End of the week

The past few days have ranged from the bloody brilliant to the truely bizzare.

1) I found out that a friend got married last Saturday, but is keeping the whole thing quite (so shalln't even hint who it is) but I'm looking forward to meeting their new spouse soon
2) A friend from high school is to be a mother in September!
3) The Scottish government has abolished graduate endowment fees for Scottish students :D Bloody delighted that I'm not going to be a further £2000 in debt!
4) The Regent Language School in Edinburgh, where they found the radioactive material the other day, was one of the places I applied to last Summer for a job, and they had actually offered me a job, but I turned them down.

yeah, so that's a few things which have kept me on my toes the past few days!

Panic! (Unfortunately, not at the disco)

I've been looking at my schedual for the next few weeks and am really bloody nervous now!

4th March - submit draft confrence presentation for supervisor's feedback
5th March - submit confrence presentation abstract for the programme
6th March - Submit outline for 5,000 word essay
10th March - practise run-through of presentation with other postgrads
17th March - Presentation day! Arg! Also known as Armagedon
25th March - 2,500 word essay and 5,000 word essay due
then a bit of a gap...
21st April - Submit 2,500 word essay

And other various activities around this time include: The Mikado, a trip of London (hopefully), continue with dissertation work, there's an exam at some point in May, a confrence in Leeds, a social life.

ARG!

Spring is here!

I only just noticed that it's coming up for dinner time and it's still light outside! Huzzah! Goodbye winter :)

Happy Valentines Day

Happy Valentines day to everyone :) Cheesy, yes, but heck - why not? xxx

:)

Hehe - smiling quite a lot now. Should work now, but brain is now occupied by trying to dredge up a certain memory which I am told exists but I cannot at the moment remember (dammit!) Ok, shall actually do some work now. Looking forward to The Mikado now :)

:'(

I need a hug.

Mmmm, coffee...

Coffee is now my bestest friend ever :) I've decided to give up carbonated soft drinks for Lent: I realise that I drink far too much Diet Coke and I don't even think about it when I buy a can or glass. So, this is partly a test to see if I can give up DC, but also part of a wider project: considering my consumerism. I'm increasingly aware of the fact that I tend to buy consumer products, generally food-stuff, without too much thought about why I buy specific goods. This may sound very introspective and a bit angsty, but it's an upshot of the academic side of my life: in my work I am forced to consider questions of lifestyle, especially in my dissertation where I will be exploroing the impact of the media upon the spreading of an environmental ethos through retail. This was brought to mind specifically through the impact upon sales at Lush while I worked there and the TV programme 'How Toxic are You?': I was suprised by how many people came in an asked 'Does this product have X,Y or Z in it? I don't want products with these chemicals in because I've heard that they are bad for you.' I'm not just talking one or two people either, there were dozens! So, I wondered how this might be applied to an environmental agenda in a similar context: ie cosmetic retail. We can see the effects on the animal testing market since the 1980s, but can this be applied to the environmental project? I would argue that it can, but I don't have time atm to discuss it - shall do it next time I update I guess.

In other news: I applied to The Edinburgh Group recently. This is a student society in the lines of The Berkley Group, where students are trained as consultants pro bono for not-for-profit groups. I have a meeting this afternoon. I'm not sure whether anything I know or can do will be of any good, but if so then I'm glad to be doing something to benefit others which takes advantage of my abilities, plus it's interesting from a social-justice perspective.
Am holding a pancake party tomorrow - yum :)
Have to nominate my supervisor for my dissertation by Wednesday - eep!
Went and saw Cloverfield the otherday - was very very cool and extreemly original.

Later:
Had my meeting with the TEG people: it went well I think :) Shall hopefully be getting a call tomorrow afternoon. And also have a reply from a tutoring job I applied for :) Have a meeting tomorrow at 3pm! Woot! Which means that I potentially have a job again - and paid at £11 p/h which is rather nice. If I get it I'll be tutoring a 16 year old for his/her Higher Geography exam in May, and it will be around 3-4hrs per week, which suits me perfectly.