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!

First Semester: Check.

We're officially (and finally) done with Semester 1. That's right folks, exams are over! We had our last one yesterday. Save the worst for last? It was alright, but unfortunately we all seemed to go into it feeling like our heads were empty from trying to cram so much into them, and walked out feeling even emptier. Our brains felt so mushy afterward that some of us weren't even up for celebrating in the pubs! Well, not for too long anyway.

Today, Dan and I buckled down to get a whooooole lot of things done towards our dissertation project. Considering our intentions to start running trials at the start of Semester 2, we had been supposed to get our ethics approval submitted around Christmas time. We ran into some snags there though in that as masters students (as opposed to professors or PhD students) we were unable to open our own application online. So we had to get in touch with the appropriate person in the department to do that for us, and then we finally got access to the application a few days ago. In the middle of exam time. So despite our mush brains just wanting to relax, Dan and I went to it, working on the application itself as well as all the supporting documents that we have to provide along with it (Participant Information, Consent Form, Debriefing form, and all questionnaires and scales to be used). It was a lot to get through but we were super productive... eventually.

It's really good we got so much done, because tomorrow I'm off on a mini vacation with Cat! Semester 2 doesn't start til Monday, so we're taking a few days to get out of Bangor. She lives in a village outside of Cambridge (http://www.guildenmorden.gov.uk/ adorable, right?), and she's taking me home with her for a few days to spend some time in Cambridge and London. It should be a really fun few days. I plan on taking lots of pictures, especially given my amazing Christmas present of a DSLR! I'm not too great at using it yet, so we'll see how they turn out, but it's a great opportunity to practice! Be prepared for next week's blog to be pretty long and picture-ful.

I don't have a whole lot to say this week which I'd say is a pretty accurate reflection of the past chunk of my life. I've pretty much been hunkered down studying or procrastinating studying since I got back here. Not a whole lot of activity.

See you next week with reports of the more metropolitan side of the UK!

We're Baa-aaaack

After an almost 3 week break which absolutely FLEW by, I am back in Bangor and gearing up with exams (unfortunately, these crazy Brits still think it's a good idea to have final exams take place after Christmas break rather than moving them to before it like us brilliant Americans do). Being back here feels almost like normal. Almost. I can't say I'm perfectly happy here, but I'm definitely happy to see my friends again. If I didn't miss Bangor, I most certainly missed them.

Since this is a blog to recount my thoughts and experiences in Wales to everyone at home while I'm away, I took a break for the few weeks I was on break. It didn't seem to make sense to keep it up and write about my time at home when the people reading it would be the people with whom everything occurred. Nothing short of silly. However, due to this little holiday-based hiatus, the few days between last post and arrival home fell through the proverbial cracks of blogging. Not that they were necessarily all that gripping, but there were some fun things for sure

 We had a little Christmas/Goodbye party one night after everyone had turned all their work in so we could relax together and see each other off. This was most important with a few beloved Erasmus students who were only here for the one semester. Thursday was my lovely Parisian's departure, so I met her for coffee and a snack in the morning and hung out til a couple of us walked her to the train station to say goodbye. Not cool, but the best excuse I've ever had to get back to Paris! That night I was invited out with the other Erasmus girls to a "Silent Disco" for their last night out, which I couldn't even think about turning down. Here's the concept: you go to the club, pay a cheap deposit and get a headset, said headset has 2 (or more) radio channels on which the DJ plays different music. Inside, the club is silent except for the sounds of people singing along and dancing to different songs. This sounded weird to me at first, but turned out to be one of the most fun nights in Bangor thus far. Not to mention the fact that it had snowed a little while we were inside, so high street was a clean white wonderland when we came out. A day or two later, the girls decided to have an "everything but the kitchen sink" dinner, so we all brought together the last bits and pieces of groceries and had a fun night with very random assortments of food, and sad goodbyes at the end. A bittersweet few days, to say the least. But I promise that's not the last I'll see of them if I can help it. Sunday was my day to head to Manchester where I had a hotel for the evening and a flight to catch the next morning. Lucky for me, a friend and his roommate were heading to Manchester for the day and allowed me to tag along with them to the Trafford Center (a big schwanky mall) and home with him to meet a bunch of family and be fed a delicious home cooked Indian meal (absolutely AMAZING, I might add). And that was it for me in the UK. I caught my flight the next morning out of Manchester despite the weather on both sides of the Atlantic trying its best to make things difficult, and I finally made it home.

 

Photo lovingly stolen from Zoe. I will miss these girls very very much this semester. Bangor will not be the same without them!

Fast-forward a couple of weeks through some very busy, very fun, and very blurred times with family and friends and we arrive back in Wales and heading into exams. To be honest, I didn't really want to come back. There have been some real ups and downs with this whole experience. Most of you have heard at least a little of my gripes. Don't get me wrong, I'm still happy with my decision to come here and I still very much think it is worth it in the end, but there are a lot of things that made me, in a way, dread having to return. Some of that we'll put down to classic lazy student syndrome since coming back meant studying and exams and then papers and whatever else. The rest, well, I've probably vented to everyone enough times to not have to worry about explaining it again here. Doom and gloom aside, now I'm trying to forget about what makes me unhappy and instead focus on what's good and just generally be more positive about everything. It's going to be a long 6 months if I don't!

So now I'm back, I've had one exam already (today: Quantitative & Qualitative analysis- it went alright, about what I expected), I have an assignment due tomorrow which I actually completed ahead of time (shocking!), another exam on Thursday for Marketing Strategy, and then my third and final exam on Monday for Consumer and Applied Psychology. It's going to be a busy few days! By Tuesday I will most likely be some combination of tired, brain-melted, giddy, and relieved. That blog entry should be interesting. Stay tuned!