Monday, February 24, 2014

Week 5: Class, a girls' night, a silent disco, and a mexican dinner

Week 5 is over... just 3 weeks and I'll be done with all but 1 class at Oxford (other than taking the exams for all of them).  How time flies.  It was another jam packed week and I'm still having so much fun and learning an incredible amount.  Sometimes it's hard to believe that this is real life.

Monday was crazy busy.  I went to Corporate Environmental Management, then rushed home to meet the mobile bike repairman to pick up my bike, and then rushed back to the department for Research Methods.  Brittany had gotten me lunch since I wouldnt have time (amazing) and so I quickly inhaled it before class.  Following research methods, which was a lecture on conducting interviews and focus groups, we had a class meeting where Ole and Andreas presented their dissertation proposals for feedback. After class I came home and did work for the rest of the evening.

Tuesday I had more class.  Science and Politics was first and was an introduction to our mapping controversies class where we reviewed what we will be doing and formed groups.  From there, I grabbed lunch and then had Economy and Development- a lecture on the financial crash and austerity.  It was interesting, but half way through the professor had to leave sooner than expected for a funeral and just kind of ran out... so that lecture will be finished this week (week 6).

After she left my group for the economy and development class presentation the following day met to go over our presentation.  By this point I was feeling really overwhelmed by how much I have coming up and even though I had a bit of a cough, I thought a run would do me good- and it did.  I only ran just under 2 miles, and it was a slow, sticky, painful run- one of those where joints ache and your body doesn't want to cooperate, but the endorphins are worth it afterwards.  When I got home from my run I was planning to do some reading and then head to the Richard Dawkins lecture... but Brittany called and said the line to get in the lecture was already down the block and there was no way we would get in, so I didn't bother even trying.  At this point, I had planned to eat out after the lecture and hadn't planned on cooking, so I called Andreas and Katherine and met them at the Rose and Crown for dinner.

I met a few people at the Rose and Crown for dinner and it was nice to catch up with Katherine and Andreas over some food.  The food there is surprisingly good for pub food and reasonably priced, so I was happy with it.  Dennis and Louis met us later and ordered but I not so nicely bailed while they were still eating because I was back to feeling totally swamped.

Wednesday morning I had my elective (it's normally on Thursday but was moved this week) and I really, really enjoyed the lecture.  The lecture was entitled "Food, Climate Change and Eating" but it covered lots of interesting topics from sustainable intensification to shifting consumption patterns.  It was a well balanced lecture and I really enjoyed it.  From there, I went straight to economy and development where we had an hour of lecture on forests in India followed by my group's presentation on the Forest Rights Act of 2006.  I think the presentation went okay, but parts were kind of rocky.  Still, I think it was passable. When that class finished I grabbed lunch and then came back to the department for the CEM reading group to discuss the coming week's reading.

Following the CEM reading group I was supposed to hang around the department and then go to a risk assessment lecture for field work but I had another meeting that was supposed to start right in the middle of that lecture about a 15 minute walk away.  I skipped the lecture because we won't be tested over it and my field work will not be particularly risky (other than perhaps involving horses which is risky but something I'm familiar with) which gave me a few minutes to skype with Mom and get to my meeting with a forestry professor for the Billion Trees venture.  I've been so swamped since the meeting that I still have a lot to do between that meeting and then upcoming meeting (tomorrow) but I'll get it all done (I hope).

After the meeting I went back home and did a bit of work and cooked and ate dinner before heading to latin dance lessons.  There was a new teacher this week and I think some confusion on whether or not there would be lessons, so it was a smaller group and amazingly, there were more guys than girls (nuts!)  The samba is probably the dance with the hardest footwork out of the ones we've done but I also really enjoyed it.  After the dancing most people (Ted, Brittany, Andreas, Alex, Katherine) headed home, but Louis and I decided we'd go back to my college bar for a drink and to catch up.  A friend of Louis' joined us, and then another guy and we decided to play a game of pool (which it turns out I am am terrible at :( ).  After the game of pool, we were planning to walk to the kebab van for food but 1/2 way there Louis hailed a cab and we decided to go dancing.  We went to Thirst for a bit to dance before walking home.

Thankfully after the late night out, I didn't have anything until 2 on Thursday, but unfortunately I woke up with a cough that sounded (and still sounds) like the black lung.  I spent the morning napping and doing work for the following week (now this week) and then decided to run a few errands and grab lunch before class.  After class I needed another nap and then I got changed headed to a Lebanese restaurant, Pomegranate, for an NSEP girls' dinner.  Out of 16 of us, I think 12 made it, which was a pretty good turn out.  We ordered tons of mezze/small plates and the food was really amazing.  The boys had made a big deal about how we were reinforcing the gender binary and being exclusive so after dinner we went to join a few of them at Freud for a bit.  I headed home from there relatively early hoping to get some sleep.

 At Freud, post girls' dinner. Lisa, Fran, Kanako, me

  At Freud, post girls' dinner. Lisa, Fran, Andreas, and Kanako

 Kanako wanted to feel "posh," so she was drinking her Staropramen from a martini glass...


Friday was very productive.  I finished almost all of my reading for the coming week (I didn't get through my elective reading but did everything else, which was incredible feeling!) It took pretty much all day and I was still coughing a lot so it was nice to have a quiet and productive day reading about everything from masculine identities in the financial crisis to Hydro One's risk assessment for their business to mapping controversies.

That evening I headed over to Katherine's to meet up with some people for pizza before going out to parties.  I wasn't planning to going out afterwards, but I got talked into checking out the "silent disco bop" that Kellogg College was hosting.  The way it works is when you go in you get a set of wireless headphones.  There are several "channels" (like radio stations) playing different types of music and you can select what you want to listen to.  This means that people are dancing to the music they are listening to, but people may be listening to a range of music.  It makes it hard to dance with people and it's hilarious to take your headphones off and watch people flail around in relative silence.  I expected it to be way awkward but it turned out to be tons of fun and somehow what was supposed to be a quiet night in turned into a very late night of dancing.

Brittany and me!

 Katherine, Sophie, Gabrielle, and Lisa

 Sophie, Gabrielle, and Lisa 

Ted and me!

Saturday I slept in and did a bit of cleaning and did the reading I needed to do for a paper I had due Monday (today) entitled ("To what degree can the analysis of climate change's impact on food production underpin food security assessments?").  Midday I got my bike back (yay!).  It's all fixed up with new wheel bearings, my basket secured so that it doesn't rock around and throw my bike off balance, chain fixed so it doesn't jam, gears fixed, brakes tightened and new brake pads put on.  It feels like a new bike!  That afternoon, I met Brittany at Tesco to buy food for our Mexican dinner/margarita night we were doing for a few friends.  Grocery stores here are the worst so after Tesco, Sainsbury, 2 shops in the covered market, AND a trip to east/west provisions we finally had everything we needed.  We headed back to my place where we did handmade corn tortillas from masa harina and then packed everything else and headed to Lisa's since she has a large kitchen to accommodate cooking for so many and places for everyone to sit.

The kitchen turned out to be stocked with almost nothing in terms of cookware and one of the ovens started belching huge plumes of black smoke b/c it was so dirty inside (gross) so cooking took way, WAY longer than planned.  We had told everyone 7:30 and thought we'd do chips with guacamole and drinks and have dinner around 8, but it was 9:15 before dinner was ready.... oops?  Still, the spread of food was impressive- we had handmade corn tortillas, fajita style carrots, peppers, onions and mushrooms in a homemade fajita spice mix, a mix of corn and black beans with jalepenos, onion, lime and cilantro, homemade salsa, homemade guacamole, fish (baked and then finished in a skillet for fish tacos) and a homemade slaw made with cabbage, vinegar, oranges, and red onion.  Personally I thought everything was great (including the homemade margaritas!) and I think everyone else thought so too.

After dinner we sat around and Rob brought some of his friends by to hang out.  We had a dance party and the dishes magically did themselves (ha! Just kidding- Lisa did them all though which was really amazing!) Around midnight the group decided to head out to check out a Dutch themed bop and go to a few clubs, but I knew that I had that paper due Monday so as much as I really wanted to go out with everyone, I decided to be responsible and head to bed.

Yesterday (Sunday) I spent the entire day writing my paper and trying not to cough up a lung.  My roommate I think was really worried about my cough, which was nice- he came to check on me several times and kept offering to bring me tea or medicine.

Today has been just as busy- I had a CEM lecture this morning on risks, a research methods lecture on digital methods and large data sets, and an economy and development lecture on masculine identities in the financial crisis.

I have another paper due next Monday, I need to get busy on my formal dissertation proposal, I have 3 upcoming group projects, and tons of reading to do in the coming weeks... still, it will somehow all get done and I'll manage to continue to have fun... seems to be how things work around here.

I'll try to keep y'all posted!


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