| tabernaque! |
[Nov. 29th, 2008|12:13 am] |
Gripes with the biology department:- they demand that we check our emails several times a day and yet refuse to respond to anything I send them
- they tell us grade weightings of assignments AFTER we hand them in
- we get no feedback on our assignments, just mysterious grades
- really shitty compulsory statistics module sprung on us without warning
- being the guinea pigs for said shitty statistics module makes everyone unhappy
That said, I am really interested in what we are studying and beginning to see the relevance of this subject to the REAL world. The work is so hard, I am exhausted, worried about grades, fuzzy headed from so much deciphering of waffling papers, but I have hopes it will be worth it in the end. It better be, it's taking over my life. Consoling myself with my high french grades to get through the demoralising biology process.
Strange seeing the cyclical process of this university career. Recently it was Raisin weekend, the weekend to spend with your academic parents. Now I'm a mother its strange looking back and trying to remember my 1st year and the afternoon tea party my "mothers" held. I know that it involved a lot of alcohol and being extremely drunk and I definitely didn't form any lasting friendships. The joint tea party I held for my kids with a few other families was a non-drunken affair, for the better I think. The kids got to know each other in playing silly games and going on a scavenger hunt. The 'dad' parties I went to in the evening sucked in comparison, probably because everyone there was drunk and obnoxious and playing the usual uninventive drinking games. But I remember my "father's" party was terrible when I was in first year, so maybe that is traditional, ha. For the Monday morning foam fight (I would love to know how far this tradition dates back) I dressed my children as praying mantises and fed them breakfast. They looked great. When I was in their place I wore a cardboard triangle to represent a chunk of toblerone. Inventive but crap looking. Literally. Especially when the brown paint began to run in the foam. Yuck!
I am becoming slightly obsessed with Quebecois music at the moment (thanks Jane!). I keep looking up lyrics to the music of the three bands I know (Mes souliers sont rouges, Les Cowboys Fringants, and Le Vent du Nord) because I can't understand a word they are saying. Productive! I had the bright idea of learning the songs because they are so fast it would be so great for my french annunciation/pronunciation. When I will have time for this is unknown. Gah.
Okay, head cleared, back to work.
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| the pouring rain is no place for a bicycle ride |
[Aug. 28th, 2008|06:43 pm] |
I had my last driving lesson of the summer today, I will resume when I hit St Andrews once again. My instructor Tony gave me this hilarious business card. I'm not sure if this was intentional humour.
I think it's analogy for the first time you approach a busy round-a-bout, panic, stall and force the instructor to use his dual control break? Not that I have experienced any of those things....*ahem*. |
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| now there's poetry, in an empty coke can |
[Aug. 25th, 2008|01:12 am] |
I have Take That's "shine" in my head, thanks to the pre london olympics celebrations piped from london to my tv today. it's annoying but at the time i laughed with glee at one of the lyrics that seemed so silly and true in that exact moment. after all the assaults of adverts, shops and radios that line had never managed to penetrate my brain before but it was a big rowdy choir singing it this time.I bought 'back for good' on tape when I was a kid. Don't know why, I don't remember liking it much, but I guess mum did. I remember the video sucked. A boyband dancing topless in the rain.
I'm losing my mind in this house. I don't leave except for dentist appointments and driving lessons. I read On the Road again, within 24 hours (again) and it probably didn't help my state of mind. which is jumble i suppose, with a hint of depression. i spend a lot of time lying on my bed.
I have taken approximately 4 photos all summer, one of which was accidental. I haven't had a spool of film developed since france. I haven't taken a holga photo since before france. something is horribly wrong. I want to take pictures of Jane. jane in scotland. jane in france. jane tearing down ancient city walls.
But I can't right now so maybe i'll find a way out of this dark hole and take a picture of something else. something is more than nothing. And look at that, time's moved on, tomorrow I will drive and it will be nothing like the Road. It will just be the road, which is infinitely more banal and bad tempered. |
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| (no subject) |
[Aug. 15th, 2008|11:52 pm] |
I'm writing this down in the hope that I can get some sleep instead of over thinking things.
It's that time of year again when I start obsessively worrying about THE FUTURE, more specifically what I am going to with my life. The rest of the year I can quite easily respond to the question "What are you going to do with your Biology with French degree?" with a nonchalant, "Not sure yet, plenty of time to decide", but at this time of year I begin to fret and haphazardly research jobs, internships, post graduate study, gap year programmes, with no real direction or progress. All it really serves to do is make my head buzz with the possibilities. And then I forget about it all when term begins.
I am also full of fantastical plans to be a better, more fit, organised, studious, sociable version of myself. As usual. We'll see how that goes. Generally when I am full of fantastical plans I am unable to actually DO anything because I am so busy obsessing over them! Trying to get back to realistic mode. Trying to be aware that going back to uni is going to be tough after such a lazy non academic year in France. Trying not to be overwhelmed. At the moment my emotions seem to be swinging from the extremes of petrified dread to unrealistic optimism.
I quite often get caught up in comparing myself with other people, the more well traveled, higher achievers, better grade scorers, more selfless, generous, charitable, with more clubs and prizes and friends and experience. What can I fill my semesters and summers with to make me a better person?! "It's not a race," is what Gus says on the matter, because he too gets filled with that pre-uni ambition, and that's what we have to remember. Don't make impossible plans that will only fuel disappointment and don't give up hope of improvement altogether. What a balancing act. What a pain in the bum. I'm impatient to start back at St Andrews and get out of this limbo.
Going swimming tomorrow and learning to drive. I'm not completely useless. Just a little bit. |
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| A day in the life |
[May. 13th, 2008|11:21 pm] |
My parents' birthday present to me this year was pretty different. They arranged a day working at the zoo as a keeper! I mucked out enclosures, chopped fruit, fed the animals (fruit, live insects, dead male chicks). Here is what happened in picture form, drawn in the slightly tacky Scottish wildcat notebook I was given at the end.
    
One of the best parts was feeding the pygymy marmosets, the smallest monkeys in the world. They were climbing all over me trying to get the mealworms and locusts out of the box I held. Also, when a ringtailed lemur sat on my knee to eat bananas.
(a picture of a pygmy marmoset, awwwwww)
I got back from France on Sunday. So begins the next segment of my life. Yes I think of my life in segments now. Juicy orange segments! |
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| corrie |
[Sep. 3rd, 2007|08:58 pm] |
no use crying over dead dogs, they say
plenty more doggy paddles in the sea
plenty more dogfish in the sea. |
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| poem |
[Aug. 29th, 2007|02:42 pm] |
ten pounds a day
for tormented puppy souls?
fuck off mister. |
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| VIII: XV |
[Aug. 28th, 2007|08:16 pm] |
hot beverages
joanna newsom
doing enough each day to write a fulfilling list
how life should be:
sleeping is giving in. |
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| (no subject) |
[Jun. 18th, 2007|07:11 pm] |
Right now I have an overwhelming need for poetry. All I have is Dylan Thomas, TS Eliot, Robert Frost, William Shakespeare. This year I have relied so much on the library. Which I miss now that it is unavailable.
I read the blog of a girl who is sad but writes so beautifully. Her entries are always transient, she deletes them often. She deletes them as if they are feelings that are changing. They are more precious because I know that they could soon disappear. Her journal is an ever changing mood.
She wrote some incredible things whilst on drugs. She wrote two lists, comparing her life on drugs and her sober life. Her need for escapism. The lists are gone and so is the series of poems she wrote.
I don't know. Sometimes we write things down. and when we don't, they are gone. |
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| my heart is an apple |
[Jun. 13th, 2007|07:09 pm] |
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This is great:
http://www.wateraidsponsoredcycle.blogspot.com/
Claire is a classmate from uni and I was really amazed when I found out what she and her boyfriend were planning. Cycling all the way to Morocco! You should sponsor them, even just a little because they are modern day heroes if you ask me.
I once read a frustratingly short article about a woman who cycled from the UK to India. Amazing. The world is full of incredible people with big ideas.
I just finished a book which was an extract from a work by Sir Henry Walter Bates, a British naturalist. He lived in the Amazon jungle with natives for an incredible eleven years collecting specimens to send back to England. In the end he sent back 14000 specimens in three different ships in case of shipwreck, half of which were completely new to science.
It was interesting to read his views on the natives he lived with. In some ways he seemed to respect them (especially with regard to their craftmenship and hunting skills) but like many people at that time he viewed their way of life as uncivilised and on several occasions refers to them as 'savages'.
I want adventure.
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| (no subject) |
[May. 17th, 2007|11:50 am] |
It's all over now.
No more exams until 2009!
It's all a bit strange, everytime I see someone I am concious that it could be the last time, or the last time in a LONG while. Melancholy melancholy. Got a week left to enjoy St. Andrews and say my farewells. I'd better get going! |
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| sleeping is giving in |
[May. 11th, 2007|03:51 pm] |
I am toiling with this exam revision thing. Tomorrow is my physiology exam and today I have not been working. Just watching Arcade Fire videos and wishing I was in their band. Then fantasising about being in a band when I move to France. But Luke just brought me a twix and a cup of tea!
nic: thanks for the tea luke
nic: hey! this is sweet! did you put sugar in it to make me work harder?!
luke: ....no
luke: it must just be my love?
nic: OR MAYBE YOU ARE DIABETIC AND PEED IN IT!!!
luke: look at this tea, look what i made for yoooooouu oh what a thing to dooooo
luke: ...and it was all yellow
BEST FLATMATE EVER. |
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| Carbon Anniversary |
[May. 7th, 2007|10:47 am] |
I had a super bon birthday!
Amongst the loot I received was the SLR camera I had been lusting after, my parents are way cool. Anyway, here are some pictures from the first drunken spool of my 'Gangsta/ gangster/ an enchanting underwater world' themed party.
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| Cinnabar Moth |
[Apr. 29th, 2007|03:22 pm] |
Look what I found yesterday. Isn't it beautiful? |
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| Alchemy |
[Apr. 29th, 2007|12:45 pm] |
I got a poem and a short story published in a creative writing journal this week. They asked me to do a reading of my work at the launch of the journal and I was afraid. I was afraid but I said yes anyway, mainly because I have a strange compulsion to do terrifying things... partly because Mum said,
"I am your mother and I am telling you to do it!"
(She is still hassling me to send her my stuff but I am embarassed because it's a tiny bit sexy haha)
Upon sending the email confirming I would read I experienced the same flood of instant regret I felt when I sent an email in January confirming I would be beginning violin lessons again. But that turned out okay in the end! What bad could happen in this instance except for public humiliation in front of an audience who might recognise me?
The reading was on Thursday. I found a spare hour between classes to go to the pier to read my poem to the sea but couldn't get a moment to myself, what with tourists being annoying. Eventually I left and read to the wind instead, who just laughed and blew in my ear. The sea smiled and waved.
At the Byre Theatre it was quite busy maybe about 40 people or so in the bar area where the reading was to take place. I spied a couple of biologists I knew which increased my nerves somewhat. Chris and Joe came to support me. I spoke to the president of the creative writing society who complimented my work and urged me to do the reading. So I did it, I read the poem the way it sounds in my head, and it went well. After I was shaking like a leaf and my mouth was so dry I decided not to read my prose piece, and got off the stage sharpish. I shook for ages afterwards, an adrenaline cocktail rushing through my veins. Saw a student performance of Romeo and Juliet as a reward.
Joe said that the guy who had introduced me had been nodding his head along in appreciation. The next day at work I served a girl fish and chips and she smiled and said
"Your reading was really good last night"
Success! I am so very glad I did it. I urge you all: FACE YOUR FEARS. |
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| Memoirs of a melancholy whore |
[Apr. 20th, 2007|01:26 am] |
Dear livejournal,
I am sorry I have neglected you and stuffs. Sometimes I hate you and wish I hadn't written you at all. I'm sorry for that too, you aren't all that bad. I guess what I am trying to say is: I am going to write in you NOW, you saucy minx.
Right now seems about a good time for an update on my life as I am in a neutral, non-self-depreciating mood. OKAY.
(1) My education
I am troubled by the lack of enjoyment and thus motivation in the biology side of my degree. One reason is that the module 'Comparitive Physiology' has not turned out to be the green course advertised at the beginning of the year. It is in fact purely human and ought to have been named so. The good news is now that I have discovered my interests do not lie in human biology, so can now direct my further studies in greener, probably zoological routes.
The teaching of the course has been sub-par (for the most part), many lectures are just straight from a textbook and by people who don't seem to care about teaching. Last week we were lectured by a man remarkably like Professor Snape, in voice and manner, dressed fully in black, who snaps at whisperers at the back of the lecture theatre. Before that was a droner, droning about kidney function. Or something. In short, it has been rubbish and I am slacking.
With French I have a somewhat bipolar attitude, swinging from being fascinated by it to being completely frustrated by the gaps in my own knowledge. I love it really. It just can be so cruel sometimes. Also fun is the occasional stab of crippling fear I get when I realise I will be adrift in France in a few months. Woo!
(2) The FUTURE
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaah! France etc. I have started sorting out the practical things to with my year abroad, like matriculation and tuition fees and investigating insurance so that if I die or fall into a coma my body will be brought back to the country without my parents having to pay £10,000 or something. Exciting or what! Oh yeah, and my Romania flights are booked now!
(3) Social life or lack thereof
This week for the first time in yonks I went out for Boozeday Tuesday, accompanied by Luke and James. We boozed and danced and finally ended up at the 'latino bop' where I recreated the dance Alberto does in Motorcycle Diaries. At least what I thought the dance was at the time. Swingin'.
On Saturday I will be dressing up as a gypsy and selling my kisses like a common prostitute. For those who aren't up for some of my sweet lovin' I will be reading palms, but only once my own has been crossed with silver. This is in aid of fundraising for my upcoming Romanian adventure and at the same time will satisfy my desire for soft human flesh. Or you know, sleazy drunks trying to score. My favourite.
(I'd like to mention that this plan was hatched by Sarah and Lucy (the girls I'll be travelling with) and not myself. I suspect we will need several shots of dutch courage beforehand lest we chicken out.)
That's all for now. Bye bye.
P.S. I climbed Ben Nevis, more on that here! |
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| To whom it may concern... |
[Mar. 19th, 2007|09:25 pm] |
I will be in Livingston this weekend. Wanna hang out, livi crew? I plan to arrive on Saturday.
April: Walk half of West Highland Way
May: Exams
June: Search for job and lie to employers
July: Romania
August: Commute from Dundee to St Andrews for work?
September: Move to France
Things are beginning to hit home.
This was the weekend of ScRoLL (Scotland Romania Language Link) training. Worked on some lesson plans and dealing with various hypothetical scenarios to do with difficult children, difficult classes. Met about 40 people? We all went out for a meal, then fragmented for St Patrick's day boozing up. Sometimes hanging out with strangers is easier than dealing with friends. You can be invisible, without it mattering.
I discovered that I am not going to Iaşi, a city in north-eastern Romania with the girls I applied with. I was more disappointed than I expected, I think because I am just getting to know them and get on pretty well with them. I will be in Arad in the west of the country. I am slightly concerned about not having really connected with the people I'm going with but I guess it will be an adventure!
Anyway people, let me know if you are free this weekend, it's been ages! |
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