GrAAduate.

Once again, this blog has been neglected. At least this time I have a reasonable excuse: I've now got a job.

I'm working at the AA in Basingstoke, in the internal communications department. I have a desk and everything, and even a little label printer, which has led to almost everything being labelled, including the label machine itself.

Fanum House, the AA HQ. I live on the 8th floor, with a view of fields where there seem to be more border collies than people.

The job itself has so far turned out to be pretty good. I never thought I'd actually look forward to going to work, but it's happened! Among many other things, I'm currently editing the staff magazine. While it's quite a lot of work, it's great fun. Each day I'm writing and editing articles on various things happening across the company, whether it's a new business acquisition, a charity event in Newcastle or a look back at the history of the company.

The only downside to the job is the commute to Basingstoke each morning, as I have to leave the house at 07:30 every morning to get there for 09:00. First Great Western have conveniently timed the trains so that even if I leave work on time, I still don't get home until 18:30. And that's if the trains are on time, which is a rare occasion.

In a bid to keep this blog updated more regularly, I've downloaded a 'blogger' app on my phone which allows me to post. However, this may well lead to my pocket having regular input, so apologies in advance for the next post, which will probably be gibberish.

Hats and Baths

It seems I've neglected this blog once again. Sorry, blog. I'm back now.

One reason for my lack of writing is that since finishing my exams, I've been grappling with 'real-life', and attempting to work out what to do with it. In between application forms and scouring the Internet for jobs, I've been filling my time with a number of things:

I am in there somewhere, although you can mainly see my chin.

As you probably guessed from the photo, I graduated. I donned my cape and silly-hat, and collected my certificate from the Vice Chancellor of The University of Reading. And that was that. Four years of my life gone, almost £30,000 spent, and all for a certificate and an envelope. It was still a good day, and it was nice celebrating the day with everyone from the last four years. In a nice little circular loop, I graduated next to Michael, who I met on the first night in Windsor Hall on 30th October 2007, when we realised we had both foolishly signed up for French and Politics.

Michael and I, survivors of many lectures together.

On another note, for the past couple of weeks, I've been teaching in an English-language summer school, run by an organisation called 'EJO'. We've taken over a wing of The Abbey School in Reading, and have filled it with a variety of children from a variety of countries. In the last week I've been teaching Omanis, Italians, Spaniards and Russians. Their time in England is a mix of English lessons, excursions and activities, all of which I seem to play a rather active role in. So far, they've been on trips to Bath, Bristol, Winchester, London, Oxford, and they'll go to Stonehenge, Salisbury, and London again in the next week.

A Roman Bath. Could do with a clean.

The Royal Crescent. Terraced housing for rich people.

My lessons so far have been fairly similar to those from my year abroad. I've done adverts, newspapers, debates, tongue-twisters and grammar, and even plucked up the courage to lead 15 Russian children in a rousing rendition of 'Let It Be', accompanied by my fumbled strumming on a guitar.

I'm sure there's been much more going on than just graduating and teaching, but that'll do for now. I'll try to keep more up-to-date in future.

The day Obama came to visit.

Over the past couple of days, President Obama has been in London. In his time here, he met the Queen, Prince Philip, Tom Hanks, David Beckham, Kate Middleton, Colin Firth and J.K. Rowling. A notable name missing from that list is my own, so I decided to pop to London yesterday to say 'hello'.

I went with a couple of friends from university - Michael and Mary. We got on the train with little idea of Obama's schedule for the day, as it didn't seem to be overly-publicised, probably for security reasons. The initial plan was to go on the Tube straight to Westminster, and watch the day unfold there. However, we were on the Underground when it emerged that Michael, being a Northerner, had never seen Buckingham Palace. We decided to get off at Green(e) Park, and walk across to the Palace. Coincidentally, our route across the park took us right behind Lancaster House, where there was a huge police presence, and helicopters overhead. Little did we know that we'd just stumbled upon the place where Cameron and Obama were holding their press conference. We peered through the fence for a minute, before a couple of horses shouted at us to move away.

The horses that told us to move.

We rounded the corner, and saw the Presidential motorcade on The Mall, complete with motorbikes zooming around, armoured Jeeps blocking the road, and the all-important 'Beast', Obama's car, somewhere in the middle.

The motorcade entering Lancaster House.

We decided to hang around outside the Palace for the press conference to end, so we'd be able to catch Obama when he left. We wandered around for a bit, and noticed George Alagiah doing an interview for the BBC. The obvious thing to to was to stand around in the background, phoning anyone who was near a TV to tell them we were famous. However, upon phoning my brother, Ross, it turned out the BBC News Channel was focusing on the press conference in Lancaster House. Logical, I suppose.

George Alagiah himself. Highlight of the day.

Eventually, Obama and Cameron stopped talking, and the motorcade left Lancaster House, and turned onto The Mall. We got a good view of the car going past, and saw Barack waving in the back. He must get really bored or having to wave whenever he drives anywhere.

The motorcade approaching Buckingham Palace.

We then wandered through St. James' Park, past the numerous pelicans and tourists, to Horseguards Parade, then cut trough to Whitehall, and walked past Downing Street to get to Parliament Square. We knew that Obama was giving a speech in Westminster Palace at 3pm, so we wanted to get a good spot to see his car. Apparently, twice simply wasn't enough.

Security was tight, and the police were armed... with binoculars. (Mary's photo. She has a better camera than me.)

We were originally standing by the normal entrance to Parliament, when the police moved us out of the way to let Peter Mandleson through. It was then that we realised we were at the wrong gate - there was no way they were going to make Obama follow in Mandleson's tracks.

The bulk of the press photographers and film crew were standing opposite the Sovereign's Entrance, so we took a position amid them, and awaited our third sighting of the President and his entourage. As before, the police bikes sped past, stopping traffic, then the motorcade drew up and turned into the gate to Westminster Palace. We hadn't expected Obama to get out of the car, but one of the Secret Service agents opened the foot-thick door of his car and out stepped the President.

'The Beast' arriving at Westminister Palace. You can see his head in back of the car.

Barack Obama getting out of the car.

Adjusting his presidential suit.

Checking to see if I had turned up.

The press photographers went into paparazzi-mode, shouting at everyone and everything, jostling people with their lenses, their shutters clattering away behind us. We weren't allowed to get too close, and my camera's not particularly good, but it was nice nonetheless to get a couple of photographs.

Overall, it was a good day out. Alagiah and Obama in one day has satisfied the celebrity-spotter in me for at least a couple of weeks.

End of Education.

I had my last exam today. Or, as I like to call it, my final final. It was odd leaving the exam hall, knowing that if all goes well, the next time I'm there I'll be wearing a gown and a mortarboard. Now seems to be a good time to look back at my education so far, so apologies for the reminiscent nature of this post!


I still remember my first day at Holbrook Primary School. I was is Ms. Sowery's class, and as a class we all sat in a circle and said our names, and then held hands and waved our arms up and down. As you do.

Holbrook School. A photo from the olden days.

 
It must have been in the first couple of weeks or term that wewere told to write a poem. Being a scared little four-year old, I was writing a poem about Ms. Sowery, when I realised that I didn't know a single word that rhymed with 'Sowery'. She came over, taught me the word 'boughery' and explained that it's a word for when there's lots of branches over the road. I think it's the first thing I remember consciously learning.

I'm 22 now. In my time in education, I've sat through countless exams. Year Two SATs, Year Six SATs, end-of year exams in Year 7 and 8, more SATs in Year 9, then numerous GCSE modules in Year 10 and 11. AS levels and A levels in college, then end-of-year exams in the first two years at university, before my finals this year.

Not once, in one single exam or class in the last eighteen years, since Ms. Sowery's reception class, have I ever had the chance to use the word 'boughery'. Pity.

A boughery. Not a useful word. (from Etrusia's Flickr)

Exams, sheds and beds.

As I write this, I should probably be revising for exams. But never mind.

I had my final French-language exam this morning - a 'TP' exam ('travaux pratiques', for long), which is a strange mix of comprehension, creative writing and paraphrasing. I sat in Reading University's deceptively-titled 'Great Hall' for three hours, determining the rest of my life via a few ill-chosen and badly-conjugated verbs. It dawned on me as I left the exam that I'm under no obligation to ever speak French again in my entire life. (I'll let you know how long I last.)

The Great Hall. Which is too exam-y to be 'great'.

After the exam I walked into town to get my hair cut. I thought that after a difficult morning of work, it'd be nice to do something non-academic for a couple of hours. I sat down in the chair and began the idle hairdresser-chatting: Me "No, it's not my day off, I'm a student", Ever-so-witty hairdresser: "Oh, every day's a day off then!".

I then discovered, much to my annoyance, that I'd somehow managed to find the only French hairdresser in the whole of Reading. He then proceeded to chat away in French about his planned trips to Disneyland Paris, throwing in all kinds of subjunctive, indicative, imperative and infinitive, and confirming my suspicions that I definitely can't speak French, and most-likely didn't pass the exam. Ah well, c'est la vie! (I lasted two paragraphs)

My next exams are on Wednesday, when I have a three-hour exam at 9am, a break of two hours, then another three-hour exam at 2pm. Excellent timetabling there, Politics Department.

 **

On a completely unrelated, but fairly interesting note, I saw this item on the news today, and found it worryingly relevant to my living arrangements last year. I think I might've been conned. Compare the following:

BBC News article on 'sheds with beds'.
My 2010 blog entry on my very own 'shed with a bed'.

At least mine had a swimming pool included.

Easter in Horsham

Last Wednesday, I managed to eventually return home for a bit. I packed as many clothes and revision notes as I could into my bag, then hopped on the train at Reading to return to Horsham.

I happened to be there at the same time as Piazza Italia, a three-day festival celebrating all things Italian. I'm not sure of the Italian population of Horsham, but I'm fairly sure it's below 1%. This didn't stop the organisers from turning the town centre into a strange version of Italy, which seemed to be focused a lot more on the food, drink, cars and glamour than the corruption, mafia and poor driving.

On each of the three days, Dad and I went to town to watch the cars arrive, in convoy, from a hotel on the outskirts of Horsham. The first day saw almost 100 Ferraris parked in the Carfax, the main square in the town. On the Saturday, it was the turn of the Minis, then Sunday saw the leftovers arrive, with Alfa Romeos, Fiats, Lamborghinis, a Pagani Zonda and a Porsche, which seemed to have sneaked in somehow.

Some Fiat 500s, in patriotic colours. If they were French.

Definitely a considerate driver.

Ferraris in the Carfax.

Minis. Not Italian, unless used for bank robberies.

It was nice to be back home, and between cars, I actually managed to get some revision done. It was still all-too easy to accidentally end up sitting outside under the apple blossom with a cool drink, listening to the birds and watching the guinea-pigs scampering around. If you attempted the same thing in Reading, it'd be under the dripping overflow from the toilet upstairs, listening to the sound of two A-roads within 100 yards of the garden, and watching the men demolishing the Indian takeaway a few doors down. Not quite the same, I think you'll agree!

The garden in Horsham. If you click on the photo, you can see all the weeds in the flowerbeds. So don't.

My first exam is on Tuesday, when I'll have to sit down and write three essays in three hours on electoral reform. Interesting and enjoyable as it is (and I mean that genuinely, in case it sounds otherwise), I'll be glad to get the exam out of the way!

Tea, Travels and Terracotta.

I'm sure that anyone who's reading this already knows that revision is my main occupation at the moment. It's House of Lords reform today. Anyway, I'm not going to mention it again, but would like to reassure you that I'm still doing plenty of it (mainly aimed at Mum and Dad...!).

In between books and learning, I've found enough time to do a few interesting bits and pieces. One of them is making this house, which is loosely based upon M&D's house in France. It was originally a present for Dad for Father's Day 2010, but like any construction project, it went drastically over-budget and I was forced to completely abandon the inital schedule. It's now got half-a-roof of terracotta tiles, and is fully-glazed, but the kitchen is still very much a Budweiser box, and there's no front door. I'm expecting a delivery of more clay when my next installment of student loan arrives, and we're hoping to be in by Christmas.

It IS that yellow in real life.

Other nice distractions were goodbye-visits by a few friends who are off on travels to various places around the world. Dave and Chris are going on a grand tour of Europe, while Matt is going to brave The Americas with some friends from school. I'm sure they're going to have a good time - I think I'd much rather be trekking through the Andes and sampling the bars of Bruges than sitting in basement in Reading!

Chris looks like he's having second thoughts.

Looking for Cancun on the ticket machine.

A final note before I return to Lords reform is that I seem to have become competely dependent on tea, in silly quantities. Between reading each page of a book, I treat myself to a sip, resulting in worrying scenes such as this one:

Apparently there's no Earl of Grey in the House of Lords.

Canvassing.

Another week of revision has begun. Today, it’s more electoral systems, and how different systems affect the election turnout. As you may have noticed there seems to be a theme developing: the more work I need to do, the higher the frequency of posts on here.

One thing I remembered today is that I like painting. I used to paint quite a bit, but then stopped, for some reason. The last thing I painted was this Parisian street, for my Dad’s Christmas present. I think it was Christmas, anyway. It was definitely a while ago.

I wrote 'café' on the window, as I thought it looked too much like a greenhouse.

I’ve also got a half-finished canvas of Place Royale, a square in Nantes. I started it in August of last year, but never actually got around to finishing it. I might finish that this week, to treat myself if I get enough politics revision done.

This post has just made me realise I only seem to be able to paint French street scenes. And not particularly well, at that. I should probably try painting the intricacies of electoral systems instead. That way I might actually remember them.

Basil and Books

This afternoon I decided that I wanted to have some pesto pasta. But, seeing as I have a lot of procrastinating to be doing, a quick meal simply wouldn't do; In order to avoid reading about the electoral systems of Ireland, I needed to make it from scratch. All the pesto recipes that I could find involved a blender, which I don't have.

I was about to completely abandon the idea when I realised that pesto probably came a long time before the blender, and there's bound to be another way of making it. Hence the following:

Parmesan, pine nuts, olive oil, salt, garlic, and basil

I stripped half of the leaves from a conveniently-nearby basil plant, and gathered them together on a chopping board. I then started to chop them, which took a surprisingly long time, and I frequently almost lost the tips of my fingers. I think I must have cut some of the leaves so small that they were invisible to the naked eye; a lot of them seemed to disappear. Hmm.

The mysterious disappearing-basil.

I similarly chopped up the pine nuts and garlic (fingers still intact), and grated some parmesan into the same bowl, before adding some olive oil, salt and pepper then mixing it all up.

Before mixing.

After a lot of mixing and mashing the paste against the side of the bowl to make it look more pesto-y, I put the pasta on the hob while the pesto basilified itself a bit more.

It was meant to be an artistic angle. But no, just blurry.

To try and make it authentically Italian (and bear it in mind I've never been to Italy in my life), I added some fresh mozzarella to the top, cracked an egg yolk into the middle, then spent probably-too-long toying with the idea of putting an decorative basil leaf on the top. I didn't.

It looks like an incredibly mouldy fried egg.

It tasted surprisingly nice, considering there was no real recipe or plan. If anything, it might've even been a bit too basil-ly. The most important thing though, is that it took at least 30 minutes to do. Which meant 30 minutes less of revising electoral systems.

After dinner, I reluctantly returned to revision, and went back to poring over countless articles about electoral reform in Ireland. The author of the first book I read...?

Basil Chubb.

Career Ideas

Now that I can see again, and haven't (yet) repeated the weekend's eye incident, I've been spending a lot of time trying to start a 3000-word essay on the French Revolution. It's not a particularly exciting essay, but it's either that or doing real revision, which is infinitely worse.

Robespierre. It's his fault I have to write an essay.

Occasionally, to put off doing the essay, I've been looking at possible job options. I graduate in two months' time; real-life is creeping steadily closer. My career ideas, however, have been getting increasingly far-fetched and ridiculous. In the past couple of months, I have considered the following:

• Astronaut
• Crocodile sanctuary-man
• Café owner in South America
• Farmer (ploughing looks fun)
• Author
• Postman (of a new, yet-to-be-made Royal Mail competitor)
• Fighter pilot (but not a killing one. A friendly one)
• Lock-keeper

A decent amount of variation, I think, although I'm not sure of the salary of some of them. I can't imagine being a lock-keeper pays particularly well, for instance. However, if I combined it with being an author, while farming a patch of watercress in the lock, for I could probably make a reasonable living.

On another, completely-unrelated note, there was a nice sunset over Reading a couple of days ago. One that deserved being photographed, I reckoned. Here it is:

Reading at sunset (massive amounts of crime not pictured).

Now, enough procrastination. Back to the essay. Otherwise I'll never be able to keep that lock.

.

Eye Issues

A normal Sunday for me usually involves standing at the till in a large department store, bleeping and bagging the various bits and pieces that people deem it necessary to buy.

This is the shop that I work in. That is not me. (photo from Ceeko's Flickr)

Today was meant to be a normal Sunday, until I climbed out of the shower, and started to get dressed. When it came to putting on deodorant, I picked it up, pressed the little button at the top. Nothing came out. Still bleary-eyed and half-asleep, I adjusted the nozzle. Again, nothing came out. I then tried to adjust it again, when it suddenly decided to blast a substantial amount of Sure For Men™ directly into my left eye. I yelped, and frantically splashed water into my eye to try to stop the stinging. It then dawned on me that it might be quite dangerous to have an eye full of deodorant, so I picked up the aerosol can, and tried to read the tiny print on the side. At that point, my right eye decided that stinging looked fun, and had a go too, forcing me to jam my eyes shut, and thus rendering me temporarily blind, and unsure of whether it would become a permanent thing.

Eventually, I began to be able to see again, and my eyes stopped stinging. I left for work, and walked there fairly uneventfully. However, when I arrived at the aforementioned large department store, it turned out the air conditioning was on. A few minutes after taking my perch behind the till, my eye started to cry. It didn't just start to water, or just begin to well up. Oh no, my tear duct decided that the perfect time to irrigate my eye was just when a customer was coming to the till. And while it was at it, the tear duct apprently decided that my entire face could do with a clean, and dutifully provided enough tears to do so.

The culprit.

After attempting to stem the flow with various things from the medical box, which should probably have been thrown out in 1987, I decided to attempt the trek to the 'eye casualty' at the local hospital. Normally a fairly simple walk, but with one eye out-of-action, a surprisingly difficult one. After meandering my way across Reading, and arriving at the hospital, I found a map that explained various departments and wards of the hospital. As some kind of joke, the label for the eye clinic seemed to be in the smallest font ever. After finding it, and  after a short wait, I saw a doctor, who knowingly nodded when I explained what I'd done, then proceeded to poke around in my eyes, testing them with litmus paper, weird lights and cleaning solution, before prescribing some eye drops and advising me that the dryness is going to last for last a few days. I'm now sitting on the sofa, applying eye drops every few minutes, and scowling at the deodorant can on the floor, where it can stay for a while, as far as I'm concerned.

Basically, I wouldn't recommend spraying deodorant in your own face. Although I imagine my eye now smells excellent. And it certainly won't sweat any time soon.

Je suis dans la bibliotheque.

So, the Easter break is already here. Unfortunately it won't be a break at all. In the space of three weeks in May, I'll be spending a good few hours sitting in various buldings around campus, and determining the direction of the rest of my life with a few badly-written essays.

Most of my waking hours are going to be spent in this building:

Five floors. 1.2 million books. Nowhere near enough plug sockets.

The trouble is, just because i'm in the library doesn't mean I'm actually doing anything useful. Last week I spent at least an hour poring over a map from 1939, simply to see if I could find my house. I couldn't. And just yesterday I spent the majority of the morning looking out of the window, watching people's reactions upon finding out the cash machine had run out of money. Most seemed to just walk away; one man decided the money was probably hiding somehwere, and proceeded to look around the corner before returning and peering at the screen.

Another highlight of a 'revision' day last week was when this decided to fly over:

It's an airship. I think.

Obviously, it wouldn't suffice to simply look at it, then get back to work. Oh no, I had to take a photo, wonder what the difference between an airship and a blimp is,research it, look at how much they cost to run, watch videos of blimps being inflated, then wonder what the French word for 'blimp' is. All while I was meant to be writing an essay on constitutional reform.

It's going to be a long time until Easter...

Reading Half Marathon.

I’ve realised I haven’t posted anything on here for ages. I seemed to make a grand re-appearance, and then promptly forgot to write anything else. But now I’m back again, possibly to do precisely the same thing again. We’ll see.

This morning I wandered up to campus at 10am to cheer on a couple of friends, James and Eve, who were running in the Reading Half Marathon. A group of us found some convenient railings, and stood there waiting for the masses of people to start sprinting past. 

Eventually, a car drove past, being chased by a man in a wheelchair who was going far faster than is probably allowed. A few minutes later, a couple of police motorbikes came into view, followed by four Kenyan men who seemed to be taking the whole thing very seriously (it worked – apparently they took the top four places). Finally, the hoards of people arrived, in a variety of guises. Batman was among the first to pass, with Spiderman, Superman and other assorted superheroes following him. Also running were a Lucozade bottle, a fish, a chip, Spongebob Squarepants, a variety of insects, and a camel. Oh, and there was a banana. There’s always a banana.

The Lucozade bottle, happily running along. (Photo from Toffee Raspberry on Flickr)

Our friends did come running past, both so fast that we almost missed them. Surprisingly, they didn’t want to stop and chat...

After the 17,000 runners had passed, and I couldn’t find any further excuses, I went back to my second home, the University Library. Six-thousand words of essay are due in on this coming Friday, and they’re not going to write themselves. Trust me; I tried that with the last one.

I'm back!

And so the blog returns. You may have noticed that the title has changed. That’s mainly due to the fact that I’m no longer in Nantes. Rather than abandoning this blog, and leaving it in a corner of the internet to gather dust, I decided it’d be nicer to keep it going. 

So, quite a bit has changed since I last posted on here. Here is a brief summary of what the past few months have held:

• I returned to England
• I returned to Reading
• I found a flat in Reading
• I got a weekend job at John Lewis.
• I started the last year of my degree.
• I started my dissertation.
• I finished my dissertation.
• Christmas presents were wrapped.
• Autumn Term ended.
• I went to Sweden.
• I returned to England
• Spring term began.

There we go, now you’re all up to speed on everything. There probably were some other things that happened, but that’ll do. Future posts will hopefully be more exciting than this one, but I felt the six-month absence needed to be explained! I'll leave you with some recent photographs:

The fountain in Forbury Garden, Reading. It was cold.

Completed dissertation!

View across a snowy Reading campus.