graculus | Entries tagged with university challenge

I'm thinking I should accept full responsibility for the fact it's been raining all morning - I'd hoped to get some more work done in the garden so it doesn't look utterly neglected, but that's just not going to happen, is it?

In other news, my graduation tickets turned up yesterday. It seems that I am in the front row, as our course is the first group in the graduation, and I will be in seat 7 - which is good, because it doesn't prolong the anxiety of waiting to go up and do the diploma thing too much! Woo and indeed yay! Somehow I hadn't realised that I wouldn't be sitting with my mother for the actual ceremony (though in hindsight, I have no idea why) so I should apologise in advance for the people who will find themselves giving their entire lifestory to her in the period we have to be there before the ceremony starts. Seriously, 15 minutes is more than enough time for her to interrogate at least one of the people she's sitting with...

I guess I should get going on organising my trip to

connotations at some point, though I've got as far as printing out the membership form. And purchasing something entertaining for the raffle (I just couldn't resist!). And thinking about panel topics. So maybe I'm not quite as much of a delinquent as I might think. Hotel stuff to do still, though.

Also, more ( Spoilers for 'The Sound of Drums' - Dr Who ep 12 )

Current Mood: blah

Mission accomplished: the computer is back upstairs and the lovely wireless router picked up the signal first time, no problem. Yay for Netgear again! :)

I'm waiting for my mother to phone me to tell me what she's doing for this graduation thing. The first version was that she would get the train, and that because she doesn't sleep very well (not to mention the minor fact I only have one bed at the moment, which I hadn't told her), she'd rather stay in a hotel than disturb me in the middle of the night. The more recent version became that she's organised for someone to bring her and that she thought she was going to stay with me. Then we had a long and complicated conversation about where someone driving her might drop her off, since I explained that where I live has the ring road from hell and even though I've lived here more than 6 years, I still get lost. *headdesk*

Oh, and apparently she's planning to come up on the Tuesday, the graduation is Wednesday and then she's going home on the Thursday. Considering that it's more than a three hour drive each way from where she lives, I don't think that's a good idea - hell, I wouldn't want to do it and she's twice my age, literally - but she's made her mind up, it seems. I come by it honestly. ;)

Back to the grindstone, a.k.a. 'getting the house and garden in a fit state for a maternal visit next month'...

Current Mood: mischievous

Rejoice with me, for my dissertation was accepted! :)

So, that's it then. Me and my MA. Not only did I pass, I got 65% for my diss, which is way more than I thought I would, considering the short period in which it was written... Woo hoo!

Current Mood: ecstatic

Rejoice with me, for my dissertation is done!

Or at least as done as it's going to be, considering it's due in on Wednesday. ;)

18,462 words + bibliography, which isn't all that much compared to fic but I enjoy writing fic (most of the time) and this was not an enjoyable experience...

Current Mood: accomplished

I hate my dissertation, and in particular methodology. Grrrr. That is all.

Current Mood: working

Getting there, I think... I've got the conclusion and the abstract to write, then I need to re-read the whole thing and see if it makes any sense, but I feel like I'm making progress. Oh, and it helps if the head of department wrote a paper you can cite and say how much you agree with him, doesn't it? ;)

Other news... apparently all the various things I have ordered from Amazon are on their way and some day my missing dvds might turn up as well. My Rome boxset is here and I'm currently keeping it as a reward for getting the dissertation done, though it was one of my birthday presents to me, so we'll see if the resolution lasts. I've also finally caved and bought Wonderfalls, so at some point that should turn up. And something else I'm not saying anything about, mwahahaha... not yet, anyway!

I'm really looking forward to going to

connotations and was really surprised to see how popular my cliche panel is turning out to be in the panel poll. I have some ideas for it, particularly as there are certain cliches that are generic and some which are fandom-specific, or slightly mutated to fit particular fandoms.

A plea to my friendslist as the bad fic panel also seems likely to get a rerun (and particularly

bluster, who promised me bad F/V!) - send me bad fic! Please help me with prose so purple it's ultraviolet, cringe-making names for genitalia and all round cracked out stuff! If you don't want to comment, because that would spoil the surprise for everyone, email me at graculus at livejournal dot com. Thanks in anticipation!

Current Mood: busy

Okay, whose bright idea was it to study for more qualifications? *smacks herself in the side of the head*

Maybe it wouldn't have been quite so bad if I hadn't done my usual and left it to almost-the-last-minute, but doing two jobs didn't help. Taking time off work to get it done was definitely a good idea, even if my computer is too tempting in terms of leading myself astray... after all, there's episodes, fic and livejournal to prat around with rather than writing the cursed dissertation. Meh.

Anyway, it must be done. Because it's due in two weeks time, as of yesterday. Yes, I have 12 days to get the bloody thing ~~written~~ finished, proof-read, printed and bound and off to university. Woo hoo! :P

Current Mood: rushed

Apropos of nothing, I had this really odd dream last night which I then forgot to post about this morning before I went to work. Anyway, it involved my being extremely annoyed to discover that Manchester United (from hereon referred to as 'the scum') had got a new away kit. For anyone who doesn't know anything about football, teams have kits they always wear when they play at home but they also have away kits which they wear when they play at another team's stadium if their home kit would be too similar to the other teams.

So, it turned out that the scum had got this new away kit and were promoting it in the media and it was, of all things, old gold and black. I'm a Wolves fan and our home strip is old gold and black, so I was very annoyed to discover that our kit had been pirated by the scum. How I expressed my annoyance, I don't recall, I just know that I was very vexed! ;)

In other news: glad it's the weekend. 9 more days at work then it's crazy-arse dissertation finishing time (aka annual leave).

Current Mood: amused

A definite entry in the 'so obvious I saw it coming' stakes: hot on the heels of the external candidates for the post I'm currently covering not being anything like good enough to appoint, now it seems the internal candidate has some kind of crisis at home which means he's asked not to be interviewed at the moment. This is ominous, isn't it? All those who saw this coming, please feel free to laugh as much as I groaned internally at that news... ;)

Work is just crazily busy, but that's what happens when you try and do two jobs at the same time. Still, no major gaffes so far and I've almost finished my third week of the promised four. If nothing else, I've not been bored! Quite the opposite in fact, as I have almost more work than I can cram into the day.

I was already planning to take the bank holiday week off, in order to assist in completing my dissertation and now I think I'm going to take the week after off as well. I'm just too knackered to do much when I get home other than vegetate and sleep, which means the weekends are currently the only times I'm getting anything done on that and I'd hoped to be further along than I am.

In other news, the video of one of my favourite movies is starting to get knackered - I was watching it last night ('it' being The Fisher King, in case anyone was wondering), and it's showing its age. I'm left wondering whether all my other videos will eventually crap out from over-use. I don't really want to replace them unless I absolutely have to, but having already replaced Withnail and I, Curry and Pepper and LA Confidential, in the end I might have no choice... :(

Current Mood: tired

Another stupidly busy week is over and I'm catching up on my sleep and all the other things I ought to be doing...

Making progress (slow but steady) on my dissertation and it's suddenly feeling all a little too real. I can see it completely taking over my non-work life for the next six weeks as I've probably not done as much to date as I should have and the deadline is actually on the horizon now. So if I'm not around much between now and the middle of September, that's the reason, okay?

It's one particular bit of this that makes me want to stab myself in the eyes with a sharpened pencil - I feel like I know my subject inside and out, the relevant interviews are cracking on and the analysis of those isn't going to be a major problem, but I could care less about research design. Meh. Any advice/brickbats/platitudes accepted... ;)

But at least the forecast is for the weather to get back to a little more like normal English summer next week. I know, we're all terrible wusses who complain all the time and we don't know what real weather is, yadda yadda yadda, but none of us (and most of our buildings) aren't designed for this. Maybe if this is going to be more of the norm, at least the buildings will have to change to suit. All I know is that it's not much fun sitting in a relatively small meeting room with all the windows open, two fans whirring away and it's still too clammy to think properly.

In other news... nothing comes to mind, maybe more later.

Current Mood: blah

So, it seems that I now have space for 44 icons. I wonder how people decide which one to use when they have over a hundred?

And it seems I may be going on strike on 28th March. Which I have no problem with, since I voted for strike action, being one of the government employees who (unlike the civil servants, teachers, police, nurses and fire brigade workers) are being bilked of the right to retire early if we've done our time. Since I expect to personally hit the magic number (85, in case anyone was wondering, in terms of age + years in continuous government employment) in my mid 50's and would like the chance to consider retirement then (if I can afford it), I don't see why I should be treated any differently from the aforesaid workers just because my job doesn't garner public sympathy. And even if that's a long way from now, it's annoying that not everyone is being treated equally - one rule for all, that's all we're asking for.

In other news, I was up at the university doing some guilt-induced research for my dissertation and bumped into my tutor. I was entertained to see how harassed she looked and this is apparently due to the second edition of her existing textbook being due in on Monday. Now I just need to crack on and arrange the interviews I need to do, so I can get the bloody thing written and submitted by September, at which point there will be much rejoicing on my part and a vow to remember this the next time I think it might be nice to do something academic. ;)

And my bloody wireless router is playing up again. It's vexatious, since it'll work for days without any problems and then it'll have to be reset every 10 minutes or so for no apparent reason. Grrr.

Current Mood: cheerful

And in other news, I got permission from the university to submit my dissertation in September 2006 due to circumstances beyond my control messing with me getting it done this year, so I have a whole 12 months more to prevaricate... ;)