Leicester Adventure: New Year's Plans and Resolutions (that I won't keep)

2013 is fast approaching (only 20 more hours! Yes, I'm a bit insomniac), so all that I still have to do this year is wish you a brilliant new year, brimming with opportunities and happy moments - may your dreams come true and May the Force be with you!

I'm not going to do a what's happened in 2012, because mostly when I remember stuff it's embarrassing, making me cringe. Ooh, except for one last-minute discovery: the word 'moreish', for when 'addictive' is somehow not exactly le mot juste...

I prefer looking at the future, also because my mum once told me that you can't plan everything and I am still trying to prove her wrong. These are some of my plans for 2013, or at least the ones that are solidifying around this time... I'll be travelling to the Netherlands soon, which I am quite looking forward to, mostly because I miss paprika-flavoured crisps, but also because I'll meet up with some amazing people. In late July/August, I'll probably attend PALA student summer school and the Annual Conference in Heidelberg, to meet up with some more amazing people (and a battle axe) and generally use the cover of this having some sort of academic purpose to indulge in fun. I say probably, because if I get the internship I'm applying for, I may instead be spending time in France at that time. Finally, I am, as you'll know by now, in the process of seeking out and applying to Ph.D.-programmes. I kind of have to be accepted to any programme, because if I don't I haven't a clue whether I suit any purpose outside of academia at all - though I guess I can always go back to stacking and filing.

And now, my 2013 resolutions (that I won't keep):

1. Procrastinate less.
   Why: Because the stress I experience when writing papers last-minute is literally turning my hair grey (may have something to do with my dye washing out), and because it is said that if you have more time to spend revising and rewriting the paper it turns out better (a myth terribly difficult to test empirically).
   Why I won't: the adrenaline rush of finishing a paper last-minute is very moreish addictive, and it's too bloody hard to motivate myself to do anything earlier. Also because it is very easy to neutralize the reading of books in your field that fall just beside the focus of your essay as being not procrastinating.
2. Eat healthier.
   Why: Because HEALTHIER.
   Why I won't: I try to eat fairly healthy to begin with, few sweets, no puddings, no cakes, and I'm in the process of cutting cola from my diet (talk about a difficult task), but I should eat more regularly, and switch my BLT for something without bacon. English stores don't help, though, by including crisps in their meal deals (good thing they don't sell paprika crisps) and selling name-brand cola for 50p per liter. 
3. Exercise more.
   Why: see above.
   Why I won't: I can't run (honestly, I've a very good reason). I'm still cycling to uni every day though, and cycle uphill to Asda once every two weeks, so I'm getting my 30 minutes a day, but it's not going to turn into more.
4. Worry less.
   Why: Because it doesn't look pretty when it turns to panic. Also, it's bad for my blood pressure.
   Why I won't: Because I am a chronic worrier and that's not going to change without some intensive behavioural therapy. Also at least when I worry, I know I'll spend (inordinate) attention on futile details, so nothing will be missed... in a sense, worrying prevents future worry. 
5. Get a life.
   Why: My brother likes lamenting my comparative lack of social skills, and then there's always the people who think that academia is not really having a life (I'm not sure it is, either, considering the amount of procrastinating I do), and then there's the dreaded Bridget Jones-question: "So, how's your love life?"
   Why I won't: I would have serious trouble fulfilling all my dreams, aspirations and ambitions if I were seriously attached, and for the rest, I've been the way I've been for the last 22 years; unless something traumatic happens, my personality is not going to change any more. I have a life: mine... sod conformity!

Leicester Adventure: Happy Christmas!

Happy Christmas, all.

Oh, before you ask: no, aside from the invitation to send in a decent research proposal I haven't heard anything from my PhD application.
Yes, I have found an alternative in case it goes wrong. The only downside to this alternative is that I wouldn't be able to do exactly what I want, but something close to it.
No, also haven't heard anything yet about my internship application.
Yes, I sent in my abstract for PALA 2013. No, haven't heard anything about that yet either.
No, haven't finished my essays yet.

I am bothered by all sorts of Christmas songs implying that it is somehow sad and really something of a social failure to spend Christmas by yourself. As if being able to do what you want, without having to be bothered with (family) politics, eating whatever you want, is something to be pitied. As if it's a shame that you can now watch that one documentary on the history of Rome without people going "aaah that's laaaammeee!" and "can't you put on something more Christmassy, something we'll all enjoy?" and subsequently being forced to sit through Home Alone 2 for the nth time. As if you're missing out on something when you prepare a lovely lamb steak and green beans for yourself instead of spending six hours around a table messing around with tiny pans and minuscule blobs of undefinable meat, when you're full after the first half hour because you were hungry and scarfed down about two baguettes because the tiny pans weren't hot enough and your meat just wouldn't cook.

Ah, but I'm being unfair here now, especially to my really lovely family. I'm just focusing on and enlarging the things I don't enjoy about Christmas. The forced part of everything. I love to be with my family for Christmas and, yes, I must admit, I like the gifts part. I like having the opportunity to spend three hours arguing with my father's girlfriend's mother on my side against my father and my father's girlfriend's father about whether women in general should be in charge of things (my father's girlfriend usually refrains from participating). I like commenting on stuff on the telly with my step-dad and being allowed, this once a year, to help my mum with the cooking. Discussing economics with my brother, and the fact that my brother and step-brother manage to still suggest McDonald's after a four-course meal. I like when I somehow managed to find the perfect gift for a person just this once, and seeing their faces when they unwrap it.
But I don't need Christmas for that - I'm going to the Netherlands in a few weeks and I can do all this then. And then I thankfully get to miss out on the forced part, because I rather than the calendar decided that this was the time to visit my family and planning these visits isn't limited to just two days.

Anyway.

This past year, I've come to understand what I like about criminology, law, economics and, yes, media studies and stylistics/linguistics is the notion of a social construct. This does of course allow me to throw around vapid phrases such as "ah, but everything is a social construct!" but more importantly, it allows me to try and analyse social relations from a distanced point of view. I like that (draw your own conclusions).
And I get to take conspiracy theories seriously, which is quite fun, of course.

I'm still reading Constitutive Criminology, and found Mike Presdee's Cultural Criminology and the Carnival of Crime so fascinating that I finished it in a day. Next up is Cultural Criminology Unleashed. 

Happy Christmas, and a good final few days of 2012.

Leicester Adventure: Hearing Back

So, last week I sent an email to the person I most definitely hope to do my PhD with, and he basically told me that my topic sounded interesting but I needed to send in more.

Makes sense, I think, so I'm now working on a PhD proposal, which is really a lot of work. Especially since I wish to put in evidence that I know what I'm talking about, so I'm currently at 45 references for 1800 words. Perhaps that's overkill.

Kristy heard back from one of her applications too (not Oxford though) and got accepted. See, that's where the joy of applying finally comes in. Congrats :)

I'm also writing an abstract for this summer's Pala conference. It's fairly tough to do so, though, seeing as I want to present on an aspect of my dissertation topic (which makes sense if you knew what my dissertation topic was on) and I'll receive a stern talking-to if I start researching before I get my dissertation proposal through the Ethics commission, so I can't really write down any preliminary results yet... pity. Yet I managed 180 words so far, just describing what I want to study, so I guess I should be able to fill those 400 words. Especially as I managed 1800 words for my PhD proposal without referring to results.

UPDATE: I am also applying for an internship. I'm keeping the details secret for a little longer, but let's just say that if everything works out, I may be improving my French this summer.

Completely unrelated (but fascinating!) I came across this quote yesterday, which sort of justifies my interests and the belief that I can combine them (I like justifying myself):

"Constitutive criminology, then, is a theory proposing that humans are responsible for actively creating their world with others. They do this by transforming their surroundings through interaction with others, not least via discourse. Through language and symbolic representation they identify differences, construct categories, and share a belief in the reality of that which is constructed that orders otherwise chaotic states. It is towards these social constructions of reality that humans act." (Stuart Henry and Dragan Milovanovic, Constitutive Criminology, 1996: ix)

It reminded me of the following:

"Communication is something more than a means of staying alive. It is a way of being alive. It is through communication that we inherit the achievements of past human effort. The possibility of communication can reconcile us to the thought of death by assuring us that what we will achieve will enrich the lives of those to come. How and when we accomplish communication with one another can expand or contract the boundaries of life itself. [...] If I were asked, then, to discern one central indisputable principle of what may be called substantive natural law - Natural Law with capital letters - I would find it in the injunction: Open up, maintain, and preserve the integrity of the channels of communication by which men convey to one another what they perceive, feel and desire." (Lon L. Fuller, The Morality of Law, 1963 [1969]: 186)

Leicester Adventure/Tips: Finding the perfect place and applying

Finding the Place

I have come across an interesting phenomenon: it seems that whenever I find a 'perfect place' to do something, and I set out to my parents what the pros of that place are (I happily ignore the cons), somehow it ends up being assumed that that is the place I will go to; never mind that I a) first need to be accepted and b) need to then be accepted for a funded place in this case of me looking for a PhD place.
Perhaps a sample size of three isn't the best, but it seems a recurring pattern.
Who cares about pragmatics when you have a dream?

The first sample is for when I applied to Cambridge - somehow, it was assumed that I'd be spending the current academic year at Cambridge, which frankly I was assuming too but only sort of/half/something...

The second sample is for when I was in the process of applying to Leicester; though a little more careful this time around, asking me first how I thought my chances were, there was still the underlying assumption that I would go to Leicester, and all the B&B-googling that went with that (just so you know, my mum and step-dad are really into B&Bs).

I see the same happening, now, too; I've found a place where I'd love to do a PhD, where there's a professor whose interests line up almost eerily perfect with mine, where I stand a decent chance to be funded and where I'd have the advantage of knowing at least one person with whom I could perhaps share a flat. First thing my step-dad asked me after I told my mum about this place: "So, you're going to X?". I catch myself assuming this too - "ooh, I do hope I'll live close to a decent pub next year" etc.

The problem is, I do it too. My dear friend Kristy is now also applying, for Master's programmes, and I find myself assuming that she'll go to Oxford, while really I should know better than to make assumptions no matter how good someone's application is. My other dear friend Ma-ike has been talking about doing a History master's in Leiden in a few years and I'm assuming she will actually be in Leiden in a few years.

Applying

This all also means that I'm now being sent personal statements and research proposals by friends asking me whether I'd please go over it for them (and to be nice - I guess I do tend to be a little harsh and strict when looking written things over), like I did myself last year.
I wish I had the key, though, to a good personal statement or research proposal, but once again I can only draw on a small sample size, of one this time - I still think I wrote a really good application for Leicester, and that one was only good because I'd written it with genuine enthusiasm and interest.
If that's the case, however - Leicester being my only good application ever - I have no idea of how I got into Roosevelt Academy, so perhaps I should see whether that one's any good and if so, what makes it good.

First of all, what's bad is that my RA letter of motivation is very long - I just waffled on. Furthermore, my word choice was definitely not as good as it could have been, almost cringe-worthy in places, and I have no idea where I left my structure. My paragraphs are too short, there's too much white space on the pages. I should've gone with the Times New Roman 12-font. Signing with 'Yours Faithfully' is so antiquated even I would be hesitant to use it nowadays. I didn't date the letter.

However, what is good about it, is that it shows dedication to my choice (much like the enthusiasm I showed for Leicester), and what exactly it was about Roosevelt Academy that made me so dedicated to my choice (and what about Leicester and Criminology made me so enthusiastic about both). Some life history of how my ambitions developed with age, that blah-blah.
About my experience in my chosen fields, and how my lack of experience should not matter because I really do love the fields (for Leicester, I harked on about my experience at the court... also perhaps not the greatest type of experience, but I squeezed it for all it was worth). Something about what I wish to do with my time at RA, something about my hobbies - I was frank enough to state that I'd once written a bad screenplay for a planned but never made movie, perhaps this touch of personal honesty was another plus (though it shouldn't be a selling point that I wrote bad screenplays and was part of a group that didn't carry out its plans). Some more experience, this time on being editor-in-chief of the school paper, on my hobby of writing, and another bit of honesty in that "I am not that good an author".
About my (workable, realistic) plans for the future, with the rather ambitious line of "I am willing to keep on studying until I have learned everything I wish to know" - again, honest. More honesty on that I failed a test here and there, but then insistence on me always trying my best, with a bit of mother's wisdom thrown in (my mum's favourite statement it that you can't do better than your best).

There are in it some lines about something that I now care deeply about; "In the fourth year of high school, I had a great Economics teacher. It was a difficult subject but I liked it so much that I became quite all right in it". Not the best wording, perhaps, but I find this line interesting because over my time at RA I became even more convinced of the idea that good teachers are what's necessary in making a course great - the subject matter is almost entirely secondary. Not something that's needed in a letter of motivation, I think, however.

In short then, what seems to work for me in letters of motivation/personal statements/application, is almost painful honesty (up to the point where it becomes almost a symptom of lack of self-esteem), ambition, realistic plans, and enthusiasm or dedication to the choice I've made, with the inclusion of why I'm so dedicated/enthusiastic.

What should be left out are things such as my bad screenplay example; instead I could've included that I really like to cook, or something. I remember now that I left cooking out back then because I didn't consider myself good enough at it; as if you need to be good at cooking to enjoy it. Oh well.

So that's it, then, the stages of applying (to anything)*:

1. Discover your interests.
2. Find a place where the interests line up with yours.
3. Check whether you're eligible for funding if you need it.
4. Find out whether that place is in an environment that you could live in for the time that the programme takes.
5. Find out whether the teaching's any good. 
6. Inform about further possibilities.
7. Establish informal contact with someone there.
8. Write your application:
1. Consider why you are making that choice and show your dedication.
2. Include some experience (both work and academic), and be honest.
3. Don't be painfully honest, that's just detrimental.
4. Describe your (realistic) future plans.
5. Toss in some ambition. 
9. Send your stuff in.
10. Wait.
11. Wait.
12. Cry in frustration.
13. Wait.
14. Rejoice/Cry some more. 
15. If necessary, start over again (though to be safe you'd better apply to more places at the same time). 
16. If accepted, start your other arrangements (see just about any other post that I've written for this blog). 

*Disclaimer: has only worked for me for 2/3 application so far, no guarantees.

Leicester Adventure: Hard Day's Night

I realize I've been complaining a lot (in real life as well as online) about being cold lately. I just like to complain, I guess, plus England's just really very cold. Maybe I'm getting ill, that could also be a cause for me being cold all the time. Or I should just dress warmer.

It doesn't really help that about 90% of all windows appear to be single-pane. No wonder everyone's allegedly terrified of the gas and electricity bill. If I ever buy a house here, no matter what the cost of installation (I'm sure it'll pay itself back either in resale value or gas bill savings eventually), I'm so going to put in double-pane glazing, just like I'm used to. It only seems a matter of time before I wake up to ice flowers on my window, a phenomenon that I really am only familiar with as part of my dad's childhood stories.

Anyway, for the more cheerful stuff: I've been to London to do some Christmas shopping. And I succeeded. I'm not going to tell you what exactly I bought, because my family reads this blog too (they're actually my primary readers, hi mum! hi dad! hi step-dad! hi dad's girlfriend!) but I'll tell you that it was loads of fun. Actually, it wasn't just Christmas shopping, it was also the EvilCo board weekend - that is, I met up with Danou and Sam and we did fun stuff, like just aimlessly walking about Covent Garden ("Look at her, a prisoner of the gutter...") and the City of London, finally visiting Leadenhall Market and doing one of the Jack the Ripper tours. The latter comes highly recommended, by the way - no such nonsense as dressed up people appearing from behind corners but instead a tour guide with a knack for telling stories very sensationally and vividly and unafraid to bash pop culture renderings of Jack the Ripper. Afterwards, we watched From Hell at Danou's and though we'd seen it before - it's a really good film, I must say, it's just the right amount of scary for me to watch it without nightmares, so I guess it's fairly soft for everyone else... - it was quite strange to watch it now and be like 'hey, but that can't have been' or 'that's so not how it must've looked like'.

Today Danou and I went to Camden Town for more Christmas shopping, and I got really very greedy there. I want to have EVERYTHING.
I didn't buy everything though, I'm proud of myself.

It was really crowded though, so maybe I shouldn't go on a Sunday next time.

Anyway, lots of arts and crafts stuff and goth clothes and vintages clothes and retro clothes and antiques and knickknacks and everything. I bought myself a pocket watch which is probably quite crappy but you can't really go wrong for six pounds for a watch.

Fell in love with a coat that I now MUST have. http://www.collectif.co.uk/plain-gretel-coat-p-sku03120604-c-red.html
Of course it's already out of stock. This isn't the type of coat that remains in stores long. Really, I should've bought it the minute I saw it but on the other hand I shouldn't go about spending 175 pounds on a new winter coat when I've got two really good ones already.

Tried on hats - made me look really posh - and fur coats - made me look not posh but really really not me. I just don't have the face for fancy things, I guess I'd better just stick with plain long woolen coats.

On my trip back North I sat on the floor near the toilets and bins because all the seats were taken and/or reserved (cold!). Somehow I was incredibly reminded of that one scene in Hard Day's Night in which John, Paul, George and Ringo are sat in a compartment and a gentleman comes in and starts harassing them because the four of them want the window open and he wants it closed, and because they want to listen to some songs on a portable radio and the man wants to read the newspaper. I'm not sure why I'm reminded of it, because the people on the train just basically ignored me and I ignored them and we all went about our business of sitting around/tossing stuff out/visiting the toilet, but at least it was a nice distraction...

Also, Camden is absolutely flooded with Beatles-related and Beatles-inspired stuff. I get that it's 50 years since Ringo joined and all that, but honestly, I'd almost expect a repeat of Beatlemania...

Leicester Adventure: Books and Series

It's been two weeks since I last wrote a blog post. Nothing much happened; I returned from Belfast, I've been ill for a few days, I've had some classes, I've been trying to write research proposals both for applying to PhD programmes (which I should start doing in about a month) and for my dissertation, I've been reading a lot and watching some TV series.
Oh, and my paper on The Picture of Dorian Gray is now available on the PALA website via the Conference Proceedings http://www.pala.ac.uk/resources/proceedings/2012/index.html.

So what have I been reading and watching?
I finally got round to Lucky Jim, which has been recommended to me by a bunch of people over the last two years. Of all places, Leicester is the best place to read it, if only because Kingsley Amis was supposedly inspired to write it when or after he visited Philip Larkin, who at that time was the librarian for what was then still the Leicester University College Library (I wonder what he'd make of the David Wilson library now, which is great and very nice but also very glass-and-steel). Philip Larkin lived on Dixon Drive at the time (if you haven't read it, the last name of main character Jim is Dixon), which is only a 20 minute walk from where I live. I might just walk by it some day soon just because.
I liked the book. It was funny in a sort of understated way. Can't really say much more about it though, except for the fact that there are some things in it that do remind of Leicester. Not all, and especially parts that have to do with the University itself are very hard to place, probably also because there've been so many buildings built on campus over the last fifty years, although "across a small lawn towards the front of the main building" does make sense if the Fielding Johnson was the main building at the time, since there is in fact something that could be described as a small lawn there, and I suppose 'College Road' should be replaced with 'University Road' as indeed there's a cemetery on the other side of it (though I have yet to hear any professor refer to it, which is quite extraordinary since of all people, Criminologists are among those with the sickest sense of humour - my favourite type of humour, that is). College Road is being described a road to be climbed by the car, which isn't the case for University Road at all, though. Welch lives in a town on a hill, which is interesting since it is something of a climb to, for instance, get to Oadby (I would know, I cycled to Oadby yesterday for the big Sainsbury's for supplies for my split-pea-soup). But no one who lives close to the University would have to catch a bus to the station - you'd probably be faster if you just ran the half-mile. But in any case I claim Jim Dixon for Leicester, because the city does need a bit more than just the corpse of Richard III to remain interesting.

I finally finished watching The Wire, also because I'd been putting off the fifth series for months now because though I like it (it reminds me very much of accounts of preparations and difficulties in the run-up to the Maxi Processo), it's somehow too gritty to watch in a row, and seeing as I'd worked through the first four series in about two months over summer, I needed something of a break.
I also began watching Dexter, of which I've now finished the first two series and which I'm finding very addictive because it's glossy (i.e. easy to watch) and because I like the moral ambiguity of murdering murderers.

For academic reading, I've read mainly books on Corporate Crime, because they tie in with my research plan. It's an absolutely fascinating topic and I can't be but grateful that RA offered me the opportunity to take Economics classes, because without it there'd be so much I wouldn't necessarily get, even though Economics is, above all other things, the science of rational common sense and calculation. Of course, one of the things missing from this is the absolute frenzy of bubbles and despair of recessions. I hope to think some more on the thing soon, so look out for an opinion piece like Criminology as a Field. I've been reading on Strain theory and labelling and all that lately, so it'll probably have something of that in there too.

Leicester Adventure: ILinC 2012

Conferences are amazing. Where else do you get the opportunity to hang around with academics who share your interests and where you can listen to their monologues on these interests for full half hours? The fact that it means I have to do a presentation then as well is something I'll suffer through then - I'm not that hesitant to do the "half-hour-monologue on my interest", as you'll well know, but it's the whole standing up in front of a group and doing an academically sound monologue that scares me. But okay.

Conferences are also amazing because where else do you get so many opportunities for inspiration concentrated in only a handful of days? 

Where else do you have to keep defining yourself by your interests?

I was at a conference for the last two days. ILinC in Belfast. ILinC stands for Interdisciplinary Linguistics Conference, and though I'm not a Linguist I do like Linguists' conferences. But that is what helps you define the boundaries of your academic identity - going to conferences outside of your field, I mean. For example, I though I was simply a Criminologist. That's all fine, but what on earth are you doing at a Linguistics conference if you're a Criminologist?

"It's an interdisciplinary conference, innit?"

So I am a Criminologist, but my linguistics interests keep me from allowing myself to be defined by this larger field. I needed to find a part of Criminology that was compatible with interdisciplinary linguistics. Cultural Criminology? Yes. Certainly. After all, Cultural Criminology means sociolinguistics for criminal subcultures and critical discourse analysis etc. for media representation of crime. So I'm not a Criminologist, I'm a Cultural Criminologist. Cool.

Then the suggestion: "Have you ever thought of Forensic Linguistics?"

As a matter of fact, I had - but only because I've been more or less forced to. Yes, I have looked into it to maybe consider reading up on it, but the interest was never consolidated until this weekend, when I had a good chat with Paul Simpson on Forensic Linguistics. I might just end up doing a second master's in Forensic Linguistics, then, one day (interestingly, he also told me that if I do want to do the whole analyzing media representations of crime thing, I am indeed better off in Criminology than in Stylistics, which was very comforting to hear, I must say). 

So I guess I'm a Cultural Criminologist on the right Road of Trials. 

Trips: London

This weekend was Roosevelt Academy's London trip and I met up with some of my friends who still study there (and with Danou, who studies in London). As I've promised my most loyal readers (that is, my parents) that I'd do a post on that, here goes.
Please do keep in mind that I haven't been to London since I was 16, not counting the 2.5 hour stop in the middle of the night at the Victoria Coach Station last April, that this is a long post and that this post contains maaaaannnnyyy photos.

Mode of transport: train. Practical tips: the Railcard 16 - 25 gets you 1/3 off on every trip you make, costs 28 quid and is valid for a year, so if you're planning to travel for more than 84 pound's worth (which means twice to London) it's a good deal. You'll have to travel to St. Pancras (little choice though when you travel from Leicester) and if you take the one that calls at no stations, it's about 1 hour 10 minutes, the one that calls at a few (Kettering, Luton etc.) is 1:20. Doesn't really matter, really.

First thing I did upon arriving on Saturday was get day tickets for the tube. I then walked out of St. Pancras and over to King's Cross.

All that's missing here is a flying Ford Anglia. Yes, this is St. Pancras, not King's Cross, but seeing as they're about 50 yards apart, I have no doubt it's perfectly natural for the Weasleys to park their enchanted car by St. Pancras as they drop off their kids. 

This is at King's Cross, but of course not the place in between platforms 9 and 10 (which is impossible) and not the place where they filmed it (which is apparently platforms 4 and 5). Either way, I wouldn't be let through so now I'm seriously doubting my magical capabilities (the fact that the Hogwarts letter never arrived when I was 11 somewhat points in that direction as well but I'm willing to forgive Hogwarts for overlooking me like that). 

One can't be a Beatles fan (even if slightly casual) and go to London and not go to Abbey Road (especially not when you've got about 2 hours before your first scheduled meeting). Yes, yes, yes, the cross walk in the bottom left corner is THE crosswalk. The white building behind the still-leafy trees is Abbey Road Studios, where absolute gods of music played (I agree with John Lennon). I was struck by the absence of pilgrims, but then I guess 8:45 on a Saturday morning will do that to even this road.

This looks very much like the popular London poster, but I can assure you that I took it myself.

Standing in line for the Sherlock Holmes museum, we were right in front of the Beatles store. I didn't go in for various reasons, but seeing they had a Yellow Submarine lava lamp in the other shop window (regrettably without Blue Meanies, but I'm willing to overlook that) I do need to do so next time. 

Danou and I with the museum guard. See? 221B Baker Street. 

An old-fashioned Victorian chemistry set and a whole lot of Sherlock-related knick-knacks. The museum was filled to the brim with this kind of stuff, it's worth the visit even if you do have to queue outside for about 20 minutes in a very very chilly London (none too bad if you're queuing in front of the Beatles store though). They charge you 6 pounds and it takes about 30/45 minutes.

Danou'd found herself a new ally in the museum: the brilliant mathematics professor James Moriarty. I'm afraid even Sherlock Holmes wouldn't be able to save the world from this pair of destruction, even if he allied himself with James Bond and the Doctor.

Being a film fan, and My Fair Lady being one of my favourite films, it's none too surprising that I found myself wanting to see Saint Paul's Church and hum/recite "Why Can't the English" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhninL_G3Fg)

At night, Danou and I went to the Opera. I'd never been to the opera before so I was slightly nervous, but I like Mozart and the story of Don Giovanni appealed to well enough so the plan was solid enough. 

And it was sooo worth it. It was a very modern production, modern sets and clothes and everything in English, but I did like understanding what happened and it was so beautiful. The fun stuff is that some things really seem in line with the way Mozart's been portrayed in Amadeus. We both sat up in eager anticipation when we first heard the notes for the Commendatore bit at the end (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dK1_vm0FMAU), and for the rest of the night after the performance (at the ENO, go see it while it's still on... only a few more stagings, I think) we kept going "DOOOOOONN GIOOOOVAAAANNNII, I'VE COME TO SUUUUPPPPPPPEERRR!" and all that. I'm definitely on for the opera next time, perhaps Carmen (we've been doing that one melody from the Toreador bit from Carmen all Sunday, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5qmSEvDEGs).

Being the daughter of a ferry man, I did have to take a picture of myself sitting in the Ferryman's Seat. The guide of the Dickens tour (recommended! That man knows a lot about literary London... not just Dickens and Shakespeare but also Harry Potter. Like where to find the new and the old Leaky Cauldron. More on that later) told us of theatre attendants not crossing London bridge but instead taking ferries, while oarsmen called out 'oars, oars!' which was misunderstood by some, as the southern bank also held the brothels owned by the bishop of Winchester. After this tour, everyone was chilled to the bone (rain and cold wind and rain and cold wind tends to do that), me and Danou visited the church of the patron saint of Coffee, Saint Starbucks, and afterwards made our way back to Borough High Street to see The George, the last remaining gallery inn (from where the stagecoaches left to the south of England and on which the early theatres, like The Globe, were based). On the way there we were stopped by a policeman because they were shooting a film, though I can't remember the title. 

This is The George, the gallery inn. Had a cider there and then crossed London Bridge to go to Leadenhall Market, which is where they shot the outside of the old Leaky Cauldron (first two films) and Diagon Alley and everything like that. I wish I could show you loads of pictures of it. I really wish I could. But I can't.

We were, again, stopped by a lady who requested we ventured no further than that (we were in that bit of the Market where Harry reads out the letter detailing his needed things to Hagrid and says "Can we find all this in London?" and Hagrid replies "If you know where to go", see here: http://www.metacafe.com/watch/an-L9aZbmtmmhbbb4/harry_potter_and_the_sorcerers_stone_2001_the_leaky_cauldron/ ) as they were, again, shooting a film. I did remember the title of that one, because the lady said that all the shops were closed especially because of this shooting and I replied that it must be expensive to close all shops for the day, and she told me that, well, it was a Hollywood production with Bruce Willis, which of course had Danou and me all excited. Turns out it was for a high-speed car chase for the upcoming Red 2. We never saw mr. Willis (obviously) but we did see a very fancy looking electric blue car on a trailer (I think it was a Lotus, but I don't properly remember that, I'm better with remembering Aston Martins, I'm afraid). 

We went on, eventually almost getting lost before stumbling upon the tube station we'd been looking for and went to the British Museum where I got my re-fill of Egyptian stuff. I wanted to see the Rosetta Stone to complete my memory collection of all the really important Egyptological stuff currently in European and Egyptian museums and we had loads of fun identifying stuff before reading the descriptions (I guess we were right about 80% of the time). History geeks and all that. Here's to validating the idea that secretly I'm really one for the Humanities. 

I fist-bumped a statue.

Had dinner afterwards and then I took the train back up to Leicester. So now I'm home. Tired, aching feet, but happy. London's awesome. 

Leicester Adventure: Backgrounds

Haven't written anything in forever. This means that this one's going to be a long one...

I learnt two things this week.

1) I'm a snob. Not of the obvious Frasier sort, but I *am* a snob.

2) I was right in the assessment that Leicester is actually quite good. I learnt this through three sub-things:
a) Leicester can be classified as a red-brick university.
b) It's actually not unusual for some Brits to aspire to attend a red-brick.
c) Leicester's really good for Criminology.

Coming from a country where there's only a handful of recognized unis, 'red-brick' turns out to have been a notion that was rather ungraspable until I actually encountered it. One university may be better at one thing than another (like Erasmus University Rotterdam being famously good at Economics and Business, like Nyenrode but without the private uni fees) but in general Dutch unis hold up well against one another.

Some ancient unis here in Britain are obviously really very good, consistently placing in the top five of pretty much any Higher Education list. My snobbery acknowledged that those were better than Dutch unis, but then also had this weird sense of what I can only term as foreign student syndrome: loving the country that you're studying in but somehow always comparing things to the way they are back "home"*. I sometimes have my doubts about the quality of Dutch unis and had figured that as Leicester is not an ancient uni, it must somehow be similar to a Dutch uni and somehow therefore be a bit questionable at times. My snobbery at its worst, I thought.

I still can't compare it to a Dutch uni; however, so far Leicester has only pleasantly surprised me. In fact, as it turned out in a discussion the other day, Leicester is in the top three for Criminology programmes in all of the UK. I should really, really not be a snob about unis.

I should not be a snob at all - I visited Her Majesty's Prison Grendon on Friday for their University day and while there I noticed some kids from Oxford, and I was feeling snobbish towards them. Not jealousy or resentment, which I know and sort of would've understood because I do tend to get that way, but actual snobbery: "look at those toffs, acting all like they own the world" - I felt better than them somehow because I'm middle class (at best). It kind of freaked me out a bit.
UPDATE: I don't mean that Oxford students are by nature toffs. I just mean that I scared myself by judging them without knowing them.

HMP Grendon itself was... I said 'lovely' to one of the officers there when he asked what I thought of the visit, and lovely of course isn't the right word. I meant to say fascinating or wonderfully educational or whatever works better, but I meant lovely as in the sense it's lovely to see that Grendon has at least some sort of positive effect on it's inmates and it was just so interesting to talk to some of them.
Grendon is a therapeutic facility and unique in its kind. There's four categories of prison in Britain: Cat A, which is high-security with highly dangerous inmates, Cat B, which is "regular" high security, Cat C, medium, and Cat D, open prison. Grendon is a Cat B but has a staff:prisoner ratio of 1:2 (instead of the normal 1:25) and all staff is trained in doing therapeutic stuff with the inmates and the inmates have group sessions every day to learn from one another. Sounds very touchy-feely-"geitenwollensokken" but seeing as the average reconviction rate of regular offenders is about half and that of dangerous offenders near 70%, and Grendon gets the dangerous offenders rate back down to about half, then that seems like a sign that it works.
It's of course very expensive, though, so it all depends on whether it's actually cost-effective.
It's a long drive from here to Grendon, though, almost two hours. The department had arranged for us to be picked up by a taxi no less (!) at 7am and we were back in Leicester around 5pm, and it was a very exhausting day - despite our driver putting on Happy Feet on the way back, we were all solidly asleep by the time we'd gotten back North of the Watford Gap.

Spent the weekend writing.
Finished my practice essay, hope it's good.
Finished (finally) my Dorian Gray Pala Conference Proceedings Paper Thing, handed that in on Monday. That means never any more stylistic analyses of a literary thing (my plan for next year is to write about threats in The Godfather, which is stylistics but not just literature), or at least, that's what it would mean if I would be able to let go. I'm not, so I'm afraid that at one point or another in my future I'll go back to this paper, rewrite it (again - that would be the 4th full rewrite and the ... 21st, I think, revision) and just continuously add more stuff to it. Make it proper. And then once, one day, when it reaches 100,000 words and I can finally let go of it, somehow figure out a way to have it recognized as, whatever, an independent PhD or something. That'd be my second PhD then (seeing as I'm still fully intending on doing a Criminology PhD after my master's)... lol, Dr. Dr.. (Just speculating here, I don't think I'll bring Dorian Gray to the full 100,000 words before I'm truly fed up with him...also, I don't think I'm particularly keen on a doctorate in Stylistics, because what in the name of our dearest good Lord would I do with it?)

Celebrated Halloween/Paper Handin with Ruth and Madison on Monday. That was nice. I wore my red corset and grey dress and powdered my face white and red lipstick and had fangs that kept falling out so I was something of a vampire.

Was informed of having an interview for a job with the uni library next week. Good. I like libraries and work's work. Fingers crossed and all that.

OOH! And I'm happy now because last week my Understanding Crime seminar group (well, every seminar group really...) got told off by our instructor for not looking at empirical papers to back up our opinions on rational choice theory and classical criminology etc., so I'd spent quite some time this week trying to find relevant empirical papers, loved the idea of the MAOA genetic variation that in conjunction with childhood maltreatment can cause adult criminal behaviour so looked up loads of papers on that and this week we were told that we'd done very well, so that's very nice. The essay assignments for this course have been put up this week and I'd real trouble picking out one of the four options for Understanding Crime, but seeing as somehow I managed to be fascinated by the MAOA deficiency research I may choose the one option that makes us compare 10 years of biological criminology with 50 years of sociological criminology, which is actually the one option that appealed to me the least when I first looked at the essay topics. It's also the option with which you're absolutely sure you'll be spending all of Christmas and New Year in the library, just reading every single research output in Criminology and the related fields of the last 50 years. In a sense, I guess, then, it's also the most relevant option, considering I still want to go on and teach Criminology in the future, and reading loads of research is hopefully going to give me so much background info I'll resemble something of a cataract whenever one of my future students asks me a question...
UPDATE: Informed both my parents I won't be home for Christmas. They took it remarkably well.



*I hate the word 'home'. Couldn't use it properly in RA because was my home in Oostvoorne, Hellevoetsluis or Middelburg? In Middelburg, home was Hellevoetsluis; in Hellevoetsluis/Oostvoorne, home was Oostvoorne/Hellevoetsluis or Middelburg, depending on context. Can't use it now either. Also because I'm suffering from another symptom of foreign student syndrome: missing stuff from "home" but actually not wanting to go "home" at all (going so far as to actively avoid any requirement to go "home"). Home is where the heart is, but what if your heart has been stretched to cover a multitude of places?

Leicester Adventure: Ethnography

I'm starting to feel a familiar feeling that I've missed more than I thought I could over the last five months. I feel like I'm working.

Most people I've talked to always said that Master's programmes are so incredibly light when you've done RA. As a response to that, I can only offer three possible reasons for why I'm feeling like this: 1) RA wasn't as tough as it was presented to us and as we presented it to ourselves; 2) the Leicester Criminology programme is good; 3) I'm not as clever as I'd have liked to think myself to be.

The optimist in me prefers 2). I think it's the correct one, too... it's not necessarily a difficult programme, because you'd assume by the time you've completed a social sciences bachelor, social sciences graduate programmes are just a continuation (undergrad: learn theory; postgrad: apply theory; doctorate: create theory, that sort of continuation), but it's actually a lot of reading. And I'm very happy with that, because now I feel like I'm accomplishing something again.

Today was fun. We covered ethnography in Criminological Research Methods, and I loved it. I didn't do qualitative methods in undergrad, just quantitative, and I didn't think I could find a research method that's so... me. One of my undergraduate law papers was criticized for employing too much of a literary style in my writing, and the instructor for my class today basically said that you have to put something of yourself in that research but that you do have to acknowledge your subjectivity. That you have to be descriptive. And that you have to be something of a journalist. He told us brilliant stories of when he'd done ethnographic research into football hooliganism. Afterwards I had my first CRM workshop, in which we designed and even carried out a proper sort of basic quantitative research by doing small interviews (10 questions, short answers) and we'll carry on with it next week. It was just so much fun, I mean... our research question was "to what extent are public perceptions of female sex offenders shaped by representations of the written news media?", and we got to interview course mates and then put everything in Word and we'll carry on with it next week.
I normally prefer quantitative research because you've got the numbers there and can mess around with values and variables and see whether the outcome changes when you change this or that factor, but, of course, it's lacking the actual human element. I like reducing things to variables and values and treating it all as a sort of economic function, but instead of figuring out how many employees you need to have for this result or how changing the monetary input changes that result, it's more like "if I change this detail, what does the actual situation end up being like?". I've mainly taken to seeing stylistics/literary linguistics/literary analysis this way, as in, "if I were to change this word into that word (because words are simply input values too), or change that sentence structure into that one (because sentence structures are just a different variable, and the specific options are just values), or have it read as an ebook instead of a real book (because media are also a variable, and the types are values), how does this change the reader's perception/experience?". It's a very orderly way of seeing the world. But it's not complete, and certainly not fully correct. Ethnography can help, and I'll probably feel the same about other qualitative methods too once I'm introduced to them. In fact, I guess ethnography is necessary in some cases to find out the actual values/variables. After all, you can't know the factors that make criminal subcultures act the way they do if you don't jump in there and talk to them to figure out what actually drives them. Otherwise, of course, you're just messing about in the dark with some bits of theory that may be unfounded but work so well to explain something, and that's hardly good scholarship.

Leicester Adventure: Change of Plans

Right, so I emailed the people down in Kent that run the DCGC programme from there, to ask whether I could still sign up if my MSc ends in September.

They said no, and encouraged me to try for summer 2014. That means waiting for a year.

So now I've been looking into other PhD programmes, to see whether they've got any funding and whether I can start in 2013. It's a tough one.

I've looked at Oxford, but unfortunately Oxford only offers Studentships for EU students that cover the fees, and I'm not sure whether that also includes any college fees but either way, I'd still have to take out many, many loans to do that.

Of course I've also looked at Cambridge. That one might just work, if they have supervisors who would be interested in my research. It's quite difficult to figure out what their professors are interested in supervising, though. I'm going to give it a shot.

Leicester offers studentships commencing this January. Sucks. I can only hope they offer the same next year, but that would mean starting in January 2014. That's a half-year's wait.

I should start looking into other programmes, though on the other hand I should not begin to worry about this until after I've finished revising Dorian Gray because if I don't I'll have too much on my mind.

But there's two things I'm dead set on: I want to do my PhD in Britain preferably, and only in the Netherlands if I really have to. Other countries may still be a viable option if I can't find anything decent here. In any case, I don't want to go back to the Netherlands, not just now. Maybe some time in the future, if I find employment there as a university instructor or as a secondary school maatschappijwetenschappen-teacher. But I might just have to.

And maybe I get lucky and get a teaching or research position for, say, 10 months after graduation and then still get accepted fully funded for the DCGC programme. The only thing that then still bothers me is the fact that I'll get my PhD at 26 rather than 25. I think that's something I can get over.

Quite difficult to grasp the idea that my father was right when he said that I should keep in mind that there are always limits.

Writing: Poems

I'd like to share some poems with you, some of my favourites.

The first is Italian, and I just love the cadence of the words as well as what they mean. I've tried in the past to do a translation; my Italian is a little rusty, but I think I got by well. It was written by Gabriele d'Annunzio.

O falce di luna calante
Che brilli su l'acque deserte
O falce d'argento, qual mèsse di sogni
Ondeggia al tuo mite chiarore qua giù!

Aneliti brevi di foglie
Sospiri di foiri dal bosco
Esalano al mare: non canto, non grido
Non suono pe 'l vasto silenzio va.

Oppresso d'amor, di piacere
Il popol de vivi s'addorme
O falce calante, qual mèsse di sogni
Ondeggia al tuo mite chiarore qua giù!

Roughly translated it means something like

Oh sickle of the glittering moon
That shines over deserted waters
Oh silver sickle, whose harvest of dreams
Waves down here under your gentle light!

Brief desires of leaves
Sigh from flower to forest
And exhale at sea: I sing not, I cry not
No sound breaks the vast silences.

Oppressed by love and peace
The people of life fall asleep
Oh glittering sickle, whose harvest of dreams
Waves down here under your gentle light!

As you can see, if you have any grasp of Italian, I had some issues with the first two-and-a-half lines of the second stanza, but that does not make the poem any less pretty.

I have a thing for mild, descriptive poems, especially when they feature landscapes that tell us something about people, or landscapes which are used as a metaphor for human actions. Take for instance my two favourite English language poems (which are terribly well-known, I know, but still), Daffodils and Ozymandias. The first, of course, is by William Wordsworth; the second, of course, by Percy Bysshe Shelley, husband of Mary Shelley (who of course wrote Frankenstein, one of my favourite Gothic novels also because I don't enjoy Dracula. I do enjoy Polidori's The Vampyre, though, so perhaps I should just stick to stories written by those having attended the 1816 meeting at Byron's house in Geneva for Gothic literature...).

Daffodils

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed--and gazed--but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils
I especially like the phrase 'flash upon that inward eye' because I know what he means, and also how pleasant it is to just walk (I can't wait for the Heidelberg conference to put on some hiking boots and just taking off into the German hills... who cares about academics when you've got trees and flowers).

Ozymandias

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
`My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away".

Now, of course, having been to Egypt a handful of times (I can't wait to go again, but I'm saving up so I can stay for a couple of weeks after they open the new museum in Gizah - ooh, think of all the forgotten treasures that re-appear from the vaults of the old museum in Cairo once they start transporting stuff! So little of it has actually been catalogued back then! - and also so I can visit Alexandria, where I've not been yet, and also maybe Deir el Medina because frankly, how can I have been in Luxor twice and not have visited Deir el Medina?!) I picture the plateau behind the Gizah pyramids for desert - I love the desert - and I'm also slightly in love with the tyrannical arrogance of 'Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!' because I love villains (even though Rameses the Great was far from being an actual villain in real life). So yeah. 

My last favourite is just arguably the most famous Dutch poem ever (except for maybe Mei by Gorter: Een nieuwe lente, een nieuw geluid, ik wil dat dit lied klinkt als het gefluit... but no one ever knows more), Herinnering aan Holland by Marsman. 

Herinnering aan Holland

Denkend aan Holland
zie ik breede rivieren
traag door oneindig
laagland gaan,
rijen ondenkbaar
ijle populieren
als hooge pluimen
aan den einder staan;
en in de geweldige
ruimte verzonken
de boerderijen
verspreid door het land,
boomgroepen, dorpen,
geknotte torens,
kerken en olmen
in een grootsch verband.
de lucht hangt er laag
en de zon wordt er langzaam
in grijze veelkleurige
dampen gesmoord,
en in alle gewesten
wordt de stem van het water
met zijn eeuwige rampen
gevreesd en gehoord.

Loosely translated it becomes

Memory of Holland

Thinking of Holland

I see wide rivers 

Flow through
Endless lowland,

Rows unthinkably
Thin poplars
Like plumes stand
On the horizon,

And sunk into
The vast space

The farmsteads

Spread across the land,

Copses, villages,

Pollarded towers,

Churches and elms,

In a grand unity.

The clouds are low
And the sun is slowly
Smothered in gray 

Colourful fumes,

And in all provinces
Is the call of the water
Of eternal disasters
Feared and heard.

That concludes my set of poems for now. Maybe I'll post some poems of my own in the future. I'm off to bed now, though, so maybe a little Christian, Dutch, rhyme that I gleaned from one of my mum's childhood books that, despite me not being religious, I still find very charming and sweet:

Ik ga slapen, ik ben moe

'k Sluit mijn beide oogjes toe

Heere houdt ook deze nacht
Over mij getrouw de wacht

Zorg voor de arme kind'ren Heer

En herstel de zieken weer
Ja voor alle mensen 'saam

Bid ik u in Jezus' naam

Leicester Adventure: Middelburg-sick

I don't *do* homesick. You know, the traditional kind where you long back to your comfy bed at your dad's and the wholesome meals at your mum's because you can't take care of yourself properly.
I don't do that because I *can* take care of myself properly: give me a recipe for a Sunday roast and I'll put a real, authentic English Sunday roast on the table, and I'll put all the clothes wrinkle-free and folded in every relevant wardrobe, and I'll hoover once a week, more if you've got cats and/or long hair with a tendency to shed. I don't depend on anyone except for my parents for my monthly allowance (which I'm actually no longer entitled to since I turned 21 last year and so I'm really very grateful that they're willing to do that as long as I'm studying... they're probably mad somewhere, but if they are it's probably genetic and that means I'm mad too, which is a conclusion that doesn't seem too far off, really) and DUO for my study finance. I'd have to get a job if I didn't, and I guess I could get one, considering my qualifications (as in, I've done cash register for 8 weeks and administration for 1 1/2 year, they're dying to have me in retail), but the time I'm allowed to spend now on studying and worrying about my past/present/future is worth so much more than the time I could spend on a job aside from studying (read as: I should really get a job because if I don't I'll go mad because of the free time I have to mull everything over).
But I miss it. My undergraduate days. The days where you could knock on your neighbour's door (if you live on 218 and your neighbour lives in the same flat but on 164, that's still a neighbour, right?) and more or less force them to go out with you to Sev until 2am, when all the bars close. The days where you could say something incredibly stupid to your instructor and your instructor would only laugh and tell you the right answer and consequently tell you to send in an abstract for this-or-that conference because it may or may not interest you but anyway you should be so lucky to have an instructor that points out conferences to you. The days where you'd get up in the morning, skip breakfast but still manage to get to your classes dressed and make-upped because somehow you can't fathom being in a classroom without looking the part. The days where you decide to do groceries at 6:50pm, just before closing time, and end up in a queue for the register right before/after your instructor for next morning's 8:45 class.
I don't miss Oostvoorne. Oostvoorne is just a tiny little village with 8,000 inhabitants, a bookshop and a handful of other shops. And a beach, but one that's polluted by the Europoort.
I don't miss Hellevoetsluis. Hellevoetsluis at least can boast the fact that there's something resembling a mall, and some history, and the fact that Napoléon visited the town in 1812 (or 1811, I don't care enough to remember), but I still don't miss it.
But I miss Middelburg, and the tiny little alleys that you could roam at 3 in the morning (I did that, you know, I once sat on the steps of the Oostkerk for two-and-a-half hours just waiting for the sun to come up) and the people with their heads too far stuck up their arse to see how beneficial Roosevelt Academy is to their sleepy provincial capital, proper pasta at La Piccola Italia, beer at Sev/Brooklyn/De Vriendschap/Barrel/De Mug, taking 5 minutes to walk to school each morning and seeing the Stadhuis in a slightly different light each morning, and getting coffee for €1,70 at A Domani because the coffee served by Uni coffee machines is crap. I'm not homesick. I'm undergrad-uni-sick.
Good thing RA's got a website that's updated every week.

Leicester Adventure: Photographs

I've been working on my Practice Essay today. 2000 words on explaining the difference between measured crime rates and the public perception thereof. I'm so going to go over the word limit: I've written about 1650 words today and that's just the main skeleton, the employing of my three main sources to have something to hang further arguments on. The rest of the week will see padding and shaving of the essay. Should be interesting.

I received instructions from Kristy earlier today that she'd really like to see some photos of Leicester. I was going to take some next week, as next week I'll go shopping, but seeing as I had to go to the library anyway to do this essay writing, I figured I'd pack my camera and click away.

So here goes.

 This lovely grassy field is the main "quad" of the Mary Gee houses. Of course, it's not a real quad, but it suits my purposes for calling it a quad well enough. I can't wait to see it covered in snow. I'm also very happy my house doesn't border on the quad, for presume my bit is somewhat quieter. Not that this is very loud, though; I think they mainly put postgrads in Mary Gee.

 This is Queens Road, the road I walk down every day to school. It looks so very English, what with the houses all being slightly different and... well, it's just also a different sort of brick.

Two photos showing the vastness of the lawns of Victoria Park. As you can see, the leaves are turning crispy gold, and somehow trudging across the park is always loads colder than walking down Queens Road.

However, the squirrels (and you can't walk through the park without seeing one) make everything all right.

 This cheese grater-looking building is the Attenborough Tower, which houses the Departments of Arts, Languages and Law. It's one of the tallest buildings in the entire city of Leicester.

 This fancy house now houses the Department of Mathematics, but it used to be the childhood home of David and Richard Attenborough (according to the UoL website).

 This awful, awful contraption is the Department of Engineering. Very apt. Engineers can build anything, but haven't got any sense of aesthetics.

 This fancy glass-and-steel thing is the David Wilson Library, which is awesome. The toilets are also awesome (though I doubt they deserve the facebook page that they're rumoured to have). There's slightly too many books for the building, so most bookcases are the type on tracks, that you have to move with a large wheel on the side, like in Hollywood archives. I'll be squashed to death between those, for sure, at one point or another. Also, the Postgraduate Reading Room (It's a lounge, really...) is very nice, as it has comfy leather couches and seats that look like sun beds (but are also are done in black leather).

 The Fielding Johnson South Wing. I never come here, except to take this picture.

The sign of UoL. It lights up at night! I feel a strange sense of pride...

How can I not photograph a red post pillar?

You see the War Monument in Victoria Park - this is one of the many gates.

Sunset over Lancaster Road.

Victorian lamp post and Upper New Walk. Fancy bit of town, part of the "satellite campus".

THERE IT IS! The glorious Department of Criminology. Ain't it puuuurrrty?

Main gate into Victoria Park. In my view, really, the main campus, Victoria Park and satellite campus are all the same part of town: University of Leicester. Even though VP isn't part of the UoL.

Interesting how Scholars Walk is a dead end street. I hope it's not a sign. Found it funny, though.

One of those old houses on London Road that just creeps me out at night by adhering to the standards of what a haunted house should look like. Which means that even if I could still trick-or-treat, I never would on London Road (or Ratcliffe Road, for that matter, because the houses here are equally old/big/scary).

MY ROAD! (My Way?)

 My Hall of Residence.

The grassy court in front of my house. Unlike the rules at some other unis, at least here you can walk on the grass. Also, we have squirrels. Top that.

Hihi.

Anyway, as you can see, I'm starting to grow really fond of Leicester, or at least, of "my" parts of Leicester - of Knighton and Stoneygate and Victoria Park and the Campus.

I promise more photos in the future, but it's too dark out now to capture some of the other pretty bits of Leicester (I'm dying to show you all the paved-over location of where they found Richard III - I'm sure you can all appreciate a good bit of fresh asphalt), so for now: adieu and good night!

Leicester Adventure: The Future

Almost every day now, I think about my future. What do I want to do after Leicester? I'd very much like to do a PhD, but unless I can do it as a research fellow and/or as part of a funded thing, I can't afford it. My study finance and student loans just stop as soon as I have my master's, and considering the fact that I already borrowed from my parents to do this master's I'm not going to ask them to fund another three years. Not when this economy makes it uncertain whether I'll actually be able to obtain employment after my study. You don't have to pay back your student loan and finance if you can't get a job after studying and I don't feel guilty about leaving DUO with my debt if that is what happens, but I'm not going to impose such a burden on my parents.

I've now started to check the website for the DCGC programme every other day, to look at their requirements. I know I can write a killer research proposal, also because I know that the thing I want to research is a) really interesting, b) useful for the field of Criminology, c) useful for society at large, d) in line with the research focus of the programme. The programme itself fills me with enthusiasm, so writing the letter of motivation should not be too difficult either. What worries me, though, is that they need references and grades. I can provide them with excellent undergraduate grades and references, no problem, but the handin date for the research proposal is 8 January 2013 and I don't have to hand in my course essays, my only evaluation materials, till late January. Also, I don't know if by that date I know my professors here well enough to ask them for a reference. I am going to give it a shot, absolutely, but this scares me a bit. Also because there are rumours that because of the austerity measures the Erasmus Mundus programme will be cut after 2013, so next year could be my last chance for this programme.

About once a week, I go onto the website for the Rijkstraineeship. I feel hesitant about returning to the Netherlands, but this option is just really very good, especially considering the pay but more importantly the opportunities. I know I'm qualified, I've got the leadership experience (not sure whether being chair of LitCo counts, but me being Course Rep and part of the founding board of the MSc Criminology Social Society here should definitely help), plus I speak three languages (Dutch and English fluently and pretty decent French once I work on it a bit more) and have (now) the experience of living abroad. Also, I've worked with a semi-governmental organization (Middelburg Court) and - well, all I'm really lacking in is keeping myself up-to-date with regards to what's going on in the Netherlands right now. I should probably actually read the foreign news articles in the Guardian rather than just reading about what misogyny/sexism means nowadays and whether the newest Pullman is any good. I do know, though, that apparently, financially I'm the equivalent of Finland. I also know that the Brits (or at least, the Guardian readers) think David Cameron is a toff and think Boris Johnson's hair's awful (I agree), and that the phrase 'yummy mummy' elicits 25 pages of discussion, but I fear that sort of social engagement and keeping up-to-date on what's happening in the world isn't the sort the Rijkstraineeship people are looking for.

I guess I could always try to be a part of a research team, which is a bit harder in social sciences than in the real, hard sciences, but people who know me know that I would very much prefer to do things my way ("let me do my thing!"). That may be impossible, though, so perhaps I should just cave and get my PhD and be bothered with doing my thing afterwards. I dunno.

No damn way the future's still a long way away; it might as well start tonight.

Leicester Adventure: Settling In

It's beginning to look like I've settled nicely into a new routine. It's not that I pop out of bed at 7am sharp every morning, also because somehow I never manage to sleep before 2, but things no longer seem as new and slightly frightening as they did when I first arrived.

I've had all my second lectures and seminars this week; I very much enjoyed Penology, seeing as we touched upon the subject of the Social Contract (Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau), and upon Bentham and Beccaria, with Rationalism and the Panopticon - the Social Contract was one of my favourite topics in Politics last semester, and I really enjoyed the class on Rationalism in Crime & Law Enforcement. I also was informed that I get to go on a trip to a prison on 26 October, which does unfortunately coincide with a very interesting lecture by another of my instructors, but I'm still looking forward to the trip.

I've taken a real liking to the Criminological Research Methods course, and Understanding Crime is also rapidly becoming something I look forward to, so that's all good.

I've settled into the habit of popping by a small local Sainsbury's on Queens Road on my way home, because it saves me a trip to Asda.

Furthermore, a small group of people is trying to set up a social society for the Criminology MSc students, and I'm on the "founding board" if you could call it that, so I'm keeping myself busy.

Lastly, the weather is currently in that awkward stage where your winter coat is too warm and your summer coat too chilly, where you just don't know what to wear. But the leaves are turning a crispy gold and falling off the trees, so I'm sure winter's not far off.

It feels very nice to settle into a new sense of 'having to do something', also because I do still need to finish properly revising my Dorian Gray paper for the Pala Conference proceedings (deadline: 1 November) and should really do something about my practice essay (deadline: 29 October). But that'll be fine.

I'll probably not write much in the coming weeks unless I have something important to say, but be advised that whenever I don't write, I'm doing my routine and I'm doing well.