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It’s the sneeziest time of the year!

Thursday, May 6, 2010

I have to say I miss springtime in Vancouver. This has something to do with its 36,000 cherry trees.

Now London doesn’t have entire streets, hundreds of them, completely lined with blossoming cherry trees:

But the ones there are have exploded, and are leaving pink fluffy linings in many of the gutters, and bringing back fond memories for me as well. One of my absolute favourite things to do is ride my bike alone in the dark, and feeling of exhilaration I derive from it is exponentially higher when it’s a warm spring night and the air is heavy with the scent of cherry blossoms.

This has only happened to me once in London so far, but between March and May in Vancouver I’d find myself riding through the dark fragrant streets night after night. It’s almost intoxicating.

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Nighttime mumbling

Sunday, March 21, 2010

You will be delighted to learn, I’m sure, that James has started talking bollocks in his sleep.

When I came to bed last night, he said, “This thing finally joined me!” while holding up his hand and wiggling his fingers. It looked like he was indicating his wedding ring, but he wasn’t wearing it.
“What?”
“See, it got to the right length.”
“…what?”
“It got shorter!”
“Your finger?” no. “Your hand?” no. “Then what are you talking about?”
“The THING! [Still indicating something to do with his hand.] You know, when you… the thing, when you cut it to the right length!”

Then he turned over told me to go to sleep.

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Welcome to Thesisland

Thursday, March 18, 2010

I had my first meeting yesterday with my supervisor, and it went fairly well. So far my progress has been limited to drafting the thesis proposal and finding a bunch of literature - so not very much, but I am quite well on track time-wise and the purpose of this meeting is just to make sure I’m getting started in the right direction.

In case you’re wondering, the proposed topic is adult literacy development in East Africa.

He was fairly impressed with the bibliography since it’s quite a bit larger than the ones he’s seen from other students (right now it’s sitting at 55 sources).  I don’t doubt that at least half of it will be of no use to me whatsoever, but I’m pretty sure plenty of it will be quite useful.  It’s quite heavy on the historical and background material, though there is a bunch of quite recent stuff there as well.  Which our library doesn’t have, of course, so I’ll have to put in my acquisition requests quite soon.  What I haven’t found is some really good ethnographic case studies, but I expect I’ll be able to dig some up.

We also discussed my research questions.  They are:

  1. How are literacy programmes (as development interventions) designed, managed, and implemented? By whom? Where? In what contexts?
  2. What are the underlying assumptions evident in these development programmes?  Are they borne out in reality?
  3. How are the programmes received by participants and perceived by other (non-participating) members of the community?
  4. What are the programme outcomes, according to the development agency, participants, and community members?
  5. What are people’s experiences of attempting to become literate?
  6. What are the implications of literacy programmes being deployed as a development strategy?

Some of them are more to find out background information, which will help me make my argument (1, 3, and 4) and others are more in-depth questions, the answers to which would be my argument (2, 5, and 6).  My supervisor also had a really good idea about comparing different types of literacy programs - secular vs. religious, for example - which would presumably have different approaches and goals.

So, my job for the next meeting will be to refine my research questions, decide which routes of investigation to follow, and find the literature that’s going to answer those questions for me.

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Where have I been?

Saturday, December 19, 2009

Right here.

Unfortunately this:

is my life now.  What I’m working on:  3500 words each on Oromo ethnicity and nationalism for my East Africa class, longterm conflict in Central Africa for Anthropology of Development class, and Lévi-Strauss’ structuralism in myth for Anthropological Theory class.  Plus a 2500 word review of Shadows of War by Carolyn Nordstrom, also for Development.

Classes are finished though, and the one exam I had was easy peasy.  So now I don’t have anything distracting me from essay writing!  Until James’ sister gets here tomorrow anyway…

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James envies my student status and the ability to stay at home two days a week.

Thursday, November 19, 2009

James:  Do you want to come to work with me and hide under my desk so I can pet you?

Elaine: What?  I’m not your pet.

James:  Well… we could snuggle in the closet then.

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Bar Fridge Meal Planning

Thursday, November 5, 2009

One tactic I’ve often used for budgeting is meal planning.  Usually I’d do it on at weekly basis, or sometimes I’d make meal plans as far as 2-3 weeks in advance.  I’d sit down with my recipe box, pick out what to make, and formulate a list from that.  Then I’d buy everything in one trip, except the perishables, which I would buy weekly.

This does not work when you have only a bar fridge.

At first I thought it would be pretty difficult to adjust, but hell, it’s been the norm for plenty of Brits, and half the world has no refrigeration at all, so I figure I can cope just fine.  And it has been very easy.

The first casualty of the minimalist regime was the condiments.  Gone are the days of having six bottles of salad dressing, two kinds of hot sauce, BBQ sauce, ketchup, three kinds of mustard, hoisin sauce, teriyaki sauce, four jars of jam, and of course the horseradish.  We have one kind of jam at a time, and at the moment none of the other standard condiments, because we haven’t cooked anything yet that they typically go on.

The second shot fired was the go-shopping-every-day cannonball.  My typical grocery bill these days is under £5, and I’ve only topped £10 once or twice.  The exception is the Saturday farmer’s market where I get all my vegetables - generally I will spend about £20 there and fill up most of my fridge.

Then instead of making specific recipes, I’ll generally just make three things, including one or two vegetables.  Steamed vegetable with a can of baked beans and biscuits for example.  Or baked tofu with stir-fried cabbage and green beans.  Or pasta with tomato sauce and roasted turnips.  Or baked potatoes and carrots and brown rice.  Soups have started to figure prominently.  You get the idea.  So once I get home, I look in the fridge, figure out what to make, and go buy what I need.  Usually it’ll be something like an onion and a jar of sauce.

Another result:  with the combo of only buying what I need right before using it, and having no room for things to get lost at the back of the fridge and turn into science experiments, there’s much less wasted food.

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Fall in Stoke Newington

Monday, November 2, 2009

Autumn here has been lovely so far. I’d gotten used to Vancouver’s leaf sludge and feared more of the same here, but it hasn’t been so. A couple rainy days and that’s it.

I do still miss Vancouver - you don’t get that combination of sea and mountains here, for one. I miss my friends of course, and the relatively small size of Vancouver’s biking community that meant I’d often run into one of my friends when I was out for a ride or walking around the Drive. I haven’t met enough people here for that to happen yet, and I don’t expect I will in a year.

But there’s room in my heart for London, especially on a crisp sunny autumn day, when the best thing to do is take a walk in the park.

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Better living through poverty

Sunday, October 18, 2009

James and I typically like to keep things pretty tidy, have discovered a new way to keep things ship shape.

Now I already subscribe to the minimalist school, having less stuff means having less stuff lying all over the place making it untidy. But certain things you might have considered essentials?

Take a dish rack, for instance. They’re fairly cheap, you can get a crappy one at the pound store. But we figured that was one pound we could spend on beer instead. As a result, we have to dry and put away all our dishes just as soon as they’ve been washed. And our counters are always tidy as a result.

Or a laundry hamper. These cannot be had for less than £15, actually. Not if you want a decent looking one anyway, instead of a POS from Ikea. So all our dirty clothes go straight into the washing machine instead. And when they’re done, they go straight onto the drying rack. And when they’re dry, they go straight back into the drawers. Presto! Never any dirty clothes lying about.

Poverty’s not all bad.

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Settling into a routine

Friday, October 9, 2009

Classes started this week for me, and James starts his new job Monday morning, so we’ve begun to settle into our routine.  My schedule is fairly good, except for the Friday thing.  I have classes Mondays, Tuesdays, and Fridays - would much rather have Fridays off.  But as long as I’m diligent enough to keep Wednesdays and Thursdays for my reading and writing, I should generally be able to have weekends.

Speaking of reading - oof!  I’ve had one lecture for each of my three classes (well four, but I’m auditing one) and have already gone through 8 books.  I returned 5 of them this morning (and yes, I did read at least one chapter from each) and I’ve got 4 more beside me to check out.  Plus the study packs of course.  The good news is there are no required texts and the study packs are all under £20.

All of my classes have one hour of lecture per week, plus two hours tutorial.  We’re expected to discuss the readings during the tutorial; the course outline lists some discussion questions to think of as well as one or two possible essay topics.  Each class is assessed by one essay (3,000-5,000 words) and one final exam, and one course has a 2,000 word book review as well.  Not too much work actually, but it is expected to be of excellent quality.

I’m feeling quite on top of things, even though it’s only the first week.  As long as I can maintain that position, things should work out very well for us.

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I need a bike!

Monday, September 28, 2009

I left my house early this morning to go to school - not that classes have started or anything, in fact I’m not supposed to enrol until tomorrow - but there were free yoga classes at the Institute of Education, so I decided to go to the 9 am one.  My commute - 4.8 miles - took just over an hour on the bus.  The 73 if you want to know.  The bus was constantly being passed by cyclists and I wished I was out riding instead of being sat on the stupid bus.

Yoga was pretty good, I’d never done kundalini before, only hatha, so it was a little different and I was a bit out of practice, so some of the postures were actually pretty hard for me.  I did enjoy it though and I always like morning yoga.

I’m at the British Library again, it’s quite close to the school and has free wireless, plus I took the opportunity to look around some of their Treasures collection.  It includes the original handwritten manuscript of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Codices Sinaiticus and Alexandrinus among many other things.

It’s Orientation Week, so there are all kinds of events scheduled - this afternoon I’m planning on going to a scavenger hunt type thing at 1 and there’s an afternoon tea put on by the Christian Union at 3.  There’s also a foam party at some nightclub but the odds of me making an appearance there are extremely low.

On the husband front, James is pretty much done packing, will spend today cleaning, leave tomorrow, and arrive Wednesday!  I’m extremely happy about that.

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