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.