschology experiment, the questionnaire (which took ages) wanted to test my personality in relation to that of others. Here are the results and what I think of them! Openness to experience: this trait reflects your interest in abstract and philosophical matters. The average score is 119. You scored 96, which is very low. Well this didn't suprise me, I get a headache every time Nick and people start debating history, linguistics and other intellectual disucssions. I would much rather discuss things that actually exist, for example whether Im going to burn the chicken and the egg rather then which came first. Conscientiousness: this trait reflects the extent to which you pay attention to details. The average score is 157. If you score less than 140 you are significantly below average on this trait, if you score more than 175 you are significantly above average on this trait. You scored 145, which is low. So I guess I don't really care much about the details in life then, I wonder if that includes what time I get out of bed as apposed to the general fact that I did get out of bed this morning, I guess Im a more general person then the rest of the Swansea Uni Population. Extraversion: this trait reflects the extent to which you are sociable and outgoing. You scored 106, which is average. So im average? I don't think so. I may not be the most sociable person, but then I do spend a lot of time talking. The questionnaire asked questions about how verbal i perceive myself as beinig, how talkative my friends percieve me as etc. They also asked questions like did i strike up conversations with strangers and did i like to be the centre of attention at parties, well no, my mummy taught me not to talk to strangers and well the life and soul of the party is usually the one who has consumed the most alcohol which isn't usually me. Agreeableness: this trait reflects the extent to which you are tolerant, easygoing and cooperative with others. You scored 163, which is high. Well thats nice to know isn't it, that Im tolerant of other people - you here that Alun! ha. Now I have proof that I don't snap every time somebody annoys me and that I am an easy going person, or well at least more easy going then the average joe smuck. Cooperative, does that mean I have to work with them?? really? No I in team? I heard a saying somewhere though that sums me up quite nicely, there is no I in team but there is a ME in there somewhere! Great isn't it! Neuroticism: this trait reflects your tendency to experience negative emotions such as anxiety, fear and depression. You scored 225, which is very high. wow, i thought I was such a happy person, I need chocolate now, (happy hormones, happy hormones). Seriously, according to this thing I should be snapping at people all the time, jumpy and a recluse, my score is 98 points above average. Ok so im an easy going person but very fearful and nevous, does that work? I don't think I get depressed very often, I don't spend all day in bed avoiding the world and I always thought I was more cheerful then that. According to this psychology rubbish I should be on Prozac! Ok well now you've got an insight into my personality, I'll go get on with some work. February 11 The exams are over, it all begins againAccording to Blogthings.com (that site that keeps expanding on the number of stupidly addictive self test quizzes) I am a highly sarcasti person. No really?
I have now finished the first semester exams for the MSc Marketing course!! Yay. I don't get nervous in the traditional sense of the word. I get stressed. Usually because Ive left all the work until the last minute and instead of recovering what I've learnt previously im having to learn it the night before the exam. Its decidedly not the best approach to the revision process. There has been an email sent around the department stating that the board is meeting on 20th February to discuss our results and then they will be released to us after this date. I think I have done OK... I worry about Toni's modules and Quants but the other three I think are OK...
Everybody is complaining about Quants, so much so that 10 individual official complaints have been made about Liz Stone and her teaching methods and now a formal and group complaint is being composed by our course reps and is being sent to the head of Faculty. The module was really unfair and everybody believes they have done badly. The complaints thing will only work if enough people have done padly in the exam. For a math teaher though she isn't that great at basic arithmatic, adding up our courswwork assignments she came to 35% the course outline stated 40% - a flaw I think. I would have done OK in the exam, had I been able to remember the stupid formula. The formulae sheet we were given for use in the exam was utterly useless, none of the questions required the use of the formula sheet which means that the formula sheet was a real waste of paper. The formulae that we were likely to be using should have been on it, otherwise whats the point of producing it just to confuse us and lead us down a path that would eventually lead to us failing the module. 3 of the 4 formulae on the sheet came from one chapter so the obvious but fatal conclusion, that chapter is going to be on the exam.
On a lighter note, FAFfers isn't going to be a society, not officially anyway. The paperwork should have been processed by the Sabbs back in November but it got lost between me handing it to Chugga and reaching Owen Morris. There isn't enough weeks in the year to make it work the effort now, by the time its all processed, members gathered and committee trained there won't be any time left. I am however likely to be running for a Sabb posision!! Yeah me, really. IF, and it is a big IF I am allowed to suspend my dissertation for a year I will run for Welfare officer. Alun said i should have run last year but I wasn't convinced. I think the process would be quite fun and with a team of MSc Marketing students on my side it shouldn't be too difficult to drum up some publicity. The issues that I would put forward would include the dodgy crossing that Ive been meaning to draw attention to for the past three years, along with some accomodation issues and some more general issues, Alun has come up with a list. Im not convinced I could deal with all the meetings though, I get bored in lectures!!! I am going to speak to Ian Thomas Tomorrow and see if suspending is an option. I'll keep you updated.
Oh and lastly, I gave in, I joined Facebook. Yes I know, I hate facebook, but it has meant that I can make contact with people I haven't spoken to since HRSFC. If i do manage to make contact that would really be nice. Find out how uni went, where they're lives have taken them and how Susannah Street got on at Oxford.
Im going to bed now, night all January 09 Merry Christms Everyonewell it is that time of year again, Dad decorates the house with 3000 bulbs and mum tells him off for it, Theresa and Lee struggle to buy presents for eachother and I panic about the last couple of assignments and put of revising as long as possible.
This year I got to help host the annual Christmas party, I hadn't realised just how much work goes into one of those things, usually I turn up at 7pm arms laiden with cakes, biscuits and chocolate and its all been done. This year, i had to plan and buy most of the food, clean up my room as it was the largest space available for entertaining and of course help clean both the Kitchen and the bathroom and connecting hallways. Our house was really dirty!! On monday night (11/12/06) people started arriving around 7pm, Ryan, Gareth and Liz were the first to arrive and the first to dig into the table of food. For some reason those cocktail sausages really appeal to people and they were the first thing to be converted into an empty plate. There was plenty of food left over at the end which Alun and I happily tucked into the next day as a midnight snack!
It was nice to get everybody together, Alun invited a few of his friends, Gareth and Liz being two of them, the others included the double trouble twins Ffion and Rachel and they did not disappoint. As the pair were getting ready to leave Rachel decided that Nick needed to joing the party, although mooning him was probably not the best method for getting his attention. It did make everybody laugh though, a simpe case of unffortunate timings but the best moments usually are. Some of the people from my course came as well, Richard and Marco of course and Christine. It wouldn't be a party without "The Beanie Crew" and Christine is a great laugh as well. She brought two of her friends from Germany with her and although they made an effort kind of got on Donna's nerves, they puffed smoke into the hallway and not even a fake fire alarm gave them the hint. Donna sprayed room spray behind them but they didn't notice that either. The germans have a strange way of pulling crackers, they pull them individually, now where is the fun in that!
It was a good night and I think everybody had fun, Richard stayed over and as payment he helped clean up, only because he was sleeping in my room and it was probably a bad idea to sleep in a room that smelt strongly of a pub, a mix of wine, whisky, beer and coke is definatlely not the best smell in the world.
Tuesday (12/12/06) was the night of the long awaited postgrad social evening promised to us by Ian Thomas on our enrollment day. We all went to Bank Statement where the department had provided a buffett for us, the food didn't appeal to me and I had susupicisions that it wouldn't so i had cooked dinner for me and Richard before we left. It was strange to see Lecturers in an environment outside of campus. Lala was desperately trying to get Palmer to Dance and Richard to busy showing off the T shirt Marco and I had printed up for him that read "Palmer you rock! Tony Bra!" everybody understood the first sentiment but the later confused them and espceially confused Tony!! It made sense to the Beanie crew so thats all that matters!! I left early that night and Christine, Richard, Marco and the rest of the group moved onto revelutions, I just wanted to sleep, it was going to be a busy week and I was only half way through it. Richard arrived back, suitably drunk around 1am, we had a presentation with Palmer the next day.
We never got to give our presentation, Palmer allotted time slots acording to a random number system and our group was last, one of the groups presentation lasted double the specified time and feedback took longer than expected and so by the time the lecture slot was over we still hadn't given our presentation. It was a shame really because we had photos of Palmer in it which would have amused the class and well the wind was taken out of our sails when we didn't get to present. (Im not too worried though, the feedback was positive and the grade was great, "nudging 70%" that will do me!).
Thursday night was the annual BHF Christmas dinner and drinks. Coincidentally it was on the 14th of December this year and last year but I think that is more Fluke then forecasting, Alun was impressed though, well they say its the small things.... We went to China China and to my amazement even Alun found something to eat! I like the food there, I don't like having to push my way through lines of people to get it but the cheesecake helps. We then went onto Chicago rock and I really like that bar, its expensive but the atmosphere in there is a lot more mature then in a lot of the bars on Wind street and that appeals to me. I made a note of all the songs they played in there, I intended to put together a CD with them all on, a kind of pre night out collection but as yet thats not happened. Mainly because I can't afford to download them at the moment and I hate stealing music, mainly because of the risk of virus's not because i take the moral high ground. It was a good night but it seemed weird in a way, I haven't actually done much work for BHF in recent months, my course has kind of taken over everything and doesn't leave much room for a life outside of university. I know Syb is a little annoyed at my fair weather hours but I don't get paid for it and well I have priorities.
Friday was Ty Tawe night, It was only fair that I go to Alun's Christmas party as I had dragged him to mine (not that it took much persuasion), I think he enjoys their company as much as I do. It was odd though that Chris didn't turn up, he paid for the meal but never showed, none of us could get him to answer his phone, his loss, it was just a little strange. It wasn't the first time he had backed out of plans for no good reason and I doubt it will be the last. Anyway back to Ty Tawe, they've had a refurb since the last year, the bar area is twice the size the stairwell is brighter and the toilets don't have flickering lights and funny smells. It really makes a big difference even if the mail hall hasn't changed too much, or at all if you believe Alun. I do think however that the room looks smaller, but thats probably due to the edges of the floor being highlighted by a string of fairy lights that used to be hung around the ceiling. The music was good, although we arrived an hour early I did have fun.
Theresa and Louise came down for the weekend, it was nice to see them both again and Alun and I had planned out the weekend to make the most of their visit. I had a deadline monday morning and I was up until 3am Thursday night getting the essay done. We went to China China again when they arrived, i let Theresa chose where we ate and that is where she wanted to go. Keeping track of Louise thoug hwas a nightmare, she discovered the counters had cupboard doors and that the spoons were within reach. I noticed that there were lots of people floating around with hot plates of food and that the counter tops were boiling hot too. No drink accidents this time thought thank god.
The plans didn't quite go as we were expecting, we had planned to take them to the Winter Wonderland saturday night but Alun, Theresa and Louise all fell asleep and didn't want to get up, by the time we arrived up at the Waterfront museum the ice skating was closed and the fair was on its way to being shut. Alun won a couple of cuddly toys for Louise and we all had a go on the big wheel despite Alun being afraid of heights, strange, strange boy - its called a BIG WHEEL for a reason! We did manage to go see the Panto at the Grand Theatre, Alun's parents had given Louise £5 to buy something at the Panto and all she wanted was one of those flashing toy things. We all enjoyed the Panto although I got told off for using my camera. Its a real shame the way society is going when you can't take photos at the Panto because of Copyright!! Louise got a little scared at times, when the bad guy was on stage she snuggled a lot. She liked all the ladies when they were dancing and this was the first time I got to see Louise dancing, one leg in the air, the other leg in the air!! it was cute, and funny and akward all at the same time but she had fun and we had fun watching her.
The journey home was loooooooonnnnnng!! We decided to get an earlier train since we couldn't go Ice skating as it was raining and so we were home 2 hours earlier then we would have been otherwise, which is propably a good things ince all I wanted to do when i got home was sleep. I had put all of my valuables, debit card, highstreet vouchers and gift cards into an envelop prior to the lat few things I packed and now i've lost it. Its gutting it was worth about £90 and thats a substantial amount of money in anybody's books. Oh well I hope I find it but if I don't then it will just teach me to be more careful in future.
November 18 its all in the time management...apparantlyAfter spending two years effectively camped out in the study skills centre of Hills Road sixth form college you would have thought that I would have picked up a few handy hints, some useful advice, some knowledge that would help me handle an ever increasing mountain of work. All I can recall learning from those two years is getting to college just after 8 in the morning requires talking to the caretaker to let you in and secondly that the most effective brain food is banana and fish. Preferably not eaten together.
Why is it then with so many assignments due in in such a short period of time do I find myself playing an ever increasing amount of sims? Darren Dreamer has now married, The caliente sisters have seperated and even Alexander Goth has gone to College but I am no nearer completing the report for services nor do I understand probability distribution anymore then i did a week ago. The later assignment is truly beyond me I can not figure out factorials despite Liz Stones instructions and oh so (not) helpful lecture notes. Dr Stone has this unfortunate habbit of writing ad hoc on the white board which puts me in a great disadvantage while notetaking support avoids me. I was up until now able to cope but this assignment as I said a moment ago is beyond me. The services report is simply a matter of sitting my butt down in front of this computer and writing it out, finding a few sources to back up what I've said but genrally quite do able if i just put my mind in a more focused attitude. Oh and the many many group projects we have been assigned this year. I hate group work! The people they're fine, great but the work, it all has to be done together and getting 5 people together is difficult. It shouldn't be though not this year, not when our timetables are exactly the same. Kostas and Nick didn't want to work at the beginning, now that the deadline is drawing scarily near they want to crack the whip and get us all moving, my fear, its too late. One of the assignments is going quite well, at least the majority of the leg work is done, the focus group was held the questionnaires have been handed out and returned and the numbers have been inserted into what turned out to be a rather large spreadsheet. Now for the number crunching!! Oh yeah and a 20 page double spaced report. God help us. Oh and to top of this little problem we have another assignment which I am convinced nobody has started yet because we're all trying to get the first one complete first. We've really messed up on this one. I really worry that we're not going to get them in.
On another note. I turned 22 last week, Happy Birthday me. November 02 Almost a year of blog entries!I started this blog on the 29th of November 2005, seeing as it is now 02/11/06 that means I've kept a blog for almost an entire year! I tried to start keeping a diary again during the summer. I write in it occassionally now but more often then not I have too many things to do and not enough time to write about them. Its not fair really is it.
Take tonight for example, right now I have just "answered" part b of the second question of my economics assignment. I know everybody is struggling with the assignment but it probably doesn't help that I've only been on one hour of economics out of ten. I promise I'll go next week, its not as if I have any thing else to do and I could really use some help on the assignment from my fellow MSc friends. Hayley seems to know what she's talking about, maybe I'll ask her!
I had a presentation today for Services Marketing, I started working on it last week, reading the relavant chapter, making notes highlighting etc so I knew I was at least in theory prepared but this morning I felt so nervous. I woke up at about 5am and I could not get back to sleep. I kept running over things in my head about the presentation, had I missed anything, what else could I add, did I have enough outside sources, sources other then the lecturers book? My stomach ached. I have never felt nerves like that. Before an exam I get a little bit funny, a jump around the room and an hour on sims usually cures that but this morning all Iwanted to do and all I did do was lay in bed and try to avoid the situation. It went well. Kostas was cool, he asked me prior to the start of the lecture if I could think of any questions that he could ask me after my presentation. Palmer has this unfortunate tendency to go around the room expecting people to ask questions about the presentaion and Kostas being the genius he is decided that if i had "planted" some questions I wouldn't get caught out. It worked to an extent but Palmer decided to throw me a curve ball. He ran off a list of things I could have included in my presentation, political view points, why a soft launch, etc etc etc. I ended up writing half a page of extra notes. I thought I was going to leave with a low 50, maybe high 50 but he gave me 70 plus! That score matches Hayley's I think or beats it. Either way it is one of the top marks in the class, go me! You wouldn't believe how nervous I'd been about it. I do however have a lot of interesting things to add to my report now that I hadn't included in my presentation. I also made notes from Richard's presentation and the one in the middle by some guy who's name I did not catch. We have to answer in the report all three questions attached to the case study but with all that input it shouldn't be too difficult to answer the questions. It is however just a matter of finding the time to do it!
Speaking of running out of time, the GO Wales thing has been almost a complete disaster. I had worked it out that I could cover all of the 24 hours required over the 2 week period. I missed a few hours at the start of the week, it was wet and cold and I just wasn't in the mood on the first day. The first thursday however was a perfectly nice day, I just couldn't be bothered. I really should have done some then, i mean I had no lectures and nothing else to do. I have now worked it out that I have 19 hours to do over 4 days, which im afraid to admit just isn't happening. I couldn't do it without missing my lectures and I really don't want to do that, at least not on somebody elses terms. I have now planned to do two hours tomorrow 10 - 12 prior to the focus group and then maybe 2 hours after the focus group, I had it scheduled to do anyway so maybe I'll miss SAF and hand out lolly pops as people leave campus. Friday evening doesn't really seem the best time to do it though but as Alun said I'm running out of opportunities to get the hours done. Then on Monday I will do either 2 or 3 hours, 10 - 11am and then 2 - 4pm. That leaves me with just 14 hours to do. I will then do 3 / 4 hours on tuesday and the same on wednesday. This, if my math is correct will leave 6 hours that I should have done on the wednesday and thursday of last week. I hope I can get everything handed out, then maybe they won't notice that I've not done all the hours. I do expect to be paid for the hours I have done though. £6 x 18 = £108. I will be happy with that if they find out I've not done the rest. I have to record on the follow up sheets how many pens / lollies / flyers I have left to hand out and why I didn't hand them out. I can tell them that friday afternoons people were not interested in taking pens etc and wednesday afternoons foot traffic was slow. It was, thats why I stopped on wednesday but I really should have carried on and done another hour at least. Oh well we all live and learn.
I have learnt a valuable time management skill this week. Don't put off till tomorrow what you should be doing today... you'll run out of time. October 31 Halloween!! I love it!I have just written a review of the Gym Gym social for the Gym Gym blog but since like most things there are adventures, stories and goings on that shouldn't really be posted on official blogs I've decided an entry is warrented here as well.
Alun had a meeting to go to which meant I was left in peace to get ready. I started putting my make up on at 6 and since we weren't due to meet Liz until 6.45 I thought I had plenty of time. Please in future remind me not to have Charmed on the TV while Im trying to get ready for a night out, it really slows down the whole process. Anyway I finally left the house just after seven after trapsing up and down the staris four times forgetting, in order, Alun's costume, my phone, my devil stick and finally a change of shoes and the keys to get out of the house. Alun sat in the car watching the light in my room go off and on, on and off and thoroughly enjoying the choas.
We were supposed to pick Liz up from her house as I said at 6.45, she wasn't ready until 7.15 and even after that Alun decided to join us in our hectic lives and rip his cape as he put it on. We had to staple it together in the car which of course didn't last long and he was fiddling with it all night long. It wasn't the only costume crisis that we had. Eleri in her speech about the weekend switched from Welsh to English but nobody could tell because of her vampire teeth!!
There were two vampires last night, Eleri and Rhian. I thought Rhian looked more authentic but Eleri looked really cool too. There were a couple of devils including me. I wore my red Milan skirt and backless red jewelled top and completed the look with a devil stick and a face mask. I think I looked good, so did alun! Richard came along and I gave him the extra pair of devil horns I had bought in town and turned him into the Devil of Rock and Roll! He looked good too despite having come straight from Economics. He had that drained look about him, perfect for Halloween!! Liz looked good, a few key pieces like stripey tights and a bat hair band turned a black top and demin skirt into a really cool witches outfit. She should have won the costume prize because it wasn't a stereotypical look, unlike the rest of us.
We arrived at the Bryn-a-mor at 7.20 and Richard was sitting next to the Gym Gym, probably without really realising. He didn't really mix with the rest of them, although he is a member of the society. There were three distinct groups within one last night due to the friends of friends thing we all had going on. Richard decided though that he should hang out with the welsh posse more often, which is fine by me!! He's going to the Cardiff version of Ty Tawe tonight for a haloween party as an evil elf, partnered with a sadistic santa! An interesting idea but hope he has fun!
We had, thanks to Eleri, half price drinks! I love that girl (today anyway). She used to work there so employee bonus! We managed to get a double archers and lemonade, a pint of Carling and whatever soft drink Alun was drinking for £2.70. That is ridiculously cheap. I think Richard worked it out that it was 90p a pint! Bearing in mind how cheap the drinks were we managed, between about 12 of us to run up a tab of over £70! I think we should be very proud of ourselves!
There were some freaky events last night, starting with haunted hand dryers that turned on by themselves! It made Liz and I jump a number of times. On top of that Liz spotted or thought she had spotted a chainsaw yeilding frankinstein in Richard's half empty beer glass. I personnally couldn't see it and Im not sure Alun or Richard could either but Liz was impressed and that is all that matters. Alun scared some woman as he got out of the car and announced "I've just scared somebody and I wasn't even wearing my mask!" I think he should be proud of that as well. At the end of the night, after Richard caught his train and Liz, Alun and I got some food we came back to Liz's house. She only moved in there a couple of weeks ago and the house still has a funny smell. Her room is the equivilant of Donna's in our house and it doesn't smell. Alun announced it smells like every one of the other rooms Liz has lived in. On Halloween night the last thing you want to see is a black cat, the last thing Liz wanted was that same black cat in her house. It took three of us to get it out to the street. I tried to kick it out literrally and it ended up running up the stairs, it was obviously the opposite effect then the one I was going for.
I actually really enjoyed the Gym Gym social, I didn't think I was going to, I mean there were'nt that many of us who didn't speak welsh. Its the reason the Liz and I didn't go to Time/Envy, apart from the fact I hate time. Alun has convinced me that I should go to the gig in Aberystwyth because its the biggest Gym Gym event of the year and to top it off because im on the Committee it would be rather bad if I didn't. Im not sure how Im going to publicise it before or after wards. Alun, Delyth and I are heading down on Saturday afternoon, apparantly to watch the rugby and then the gig. I won't be able to get as many photos as I would probably like. Im not sure people like me taking as many photos as I would liike to but then how are people going to know what we've been up to if they can't see it for themselves. Im thinking of having a photo albulm scrap book made up so that at Freshers' fayre next year people can have a flick through it and see what we get up to. A gym gym publicity archive if you will.
Ok well I really have a lot of work to do, if im spending the weekend up in Aberystwyth Ive got to get on with my economics assignment, not to mention my presentation that I have to deliver on Thursday. Wish me luck.
October 22 Have I ever told you, I hate MATH!OK, for those of you that know me, and those of you who know me well then yes I probably have told you that I hate Math. I also know just as well that you're all sick of hearing those three little words. It unfortunately doesn't stop being true the more I say it so sorry, everybody you're going to be hearing as long as the fact remains to be true and that I am afraid is likely to be forever, possibly a day or two longer.
If you don't understand where this out burst of disdain has comoe from then let me explain. I have to take a masters module called "quantitative methods" this translates basically to business math. It involves anything that may be used in business to calculate wages, profits, investments etc etc. Many of us, especially those enrolled on the MSc Marketing course, have questioned in recent weeks what investment appraisal, iventory control and other little fun things contained the module, have to do with marketing. We have come to the rather depressing conclusion that the 21 or so of us enrolled on the course are there simply to make up numbers and to fulfill the math quotant required on the MSc course. I myself and many others would not be apposed to the idea of turning our course into an MA and cutting out all the management economics and quantitative style modules from the course entirely.
Our first math assignment is due tomorrow morning by 9.30am. I was intending to have it handed in, like most others by Friday afternoon as our lecture on Monday does not begin until 11am and we could all use the extra time in bed. Unfortunately due to the stressful nature of the assignment and my inability to do anything the simple way has left me with too much work and not enough time to do it in. I spent hours on the assignment thursday night. I successfully calculated the net present value or NPV of the two apposing projects. I worked my way through 10 - 17% IRR values for project A, only to find on friday morning that there is a formula I had been overlooking and it saved me hours. I did the method the formula way and yes it did indeed turn out to be far simpler and far less time consuming.
My only issue now however is question two of assignment one requires a graph. Those dreaded things that result in me having dots in the wrong lines, lines that go up instead of down and what not. I CAN NOT draw graphs, in the real world I wouldn't have to and I resent having to do them now. I have tried to tell Dr Stone how impossible graphs are for me, not being able to see the paper clearly and all, but I don not think the severity of the situation I now face has actually sunk it.
Although I do not have a knack for math, I do have a knack for turning a small minor problem which can be summed up in one small sentence, "I can't do this graph and I don't like the assignment" into a 4 paragraph blog entry with a lot of long and unnecessarily complicated vocabulary. Aren't you impressed?
You should also be impressed with the sheer lack of enthusiasm in progress Im making on the other modules I am enrolled on. I have finally tracked own, hunted out, bought, borrowed or stolen all of the books I need for Semester one. Now I can get down ot reading them, if they were not so utterly boring texts to read. The only one that is half interesting is the one writeen by Adrian Palmer who by the way teaches the module in which that book is being used. I have a presentation due for his class 02.11.06 and I am a little worried. I have not done a presentation solo before and although I am not worried about delivering the verbal element I am worried about my ability to use the computer to bring up my powerpoint slides and the completely irrelevant questions I am likely to get asked. I have little patience for people who don't know what they are talking about. I am going to have to do a lot of outside research on this topic, 3G phones and the service development process, yay!
WARNING!!!
There is going to be a new math assignment set every friday for the remainder of the semester. These assignments are due every monday at 9.30am. Please stand back, leave me alone and generally bear with me over the weekend period, I am likely to be stressed and dangerous.
Thankyou for your attention.
October 18 When everything looked so roseyHello,
When I last wrote in my blog I was on a real high. I had two job offers and everything seemed to be going really well. Now im 2 and a half weeks into my masters, the reading is a lot heavier then I was anticipating and I haven't been able to keep up and my two job offers seem to have turned into a big fat zero.
The job interview I had in cardiff has resulted in a lot of hanging around but no work. Its all supposed to kick off this weekend but nothing has been confirmed, arranged or decided yet and I don't know how long I can keep holding out not knowing what Im doing. Im not even sure that I want a job that would mean my weekend was basically taken up before I got any work done. I have got the Go Wales job, it starts next week. Its 24 hours over a 2 week period promoting the Go Wales service and the graduate fair on campus but the SU don't really want to get involved and Cardiff is a long way for students to go, so I tried to figure out whether I could get the bus for the day, to take a few students down to Cardiff for the graduate fair but no such luck its too much effort.
The masters is going well in terms of my understanding of all the material covered, as I mentioned before though I am not finding the reading too easy. I have to pick up the book, put it down, type notes, pick up the book, put it down, type notes etc etc etc. It takeing forever and a day to go through a chapter and that is about as much as I have read since the course started. One of my books, the first book i was asked to buy from the first lecture I have only got hold of today. A lot of the books we needed to order, they weren't readily available in the bookshop which annoyed me and has put everybody behind in the reading. The textbooks themselves are not easy reading, they are faint text and packed full of text and diagrams.
The assignments are piling in thick and fast, we're supposed to be working on two group assignments which we haven't started yet. We've had minimal discussions but we haven't started the planning or the actual work yet. I had enough problems with group work during my degree I really don't need it now. I like my group, Richard is cool and he came along to a gig in Tyrfe Tawe and Marco and the others are friendly enough but I really hope we get some of this group work started. We haven't made any group decisions yet and that worries me because we need to get started. We only have 6 weeks to get all the work done!!
I have a math assignment for Liz Stone that I can't do. I remember doing Investment appraisal before but in class she goes through examples but she only gives out small print handouts and then goes through them on the whiteboard so really not helpful to me at all. Im meeting with her tomorrow afternoon to go through an example so hopefully I'll be able to get the assignment done quickly. The economics assignment isn't easy either. We have to go through and explain different concepts using diagrams and I can't do that so Im a little concerned.
Oh well... Wish me luck |
|
|
