blogging today

i made this great list of tasks for the afternoon/evening.
and look at me checking at least some of them off.

need to reserve some train/hotel tickets and things, but i'm waiting on that.

i went to this workshop at uni this morning. didn't have high hopes or much of any hope for it after the one i went to last week. however, this guy could present. and he was presenting well about presenting. most of which was review but i think i can take away one or two points, which (to be honest) is more than i thought. and pretty good considering the others. plus i didnt even feel like stabbing myself in the eye out of boredom. that's high praise for a workshop right there. plus he's going to do a part two thing which i feel like actually may be beneficial.

sadly though, since that was a 3 hour chunk of my morning, i soon felt like i accomplished something and did not feel like continuing to sit in front of my computer at the office on campus.
oh but i did also talk to the biometrics people because i did NOT get the email i was SUPPOSED to get within 24 hours. which means i now have to go to glasgow on tuesday. which i think means i miss a workshops but i'm thinking it's that horrible writing woman's one so the visa issue definitely trumps her.
so after doing those two major things, i didn't have it in me to sit there typing on the computer, so i left and went to the gym. where an hour of elliptical was productive. and then i came home.

but i have made chili, and consequently burned my tongue (boo)

and revised my task list, checked on a few things, sent some emails, updated my calendar. AND edited TWO of carlos' dissertation chapters (that's a lot). from the editing, i dont know how much else writing wise i want to do (that's knackering) but i'm crossing blogging off the task list as well. sweet.

EDIT:
And it was burn's night. so Brittany and i had haggis.

awesome monday

24 january.

yesterday was a full day.

started with my first pottery class. teacher seems more about observing than teaching, but i'm going to make her teach me to use the wheel. as there is no formality to the class. people who've done it before just kept working. the new people and myself made a coil pot. although for them somehow that got turned into pressing clay into a mould. i think i may fire my little coil pot of which i didn't smooth out the inner side coils. i like it that way. i also tried to make a weirdly shaped thumb pot adventure which i do want to fire. two people were using the wheel who knew about that.
so my goal is to just learn how to do that maybe starting next week.

then i went to school. and met with adrian. which was less productive since we're waiting on other people and i haven't written proto chapter 1. so we had minced pies and hung out. and discussed options for visiting distilleries in his village as a way to see the highlands when my parents come.

then i attempted to do some work which didn't go so well until it was time for fake zumba class. i mean the class is a real fitness class at the gym; it's just not legit zumba. anyway i went. it was fine. whatever.

then it was time for orchestra rehearsal.

art, music, fitness, and school work in a day makes me feel awesomely accomplished.

the hive

saturday
22 january.

only worked until 5. glad to be done. my feet were so cold and sore from standing. and it was another crazy busy day on reception. not fun.

but brittany and i went to hang out with her coworkers which was fun. went to one's flat (much much larger than ours) and had take away delicious thai and then out to the hive. well we were supposed to go somewhere else, but that was 8 quid to get in so our group split and we went to the hive where we didn't have to pay to get in and skipped the line. perk of having someone know the bouncer. except then the group split again. but it was still fun.

monky bizness

friday
21 january.

working on friday threw me off. it felt like it was saturday, only it wasnt. and i was there until past ten with a opening shift on the saturday. not cool.

walking

thursday
20 january.

went for a walk. convinced brittany to join me after she was done with work. we went down the canal. the thin layer of ice caused the pebbles we threw at it to make the coolest sound. i'm guessing there was some sort of crazy echo involved but it did not make anywhere near the sound i thought it would have. plus there is no way if you heard it you would think rock on ice on the canal. anyway that was neat. and we walked by some cool churches, popped in a pet store (i want fish!), by a park, and the other cinema, and into the cheapy stores for fun (only they didn't have knitting needles still - boo).

anyway it was a lovely walk.

little river in the news

http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/01/20/2025291/two-miami-dade-police-officers.html

gym classes

19 january
wednesday.

i added the abs class to the stretchNbend class that i can attend on wednesdays. enjoyed both. will be great for my training. but most certainly will be sore tomorrow. will hopefully be able to continue attending each week.

then attempted to get my press release written. it took a lot, mainly because i had no idea how to make my absent idea amazingly awesome and interesting. but i got something scribbled out and emailed off. sadly i received an 'out of office' reply, so i don't know how that will progress.

on a different note, i received david's feedback on my article draft. LOTS of red feedback. LOTS of good, red feedback. will be hard to conquer another draft of that i think. because while i had finally managed to break it down and get the draft done and off to him, it has once again become a huge undertaking AND at a higher skill level. plus i have to fit working on that in with all the other stuff i need to do for what i'm working on currently.

i think it's just a bit too overwhelming at the moment.

plus i finally got the money monkey bizness owed me so that i can pay rent in a few days. awesome. so in celebration of that brittany and i decided to go to the haymarket pub for dinner. i can't remember the last time i was out for dinner, so that was nice. and it was nice to hang out outside of the house. nice uk standard pub. fun. good meal and conversation. and now an updated blog. whoo

writing workshop

18 january
tuesday.

writing workshop for phd students = a workshop that was not presented well = fork in my eye inclinations.
i didn't fully expect it to be better than not, but i expected a woman who claims she presents on writing for in excess of 10 years to not be a terrible presenter.

i dont know. i was hoping for better.

and sadly i now have less confidence for part 2 and 3 of this workshop.

did then go to the gym and elliptical it up for 10.5 km, though i didn't feel much like sitting and writing after the writing workshop.

yoda meeting

17 january
monday.

went to school and went to the library to acquire social psychology and environmental psychology text books. and while i checked 4 or 5 of them out, i have to say i haven't really found the answers i was hoping for from them. but i tried. and downloaded my data from the pilot study of last week.

then i had my meeting with adrian. i love having meetings with adrian. leaving them i always have an immense amount of work and tasks and thinking to do. but each time i get reassured of what i'm doing and actually do make some progress. there must be something to that whole socratic method and whatnot.

so while i wasn't able to give great definitions, i was able to articulate the beginnings of my justification which was at least something. and apparently being more confused means that we're getting somewhere.

so i was left with the task of writing proto chapter 1. (no small undertaking there) and also to write a press release that hopefully could be out before the beginning of february (although that timing seems unlikely as it involves another university department aside from adrian and myself) and dealing with my pilot data and improving my questionnaires.

intense.

i then experienced what the the gym considers to be a zumba class. i'm going with the realization that the instructor heard of zumba as a concept and thought 'hey that's neat' i'll try to make up something that is like it and call it zumba. but zumba is a thing, an instructed, programmatic, learn to do it thing. so scottish zumba left something to be desired.

and then it was orchestra rehearsal.

it was a loooong multi-faceted day.

11 hour shift

16 january
sunday.

11 hours at monkey bizness.
that's all i really have to say about that.

monkey bizness

15 january
saturday.

work. and i extended my shift for ameer. i really didn't want to but need the money. so that meant i was there until 10 at night with the already established start time at 9 the next morning.

that's far far too long to be at monkey bizness. it was also the most crazy busy day i've ever seen even for a weekend day. ugh.

14 january

friday.

did a bunch of reading and note taking to attempt at planning for my yoda meeting.
found i couldnt focus my attention on it for as long as i'd like to have.
but got some good foundation thinking established.

scottish chamber orchestra

13 january.
thursday.

went to the scottish chamber orchestra concert last thursday evening. the orchestra director offered up free tickets, so i was able to snag two for brittany and myself. the concert was at queen's hall on the other side of town - a nice walk that brought us by some sights i had not seen and to a new venue.

the concert was really good. and it was really nice to hear that kind of live performance - it's been quite awhile. we were definitely the youngest of the audience by a bit and the hall had these weird blue colored pew-like seating plan going on, but still really nice and a different sort of adventure.

as i work hard on going to school and work and training, i find i'm not giving my blog justice - or the attention it deserves.

too much staring at the computer for other writing purposes is a lame but true excuse. that and really long days with some insomnia thrown in.

this week's catch up

apparently i'm on the star wars plan.
which makes it okay that i'm confused and have a lot of thinking to do at the moment.
but also means that adrian and i are having a 'yoda' meeting on monday to discuss intense things.
so i have a lot of thinking about thinking about music psychology to manage in only a few days to prepare for the yoda meeting.

from this large metaphor adrian concocted yesterday, i moreso have the desire to rewatch star wars as i haven't seen it in many years.

in other news, it's day 3 of my ESM pilot study. monday - day 1- had a bunch of glitches which i think are now worked out. day 4 and the final day is tomorrow so hopefully it all works out. hopefully the data will exist and things like that. and the it guy came and showed me where the computer with webremark version 4 is today, so that means i await a fun foray into relearning that program (hopefully better).

today was also the third day of actual training. went to a 'stretch'n'bend' class today following two days of elliptical work outs. today was supposed to be a flexibility day and from what i gathered from the class, i'll need to work on that and will be able to do so with the class. i'm excited as i've created a training plan that aligns with going to 3 of the gym's classes each week. hopefully i'll be able to manage that.

on monday i also enrolled myself in an 'adult education' course with the council. a pottery class for 8 weeks on monday mornings. i'm pretty excited. although i totally underestimated the enrollment process. i got to the place a few minutes before the time posted on the website and got ticket number 98 and sat in a large room filled with mostly elderly edinburgh residents waiting to enroll. i am excited though. good use of some christmas scottish pounds.

let's see, what else can go in this week's catch up? oh yesterday i made some delicious chili. this evening i made some dirt cake, but had to use scottish whipping cream. that took for-ev-er to whip. and i'm not sure if it'll taste quite right. i'll find out shortly.

today, i also managed to finish my first draft of my dissertation for article publication. it's taken a lot longer than i thought to do, but i'm happy with it as a first draft. it is, however, about 1000 words too long. so i'm hoping david will tell me some sections to delete or something to remedy that.

on monday, in addition to signing up for the pottery class, i also attended this semester's first orchestra rehearsal. the conductor was nice, which is a relief after last year's terrible experience. it was really nice to play the oboe again. although my lip still hurts a bit - i'm not used to it. my lungs too. although it's incredible how much it was like i had never stopped playing. there are apparently two other oboists in the group - which added to the two bassoons as well - means the double reed section is far stronger than i would have imagined. i'm excited to play in an orchestral ensemble again. and i even got two free tickets to the scottish chamber orchestra concert tomorrow which will be cool.

i think that's a good review. i'll have to fill in other bits from before this week as i've been neglectful of the blog. but as i've created somewhat of a momentum in accomplishing things i think it just might happen.

this just in

and it's not exactly a newsflash of genius or anything, but working all day for 3 days straight including closing each of those 3 days is pretty horrible. plus with the angry yelling customers yesterday, makes me pretty angry and extremely saddened that my life for the past three days has been all about monkey bizness. that just sucks. it's sucking my will to do anything else away from me even though i'm not there anymore until this coming weekend.

walking

went for a nice walk down to the loch by arthur's seat.

31 december

hogmanay street party.














hogmanay.

30 december

got to hang out all day with steph. (after being stuck in the ikea with alison following our drive down to shaumberg.) lovely day. had a frozen custard shake and chipotle, saw her campus, went to a great movie, walked around target. and then went to the airport to fly back to edinburgh via heathrow.

28 december

a better 'class reunion' by far. a trip to vino 100. lots of laughs just like it's always been. :)

23 december

10 year high school class reunion.



the randomness that it was. but i got to hang out with alan so that goes in the plus column.

23 december

laura's birthday. drinks and dinner at the shea's.

20 december

spent the day in dc with autumn. we went to her school (so i didn't have to drag my suitcase around). had a lovely mexican lunch on the hill. went to national geographic and through the music world exhibit. met sara for the gecko exhibit. had hot chocolate and went into a super cool store where autumn got interviewed for the news. and then i went to union station to catch the train to bwi airport. was body scanned and flew out of bwi to mke.

19 december

ridiculous experience at the airport.
but at least i was able to fly to dulles.

18 december

a very white, snowy day in london




























trip out to play in the snow was followed by a shop at tesco (where my scottish money produced a slight isssue and where we heard the same christmas song on loop) and then a meal and massively long uno game. fun.
although the weather also closed the airport which lent itself to me checking websites throughout the evening...