Again almost 25 days have passed since my last post and of course many things have happened! It is always the same sort of story in these posts only my adventures and visitors and things change slightly.
I'll have another go at going through it all chronologically: On the 6th March Aurelia came up from London for a day to visit so we had a great day of shopping, some sightseeing, pub lunch (Lasagna, yummmyy) and ale in Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem. 7th March - day trip to Manchester. I rather liked Manchester - more than I thought I would - with its slightly eclectic mixture of massive old buildings and modern glass constructions. I saw some great exhibitions (especially one about the Black Panthers and civil rights in the US) and did some shopping (new trainers and a jumper I am very much in love with) although I could have stayed there for a day or two in order to also visit the huge science museum and maybe have a look at Old Trafford but it is not that far away so might go back again one day. Then on the 10th March it was time for the next formal dinner - this time James Bond style! After travelling for ages by bus we had a delicious dinner, some rather strong Dry Martinis (out of a jug - not shaken or stirred), watched some fireworks and danceddanceddanced. After just a few hours of sleep I had to get up for my second group meeting with my supervisor about my research project and then in the afternoon went on to Sneinton Library to do some more reading with the kids but we couldn't compete with the arts and crafts afternoon on at the same time!
Just over a week later it was already time for Steffi's visit and before then I had plenty to do for uni (coursework, coursework and more coursework) as well as supper in town, more telephone meetings about my research project, and the odd lecture. On the 21st Steffi arrived from Geneva and we spent the afternoon looking around town and deciding which shops to go into when we came back and there were less people, Sunday was a beautiful day so we went to Wollaton Park and walked around the lake there then on to main campus and over to Beeston to go to Sainsbo's. In the evening we went out for a few drinks at the local pub which lead to a lie-in on Monday and then an afternoon shopping, pub supper, and cinema in the evening. We watched the Young Victoria and both madly fell in love with Prince Albert and thought it was a fantastic film with the actress playing Victoria capturing her very well and have I mention Prince Albert was adorable? Tuesday we went to Birmingham for the day. An interesting city although not one of my favourite from the many I have visited recently. It seems to be fixated on shopping, shopping arcades, shopping malls, markets, etc and less focused on its history, and other attractions. We were quite amused when it took us about 20 minutes to find a canal after reading in the Lonely Planet that there were more canals than in Venice!! We then went to the Millenium Point, which sounded interesting but turned out to be a building slightly in the middle of nowhere full of art/fashion/dance/theatre-faculties of the various universities and colleges and also a rather overpriced science museum and IMAX cinema...
Theeeeeeen Wednesday - Wednesday was my birthday! I woke up very early without realising how early it was (about 6.20) and opened my birthday cards and my package from James (the book Tom's Magic Garden - a fantastic read, which I have now read once and plan to read again especially chapter 5, which is my favourite (don't think I have ever had a favourite chapter before so this book must be speical)) and was very excited. Then went back to sleep for a few more hours, got up checked my emails, had breakfast, and then baked about a million cupcakes. Yes, I baked my own birthday cakes, and no, I didn't mind at all as they were very good and I rather enjoy baking. In the afternoon we went for a walk onto campus - the sun was shining and the campus is looking beautiful with trees flowering, and daffodils, and everything generally looking green - and on to Beeston (again) to get some drinks and snacks for the evening. For my birthday supper we had Chinese takeaway - my first time ever! It was a good choice especially as I didn't have to cook for another two days or so afterwards thanks to all the leftovers! After that my flatmates surprised me with a wonderful little collection of gifts: four different varieties of tea, biscuits to go with the tea, and a magic mug that is black when it is cold and when you poor hot water in it goes white and a picture of our whole flat appears!! Oh yes, and a scrubby fish, and four real zebra fish called Henry, George, Fred, and Gertrud who are currently living on our kitchen window sill but will have to go because our hall management does not approve. Very sad... After a few drinks and some excellent magic tricks from Graham we went on into town to the Bodega Social Club and Electric Banana where we danced the night away until 2am!! Altogether a fantastic birthday so thankyouthankyouthankyou to everyone who particpated and helped make it such a wonderful day!
On Thursday it was sadly already time for Steffi to leave for Switzerland again but she left me with a webcam so I can see here whenever I like (well technically whenever we are both online on skype) and I am very pleased with it so if anyone else has a webcam please let me know and I will give you a little wave and make sure not to pick my nose while you are looking! Thursday afternoon I met up with Damon from the local branch of the Red Cross who I will be doing some Volunteer Coordinator work for and after that decided to myself take part in one of their Challenge Events and instead of going for hiking, swimming, or golfing I decided to go for skydiving! Yes, I have registered to do a tandem skydive for charity out of an airplane from 10'000 feet!! I am very excited already but have to raise a minimum of £325 so please do sponsor me with a few pounds if you can afford to: www.justgiving.com/eleanor-skydive
Yesterday I did some more sightseeing/being a tourist and went on a trip to Stonehenge and Salisbury! Rather a long trip from Nottingham but definitely worth it as Stonehenge is impressive especially thinking about the effort of building something like it without modern tools like cranes and tractors and the precision with which they managed to build it by hand! Salisbury has a beautiful cathedral with the highest spire in Great Britain (123m) and which houses one of the four remaining original Magna Carta! Other than that I have spent lots of time printing off a rainforest worth of articles to read on my journey. I am off to Liverpool tomorrow to see Dan, Andrea and Flora, on to Bexhill on Thursday, then to London to stay with Vicky and Johanna on Monday in a week and then to Waldringfield on the Friday of the Easter weekend where Mum and Mark will join me in staying with Granny and Grandpa for a few days.
Phew. As always life has been quite busy and is going to carry on being busy but I do rather like it that way.
So, please sponsor me - any size donation helps - and do keep in touch!
xxx
Sunday 29 March 2009
Thursday 5 March 2009
oops, nearly forgot to give this post a title
Nearly a month has gone by since my last post - I can't believe how the time is flying past at the speed of a Concorde! As usual, quite a few things have happened. I must say however that I do believe that this blog makes me sound a lot busier than I actually am. The truth is that my time management skills could do with improving so I spend a lot of time procrastinating in between being busy. The best days in my opinion are days like yesterday where I had lots of place to be and was running in between them but the problem is that those are the days where I get the least work done...
So what have I been up to since the 11th February? Well, I have continued looking into different options for volunteering to fill up some time in my week that I would otherwise use for procrastinating. I had a meeting with someone from the local Red Cross office and will hopefully be doing some volunteering for them as a volunteer coordinator and fundraiser. Sounds good, huh? Also, yesterday, I went for the first time to Sneinton library to be a Reading Auntie. Basically this means that I get to hang out in the library for an hour and have kids read books to me! How much better can it get? I thoroughly enjoyed it and will definately be going back next week!!
I have also started work on my applied research project (i.e. my dissertation). I had a meeting with the lovely lady who is now my supervisor and we discussed my ideas and came up with a good piece of work to do. What is most exciting is that after getting in touch with the company I want to do it in they told me that they were just starting a project that it is in the same area as my research and they would like to get me involved in it! Wooo! Anyway, the title of my project so far is: Cross-cultural comparisons of perceptions of diversity policies and trainig in a global organisation. I will hopefully do a few interviews and send out a bunch of questionnaires and get back lots of interesting data, which the company can then use to discern where they stand in terms of implementing their new project and I can use to write up into a nice little portfolio.
Next, days away from Nottingham: Firstly, we went on the PGSA trip to York, which would have been better if we hadn't got stuck in traffic and therefore lost a lot of time and also if it hadn't been Valentine's day and the rest of the world hadn't also been there BUT York is beautiful! I will have to go back one day to explore some more and go into some of the many little shops and look at some of the many museums. The minster is very impressive and so are many of the other architectural quirks around the town. This past weekend I went to Leeds to meet up with my godfather James who I hadn't seen in about 10 years and I spent a fantastic Saturday there getting to know his life a bit and talking a lot about books, dogs, and all things him and I both seem to love.
Visitors: Lena was here!! Oh yes, and Andi, Christian und dr Zürcher :) We enjoyed various pubs in town and I have now been in most pubs that are proclaimed as old and famous and whatever and I have also drunk a lot of ale, seen English ice hockey (not at all impressive!! but it is quite funny that although we thought it was bad, five of the Nottingham Panters players have been nominated to play for the English national team...), and danced at Rock City! It was a fantastic weekend and was over far too quickly... Tomorrow I will have a brief visit by Aurelia who is currently hanging out in London and then in about two weeks Steffi will come for about five days to celebrate my birthday. Hopefully we will manage a day out to the east coast (Skegness) in between parties.
My course is still going well. It is interesting and I am looking forward to the research project and also the workshops coming up in the summer. In the meantime I have an incredible number of essays to write, a workbook to work my way through, and a portfolio to do. And of course - don't forget reading for exams! We just had a consultancy workshop the other week, which was interesting as it gave more insight into how the speakers got to where they are now and what their experiences have been as consultants as well as teaching us or making us aware of necessary skills for the real world.
Hopefully I will be able to get quite a lot of reading and thinking done while travelling in my Easter break. I am planning to go to Liverpool for a few days to visit Dan, Andy, and Flora then travel all the way down to Bexhill (possibly stopping in Brighton just to have a look) to stay with NP, then to London for a few days of relaxing with V&J between grandparents and then on to Waldringfield to stay with G&G and hopefully also catch up with Mum and Mark!!
Before then there is the Broadgate Easter formal, more ARP meetings and teleconferences, reading in Sneinton, lectures, bday celebrations for various people, visits to Manchester (this Sat) and possibly Stonehenge and Salisbury at the end of the month, seminars, film nights, and then of course Steffi's visit. Plent of stuff to do - maybe I should write a list and then not follow it or scribble things in my diary I then won't do.
I am still very sad that I missed Fasnacht but am hoping that my research in the summer will take me home to Basel and I will have the opportunity to catch up with more people then. I miss everyone a lot (even though it has been said that I have a heart of stone, pah, American bitch, you know it was you).
xxxxx
So what have I been up to since the 11th February? Well, I have continued looking into different options for volunteering to fill up some time in my week that I would otherwise use for procrastinating. I had a meeting with someone from the local Red Cross office and will hopefully be doing some volunteering for them as a volunteer coordinator and fundraiser. Sounds good, huh? Also, yesterday, I went for the first time to Sneinton library to be a Reading Auntie. Basically this means that I get to hang out in the library for an hour and have kids read books to me! How much better can it get? I thoroughly enjoyed it and will definately be going back next week!!
I have also started work on my applied research project (i.e. my dissertation). I had a meeting with the lovely lady who is now my supervisor and we discussed my ideas and came up with a good piece of work to do. What is most exciting is that after getting in touch with the company I want to do it in they told me that they were just starting a project that it is in the same area as my research and they would like to get me involved in it! Wooo! Anyway, the title of my project so far is: Cross-cultural comparisons of perceptions of diversity policies and trainig in a global organisation. I will hopefully do a few interviews and send out a bunch of questionnaires and get back lots of interesting data, which the company can then use to discern where they stand in terms of implementing their new project and I can use to write up into a nice little portfolio.
Next, days away from Nottingham: Firstly, we went on the PGSA trip to York, which would have been better if we hadn't got stuck in traffic and therefore lost a lot of time and also if it hadn't been Valentine's day and the rest of the world hadn't also been there BUT York is beautiful! I will have to go back one day to explore some more and go into some of the many little shops and look at some of the many museums. The minster is very impressive and so are many of the other architectural quirks around the town. This past weekend I went to Leeds to meet up with my godfather James who I hadn't seen in about 10 years and I spent a fantastic Saturday there getting to know his life a bit and talking a lot about books, dogs, and all things him and I both seem to love.
Visitors: Lena was here!! Oh yes, and Andi, Christian und dr Zürcher :) We enjoyed various pubs in town and I have now been in most pubs that are proclaimed as old and famous and whatever and I have also drunk a lot of ale, seen English ice hockey (not at all impressive!! but it is quite funny that although we thought it was bad, five of the Nottingham Panters players have been nominated to play for the English national team...), and danced at Rock City! It was a fantastic weekend and was over far too quickly... Tomorrow I will have a brief visit by Aurelia who is currently hanging out in London and then in about two weeks Steffi will come for about five days to celebrate my birthday. Hopefully we will manage a day out to the east coast (Skegness) in between parties.
My course is still going well. It is interesting and I am looking forward to the research project and also the workshops coming up in the summer. In the meantime I have an incredible number of essays to write, a workbook to work my way through, and a portfolio to do. And of course - don't forget reading for exams! We just had a consultancy workshop the other week, which was interesting as it gave more insight into how the speakers got to where they are now and what their experiences have been as consultants as well as teaching us or making us aware of necessary skills for the real world.
Hopefully I will be able to get quite a lot of reading and thinking done while travelling in my Easter break. I am planning to go to Liverpool for a few days to visit Dan, Andy, and Flora then travel all the way down to Bexhill (possibly stopping in Brighton just to have a look) to stay with NP, then to London for a few days of relaxing with V&J between grandparents and then on to Waldringfield to stay with G&G and hopefully also catch up with Mum and Mark!!
Before then there is the Broadgate Easter formal, more ARP meetings and teleconferences, reading in Sneinton, lectures, bday celebrations for various people, visits to Manchester (this Sat) and possibly Stonehenge and Salisbury at the end of the month, seminars, film nights, and then of course Steffi's visit. Plent of stuff to do - maybe I should write a list and then not follow it or scribble things in my diary I then won't do.
I am still very sad that I missed Fasnacht but am hoping that my research in the summer will take me home to Basel and I will have the opportunity to catch up with more people then. I miss everyone a lot (even though it has been said that I have a heart of stone, pah, American bitch, you know it was you).
xxxxx
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