Today I traveled north to see a Merel's new student room. This is part of my 'goodbye tour'. I feel like a rock star. Merel does a marvelously uncomplicated version of 'bye'.
But seriously, I hate saying goodbye. It always makes me teary and sad and everything, so I just try to avoid it. My favourite is just waving, saying 'see you next year!' and then parting ways. Far easier. Everyone's telling me that I'll stay across the channel and is behaving accordingly. Please don't. Saying bye is enough.
This is my planning for saying good bye to other people:
On Friday I will try and see my grandparents on my mum's side, and pay a visit to my grandparents-on-my-father's-side's graves, because those are the two goodbyes I feel I really have to do. On Saturday and Sunday I will go north to see Anouk. Then, a few days of packing, and then on Wednesday doing goodbye-drinks with Ma-ike. The level of emotion involved is going to depend on a number of factors.
The most difficult one is going to be next week Friday, when I will tell my father goodbye. Living with him this summer has made me realise that I am so much more like him than I thought, and it seems all the difficulties of my teenage years have been resolved. Dad gets pretty emotional with these things, but my brother and I have installed Skype for him and he's fairly OK with MSN.
My mum and stepdad love England, so they've volunteered to drive me and my belongings to Leicester. My mum tried to get some days off work, because she'd have liked to do a tiny bit of Leicester-exploring with me (and that week is also her and my stepdad's fifth anniversary, so everything would've been nicely coincidental had her taking off worked out), but they'll leave me with my belongings on Sunday. Mum and my stepdad don't do emotional goodbyes, so that'll be a good one. Also, they're good with computers.
It shouldn't be emotional, at all. I mean, pretty much everyone's vowed to visit me at least once, so then it's less than a year that I won't see them, and if there's Facebook and Skype and I have a Twitter and this blog and everything - there's no reason to really miss me, I'm just an hour's flying away. It's only for a year.
Except that it isn't. I think that in the end, I'll be the most emotional of all, because I am beginning to realize that what they're saying is right - it's highly likely that I'll stay, at least for more than this year, and I will miss the people that I have come to love so dearly. Oh well. Still only an hour's flying away.
UPDATE: How can I NOT have referenced Shakespeare and gone all "parting is such sweet sorrow" ? Except that this isn't sweet, and I'm going to slap anyone (except for Ma-ike, because I've had to promise her that she's not getting on my nerves by making a big fuss over this) who makes it seem like it's a sorrow.
Preparations (18 September 2012)
Bureaucratic countries make it hell to change any sort of living situation, and moving countries is such a massive change that they seem utterly unable to cope with it. This means having to make loads of phone calls, the least pleasant/most annoying ones to Government organizations.
My issues of the day have to do with my subsidies. Being a poor student in a country with an extensive social system allows me to have loads of subsidies, and since I've grown used to them I'd love to take them all with me when I go abroad.
This morning, I called the organization that deals with study finance, the IB-Groep (though they're now called DUO - Dienst Uitvoering Onderwijs), and asked them about my change of address. I got to talk to a very pleasant young man, who had studied English Literature and Culture and who wished me loads of fun. Changing your info with DUO isn't that hard, they're used to students going abroad. Basically, at least three months in advance you have to go to the website, download the "aanvraag buitenland" form and fill this out. It asks for your address abroad, but few already know that at that point of course, so you're allowed to leave it blank. I did. It's a fairly simple procedure, because - well, this is routine for them. But be on time. Anyway, I called them today because I've known my address for a while now and I figured now's the time to change it. I asked the pleasant young man whether I had to do so via the internet, and he confirmed that I had to, and basically advised me to wait until I had ended my registration with the municipality (uitschrijven GBA) and then manually change my address because DUO does not have any access to whatever British files there are concerning addresses. He also advised me to fill out a form for authorization - meaning that he's advising me to authorize my father (or anyone, but I'm going to authorize my father, I think) to act on my behalf in dealing with DUO if something happens to me. Good advice, helpful, easy.
Then I called the Tax Service, and that was far less pleasant, though my waiting time was only a third of what it was for DUO. See, when you study in Britain for more than six months, you're eligible for registration and insurance with the NHS, and so I figured that I'd cancel my Dutch health insurance and end my health insurance subsidy. Stoopid to make such assumptions, but reasonably stoopid, not very badly. Right, so my health insurer returned my request for cancellation last week, saying that since I was going to study, but not work, abroad, I was still obliged (cos in the Netherlands you're obliged to have health insurance) to keep my insurance. Well, fuck. So I called the Tax Service asking whether I still had any right to my insurance subsidy. At first, I talked to a grumpy lady who needed me to tell my story three times, then had to transfer me to a colleague, who also had to transfer me. Honestly, this can't be such an outlandish question, can it? Anyway, the third person was able to help me - basically she told me that yes, I still have that right and that as soon as I have moved, I am to fill out a new request for my subsidy. Straightforward answer, half helpful, but too grumpy and annoyed. Sorry that I was stupid enough to make assumptions, guys, I didn't mean to ruin your day or anything...
Other things: all other insurances. Best to keep your Dutch post address, because then you can have your parents deal with them. They're not going to send you much mail anyway, and besides, you can arrange pretty much everything via the internet anyway. I only have my travel insurance left, which costs me a whopping 2.50 euros a month, so I'm not going to be bothered with that.
Phone: I have a subscription and a number that most people know. What I'm going to do is buy a top-up Sim and transfer my number. Hema lets me do this for cheap - as in, the Sim is cheap, the number transfer free. Put this new Sim in my phone. In this way, I'll keep my Dutch phone number for people who don't have my UK number and so I can still use it whenever I'm in the Netherlands. Once I'm across the channel, I'm going to get a UK subscription (or maybe even only a top-up, too) and a UK phone.
My registration with the social housing company: Since the age of 19, I've been registered with the local social housing company for when I'll return to the Netherlands and can't get a student room. It's been maintained through all my moves, and I want it to be maintained over next year too. I'll visit them tomorrow and report then on how it went.
Others: Yes, geez. I'm going to keep my registration with my GP and dentist here, because dentist's appointments can easily be cancelled and the GP is always useful in case I get sick in the Netherlands. I'm going to hand in my library card this week when I hand in my overdue books and... no, that's all I have to take care of, or at least, that I'm aware of having to take care of at this point in time. Will inform in due course if something else pops up.
UPDATE: My father was bored so he decided on taking me to hand in my overdue library books and drop by Hema for my Sim.
The library was great; the lady offered to write me a note so I could continue my subscription with another Dutch library for the time I had left on my old subscription (which means that I'd be able to subscribe with another library for free until May 2013). I told her I would be moving to England; she then proceeded to offer me to transfer my subscription to my father, so he could have a library subscription until May 2013 for free. He didn't have a subscription yet, and seeing as his girlfriend lives where there's another branch of this library cooperation (there's twelve libraries in it), he can even use it to allow his girlfriend and her kids to borrow books. He's happy, my subscription is done and the library is happy too. Win-win.
Hema didn't have the type of Sim I wanted, so I'll drop by another one tomorrow.
UPDATE 2: I cycled to Brielle this morning to deal with my social housing registration. The lady in there acknowledged that it would be a pity if I lost my 2.5-year registration (because you get priority based on how long you have been registered) and informed me that as long as I didn't move within the Netherlands, I would keep that old registration, because I would officially still qualify as residency-seeker in the Netherlands. So as long as I stay a Dutch citizen but live abroad, I can let this registration run on until I return and need a place, and then my registration will be long enough to put me in the top 5 for any place I might want. She also informed me that I will have to change my address online as soon as I've moved. Helpful, easy, done.
Hema Brielle also did not have a Sim. Is this then the thing that will go wrong?
UPDATE 3: Just sent a notification to Sanquin, the blood donation organization, that I will not be available for donations for the coming year. Unfortunately though, they managed to keep sending me donation requests for my old donation location (before I moved in with my dad) instead of the local one, so I am not entirely sure they will manage this completely, but they did manage to properly change my address when I requested they'd do so, so we'll see. Either way, I informed them...
Doubts (21 September 2012)
You can't help but to sometimes doubt whether you've made the right decision.
One of my most persistent doubts is whether I'm actually good enough to be (and remain) in academia... being in academia, after all, does mean that every day you're surrounded with brilliant minds with brilliant ideas and with brilliant papers published in brilliant journals. But in those moments, I'd do well to think of what a senior professor once told me; "you don't have to be the smartest to cut it in academia, you just have to be really interested in something".
Another serious doubt is whether I'll get a job once I'm done. I'm capable of doing loads of stuff, I know that - if anything, I can go back to my old job of being a court clerk, I could live off such a salary - but it's the doubt of whether I'll find anything that can keep my interest for forty years. I do want to be an instructor, after all. But I don't have to find my dream job straight out of grad school - I should just try to get any job in my field (which ranges from pure law enforcement to government to academia, after all) and then as soon as a job closer to my dream opens up, move into that. I'll worry about my retirement fund being scattered and all over the place later - I'll have study debts to clear up first, then.
Currently I also wonder whether I'll fit in with the English locals. I don't mean townies, though I'm sure the people of Leicester are wonderful, but I mean with the English students. But while in Oxford, Kristy assured me that I seemed so well at ease there, and more people have told me that England is a place I'll like even for extended periods of time. Well. We'll see, won't we?
The Call to Adventure (24 September 2012)
If this adventure was anything like the Campbellian monomyth, I would currently be stuck somewhere between the Call to Adventure (first finding out about Leicester) and the Crossing of the First Treshold (going there this weekend), in a stage that keeps shifting from Refusal of the Call (my many, many anxieties) to Supernatural Aid (with people popping up who will be helpful along the way, such as mentors) and back.
I'm now at the point where I should pack my final belongings, as no real adventure can be undertaken without preparations. Even Indiana Jones is shown to take preparations in Raiders (assuming that popping a leather jacket, a whip and a revolver in a suitcase counts as preparation), and as I need much more stuff than Indy, I heed the advice everyone is giving me: pack well. But I find it hard to pack, as I have to distinguish between all my stuff (and I have so much of it, too... I should unclutter) and figure out what's worth bringing and what's not. Who knows what I'm going to need a year from now? It's not even that I attach any material value to my belongings, I just care about my books and my laptop, it's just that some things are so useful. Also, how is one supposed to fit a year's worth of stuff in as few boxes as fit in a medium sized sedan? Or to stuff an entire wardrobe in a suitcase? My father just came up to my room as I was attempting to close my suitcase (by going all Hollywood and sitting on top of it while trying to zip it shut) and complained that I was destroying my suitcase like that and why wasn't I using a bigger one? If I read Leicester's list of what to bring - toiletries (check), crockery (check), dressing gown (check), cutlery (check), towels (check), cooking utensils (check), desk lamp (non-check - haven't decided yet on which one to bring, they're all ugly) - I wonder why they haven't listed the stuff that takes the most space to move, like clothes. It's impossible for me to decide what parts of my wardrobe to bring (and my wardrobe isn't that extensive to begin with) and then I'm still supposed to fit everything in a few boxes? Packing is hell.
Oh, by the way, here's a video of my location: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78tJLrQcv0A
And while packing, there's the matter of anxiety. Packing and preparations allow for just enough inspiration for such gloomy doom but require not enough attention to distract me. So I put on some Nat King Cole or Paul McCartney or Dean Martin and work like that. I had something of an email virus over the weekend, and I've tried resolving it - ran three different antivirus programs - so I hope that matter's settled now too, but it did lead to a whole new set of anxieties, of the social kind - 'oh, those people that received emails from my account from the virus, what are they to think of me?!' - and then, as good anxieties ought to, I could not settle them with reasonable suggestions. So I slept instead, and I think I may have settled the anxieties too.
The rest of this week will also consist of prep work, like de-registering from the municipality. And I'm counting down the days until I reach that next big part of my adventure, the Crossing of the First Threshold, where I get to jump out into the Unknown and experience my Adventure for real. Four days and a half.
But first, I have to finish packing. I wonder whether to bring my pretty copy of Shakespeare...
Waiting to Cross the First Threshold (28 September 2012)
As I sit on my mum's flowery sofa, watching The Voice of Holland, repeatedly refusing a glass of wine, I come to realize that I am scared.
Not the sort of terrified, petrified, horrified kind of scared that nightmares and ghost stories will do to you, nor the anxiousness that some situations may do to you, but the sort of scared that more or less empties your mind and only allows you to wait until it's all over.
My step-dad and me tried fitting everything in the car earlier today; it all fit. Our planning is sound. I'm not nervous. I'm just... waiting. There is nothing I can do.
I also just read this one article on the website of The Guardian about how it takes, like, 15 years or so for scientists to find a proper research position in academia. I'm not a scientist and I'm not going to try and find a research position, but still I wonder how it'll all work out in my future. Sure, politics and the judiciary are nice alternatives, but when it all comes down to it, I'd like it best if I got to teach undergrad Criminology, or secondary school 'maatschappijleer'... I've got this no-longer-that-secret ambition somewhere to one day get to teach Roosevelt Academy's 'Crime and Law Enforcement' course because I think I'd be really good at that (but for now we'll leave teaching that course to prof. Ippel), but in the end it'll all come down to me having to take whatever job comes my way.
I'm not worried about that. I'm actually not worried at all at this point. I'm just... I'm waiting.
9 more hours. I think I'll try and get some sleep now.
Crossing the First Threshold: My Magical Mystery Tour (30 September 2012)
Saturday
My alarm clock decided on waking me at 6 am sharp. I had ordered it to do so; I wanted to be up at the same time as my mum and step-dad so I could oversee the final packing and catering procedure. It therefore sort of dismayed me that I heard the car doors slam shut as I was putting on my sweater, meaning that somehow they had managed to be up before me and managed to put nearly everything in the car, except for my winter coat and my umbrella. But then I remembered that this also meant that I would not have to worry about any of that, and I felt grateful. We left for Calais at 7 am, and I unfolded my favourite in-car items as we left Hellevoetsluis; the maps. We have no need for maps, as we have, like every other civilized family, a GPS device, but I have been taught to read maps when I was just a little girl and this has left me with a strange sense of joy whenever I get to pore over maps and figure out ways and destinations. Dawn did not properly happen until we were near Barendrecht, but that's okay because I prefer the maps of Belgium and England because I haven't been there nearly as often.
Maps also work nicely to cover up the mess I made of the back seat since I'd been put in control of the in-car catering and I just stuck everything back in the bag without looking.
We arrived in Calais more than an hour early, but I guess the whole matter of the Sussex maths teacher and his 15-year-old pupil have left the border agents a bit spooked because somehow the queues managed to move so slowly that we were just in time to get on our ferry.
The weather was so wondrously clear that even at Calais, you could see all the way to the cliffs of Dover.
This made the 22-mile-crossing seem lots shorter than it was – I spent nearly all of it outside, as if trying to reach out for the whiteness at the horizon to try and pull myself towards it. Funnily, all three of us left the ferry feeling a bit queasy, my step-dad because he just can't deal with rolling waves and my mum and me because we both felt that the correction of the boat – it has stabilizers, of course – didn't allow our balancing systems to work, thus upsetting us as though we were both landsick (I didn't actually know landsickness could be hereditary, but my mum and my brother also get sick after being on rolling waves rather than actually getting seasick at that time).
But arriving at Dover was brilliant, seeing those white cliffs up close (I'd never seen them before, always crossing more northerly, to Hull or at one time even Newcastle). And I immediately got to realize what I've realized many times before but seem to always forget – England is bad puns galore. There was this one B&B or pub or something called The Chalk of the Town. Very punny. The only good thing (for entrepreneurs) about bad puns is that they're far more difficult to forget than good puns because good puns only make you chuckle instead of cringe.
We drove to Ashford, to a Tesco there, where I bought an electric kettle because my old one I'd left in Middelburg and I didn't want to buy one in the Netherlands because it would have the wrong plug. Then up to London, and via Cambridge because we wanted to avoid the M1. My step-dad and I had a bit of fun over saying slightly mean stuff at the spires at the horizon (shouldn't have refused me - their massive loss!).
A bit of a mix-up happened right after Cambridge, because we'd discussed the route a number of times and there never was any clarity on whether we'd go via Peterborough or Kettering. The GPS wanted to send us via Peterborough, but seeing as I was reading the map I saw that those roads were not as good as the ones via Kettering. It worked out fine in the end, as we ended up going via Kettering, driving into Leicester from the South-East, so via Oadby. Oadby is very English, very pretty. In fact, all of Leicestershire is the typical sort of English that you'd imagine – rolling green hills, rickety fences, cottages, small villages with pubs called 'The Wild Boar' or 'The Red Lion'. We drove through Leicester – something my step-dad didn't really like, to north Leicester to find a chip shop called The Codfather (puns galore!). I did not feel in the mood for fish & chips, because I'm not that fond of fish really, but they also had a good chicken&mushroom pie, so I had pie & chips instead. Finally, we were to end our day in a B&B just north of Leicester, but something had gone wrong there. The people of the B&B were very pleasant, but there'd been a mix-up in the reservation so they only had a double room left. I got to sleep in a big room with a genuinely massive bathroom in a side-of-the-road hotel just off the A6 instead, while my mum and step-dad took up the offer of the double room in the B&B. The B&B people apologized a million times, and really, stuff like this can happen and seeing as I was waiting for something to go wrong, I can live with this being the one thing that does so.
Sunday
Somehow, I'd managed to mess up the changing of the times on my phone and so it did not wake me up at 7am as I'd wanted it to. Instead, some nightmare that I forgot right after shook me awake at 7:22, so I rushed out into the hotel's breakfast area, worked down some toast with raspberry jam and some orange juice, and stuffed my laptop back in the bag – I'd hoped the hotel had wifi, but alas – and then flopped down back on the double bed to watch BBC's breakfast news.
Mum and Willem pretended to be room-service at 8:45, after which we drove through Leicester, back to Oadby, so we could pick up the key for my room. My arrival instructions had 9:30 on them, but we were there at 9:10. The people didn't care, I got my key.
The Mary Gee campus is quite pretty. Very green. The rooms themselves are fairly forgettable, as they are just the basics – a desk, a wardrobe, a bed and a night stand. And two bookshelves, which are just about able to hold the books I brought. It's green enough for squirrels to bounce about.
We unloaded the car and then set off for the nearby Asda superstore for some groceries – I needed to have drinks &c. - and then to Sainsbury's for some early lunch. Listening to Midlands English and comparing it to my own made me realise that RA English really has some very strong American influences. Drove back into Leicester to see the Uni campus, which is big but nice and, for reference, holds the middle between the massive Erasmus Uni Rotterdam campus and the miniature Roosevelt Academy campus, but leans towards EUR-size. Then back to Mary Gee, and my mum trying her best not to do an emotional goodbye.
So here I sit. Writing, feeling content. It's all worked out, hasn't it?
Belly of the Whale: Part I (1 October 2012)
11 am.
Dearest readers,
For today, seeing as today is a day of really settling in, I decided to embark upon the not-so-daunting task of doing regular updates. If I have no computer close to me, I'll jot my thoughts down on my notepad. This is mainly for my mum and dad, as they both seemed so much sadder than I expected them to be to see me move to England and I want to comfort them by letting them know I'm not (immediately) plunging into the hellish pits of drunken doom.
I tried waking up at 8 am but couldn't. Stayed in bed til 8:30, then got dressed and had breakfast. I'm seriously considering switching to cereal because it's seemingly impossible to find a good and fluffy wholewheat bread that doesn't go stale overnight. Watched a stream of History of the World: Age of Empire on the BBC website and considered teaching myself the Phoenician alphabet since it didn't look that difficult. Walked to uni at 10:30, passed a number of houses on London Road that I wouldn't mind living in; they're gorgeous and So Big. It's a nice wake-up walk, but seeing as it's 25 minutes I may really use my bike from here on.
Now I sit in front of the library, gathering my courage to see what sort of sources I'll be stuck with for the year. I hope it's as good as it's reputed to be.
11:35 am.
Oh, my wonderful Lord. I just walked past the building of the Department of Criminology and died a little, happily. The house (for it is a converted house, not a purpose-built glass-and-steel contraption) is situated on the Upper New Walk, which is a small tree-covered lane which has allegedly been reserved for pedestrians for at least the last two-hundred years. The converted house itself is one of these Victorian/Edwardian/Georgian (whatever, old-fashioned English will do) red-brick houses, semi-detached but large enough to hold a middle-class family with a handful of servants. I do hope it's as pretty on the inside as it is on the outside, but I presume any house with bay windows will be pretty enough to suit my aesthetic preferences. Oh, how pretty it must be in the dead of winter, covered in powdery white!
The library I couldn't properly access, for I don't get my library card until tomorrow, but the book shop looks good... I wonder whether to get "University of Leicester"-stamped hardback notebooks for my courses or just stick to my method of punching holes in notepaper and sticking them in folders. Now I'm off, though, back home, because I forgot my schedule. I'll ride back here by bike.
12:30 pm.
On my way back home I met a girl who inquired as to where Mary Gee was. Turns out she lives in my block. She did manage to access the library so I might go back there this afternoon and try again. She says it's big, bigger than the library of the Uni of Kent (where she did her undergrad) so I'm quite curious now...
2:30 pm.
I think I love this place. I visited the library and it's everything a library ought to be except old. It is still pretty in a new style, a sort of clean, understated modernity that just oozes updated sophistication. And shelves and shelves and shelves dedicated to Criminology. It's quiet, with very comfortable postgrad areas and you can hear pins drop. That was my biggest issue with the Zeeuwse Bibliotheek, the lack of silence, so this is wonderful.
Cycling feels semi-suicidal, so it's not as bad as I thought. Haven't got a clue of British bicycling laws, except for that you oughtn't cycle on the motorway and that the two-foot-wide green strips of road are apparently meant to be bike paths (interesting change from the Dutch pink-red, which is here used for the bus lanes), so I'll keep getting on and off the sidewalk until I'm sent off by the police - much like my Dutch habits, really. And no one has a proper bike. They're all glorified mountain bikes at best, and thought mine's getting rickety (I've had it for a decade now), I still feel it's the best suited for actual biking compared to the ones I've seen.
I've tried signing up for the Quidditch Team but couldn't find their stand. I did sign up to be a blood donor, though, like I was in the Netherlands. Tomorrow's another chance for signing up.
4:00 pm.
The guest lecture by Simon Cole, Chief Constable of the Leicestershire Police, has just ended. He's given me quite a bit of inspiration on what sort of things I could write papers about. Good to be aware of...
5:00 pm.
Right, cycling here is suicidal when you're weaving in and out of traffic on a roundabout on the A6 to Oadby while trying to carry a box of Domino's pizza (I'm feeling lazy today) and the motorists are stuck because it's rush hour. Still made it home safe. I do miss the convenience of having a supermarket next door. God, I've been spoiled with the Middelburg rooms.
5:30 pm.
Just met another of my block mates, right across the hall. Studies Clinical Criminology, also postgrad, and we're walking up to uni tomorrow. Awesome.
Belly of the Whale: Part II (2 October 2012)
Tuesday
I'm exhausted. Woke up early and prepared for Induction, walked into uni with Ruth, my blockmate from across the hall.
Induction was good. It started at 9:30 with a general presentation on the courses and the schedule and everything, and how to pick our optional modules &c. Then at 10:30 we got lumped with the BA freshers in a lecture theatre to watch the Department academic staff introduce itself. We got quizzed on perceptions of crime, Ruth and I did pretty well on that, especially on the topics of our interest.
Returned to our first seminar room to have a spot of lunch (we were all famished by then) and got the assignment to mingle and try and complete a sort of bingo card of characteristics. I got to impress people by being able to sign the 'speaks three languages' square, though I didn't really tell them that I'm not exactly fluent in French or German.
Afterwards, a very long but very interesting session on the core and optional modules. Definitely will be signing up for Media and Crime and for Psychology of Evil, I haven't decided on my third optional yet.
Finally, some stuff on the library and the IT services and all that.
Ruth and I left at about 4:30, got caught in a downpour on our way back.
The academic staff seems really pleasant; though also a bit mad, but of the good sort, the sort of mad that I presume you have to be in order to be a proper Criminology scholar or indeed any scholar at all. There is, for instance, this one lady who looks all sweet and innocent at first and then you get to discover that she is interested (she used my favourite word, 'obsessed', to describe her interests... extra points in my book) in what she calls the darker sides of humanity, like serial killers and genocide and all that. She teaches the Psychology of Evil course. Another is the man who teaches Understanding Crime, which is supposedly quite a hard course - but he showed up wearing a wickedly awesome combination of brownish slacks and a vest, with a green jacket to complete the three-piece-suit get-up, and wore it with a dark richly patterned button-down. He had wonderful examples of for instance the punishments for cross-dressing in Victorian times. And they're all like that, all memorable, even for a person like me who is awful with names. So I'm clearly looking forward to my classes - three courses per semester, all assessed through a 4,000-word paper at the end, so six courses in total and then my dissertation. It'll be a wondrous time.
Wednesday
A very early morning. 9 am. I completed my optional modules by picking Transnational Policing as a third option, and Crime, Justice and Psychology as a back-up. Then elections for student representative, one per stream (four streams within the Criminology MSc: 'straight' Criminology, what I do; Applied Criminology, which includes a placement; Clinical Criminology, which is on the psychological stuff mainly, and Terrorism, Security and Policing, which is, you'd never guess it, on terrorism 'n stuff) and then one for the part-time students. The representatives for Applied, Clinical and Part-Time were easily picked because only one person ran for each (congrats Ruth on the Clinical!), but for Terrorism and 'straight' there were two for each. Aside from me, a very intelligent and ambitious guy from Canada ran for the 'straight' and I feared that I didn't stand a chance; eventually I did win, with a difference of one vote. I'm very happy with this, also because I just really want to be involved this year.
Info 'n stuff on plagiarism (don't do it!), sources (Wikipedia is evil!) and how to write an essay (introduction, body and conclusion!), then drinks at the department, then lunch at Shimla Pinks, an Indian restaurant. I love spicy Asian food, so I had a good time eating something and I managed to spill none of the brightly coloured food on my bright white blouse. I'm proud of myself for that. While eating, we (that is, the Canadian guy, Lisa, who is one of the instructors, another girl and me, as well as the rest of our table) had interesting discussions going on about criminal behaviour not being criminal within certain groups within society (I got to bring up the Mafia, yay!), poverty, Canadians missing Tim Hortons, serial killers and much more.
At night, Ruth and I took an undergrad fresher who was by some misunderstanding or another placed in a postgrad hall, to Revolution, a bar where we met up with another of my fellow students and left the fresher with the rowing team so she could make fresher friends, while we three postgrads went on to a few more bars and then took a taxi to the Student Union before I decided to go home because I have had some trouble sleeping the last few days. I'm going to have to get used to drinking pints instead of half-pints, though Strawberry Woo-Woos are something I would not mind having again. It was crowded at the Student Union and one of the security guys gave me a stern lecture on that I should really not walk home by myself, but of course I did so anyway - but I did not trudge through Victoria Park, like he said I shouldn't.
Thursday
Woke up late, sui-cycled to the Criminology Department to pick up my books (free course books! Yes, happily surprised me too. How absolutely wonderful!) and will go sit on my bed in a few, listen to music and read some chapters.
ROAD OF TRIALS
Penology (8 October 2012)
Today is the first day of the rest of my life of my classes. Penology (hold the giggles - it's on how and why society punishes crime). This also means that in the monomythical view of my Leicester Adventures, I have passed definitely from the realm of normal people back into the realm of Academia, moved from Stage I, the Departure, into Stage II, the Initiation. The Road of Trials will be long; it consists of classes, papers, dissertations and everything more. I shall encounter Temptations that will attempt to lead me from the path and I shall meet my God (tsk, how male-centered to make both the all-encompassing love and the Temptation female personifications). One I've completed all that, I'll experience Apotheosis (probably when I'm working on my dissertation and reach that stage where you don't eat, sleep or drink and you and your dissertation become one, when there is nothing more in the world than that - and this is in general not at all positive) and finally, once I complete this Adventure, my Ultimate Boon, that coveted Master's Degree.
Come to think of it, Roosevelt Academy was also an Adventure. Hmm. Maybe Academia is like Middle-Earth. Then RA was the Shire, and Leicester... Rivendell?
Oh God, that would make a hypothetical PhD Mordor... considering the anecdotes I've heard about PhDs, that assessment isn't too far off...
UPDATE: Just found this wonderful bit on how doing a PhD is like tossing the Ring back into the fiery pits of Mount Doom: http://danny.oz.au/danny/humour/phd_lotr.html
Tomorrow is my reading day, so I'll be off early to head to the Library, and Wednesday is a long day of Criminological Research Methods (oh, Hell... SPSS!) and Understanding Crime, both of which I do very much look forward to.
Oh, right: Penology was fun. 13 people in that class, had discussions, are to critique paper for next class. It's like RA 2.0, but the workload is lighter.
Now you're free to giggle about 'penology'.
Cold (9 October 2012)
With this blog title I mean two sorts of cold: meteorological cold and medical cold. I'd like to say I'm suffering from both, but then I'd be hyperbolic in both cases; nevertheless, they are both starting to bother me.
About the medical cold: I've had an achy throat for a couple of days now, and my nose is starting to get runny. I should've expected this, I haven't been in student accommodation for four months. It's bothersome, though, but it'll go away soon, I'm convinced of that. Besides, I've got warm clothes for when I go outside, so it shouldn't get any worse, either.
What brings me to the meteorological cold: 11 degrees Celsius isn't quite freezing. But I can't regulate when my radiator is on, and I have a habit of leaving my window open when I'm home because I need a steady supply of fresh air. My windows being single-pane doesn't help, either. This means that when I sit and read (my instructors all keep emphasizing that we 'read' for our degree rather than study (which is a very British expression, I've come to understand) - they mean that we have to put in about 35 hours of class (8 hours) and reading (the rest) per week), I can put on as many layers of clothing I like, but my fingers and toes will still be cold.
I'll probably have to turn to a very British solution to both these fairly minor issues: tea.
I can get used to that, certainly.
P.S. This all also puts me in the mood for Christmas songs and split pea soup. It should be possible to make some here; I've got all the equipment except for my 10L soup pot (but I don't intend on making 10L this year, so my new 3.5L should suffice) and I think Asda's got most, if not all, ingredients (except for rookworst, probably, though it wouldn't surprise me if the superstore had that too)... When the time comes for me to make my famous-at-home version of Dutch Split Pea Soup, I'll do a proper blog report. Also, no, Dutch split pea soup should NOT contain potatoes, regardless of how many cooks do add them - if you're any good at making this soup, the ladle should stay upright without cheating.
Stats and Seminars (10 October 2012)
My two hours of class this morning was on Criminological Research Methods - basically, it's a repetition of the Methods part of RA's Stats courses. That's going to be interesting, I guess - we'll be doing quite some things on the qualitative part as well, and seeing as I didn't take Stats 211 (I was hardcore and took the 210), I'll be learning quite some things I don't know yet, such as grounded theory. It'll also be a nice refresher for the quantitative, because though I am still quite up-to-scratch on quantitative methods, the actual stats (SPSS :/ ) has vacated its premises in my memory and needs to be dragged back. I did express a desire over the summer to re-activate my stats knowledge, seeing as I then finally realized I'll be needing it, so I'm very happy actually with this course. Also, the frankly worn out common place of stats dropped in: correlation does not imply causation. However, this common place was nicely illustrated with a graph on the decline in the number of pirates and the rise in the Global Average Temperature, so it wasn't bad or anything.
This one.
Afterwards a man from the student help centre or something to talk to us about how to critically read and write. He was obviously very passionate about what he was talking about, but it felt so common-sensical that I did have a hard time focusing. Poor man. I did feel validated in my habit of drawing up essay outlines as soon as I receive an essay topic, but I've other people to thank for making me have that habit in the first place, so even that is not as redeeming as it could be.
The afternoon session was very interesting, with the introductory class on Understanding Crime being about what is actually a theory, while the seminar afterwards felt very familiar; 10 students and an instructor discussing things while seated around a set of tables mashed together, except it was about what causes crime rather than whether or not the use of phonaesthemes allows people to process a word faster. Also, we didn't have wine and nuts (idea for next week?).
And just now I got a note slipped under my door that I am to pick up a package at the Porter's but the porter isn't in until tomorrow morning so I'm afraid I'm going to have to try my patience. I'm curious, though...
Victory (12 October 2012)
As any student going abroad, I had some issues with DUO, the regulating body for study finance. They weren't really issues as much as they were difficulties, in that I could not receive SMS authentication codes to log in to my account and fill out the forms for my change of address as well as see whether my study finance application had actually been approved (something that caused me not the least amount of worry, if only because I needed that subsidy/loan). Why could I not receive them?
Because my Dutch phone number had been registered without the country code of 0031.
I panicked and took this issue up with DUO and simultaneously posted a cry for help on Facebook. I received a very clever suggestion via fb to contact the DigiD instance, who controls the log in method for government sites (DUO is one). I promptly contacted them and received an email the next day that I was to take this up with DUO.
I then received a series of emails from DUO saying that there were messages waiting for me - on my account. Clever.
I didn't think much of it, until I just now sat up straight when I figured that maybe they sent me those emails because my log in issues had been resolved - without informing me thereof, but still. So I gave it a try, and it works.
No more need to panic. It's all gonna be juuuussstt fine.
Now all I have to do is open up a British bank account and get myself a British phone. But I'm keeping my Dutch phone, too, because I'm not even going to try and jump through the hoops for changing my registered phone number into a British one...
Authors, Knights, Kings and Owls (13 October 2012)
I went shopping.
That in itself does not say much, seeing as I'm not very fond of shopping and whenever I say I've been shopping I usually mean 'I went out to that-and-that shop to buy this, and then I went back home'.
But I went shopping for real this time. Window shopping, that is, because I still don't go in-and-out of shops when it's not necessary (and especially not on a Saturday afternoon when I get irritated by the amount of people in the shops). I basically walked to the Leicester city centre to check out where everything is. Unsurprisingly, the first proper shop that my instinct guided me towards was a Waterstone's; a book shop. I went for the fiction section to see whether they have Kingsley Amis' Lucky Jim because it's been recommended to me by several persons on several occasions (and also because it's supposedly set at a fictionalized University of Leicester) and I'd have bought it if my eye hadn't fallen on a set of very pretty new editions of Ian Fleming's James Bond books (and I don't mean based on the film, but the actual original books). Those were 'second for half price' and again I'd have bought those... but then I saw the new Pullman,Grimm Tales.
And then I saw The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde for 12 pounds.
After buying Oscar (I did need a proper copy since my Picture of Dorian Gray is falling apart and the only other physical copy of an Oscar opus is The Importance of being Earnest - all else is on my e-reader), I went to the bank to figure out how to open an account. The bank man wanted to know how long I planned on staying in the UK, so I admitted my still-vague plan of doing something in Cultural Criminology (yes, that is a very real field) ('I might stay for a PhD.' 'In what?' 'Cultural Criminology'), which led to a discussion on very awesome crime series. The account should be fixed in about a week.
I strolled about for a bit, looking here and there, but Leicester is fairly generic in that there is a Marks & Spencer, an H&M and a Primark all close together. As always, I became adventurous and strayed from the beaten path a little to stumble onto Leicester Cathedral and the Guildhall - though both were closed. I then had to find my way back to New Walk because I was getting tired, and while doing so I came across the site here in Leicester that's currently most interesting for history and archaeology enthusiasts: the car park in which they'd found the bones of Richard III (yes, there is no scientific certainty* yet, but from a legal point of view the circumstantial evidence is clearly sufficient), the last Plantagenet King of England before the reign of the Tudors. It's been paved over now, but still... this was quite cool.
On my way home, I passed a bespectacled young Sir Knight who, together with his father, both equipped with Halloween swords and shields, was bravely fighting the infamous invisible dragons and monsters of Queens Road.
Coming home I found a slip from the porter's telling me I was to pick up a package; at the porter's office, I found the sweetest little coloured glass owl waiting for me, carrying a scroll from Anouk. A nice surprise.
It also seems I was home just in time, because it's raining now (again).
*Since scientists are never certain of anything, scientific certainty is when they say that it is unlikely to be the result of coincidence. You know, like when they have a 0.00001% certainty that these bones do NOT belong to Richard III.
UPDATE: It's certain now; it's Richard III.
Settling In (17 October 2012)
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.
The Future (19 October 2012)
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.
Photographs (20 October 2012)
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!
Middelburg-Sick (22 October 2012)
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 decent 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 building 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 - don't tell my mum) 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.
Change of Plans (23 October 2012)
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.
Ethnography (24 October 2012)
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.
Backgrounds (31 October 2012)
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?
London (5 November 2012)
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.
ILinC (11 November 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.
Books and Series (24 November 2012)
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.
Hard Day's Night (2 December 2012)
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 was 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...
Finding the Perfect Place (9 December 2012)
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.
Hearing Back (19 December 2012)
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)
Happy Christmas! (26 December 2012)
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.
New Year (31 December 2012)
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):
- 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 verymoreishaddictive, 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. - 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. - 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. - 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. - 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!
Frost and Snow (16 January 2013)
I feel very double about winter; I absolutely hate how everything no longer functions and flights are delayed for an hour because of flurries and my fingertips freeze despite leather gloves (my toes freezing are my own fault for not having decent winter boots). But I love how pretty everything looks.
Leicester is now -3, with snowflakes falling that are so small that you only notice them when they attack your face while cycling and frost growing on trees. So photos.
Applying (part II) (23 January 2013)I feel very double about winter; I absolutely hate how everything no longer functions and flights are delayed for an hour because of flurries and my fingertips freeze despite leather gloves (my toes freezing are my own fault for not having decent winter boots). But I love how pretty everything looks.
Leicester is now -3, with snowflakes falling that are so small that you only notice them when they attack your face while cycling and frost growing on trees. So photos.
Once again, I find myself awake in the middle of the night (or 5am, whatever), overly worried (how surprising) about things yet to come and things still unsure.
You see, I've begun sending out stuff for PhD applications, and now it's mostly waiting. I somehow didn't write much about to which University I was applying for a PhD, and I don't exactly know why I didn't (except perhaps out of fear that anyone might get ideas and apply there too, and obviously be better and "steal" that opportunity, while it isn't even rightfully mine anyway).
I'm applying to Cardiff University, hoping to research whether economic development during the recent global economic crisis (you know, the crisis that also makes that whatever I do, I won't get a job, let alone a career, thus probably allowing my dad to be able to exclaim "I told you so!" when I turn out to be overqualified) is linked to wider societal reactions to corporate crime.
Mainly, I think that reactions have grown harsher over the years; look at the media reports on Starbucks's tax evasion, which wasn't even illegal in the first place! But yeah, quite dry to anyone who doesn't care about a) corporate crime; b) economics; c) media responses to crime, and d) politics. In short, it is the PERFECT thing for me to be researching.
Actually, I was discussing this with a course mate on Monday after my Psychology module; we were talking about summer plans and I said that I didn't know yet whether I was going to do any traveling (except Heidelberg, because PALA!), as I would be trying to save my money instead if I got accepted to do a PhD. So, I turned to explaining what I wanted to do and why Cardiff, and while I was doing so I just couldn't stop smiling. My course mate then told me that it was really obvious that I was enthusiastic about it, something about getting a glimmer in my eyes (note though that I also start smiling ridiculously and have a similar glimmer when I've had too many ciders). But it is true, though, the more I think of this project, the more enthusiastic I get about it. Except that I don't even know yet whether I actually get to do it.
I chose Cardiff mainly because it was the sort of place at which everything comes together. One very important thing was, however rude to openly discuss, money - Cardiff is one of the places that offers ESCR funding and I simply can't do a PhD without funding. It's a mostly practical consideration, but, indeed following my father's immeasurable wisdom, I have to acknowledge that there are limits, and this includes my savings account.
Secondly, unimportant hadn't it been the case and hugely important now that it is - one of my fellow RA alumnae currently studies at Cardiff and was delighted with the city, telling me how beautiful it was and how it was like Middelburg but bigger.
Thirdly, I'm hoping to work with one specific professor, Michael Levi, who has written loads of cool books on white collar crime and fraud and organised crime and so pretty much does what I want to do. In fact, he's also written a book with Petrus van Duyne about drugs and money. This earns him extra "I NEED him as a PhD supervisor"-points because I used loads of stuff by Van Duyne for my Independent Research Project at RA (well, actually for the bit of my IRP that didn't end up in my IRP because it wasn't entirely relevant to the topic but I still looked into it because I was fascinated - it was on organized crime), mostly because Van Duyne sketched out organized crime as more or less operating on a market that happened to feature illegal products and services or p&s that had been obtained and/or delivered in an illegal fashion. Also, professor Levi has, aside from his PhD, a DSc in Economics, so that's extra awesome because I always did like my economics courses.
I'm missing my economics courses now, because though my criminological interest is (obviously) covered by my MSc and my language/linguistics fascination (I'm blaming people for me even having that interest, though) also somewhat by my MSc and continued contact with PALA people (hence Heidelberg), I miss the presumption that people and organisations mostly do things because it benefits them either in the short- or long term, and that those things can be measured in the mysterious unit of 'utility'. It's so deliciously rational and calculated. I miss my Industrial Organization class (still think I got an A rather than my usual economics A- because I could link it to things from my IRP). I guess there is utility in reacting to corporate crime in a certain way, and this utility includes maintaining the status quo and perhaps even reinforcing the social contract (yay political philosophy), but that's still something to look into. Heck, there might even be some institutional economics involved (yay economic philosophy).
So, in a sense, if Cardiff happened, I'd be doing my perfect topic in my perfect place. Fingers crossed.
Yet Another Update (11 February 2013)
It's been a few slow-news weeks... I'm still waiting on my grades (the first one should be in any minute now) and an answer on my PhD proposal (I'm starting to worry about that one now); we've been out celebrating essay hand-in and Chinese New Year, and out seeing the Leicester Tigers beat the London Welsh. That last thing was the first-ever rugby match I saw and attended, and I had great fun there. Whether I completely understood the game is a different matter entirely, but Leicester won so it was good enough all in all.
I went to see Les Misérables last week, and last Saturday I saw Hitchcock. Both were good; I cried through half of Les Mis (it was a marvelous film, though the 2000 French adaptation that lasts something like six hours is a much more faithful adaptation [plus I'm something of a fan of Christian Clavier because he did such a good Napoléon in the eponymous French miniseries]) and Hitchcock was just good because the meep-meep-meep of the Psycho shower scene brings back memories of watching it in my Film in Context class and going meep-meep-meep for weeks afterwards.
I've finished watching all Inspector Morse episodes (which I actually tried to do last year before me and Kristy went to a conference in Oxford but didn't manage then) and currently am contemplating whether to pay a small fee to watch old Lewis episodes on ITV player. I received some criticism for watching it because Morse is not very accurate of course, but I did enjoy it despite the - especially prevalent though certainly not the only characteristic worthy of criticism - misogyny. Besides, considering that in my past I was dedicated enough to watch entire series of CSI:Miami, I suppose I am a bit of a sucker for crime melodramas.
The biggest news so far is that my abstract has been accepted for the PALA annual conference, which will be in Heidelberg from July 31 to August 4.
I will be speaking about tax evasion by major multinational corporations (Starbucks is one of them, therefore my talk will contain a rather dull reference to both a coffee order that is relatively rare to hear in Starbucks [so to point out that it's somewhat about a coffee company, and that it's rare to hear anything of the sort {i.e. criticism of certain types of corporate behaviour} in this type of context] and something of an indicator of the sort of bitterness in the reporting on the topic - I went with the title of 'Black, no sugar' [followed by something academic sounding which I can't even remember myself at this moment]. It's a cringe-worthy title, I know...). Specifically, seeing as the conference is of course one of linguists, stylisticians and literary analysts, I will be talking about the reporting on the tax evasion, using mainly corpus linguistics and critical discourse analysis.
This talk will use parts of my dissertation - my dissertation will go much more in depth with regards to tax law (seeing as the tax evasion was not actually illegal) and parliamentary decisions and whatnot, and perhaps will also take reader comments on the news articles into account. Seeing as this was not corporate crime (because not illegal) but has been portrayed as corporate wrongdoing, I also will look at other analyses of corporate wrongdoing representation, and of course into the whole theory behind corporate wrongdoing itself. So my dissertation will be much broader.
I am also contemplating registering for a conference on Cultural Criminology in Amsterdam in early July - I might even be able to adapt another segment of my dissertation for that and send it in as an abstract, see if I can get to present there too. The only thing that bothers me about that is that it's just a little difficult with regards to timing - I'll be flying to the Netherlands to attend this year's UCR graduation on June 7, then there's the Amsterdam conference in July, then the PALA conference in late July/early August. I can't justify flying back and forth between Stansted and the continent three times in a two-month span no matter how much RyanAir drops its prices (that is, unless return tickets drop to under 10 pounds, but I highly doubt that for June and July), but the events are also just a bit too far apart to justify staying with one of my parents for two months while I've got a perfectly good room of my own here in Leicester. I'll also have to move out of my room in late June, so I presume some of the timing also hinges on whether I'll need to move somewhere else. This is the case mainly because my mother and stepfather insist on helping me move and so if I have to move elsewhere, I could perhaps arrange it so that I fly to Eindhoven for UCR's graduation, then drive back to the UK with them, fly to whatever's the cheapest Dutch destination from the airport closest to my (hopefully) new home to attend the Amsterdam conference, stay with my father for a week or two, take the train to Heidelberg and then eventually fly back home from Frankfurt.
I guess that would work best, but it hinges on so many ifs that I'd rather not plan for anything as of this moment.
We'll see. Who knows what happens (fingers crossed for the good stuff though!)
PS I've been reading too many articles on 'personal branding' on the internet lately, so don't be surprised if you see the lay-out of this blog change very often etc.
PPS Of course my fulminating against UCR's change of everything didn't do much but (probably) raise my blood pressure.
Goodbye RA (it's a goodbye, not a farewell - it's a name that won't ever die!); hello UCR and your still-pink website...
Grade (I) (14 February 2013)
I enjoy telling when things go well, and seeing as I today received my grade for my Understanding Crime essay (on Developmental Life-Course Theories), I feel like I have some ground for thinking things are going well.
I received a Distinction, which I hadn't entirely anticipated seeing as I found this essay the most difficult to write - I'd expected a Merit at the very best. So I'm happy.
Some of the negatives include a fairly short conclusion which did "not do full justice to [my] argument"; I should not have used subheadings, and I should have included some of the information of my second section in my introduction instead to make the importance of the point I was arguing clearer. Also, I did not entirely adhere to referencing standards (I blame RefWorks for that, although I really should not blame a computer program for my oversight).
Finally, I had not entirely followed the assignment as the assignment was to evaluate limits and benefits of Developmental Life-Course Theories because instead I had gone into the validity of these theories at certain points.
My favourite positive point says "[y]our critique was generally excellent", which is nice because I felt fairly uncertain about my ability to approach established theories critically - I often feel that they are established theories for a reason and any sort of criticism I can think up has most likely already been explored by another Criminologist. I'm not wrong in thinking that, just in thinking that therefore my critique is invalid. But my critique is excellent, so there.
Basically, I scored 'high' on seven of nine points, which include selection of material, linking of theory and evidence, and critical appraisal, and there's no need for me to see my tutor about this essay.
So yes, I am pleased. And now we wait for Penology to be returned.
History (16 February 2013)
Madison and I visited the Vintage Fair here in Leicester today - it took place in the Cathedral, which I hadn't visited before, so it was a two birds - one stone type situation.
I seriously adore vintage things, not in the least because it just looks good on me. The second reason is that vintage and retro clothes usually have a fairly intricate design, meaning that even when cheap fabric has been used, they're still well-constructed. Third, the patterns are usually wildly psychedelic or just the type of ugly that makes them wonderful again. Fourth, vintage is an image and I like associating myself with that image.
So basically, I went shopping today, in the traditional sense of looking at things until you find something you like rather than going in for something you need.
And I did see loads of things I liked - ties, hats, gloves, bags, jewellery - but very little worth the money left at the end of my student loan-month (which is now).
What I did buy, however, was a lovely scarf for 1 pound. It's of course completely polyester, which would've been a pity except what else do you expect for a pound. Besides, it's got a pattern with brown, white, orange and salmon pink, which sounds quite hideous but looks pretty good (as said, so ugly it's wonderful).
The colour combination works wonders with a men's jacket I found. I doubt it's actually tweed, though it looks enough like it to pass for tweed. The jacket label never says what the fabric is except 'tailored in USA from imported fabric'; most other jackets did and I specifically ignored the poly-mix ones, but I couldn't pass this one over for something fully made of wool. It's fully lined and the fabric is sturdy, woven in a herringbone pattern, and it has shank buttons rather than flat ones (I don't like flat ones on jackets). It's a sort of greyish brown, with some green, blue, orange and pink.
It's not as stuffy as most tweed jackets (that is, if you ignore the smell of mothballs); I've been wanting a tweed-ish jacket for a while now, preferably too large for me (hence men's jacket), because it works so well with both vintage and, well, to stick with stereotypes - with academia.
It also works wonders as a spring/autumn coat.
I then went out shopping for a new pair of shoes and a book bag, not because I wanted to but because I needed to - my old pair of flat shoes has been 'walked-out' for weeks now, and it's been months at least since the straps on my old book bag snapped and I've made do with a small purse and a plastic bag since, but seeing as I had to be in town today anyway for the Fair, I figured it'd be a nice time to pick up some new "school stuff" as well. It is rather unfortunate that spring is upon us, in a sense, because finding flat lace-up black shoes that don't look as if my mum picked them out for me (as a manner of speaking of course, mum always let me pick out my own shoes) is almost impossible, as is finding a book bag that isn't an over-sized purse.
For you history geeks out there, by the way, I took a picture of the famous Leicester car park, as I promised months and months ago.
It is, actually literally, a stone's throw away (as in, across the street) from Leicester Cathedral (which is really a sort of over-sized village church, but that's a completely different matter). Perhaps York Minster has a more appropriate sort of grandeur to it - no, not 'perhaps', I've seen York Minster, that's a 'definitely' - but as there is a proper cathedral across the street from his last resting place, I fully support re-interring Richard III in Leicester Cathedral.
Also because, Seriously York, you've already got plenty of reasons for people to visit your city - don't you think that Leicester should have something too, even if "just" a vilified King's grave?
Grade (II) (18 February 2013)
Am I bragging?
Yes.
Though I guess my bragging is not entirely undeserved - I managed to get another Distinction, for my Penology paper this time. And then not just a grade on the threshold - like my Understanding Crime paper - but a real, proper Distinction - 78.
One more like this and I'll have fulfilled the requirement of 60 credits at 70+ for the MSc with Distinction degree (the other two are no fails and 70+ on the dissertation).
Some of my friends and family at home may have their doubts about 70+, especially as Dutch unis usually grade on a 10.0 scale and UCR on a 4.0 GPA scale. However, as Cum Laude starts there at 8.0 and 3.5 respectively, I suppose then that I'll have something like 8.5 / 3.9 or so.
The critique is absolutely lovely, with the only commentary being that two sentences were not entirely brilliant (upon second reading, I agree) and, as with the UC paper, that my referencing was not entirely correct (due to RefWorks, I'll be keeping an eye on that in the future).
For the rest, "excellent piece of work", "range of literature [...] thoroughly digested", and, my absolute favourite, "a pleasure to read".
I argued that young people should not be treated the same as adults in the criminal justice system, but my assignment was to what extent the age of the offender should influence the punishment, so I also spent a paragraph explaining that the elderly should also have their age considered, of course, but only in terms of mental capacity and fitness to plead and are thus normally equal to healthy adults of every age. Apparently, this consideration was valued, because the marker explicitly mentioned it as a positive point.
I scored 'high' on each of the following nine points:
- structure of argument
- clarity of expression
- grammar and use of language
- referencing
- selection of material
- marshalling of evidence
- understanding of the theory
- linking of theory & evidence
- critical appraisal
So, uhm, yeah, I'm quite proud of myself here. I'm even thinking of uploading the paper to Academia.edu, but I'm not sure yet.
Oh. And I won't have to see my tutor about my paper.
UPDATE: I just received notice that the ethics form I had to fill out for my dissertation has been approved (not that strange considering my dissertation is news-article-based)... Good News Week.
Grade (III) (20 February 2013)
I received my last grades back now too, for Research Methods.
And I'm a bit disappointed - I only receive a Merit rather than a Distinction, which is, in all truth, still good.
And besides, 68 is a rather high Merit, too, only 2 points short of Distinction. But it is not a Distinction.
I somehow messed up my qualitative assignment, which does not entirely surprise me because I just CAN'T write short papers. I can't express myself in 1000 or 2000 words, 2500 seems to be the absolute minimum (last year, I had so much trouble getting my Dorian Gray paper from 8000 to 6000 words). My analysis was good, according to the commentary, I just didn't write it down in a structured fashion. I also should have included more literature, but apparently I just can't write an analysis AND a literature review in 1000 words. I should work on that. I passed it, though.
My research proposal was - well, it was meh. The review does end with "a very encouraging proposal", which is good, but again I had some structural issues. What I do find irritating is that in some of my earlier essays I've been told I used too many subheadings, and now on this research proposal I used too few. WHAT DO THEY WANT?! Still got a Merit on that one, though a very average Merit.
My SPSS assignment was good. I received a 93 on that one, though 100 was possible on this thing.
It should be good news, right, getting a Merit on Research Methods? After all, this is the first time I did any sort of qualitative assignment (like, ever), and a solid Merit is still better than the B and B- I received for Methods & Statistics at UCR. But, yeah. I expected myself to do better on this.
Oh well.
Things Are Going Too Well (26 February 2013)
I'm frightened.
Not for anything in specific, not for anything graspable (though I don't particularly like moths) or abstract or even situational (though public speaking will never be my favourite thing), but because I have so little to be frightened of.
I'm working on finishing my PhD application, which I need to hand in on Friday. My two referees gladly promised to write me references, and from one I already received confirmation that they sent it in.
I travelled to Birmingham today to hand in my passport renewal form at the Dutch consulate (in a suburb called Stirchley, nonetheless), and though I'd expected them to be difficult about my autograph and photograph and proof of residence and my fingerprints, I was outside again within, say, 15 minutes. Minor setbacks: it was more expensive than I'd imagined, but only by about 5 pounds (it still is legalized robbery, especially as the passport term will be extended to 10 years in October - I'll still be stuck with a 5-year-one), and my train back to Leicester had a 20 minute delay. Nothing worrisome, especially as I managed to pick up David Lodge's Campus Trilogy (I always do tend to remember books that people tell me about that I think might be interesting to read and though I don't usually pick them up immediately, I still do so at one point or another) in what must be one of the prettiest bookshops I've ever visited - and that includes Blackwell's in Oxford and that one that's in a church in Maastricht. I'd imagined troubles with my autograph because the municipality of Hellevoetsluis was dreadfully annoying about it last summer when I registered as living at my mum's, as if autographs are static things between the ages of 17 - when you just started using your autograph seriously - and 22 - when you've already held a job that required you to use your autograph regularly, at least 5 times a day on court days in my case. Troubles with my photograph because it didn't look entirely centred to me, but if they don't make a fuss, who cares - it was a semi-decent photo too, rather good for a passport photo I must say. Trouble with proof of residence because all I have are letters from when I opened my bank account and letters from uni telling me when and how to pay my rent. Trouble with my fingerprints because though I took very good fingerprints when we did them in Forensics - Dr Bond told me so - I tend to get sweaty hands in formal situations and I'm sure electronics are awful with sweaty hands. But no fuss, no troubles, no general incompetence. In fact, I'm more pleased with how the Consulate handled this than the Hellevoetsluis municipality did five years ago when I first requested a passport. So good job Consulate.
I received an email from my dissertation supervisor in which she sent me a copy of the PALA annual conference bursary form before she sent it out - so a) that's been sent out and b) she was overwhelmingly positive in describing me. I feel terribly flattered so now I'll have to do extra well on my dissertation to live up to that.
I had a chat with my course convenor yesterday about my Cardiff PhD application and she mentioned the opportunity here in Leicester, which is a 4-year PhD with a Graduate Teaching Assistantship, deadline 31 March. I have indeed been thinking of that one too, mainly because it's a) a brilliant opportunity to get into teaching and b) has a much better financial outlook than the Cardiff one, but it's a year longer of course (though I presume a PhD at 26 instead of 25 should not make the greatest difference) and I doubted whether I'd have a good enough CV to stand any chance. She told me to send her my CV - I received a reply today, and she still encourages me to look at the Leicester PhD with GTA. I will then. If I can think of a suitable topic, because my Cardiff topic doesn't translate very well to the Leicester department unless I make it much more media-based, in which case I could ask professor Jewkes if she'd be willing to supervise. So yeah. And the teaching would of course be wonderful, I mean, that's what I want to stay in academia for, to teach undergraduates.
Things are going well, and a bit too well, too. I'm frightened that I'll somehow run out of good karma or whatever is causing me this good-news-streak and ... but why.
Food for shrinks.
We'll see how long the streak keeps up. Fingers crossed it'll be long enough for me not to make a fool of myself at one point or another and long enough to receive a positive reply to at least one application.
Greed and Confusion; Murders and Executions (27 February 2013)
Yesterday I still knew what I wanted.
I don't anymore today.
The basics are still there of course - PhD, then lecturing somewhere, and maybe sometime in my life do some other masters like Criminal Law or Forensic Linguistics or something, and perhaps also do something politics like Ministry of Justice or so. But this is all long term.
I'm currently confused as to the 'where' of the PhD. Until this morning I was certain of Cardiff - I like Cardiff, I want Cardiff, I need Cardiff, and that need still has not changed because the opportunities Cardiff offers haven't changed. It's still perfect.
But then there is also that one Leicester PhD with the Graduate Teaching Assistantship. It has a salary. And waives UK/EU tuition fees. And has a maintenance stipend. And teaching opportunities.
I've always liked going to different places for the next stage - but Leicester, as a city, is growing on me, and the GTA would mean I wouldn't have to spend three years eating nothing but baked beans on toast. I might even be able to start paying off my student debts and stop feeling guilty about always buying books.
Money. It's about money, and now I feel greedy. Aren't academics, like artists, supposed to more or less starve for their calling? After all, didn't Socrates go around wearing rags because he couldn't care less?
And at Cardiff I could do my corporate crime thing. I'm not sure whether I could do that at Leicester.
WHAT SHOULD I DO?
Difficult.
On a completely unrelated note (except that maybe it counts as research), I have been reading American Psycho. I liked the superficiality and the idea that Patrick Bateman goes totally mad. It surprised me how disturbing I found the torture and murder scenes. Gory things usually don't upset me - heck, I'm even looking forward to the Forensics class where we'll be told about and shown photos of crime scenes. But there is something distinctly upsetting about sticking a drill in someone's mouth while it's on and keeping rotting breasts on a porcelain dish, something that goes too far even for me. Not sure whether I'd want to read it again, maybe I'll just stick to the film.
Because at least the gory of the film is the type of gory I don't mind. And the business card scene is priceless.
But the film doesn't have as many references to Les Miserables, which I think is a major thing in the interpretation of the novel...
HELP! (28 February 2013)
I just clicked 'SUBMIT' on the online application form for the Cardiff PhD.
I am now truly terrified.
Fingers crossed and all that stuff.
I like conferences.
They provide a very decent excuse to go some place interesting, talk to like-minded people about stuff that interests most attendees but no one else in the entire world, and just have fun.
I guess they're kind of like a group holiday for academics.
And today is the best day, for me, to book my attendance of the PALA conference in Heidelberg. I read the other two parts of the Campus Trilogy, Small World and Nice Work over the weekend, and this morning when I walked onto campus I saw a man who looked eerily like how I pictured the bearded Philip Swallow - tall, grey haired-and-bearded with a bald spot.
Today is also a good day for it because registration opened.
Of course I also signed up for Summer School, because how can I not when one of my former lecturers is teaching half of it and loads of fun people have said they'd join. Besides, I've managed to justify to myself most parts of the teaching programme as being useful in my Criminology studies (oh, the joys of an inherently interdisciplinary field!). I guess perceiving crime as the result of criminalisation, in turn a manner of maintaining and altering power-relations in society, allows for a great range of such justifications (and also explains why economics and political philosophy are still so interesting to me).
But, so, yes, I've booked my academic "summer camp" (it is kind of like that, too). If only it were summer yet.
PhD Application Qualification Verification (06 March 2013)
I had a minor heart attack just now because, as I do every 10 minutes, I checked my application status on the Cardiff website thing whatever for applications, and suddenly my qualifications box was empty and I was like, WHAT.
But then I checked the application form there and it says that everything other than my Leicester degree has been verified - of course they can't verify my Leicester degree, I don't have it yet.
So that's probably why.
I hope that's why, at least.
On the upside, that hopefully means I'll either hear a very cruel "NO" soon or get an invitation for an interview, like, soon too. Fingers crossed and all that.
In the meanwhile, I'll go back to having minor heart attack about other things that I shouldn't be having minor heart attacks over. Lators.
PS To remain faithful to the spirit of Imperial March, I will be giving a short presentation on American Psycho today in Media & Crime.
Deutsch (06 March 2013)
I just realized that I'll have to dig up my old schoolbooks to polish my German; mein LinkedIn-Profil sagt dass ich Deutsch spreche, aber ich glaube nicht dass mein Deutsch gut genug ist für eine kurze Reise... (I solemnly swear I did not use Google Translate for that sentence).
It's of course grammar that does it, I tend to add 'e's where they're not needed and drop them where they are, and Der/Die/Das/Die is a complete horror too (I get about far enough to distinguish between forms in Nominativ - usually - and while I do know the purpose of akkusativ/dativ/genitiv [I've had 5 years of Latin, after all], I just can't... absorb it. Never could.).
Nominativ: Der/Die/Das/Die
Akkusativ: Den/Die/Das/Die
Dativ: Dem/Der/Dem/Den
Genitiv: Des/Der/Des/Der
See, my father can do those 16 off the top of his head (and likes to show off that he can, too ;) ), but I can't (but then, I speak Academic English, so there), so I'll have to do a bit of studying.
Vocabulary is fine, of course, usually, and if I don't know it I'll just go for the standard wie sagt Man dass... I glaube... ja... est ist and then a description.
If all else fails, I'll start reciting the lyrics from Ich wär' so gerne Millionär, if only to do justice to the fact that I am supposed to have had four years of German class, 2 hours per week, in secondary school. I'm sure my former German instructor will be very happy to hear that of all the things he tried to teach me, I remember that song best. And Flämmchen, of course.
Ah, but as long as I know zwei Bier und ein Bratwurst bitte I won't starve.
Email (11 March 2013)
So this morning, while I was fiddling around with my mobile in Forensics (during the break, though, so no lack of attention for the lesson, promise!), I received an email from Cardiff.
The usual stuff, heart racing, terrified it would say no, all that stuff.
But it didn't say no.
What it did say was that I'll receive news soon about whether I'm shortlisted for funding and whether I'll be invited for an interview.
Of course the email also came with the disclaimer that there's loads of brilliant candidates and that they're having a tough time making decisions (i.e. don't get your hopes up too much really!) so yeah we'll see.
Basically, it was a confirmation of receipt of my application.
I'm even more anxious and terrified now.
Passport (12 March 2013)
It'd be vain to assume the Dutch Ambassador in London would read this post, and even more vain to assume the Minister for Foreign Affairs would. But if either of them does - thanks for the brilliant service.
Seriously.
When I went to apply for my new passport at the Birmingham consulate, I was already surprised at the efficiency and at how professionally they dealt with me. The whole process was so clear - fill out the form, have your picture taken at one of the places that has received instructions about Dutch passport photos, make an appointment, show up for your appointment, hand over your stuff, have your fingerprints taken (whether I'm happy with that is a different matter entirely), hand over your money, and go.
In and out in under 20 minutes - and no waiting, besides.
The consular official told me I'd have my stuff in about two to three weeks.
It's been two weeks, to the day (!), and I've just picked up my new passport from the porter's office here in Leicester. Now that's timely service.
And I like my new passport - I like the turquoise and the way my autograph looks and that I don't look like a criminal in my picture. My last photograph really did resemble some of the newspaper pics of Myra Hindley. And, most of all, I like how it says 'Ambassadeur te London' for the issuing authority - it makes me feel like a secret agent, like I don't just have some ordinary passport but one especially issued by the ambassador so I can provide special services for King and Country (yesss I'm thinking of the future) - on the other hand it also is a step away from the banality of having a passport issued by municipality, it's a sort of step away from mundanely living in the Netherlands.
What I'm also very happy with is the fact that I received my old passport and ID card back. I had to hand them over and though I didn't regret that, I do like the fact that I now get to retain my two Egyptian and my one Moroccan visa. Even though there've been holes punched through them and they were only valid for six weeks max anyway.
Major brownie points for the Consulate and Ambassador for providing a great service overall. So, Minister for Foreign Affairs, if I were you I'd give them a good pat on the back for this. The government isn't all horror and buzzkills.
Cold Again (14 March 2013)
I'm not talking about meteorological cold this time, just the physical one, the one that's brought on by rhinovirus (mass noun, I learn something new every day).
Anyway, I'm fine, except for the cough. Besides, it proves a brilliant excuse to be spending too much time in bed watching Dr Who.
So not much news so far, just that I've made all currently possible preparations for the Heidelberg Conference (which means that I've registered and booked a hostel, all I need to do now is figure out whether I'm flying in or taking a train) and that some other things are going fairly well too - though still waiting for news from Cardiff, which is getting scarier every second BUT I guess the longer it takes the higher my chances of being short-listed. I hope. Fingers crossed and all that.
Anyway, happy Pi Day (I didn't even buy pie today, let alone bake one - came straight back home after Transnational Policing... blah) and I'll go back to watching Dr Who so I can flex my what I guess should be called 'speculative physics'-thinking... I'm not very good at physics (never was), but I still like discussing the possibilities of time travel and alternate dimensions with some of my far more physics-versed and infinitely more intelligent friends... Haven't done it in forever though, I really should again, it's good for my logical thinking.
Oh, and I saw Cardiff on Dr Who the other day. Looks pretty, like a mix between Middelburg and Vlissingen... I like pretty.
Ah, no, that should be 'I found Cardiff looking aesthetically pleasing, and aesthetically pleasing environs stimulate my thinking as well as alleviate any dark moods' - I should be turning in a proper academic, and should be talking proper Academese...
What the hell, Cardiff looked pretty on TV.
Cool. Cool cool cool.
Duvet Cover (15 March 2013)
Okay, so I lied a tiny bit yesterday - I'm bothered by a tiny bit more than a cough - say head ache and tiredness. Still a normal common cold though, should be better in the morning, it's the normal pattern, one day properly ill and then back to normal.
The most peculiar thing though - whenever I'm not feeling well, I seem to be reminded of this duvet cover I used to have as a child. It was yellow - custard yellow - with thin white stripes on the one side, and white with custard yellow thin strips on the other side.
I wonder what happened to that cover, it was one of my favourites. It probably unravelled and ended up in my dad's rag box - it must've been as old as me, if not older. It went with us on holiday once, I think, probably France or Germany - one of the car trips, so must've been either of those - and maybe I tend to remember it when I'm ill because that's the only duvet cover in my mind whenever I remember when I was ill as a child.
If I ever find a similar duvet cover, I need to have it - there's something incredibly soothing about custard yellow-with-thin-white-stripes.
Btw, this is not it:
Sorry about all the illness posts, people, but since my parents are my most loyal readers, I guess I should keep them properly informed about me having the flu.
Plus, I get to be melodramatic.
I did something incredibly foolish today (and I'm sure I'll hear all about my foolishness soon)...
I went into the library, determined to finish a new draft of my research proposal (I'm also applying here in Leicester, after all, and they require a full research proposal), I snottered* my way there, picked up some methodological sources that I desperately needed and then sat down behind a computer to annoy a bearded hipster by blowing my nose every five minutes.
So far so good, until I went to the library café for an orange juice and a pepperoni panini. It was good to eat something - very good, actually - except that panini are toasted and so I had toasted crumbs tickling my throat, meaning I had a bit of a coughing fit.
Under the spiteful gaze of other customers I finally decided to take my sources and catch a bus home. I did, I finished the research proposal from the confines of my mint-green-coloured room (sixties buildings...), but next time I'll try to heed my mum's old advice to not go to school when you're ill, not even when you really, really need to.
Pinky swear, mum.
*Snottered is not a proper word. I don't care. It's my direct translation of snotteren, which means either blubbering or snivelling, but since blubbering is more like a very messy sort of toddler-like crying and snivelling feels very similar to sneering - probably the 'sn'-phonaestheme (HA! See, I remember stuff from LLADS), I feel that the only mot juste there is 'snottered'. It's the only proper way to express the - excuse the graphicness - snot being stuck in your head and your nose and it's dripping from every orifice and you're going through a six-pack of kleenex in a day. Basically, 'to snotter' is the only proper verb to capture in one word what it's like to have a cold.
All Better (18 March 2013)
Well, I'm not entirely better yet, but well enough at least to do something again. So I didn't have the flu, that was the melodramatic bit, but I did have a serious fever day on Friday. Still have a cough and a very very congested head, and I very much do hope that that cough is the first thing to go because if the congestion goes first I'll end up with a dry cough. The thing I know works best for dry coughs is noscapine, which I don't think I can't get over the counter here because it's an opiate and I was already having the most difficult time trying to locate normal ibuprofen (so not liquid or fast-working or anything, just normal no-fuss ibuprofen) heavier than 200mg.
But so I feel mostly better again today, so mum, dad, no need to worry about me anymore, I'm fine.
I received comments from one of my professors here in Leicester about a research proposal for my PhD - I really want to research it now, not just have a fascinating topic to say "look, I've got a PhD-worthy idea!" but actually find out what's there - and it was really good commentary, as it had some really good points where I could improve but more importantly, points where I'd done things right. So I feel very encouraged now, and I'll definitely, definitely go on and submit an application here too.
The What-Ifs decided to haunt me again this weekend, so I made a back-up plan, a Plan C if you wish. It involves moving back to the Netherlands, getting a job - I can do both retail and administrative, so should be okay for a bit - and spending my time on a Law bachelor's at Utrecht, which I can finish in 2 years because I am exempt from a number of courses, and then in the meanwhile I can try again for PhD programmes until I find one that suits me and wants me. It never hurts to have an LLB.
It was foggy this morning, and then grey all day, but when I returned to Mary Gee there was a gorgeous bit of sunshine, and everything looked so much prettier. I suddenly noticed the daisies in the very, very green grass and snowdrops in the flowerbeds and how the croci and daffodils and all the trees are silently waiting to burst with colour.
Once, in my first year Rhetoric class, I had to write an Encomium and, seeing as it was about the same time of year as it is now, I did it on spring, because that's one of the best things about late February/March/April, when the sun comes out and all the plants blossom and everyone's happy. I couldn't compare spring to anything, however, so I refused to add a comparison, and I did receive a comment from my lecturer on that. I stand, however, by my refusal to compare spring to anything - what, truly, is comparable to the joy and hope contained in those moments where you suddenly notice that chill is finally about to fade from the air? George Harrison captured it very well in Here Comes the Sun, so I guess the feeling of spring is comparable to imagining the feeling of spring when listening to Here Comes the Sun, but that's like cheating at comparison, isn't it?
In fact, that must've been the same semester that I spent 6 out of 15 weeks with Here Comes the Sun stuck in my head. I'm surprised I'm not yet sick of it.
Except that the chill is not about to fade from the air. There's no snow predicted for Leicestershire for the next 10 days (praise whatever Deity you decided listens to you), but it will get cold again, about 4-5 Celsius. This annoys me, also because I've been really wanting to rock my new old tweed jacket and I still can't because I can't wear it under my coat - it's a man's jacket, it needs to be worn on its own - but mainly because I'm now truly sick (literally) and tired (also literally) of those long, long, long winter days.
But at least it now no longer gets dark at 4:30, now we've got daylight until about 6:15. It's something.
This Is Not The Answer You'Re Looking For (22 March 2013)
I got my Cardiff email.
It said 'no'.
Well, actually it said 'unfortunately your application was not one of those short-listed for interview' and then a bunch of apologies about how this year's competition was very strong etc., the usual set of euphemisms for saying 'haha, your application wasn't good enough!'.
I'm not sure yet how I feel about it, though I do feel a bit sad that I now no longer have a valid excuse to spend 50 pounds on a return ticket for the train to Cardiff and visit the Doctor Who experience. In any case I'm not nearly as disappointed as I was last year when Cambridge rejected me, though I must say I think Cambridge may have had much more valid reasons.
Because I'm now wondering what went wrong. After all, I do feel my credentials are quite strong - my secondary school grades are good (two 9s, in English and Literature, a whole set of 8s, some 7s and one 6 for Latin), as are my undergraduate grades (they more or less equate to a First, according to Fulbright - in any case it's a definite and strong First if one disregards my C+ in Calculus, and a) are there Criminologists who need advanced Calculus? and b) I think my C+ in Calculus should actually make my grades stronger even though it brough my GPA down by a tenth). I'm heading towards a Merit or a Distinction in my postgrad. I've got a load of cool extracurriculars, such as working in a court for one and a half years, chairing the Literature Commission, doing Ambassador things and being a Course Rep, plus I'm enrolled in the University of Leicester's Leadership and Management Award.
Besides, my research proposal has both been called 'interesting' and 'strong' by two different professors.
I did everything right in my personal statement.
Maybe they prefer people who don't have C+s in Calculus and who've already finished their Master's. I'm more or less annoyed, I think, just because they're taking away one of my options. As good as my back-up plan of heading back to the Netherlands and enrolling in a 2-year-LLB is, it's not something I'm desperately eager to do... But I still have my Leicester application.
What I will do now, though, is head to one of the second-hand charity bookshops on Queens Road and spend 20 pounds on a CS Lewis Narnia boxed book set.
Maybe I just shouldn't apply for universities in places that start with a 'C'.
PS On a completely unrelated upside, none of my belts fit properly anymore - they're all too long. Yay, losing weight/body mass.
PPS I just now sent in registration for the LLB in Utrecht. It makes me quite giddy, also because .... blaaah, Bachelor's degree all over again...
PPPS My awesome friend Kristy got a 'yes' from Oxford. I told her so. Also that's epic.
When God Closes A Door, Somewhere He Opens A Window (22 March 2013)
It's 11:22 and I've been watching Doctor Who again, but this time while enjoying a tub of Ben & Jerry's cookie dough (because Sainsbury's had the brilliant sense of timing to have half off on Ben & Jerry's today).
And I've been re-reading the Cardiff says no email.
I don't think Cardiff said no to me. Not precisely, at least. And they're academics, so you should sort of expect them to be precise.
What they said to me was that my ESRC funding application has - well, not been rejected, but not short-listed.
Also my Cardiff application page doesn't say anything, it still says a decision will be made in 4 weeks after receipt.
Of course, rejecting my ESRC funding application still more or less kills my Cardiff application, but that's more because of personal finances, not because I'm not ticking all the boxes - because I *am* ticking all the boxes, or at least I should be.
I haven't received an official email from the Registry yet, perhaps the Registry email will hold the definite 'NO', but as of now I still have hope for an unaffordable 'yes'.
We'll see what happens. I could always try to get a job (don't laugh, I'm sure I'd be reasonably good at a real job!).
Ah, the uncertainty of applications. I'm just not patient enough for the whole process. I guess that's what scares me most - not having anything to do next year. Then what do I do? Get a job, a flat, a car and a cat? Can I actually get a job in this economy? I can't stay with my parents for too long, we'll all annoy the living daylights out of one another (I love them to pieces, but we're all way too stubborn). I need to do something next year. If this isn't the definite Cardiff no, and Cardiff ends up saying yes, and no other place says yes, I guess I'll just try and scrape things together... There's always a way.
Except that I need to know my limits, as I've been told in the past. Do limits exist, though? Are there such things? I don't know, but it seems I'll be finding out soon enough...
Scared (25 March 2013)
I'm scared of the What-Ifs.
What If... I can't do a PhD next year?
What If... I'll have to move back to the Netherlands?
What If... I then still can't get a job?
What If... I can get a job but it's for 10 hours a week at a local shop?
What If... I'll be stuck in dead-end jobs for the rest of my life and will thus have wasted time on getting a BA and an MSc?
I was getting a little more optimistic about the economy lately, that is, until they pulled the Cyprus-plug.
I really do want to stay in the UK and I really do want to get a job in academia - anything is fine by me, though if at all possible I'd really like to be a teacher or researcher - but I'm afraid that going by the way things are now, I should not have too many hopes.
But let's trudge on. Next week might be different.
Boring And I Like It! (28 March 2013)
(Warning: don't take stuff too seriously. Also don't confuse liking boring things with being a boring person)
So much for the melodrama - I feel much better now, thanks.
My congestion cleared up pretty much in sync with my cough, so I'm happily spared the dry cough. Nevertheless, I still asked my dad to bring over noscapine. Just in case.
I seem to have most of my hearing back, too, which is good.
Finally, I stopped feeling hopeless about my future. I'd hit a bit of a low point with my last post, I presume, but now I remember that there's always, somehow, a way. I probably just get a bit melodramatic over set-backs because I'm not actually used to them. In fact, the biggest set-backs I've experienced so far include a uni rejection, a job rejection ('a', as in a grand total of one), a funding rejection, and not always getting what I wanted when I wanted it - but, with regards to the last thing, I often did end up with a version of what I wanted later on, so those aren't truly set-backs. If that's the sum of all my set-backs, I should count myself lucky and I usually do, but it's so easy to forget sometimes.
That's also why I'm terrible at telling anecdotes - I don't really have any good stories in which everything goes wrong. I didn't even get seasick during the Cruise of Horror last year and "so yeah, I ended up fetching water for everyone and pouring it over their faces" doesn't do much in terms of heroism either. I'm really much better at telling fairy tales, which my dad will surely attest to.
I attended one of the lectures in the Scarman Lecture Series here in Leicester today, and it was on being a police researcher and, more importantly, about the ethics and authenticity of that type of ethnographic research. I love ethnographic research, it's got such a feeling of adventure to it, but that's not the point - during the Q&A at the end, it was mentioned that in lots of ethnographic research things, the more salient bits are pointed out while the boring bits are... 'left on the cutting room floor' (my interpretation plus editing reference). It got me thinking - what bits of my life should be left on the cutting room floor? As said, I don't have any good anecdotes, no grand extraordinary tales, no 'remember that time when's.
Oh, I have that one time that I thought I was locked in an alley in Oxford for about three minutes once.
And that's wildly comforting. I'm jumping the right hoops, I'm not deviating too much either way, and so while I may not have anything super-exciting to say, at least I won't also have to be scared of everything going wrong.
I like boring. I like the minutiae of corporate crime and tax evasion and all that. Boring is just really my thing.
Gee, I must've been such an easy child...
New Things (28 March 2013)
As I was cycling downhill to the city centre earlier today, I gazed upon the hills on the other side of the Soar valley. There was still residual snow there, and it looked positively alpine, also because the sun illuminated parts of it. It was pretty.
Furthermore got myself a new pair of Converse, as my old pink ones really aren't suitable for wearing out in public any more (which is why I haven't really worn them in ages) and I also do like Converse for walking around, as they're very comfortable - I'll have to do lots of walking around soon. I always get High-Tops because I have fairly weak ankles and these sort of support them.
And a new purse, since the last one I bought isn't holding up very well and I'm fed up with my little purses, which only hold my wallet and keys.
Here's a pic:
So, turns out my trip to London had completely wrong timing - not only is the weather much better this week, but they also shot stuff for Doctor Who today. My dear friend Danou saw them though, on Trafalgar Square. I'm only slightly jealous ;)
Coincidences continue with this clip: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p017gl8h, mainly because Strax says 'flying predators called pigeons' - it's coincidental because though most people really hate pigeons, me included, my Dad and I had a thing going all week about pigeons secretly being aliens out to destroy all of humankind - my Dad had this hilarious thing going on when we walked back from Buckingham Palace to Green Park station about pigeons hiding teeth in their beaks and how one pigeon marching back and forth among a small group was a general inspecting the troops and how a pigeon on the path was out to attack me. He also pointed one out to me telling me how that was the evil one and that you should never trust a pigeon.
It's a good thing though my Dad and I are certifiably not mad. I think.
Tuesday Drinks (17 April 2013)
As the weather outside is getting warmer again, I am reminded of going out in Middelburg. Do mind that this post concerns memories that might be slightly rosy-tinted.
Going out in Middelburg was completely different from the way we go out here in Leicester. It did often include a pub - Seventy Seven, De Mug, or, before it was demolished, Barrel - but usually ended in a Koestraat common room or Bagijnhof living room..
Actually, on warm spring and autumn evenings, going out in Middelburg would often be punctuated by lying down on the Market Square, gazing up at the stars, and discussing life, the universe and everything. Actually, every place in Middelburg attended by RA/UCR students was a place to discuss life, the universe and everything.
One of my favourite traditions of the time was Tuesday Drinks, a fairly random and small collection of people, and we would gather on Tuesdays (but not every Tuesday) around 9, 10-ish, as Wednesday was our traditional day off (though over my six semesters at RA, I've only had three in which I didn't actually have class on Wednesdays). There would inevitably be six-packs of whatever brand of beer was cheap that week - 'but not the really cheap stuff because that's like flavoured water' - crisps, chocolate, a stack of plastic cups and a deck of cards. We'd start out discussing the latest gossip - inevitable in a university college of 600 - but quickly moved on to discuss politics. I vividly remember having a discussion on whether Mubarak's reign in Egypt around the end of my first year - mind, this was way before the Arab spring - was democratically valid, and whether he'd last much longer. Politics often led to philosophy and theology, while the deck of cards and the plastic cups led to games of King's Cup and, once bored of it, Never Have I Ever.
What strikes me in retrospect is the ease with which we switched from topic to topic, and the respect we had for each other's points. We had markedly different political views, and of course our discussions turned quite heavy and a bit shouty every once in a while, but it was all done in good fun. Some of the discussions touched on topics that might have solicited very different reactions from different people - for instance, though our little collection was half female, half male, there was no rudeness from anyone with regards to sexuality, whether we discussed pornography (it was easily taken for fact that yes, women like porn too), experiences (no slut-shaming) or anything else of the sort. Everything was up for debate, whether we should put the fake goldfish floating in a half-empty Bagijnhof fish bowl into the King's Cup which at that moment held a particularly awful mixture of beer and Bailey's, or whether Plato or Aristotle's model of the perfect government would be better suited to deal with the global economic crisis.
We even put forward Quidditch practice once as something to try out - which we did, even trying to set up a team, before our efforts fizzled as graduation approached.
Going out in Leicester's good fun, and I'm sure that everything is still up for debate and I'm sure that my fellow Criminologists would approach such topics with the same kind of respect and sensitivity. Actually, I know they will, as similar things have been discussed here, both at parties and, for instance, in the library.
But in Tuesday Drinks we had a forum, and if there is one desire I have for the next room or flat I rent, it's that it needs to have enough space to invite people over for dinner parties and drinks.
To Tuesday Drinks.
Tan (07 May 2013)
So it's been a while.
I've polished and finished my essays, and I've started on collecting news articles on corporate tax evasion by multinationals in the UK as reported over fall 2012 and spring 2013 for my dissertation.
To finish the essays we sort of formed a small library gang, hanging out there everyday from about 10 to 7, just to help each other do this and finish. And it worked tremendously well, as well as just being fun - especially now that the weather's turned warm and sunny (it's 20C right now!) and we got to spend hours in the park.
I'm still waiting for news from Leicester and London about the PhDs, but that will probably still be a good number of weeks.
So now I'm more or less stuck waiting for my grades (hand in was today, so it'll be another three weeks) and doing dissertation.
But today will be a park day, celebrating hand-in, and tomorrow I'll attend stuff for course rep and other interesting things. Oh, and do a proper spring clean this time around, since now it's warm enough to actually drag stuff outside while I clean my room.
I will be posting updates about my dissertation etc in the future, as well as perhaps excerpts from my essays, because some of the stuff I wrote was pretty okay I suppose.
But let's first try and work on my tan.
Ain't No Party Like A Roosevelt (Grad) Party (08 June 2013)
So, I suppose I'm now back to writing a diary-like entry. That's okay, I prefer things a bit mixed in real life too, I suppose my blog should be a reflection of that - poetry, diary-like and some very serious opinions.
It was wonderful to be back in Middelburg again.
I was back for a reason - the University College Roosevelt class of 2013 graduated, and I could not not go over and congratulate them. I consider at least three of the graduates to be very good friends, but then I sat there and realised that of the 130-something graduates, I knew at least a good third, and recognized another third as people I'd been in courses with or did committee things with 'back in my day'. A further ten or twenty percent were people whose names or faces (or both) I recognized.
Imagine that - they're not students who were in my year, and very many of them weren't even in my department, and yet I recognized about 3/4 of them.
It's not only easy to imagine that a university college of 600 is close-knit, it's even more strikingly easy to see that this is, in fact, the case - not only did I recognize them, a good amount recognized me in turn!
There's always a good reason to return to Middelburg - it's very pretty, and especially on days like yesterday it's good to spend the day out in the Zeeuwse sun and wind, to remove just about every trace of winter. And there's no better way to spend some good time in the sun with lemon-flavoured ice cream from Domani and a book while sat on the Helm square.
The ceremony was lovely as always - the grads in their black caps and gowns, the professors and lecturers in their fancy coloured robes, and all family and friends dressed up. As per usual, professor Oomen was wonderful, the commencement speaker was interesting ("Be the hero of your own story!") and the alumni gift to UCR - a mascot, a Teddy bear with a horned Viking helmet! - was awesome.
The reception afterwards, on the Abbey square, provided ample opportunity to flit around congratulating everyone wearing a black gown and have a good chat with lecturers. I got to tell one of my former Economics lecturers that I'm still using the Economic Naturalist concepts he taught me in Economics 160 to interpret Rational theories in Criminology. I got to have a chat with my former Rhetoric professor about my PhD applications. I got to talk to another lecturer about living in the UK - and also about this blog, actually (if you're reading this, Dr Lahey - hi!). I got to realise that without RA/UCR I would be such a different person now.
I got to ask so many wonderful graduates about their plans for next year, and hear so amazingly many cool replies. There's people going to Oxford and Cambridge to study things like Latin and English; there's people going to London to study things like Economics and International Relations; there's people staying in the Netherlands to do Law. There's people having obtained enviable internships with fascinating institutions and companies, and there's people planning trips to faraway destinations.
So UCR class of 2013: Congratulations. Your results are brilliant, and your plans are inspiring. I wish you so much good luck and prosperity in all your endeavours. And cheers for letting me celebrate your achievements with you.
On The Wrong Side (04 July 2013)
So, due to Mary Gee closing over the summer, I've recently had to move all my stuff over the massive distance...
of 1 mile.
The story of how I finally got to have summer accommodation is relatively long and basically consists of me worrying far too much about things that end up being fine anyway, so I'll skip that.
My main problem wasn't distance. It was time.
I had to check out of Mary Gee at 10am and wouldn't, according to the booking confirmation, be able to check in at Nixon Court until 2pm.
If I'd had a bit of overlap I could've, I dunno, have a taxi move me, or take a bus. Or walk, though, as you'll realise if you know me well enough, I brought way too many books (no such thing as too many books) over last year so walking would've killed me. But still.
So, I had two options:
1) Find someone with a car.
2) Book a car.
But cars need to be booked at least some while in advance, and I'd already lost the cheapest option (which was 48 hours in advance), and yet I hadn't found someone who could help me.
So I booked a car.
I think I gave my Dad something of a heart attack when I told him I'd be driving here. You see, my father's been driving for, oh, 43 years (45 if you count that he also had a moped between the ages of 16 and 18). He obtained every driving licence possible when doing his "service duty" (conscription) - this includes bus and lorry with trailers - except for motorcycle and tractor. But then he learned to ride a motorcycle when he was having his mid-life crisis and he drove tractors back when I was a child and we were minding my parents' friends' sheep, so basically he's qualified to drive everything. And he's driven the weirdest stuff in the weirdest places.
But never an English car on English roads.
So, basically, he is just too set in his driving-on-the-right-side ways to have confidence that he could drive safely on the left. And he's got all this experience, too.
I, on the other hand, did not obtain my driving licence until I was 19 and I've hardly driven since. It's not that I *can't* drive - when I get into a car, my hands and feet automatically do what they have to do. It's just that I haven't done it very often.
I wasn't scared, I was slightly nervous but excited.
Perhaps that was also one of the reasons I didn't look too hard for someone to help me out - I sort of really wanted to drive, and then drive on the other side!
So I ended up picking up this lovely burnt orange Opel Corsa (yes, I am aware that technically they're called 'Vauxhall' here, but I've been saying Opel Corsa all my life, it loses its proper rhythm when I say Vauxhall), and got in.
Couldn't get it started.
Well, that's brilliant. I felt like a right idiot.
They started it for me, and I drove off.
And you know what, it wasn't difficult or weird at all.
The pedals were still in their proper spots, as were the wipers and the blinkers. The gear box was on my other side, but the gears were in the proper order too.
So all I really had to do was remember that the mass of the car was on my left rather than on my right and that I needed to change gear towards me instead of away, and with my left hand rather than my right.
And stick to the left!
Thankfully, it was a clear, sunny and calm Saturday morning, so I had no trouble whatsoever getting out of Leicester city centre. I anticipated trouble going up the hill, because I hadn't done that for such a long time and what if I had to stop going up the hill? But when I had to, my feet did all my work for me. Then the roundabout, but I just went with the flow of traffic and ended up where I had to be - though I was far more conscientious in my use of the blinkers than the rest was (maybe it's not obligatory here to use your blinkers when leaving the roundabout? Dunno...). I arrived at Mary Gee 20 minutes after picking up the car, and that was a bit sad - I'd just gotten used to it, and moreover, I enjoyed it much more than driving on the right side!
I got to drive again on Sunday, of course, to move, but 1.5 miles wasn't enough, so later that night I went out to drive a bit more, before handing the car in on Monday.
It actually made me sad to hand in the car. I'd loved driving around here.
The other motorists were absolutely courteous, patiently waiting when I manage to stall it (only once, though, with good reason - regardless of the situation Dutch drivers would've beeped though), keeping to the speed limit, giving just about everyone right of way (Dutch drivers just take whatever opportunity they can get)...
And I *LOVE* the lights - it's so brilliant to know it'll be green in a bit when it's red/yellow. Like, it's green, then yellow, then red, then red/yellow and then green again - wonderful! Plus, there are lights also a bit further on, so you don't have to twist around the wheel to be able to actually see the lights when you're first in the queue.
So, if I do get to stay in the UK (still fingers crossed!) for a relatively long time, that's one more thing that won't be troubling me, driving here.
I suppose my Dad will disagree - I had to promise to call him every time I came back from driving a bit. Tsk. He's just too used to driving on the wrong side ;).
UPDATE: I just received notice that the ethics form I had to fill out for my dissertation has been approved (not that strange considering my dissertation is news-article-based)... Good News Week.
Grade (III) (20 February 2013)
I received my last grades back now too, for Research Methods.
And I'm a bit disappointed - I only receive a Merit rather than a Distinction, which is, in all truth, still good.
And besides, 68 is a rather high Merit, too, only 2 points short of Distinction. But it is not a Distinction.
I somehow messed up my qualitative assignment, which does not entirely surprise me because I just CAN'T write short papers. I can't express myself in 1000 or 2000 words, 2500 seems to be the absolute minimum (last year, I had so much trouble getting my Dorian Gray paper from 8000 to 6000 words). My analysis was good, according to the commentary, I just didn't write it down in a structured fashion. I also should have included more literature, but apparently I just can't write an analysis AND a literature review in 1000 words. I should work on that. I passed it, though.
My research proposal was - well, it was meh. The review does end with "a very encouraging proposal", which is good, but again I had some structural issues. What I do find irritating is that in some of my earlier essays I've been told I used too many subheadings, and now on this research proposal I used too few. WHAT DO THEY WANT?! Still got a Merit on that one, though a very average Merit.
My SPSS assignment was good. I received a 93 on that one, though 100 was possible on this thing.
It should be good news, right, getting a Merit on Research Methods? After all, this is the first time I did any sort of qualitative assignment (like, ever), and a solid Merit is still better than the B and B- I received for Methods & Statistics at UCR. But, yeah. I expected myself to do better on this.
Oh well.
Things Are Going Too Well (26 February 2013)
I'm frightened.
Not for anything in specific, not for anything graspable (though I don't particularly like moths) or abstract or even situational (though public speaking will never be my favourite thing), but because I have so little to be frightened of.
I'm working on finishing my PhD application, which I need to hand in on Friday. My two referees gladly promised to write me references, and from one I already received confirmation that they sent it in.
I travelled to Birmingham today to hand in my passport renewal form at the Dutch consulate (in a suburb called Stirchley, nonetheless), and though I'd expected them to be difficult about my autograph and photograph and proof of residence and my fingerprints, I was outside again within, say, 15 minutes. Minor setbacks: it was more expensive than I'd imagined, but only by about 5 pounds (it still is legalized robbery, especially as the passport term will be extended to 10 years in October - I'll still be stuck with a 5-year-one), and my train back to Leicester had a 20 minute delay. Nothing worrisome, especially as I managed to pick up David Lodge's Campus Trilogy (I always do tend to remember books that people tell me about that I think might be interesting to read and though I don't usually pick them up immediately, I still do so at one point or another) in what must be one of the prettiest bookshops I've ever visited - and that includes Blackwell's in Oxford and that one that's in a church in Maastricht. I'd imagined troubles with my autograph because the municipality of Hellevoetsluis was dreadfully annoying about it last summer when I registered as living at my mum's, as if autographs are static things between the ages of 17 - when you just started using your autograph seriously - and 22 - when you've already held a job that required you to use your autograph regularly, at least 5 times a day on court days in my case. Troubles with my photograph because it didn't look entirely centred to me, but if they don't make a fuss, who cares - it was a semi-decent photo too, rather good for a passport photo I must say. Trouble with proof of residence because all I have are letters from when I opened my bank account and letters from uni telling me when and how to pay my rent. Trouble with my fingerprints because though I took very good fingerprints when we did them in Forensics - Dr Bond told me so - I tend to get sweaty hands in formal situations and I'm sure electronics are awful with sweaty hands. But no fuss, no troubles, no general incompetence. In fact, I'm more pleased with how the Consulate handled this than the Hellevoetsluis municipality did five years ago when I first requested a passport. So good job Consulate.
I received an email from my dissertation supervisor in which she sent me a copy of the PALA annual conference bursary form before she sent it out - so a) that's been sent out and b) she was overwhelmingly positive in describing me. I feel terribly flattered so now I'll have to do extra well on my dissertation to live up to that.
I had a chat with my course convenor yesterday about my Cardiff PhD application and she mentioned the opportunity here in Leicester, which is a 4-year PhD with a Graduate Teaching Assistantship, deadline 31 March. I have indeed been thinking of that one too, mainly because it's a) a brilliant opportunity to get into teaching and b) has a much better financial outlook than the Cardiff one, but it's a year longer of course (though I presume a PhD at 26 instead of 25 should not make the greatest difference) and I doubted whether I'd have a good enough CV to stand any chance. She told me to send her my CV - I received a reply today, and she still encourages me to look at the Leicester PhD with GTA. I will then. If I can think of a suitable topic, because my Cardiff topic doesn't translate very well to the Leicester department unless I make it much more media-based, in which case I could ask professor Jewkes if she'd be willing to supervise. So yeah. And the teaching would of course be wonderful, I mean, that's what I want to stay in academia for, to teach undergraduates.
Things are going well, and a bit too well, too. I'm frightened that I'll somehow run out of good karma or whatever is causing me this good-news-streak and ... but why.
Food for shrinks.
We'll see how long the streak keeps up. Fingers crossed it'll be long enough for me not to make a fool of myself at one point or another and long enough to receive a positive reply to at least one application.
Greed and Confusion; Murders and Executions (27 February 2013)
Yesterday I still knew what I wanted.
I don't anymore today.
The basics are still there of course - PhD, then lecturing somewhere, and maybe sometime in my life do some other masters like Criminal Law or Forensic Linguistics or something, and perhaps also do something politics like Ministry of Justice or so. But this is all long term.
I'm currently confused as to the 'where' of the PhD. Until this morning I was certain of Cardiff - I like Cardiff, I want Cardiff, I need Cardiff, and that need still has not changed because the opportunities Cardiff offers haven't changed. It's still perfect.
But then there is also that one Leicester PhD with the Graduate Teaching Assistantship. It has a salary. And waives UK/EU tuition fees. And has a maintenance stipend. And teaching opportunities.
I've always liked going to different places for the next stage - but Leicester, as a city, is growing on me, and the GTA would mean I wouldn't have to spend three years eating nothing but baked beans on toast. I might even be able to start paying off my student debts and stop feeling guilty about always buying books.
Money. It's about money, and now I feel greedy. Aren't academics, like artists, supposed to more or less starve for their calling? After all, didn't Socrates go around wearing rags because he couldn't care less?
And at Cardiff I could do my corporate crime thing. I'm not sure whether I could do that at Leicester.
WHAT SHOULD I DO?
Difficult.
On a completely unrelated note (except that maybe it counts as research), I have been reading American Psycho. I liked the superficiality and the idea that Patrick Bateman goes totally mad. It surprised me how disturbing I found the torture and murder scenes. Gory things usually don't upset me - heck, I'm even looking forward to the Forensics class where we'll be told about and shown photos of crime scenes. But there is something distinctly upsetting about sticking a drill in someone's mouth while it's on and keeping rotting breasts on a porcelain dish, something that goes too far even for me. Not sure whether I'd want to read it again, maybe I'll just stick to the film.
Because at least the gory of the film is the type of gory I don't mind. And the business card scene is priceless.
But the film doesn't have as many references to Les Miserables, which I think is a major thing in the interpretation of the novel...
HELP! (28 February 2013)
I just clicked 'SUBMIT' on the online application form for the Cardiff PhD.
I am now truly terrified.
Fingers crossed and all that stuff.
PS I have been contemplating renaming my blog 'Adventures in Criminology', but then I noticed on Amazon that that's also the title of Radzinowicz's memoirs and though I'm happy to know that I share my liking for calling experiences adventures with one of the greater (if not the greatest) criminologists, it would feel a little presumptuous to actually name my blog like that now.
Also because it won't show up until like page 2 on Google, which of course we all know means that it'll be invisible.
Maybe Criminological Adventures then.
Conferences (05 March 2013)
They provide a very decent excuse to go some place interesting, talk to like-minded people about stuff that interests most attendees but no one else in the entire world, and just have fun.
I guess they're kind of like a group holiday for academics.
And today is the best day, for me, to book my attendance of the PALA conference in Heidelberg. I read the other two parts of the Campus Trilogy, Small World and Nice Work over the weekend, and this morning when I walked onto campus I saw a man who looked eerily like how I pictured the bearded Philip Swallow - tall, grey haired-and-bearded with a bald spot.
Today is also a good day for it because registration opened.
Of course I also signed up for Summer School, because how can I not when one of my former lecturers is teaching half of it and loads of fun people have said they'd join. Besides, I've managed to justify to myself most parts of the teaching programme as being useful in my Criminology studies (oh, the joys of an inherently interdisciplinary field!). I guess perceiving crime as the result of criminalisation, in turn a manner of maintaining and altering power-relations in society, allows for a great range of such justifications (and also explains why economics and political philosophy are still so interesting to me).
But, so, yes, I've booked my academic "summer camp" (it is kind of like that, too). If only it were summer yet.
PhD Application Qualification Verification (06 March 2013)
I had a minor heart attack just now because, as I do every 10 minutes, I checked my application status on the Cardiff website thing whatever for applications, and suddenly my qualifications box was empty and I was like, WHAT.
But then I checked the application form there and it says that everything other than my Leicester degree has been verified - of course they can't verify my Leicester degree, I don't have it yet.
So that's probably why.
I hope that's why, at least.
On the upside, that hopefully means I'll either hear a very cruel "NO" soon or get an invitation for an interview, like, soon too. Fingers crossed and all that.
In the meanwhile, I'll go back to having minor heart attack about other things that I shouldn't be having minor heart attacks over. Lators.
PS To remain faithful to the spirit of Imperial March, I will be giving a short presentation on American Psycho today in Media & Crime.
Deutsch (06 March 2013)
I just realized that I'll have to dig up my old schoolbooks to polish my German; mein LinkedIn-Profil sagt dass ich Deutsch spreche, aber ich glaube nicht dass mein Deutsch gut genug ist für eine kurze Reise... (I solemnly swear I did not use Google Translate for that sentence).
It's of course grammar that does it, I tend to add 'e's where they're not needed and drop them where they are, and Der/Die/Das/Die is a complete horror too (I get about far enough to distinguish between forms in Nominativ - usually - and while I do know the purpose of akkusativ/dativ/genitiv [I've had 5 years of Latin, after all], I just can't... absorb it. Never could.).
Nominativ: Der/Die/Das/Die
Akkusativ: Den/Die/Das/Die
Dativ: Dem/Der/Dem/Den
Genitiv: Des/Der/Des/Der
See, my father can do those 16 off the top of his head (and likes to show off that he can, too ;) ), but I can't (but then, I speak Academic English, so there), so I'll have to do a bit of studying.
Vocabulary is fine, of course, usually, and if I don't know it I'll just go for the standard wie sagt Man dass... I glaube... ja... est ist and then a description.
If all else fails, I'll start reciting the lyrics from Ich wär' so gerne Millionär, if only to do justice to the fact that I am supposed to have had four years of German class, 2 hours per week, in secondary school. I'm sure my former German instructor will be very happy to hear that of all the things he tried to teach me, I remember that song best. And Flämmchen, of course.
Email (11 March 2013)
So this morning, while I was fiddling around with my mobile in Forensics (during the break, though, so no lack of attention for the lesson, promise!), I received an email from Cardiff.
The usual stuff, heart racing, terrified it would say no, all that stuff.
But it didn't say no.
What it did say was that I'll receive news soon about whether I'm shortlisted for funding and whether I'll be invited for an interview.
Of course the email also came with the disclaimer that there's loads of brilliant candidates and that they're having a tough time making decisions (i.e. don't get your hopes up too much really!) so yeah we'll see.
Basically, it was a confirmation of receipt of my application.
I'm even more anxious and terrified now.
Passport (12 March 2013)
It'd be vain to assume the Dutch Ambassador in London would read this post, and even more vain to assume the Minister for Foreign Affairs would. But if either of them does - thanks for the brilliant service.
Seriously.
When I went to apply for my new passport at the Birmingham consulate, I was already surprised at the efficiency and at how professionally they dealt with me. The whole process was so clear - fill out the form, have your picture taken at one of the places that has received instructions about Dutch passport photos, make an appointment, show up for your appointment, hand over your stuff, have your fingerprints taken (whether I'm happy with that is a different matter entirely), hand over your money, and go.
In and out in under 20 minutes - and no waiting, besides.
The consular official told me I'd have my stuff in about two to three weeks.
It's been two weeks, to the day (!), and I've just picked up my new passport from the porter's office here in Leicester. Now that's timely service.
And I like my new passport - I like the turquoise and the way my autograph looks and that I don't look like a criminal in my picture. My last photograph really did resemble some of the newspaper pics of Myra Hindley. And, most of all, I like how it says 'Ambassadeur te London' for the issuing authority - it makes me feel like a secret agent, like I don't just have some ordinary passport but one especially issued by the ambassador so I can provide special services for King and Country (yesss I'm thinking of the future) - on the other hand it also is a step away from the banality of having a passport issued by municipality, it's a sort of step away from mundanely living in the Netherlands.
What I'm also very happy with is the fact that I received my old passport and ID card back. I had to hand them over and though I didn't regret that, I do like the fact that I now get to retain my two Egyptian and my one Moroccan visa. Even though there've been holes punched through them and they were only valid for six weeks max anyway.
Major brownie points for the Consulate and Ambassador for providing a great service overall. So, Minister for Foreign Affairs, if I were you I'd give them a good pat on the back for this. The government isn't all horror and buzzkills.
Cold Again (14 March 2013)
I'm not talking about meteorological cold this time, just the physical one, the one that's brought on by rhinovirus (mass noun, I learn something new every day).
Anyway, I'm fine, except for the cough. Besides, it proves a brilliant excuse to be spending too much time in bed watching Dr Who.
So not much news so far, just that I've made all currently possible preparations for the Heidelberg Conference (which means that I've registered and booked a hostel, all I need to do now is figure out whether I'm flying in or taking a train) and that some other things are going fairly well too - though still waiting for news from Cardiff, which is getting scarier every second BUT I guess the longer it takes the higher my chances of being short-listed. I hope. Fingers crossed and all that.
Anyway, happy Pi Day (I didn't even buy pie today, let alone bake one - came straight back home after Transnational Policing... blah) and I'll go back to watching Dr Who so I can flex my what I guess should be called 'speculative physics'-thinking... I'm not very good at physics (never was), but I still like discussing the possibilities of time travel and alternate dimensions with some of my far more physics-versed and infinitely more intelligent friends... Haven't done it in forever though, I really should again, it's good for my logical thinking.
Oh, and I saw Cardiff on Dr Who the other day. Looks pretty, like a mix between Middelburg and Vlissingen... I like pretty.
Ah, no, that should be 'I found Cardiff looking aesthetically pleasing, and aesthetically pleasing environs stimulate my thinking as well as alleviate any dark moods' - I should be turning in a proper academic, and should be talking proper Academese...
What the hell, Cardiff looked pretty on TV.
Cool. Cool cool cool.
Duvet Cover (15 March 2013)
Okay, so I lied a tiny bit yesterday - I'm bothered by a tiny bit more than a cough - say head ache and tiredness. Still a normal common cold though, should be better in the morning, it's the normal pattern, one day properly ill and then back to normal.
The most peculiar thing though - whenever I'm not feeling well, I seem to be reminded of this duvet cover I used to have as a child. It was yellow - custard yellow - with thin white stripes on the one side, and white with custard yellow thin strips on the other side.
I wonder what happened to that cover, it was one of my favourites. It probably unravelled and ended up in my dad's rag box - it must've been as old as me, if not older. It went with us on holiday once, I think, probably France or Germany - one of the car trips, so must've been either of those - and maybe I tend to remember it when I'm ill because that's the only duvet cover in my mind whenever I remember when I was ill as a child.
If I ever find a similar duvet cover, I need to have it - there's something incredibly soothing about custard yellow-with-thin-white-stripes.
Btw, this is not it:
The stripes are too close together and the pillow thing never had buttons. But it's the right shade of yellow. I'd go mad over the number of stripes though.
Foolishness (16 March 2013)
Plus, I get to be melodramatic.
I did something incredibly foolish today (and I'm sure I'll hear all about my foolishness soon)...
I went into the library, determined to finish a new draft of my research proposal (I'm also applying here in Leicester, after all, and they require a full research proposal), I snottered* my way there, picked up some methodological sources that I desperately needed and then sat down behind a computer to annoy a bearded hipster by blowing my nose every five minutes.
So far so good, until I went to the library café for an orange juice and a pepperoni panini. It was good to eat something - very good, actually - except that panini are toasted and so I had toasted crumbs tickling my throat, meaning I had a bit of a coughing fit.
Under the spiteful gaze of other customers I finally decided to take my sources and catch a bus home. I did, I finished the research proposal from the confines of my mint-green-coloured room (sixties buildings...), but next time I'll try to heed my mum's old advice to not go to school when you're ill, not even when you really, really need to.
Pinky swear, mum.
*Snottered is not a proper word. I don't care. It's my direct translation of snotteren, which means either blubbering or snivelling, but since blubbering is more like a very messy sort of toddler-like crying and snivelling feels very similar to sneering - probably the 'sn'-phonaestheme (HA! See, I remember stuff from LLADS), I feel that the only mot juste there is 'snottered'. It's the only proper way to express the - excuse the graphicness - snot being stuck in your head and your nose and it's dripping from every orifice and you're going through a six-pack of kleenex in a day. Basically, 'to snotter' is the only proper verb to capture in one word what it's like to have a cold.
All Better (18 March 2013)
Well, I'm not entirely better yet, but well enough at least to do something again. So I didn't have the flu, that was the melodramatic bit, but I did have a serious fever day on Friday. Still have a cough and a very very congested head, and I very much do hope that that cough is the first thing to go because if the congestion goes first I'll end up with a dry cough. The thing I know works best for dry coughs is noscapine, which I don't think I can't get over the counter here because it's an opiate and I was already having the most difficult time trying to locate normal ibuprofen (so not liquid or fast-working or anything, just normal no-fuss ibuprofen) heavier than 200mg.
But so I feel mostly better again today, so mum, dad, no need to worry about me anymore, I'm fine.
I received comments from one of my professors here in Leicester about a research proposal for my PhD - I really want to research it now, not just have a fascinating topic to say "look, I've got a PhD-worthy idea!" but actually find out what's there - and it was really good commentary, as it had some really good points where I could improve but more importantly, points where I'd done things right. So I feel very encouraged now, and I'll definitely, definitely go on and submit an application here too.
The What-Ifs decided to haunt me again this weekend, so I made a back-up plan, a Plan C if you wish. It involves moving back to the Netherlands, getting a job - I can do both retail and administrative, so should be okay for a bit - and spending my time on a Law bachelor's at Utrecht, which I can finish in 2 years because I am exempt from a number of courses, and then in the meanwhile I can try again for PhD programmes until I find one that suits me and wants me. It never hurts to have an LLB.
It was foggy this morning, and then grey all day, but when I returned to Mary Gee there was a gorgeous bit of sunshine, and everything looked so much prettier. I suddenly noticed the daisies in the very, very green grass and snowdrops in the flowerbeds and how the croci and daffodils and all the trees are silently waiting to burst with colour.
Once, in my first year Rhetoric class, I had to write an Encomium and, seeing as it was about the same time of year as it is now, I did it on spring, because that's one of the best things about late February/March/April, when the sun comes out and all the plants blossom and everyone's happy. I couldn't compare spring to anything, however, so I refused to add a comparison, and I did receive a comment from my lecturer on that. I stand, however, by my refusal to compare spring to anything - what, truly, is comparable to the joy and hope contained in those moments where you suddenly notice that chill is finally about to fade from the air? George Harrison captured it very well in Here Comes the Sun, so I guess the feeling of spring is comparable to imagining the feeling of spring when listening to Here Comes the Sun, but that's like cheating at comparison, isn't it?
In fact, that must've been the same semester that I spent 6 out of 15 weeks with Here Comes the Sun stuck in my head. I'm surprised I'm not yet sick of it.
Except that the chill is not about to fade from the air. There's no snow predicted for Leicestershire for the next 10 days (praise whatever Deity you decided listens to you), but it will get cold again, about 4-5 Celsius. This annoys me, also because I've been really wanting to rock my new old tweed jacket and I still can't because I can't wear it under my coat - it's a man's jacket, it needs to be worn on its own - but mainly because I'm now truly sick (literally) and tired (also literally) of those long, long, long winter days.
But at least it now no longer gets dark at 4:30, now we've got daylight until about 6:15. It's something.
This Is Not The Answer You'Re Looking For (22 March 2013)
I got my Cardiff email.
It said 'no'.
Well, actually it said 'unfortunately your application was not one of those short-listed for interview' and then a bunch of apologies about how this year's competition was very strong etc., the usual set of euphemisms for saying 'haha, your application wasn't good enough!'.
I'm not sure yet how I feel about it, though I do feel a bit sad that I now no longer have a valid excuse to spend 50 pounds on a return ticket for the train to Cardiff and visit the Doctor Who experience. In any case I'm not nearly as disappointed as I was last year when Cambridge rejected me, though I must say I think Cambridge may have had much more valid reasons.
Because I'm now wondering what went wrong. After all, I do feel my credentials are quite strong - my secondary school grades are good (two 9s, in English and Literature, a whole set of 8s, some 7s and one 6 for Latin), as are my undergraduate grades (they more or less equate to a First, according to Fulbright - in any case it's a definite and strong First if one disregards my C+ in Calculus, and a) are there Criminologists who need advanced Calculus? and b) I think my C+ in Calculus should actually make my grades stronger even though it brough my GPA down by a tenth). I'm heading towards a Merit or a Distinction in my postgrad. I've got a load of cool extracurriculars, such as working in a court for one and a half years, chairing the Literature Commission, doing Ambassador things and being a Course Rep, plus I'm enrolled in the University of Leicester's Leadership and Management Award.
Besides, my research proposal has both been called 'interesting' and 'strong' by two different professors.
I did everything right in my personal statement.
Maybe they prefer people who don't have C+s in Calculus and who've already finished their Master's. I'm more or less annoyed, I think, just because they're taking away one of my options. As good as my back-up plan of heading back to the Netherlands and enrolling in a 2-year-LLB is, it's not something I'm desperately eager to do... But I still have my Leicester application.
What I will do now, though, is head to one of the second-hand charity bookshops on Queens Road and spend 20 pounds on a CS Lewis Narnia boxed book set.
Maybe I just shouldn't apply for universities in places that start with a 'C'.
PS On a completely unrelated upside, none of my belts fit properly anymore - they're all too long. Yay, losing weight/body mass.
PPS I just now sent in registration for the LLB in Utrecht. It makes me quite giddy, also because .... blaaah, Bachelor's degree all over again...
PPPS My awesome friend Kristy got a 'yes' from Oxford. I told her so. Also that's epic.
When God Closes A Door, Somewhere He Opens A Window (22 March 2013)
It's 11:22 and I've been watching Doctor Who again, but this time while enjoying a tub of Ben & Jerry's cookie dough (because Sainsbury's had the brilliant sense of timing to have half off on Ben & Jerry's today).
And I've been re-reading the Cardiff says no email.
I don't think Cardiff said no to me. Not precisely, at least. And they're academics, so you should sort of expect them to be precise.
What they said to me was that my ESRC funding application has - well, not been rejected, but not short-listed.
Also my Cardiff application page doesn't say anything, it still says a decision will be made in 4 weeks after receipt.
Of course, rejecting my ESRC funding application still more or less kills my Cardiff application, but that's more because of personal finances, not because I'm not ticking all the boxes - because I *am* ticking all the boxes, or at least I should be.
I haven't received an official email from the Registry yet, perhaps the Registry email will hold the definite 'NO', but as of now I still have hope for an unaffordable 'yes'.
We'll see what happens. I could always try to get a job (don't laugh, I'm sure I'd be reasonably good at a real job!).
Ah, the uncertainty of applications. I'm just not patient enough for the whole process. I guess that's what scares me most - not having anything to do next year. Then what do I do? Get a job, a flat, a car and a cat? Can I actually get a job in this economy? I can't stay with my parents for too long, we'll all annoy the living daylights out of one another (I love them to pieces, but we're all way too stubborn). I need to do something next year. If this isn't the definite Cardiff no, and Cardiff ends up saying yes, and no other place says yes, I guess I'll just try and scrape things together... There's always a way.
Except that I need to know my limits, as I've been told in the past. Do limits exist, though? Are there such things? I don't know, but it seems I'll be finding out soon enough...
Scared (25 March 2013)
I'm scared of the What-Ifs.
What If... I can't do a PhD next year?
What If... I'll have to move back to the Netherlands?
What If... I then still can't get a job?
What If... I can get a job but it's for 10 hours a week at a local shop?
What If... I'll be stuck in dead-end jobs for the rest of my life and will thus have wasted time on getting a BA and an MSc?
I was getting a little more optimistic about the economy lately, that is, until they pulled the Cyprus-plug.
I really do want to stay in the UK and I really do want to get a job in academia - anything is fine by me, though if at all possible I'd really like to be a teacher or researcher - but I'm afraid that going by the way things are now, I should not have too many hopes.
But let's trudge on. Next week might be different.
Boring And I Like It! (28 March 2013)
(Warning: don't take stuff too seriously. Also don't confuse liking boring things with being a boring person)
So much for the melodrama - I feel much better now, thanks.
My congestion cleared up pretty much in sync with my cough, so I'm happily spared the dry cough. Nevertheless, I still asked my dad to bring over noscapine. Just in case.
I seem to have most of my hearing back, too, which is good.
Finally, I stopped feeling hopeless about my future. I'd hit a bit of a low point with my last post, I presume, but now I remember that there's always, somehow, a way. I probably just get a bit melodramatic over set-backs because I'm not actually used to them. In fact, the biggest set-backs I've experienced so far include a uni rejection, a job rejection ('a', as in a grand total of one), a funding rejection, and not always getting what I wanted when I wanted it - but, with regards to the last thing, I often did end up with a version of what I wanted later on, so those aren't truly set-backs. If that's the sum of all my set-backs, I should count myself lucky and I usually do, but it's so easy to forget sometimes.
That's also why I'm terrible at telling anecdotes - I don't really have any good stories in which everything goes wrong. I didn't even get seasick during the Cruise of Horror last year and "so yeah, I ended up fetching water for everyone and pouring it over their faces" doesn't do much in terms of heroism either. I'm really much better at telling fairy tales, which my dad will surely attest to.
I attended one of the lectures in the Scarman Lecture Series here in Leicester today, and it was on being a police researcher and, more importantly, about the ethics and authenticity of that type of ethnographic research. I love ethnographic research, it's got such a feeling of adventure to it, but that's not the point - during the Q&A at the end, it was mentioned that in lots of ethnographic research things, the more salient bits are pointed out while the boring bits are... 'left on the cutting room floor' (my interpretation plus editing reference). It got me thinking - what bits of my life should be left on the cutting room floor? As said, I don't have any good anecdotes, no grand extraordinary tales, no 'remember that time when's.
Oh, I have that one time that I thought I was locked in an alley in Oxford for about three minutes once.
And that's wildly comforting. I'm jumping the right hoops, I'm not deviating too much either way, and so while I may not have anything super-exciting to say, at least I won't also have to be scared of everything going wrong.
I like boring. I like the minutiae of corporate crime and tax evasion and all that. Boring is just really my thing.
Gee, I must've been such an easy child...
New Things (28 March 2013)
As I was cycling downhill to the city centre earlier today, I gazed upon the hills on the other side of the Soar valley. There was still residual snow there, and it looked positively alpine, also because the sun illuminated parts of it. It was pretty.
Furthermore got myself a new pair of Converse, as my old pink ones really aren't suitable for wearing out in public any more (which is why I haven't really worn them in ages) and I also do like Converse for walking around, as they're very comfortable - I'll have to do lots of walking around soon. I always get High-Tops because I have fairly weak ankles and these sort of support them.
And a new purse, since the last one I bought isn't holding up very well and I'm fed up with my little purses, which only hold my wallet and keys.
Here's a pic:
Applications: Part # Whatever
It was sunny when I woke up. At 7.
I woke up that early because I'd intended to complete some of the final bits of my PhD application for Leicester and seeing as MyFiles (the thing that allows Leicester students to access their documents on their uni accounts from pretty much everywhere - I LOVE IT) has been offline since about 3pm yesterday afternoon, I figured I'd go to the Library.
That is, until I remembered it's Good Friday, and though our Library rarely closes, I figured I should check.
Anndddd the Library is closed today.
So there I was, frustrated that I couldn't access my uni account, where I store digital copies of my important files, such as my transcripts and degree certificates etc. from home, and frustrated that there's no other way for me to access it either.
I went back to sleep.
I woke up again at about 11, when it was bright grey outside, and figured I'd try again.
Nothing.
I did my usual round on the Internet - NRC, Volkskrant, Guardian, FML, DearBlankPleaseBlank, 9Gag, and had some facebook chats - and then suddenly I had a bright moment.
Maybe some scans were still stored in my email bin? I hardly ever empty that one anyway...
Lo and behold, I found my TOEFL scan. And, what's also important, I found out I still had .jpg scans of my undergraduate transcript and degree certificate hidden on my computer somewhere. I do prefer .pdf, but if it works it works.
Those happen to be my key files. Anything else - Leicester transcript (they know my grades anyway, though), passport copy (I'm an EU citizen, don't need visa), etc. - is not thát important and can be sent tomorrow when I finish my formal research proposal (basically, dot my Is), when the Library is open again.
Fingers crossed now. I'm terrified. But happy.
Yet Another London Adventure (06 April 2013)
If you're a regular reader, you might've noticed my week-long absence. Or at any rate, you might've noticed I wasn't as active on Facebook last week as I normally am.
That's because my Dad was over, and seeing as Leicester's not thrilling enough for a week's holiday, he flew west and I took the train south and we spent an almost-week traipsing around London.
It's been years since my Dad was last in London (a truly vintage city map that's now in my possession dates back to 1990, which may not seem like much until you remember that that's 23 years ago), so we did all the touristy stuff while trying a bit too hard not to seem too much of a tourist - " 'tourist (noun): loud with polyester coats and bum bags and tennis shoes" - which was fun.
Many of my photos - I didn't take many though, I'm not really the photograph-clicking kind, plus my Dad took a picture every three steps so I'll just rely on his collection - are basically just of things I find tremendously cool just now and/or that would work nicely as a Facebook profile pic. So here's my stuff.
Ah, there's a vacancy in the Bates Motel. Yes, let's stay there.
Further epicness (and lack of elbowing - truly people, for shame!) was ensured by the wax statue of Oscar Wilde. I just about kept myself from throwing a teenaged-girly fit over the awesomeness.
But our visit wasn't just limited to stuff for teenage girls on a trip with their middle-aged mums, or slightly weird students - my Dad battled a battalion of greying and grey dads to get a pic with Paul, Ringo, John and George. I think he was also the one holding back a teenaged-girly fit over awesomeness when I took him to see Abbey Road and the studios on Thursday morning.
On Wednesday we went to Oxford, because I wanted to show my Dad the Bodleian and some other pretty buildings, plus I needed to pick up some things - also I was slightly desperate to visit Blackwell's, and it's now almost been a year since I had a chat in Oxford with two academics, one from Utrecht and one from Glasgow, over a very fancy dinner, where one of them told me that you don't need to be clever to do a PhD, just be really passionate about something, and where I most or less made the definitive decision to give Academia a serious shot.
As I sat in front of the Criminology section in Blackwell's, I held three books in my hands. I wanted all three, but I reasoned with myself that buying all three would be senseless. I most desperately wanted the one that - of course - also happened to be the most expensive one.
I still bought it, of course.
Crime and Economics. C'mon. I'm a Law and Economics (well, Social Sciences but those were my main tracks) BA. I've been contemplating going back to RA/UCR in, say, a decade and forcing them to expand Crime and Law Enforcement into a full track, and because of my background I've considered a course that draws on both criminology and economics.
I couldn't just walk away and leave it there. It would be a betrayal of all my interests.
So, Thursday was Abbey Road. It was also our day of walking around, from the London Eye to Westminster Abbey to Trafalgar Square to Piccadilly Circus. Of course that was also the day we were hit by snow and bitter cold, so I quickly turned quite cranky - sorry about that, Dad.
We had an absolutely lovely afternoon tea at Fenwick's, which was quite fun because we were sat next to two very posh ladies, who were absolutely delightful.
Friday we met up with Danou and indulged in a day of amateur Egyptology - wandering 'round the British and Petrie Museums, pointing out deities to one another and, while in the Petrie Museum, finding stuff that has been featured on the Joann Fletcher documentary-set that's been on the BBC.
I said goodbye to my Dad on Friday night, as he had to catch a very early flight out again, while I stayed another night to travel back to Leicester on Saturday.
As I transferred from the Central to the Hammersmith & City Line, I suddenly walked past something that I hadn't expected to see at all this week. Surely I'd been looking at maps of Central London to figure out where it could possibly located, as I'd been watching a documentary on it the other day, but I never intended to go and see it for real. But I did.
You see, as you transfer lines there, you have to walk from White City station to Wood Lane station, and as you do so, you walk right past the BBC Television Centre. Quite extraordinary.
But now I'm safely back home in Leicester, and I'll probably unpack in a bit, then eat something and then watch the newest Who.
Thanks again, Dad, for the trip.
PS Okay, so the new Who is quite cool. Bit deus ex screwdriver, as is to be expected, and I felt slightly worried about that system because after the parasite collapsed, what was that system's main point of gravity? Other than that, nice ep. Looking forward to next week - submarines!
Pigeons (09 April 2013)
Yet Another London Adventure (06 April 2013)
If you're a regular reader, you might've noticed my week-long absence. Or at any rate, you might've noticed I wasn't as active on Facebook last week as I normally am.
That's because my Dad was over, and seeing as Leicester's not thrilling enough for a week's holiday, he flew west and I took the train south and we spent an almost-week traipsing around London.
It's been years since my Dad was last in London (a truly vintage city map that's now in my possession dates back to 1990, which may not seem like much until you remember that that's 23 years ago), so we did all the touristy stuff while trying a bit too hard not to seem too much of a tourist - " 'tourist (noun): loud with polyester coats and bum bags and tennis shoes" - which was fun.
Many of my photos - I didn't take many though, I'm not really the photograph-clicking kind, plus my Dad took a picture every three steps so I'll just rely on his collection - are basically just of things I find tremendously cool just now and/or that would work nicely as a Facebook profile pic. So here's my stuff.
The first Leaky Cauldron. Because once a Potter fan, always a Potter fan. Also photographed now because I couldn't find it last time I was in Leadenhall Market - turns out, I'd walked right past it. Well. So much for my ability to observe stuff.
The global zero centre coordinate point that I wrote about in the post about Time. Photographed on a massive map in Greenwich.
Me at the Greenwich meridian. Loved being here. Loved seeing this. It's such a weird thing to be real, to think that this is where the Earth supposedly starts and ends. I've been close to another important map-line before, the Tropic of Cancer, back when I was in Abu Simbel, but then I still was a bit away from that particular latitude, so now I've truly stood on an important place for coordinates.
Also I've travelled in time by jumping back and forth on the line.
Of course we visited Madame Tussauds, so here's me with the magnificent Humphrey Bogart.
I do love Casablanca.
So many people walked right past him, not recognizing him. People these days have no regard for classic films. For shame. But at least I didn't have to work my elbows to take a pic with this particular wax statue - I think I had to battle an entire army of middle-aged mums to take a photo with the statue of George Clooney.
Ah, there's a vacancy in the Bates Motel. Yes, let's stay there.
Further epicness (and lack of elbowing - truly people, for shame!) was ensured by the wax statue of Oscar Wilde. I just about kept myself from throwing a teenaged-girly fit over the awesomeness.
But our visit wasn't just limited to stuff for teenage girls on a trip with their middle-aged mums, or slightly weird students - my Dad battled a battalion of greying and grey dads to get a pic with Paul, Ringo, John and George. I think he was also the one holding back a teenaged-girly fit over awesomeness when I took him to see Abbey Road and the studios on Thursday morning.
On Wednesday we went to Oxford, because I wanted to show my Dad the Bodleian and some other pretty buildings, plus I needed to pick up some things - also I was slightly desperate to visit Blackwell's, and it's now almost been a year since I had a chat in Oxford with two academics, one from Utrecht and one from Glasgow, over a very fancy dinner, where one of them told me that you don't need to be clever to do a PhD, just be really passionate about something, and where I most or less made the definitive decision to give Academia a serious shot.
As I sat in front of the Criminology section in Blackwell's, I held three books in my hands. I wanted all three, but I reasoned with myself that buying all three would be senseless. I most desperately wanted the one that - of course - also happened to be the most expensive one.
I still bought it, of course.
Crime and Economics. C'mon. I'm a Law and Economics (well, Social Sciences but those were my main tracks) BA. I've been contemplating going back to RA/UCR in, say, a decade and forcing them to expand Crime and Law Enforcement into a full track, and because of my background I've considered a course that draws on both criminology and economics.
I couldn't just walk away and leave it there. It would be a betrayal of all my interests.
So, Thursday was Abbey Road. It was also our day of walking around, from the London Eye to Westminster Abbey to Trafalgar Square to Piccadilly Circus. Of course that was also the day we were hit by snow and bitter cold, so I quickly turned quite cranky - sorry about that, Dad.
We had an absolutely lovely afternoon tea at Fenwick's, which was quite fun because we were sat next to two very posh ladies, who were absolutely delightful.
Friday we met up with Danou and indulged in a day of amateur Egyptology - wandering 'round the British and Petrie Museums, pointing out deities to one another and, while in the Petrie Museum, finding stuff that has been featured on the Joann Fletcher documentary-set that's been on the BBC.
I said goodbye to my Dad on Friday night, as he had to catch a very early flight out again, while I stayed another night to travel back to Leicester on Saturday.
As I transferred from the Central to the Hammersmith & City Line, I suddenly walked past something that I hadn't expected to see at all this week. Surely I'd been looking at maps of Central London to figure out where it could possibly located, as I'd been watching a documentary on it the other day, but I never intended to go and see it for real. But I did.
You see, as you transfer lines there, you have to walk from White City station to Wood Lane station, and as you do so, you walk right past the BBC Television Centre. Quite extraordinary.
But now I'm safely back home in Leicester, and I'll probably unpack in a bit, then eat something and then watch the newest Who.
Thanks again, Dad, for the trip.
PS Okay, so the new Who is quite cool. Bit deus ex screwdriver, as is to be expected, and I felt slightly worried about that system because after the parasite collapsed, what was that system's main point of gravity? Other than that, nice ep. Looking forward to next week - submarines!
Pigeons (09 April 2013)
So, turns out my trip to London had completely wrong timing - not only is the weather much better this week, but they also shot stuff for Doctor Who today. My dear friend Danou saw them though, on Trafalgar Square. I'm only slightly jealous ;)
Coincidences continue with this clip: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p017gl8h, mainly because Strax says 'flying predators called pigeons' - it's coincidental because though most people really hate pigeons, me included, my Dad and I had a thing going all week about pigeons secretly being aliens out to destroy all of humankind - my Dad had this hilarious thing going on when we walked back from Buckingham Palace to Green Park station about pigeons hiding teeth in their beaks and how one pigeon marching back and forth among a small group was a general inspecting the troops and how a pigeon on the path was out to attack me. He also pointed one out to me telling me how that was the evil one and that you should never trust a pigeon.
It's a good thing though my Dad and I are certifiably not mad. I think.
Tuesday Drinks (17 April 2013)
As the weather outside is getting warmer again, I am reminded of going out in Middelburg. Do mind that this post concerns memories that might be slightly rosy-tinted.
Going out in Middelburg was completely different from the way we go out here in Leicester. It did often include a pub - Seventy Seven, De Mug, or, before it was demolished, Barrel - but usually ended in a Koestraat common room or Bagijnhof living room..
Actually, on warm spring and autumn evenings, going out in Middelburg would often be punctuated by lying down on the Market Square, gazing up at the stars, and discussing life, the universe and everything. Actually, every place in Middelburg attended by RA/UCR students was a place to discuss life, the universe and everything.
One of my favourite traditions of the time was Tuesday Drinks, a fairly random and small collection of people, and we would gather on Tuesdays (but not every Tuesday) around 9, 10-ish, as Wednesday was our traditional day off (though over my six semesters at RA, I've only had three in which I didn't actually have class on Wednesdays). There would inevitably be six-packs of whatever brand of beer was cheap that week - 'but not the really cheap stuff because that's like flavoured water' - crisps, chocolate, a stack of plastic cups and a deck of cards. We'd start out discussing the latest gossip - inevitable in a university college of 600 - but quickly moved on to discuss politics. I vividly remember having a discussion on whether Mubarak's reign in Egypt around the end of my first year - mind, this was way before the Arab spring - was democratically valid, and whether he'd last much longer. Politics often led to philosophy and theology, while the deck of cards and the plastic cups led to games of King's Cup and, once bored of it, Never Have I Ever.
What strikes me in retrospect is the ease with which we switched from topic to topic, and the respect we had for each other's points. We had markedly different political views, and of course our discussions turned quite heavy and a bit shouty every once in a while, but it was all done in good fun. Some of the discussions touched on topics that might have solicited very different reactions from different people - for instance, though our little collection was half female, half male, there was no rudeness from anyone with regards to sexuality, whether we discussed pornography (it was easily taken for fact that yes, women like porn too), experiences (no slut-shaming) or anything else of the sort. Everything was up for debate, whether we should put the fake goldfish floating in a half-empty Bagijnhof fish bowl into the King's Cup which at that moment held a particularly awful mixture of beer and Bailey's, or whether Plato or Aristotle's model of the perfect government would be better suited to deal with the global economic crisis.
We even put forward Quidditch practice once as something to try out - which we did, even trying to set up a team, before our efforts fizzled as graduation approached.
Going out in Leicester's good fun, and I'm sure that everything is still up for debate and I'm sure that my fellow Criminologists would approach such topics with the same kind of respect and sensitivity. Actually, I know they will, as similar things have been discussed here, both at parties and, for instance, in the library.
But in Tuesday Drinks we had a forum, and if there is one desire I have for the next room or flat I rent, it's that it needs to have enough space to invite people over for dinner parties and drinks.
To Tuesday Drinks.
Tan (07 May 2013)
So it's been a while.
I've polished and finished my essays, and I've started on collecting news articles on corporate tax evasion by multinationals in the UK as reported over fall 2012 and spring 2013 for my dissertation.
To finish the essays we sort of formed a small library gang, hanging out there everyday from about 10 to 7, just to help each other do this and finish. And it worked tremendously well, as well as just being fun - especially now that the weather's turned warm and sunny (it's 20C right now!) and we got to spend hours in the park.
I'm still waiting for news from Leicester and London about the PhDs, but that will probably still be a good number of weeks.
So now I'm more or less stuck waiting for my grades (hand in was today, so it'll be another three weeks) and doing dissertation.
But today will be a park day, celebrating hand-in, and tomorrow I'll attend stuff for course rep and other interesting things. Oh, and do a proper spring clean this time around, since now it's warm enough to actually drag stuff outside while I clean my room.
I will be posting updates about my dissertation etc in the future, as well as perhaps excerpts from my essays, because some of the stuff I wrote was pretty okay I suppose.
But let's first try and work on my tan.
Ain't No Party Like A Roosevelt (Grad) Party (08 June 2013)
So, I suppose I'm now back to writing a diary-like entry. That's okay, I prefer things a bit mixed in real life too, I suppose my blog should be a reflection of that - poetry, diary-like and some very serious opinions.
It was wonderful to be back in Middelburg again.
I was back for a reason - the University College Roosevelt class of 2013 graduated, and I could not not go over and congratulate them. I consider at least three of the graduates to be very good friends, but then I sat there and realised that of the 130-something graduates, I knew at least a good third, and recognized another third as people I'd been in courses with or did committee things with 'back in my day'. A further ten or twenty percent were people whose names or faces (or both) I recognized.
Imagine that - they're not students who were in my year, and very many of them weren't even in my department, and yet I recognized about 3/4 of them.
It's not only easy to imagine that a university college of 600 is close-knit, it's even more strikingly easy to see that this is, in fact, the case - not only did I recognize them, a good amount recognized me in turn!
There's always a good reason to return to Middelburg - it's very pretty, and especially on days like yesterday it's good to spend the day out in the Zeeuwse sun and wind, to remove just about every trace of winter. And there's no better way to spend some good time in the sun with lemon-flavoured ice cream from Domani and a book while sat on the Helm square.
The ceremony was lovely as always - the grads in their black caps and gowns, the professors and lecturers in their fancy coloured robes, and all family and friends dressed up. As per usual, professor Oomen was wonderful, the commencement speaker was interesting ("Be the hero of your own story!") and the alumni gift to UCR - a mascot, a Teddy bear with a horned Viking helmet! - was awesome.
The reception afterwards, on the Abbey square, provided ample opportunity to flit around congratulating everyone wearing a black gown and have a good chat with lecturers. I got to tell one of my former Economics lecturers that I'm still using the Economic Naturalist concepts he taught me in Economics 160 to interpret Rational theories in Criminology. I got to have a chat with my former Rhetoric professor about my PhD applications. I got to talk to another lecturer about living in the UK - and also about this blog, actually (if you're reading this, Dr Lahey - hi!). I got to realise that without RA/UCR I would be such a different person now.
I got to ask so many wonderful graduates about their plans for next year, and hear so amazingly many cool replies. There's people going to Oxford and Cambridge to study things like Latin and English; there's people going to London to study things like Economics and International Relations; there's people staying in the Netherlands to do Law. There's people having obtained enviable internships with fascinating institutions and companies, and there's people planning trips to faraway destinations.
So UCR class of 2013: Congratulations. Your results are brilliant, and your plans are inspiring. I wish you so much good luck and prosperity in all your endeavours. And cheers for letting me celebrate your achievements with you.
On The Wrong Side (04 July 2013)
So, due to Mary Gee closing over the summer, I've recently had to move all my stuff over the massive distance...
of 1 mile.
The story of how I finally got to have summer accommodation is relatively long and basically consists of me worrying far too much about things that end up being fine anyway, so I'll skip that.
My main problem wasn't distance. It was time.
I had to check out of Mary Gee at 10am and wouldn't, according to the booking confirmation, be able to check in at Nixon Court until 2pm.
If I'd had a bit of overlap I could've, I dunno, have a taxi move me, or take a bus. Or walk, though, as you'll realise if you know me well enough, I brought way too many books (no such thing as too many books) over last year so walking would've killed me. But still.
So, I had two options:
1) Find someone with a car.
2) Book a car.
But cars need to be booked at least some while in advance, and I'd already lost the cheapest option (which was 48 hours in advance), and yet I hadn't found someone who could help me.
So I booked a car.
I think I gave my Dad something of a heart attack when I told him I'd be driving here. You see, my father's been driving for, oh, 43 years (45 if you count that he also had a moped between the ages of 16 and 18). He obtained every driving licence possible when doing his "service duty" (conscription) - this includes bus and lorry with trailers - except for motorcycle and tractor. But then he learned to ride a motorcycle when he was having his mid-life crisis and he drove tractors back when I was a child and we were minding my parents' friends' sheep, so basically he's qualified to drive everything. And he's driven the weirdest stuff in the weirdest places.
But never an English car on English roads.
So, basically, he is just too set in his driving-on-the-right-side ways to have confidence that he could drive safely on the left. And he's got all this experience, too.
I, on the other hand, did not obtain my driving licence until I was 19 and I've hardly driven since. It's not that I *can't* drive - when I get into a car, my hands and feet automatically do what they have to do. It's just that I haven't done it very often.
I wasn't scared, I was slightly nervous but excited.
Perhaps that was also one of the reasons I didn't look too hard for someone to help me out - I sort of really wanted to drive, and then drive on the other side!
So I ended up picking up this lovely burnt orange Opel Corsa (yes, I am aware that technically they're called 'Vauxhall' here, but I've been saying Opel Corsa all my life, it loses its proper rhythm when I say Vauxhall), and got in.
Couldn't get it started.
Well, that's brilliant. I felt like a right idiot.
They started it for me, and I drove off.
And you know what, it wasn't difficult or weird at all.
The pedals were still in their proper spots, as were the wipers and the blinkers. The gear box was on my other side, but the gears were in the proper order too.
So all I really had to do was remember that the mass of the car was on my left rather than on my right and that I needed to change gear towards me instead of away, and with my left hand rather than my right.
And stick to the left!
Thankfully, it was a clear, sunny and calm Saturday morning, so I had no trouble whatsoever getting out of Leicester city centre. I anticipated trouble going up the hill, because I hadn't done that for such a long time and what if I had to stop going up the hill? But when I had to, my feet did all my work for me. Then the roundabout, but I just went with the flow of traffic and ended up where I had to be - though I was far more conscientious in my use of the blinkers than the rest was (maybe it's not obligatory here to use your blinkers when leaving the roundabout? Dunno...). I arrived at Mary Gee 20 minutes after picking up the car, and that was a bit sad - I'd just gotten used to it, and moreover, I enjoyed it much more than driving on the right side!
I got to drive again on Sunday, of course, to move, but 1.5 miles wasn't enough, so later that night I went out to drive a bit more, before handing the car in on Monday.
It actually made me sad to hand in the car. I'd loved driving around here.
The other motorists were absolutely courteous, patiently waiting when I manage to stall it (only once, though, with good reason - regardless of the situation Dutch drivers would've beeped though), keeping to the speed limit, giving just about everyone right of way (Dutch drivers just take whatever opportunity they can get)...
And I *LOVE* the lights - it's so brilliant to know it'll be green in a bit when it's red/yellow. Like, it's green, then yellow, then red, then red/yellow and then green again - wonderful! Plus, there are lights also a bit further on, so you don't have to twist around the wheel to be able to actually see the lights when you're first in the queue.
So, if I do get to stay in the UK (still fingers crossed!) for a relatively long time, that's one more thing that won't be troubling me, driving here.
I suppose my Dad will disagree - I had to promise to call him every time I came back from driving a bit. Tsk. He's just too used to driving on the wrong side ;).
Making a Mochary of Tax Law*: My Dissertation (01 September 2013)
I handed in two hard copies of my dissertation last Friday. I still have to hand in a digital copy on Blackboard, but I haven't the courage. I keep wondering - what if it's not good enough? What if my conclusion is too weak, what if my argumentation is not solid, what if my literature review is flawed, what if my methodology is unsound? The only thing that I do not worry about is whether my sample size is large enough - 488 articles is definitely large.
This is the capstone of my Master's degree - an MSc, that is, no matter how often it is called an MA - and I just want to finish it properly. I am hoping for a Merit, as that would put me at a Merit degree, but at this point I would even be happy with a Pass, just so I can pass my degree. It is dreadfully scary to hand in a body of work consisting of 20,000 words which will determine whether you will receive a Postgraduate Diploma or that actual Master of Science-degree in January. But I suppose I must.
I very much enjoyed doing the research. Stuck behind a desk for hours on end, reading about corporate crime and tax law and corpus linguistics and critical discourse analysis? Yes please! Messing about with SPSS, trying to get results that make sense and then actually getting those? Hell yes! Reading articles, thinking "this looks quite objective, doesn't it?" and then, when looking beyond the surface, noticing that "oh hey, this isn't objective at all!". Noticing that news writing contributes to a vicious cycle of social stratification, finding out news is all economics and politics and dominant ideology. Realising that the language of news writing works to negotiate the social contract. Fascinating.
But that's all very abstract, and hard to put into words - therefore hard to properly maintain when you're trying to cut down from 28,000 to 20,000 - and then the fear that you've lost depth, strength, solidity, soundness, and gained flaws. I hope to put that right in my PhD, win back my depth and solidity, but 100,000 words is still not very many when you're dealing with something so interesting as this, which is both so abstract and practical. But let us focus on the practical findings of my dissertation for now.
My research question was how UK newspapers portrayed the tax avoidance of Facebook, Starbucks, eBay, and such companies - multinational companies - and the backlash. This is extremely recent stuff, as the story broke in October 2012 and has still not finished, and it struck me as odd for it was not actually a proper news story. It was big, true, but the general readerships could hardly be expected to *care* about multinational companies working within the bounds of international commercial regulations. A corporation's main goal is profit, and it will do everything it is allowed to do to get that profit. So there is no novelty in this, and no novelty should equal no news. Besides, even when corporations do break the rules of international commerce, the backlash is hardly as large as it was now. Cartels? An article in the finance sections of broadsheets, perhaps a follow-up, that's it. Child labour? Myeah, that'll generate some outrage, some people will turn to companies that aren't known for using child labour, and some politicians might say "shouldn't do that!", nothing big though. Environmental crimes? Difficult - Shell's crimes in Nigeria hardly make the papers at all, but the BP oil spill generated quite some fuss. But, you know, that was dead fish and the Gulf of Mexico and stuff. Proximate drama. But taxes?
Taxes?
(Sorry, been wanting to use this meme for a while now)
No one gives a shit about taxes. If anything is written about taxes, it's about how you can save on your tax payments by minding this this and that category. And as no one knows how corporation tax works, other than that corporations have to pay a certain percentage of their profits, few people usually care. After all, some of these companies haven't been paying taxes for literally years and only now it generated outrage.
So that's all interesting, but that's all context. My question was, how did they portray it? Did the newspapers make a big fuss? Did they side with the outrage or with the papers? Judging from the fact that the OECD was considering changing regulations and that people kept being outraged, I hypothesised that yeah, these newspapers will be stirring up a fuss. But their reporting initially seemed quite balanced. Objective. As newspapers are supposed to report things.
So I did a corpus analysis of all articles and took 7 articles for a critical discourse analysis. I'll not go into the specifics here, email me for a PDF copy if you want one, but what I found was that yeah, these newspapers were kicking up as much as a fuss as the politicians calling Google 'evil' and those protesters calling for boycotts of Starbucks. In fact, they seemed to be the instigator of some of the outrage, by for instance only presenting those opinions which said that these "multinational corporations should pay their fair share of UK corporation tax" (this is a composite sentence of the main lexical items the corpus program showed me. Absolutely fascinating).
The next question, of course, is why. But I just spent 20,000 words detailing how UK newspapers to an extent criminalise the otherwise legal behaviour of not paying your taxes where you are not obliged to pay your taxes. The moral question of whether a company should be obliged to pay taxes in territories where they make billions of pounds of revenue, but where they do not technically, according to the OECD regulations of the taxation of multinational corporations, have to pay taxes, has been answered, by these papers, with a "Yes". But why? Why now?
This will have to do with the economic crisis, I hypothesise. So the next research question will be how the portrayal of corporate fraud (or crime, but that's perhaps too broad for 100,000 words) in the UK has developed over the course of the global economic crisis. But that's for my PhD. And something I can't wait to get started on.
*This is taken from a Starbucks-related pun in The Mirror. I loved it, and it has become the title of my dissertation. Tabloid puns are the best.
FROM THE CRIMINOLOGY REP PAGE:
Hi All! (19 November 2012)
So, this blog serves to communicate with you what I've been doing for you as your Course Rep. What did I learn from setting up this blog?
Well, basically that I am capable of it and should proceed similarly in the future.
Basically, what being a Course Rep comes down to is that I collect your complaints (and compliments!) on our courses in the regular criminology stream of the Uni of Leicester and then bring them up during the next meeting of the Department's Student-Staff Committee.
What I learned from standing up in front of all of you back in induction week to argue in favour of myself, so you could vote for me (one vote difference!), is that I'm terrified of standing up in front of strangers and saying something BUT I am capable of it. I should try that more often.
There's a bunch of ways of how you can contact me: just walk up to me (because, you know, it's not difficult to play 'spot the girl with the fluffy brown hair') - during Penology, for instance, or just whenever I'm on campus. I'm always in the library on Tuesday afternoon and early evening, mostly in the graduate reading room. If you can't find me, I'm on facebook about 95% of the time that I have access to a computer, so about 50% of my waking hours. I should probably spend less time on facebook though.
Actually, our stream has its own facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/411162032290652/
If you don't have facebook, drop me a mail. You can find my email address if you log in to Blackboard, go to the Criminology page, find 'October 2012/13 students' and click 'send email' - you'll find my name somewhere there. Alternatively, if you click on 'To...' when you're composing a new mail, you can find me in the address book that pops up.
Finally, if there's really no other way for you to contact me, post a comment on this blog somewhere, but please include your name (or at least your first name) so I know that it's not just some random internet creep trying to mess.
So what's happened so far?
Well, there's been one Student-Staff Committee Meeting so far. During this meeting, the following was discussed:
I handed in two hard copies of my dissertation last Friday. I still have to hand in a digital copy on Blackboard, but I haven't the courage. I keep wondering - what if it's not good enough? What if my conclusion is too weak, what if my argumentation is not solid, what if my literature review is flawed, what if my methodology is unsound? The only thing that I do not worry about is whether my sample size is large enough - 488 articles is definitely large.
This is the capstone of my Master's degree - an MSc, that is, no matter how often it is called an MA - and I just want to finish it properly. I am hoping for a Merit, as that would put me at a Merit degree, but at this point I would even be happy with a Pass, just so I can pass my degree. It is dreadfully scary to hand in a body of work consisting of 20,000 words which will determine whether you will receive a Postgraduate Diploma or that actual Master of Science-degree in January. But I suppose I must.
I very much enjoyed doing the research. Stuck behind a desk for hours on end, reading about corporate crime and tax law and corpus linguistics and critical discourse analysis? Yes please! Messing about with SPSS, trying to get results that make sense and then actually getting those? Hell yes! Reading articles, thinking "this looks quite objective, doesn't it?" and then, when looking beyond the surface, noticing that "oh hey, this isn't objective at all!". Noticing that news writing contributes to a vicious cycle of social stratification, finding out news is all economics and politics and dominant ideology. Realising that the language of news writing works to negotiate the social contract. Fascinating.
But that's all very abstract, and hard to put into words - therefore hard to properly maintain when you're trying to cut down from 28,000 to 20,000 - and then the fear that you've lost depth, strength, solidity, soundness, and gained flaws. I hope to put that right in my PhD, win back my depth and solidity, but 100,000 words is still not very many when you're dealing with something so interesting as this, which is both so abstract and practical. But let us focus on the practical findings of my dissertation for now.
My research question was how UK newspapers portrayed the tax avoidance of Facebook, Starbucks, eBay, and such companies - multinational companies - and the backlash. This is extremely recent stuff, as the story broke in October 2012 and has still not finished, and it struck me as odd for it was not actually a proper news story. It was big, true, but the general readerships could hardly be expected to *care* about multinational companies working within the bounds of international commercial regulations. A corporation's main goal is profit, and it will do everything it is allowed to do to get that profit. So there is no novelty in this, and no novelty should equal no news. Besides, even when corporations do break the rules of international commerce, the backlash is hardly as large as it was now. Cartels? An article in the finance sections of broadsheets, perhaps a follow-up, that's it. Child labour? Myeah, that'll generate some outrage, some people will turn to companies that aren't known for using child labour, and some politicians might say "shouldn't do that!", nothing big though. Environmental crimes? Difficult - Shell's crimes in Nigeria hardly make the papers at all, but the BP oil spill generated quite some fuss. But, you know, that was dead fish and the Gulf of Mexico and stuff. Proximate drama. But taxes?
Taxes?
No one gives a shit about taxes. If anything is written about taxes, it's about how you can save on your tax payments by minding this this and that category. And as no one knows how corporation tax works, other than that corporations have to pay a certain percentage of their profits, few people usually care. After all, some of these companies haven't been paying taxes for literally years and only now it generated outrage.
So that's all interesting, but that's all context. My question was, how did they portray it? Did the newspapers make a big fuss? Did they side with the outrage or with the papers? Judging from the fact that the OECD was considering changing regulations and that people kept being outraged, I hypothesised that yeah, these newspapers will be stirring up a fuss. But their reporting initially seemed quite balanced. Objective. As newspapers are supposed to report things.
So I did a corpus analysis of all articles and took 7 articles for a critical discourse analysis. I'll not go into the specifics here, email me for a PDF copy if you want one, but what I found was that yeah, these newspapers were kicking up as much as a fuss as the politicians calling Google 'evil' and those protesters calling for boycotts of Starbucks. In fact, they seemed to be the instigator of some of the outrage, by for instance only presenting those opinions which said that these "multinational corporations should pay their fair share of UK corporation tax" (this is a composite sentence of the main lexical items the corpus program showed me. Absolutely fascinating).
The next question, of course, is why. But I just spent 20,000 words detailing how UK newspapers to an extent criminalise the otherwise legal behaviour of not paying your taxes where you are not obliged to pay your taxes. The moral question of whether a company should be obliged to pay taxes in territories where they make billions of pounds of revenue, but where they do not technically, according to the OECD regulations of the taxation of multinational corporations, have to pay taxes, has been answered, by these papers, with a "Yes". But why? Why now?
This will have to do with the economic crisis, I hypothesise. So the next research question will be how the portrayal of corporate fraud (or crime, but that's perhaps too broad for 100,000 words) in the UK has developed over the course of the global economic crisis. But that's for my PhD. And something I can't wait to get started on.
*This is taken from a Starbucks-related pun in The Mirror. I loved it, and it has become the title of my dissertation. Tabloid puns are the best.
FROM THE CRIMINOLOGY REP PAGE:
Hi All! (19 November 2012)
So, this blog serves to communicate with you what I've been doing for you as your Course Rep. What did I learn from setting up this blog?
Well, basically that I am capable of it and should proceed similarly in the future.
Basically, what being a Course Rep comes down to is that I collect your complaints (and compliments!) on our courses in the regular criminology stream of the Uni of Leicester and then bring them up during the next meeting of the Department's Student-Staff Committee.
What I learned from standing up in front of all of you back in induction week to argue in favour of myself, so you could vote for me (one vote difference!), is that I'm terrified of standing up in front of strangers and saying something BUT I am capable of it. I should try that more often.
There's a bunch of ways of how you can contact me: just walk up to me (because, you know, it's not difficult to play 'spot the girl with the fluffy brown hair') - during Penology, for instance, or just whenever I'm on campus. I'm always in the library on Tuesday afternoon and early evening, mostly in the graduate reading room. If you can't find me, I'm on facebook about 95% of the time that I have access to a computer, so about 50% of my waking hours. I should probably spend less time on facebook though.
Actually, our stream has its own facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/411162032290652/
If you don't have facebook, drop me a mail. You can find my email address if you log in to Blackboard, go to the Criminology page, find 'October 2012/13 students' and click 'send email' - you'll find my name somewhere there. Alternatively, if you click on 'To...' when you're composing a new mail, you can find me in the address book that pops up.
Finally, if there's really no other way for you to contact me, post a comment on this blog somewhere, but please include your name (or at least your first name) so I know that it's not just some random internet creep trying to mess.
So what's happened so far?
Well, there's been one Student-Staff Committee Meeting so far. During this meeting, the following was discussed:
- What's going on with the essay questions?
- They have been sent to an external examiner, as soon as they're back they'll be published. External examiner to be contacted the same day.
Of course, by now we've all got our essay questions, but then again I informed anyone who brought it up to me as soon as I saw them again, so that was communicated as quickly as possible, also because it was the most important topic.
- Any comments on the Essay workshop and RefWorks session: most people found some use in them.
- What's up with the 2000 word limit for the practice essay? It's too short!
- The advice is to stick as closely as possible to the word count, there will be no docking marks for going over but there is still a risk for marks on other points to be taken off. Of course, that isn't the case if you hit 2000 words mid-way through the sentence, but writing to 2000 words is kind of the point of this assignment.
Also no longer an issue, also already communicated as soon as possible after the meeting.
- Some points on the Library:
- Make sure to get your Library pin mailed to you, so you can make full use of the Library facilities. Click 'get my pin' on the Library page. Things you can do with your Library account:
- Place holds
- Renew loans
- Apply for copies of books to be shipped from the British Library (allow about 9 working days, though it usually arrives within the week. If it's not being read, that is)
- You can also have a maximum of 15 journal articles shipped per year
- Other Library announcements:
- The Library knows there's too few computers, it's setting up a system that allows you to loan netbooks. As soon as the system is up and running, an announcement will be made on the website.
- If you need extra advice, you can book a librarian for 1 on 1 advice, you can do so via the Library website.
- If there are too few copies of a book, let the Library know, it may decide to purchase an extra copy.
- When there are more than 3 holds on a book, the Library automatically purchases a new copy.
At this meeting, I took lots of notes and brought up many points. I should work, however, on formulating those points beforehand, as some of them came out seeming quite a bit of a mess. I furthermore seem to lack quite a bit of confidence in bringing something up, easily backing down whenever someone gives an answer, whether that answer is satisfactory of not. So what I should be working on is confidence and preparation.
So what have *I* been doing to make sure I can be a good Course Rep for you?
I've attended a Course Rep training session and have enrolled in the Uni's Leicester Award for Leadership and Management, which means that I'll be learning how to effectively make sure that you get everything you need as a Criminology student. What I learned is how to be a good course rep, and what the award entails. I should, however, stop listening to things without asking questions. If only so things are extra clear.
Most importantly, though, is the setting up of the MSc Social Association with Ryan, Madison and Zoe. We're currently working on arranging the Christmas Dinner, probably at the Slug & Lettuce. You will receive more information on this as soon as possible.
I was also informed today that on 13 December there will be a very interesting trial at the Crown Court, so I'll see what we can do about that.
What I learned:
I'm still as terrified of speaking to strangers as I always was. I need confidence, or more importantly, I need courage to speak up and ask questions. What I therefore really hope to get out of this course rep thing and of the leadership award is the ability to take charge and say what I need to say when I need to say it. I have always been quite uncertain when saying things to people I don't know (yet), and that's definitely something that needs work. Doing new things isn't scary, but saying new things is. However, if I want to get my point across, I will have to speak up at one point or another.
So I'll practice a lot. Promised.
What I learned:
I'm still as terrified of speaking to strangers as I always was. I need confidence, or more importantly, I need courage to speak up and ask questions. What I therefore really hope to get out of this course rep thing and of the leadership award is the ability to take charge and say what I need to say when I need to say it. I have always been quite uncertain when saying things to people I don't know (yet), and that's definitely something that needs work. Doing new things isn't scary, but saying new things is. However, if I want to get my point across, I will have to speak up at one point or another.
So I'll practice a lot. Promised.
When there's more news, I'll let you know!
Christmas Dinner and Course Rep Meeting (06 December 2012)
Judging by some of the anecdotes, yesterday's Christmas Dinner was the most successful event I ever helped organize.
Attendance was brilliant, 34 MSc students and 4 lecturers, and I can't believe how well the payment system worked out; you were all wonderful at paying both the deposit of five pounds and the remaining 10 on time.
Even the system of pre-ordering courses worked well - it's tremendous that there were 114 dishes ordered (three-course meal) and only two mix-ups... that's a success rate of 98.25%, we all deserve a Distinction for it! Good job well done, all. Good thing though that I brought the order list for those who'd forgotten what they'd ordered, that's a thing to keep in mind for next time - have a clear order list (rather than my annotated one) and maybe even bring multiple copies of it.
Lovely to see as well that the intention of encouraging people to socialize worked out so well as well, what with so many afterwards flocking to Revolution and then on to Red Leicester or other places, or, in one particular case, on to an encounter with Leicester flora (sorry, news travels fast).
Dinner photos can be found on our Facebook page.
Lots of thanks also to the Slug & Lettuce staff for handling our dinner so incredibly well and to Ryan for handling the communication with the Slug & Lettuce and with the Department. Thanks also to the Department of Criminology and to the individual lecturers who attended and who allowed Ryan and me to promote the dinner in our courses.
Today I also attended the ED Advisory Board for the College of Social Science - basically just a meeting of course reps about being a course rep and about college-wide issues.
Here's some of the updates, also for my fellow course reps who couldn't attend:
Christmas Dinner and Course Rep Meeting (06 December 2012)
Judging by some of the anecdotes, yesterday's Christmas Dinner was the most successful event I ever helped organize.
Attendance was brilliant, 34 MSc students and 4 lecturers, and I can't believe how well the payment system worked out; you were all wonderful at paying both the deposit of five pounds and the remaining 10 on time.
Even the system of pre-ordering courses worked well - it's tremendous that there were 114 dishes ordered (three-course meal) and only two mix-ups... that's a success rate of 98.25%, we all deserve a Distinction for it! Good job well done, all. Good thing though that I brought the order list for those who'd forgotten what they'd ordered, that's a thing to keep in mind for next time - have a clear order list (rather than my annotated one) and maybe even bring multiple copies of it.
Lovely to see as well that the intention of encouraging people to socialize worked out so well as well, what with so many afterwards flocking to Revolution and then on to Red Leicester or other places, or, in one particular case, on to an encounter with Leicester flora (sorry, news travels fast).
Dinner photos can be found on our Facebook page.
Lots of thanks also to the Slug & Lettuce staff for handling our dinner so incredibly well and to Ryan for handling the communication with the Slug & Lettuce and with the Department. Thanks also to the Department of Criminology and to the individual lecturers who attended and who allowed Ryan and me to promote the dinner in our courses.
Today I also attended the ED Advisory Board for the College of Social Science - basically just a meeting of course reps about being a course rep and about college-wide issues.
Here's some of the updates, also for my fellow course reps who couldn't attend:
- The course rep mentoring idea cannot be implemented this year, so instead focus groups will be set up.
- There will be a Superstar Award for University staff, any uni staff member can be nominated for it.
- Next week will be the elections for College representative; they basic responsibilities are attending Student Parliament sessions and attend extra meetings.
- Course reps will have the opportunity next week to talk to the Uni's Vice-Chancellor over lunch; this means that some really big issues can also be addressed then (so if there's a really pressing matter you want me to discuss, let me know before Thursday 13 December!)
I also attended the Leadership workshop earlier this week, which was about leadership and management skills and identifying what you're good at and what you need to work on; I always knew my weakness lies with spoken communication, but especially after this Christmas Dinner I think I found my strength: handling the administrative (secretarial and treasury) side of matters. I promise to work on the communication thing, though, because if there's one thing a Course Rep needs to be able to do it's to communicate effectively. So there.
I do seem to be a little more confident now, especially in communicating with the department. I don't know whether this is because I've gotten to know them or because I'm just more certain of myself, but in any case, this is a development I hope continues.
I do seem to be a little more confident now, especially in communicating with the department. I don't know whether this is because I've gotten to know them or because I'm just more certain of myself, but in any case, this is a development I hope continues.
That's it for now, contact me whenever you've got uni issues!
SSC And Other Events (28 February 2013)
Hi all,
Sorry for the delay since the last post, I just kept on doing things.
So what has been happening recently?
Well, I for one have been following a masterclass on public speaking so I can be of better service to you - not just so I will feel more confident when addressing you all, but more importantly so I feel more confident when addressing the Department. I learned quite a bit about public speaking, especially about flagging (i.e. telling people what you're going to tell them and when, such as "and now for the second argument"). I'm not always the most confident public speaker because I don't always know that what I'm doing is right, and this opportunity at least refreshed my memory on the what-goes-where. I hope that in the future my public speaking moments will be clearer and that I will be able to deliver them with more confidence.
Of course we also had the wonderful drinks night at The Marquis, for which Ryan handled the organisation and I again handled the money. The money box served its purpose well again. I learned that Ryan is really good at the communicating this all to people, and I am particularly good at keeping track of money and who paid and who didn't, as well as keeping track of how much money is in the money box. As has been suggested, however, next time I won't keep the box in a clear plastic bag, and I'll formalise the signing form because a sheet from my notepad just does not look very professional.
I also attended the Refresher Fair, where I did see some of you. I did this to inform other students about what being a Course Rep is all about, and to inform student of ED. ED might even still be of service to you all - basically, if you have an academic issue and you don't want to involve the uni, contact them: http://leicesterunion.com/welfare/ed_-_the_education_unit
I tried to get over my fear of talking to strangers, and learned that this is particularly easy if you have a rehearsed opening line. Awkwardly standing around waiting for strangers to finish their conversation however does not work when you're trying to pass out flyers - instead, allow the speaker to finish speaking, make eye contact and say your rehearsed line while giving them the flyers, and more importantly give them time to answer and ask questions. People won't be mean, at worst they will ignore you. Good things to keep in mind next time I need to address a stranger.
One very important thing that has been happening is the Student-Staff Committee. I offered to chair this one, which was quite good because it meant I could control the meeting and make sure everyone's issues where properly addressed.
It was a quick one, and here are the minutes:
It was fun being chair of the meeting, especially because I could practice taking charge of the conversation and of the event; I'm not actually bad at it. Following the set formula of the agenda and then a round of the attendants talking about their issues, then allowing other attendants to respond, works really well. Perhaps I should be more assertive in the future and cut off long responses and winding stories, but under my chairship we managed to address a good number of issues in under 20 minutes. It seems that if there is one thing I'm good at, it's conducting efficient meetings. In the future I should however learn to take charge of meetings, because although I requested to chair this one and this one went well, in other situations I would be hesitant to do so. So I should work on being more confident in my ability to lead.
Furthermore, I have attended a focus group reviewing the way we were introduced to the library. What was brought up, among other things, was the fact that we were not given a tour of the library (which might've been fun) and the fact that there's always too few computers, lately even in the grad room. I later received these links from the folks at the library:
For suggesting books to buy: http://www2.le.ac.uk/library/about/news/more-books
Online tutorials: http://www2.le.ac.uk/library/help/tutorials
How to pay your fines: http://www2.le.ac.uk/library/services/borrowing/returning#pay
Refworks/Endnote: http://www2.le.ac.uk/library/help/bibliographies
Subject databases, on each subject page are a range of resources for your subject: http://www2.le.ac.uk/library/find/subjects
Online chat feature: http://www2.le.ac.uk/library/help/chat-help
Computer rooms across campus: http://www2.le.ac.uk/offices/ithelp/it4/students/on-campus
The induction review may not be helpful for you anymore, but it might be for next year's Crim grad students, so I'm sort of reaching beyond my year here.
Finally, Wednesday I attended the Course Rep Lunch. There were some interesting things brought up, but not all of them particularly relevant to either Criminology student or postgrads. However, I did bring up one question, that's one that might be bothering you as well, and that is about whether we can get a partial transcript of our first semester grades. After all, the Leicester website doesn't say much about it - three of the four options are for undergraduates mainly, and the fourth, Final Transcript, isn't relevant until we're done. Unfortunately, I could not get a satisfactory response on that question so afterwards I trekked to the Registry office (which is in the Fielding Johnson building, in case you wondered) and asked them about it. Again, no satisfactory answer - they plainly told me that such a thing is impossible and that I should try the Department. So I have now emailed Alison about it.
Point of improvement here for the Uni.
Also learned that I should not be scared to speak up to important people when there's an issue that they could solve; they are people in charge for a reason, they are there to solve those issues. And really, they are not that scary up close.
I promised in my last blog post to work on my spoken communication skills. So what I have learned over the last few weeks:
Next week I'll be attending top-up training, and I've signed up for a focus group on Blackboard, so if there's any Blackboard or general matters that you'd like me to address (the general matters of course with the Department), don't hesitate to contact me - you know the channels.
Ryan and I are also currently negotiating with two restaurants about an end of semester dinner. We currently have two options; Park Side in the Charles Wilson building, where they'll do a 3-course sit-down dinner for 30 pounds, and Everest Dine in the Leicester city centre, with whom we'll meet on Friday. We'll let you know more in due course.
Also do be aware that soon, this blog will be integrated with my main blog, leicesteruniadventures.blogspot.co.uk. Just so you know.
Thanks, and have a happy end of semester!
SSC And Other Events (28 February 2013)
Hi all,
Sorry for the delay since the last post, I just kept on doing things.
So what has been happening recently?
Well, I for one have been following a masterclass on public speaking so I can be of better service to you - not just so I will feel more confident when addressing you all, but more importantly so I feel more confident when addressing the Department. I learned quite a bit about public speaking, especially about flagging (i.e. telling people what you're going to tell them and when, such as "and now for the second argument"). I'm not always the most confident public speaker because I don't always know that what I'm doing is right, and this opportunity at least refreshed my memory on the what-goes-where. I hope that in the future my public speaking moments will be clearer and that I will be able to deliver them with more confidence.
Of course we also had the wonderful drinks night at The Marquis, for which Ryan handled the organisation and I again handled the money. The money box served its purpose well again. I learned that Ryan is really good at the communicating this all to people, and I am particularly good at keeping track of money and who paid and who didn't, as well as keeping track of how much money is in the money box. As has been suggested, however, next time I won't keep the box in a clear plastic bag, and I'll formalise the signing form because a sheet from my notepad just does not look very professional.
I also attended the Refresher Fair, where I did see some of you. I did this to inform other students about what being a Course Rep is all about, and to inform student of ED. ED might even still be of service to you all - basically, if you have an academic issue and you don't want to involve the uni, contact them: http://leicesterunion.com/welfare/ed_-_the_education_unit
I tried to get over my fear of talking to strangers, and learned that this is particularly easy if you have a rehearsed opening line. Awkwardly standing around waiting for strangers to finish their conversation however does not work when you're trying to pass out flyers - instead, allow the speaker to finish speaking, make eye contact and say your rehearsed line while giving them the flyers, and more importantly give them time to answer and ask questions. People won't be mean, at worst they will ignore you. Good things to keep in mind next time I need to address a stranger.
One very important thing that has been happening is the Student-Staff Committee. I offered to chair this one, which was quite good because it meant I could control the meeting and make sure everyone's issues where properly addressed.
It was a quick one, and here are the minutes:
- Since Darrick left, Lisa is now the course convenor for the MSc. Rebecca is the deputy-convenor.
- One thing brought up last time were the essay titles - we did receive them fairly quickly afterwards, and quite on time this semester, so that's all been well.
- The practice essay was brought up again - I brought up last time that it was unclear what the word limit was, and it was now brought up that a 4000 word limit might be better in the future to prepare students for what it is like to write a 4000-word essay, as not all will have done so recently if at all. What was good about the practice essay however was the timely feedback, which was also fairly helpful.
However, perhaps the rationale of the practice essay should be made clearer. Its purpose is to assess referencing and analytical thinking, and to get students in that mindset, but that is not always very clear. - Some specific complaints were made about the Media & Crime module: some of the essay questions seem to not be covered according to the course outline, which may also not be up to date.
UPDATE: the module handbook for Media & Crime has been updated. - The contact hours for some tutors are not accurate on the website.
- Some of the advertised optional modules are not actually offered: the department regrets this but the availability of such modules very much depends on staffing and funding.
- For Criminological Research Modules, the assignment is to write a research proposal for an empirical piece of research. However, it would be good practice for some of those wishing to do a literature review for their dissertation to also have the option to write an assessed research proposal. The department reacts that a literature review is just not part of the CRM skills set and the research proposal assignment is a way to show that the student understands sampling, measures etc. The ethics sheet for the dissertation is however a good way to contemplate specific aspects of the dissertation, also for literature review, and if necessary the go-to person is the supervisor, with whom a proposal for a lit review can still be penned or at least discussed.
- The guidelines for the presentation in Crime Prevention and Community Safety aren't up yet. Will be done soon.
- On behalf of the Library: there is a more books campaign (see link below), where students can suggest books for the library to buy, this runs until the end of March.
- On behalf of the Library: if a student needs research help, they can make an appointment with a librarian.
- The department will be kept up-to-date on the MSc End of Semester Dinner (see below). The department enjoyed the Christmas Dinner last semester.
It was fun being chair of the meeting, especially because I could practice taking charge of the conversation and of the event; I'm not actually bad at it. Following the set formula of the agenda and then a round of the attendants talking about their issues, then allowing other attendants to respond, works really well. Perhaps I should be more assertive in the future and cut off long responses and winding stories, but under my chairship we managed to address a good number of issues in under 20 minutes. It seems that if there is one thing I'm good at, it's conducting efficient meetings. In the future I should however learn to take charge of meetings, because although I requested to chair this one and this one went well, in other situations I would be hesitant to do so. So I should work on being more confident in my ability to lead.
Furthermore, I have attended a focus group reviewing the way we were introduced to the library. What was brought up, among other things, was the fact that we were not given a tour of the library (which might've been fun) and the fact that there's always too few computers, lately even in the grad room. I later received these links from the folks at the library:
For suggesting books to buy: http://www2.le.ac.uk/library/about/news/more-books
Online tutorials: http://www2.le.ac.uk/library/help/tutorials
How to pay your fines: http://www2.le.ac.uk/library/services/borrowing/returning#pay
Refworks/Endnote: http://www2.le.ac.uk/library/help/bibliographies
Subject databases, on each subject page are a range of resources for your subject: http://www2.le.ac.uk/library/find/subjects
Online chat feature: http://www2.le.ac.uk/library/help/chat-help
Computer rooms across campus: http://www2.le.ac.uk/offices/ithelp/it4/students/on-campus
The induction review may not be helpful for you anymore, but it might be for next year's Crim grad students, so I'm sort of reaching beyond my year here.
Finally, Wednesday I attended the Course Rep Lunch. There were some interesting things brought up, but not all of them particularly relevant to either Criminology student or postgrads. However, I did bring up one question, that's one that might be bothering you as well, and that is about whether we can get a partial transcript of our first semester grades. After all, the Leicester website doesn't say much about it - three of the four options are for undergraduates mainly, and the fourth, Final Transcript, isn't relevant until we're done. Unfortunately, I could not get a satisfactory response on that question so afterwards I trekked to the Registry office (which is in the Fielding Johnson building, in case you wondered) and asked them about it. Again, no satisfactory answer - they plainly told me that such a thing is impossible and that I should try the Department. So I have now emailed Alison about it.
Point of improvement here for the Uni.
Also learned that I should not be scared to speak up to important people when there's an issue that they could solve; they are people in charge for a reason, they are there to solve those issues. And really, they are not that scary up close.
I promised in my last blog post to work on my spoken communication skills. So what I have learned over the last few weeks:
- Renewing my knowledge of public speaking and more importantly, that I should not be scared. If I know what I'm talking about, I will not make a fool out of myself. I will continue to grasp opportunities to increase my confidence, such as in class or at meetings.
- I'm good at being a secretary and treasurer. Next time more attention to where I keep the money box and formalising the way I keep track of things, because having it all in my head means others can't hold me accountable, which isn't brilliant when I'm dealing with their money.
- I should not hesitate to talk to strangers - as with public speaking, if I know my stuff, I will be fine. Another way to improve my confidence at addressing strangers.
- I am efficient at chairing meetings. What I need is a good preparation and, in the future, the confidence to take charge if there is no formal chair or leader.
- Important people are not scary and will listen to you when you raise a good point.
Conclusion: there is no need for me to lack confidence in addressing issues and spoken communication. If the point is reasonable and I am well-prepared, I am actually quite good at it, and this is clearly a skill I should continue to develop by taking every opportunity that arises to exercise myself. What I set out to do since enrolling in the Leicester Award scheme, developing my confidence in spoken communication, is something that does seem to happen quite well. Whether I'll ever be as confident in it as some others are remains perhaps a question, but as of now, I feel I am better at it than I ever was. Let's keep that upward trend going.
Next week I'll be attending top-up training, and I've signed up for a focus group on Blackboard, so if there's any Blackboard or general matters that you'd like me to address (the general matters of course with the Department), don't hesitate to contact me - you know the channels.
Ryan and I are also currently negotiating with two restaurants about an end of semester dinner. We currently have two options; Park Side in the Charles Wilson building, where they'll do a 3-course sit-down dinner for 30 pounds, and Everest Dine in the Leicester city centre, with whom we'll meet on Friday. We'll let you know more in due course.
Also do be aware that soon, this blog will be integrated with my main blog, leicesteruniadventures.blogspot.co.uk. Just so you know.
Thanks, and have a happy end of semester!
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