And then there was one

Okay so today is not blog day. Sorry to be a day late, but I had a posting issue yesterday (read: I forgot)

So this is my last week in Bangor, and I'm busier than ever. Between running errands to sort things that need to be sorted, participate in a bunch of different experiments to help people out, and starting to analyze my own thesis data I've been all booked up and it's only Wednesday. On Monday I closed my bank account. Kaput. Bye bye Barclays. So now I'm rolling around town with absurd amounts of cash to last the week and then euros for Italy as well, all in hilarious fashion.

Yesterday, as part of my errands, I wandered allllll the way over to Normal Site (another section of the University that's pretty out of the way). It was kind of a long walk, but it turned out to have some really pretty views. I had only ever passed by there on a bus once or twice and hadn't noticed before. After I got to my destination and got the information I needed, I decided to snap a couple of pictures on the way back. I'm sure I looked crazy to all the cars driving by but the sky had cleared up a bit and I wanted to have something pretty to show you all in the blog this week (that I thought I was going to be posting last night). Unfortunately, blogger is having a heart attack and won't let me add pictures no matter how I try it right now, so you can't see them. I will try again later and see if it has calmed down and is ready to cooperate then. Meanwhile, imagine the Menai Strait, the pier, and sailboats, green rolling hills, and cows.

The rest of the week looks like it'll be just as busy as the beginning has been. I've got more experiments to participate in for people, lots more stats/analysis to melt my brain with, and several more "loose ends" to get squared away before the weekend. Then on the weekend I've got to clear out all my things I'm neither keeping nor shipping and get everything out because Sunday..... I leave!

My train out of Bangor is at about 7:00pm to Manchester, then I'll stay overnight at a hotel to get up at the crack of dawn on Monday for a 6:15am flight heading to ROMA! Then I'm off for a week in Italia with Eric visiting Venice and Florence/Tuscany. I'm excited. Very excited.

Arrivederci! Next thing you know, I'll be seeing you stateside!

Penultimatum

I have less than 2 weeks left in Bangor.

Let that one soak in for a bit. Seems crazy. Two weeks from right now, I will be in Italy, having packed up/ shipped off/ thrown out everything in this room of mine for good. It's a weird thing to wrap my brain around given the ups and downs of this whole year here. A big part of me is happy to be going home (with a pit stop in Italy, no less!), but it's a small part bittersweet. It's been an interesting year. And mostly now there's just a lot of things I need to take care of. Like make an appointment to close my bank account. And figure out how to ship home whatever crap I don't want to cart around on my trip. Most importantly, I'm trying to make sure I do the things and see the people I need to see to be happy and satisfied when I leave.

Towards that effort, last week I spent lots of time down the hill with friends just hanging out. The weather's been really nice for the most part too. One night we had a barbecue-turned-backyard-bonfire which was really fun.

This weekend a couple of us went to the beach over on Anglesey. Definitely a different style of beach trip than I typically associate with a "hot" June day (ie. still wearing long pants and not touching the water) but it was still fun. Just a chill afternoon out enjoying the weather with some gorgeous scenery.

So that's the story for the next 2 weeks. Tying up lots of loose ends, sorting out the details of finishing up here. And first and foremost, having fun :)

In the Shire (Cambridgeshire)

Breaking news...... I'm 23!

In honor of this momentous(?) occasion, I had a much-anticipated visit from my dear Catrin :) Arriving on Thursday afternoon, we had a whole long weekend of shenanigans to get up to, beginning with a little night out on the town for my birthday.

Now, I hope you haven't gotten too excited and forgotten that I am, in fact, still in Bangor. Therefore, said night on the town only involved getting a drink or two out at the Greek with Diego, and then us two girls heading off to Octagon to get our dance on despite our usual disinclination to set foot in the place.

On Friday, our grand plans to go take the neat little train up to the peak of Snowdonia were thwarted when we discovered that it costs £25 (about $40) each. Ridiculous for something we could technically walk for free. Due to the fact that neither of us had appropriate footwear for such an endeavor and that we just didn't feel like it, we went to the movies instead. The new Pirates... in 3D, no less.

After the movie (which was super fun, by the way) we set off for Cambridge/ Guilden Morden where Cat lives. We had a chilled evening of dinner and hanging, and made our plans for Saturday: punting! For those who don't know what punting is, think Venice but Britishier. It involves a shallow boat, a long stick, and, if you don't feel like going for a swim, an experienced and non-clumsy punt-er/guide.

 

We had a lovely day after a relaxing tour down the river, walking around the city, having a picnic lunch, people-watching, and of course doing a little shopping. The next day, however, was the most exciting of all. We went to a safari park!!! Basically a zoo that you drive around, the animals are pretty much free to wander around and occasionally block traffic. As in bears that wander in front of your car and monkeys that jump on your roof. It's pretty awesome. Let me warn you now that I took about 200 pictures in the park. I tried to be selective here with what I'd post, but it was just so hard to choose! Massive facebook album to follow.

 (So that's what those spare tires are for)

Cat really likes that last one of the giraffes. She thinks it's artsy. I'd like to say I did that on purpose, but really it was an accident that the camera focused on the raindrops on the car window instead of what was behind it.

So that was my weekend. Took an early train home from London on Monday morning in time to do nothing much of note this week (that I know of so far). But maybe something will come up that'll give me something to tell you about next week. If not, then I could always just show you more pictures of monkeys on cars :) I know I just can't get enough...

It's Chester-tastic

For a nice change of pace, this week I actually have something interesting to share!

This past weekend, Dan invited a couple of us to go with him to his house in Chester. A welcome opportunity to a) get out of Bangor, and b) see some more of the UK. Also, just to have a good time. Naturally, I jumped at the offer and so Dan, myself, Diego, and Franzi set off Friday night. Louise came out for a day as well.

The big plan for Saturday was to go to a place called the Crocky Trail. Basically a mud-ridden obstacle/adventure course type thing mostly designed for smaller kids but also still really entertaining for big kids. Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures of the shenanigans that went down here. Given the likelihood of falling and either breaking the camera or drowning it in mucky stream water, I decided it was best not to carry it around with me. Feel free to google it and check out images of happy dirt-caked kids grinning as they swing across mud puddles and over rickety bridges.

Following the Crocky Trail, it was decided that we were in need of some delicious ice cream refreshment, so we went to a place called Snugbury's (or, as Dan originally called it, Snuggleberries. Obviously I prefer that one).

We also found piggies. Franzi wanted to steal one. We named this one Mister Oink Oink

From this place, we could see a castle, which Dan had apparently never been to. Once we were able to tear ourselves away from the adorable oinkers, we made our way over to Beeston Castle. Apparently you can see something like 8 or 9 counties from it, as it sits way up on a hill. Amazing views. (Click on the pictures to see them bigger)

On Sunday, we went for a wander around the city of Chester itself. It's an old walled city so we walked around the entire length of the walls, saw the cathedral, Chester castle, a park, a little mini train, the high street, etc.

We also went to the movies, played multiple games of the Big Taboo, and had an all-round jolly good time. A weekend well spent for sure.

Now this week, it's back to chilling in Bangor. However, I have a very pleasant change coming in the form of my dear Catrin who is coming to hang out for a night or two, then taking me back with her to Cambridge for the weekend. Lucky for you, that means more pictures next week! Lucky for me, that means I get to see my Catcat for a good few days :)

Check you next week- same bat time, same bat channel

No More Teachers, No More Books

As off this afternoon, I am officially done with the taught portion of my masters degree!!! Done with exams, done with essays, done with everything class related.... forever :)

All that's left is thesis! (oh that little thing) Sign-ups have actually picked back up for participants, so looks like we're going to pick up a good few more before all the students go home (after June 3rd). In fact, we might just break 100 participants tomorrow afternoon if most of our sign-ups actually show! We're gonna need some champagne or something for that!

That's really all the news I have for you this week, unfortunately. Similar to last week, I haven't had a lot going on besides cranking out the exams and assignments. But now that that's all over, hopefully I'll have something more interesting for you all next Tuesday :)

For more entertainment, here's a video I found the other day of Hugh Laurie on Ellen Degenerous' show playing a guessing game of British versus American slang. It's like my "isms" posts but funnier!



Have a lovely, teaching-free week!

Reading Rainbow

Not much has changed since this time last week. Consumer project/report deadline still looming, as is the impending doom of a statistics exam on Friday, aaand then a presentation for the aforementioned project scheduled for the beginning of next week. Needless to say, I've got a lot to do.

Therefore, I don't have much to say, nor time which I could take to say it. One cool thing happened though, over the weekend. I saw the base of a huge rainbow out my window over in the hills in front of the mountains. What makes it cool was a) it was the end of a rainbow, and b) it was really close. The next day (as we were having on-and-off heavy showers for a few days in a row) another rainbow showed up in the same place! I noticed it, looked back at my computer for a minute, and then when I glanced up again the colors had become brighter than I have ever seen in a rainbow outside of cartoons.

I whipped out my camera to see if it would come out clearly and this is what I got:

I apologize for not having much to say, but the end of term is eating my life. This time next week though it'll all be better :) I'll see you on the other side!

Exam time

Yesterday was the start of this semester's exam period. Today was my first exam, for 'Applied Consumer Psychology'. It wasn't too bad, pretty much what I expected. Aside from a couple of scattered participants to test, that's it for scheduled things to do this week. Next week though we have the final report due for our consumer psych projects, and then our Advanced Stats exam two days later, so I've got plenty of work to keep me busy.

Since there's studying and work to be done, and not a lot of interesting things happening, there isn't much for me to talk about this week. I thought about pulling out the list of British-isms, but I was uninspired.

Instead, here's a bit of comedy about Wales, the Welsh, and Welsh language :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSOaMmeiSZA

oh and this too

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fL2CaiydtLY

Enjoy!

May we move forward

It's May? Really?

Honestly that just sounds weird. In an incorrect kind of way. Like it can't be May because that would mean that a full year ago I was finishing my senior year at Delaware and getting ready to graduate. And a full year sounds like a long time. Being May also means that it's spring time for real, and close to summer. May is always the month in school when you start to get that itch for freedom- to get out and have vacation and beach time already. But there's always that pesky end of the semester to get through first.

Now that we're back from Easter holidays/break, we're hitting the ground running with assignments, projects, and exams. Here's a rundown of what the next few weeks hold for me:

1) Entrepreneurial Marketing paper due today
2) Applied Consumer Exam next Tuesday, the 10th
3) Bar Uno project Final Report due the following Wednesday, the 18th
4) Advanced Stats Exam that Friday the 20th
5) Bar Uno project Presentation the following Monday or Tuesday the 23rd/24th

All that is happening within three weeks from today. Plus running participants. Ready Set Go.

After all those deadlines are passed, it's just me, Dan, and our thesis. We have time slots available this week as well as for the end of next week to try to get as many more participants as possible, but sign-ups are slow. Looks like most of the undergrads satisfied their credit requirements earlier on. If it's too slow and we really need participants looks like we'll start recruiting friends and anyone we can to get our numbers up. Once we have enough data we'll have to start running our analyses which is going to be like stats class resurrected but we won't worry about that until the end of the month after all our other due dates and this are over.

That's the first of my last 2 months in Wales all booked up, and so all that brings us to June. I actually have nothing official scheduled for most of the month of June, so that's a big empty month so far. For the most part, anyway. I am hoping to make a small trip here or there maybe to visit Cat in Cambridge or maybe Dublin or Paris if I can swing it. No official plans though. There is, however, a little trip to Italy booked for the very end of the month into July :) So that's my last two months for you.

I will be home for good July 5th - two months from Thursday. Even though I started this post with "omg it's may" blabber, the next two months til I come home seems like forever. July? That's, like, for real summertime. Summer seems so distant. The end of June (when I go to Italy and then straight home) seems really far away. Like, ages. But Eric keeps reminding me that a constant theme of this blog over the past 7 months has been how fast the time is going by. So I can only conclude that when the end of june does finally roll around, I'll be feeling like it flew by and have no idea where the time went just like every other milestone throughout this year. But from where I stand right now, it's miles away. We'll see how it all goes, and I wouldn't blame you if you put money on it that a month from now I'll be saying "omg it's June?" and then "omg it's the end of June?"

I don't doubt it, but from this side of those two months, it seems like a long time.

Ready....... BREAK!

Once upon a time, there was a second semester. This semester steadily crept by day by day, week by week, until suddenly, one day, the students realized it was over.

That day was Thursday. I had my last ever lecture and I didn't even realize it until after. Yup, I missed the momentous occasion of the end of academics as such forever by sheer obliviousness until it was over and I overheard someone else say it. I still have exams, assignments, and a dissertation before I'm completely done with school so I do get more chances to be conscious of a "my last ___" but come onnn. Conscious or not while it happened though, is pretty weird to think about. With the exception of a few toddlery years, I have spent my entire life in school. So the idea that I'm not going to do the go to class, write papers, take tests thing anymore is kind of strange. Don't get me wrong, I'm thrilled to be done with those last two. It's more of a lifestyle change that's weird- I don't think most employers would be thrilled with me sleeping late and coming in at maybe 11, taking long lunches, and dressing like a bum. Just a guess.

Like I said though, this whole ride is far from over. Even since that big last lecture I've had stuff to do, eg. participants to run. As of this afternoon with our last testing session before both Dan and I get out of here for break, our participant count for our thesis is up to 77. In just over two weeks? Not too shabby. Our original goal was 120 (40 per each of 3 different groups) and I thought it was a long shot, but it's looking pretty reachable now. I'd be happy to settle for 90, but, as Dan so kindly reminded me (by shattering my nice rosy bubble) we'll have to savagely remove upwards of 15-20% of our data for bad participants etc. So in reality those 120 or 90 participants are our net goals meaning we need to aim higher. But... we can do it!

But enough about work... I'm on break! Heading home tomorrow, in fact. That's right- tomorrow! I'm not entirely sure I believe it. I don't think it has sunk in, since the semester has flown by and the fact that I am going home at all was a semi last-minute decision it has all kind of crept up on me. But believe you me I am excited! Except for the painfully early train part. 5:14am. I'll be getting up before many of you have even gone to bed, time zone difference or not. That sucks. BUT it'll be totally worth it after I sleep all the way from the UK to Amsterdam to Boston and awake magically having arrived at home :) Then I'll happily be roaming the east coast for about 2 weeks until flying back here at the end of the month.

That does mean, however, that the blog will be on vacation for a few weeks as well. Stay tuned for more firsts, lasts, and general shenanigans when I pick back up in May!

Truth or Dare

Three things I know to be true:
     1) It's already April
     2) This is the last week of term before break
     3) I will be home a week from tomorrow

How did it get to be April? I feel like I do this every month in one way or another, saying "omg it's ____" or "wow can it really be ____ already?!" It's no less true any other month than it is now. I suppose the passage of time shouldn't surprise me that much- it's not a new concept- but somehow it continues to amaze me just how time really can fly. Days and weeks and months suddenly go from future to past and it seems as if I never notice until it sneaks up on me. That is, until a new month begins.

I was speaking with a friend the other day, and they were telling me about something exciting they're looking forward to that's happening towards the end of June. We were talking about it as a distant future kind of thing, like June is summer and summer is far away. Then I said you know, that's actually pretty soon. Naturally, they responded as if I was crazy thinking when it's barely April that the end of June is right around the corner. But I explained my rationale and it really makes sense. People always say that time passes quicker if you set yourself mini milestones to get there, rather than a single really distant big one. It's baby steps in time. The evidence in this theory lies in a life built around academics. My own case study: I have this last week full of participant sessions and project work and paper writing, then 3 weeks of break in which I will fly across the ocean, run around Massachusetts to do as much as possible, drive to Delaware/Maryland for a few days then drive back, then finish up my time at home doing as much as possible again. Then it's May. In May we have 1 week of possible lectures, then it's exam time. By the time exams and projects are completely finished, it's June. When you break it down like that, you barely have time to "stop and smell the roses" as you're flying through the days. In that sense, the end of June might as well be next week.

I've realized as I finished that paragraph that it sounds like a rather depressing view of things. I really don't mean it that way. I really just mean to say that I am regularly astonished at the speed with which these baby steps of time are coming at me and, inevitably passing. It makes me reflect back on last spring and summer, which seems like not so long ago and lightyears past all at the same time. This time a year ago, I was sitting in Delaware rocking my last month or so of college. This year, I'm in Wales working on my thesis. Crazy.

Speaking of my thesis, participant count as of this afternoon: 52


Since I've titled this post Truth or Dare, and I began with truth, I will end with dare. I dare all you blog-lurkers who apparently read this but never comment to come out of hiding and say something. Anything.

Your participation is appreciated

    Can you believe it's the end of March already? It blows my mind how fast this month has gone by. During my time in Wales, it has been a strange mix of time crawling and flying but I have to say that this month has in no way crawled.

In the last week, I have become acutely aware of how little time is left in this semester. People have flights booked to go home permanently that are only 2 months away. That's enough on it's own to feel the pressure, but when 3 weeks of that time is Easter/spring break and then a couple other weeks of it are part of the exam period it starts to feel like we're on an express train headed straight to the end of the semester.

While that's kind of the upside of time speeding by, the "acutely aware of how little time is left" thing starts to lead to panic attacks when I think about all the stuff that is supposed to happen between now and mid May. There's a 4000 word assignment, completion of a project which has seemed to evolve into something much larger than expected, a final report on said project, a presentation on the project, and two final exams. For that project, we're somehow crazy enough to be attempting to conduct numerous interviews, up to 6 focus groups, a large-scale questionnaire, and I'm doing heat-mapping. And then we have to analyze it all. I'm not sure when we're going to do it all or why we thought this was a good idea. To throw in some positivity though, we have actually already conducted one focus group, so I guess we're on the right track.

Oh, and did I mention my thesis? Now that we're months behind our original prescription for our timeline of events (who didn't see that one happening?) we've finally got our experiment program working and our study active on the SONA participant panel as of Friday. Diego helped us out this weekend by acting as our guinea pig: he is the original participant. As of this evening, including Diego, we've already run 13 participants!!! It has definitely exceeded my expectations for how many people we could get to sign up or how quickly. Our goal is 120 people total, though we are anticipating having to settle for fewer. All things considered, two days into running our experiment we're 10% of the way there. That's pretty awesome. If we keep getting sign-ups at this rate, we should be set. The 3 week break and then heading into exams is going to make things tricky, but here's hoping!

So many sign-ups! (non-clickable so names aren't legible)

So things are cracking along for sure. Hopefully the next week and a half will be just as busy and productive before I come HOME! :)

Shaken, not stirred

Dear faithful blogees,

In the life and times of Elizabeth, things are usually pretty calm and stable. Nothing too crazy happens. Except when it does.

Yesterday (Tuesday/Blog Day), I was working on a paper due today (Wednesday), and I had enough done that I was convinced to go out last night. It was a fun night, good times were had, yadda yadda. When I came home (early, mind you) to get a good night's sleep before finishing up and turning in my paper today, what did I find but a crashed-ish computer. Of course. Our handy dandy Eric promptly got an international phone call asking "What do I doooooooooo?!?!?!?!" to which the response was basically "wait, try again in the morning, if it's still screwed, try this." Go to sleep when my lifeline to the entire world AND the paper due the next day might be kaput? You've got to be kidding.

Anywho, I did as I was told (what choice did I have?) and went to sleep. This morning, I woke and was wide awake wayy earlier than normal and I tested the waters - nope, computer still screwed. This is the part where I panic. It was still early to call anyone, and Dan, my trusty Bangor-located nerd, was going to have to help me with Eric's Plan B of burning and running the computer off of a OS cd which may or may not be able to recover my data from my own hard drive and thenImighthavetostartalloveronmypaperthatsdueTODAYOMGWHATAMIGONNADO

Lucky for me, I resorted to drastic measures. I shook the computer. And you know what? It worked.

So here's to all y'all geeks and nerds who use techy lingo and makes things all better when machines break, but you know what? The layman's way WORKS! So go ahead, smack your dashboard when something somewhere is rattling, kick the vending machine so it'll give you what you want, and when in doubt, shake your computer.

the Ides of March

Beware them (the Ides, that is).

In this week's installment of Elizabeth's Life, there's not a whole lot going on. Because of that, and the response to last week's pictures, here is another dose of springtime

Oh but there is big news in my life this week...... drumroll please...... as of a sudden decision this week, I will be coming home for a visit next month! You can blame (or thank) Miss Meaghan Toole/soon-to-be Kline, and the US Navy for that. That's right! My bffff/girlfriend is getting married next month. This is obviously very exciting and I couldn't stand the thought that I might miss it. Fortunately for me, Bangor has a 3-week break which just happens to fall around the date of the wedding. So I worked some magic (read: pulled out a credit card) and I'll officially be home this time next month for about 2 weeks!

I'm pretty excited about that. After Christmas, I had become accustomed to the idea that I wouldn't be home again until probably July, so honestly I'm having a hard time adjusting my mindset now that I will be at home in a month! I'm sure I'll get used to the idea pretty quickly though :) Between now and then though, there's a good bit of work to get done. I've got a project proposal, a paper which needs to be done early since it's due while I'll be in another country, as well as research-y stuff. Ready, set, work!

So beware those pesky Ides (of March), have a Caesar salad while you're at it, and I'll see you soon!

Blog Delay

Oopsies. Started writing the blog on time, then got distracted by "studying". Will finish and post promptly after my exam today :) Sorry!

Aaaaand here it is:

I thought I'd kick this week's post off with a picture. I haven't posted too many here lately. Turns out, you don't have to go far to see some beautiful things. The sunset over the mountains is a view straight out my window. I love the reflection in the windows

We're now in Week 7 of the second semester here.... time sure is a-flyin! While that is kind of cool and exciting, it also means that I have an exam on Wednesday this week. Not just any midterm exam either- an Advanced Statistics exam. Gross. Typically I hate stats with a passion. It's just no fun at all. However for this exam, we were given data a week ahead to run through the stats software SPSS and pull together our output. Then, we can take all that output with any notes, calculations, the textbook, whatever we want into the exam. We get an hour to answer the questions about our data using what we ran in SPSS. There's a chance that this could be okay, but there's also a chance that it'll be super confusing. [Note: since I'm not posting this til Wednesday, after my exam, I can inform you that it wasn't too painful].

Over the weekend, I definitely took advantage of the recently nice weather. Hung out with friends, met some people, spent time outside- all in all a good few days. Saturday I went shopping with Diego to help him get some new spring clothes. Though not as sunny, it was still nice to be outside for a couple hours. Friday, after doing some stats work, I met a friend for coffee which then turned into meeting up with a friend of his and wandering around high street for a bit. Wandering then turned into going up to Roman camp to watch the sunset. It's a beautiful spot wayy up a hill (I think I've mentioned it before) that looks over both the city of Bangor and much of the Menai Strait. I took this as a great opportunity to play with my new fancy camera.

On the way up to Roman camp, I got sidetracked by a patch of such brightly colored little flowers. Something about the vibrant colors of the petals is such a stark contrast against Wales with its often-grey skies, and abundant use of dark grey stone on buildings, walls, and roads. They were so pretty I just had to stop.

Finally, I stopped holding us up and we climbed the hill. As we stood up there, the views were (as always) impressive, and slowly the sun began to set and paint pink and orange across the sky

So I started and ended the post with sunsets. Clearly I didn't plan this well. Or maybe I did?

Come up with some sort of symbolism and we'll just say it was on purpose.

Wales Day

In like a lion? Not yet, March. Hopefully not at all. How about in like a lamb? This first day of the month though was beautiful- clear skies and sunny. In Wales??, you exclaim! Why yes, miracles DO happen. And it's only fitting because today, March 1st, is Saint David's Day. If you visited Google.com today, you might have noticed a little costume and flower on the second 'g' of the logo. Why is this relevant? Well, Saint David just happens to be the patron saint of Wales. Hence the daffodil on the logo (official flower of Wales). I'm not going to go on about it though, because I would only be spouting what I just read off of Wikipedia as I wrote, so instead I'll just throw you the link and save us all the trouble of my poor story-telling: Saint David's Day

In other news, I got crapped on by a seagull the other day. Personally, I don't find this particularly entertaining or blog-worthy but my dear Catrin thought otherwise. So here's the deal. One bright unassuming Thursday afternoon, Catrin, Dan and I set out to deal with some academic errands after a lecture. Having found Gareth (our trusty PhD consumer guru) busy, we decided to wait outside in the sunshine til he was free. I think I got too cocky about the sky being clear and bright in Wales, because it crapped on me. By it, I mean the seagull in the sky. And by on me, I mean on my nice new leather jacket which I love so dearly. Not cool, bird. Not cool. After a moment of shock and despair, we hustled inside so I could try to clean my poor jacket with the assistance of Cat handing me tissue while bravely managing her sensitive gag reflex to gross things. Fortunately it wasn't too messy so I got it off and later disinfected the bejeezus out of my jacket when I got home. I will never look at that jacket the same way again.

Following this "Elizabeth got crapped on" incident, there was some discussion of whether or not it is lucky to have a bird poo on you. I've always sort of felt that that's what you tell the person who got crapped on to make them feel better, meanwhile you're pleased as punch that it didn't happen to you. However, I might be coming around to the idea of lucky bird shit, because something amazing has happened.....(drumroll please).....

Ta-da! Much to our surprise and great pleasure, our ethics application has finally come through for our thesis project. This means that we can officially move on and begin testing, once we get our study description submitted on SONA (the university's participant panel) and people start signing up.

So far March is off to a good start. Sunshine and ethics approval. What more could you want from the first day of the month?

Weather and some Isms

It appears that spring has sprung! Or at least it's trying. This past weekend we had some surprising weather here in Wales.... I believe it is called sunshine. Very rare. Very special. Very short lived.

In honor of the nice weather, I made a point to venture outside. Though in Bangor there isn't a whole lot to do of the casual "outside" variety. The thought of springtime makes me miss Newark. In Delaware you knew that the first day of slightly warmer sun you'd be out on the green with a frisbee and an iced coffee. Bangor doesn't have a green to relax and play on. If it did, I guarantee it would be too soggy to sit on (Sunny or no, this is still Wales). So instead I took myself down for a wander around the high street. On my way down, I stumbled upon a sight I didn't quite believe...

Crocus! And that is how I know that spring is coming. Now, I've heard that after a brief slip into warmer temperatures, the east coast has just returned to cold and wintry weather. I'd like to offer these cheerful little blooms as hope that Punxsutawney Phil wasn't totally wrong. Spring really really might be just around the corner :)

To further brighten spirits, I thought I would add to my previous list of funny British "isms" I'm discovering.

- Wet rain : a concept which still escapes me slightly, apparently there are different categories of rain. Being water falling from the sky, I had always assumed that all rain was wet. It seems that some rain is wet, and some rain is.... less wet. Who am I to argue? If the Eskimos can have gillions of words for snow, leave it to the British/Welsh to have more words for rain. They should know.

- Pants : a simple word. You'd think it would mean the same thing in any version of English. Interestingly, this is not true. To me, pants means jeans or khakis or whatever "bottom" piece of apparel you wear that has legs. To the Brits, this means underwear. So if you're here in the UK, choose your words carefully if you say you're going to "change your pants" to say, dress nicer for dinner. You might not be saying what you think you are.

- Faff : a personal favorite (or favourite), this refers to the general concept of futzing/screwing around/wasting time. I find this word really hits the nail on the head. Example: Susie takes forever to get anywhere because she takes ages faffing about in the car before she gets on the road.

- Knackered : another real favorite, this means tired. Like faff, I find that this word really gets it right in the connotation department. Before, I would have said "I'm exhausted" or "I'm pooped". In the first case, I sound rather dramatic. In the second, I sound like an idiot. Knackered lands nicely between the two and I for one am all for its immediate adoption.

I have plenty more such isms, but I think I'll save the rest for another day. So for now, think happy springy thoughts, and remember: depending on what country you're in, you may or may not be wearing pants.

Mid-Feb Mid-Course

That's right! Not only is it now mid-February (happy day-after-Valentine's day everybody), but it is also the exact midway point in my time here in Bangor. I've been here for exactly 5 months as of tomorrow, and 5 months from today puts me in the middle of July, by which point I intend to be home. This does all depend on my project and how that goes off (I'll take mine without a hitch, please) so I can't write it in stone that I will be home by then, but I'll do my best to make that happen.

Speaking of project stuff, remember that proposal I've been going on about for weeks? Well, it's DONE. It nearly killed me, but it's in and done. We all worked for about 2 weeks straight on our proposals and I really hope it shows in the finished product. It was due on Friday, and by Wednesday night I was tearing my hair out. A couple of us went out together for a bite to eat that night to clear our heads and none of us could begin to think about coming up with our own dinner, and it was clear we were all in the same boat. Thanks to Bangor's trademark lack of clarity or sufficient information, it proved a little overwhelming to try to figure out for ourselves what exactly this proposal business was supposed to look like. We finally got some slightly more concrete guidelines for the structure of it, but this was a mere week before it was due. A week. That's not much time to wrap your head around a concept and do all the work involved to write up a proposal which alone is worth an entire course for this semester. One document, one shot at it. One class worth. Talk about pressure!

Needless to say, by the time we were finished and it was turned in, we all needed a nap and a night out. And that is exactly what we got. After collapsing for some nice mind-numbing internet tv, Catrin and I went out on our own Friday night for some classier drinks down the hill, and eventually met up with a whole load of friends from our program at the club Octagon. Now normally, that place is kind of revolting and has an overwhelming stench of god-knows-what awful bodily substances that I just can't get past. Friday night however, it was magically unstenchified like they cleaned or something. It was meant to be. So we all had a much-needed fun night out. Saturday night we went out as well, but that was just a calm chill-out type of evening with a couple of friends, nothing wild. The rest of the weekend was nice and relaxing as well, involving as little brain function as possible. It was wonderful.

All in all the past week has been a bit of a roller coaster. Some parts extremely stressful, and other parts a whole lot of fun. To be honest, now that it's done I'm really glad that I have my proposal. It may not be the best it can be, but it is done and it took a lot of work. And, as Alejandro said to me earlier, it puts us halfway there. No, it's not worth half of my entire degree program, but it is about half of the work done in the writing of our dissertations. And knowing that some of the hardest parts are already written? That's pretty great. Granted there's still a LOT of work to be done, but it's nice to think the glass is half-full.

So I've made it halfway into February, halfway into my program, and halfway to my dissertation. Happy life half-full everybody!

The weather's loud and I'm busy

Remember how last week I mentioned the weather not being too bad so far since I've been back here? Yeah well as I feared, I tempted fate with that one. With today as a distinct exception, the past week has been rife with insane winds and rain. Now when I say insane winds I don't just mean "ooh windy, my umbrella might bend slightly inside out." I mean "oh holy bejeezus it's so windy I got blown into a wall walking to class and it's blowing through my closed window so forcefully that the curtains are actually moving." And I can't forget to mention that with "weather" in North Wales come lots of clouds. Being stuck so picturesquely between water (the Menai Strait) and mountains (Snowdonia) in a nice little valley cloud cover can get so dense that even a dry day is still dismal. There have been days when it's dark enough to have to turn overhead lights on when you get up in the morning and they stay on all day. It just never gets bright enough even when your window faces the sunny side of the building. Of course not every day is like that, but there have been a couple of real winners lately. Today, on the other hand, was lovely. Sunny, dry, and felt a little like early spring (a nice break from dismal, for sure!).

The new semester, in its week 3 infancy, is already busier than last semester. For stats we have weekly practical sessions using the stats analysis program SPSS, the first 5 of which will be graded. So we've done two of those already which actually feels pretty good compared to last semester not handing in a single piece of work to be graded until we were more than a month in. For the consumer psych course this semester, it's not really a lecture but more a time for us all to chat as a friendly group with the professor about consumer psych-y things we've noticed in the world (yesterday of course was all about Superbowl ads!) but is also built around marketing proposal projects (from a consumer psych perspective, naturally) for local businesses. In keeping with the off and running semester, these projects are already underway having chosen topics and split into groups by week 2 and already meeting with the business owners to discuss directions and ideas. It is not yet adding to the workload, but my third class, Entrepreneurial Marketing, is actually really great so far as well. I'd say all in all things are going fairly well so far.

Now, I say fairly well because if you recall last week's post or have spoken to me at all in the last 2 weeks, you will know that we have been in proposal hibernation. These proposals which sound so sweet and simple being a max of 3200 words and containing an abstract, lit review, hypotheses, methods, and results could lull an unsuspecting grad student into a false sense of security when in reality they are really complicated to put together. Each section individually, while requiring a bit of work, would not be so bad but trying to cram ALL of those sections in their most comprehensive forms into that word limit takes a verbal contortionist.

In all honesty it hasn't gone that badly so far. I can't say it has gone well, but it hasn't gone badly. Thanks to a few helpful tips and clarifications from our trusty neighborhood PhD student, Gareth, we've all gotten on alright. Not that any of us are close to finishing. Don't get any crazy ideas in your heads.

Speaking of thesis and project-related things, I have news on the ethics application front. Dan and I successfully submitted our ethics approval application 2 weeks ago after conquering the rigmarole with the online system and the people running it. Hurrah!....... or not

         Ethics application status:
         Assigned to first reviewer, due 7th Feb
         Current Date:
         8th Feb

Bangor University, in a nutshell.

Groundhog Eve

It's February! It thankfully no longer goes completely dark by 5:00pm- we might be on the way out of winter. I know you all at home are experiencing the snowpocalypse winter to end all winters, and I kind of can't believe I'm missing it (though I won't say I wish I was there). Here the weather has been strange in a very different way. Since I've been back it hasn't really felt like winter. It has been almost spring-like in a way. I can't tell if it's lulling me into a false sense of security before it slaps me in the face with winter again or if the light at the end of the winter tunnel is actually getting closer. The downside of that though would be that spring means rain. And this is Wales. And in Wales, when they say rain, they mean RAIN. But I guess we'll just have to wait and see what Punxsutawney Phil has to say tomorrow morning.

Unfortunately, now that it's February, this means that Dan and I are mostly on our own for our dissertation project. Our supervisor has taken off for California on study leave for the next 6 months or so. Additionally, her PhD student who was helping us with building our task in the experiment software has also left. Fortunately, Dan and I finished some of the bigger things last week before both Jane and Julia took off so we might not be so badly off. Our e-prime computer task is completely built, all of our experimental documents are written (several forms for participants and our questionnaires) and our ethical approval application has been submitted. Now we just wait for ethics to be approved and then for participants to sign up for our experiment.

Further to project stuff, the first step in our written dissertations (our proposal) is due at the end of next week. This proposal is no longer than a typical essay for a class, but it's not easy to put together. It must consist of an abstract, a lit review, specific statement of our hypotheses, methods, and predicted results, as well as a title page and references section, all comprising no more than 3200 words. That's a whole lot of content in not a lot of space. I'm not entirely sure how we're supposed to make any of the sections complete enough to get good marks in the proposal with such a tight word limit. It should be an interesting 2 weeks to get that figured out.

That's really all I have to report this week. Not so exciting as the last post of my grand London adventures. But hey, I'm here for school I suppose you should hear about some academics once in a while.

Here's hoping for an early spring (you hear that, Punxsy?)

Foggy Day(s) in Londontown

I know I kind of just got back to Bangor, but I really needed to get away. Fortunately for me, Cat and her family are lovely people who are/were more than willing to have me out to their home. Thanks to convenient scheduling, we had some time between our last exam and the start of semester 2, so Cat and I hit the road out of Bangor and to her house for a bit of a sightseeing vacation. It was exactly what I needed.

We left Wednesday around noon for a 4-5 hour drive headed out to Guilden Morden, an adorable village full of thatched roof cottages and a super old church.

Very picturesque. Cat's family actually lives in the old school which, from the outside looks like it belongs in some other era, but on the inside it magically looks like it could be anywhere in the modern world. That first night we had dinner with Cat's parents and then her brother, Em, came in after attending a filming of Top Gear. (If you're interested, it was the episode that aired Sunday. Apparently you can see him grinning in the audience).

Thursday and Saturday were London Days. Friday was Cambridge day. I won't lie, my pictures from Cambridge are not very impressive, so I'll leave it to a description. Cat and I had plans to do some walking and sightseeing around Cambridge, as well as some shopping at a cute-and-cheap store called Primark. This place was a big success. Think H&M but cheaper. After we spent an absurd amount of time there, we set out for a walk around town. Unfortunately, the weather was pretty gross (cold and damp) and we were not really dressed for it to be as cold as it turned out to be, but we made the best of it. We wandered all around seeing the various colleges of Cambridge Uni, some cute shops, and a really old and round church. It's a great town and I'm looking forward to going back sometime when the weather is a little nicer- we're going to go punting!!

As for the London days, we saw quite a lot. Friday we started out at the Tower of London which, as I hadn't realized (not that I had ever really thought about it), is not just a tower but a little complex of buildings. We looked around there and saw the crown jewels which were incredible. How they keep 15th century pieces looking brand new is something I'll never fully comprehend. We also hopped on a guided tour to learn more about the stories and history of the tower (or as our tour guide would be proud to hear me remember, the 20 towers). Some really interesting tidbits! Not to mention the very entertaining beefeater guide :)

After the tower, we had tickets for an open-top bus tour of London. Though we didn't actually get an open-top bus, it was a really great way to see the city and get an idea of what was there to see and consider doing when we came back on Saturday. It was also a good opportunity to get some practice in with my new DSLR camera. The pictures are a little fuzzy given that they were shot on an unfamiliar camera through windows on a moving vehicle, but well worth the efforts. After the bus tour, Cat and I headed to the West End since we had scored tickets to Les Miserables. I've seen it a couple of times before, but Cat had never seen it despite being a big theater nerd so were were both really excited. And it was phenomenal. Our seats were great and the cast was fantastic. A superb end to an already great day.

Saturday we began our day with a ride around the London Eye which in and of itself is a cool thing to look at, but then it also gives you some spectacular views of the city. From there (and after some lunch) we set off on a long walk all over the place. We made our way down along the Thames to the site of the Globe Theater (not as exciting as it sounds... they only built this replica a few years ago), and then across the Millennium bridge to St Paul's Cathedral. Unfortunately, they were charging ridiculously high rates to go in and there was a huge line so by those two factors combined, we made do with the outside views. After that we went over to Buckingham Palace (by underground, not walking) and spent some time around there, then walking down to Trafalgar Square to get a better look at things than we got from the bus. The sky over London during those two days was just incredible in the evenings and made for some great moody-looking pictures, particularly there at Trafalgar. After all of that Cat and I were pretty tired, so we had some tea then called it a day and headed back to her house for dinner.

After those few days of running around and seeing lots of things, we took a lazy morning on Sunday and relaxed a bit before having to hit the road to come back to Bangor. It really was a fantastic few days away. Much-needed comfort and distraction before hitting the ground running with the second semester. And a great excuse to play with my new fancy camera!

There are lots more pictures where these came from too.... stay tuned for the albums on facebook!