What I learned from doing my essays

So, now my essays are done and I can relax for a few days before polishing the essays and going all out on my dissertation.

Some of the things I learned from doing these essays:

• The Netherlands are really very much over-regulated, so much so that any amount of information available on things for which the government is responsible is completely overwhelming - but not necessarily very helpful. I think they're trying to create opacity through transparency. That said, really crucial information still needs to be WOBbed (Wet Openbaarheid van Bestuur, or the Law on Transparent Governance) and won't be released easily.
• I really don't like the system of amendments to British laws. It's incredibly opaque. 
• The different legal approaches of the Netherlands and Britain make for legal constructions that are surprisingly similar despite being based on completely different legal ideologies.
• Britain is safety before privacy, the Netherlands vice versa - for now.
• I really enjoy doing comparative legal research.
• The Media are evil.
• People don't care about what's real, only about what fits with their own idea of reality. 
• The Media pander.
• The Media have always been evil. There has never been such a thing as "oh my, the media sure weren't that bad-news-oriented when I was a kid" - they were, it's just the same state of mind as the one that goes "today's youth sure weren't as badly behaved in my time!" that makes you think differently.
• I really enjoy doing media-sociological research.
• Effective policing is really difficult. 
• Transnational crime hinges on market forces, not on transnational policing efforts.
• Europol has a really annoying website.
• Europol's annual OCTA reports are very clear, but not very helpful.
• Europol's publications reflect the country that Europol is located in - the Netherlands.
• Europol's publications are mainly pro-Europol propaganda.
• Europol is really pessimistic with regards to the future of transnational crime in Europe.
• I should never toss out old papers, and also not any of the paragraphs I take out of papers to diminish the word count.
• In order to actually effectively approach transnational crime, law enforcement in Europe needs to be harmonized to a degree that would make even the most pro-European party cry about loss of sovereignty. 

So that's some of the stuff I learned from doing these essays. Fascinating stuff, really. 

The Netherlands are idiotic

It's 5 am and I'm still awake and I can't stop thinking.

I love Britain, and the Netherlands are an idiotic country.

In the Netherlands...

...Politicians debate whether the titles of academic and professional degrees should be made the same - that is, people who would've previously gotten a B Eng or a B Ec or something of the sort will suddenly all get a BSc or a BA in the future, supposedly because B 'Something not Sc/A'-degrees are not recognized abroad (nevermind that there are plenty of foreign educational institutions that offer precisely such degrees), while ignoring the fact that this will tremendously devalue all current BSc/BA-degrees;

...Politicians debate whether to (finally) abandon the Law against Blasphemy - yes, that was an actual law that existed in the Netherlands until 2013, and yet even in 2013 there were parties trying to keep it. I have no problems with religion but people's faith should not be imposed on other people's lives just like that;

...Politicians accuse each other of "nibbling space cake";

...For the inauguration of King Willem-Alexander, the composer of some of the Netherlands's most successful and simultaneously worst songs (the Dutch should be famous for their tremendous lack of any taste in music) is employed to write a song, which predictably ends up bad - when everyone is suitably outraged, he withdraws it, and then despite there being fairly okay-ish alternatives, the Inauguration Committee says "screw the public, we're going with the bad song anyway" because that's just how Dutch committees roll;

...The release of and criticisms on said bad song actually received about the same amount of coverage as the Boston Marathon Bombings;

...The Rijksmuseum is finally open after ten years of refurbishment and restoration - it took about three times longer than planned and went about four times or so over budget because the Stadsdeelraad of the part of Amsterdam in which the Rijksmuseum is located was actually making an expensive fuss over a stupid bike passage;

...State secretaries who make a mess of their responsibilities don't actually get kicked out of office;

...UPDATE: Political parties (though the same as the one that was making a fuss over Blasphemy) are now trying to move to forbid adverts for the website SecondLove, because the site encourages adultery. Seriously, regardless of what I *personally* think about adultery, who gives a toss about what other people do in their spare time, as long as it's not illegal?

Despite all this, I've lived in that stupid country for 22 years. It's my stupid country.

Despite all the idiotic over-regulation, there are things I miss about it.

I miss how the Dutch are open to the point of rudeness. I find it tremendously difficult here to gauge what people think of me (if they even do so), while of Dutchies I'd generally know fairly quickly whether they like or dislike me. I think I'd rather have a "sod off" than a blank stare.

I miss how Dutch supermarkets have a proper selection of vegetables. I'm getting really annoyed of alternating between cauliflower, sweetcorn and green beans. Though I did see that the greengrocer on Queens Road has rhubarb, so I'll have to drop by that place.

I miss how the Dutch don't look at you funny when you try to make small talk while queuing in the shop and actually respond.

I also kind of miss not having a strange accent.

Funny how it's the little things that make me feel somewhat homesick after 7 months in the UK.

Tuesday Drinks

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.

Things that are Cool

Now they've gone and done it.

Alright, they went and done it back in 1965, but still.

I think they've now covered just about everything I find supremely cool in Doctor Who. They've done Egyptians (Nefertiti in Dinosaurs on a Spaceship), Napoleon (Reign of Terror), Vampires (sort of, in Vampires of Venice), Shakespeare (more than just one episode), Frank Sinatra and Marilyn Monroe (well, they mentioned them in A Christmas Carol). And I'm watching The Chase now, and not only is Ian's dancing and his remark to Barbara to "get with it" slightly embarrassing ergo hilarious, they've featured The Beatles. On telly, but still.

I also find Vicki's remarks regarding The Beatles surprisingly apt. Mind, this was 1965. They were big, they were massively big back then, but they still had 5 years to go, to get even bigger.

Mind you that nowadays, Abbey Road is still crowded on cold Thursday mornings with people trying to take pictures of themselves on the crossing. That's almost 50 years later. Would the BBC have known, back in 1965, how big The Beatles would still be years and years later? How it would endure? Mind you that nowadays no one expects - whatever Deity you choose to believe in, please help us if I'm wrong and they do endure - Justin Bieber or One Direction or Nicki Minaj or whatever's the most popular thing going on right now to still be THAT popular in 50 years. Okay, sure, Vicki's from 400 years into the future and perhaps The Beatles will have faded in 400 years, but they haven't as of yet.

Also I love her classification of them as 'classical music'. I suppose they are, though. Classical pop.

Pigeons

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.

Yet Another London Adventure

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!

Doctor Who s7e6 sort-of-review

So yesterday I watched the new Doctor Who-episode (Who-pisode?).

I was quite excited for it, also because it had been promoted as being somewhat James Bond/Jason Bourne-like. It wasn't like that at all, though.
Seriously, the Doctor can't be like James Bond - the only character in the episodes I have watched so far that can make claims to being somewhat Bond-like would be Ian, the 30-something science teacher in a suit (but willing to dress in funkier outfits) and JFK-haircut who, together with Barbara and Susan, was one of the first companions back in the 1960s (I do have a bit of a weak spot for the Ian character).

But I quite liked the episode, apart from a few things I am all too willing to overlook. Except for Clara. I don't like this version of her. I liked her as soufflé-girl, and I liked her as Victorian Clara, but current-day Clara is just odd. She seemed to be trying too hard to be feisty but missing the actual spark to be feisty. A bit too-cute-to-be-true, in a sense (also, didn't she call him 'Doctor' before he'd properly introduced himself as such? Might have to re-watch).
Monsters in the WiFi, heck yes. Nicely done, too, with the Spoonheads and a creepy CEO-type lady.
Motorbike - why? He's got a bloody TARDIS. Seems a bit contrived and just a plot-thing to have the Doctor drive up the side of the Shard, which seemed slightly off. I watched it going "WHAT." in my best Tennant-imitation. Slightly deus ex machina - "You can't enter" "Well I can because this motor bike that I've been driving around because somehow I thought it wise to leave my TARDIS on the South Bank and that no one has ever seen before can suddenly defy gravity". Yeah No.
Seriously, that could've been done much more easily with the TARDIS, without having to stick in a deus ex motorbike - "Say Clara, let's have breakfast" "Did you just park the TARDIS on the pavement in the middle of London?" "Yes I did" "Awesome" - breakfast - "Oh No, I have to be in the Shard!" - TARDIS - "Hello creepy CEO lady".
But in general I liked the episode. Nice pacing (which is what has me screaming at my laptop about the early episodes - mainly going "seriously Ian, DO SOMETHING!"), nice baddies, nice TARDIS interior, nice purple coat (purple is cool).
I watched the episode expecting it to be part of a bigger whole, which is why I am willing to overlook things - if they bring back the motorbike for something that can't be done with the TARDIS later on in the series, I'll drop all my complaints about it.
The only thing I felt was truly missing was something of a transition between the Christmas special and this episode. I know the prequel is there, but it's not sufficient. Hope they'll come back to that later in the series also.
In general, therefore, nice opening for a new (half) series but only if the writers are willing to wrap up a big number of loose ends.

Very much looking forward to next episode, if only because 'Akhaten' reminds me of the name of pharaoh Akhenaten, which is cool because Akhenaten was not only the heretic king but also the father of Tutankhamun (who really isn't important but his treasures are still cool) and the spouse of Nefertiti - which is cool because we already saw Nefertiti in Dinosaurs on a Spaceship.
Besides, Akhaten seems to translate to something having to do with the solar-deity Aten (whom Akhenaten made the focus of his monotheistic religion) and pharaonic effectivenes, or something of the sort.
The summary on the BBC website says "The Doctor takes Clara to the Festival of Offerings, but the Old God is waking and demands sacrifice!". I've seen the preview and trailer, and there's definitely a fiery planet or even star in there, so that works too. Of course it's in space - but who's to say Akhenaten's religion didn't travel?
So, definitely something with Gods, and Festival of Offerings sounds quite like something that fits with the religions of the Egyptian and classical world. Cool. Fingers crossed that they're actually putting in allusions to Ancient Egypt, for that would forever solidify my fanship of Doctor Who. They've already done vampires and Napoleon, after all.

Time

Seeing as tonight sees the broadcast of a whole new Doctor Who episode, this might be the right moment to write about one of my greatest problems with the show: Time. And time travel. Especially the Earth-centricness.

I don't have any problems with space travel, mainly because space travel is just covering distance and whether covering a certain distance in little to no time passing at all might well be possible when technology improves. Sure, if one travels by coordinates - as the Doctor seems to be doing - one needs to be extremely specific in order not to land halfway in the ground somewhere, or stuck in a ceiling - one would need to know the exact location of every atom in the general area of where one would want to land (which, so I've been told, is one of Physics's major practical problems in making teleportation possible). But I'm sure the TARDIS is perfectly equipped for this, and there appears to be a Galactic Zero Centre (http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/Galactic_centre), like our global coordinates are at 0 where the equator crosses the Greenwich meridian, just off the coast of Africa. Such a zero point is an agreed-upon point and so not an absolute, but can still be used to measure against and so base travel upon. There need to be no extremes known - you don't need to know the "end", just keep on counting. It does not even need to be a Galaxy-widely held convention, even if only the TARDIS would use such a zero point, it can be used for travel, as long as elevation or at least a third dimension is taken into account.

But Time. Time does not truly exist, does it, other than as a purely abstract idea to mark the duration of a sequence of events. Time, as a concept, is a human invention - the basic notion is the rotation of the Earth and the orbiting of the Earth around the Sun, nothing more. A day is the duration for one point - or line, the Greenwich meridian - to move from a specific location relative to the Earth's axis to that same location relative to the Earth's axis, or from Midnight to Midnight. But that's a modern invention, as for instance in the Ancient world, if I remember correctly, a full day lasted from sun up to sun up and so the duration of a day varied. But an agreed duration for a day is good, so humans could divide it by 24, and then by 60, and then by 60 again, and so forth, to find out hours and minutes and seconds and miliseconds. There wasn't even a unified time per country until railways demanded it, and then it still took a while for everyone - it took especially the French very long - to agree that time is to be derived from the Greenwich meridian.
A year is just the same, the number of days it takes to orbit around the Sun - 365.24... something, so we need a leap year every four years except some. To us, that is, because to the Ancient Egyptians a year was 360 days (12 months, 30 days per months, 3 weeks per month, 10 days per week) plus a festival of five days for the Gods, which fell outside the year.
And what is our zero for years? Some Pope decided that the birth of Christ was supposed to be zero, so he calculated zero, and still got it wrong, so that our calendar begins at a completely random point in time. Fair enough though if we can all agreed that that random point is zero, but then the Jewish are currently in the year 5773. And we can't even agree on the point when the year should begin - Midnight at the start of the 1st of January? Or later, in late January/early February, like the Chinese New Year? Roman New Year did not start until March, while Ancient Egyptian New Year was some time over summer.
Fine, so let's say the TARDIS travels by Gallifreyan time - one could presume that at least the Gallifreyans would agree on one time, some of them being Time Lords, after all.
Travelling forward in time should perhaps not be too difficult, if one can teleport or travel really really fast - something with time running slower than elsewhere, something Einstein, something relativity.
But travelling back in time should only be possible if each event, or each sequence of events, is stored in some dimension, and that time passing is just - I'm going fairly metaphysical here - our consciousness passing through those dimensions. A bit like our consciousnesses are watching a stop-motion film, but then they are part of that stop-motion film. I guess this could be possible with parallel universes etc., quantum physics and what not. Schroedinger's Cat and that.
Besides, time travel should only be possible if one can map time against something - but against what?

But perhaps I'm taking time too much as a linear thing and instead it is "a big ball of wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey... stuff".

Anyway. What I did realise is possible was what I realised yesterday as I was trying to fall asleep. Basically, we only see parts of the Doctor's adventures (most notably the Eleventh Doctor suddenly ages from 900-something to 1100-something over a series, and we don't really see what happens in the 200 years in between), so at any point in time, if the Doctor were real, we humans could meet just about every incarnation - a TARDIS could appear right here in the grad lounge and the First Doctor could come stepping out "hmm"-ing (or, more interestingly to me, the Tenth could step out brandishing the sonic screwdriver). Of course that would also mean (I haven't watched any episode yet in which the Doctor meets himself, so bear with me) that a Doctor with little to no hang-ups about crossing his own timeline could easily meet himself in an earlier (or even the same - but hang on, he did that more or less when Rose wanted to save her Dad) regeneration. I'd love for the First Doctor to meet the Eleventh and go all "hmm" and "my boy" and patronising and all that until the Eleventh points out that he is him but - hilariously - older.

What if time passed faster in the TARDIS (or any other other dimension) than it does in the outside world? It would explain why suddenly the Eleventh Doctor is 200 years older, for I doubt he'd travel without the Ponds for 200 years while the Ponds were still free. If one is used to a human pace, and time moves faster in another dimension, what would seem like a month could indeed easily be a year, or even two centuries.
It would also explain why some Doctors (especially the Tenth and Eleventh - I've yet to observe Two to Seven) seem a bit hyperactive compared to a human pace.
Sort of reversed relativity.
Perhaps it WOULD, in case of reversed relativity of time, be possible to travel back in time. Perhaps the pace of time inside the TARDIS can be altered so that travelling in time both ways is made possible. I don't know.
Hang on. Time goes faster on the inside than on the outside.
The TARDIS is Narnia.
That, or the Eleventh Doctor spent 200 years in Narnia.
Either one is cool.

Fascinating stuff, time. I just have difficulty grasping it - I do wish I hadn't dropped my science courses in secondary school. The upside of all this is that if time was a stop-motion film observed by our consciousnesses, I'd be totally right in believing there is no Truth and all there is, is our observed reality.

Physicists, do feel free to step in and answer my questions...

PS I love this: http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/ask_astro/answers/970401c.html. I'm quite terrible at the whole sine/cosine/tangent bit of mathemathics (only mathematics test I failed back when I was still good at maths), but let's ignore that bit. This bit: "The Earth is doing a lot more than rotating, although that is certainly the motion we notice most, because day follows night as a result. We also orbit the Sun once a year. The circumference of the Earth's orbit is about 940 million kilometers, so if you divide that by the hours in a year you will get our orbital speed in kilometers per hour. We are also moving with the Sun around the center of our galaxy and moving with our galaxy as it drifts through intergalactic space!". Pure Epic. Basically, it tells me that there should be four basic units of time on Earth: a day (rotation), an Earth year (orbit), a Galatic year (moving around the centre of the Galaxy) and an Intergalactic period (a distance in drifting through Intergalatic Space). Yes, I *am* ignoring time derived from atom clocks etc.. So basically, the TARDIS would not only have to have a sort of internal library of the positions of every atom - impressive enough to start with - but also of every atom's movement through time - and surely this must include 'paths not taken', i.e. unrealised futures and disregarded pasts.
Whoa. Time Lord technology must be truly awesome. No wonder the sonic screwdriver can do lots of things that seem like deus ex machina plot-tricks to us mere humans...

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. 

New Things

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:

Boring (and I like it!)

(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...

Scared

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.

When god closes a door, somewhere he opens a window

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...

This is not the answer you're looking for

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.

All Better

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.

Foolishness

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.

Duvet cover

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. 

Cold (again!)

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.

Passport

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.

Email

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.

Deutsch

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.

PhD Application Qualification Verification

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.

Conferences

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.

Imperial March: The Malevolent Muses

Evil Greetings.

Today sees the start of the 2013 Imperial March.

What is the Imperial March?

It is, for one, a brilliant piece composed by John Williams as Darth Vader's leitmotif in the original Star Wars trilogy.

It is also a month to be spent exploring evil characters and deeds in fiction and other forms of art, as well as reconsider what evil supposedly is and does, and whether what you or anyone else considers to be evil is evil at all.

Who invented the Imperial March?

As said, the symphony was written by John Williams.

Imperial March as an event first celebrated by EvilCo in 2012. 

What is EvilCo?

EvilCo is a group of people looking to celebrate villains in art and fiction, it has existed since 2011 and at any point in time holds a maximum of 13 members. 

Can I also celebrate Imperial March?

Yes, please do! Life would be terribly boring if morality was static.

Even if I'm not an EvilCo member?

Especially when you're not an EvilCo member!

How do I do it?

Any way is possible. There are no rules. However, EvilCo and myself specifically do not endorse harming other people or animals or property in any way. 

In fact, that is one of the reasons to celebrate Imperial March - we hold the opinion that violence, gore and immorality in fiction and art - this includes films and video games - removes the need to carry out harmful acts "out there". Imperial March offers a safe and harmless way to explore such things in a manner that has no impact on others unless they choose it for it to have an impact - but, as with all things, if they choose for some expression of evilness in art to have an impact on them, those people have no right to complain. 

If, however, you wilfully exert an evil influence on other people, those other people have of course every right to rebel and retaliate as though you were actually Darth Vader/Lord Voldemort/Sauron. 

Do you promote immorality and evilness?

Only to express in fiction and art.

As a sort of carnival so evil impulses don't need to be expressed in real life.

And now, for this year's first contribution, a poem:

The Malevolent Muses

Nine in total, Muses of art

And nine in vicious counterpart

The Malevolent Muses

To whom Everyone loses

Nine in total, Muses of wrong

Muses as evil in life's epic song

One for villains of the writ

One for truly painful wit

One for stage and silver screen

One for things that once have been

One for light and paint and rock

One for slowing down the clock

One for song and rhyme
One for wasting time

One for life's regret

These Muses hold to us terrible debt

And regardless of their wrong or right

They are so very much a plight

When things go wrong and one so chooses

One should blame the Malevolent Muses.

HELP!

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. 

Greed and Confusion; Murders and Executions

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...

Things are going so well! (a bit too well, perhaps)

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.

Poem: Roosevelt

I think my rant against the RA/UCR name change was the bit I needed to finally really stop missing it. RA/UCR is a marvellous place and I've learned so much there that I wouldn't have learned anywhere else - it was one of the best things to ever have happened to me. But my current home is Leicester, and we'll see where 'home' is next year. 

So instead I wrote a poem.

Roosevelt

Dreams are memories

Where the new mimics the old

And where the old maintains the new

Where the sun shines in the rain

And time just rattles on

Where summers spend
Where Freedoms were made sacred word of Citizens

And the town fears life within the night that never rests

And gowns do not wear gowns but twice per annum

Where destructed bricks
Were once before rebuilt

The town is an isle harbouring an isle

A silent bubble never to be popped

Grades (III)

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.

Grade (II)

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.

Crime Shows

Crime shows have always appealed to me. Before watching Lewis I watched Morse, and before watching Morse I watched The Wire. And Dexter. And CSI. And Baantjer.

In fact, I have memories of watching Baantjer when I was about 9 or 10, and sneaking downstairs to have my mum allow me to watch CSI when I was 11.
I have been a big enough fan ("obsessed") of CSI:Miami in the past to write fanfiction (on a public forum to which I will not link for reasons of embarrassment).

But I lied in one of my earlier posts. I wasn't done watching Lewis. I still am watching it - I pay less than 75p per episode to rent them on ITV Player for three months. I *was* however done watching all freely accessible Lewis episodes.
I'm also watching Baantjer - again, since I haven't seen it since I must've been 15 or so.
There is always a bit of adjusting when I watch a Baantjer episode, not just because I have to switch from English to Dutch, but also because 45 minutes seems extraordinarily short and rushed after you've just seen a complicated case taking 2 hours to be solved and because it's incredibly formulaic.

In that sense I like Lewis and Morse much better, not because it's more realistic - it's not - but at least because you need to keep track of things. And because it's set in Oxford, that does help something, for I am not the greatest fan of Amsterdam.

What I do like about Baantjer is that I'm dying to do an analysis of how it may reflect social attitudes in the Netherlands from the mid-90s to early-00s.
Take for instance Vera Prins, who in the novels is actually a man but a woman in the show, and whose female-ness is made important in the TV show. She is highly competent and intelligent, and often on the receiving end of Vledder's not-so-funny-or-innocent innuendo. In an episode in the first series, Buitendam appoints her as sexual harrassment officer at the station, and she remarks to Vledder that she'd like to write him up for it, which, according to her, should not be that difficult. Interestingly, somehow she doesn't report him for harrassing her, and when she gives another young female officer approached by Vledder a flyer, this officer replies that it's not harrassment.
If I remember correctly, Vledder and Prins actually date at one point or another.
What this seems to imply is not only that it's only weak women incapable of verbally defending themselves who experience the negative effects of sexual harrassment, but also that if a man sticks with it long enough, it will have a certain success rate. So although Prins defies explicit gender stereotyping by being a very competent detective, the general implicit attitude towards women is still old-fashioned.

Another interesting aspect is the relation between Vledder and chief detective De Cock (yes, you may laugh, but it is a normal Dutch surname), in which Vledder, eternal jeans-and-leather-jacket-clad womaniser, fulfills the role of Watson to middle class De Cock's Sherlock; when Vledder-Watson states something during the investigation that reflects supposed audience sentiments; e.g. when an underworld figure is shot, that the case will resolve itself, or when a neo-nazi is found murdered, that he must've deserved it (and thus the case is not worthy of too much effort); De Cock then usually follows by stating that every case deserves the same effort and attention. This is emphasised by the end-of-episode segments, where the team meets at De Cock's house, where his wife (in a traditional gender role) serves snacks and drinks and De Cock explains how he knew whodunnit and why, and then the team and Mrs De Cock reflect on it. Mrs De Cock then often offers some sort of emotional statement, to which De Cock replies, for instance, that a murder is still a murder, thus implying that regardless of whatever emotion people feel towards a certain event, law is supposed to trump all.

But, yeah, seeing are there are 123 episodes, making the time to watch all isn't too difficult but to analyse all is. But I will. At some point in the future.

A fun thing about studing Criminology is that you always have a good excuse to watch crime shows - "research".
Tomorrow in Forensic Science and Justice we will discuss the portrayal of Forensics - i.e. we will discuss that CSI is evil.

It's quite interesting how some of my past activities somehow always come back years later. Of course the CSI-effect is something to be worried about and I never expected NOT to discuss it, but what I find interesting is that I had to do an argumentative presentation on a topic in my 5th year in secondary school in Dutch class and I did so about the CSI-effect (and how I didn't believe in it). I forgot how I structured my arguments (or what they were) but I do remember that my delivery was far from flawless - but Mrs Hoff was still kind enough to give me a pass on it.

Criminology. It was inevitable.

History

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

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.