My degree certificate arrived today, and very nice it looks too! So now I’m now an actual qualified translated and can officially call myself Beverley of Confuzzledom MA. Or even BA MA if I so desire. Or is it MA BA? I have no idea which comes first. The higher one or the one I got first? Hmm. Anyway, exciting stuff. I called Jan to tell him and his response was “So what type of drink should I buy to celebrate with on the way home”. I then reminded him we still have champagne (actual champagne!) in the fridge plus an unopened bottle of sparking wine that’s been sitting around for over a year now – don’t ask me how that managed to happen! So it looks like there’s going to be a celebration. Only a miniature one though cos I have work tomorrow…
Category: university
How about some good news?
It seems that my last post struck a cord with people. My stats haven’t shown that many views for a while (35 yesterday in case you were wondering… yes, I’m that popular. *sarcasm mode off*). Anyway, in all the confusion and mixed up feelings I completely forgot to mention my good news… I got the provisional result for my dissertation yesterday (subject to approval by the exam board). I got 70%! For my non-English readers… that’s actually good! Yes, I know it’s 30 whole percent less than 100, but if you bear in mind that you can’t actually get anything about 85% it puts it in perspective. Plus I was only aiming for a pass, which would have been 50%, so I’m happy. The mark becomes official on 5th July.. hopefully it won’t change too much, if at all, then all my marks will be added together and I’ll find out what I’ve got for the whole degree. And at some point in November I’ll finally get my certificate. For now, though, I shall sit back and relax, safe in the knowledge that my Master’s is in the bag and I don’t have to do any more assignments… at least until the next time I decide to inflict an OU course on myself. By the way, if anyone was thinking of buying me a gift for my birthday in August, OU vouchers are always appreciated 😉 (I jest, of course. I’m not even going to be in Germany on my birthday this year). Right, I’m off to spend some time with my boyfriend now. I started a ten-finger typing course this morning, which ran from 9 – 12:30 (and it’s every Saturday from now til 24th July. Woe, woe, woe) so the only thing we’ve done together today is weekly food shop. Not much fun. Enjoy the rest of your weekend everyone 🙂
Nothing to say, but I’m saying it anyway
Hmm, another new week. I seem to have entirely missed most of last one. All I remember is that it involved working like a mad woman all day then returning home to work like a mad woman some more, but this time on something that I’m not getting paid for. And all this while trying to recover from my monster cold. I’m all better now though, I’m sure you’ll be pleased to know. And the dissertation is moving forward. I even managed to have some fun at the weekend, which is something that hasn’t happened in a while. On Friday night Jan and I went out for a meal then some cocktails with a friend. It was 2:30 by the time we got in and I was up again by 9:30, but the reminder of what it’s like to have a real life made up for the tiredness.
I also started putting some things in boxes on Thursday evening. It wasn’t much, and my place is still as chaotic and crowded as ever, but it’s a start. Somehow actually starting to pack things away makes the move seem so much more real. I’m hoping we’ll be able to get the keys soon, then we can go in and do some measuring so we can figure out where to put what. We already have a list of things we need to do – and buy. I think another trip to IKEA will be on the cards fairly soon. Not until after payday though. My university are now demanding money from me again. *sigh*. Thankfully this is the last installment, so hopefully they’ll leave me alone after that. Unless of course I have to pay for the privilige of having my certificate sent out to me. That is a bridge that shall have to be crossed when I come to it though… I have to pass the dissertation first!
I should be celebrating…
We have the contract! It’s here, sitting on top of Detolf, waiting for us to read through it, which will happen later this evening once Jan returns from playing football with his friends. We met at the flat to pick up the contracts, so I got to see it again. It’s still as nice as I remembered 🙂 Jan even admitted to me that he’s excited (I asked if I could have it in writing!) and of course I’m overjoyed. A flat with my boyfriend! An actual home together. I thought this day would never come. So it should have been a day of celebration. Instead I’m sitting here attempting to work on my dissertation while nursing a spectacularly awful cold. It started yesterday with a sore throat and a runny nose and today has progressed to constant sneezing, aches and pains, a head that feels like it’s full of wet cotton wool and a nose that’s sometimes blocked, sometimes running. Not that it matters which version it chooses – either way I can’t breathe properly! Oh, and I’m also freezing despite the fact that it’s quite warm today. But apart from that I feel fine.
I need to get better by Monday. My colleague is off next week, which leaves me as the sole English translator, and there’s lots of work to be done. Anyone know any quick fixes for a cold? And please don’t say sleep… dissertation, remember?
Too tired to type
I am going to tell you about our experiences with various flats at some point – promise – but it’s been such a tiring week (despite my half day on Monday and the fact that it’s only Thursday – tomorrow being a Good Friday and therefore a holiday) that right now I’m too tired to think, never mind form coherent sentences. I’m very much looking forward to four whole days of lie ins! Not so much to all the dissertation work that’s waiting to be done during my long weeknd, but you can’t have everything, and I’m hoping to persuade the boyfriend to drive me to Roller on Saturday so I can buy a wardrobe. We’re supposed to be saving up for the move and the big holiday in August but I’m getting €445 back from the electricity company (I knew I hadn’t been using nearly as much as I’ve been paying for!) so I think I can spare a few euros for a wardrobe. And maybe a few more if I happen to see a bedside table I like.
Right now, though, I really must do some washing…
Remind me why I’m doing this
So far I’ve written just over 2,000 words which I may or may not actually end up being able to use in my dissertation. I need 15,000 words, or 13,500 at the very least if I make use of the “you can be 10% over or under” rule. Then there’s the literature review which I haven’t even started, or indeed thought about, yet. And the deadline is 11th May – which means I have to get it finished before that because it needs to be printed, bound and sent to England. To say that I’m panicking would be an understatement. Unfortunately panicking doesn’t give me any more of a clue what I need to write, or give me any extra time to do any writing. What I really need is a clone. Preferably a clone whose brain works better than mine (I wonder… does an improved version of myself still count as a clone?). The clone can write the dissertation and I’ll go to work, do the housework and continue to look for flats for the boyfriend and I. Sounds like a plan, no?
Can someone please remind me why I wanted to do a Master’s?
Where did my week go?
I have been so, so tired all day. Mostly, I suspect, because we went out last night to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day and didn’t get home til after midnight, but to be fair I was tired before I even left the flat last night so it wasn’t entirely my own fault…
But what I would really like to know is where on Earth this week has gone! It’s Thursday evening already. Tomorrow is Friday… the last working day of the week. Then it will be Saturday again. How? Why? Time seems to have sped up again and I don’t think I like it! Of course, it doesn’t help that I’m feeling guilty because I haven’t managed to write one word of my dissertation since Sunday. I have around 1,300 words now but I need something like 15,000 and the deadline is drawing nearer. Eeek!
Also, you know things are bad when you end up eating instant pasta (just add hot water and stir!) with a pastry fork because you’ve run out of all other cutlery. There are only two of us living here (well, officially only one but Jan’s place really is just a storage area now)… how can all the forks and all the spoons be dirty? It’s a good job I actually bought pastry forks otherwise I would have had to resort to a teaspoon… or do some washing up. I think we all know which option I would have gone for…
Time to go to log off I think. My lovely, lovely bed is calling my name…
I will stop complaining… just not today
It’s the end of another long, exhausting day, in which I have, once again, failed to get round to doing most of the things I wanted to. Mostly beacuse I missed my train home by roughly a minute (why is it never delayed when I want it to be?) and ended up spending a delightful hour wandering around the train station drinking a Chai Latte made with green tea that mostlyn tasted like powder and made me feel slightly sick. At least today I managed to have food on the table by 9:30pm (my food at least, Jan is not home yet so his is still the frying pan keeping warm… and hopefully not burning). Not much of an achievement I know, but we have to celebrate the small victories.
Work is fairly stressful at the moment. Lots of jobs… both large ones that take up lots of time and small ones that the customers want back as soon as possible, preferably yesterday but they’ll settle for later the same day until someone finally manages to invent a working time machine.
Also, today I received an e-mail from my university informing me that they tried to take the latest tuition fees payment from my bank account in England, but it failed and would I please make arrangements to pay immediately if not sooner. Unfortunately I’ve done rather a lot of spending this month and my wages are already rather depleted so I’m not quite sure how I’m going to manage that one. Borrow more money from the boyfriend perhaps. Considering how much I owe him already another couple of hundred isn’t going to make much of a difference…
I promised you all a post about something good, didn’t I?
Tomorrow, perhaps. Today I feel the need to complain.
The chocolate box of life
As Tom Hanks once so aptly pointed out in his role as Forrest Gump, life is like a box fof chocolates – you never know what you’re gonna get.
Most of yesterday was pretty relaxing. I stayed at Jan’s on Tuesday night and since it was a holiday we decided not to bother getting up too early. Once I finally did decide to get out of bed I spent the next few hours lazing around reading Stern (a news magazine) before watching an episode of The Thin Blue Line while we ate something. Finally, at 4pm, I decided it was time to make my way home.
Back in my flat I took down the Christmas decorations then started to tidy up. I didn’t get very far though – I’d just finished cleaning the loo when my Grandma phoned (I wonder what the chocolate equivalent of scrubbing the toilet is? A mouldy one perhaps that everyone forgot about several Christmas’s ago and which has been lurking in the supposedly empty tin ina threatening manner ever since?).
I couldn’t really do any housework while on the phone so instead I decided to upload my photos from Italy to Facebook. Then, once the grandparents had hung up and tea (tuna and potato bake) was in the oven I was hit by a sudden pang of conscience and found myself checking my university e-mails for the first time in… ohh, at least a month. I discovered that I have to write a progress report. Or, to be more accurate, had to write a progress report. It was due in on 31st December. A definite strawberry cream moment right there. Or ‘strawberry dream’ as Quality Street call them… as if that’s going to fool anyone into thinking they might actually taste nice. So it looks like I’m going to be spending the weekend trying to rustle up some kind of progress report. But first, I have a wedding to go to. At Castle Frankenstein no less! Let’s just hope there are no scarred monsters or mad scientists waiting for me up there…
Waiting for… what exactly?
In the last two hours I must have refreshed my hotmail inbox at least 50 times. Strangely enough there are never any new emails. Why would there be new emails now when there weren’t any ten minutes ago? It’s better than any of the things I should be doing though, which include working on my dissertation proposal (I was almost reduced to tears by it yesterday), cleaning the kitchen… which will, of course, involve washing the dishes (ugh, ugh, ugh) or handwashing the pile of socks that’s waiting for me in the other room. It’s hardly surprising that none of those things appeal to me. So instead I keep refreshing, in between wandering listlessly around the flat (all two rooms of it). I feel like I’m waiting for something, but I have no idea what it is. I’m too restless even to read.
Roll on the night time. At least then I can go back to sleep…
Confuzzledom 