Wakefield, Wakefield, Wakefield.

How good to be back. After arriving back Friday evening a rather busy weekend followed which continued onto today, now I get a rest and some time to myself.

Saturday I worked a day in my previous employment covering for my sister who took an absence to play her flute at Nostell Priory for the Christmas festivities. This involved getting updated on all the changes made since I left that employment six months previously and reading copious notes on her children in order to gage what they were all working on. An early start but luckily I was able to take the car instead of the bus. Work began at 10am and we travelled around various centres working until 5.30pm. However it was great fun to be back a lot of the children remembered me from before and said hi which was lovely, I clearly made an impression on them. It was also fun to be doing something and of course to take a wage, a nice little extra right before Christmas.

After work I stopped off at a friends house and we got ready for the ysa Christmas movie night. I was really excited to be going back I had missed Huddersfield's ysa activities, Leicester's are good but it's different when you don't know everyone so I was looking forward to being back with old friends. When we arrived after picking up another friend we discovered that they were about to cancel it as noone had really showed up. But we made a nice night of it with the six or seven who were there in the end, we watched Elf and had popcorn and treats. It was great to have a catch up with those who were there.

So that made a late night, I think I got back and then wound up in bed sometime around midnight and having been up since eight that morning and then working a pretty active day I was shattered. Then to realise that church started at 9.30am not the 1.30pm start Leicester's had so inwardly crying as I realised I didn't have much time for sleeping.

Sunday was pretty fun, it was nice to be back at church in Wakefield and see everybody. Although I did miss giving my lesson to my kids I'm looking forward to being back so I can do my lessons again. It was really strange to be in Relief Society again after being in Primary for so long now. My plan was to have a nice afternoon nap, but then I got invited to go to Chorley to see their presentation of "The Christmas Truce". It was pretty cool, strange they got us singing its a long way to Tipperary at one point in a round with pack up your troubles. That was interesting. It was nice singing the carols though they sound so good when you have so many people singing them together. O Holy Night was my favourite. The Temple looked really good at night though and I'd never seen it at Christmas before the decorations were all lovely. But that was quite a trek and led to a lateish night and then early start today.

Went into Leeds in the morning with my dad for some Christmas shopping, haven't got the train for a long time and had reminisces of college journeys. Had a nice time going round the shops and stopped of at Patisserie Valerie for cake and hot chocolate which was lovely! After we got back I had some paid work to do from home for my old boss. Then rang up a friend and had a good chat with her.

Had a nice family evening and we played a new game I got called "What is this?" where you get picture cards with weird images and crazy captions and you have to pair them up. E.g there was a picture that looked like a plug but actually the caption was "an octopus throwing a stool" it was a pretty funny game.

Tomorrow promises to be equally as busy. I want to squeeze in a run, making gingerbread, work and Christmas shopping and get started on revising some university work. We shall see how far I get.

Vale Ratae Corieltauvorum (Goodbye Leicester)

This time tomorrow Semester One will be over. It started off so slowly, but it has really speeded by these last 10 weeks have really flown. Which I'm glad for because I can't wait for the Christmas holidays, four whole weeks off. Well kind of, I have three exams in January to revise for but that wont take up all the time.

I already have my exam timetable, luckily none of them are at 9am, all are afternoon ones 2.30pm-4.30pm. Roman History is the first day back, then the two Archaeology ones split over the first Saturday and following Monday. Yes that is right an exam on a Saturday. Apparently because of the amount of modules and stuff they run the exam week Monday-Saturday so they can fit them all in. I don't mind so much it's only two hours of the day.

Today I had my Latin exam. Well can you really call it an exam? It was open textbook so we got dictionaries and notes it was pretty fun and I think I did okay, I got 97/100 on the mock last week but our tutor said he would make it harder for the real and it was so we shall see in January how I did. It was a four part piece, some maths numeral reading questions, grammar functions on nouns and verbs. Then sentences to translate and two inscriptions. The first was a funerary inscription which we had to transcribe, translate and then explain, then repeat for a coin. So Latin is now officially over, we do Ancient Greek next semester. Which I'm looking forward to even more but I hope we can do modules in Latin in next year because I'd love to keep it up. 

In the exam I think I found a mistake/spelling error. It's always worrying when that happens, however I did my best but after we had finished I was talking to some of the others and they said they had noticed it as well. In the verb section we were asked to translate "audistis" it doesn't exist. The root is the fourth conjugation verb "audio" to hear, but it had been coupled with a third conjugation ending "istis" my guess is it was either supposed to read "auditis" - you hear or "audivistis" - you heard. However I did check the dictionary a million times to see if there were any third conjugation verbs with the root of "aud" but there were none. 

My room is just about packed up now for going home. The washing machine has been going crazy, I think I may be one of the few students who tries not to bring back all their laundry for their parents to do. Just clothes and things to pack up when my dad brings the suitcase tomorrow. I'm really excited to be going back, even though I went up twice since going (October, November) it has been a while and I'm looking forward to spending the Christmas period with my family and friends. What is even more exciting is that I am getting put back on the car insurance! I am so grateful and happy, I have really missed driving. First trip will be hopefully be driving back from Leicester to Wakefield after I get picked up tomorrow. I've missed the little orange machine. 

Busy-ish weekend. My sister is volunteering at Nostell Priory so she needed cover for work so I offered to, it will be nice to be back at my old job even if only for a week. Also a nice little bit of extra money in time for Christmas, which as a poor student I can't complain about. Even nicer, my old boss has some other work for me to do from home creating I think sort of revision/note guides on English for his ks3 students so that will be really fun and something nice to do over the holidays.

I have now finished my Duke of Edinburgh Gold Award. Finally, I'm sure my assessor is sighing with relief. Just have to wait to get some dates back now for when I can go for my presentation. That should be pretty exciting, sometime next summer I think.

So of the three essays I have handed in I have the results for two of them back. On my Archaeology one on Cave Art I got 68 which is equivalent to a high 2.1, two marks off a first. I was feeling really pleased about that such a huge improvement from my non-assessed essay. Then I went to get my Latin Source Project back on Augustus' res gestae and got a score of 70. Which is the mark for a first! Very much pleased with that and it gave me the motivation I needed to get through the Roman History essay which I will get back after Christmas.

Tomorrow I only have one lecture 12-1pm and it's just a summary on what the exam will be like in January so that will be okay, and then homeward bound. Happy times.