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.

Essays

Just something short and funny.

Maybe it's just me but when I write essays I try and give myself time frames to work to, say I have to reach a certain point by an hours time I find it increases my productivity.

This also has negative sides to it, in that sometimes the conclusion of the last bit I was finishing is hilariously bad because I spewed it out in about three seconds.

The funny side is when I come back to edit it another day and read what I thought was pretty good at the time.

So today I was editing about 800 words of my Latin Source Project, somehow when I wrote this out the first time my brain decided it was okay to describe Caesar Augustus as a "magical man". Reading this back was hilarious, I laughed so hard, then rang my sister up and laughed with her about it.

Who said essays were always boring to write? Me, often, but it's little things like that that don't exactly make it worthwhile but bearable!

Half-Term Report

Five weeks in means five weeks left. Time seems to have started off slowly but quickened quite suddenly. So halfway through semester one and what do I have to show for being at uni. I can think of a few things: 1. I can definitely cook a Jacket Potato successfully (though I did have to ring my mum every time I wanted to have one because I kept forgetting to write it down), 2. I'm not bankrupt, from some of the conversations I hear at uni a lot of people seem really hard up - I can only equate this to a. I have a budget and b. I don't go over it. 3. Talk about time speeding up I had no essays and now I have three.

On the subject of essays I think this is the most prepared I have ever been to write them. I got books out of the library weeks in advance and started reading them and I'm currently on top of all my deadlines. I have 3/4's of my archaeology essay done (due in for the 24th) and half of my Latin source project (due in 17th). I haven't started my Roman History essay, which will be my favourite as it is on the pax deorum between the Romans and their gods definitely the most interesting aspect of ancient history, but that doesn't have to be in until the 8th December so I'll have a nice two weeks after handing my others in to get that sorted out.

Things I'm excited for: my society jumper. I ordered it a while back it's a cornflower blue colour and I can't wait to get it hopefully in time for the winter cold that's coming. On the back of the jumpers you could have a nickname printed, I deliberated over a few and I nearly went with Salisbury until I figured that no one who saw me wearing it would know what it refers to so I went with just my name in the end. What else am I looking forward to, hmm Christmas I have an advent calendar in my room already my mum gave it to me from when I last went up to visit and I'm really excited to start it. Excited because 1st December means only 11 more day at university and then I get to spend a whole month off visiting family and friends.

I taught my first sunbeam lesson at church on Sunday. Out of the four children I am supposed to teach only one was there I think the rest were away with family or something. Anyway I had trouble trying to get him to stay in my lesson, his mum had previously taught the class and I don't think he was too keen on having a new teacher. Still it was pretty fun we coloured pictures and sang songs with musical instruments and had lollipops as treats. I think he was pretty happy with me as his new teacher by the end of the lesson. After the lesson I went to help out in Nursery that was really fun. We played with the children and sang songs and did games. One of the ladies in Nursery is Spanish and she can speak Italian too so I got to talk a little Italian to her which was really nice I've missed speaking it! I still practice my Italian though, I don't want to forget everything I managed to pick up. I'm quite excited to prepare my next lesson for this week.

So this weekend was like the first weekend I'd actually spent in Leicester for quite a few weeks. It was my cousin's 1st birthday so my aunt and uncle had a party for her and it was lovely, got to spend some time with some of my extended family catching up and playing. And they had fireworks which was nice because I missed them on Bonfire Night and Halloween this year so that was fun, there were some really good ones.

My running is going pretty good, this is the third consecutive week that I've managed to go out everyday (weekdays only - weekends I get off so my legs can stop hurting). I feel a huge difference from it. Just in simple things like being able to sleep easier, get up earlier, better prepared and awake for lectures (since I started running in the morning before uni) also I just feel healthier which is good because I think in winter its hard to motivate yourself to go out into the cold. But today I ran the furthest I've run so far 4.87km in 33 minutes. Perhaps that's not good timewise, I don't really know but I managed to keep a steady pace and run for longer segments. I try and motivate myself through the music so I stick on a really long song and make myself run at least until its finished. It works, I only stopped three times on my run today and one of them was because of traffic lights. Running is a nice way to explore around where I live as well, I run from Glen Parva into Blaby and I went a little further into Blaby today before looping back. Because I run via the Nike run app it tracks all my progress and so today I squashed four of my records which was fantastic, I got furthest run, longest run, fastest mile and fastest km. My heart still felt dreadful at the end, but I can that'll get better the more I do it.

I've started picking up leisure reading again, just to make a change from uni course texts all the time, I really need to update my bookcase so any suggestions are welcome - by update the books can be old books too. I picked up Jane Eyre yesterday. Very reminiscent of Italy where I read it like everyday, mine is a different copy to the one I had in Italy though and it's weird reading it when I was so used to the other one. I've never really been attached to a specific version of a book before, but then I've never really read a book so repetitively as I did Jane Eyre in Italy. I guess I'll get used to it.

A few years ago I had a really good list of bands and music I liked but then I lost it, which is a little annoying because I can't remember most of the ones on it. Italy sort of got me hooked onto the mainstream stuff because that was the only English stuff the radio played so I was just on English summer hits and Italian stuff. The Italian bands aren't actually half bad. If I had to recommend a song: La Pioggia by Dear Jack or Come un Pittore by Moda. I've got back into the All American Rejects again recently and The Pierces and I've had some new stuff recommended which had been really good.

Guess that's it for the half term report. To surmise, it's going pretty well. It's just difficult, but that was to be expected.

Weekend Coach Trip(s)

So a downside of being at University is that I don't get half term in October, although I think it makes up for it by the fact that I get a whole month off at Christmas, not sure that I want to wait that long for my holiday though.

Instead I kind of had a mini weekend holiday back home. Friday at uni consists of one lecture 12-1pm, so after that finished I got a bus into the bus station in town and hung around for my coach to the North of England. It was supposed to leave at 2.45pm but it didn't really get going until 3.15 so a later arrival into Leeds. But all good the coach was nice and comfortable but still three hours, a good opportunity to catch up on notes though. After I got to Leeds I had to get a train to Wakefield, then my mum came and picked me up with William. He was super excited to see me which was really cute! He'd grown up a lot since I saw him last, it's crazy how much little kids change in such a short space of time. Spent the Saturday with the family and then church in my home ward on Sunday which was great I got to catch up with everyone. Then I had to get back to Leeds for my coach back so my dad and Louisa dropped me down at the bus station. I sort of fell asleep on the way back which was one way of getting through the trip. All in all not a bad way to travel, though I definitely prefer car.

Short night's rest after a late arrival and then an early start for university 9am lecture. What a horrible time to have a lecture on a Monday, I'm sure out of all the lectures in the week that is the worst attended, and the people who do manage to make it are usually half asleep.

This week seems to have gone very very fast, before I know it the weekend is creeping up and that means another trip homeward bound and beyond. The last one I think until Christmas, who knows we'll see. This will be a busy weekend though, coach up on Friday and then Saturday is hairdressers appointment (I trust my home town hairdresser too much to try a new one and they had no slots last weekend). Following that is a train ride further northwards to visit some friends who I haven't seen for a very long time, dare I say ridiculously long time, for a catch up and birthday celebration! Then another week in my home church ward before the coach ride back to Leicester.

The worst bit is packing and unpacking. Actually it's quite funny, because of the coach time up to Leeds and the times of my lecture on a Friday I have to take my suitcase to uni with me, and I do not have any mini suitcases. It is still a pretty small suitcase it just doesn't look it compared to everyone else's tiny ones and consequently it looks like I'm going away for a month not a few days - though I will say it isn't jam packed, but I guess you can't tell that from the outside.

Two essays are in the mix but then that seems to be it until exams start in January. I've managed to keep quite on top of them, I've taken six books out of the library to read up for my sources so so so much reading. But it's going well. My archaeology essay is on the ways cave art has been interpreted and my ancient history one is on the relationship between the people and their gods. Yes some mythology at last!

Non-Assessed Formative Essay

The first essay of university. Though non-assessed I still wanted to do well as it would set a mark for the rest of the year.

Today we got an email saying they had been marked and to sign up for feedback on Monday. On my way to sign up for a slot I bumped into my tutor and he said he could give me the feedback then. 

It wasn't a rubbish essay but it wasn't brilliant either. When I handed it in I thought it was pretty good, just shows we are biased when we come to our own work. 

The only reasonable explanation I can come up with is that having such a ridiculously long summer the process of essay writing had become to be erased from my memory because at college all I wrote was essays. I studied three essay based subjects. I got really good grades in all of them. Something happened between June and September.

The process of referencing especially seems to have gotten a little crazy with me putting just about everything in quote marks making for an essay split into equal thirds of my words, the books words, and citation references. Not the best. 

The feedback is really good here though, better than college. They go into more detail. Hopefully by taking it on board I'll do better for next time for the essays that really count. 

Though it wasn't to be assessed they said what it would have got. Mine came in at a low 2.2. Really not what I was aiming for. Although he did say that with work and taking on the feedback he thinks I can push it up a lot further. So I think it's just the step up to university level essays as well.

My next essay is due November 24th so I need to start reading for it now and preparing, I want it to be much better than this one, especially as it is marked and counts to my degree as well.

Settling In

Let's see so it's been 13 days since my last post. A lot has happened and I haven't the time to write it all up so I'll just summarise the main bits.

Monday I had to had in my first essay for the archaeology side of my course. It's non assessed just a formative one but I'm real excited to get my mark back I don't know when that'll be but hopefully soon. My next essay is due in November 17th. They have a very specific way they want you to lay the essay out which I found when I was reading the handbook. Specific ways of referencing - say goodbye to footnotes - it's all about the Harvard system. Extra bracketed information eating up my word count. What size and font and line spacing and margin widths. So I was glad I saw that because I think some people didn't realise there was a required way but luckily as it's non assessed hopefully we'll all manage the real ones okay. 

I've been in my new ward at church for two consecutive weeks now. And the second week they gave me a calling. I'm now a teacher in primary I'm responsible for the sunbeam class which is 4/5year olds. I sat in and observed for the first and the four of them are really sweet so I'm looking forward to teaching them. 

My cooking if not improving is definitely working. I'm managing to make a success of everything I make which is good. Definitely a plus if a) the stuff is edible and b) it tastes nice. The only downside seems to be I bought a bag of carrots which tastes really weird and not like normal carrots so it's now sat uneaten in my fridge. I think I'm going to have to have them smothered with ketchup.

I learnt how to use the smart printers at uni they are actually really easy to use. Though it's eating my money as we fund our own printing costs. You would think with £9000 fees printing or some printing might be included. Coughing up £4/5 every week to print out seminar/tutorial reading is not fun.

The weather on Tuesday was crazy, really windy. Several times I had to stop walking and just wait for the gust to be over it was so strong I kept getting blown about. Luckily it has improved somewhat since then.

Whilst managing to avoid freshers flu which everyone on campus seems to have I feel a cold coming on and I'm headachey a lot. But I think it'll pass it's just settling in. Tomorrow I'm going back to Wakefield for the weekend which I'm really excited about, I get a coach right after my lecture tomorrow.

Today should be good I have Latin, Roman History seminar and lecture. So not especially busy. Just lots of notes to type up afterwards.