A Good Year

went to see "A Good Year" at the Picturehouse yesterday evening and it was brilliant... such a nice story and very well done film by Ridley Scott. It was a nice escape away from all the stress at uni at the moment, so in that sense it was good as well. "Crash", which we saw earlier in the week, didn't do any of that for me, and maybe that's why I detested the film so much. It probably wasn't even all that bad, but I just didn't like the fact that it was so clichéd in so many ways and it didn't make me feel good about anything, which is what I need at the moment... still not so sure about the counselor's reccomendation to try sleeping pills (since the herbal stuff didn't work at all), but I guess if I am still not sleeping well later in the week I will make an appointment at the health centre and see what they say... I better start my day now... now that I have finally been paid I need to do some shopping and then later this afternoon I am going to see "The Devil Wears Prada" with a friend... should be fun, even though it is targeted at 14 year old girls...

a bit later...
the film was a lot of fun, although it was a typical storyline. Oh well I still enjoyed it.

Rain

We just had a really heavy rain and thunderstorm... almost like El Nino proportions... I managed to take a few shots of the flooded street in front of my window...

today was a full day. I got up quite early to be awake for the Spanish class. It was fun and we did learn a few new things. After that I met a friend for lunch and then it turned out that a lot of other people showed up as well so we kind of had a psychology lunch. it was nice, but not what I expected. but oh well... after that I met with Neil to go see a Spanish film called Unconscious... very funny film taglined "A Freudian Farce" which it really was. One of the characters had all the Freudian complexes built into him... After the film we had a drink at Boston Tea Party and then I went home to get some rest...

Monday yet again

and another weekend just whizzed by as if it didn't happen at all. Friday night we went to have dinner at Dennis and Lucia's (which was very yummy!!!) and afterwards watched a film called "Witness". The next day we had Spanish class ; we now know how to introduce ourselves (Mi nombre es Ivonne, or Me llamo Ivonne), can ask the other person's name (Cóme té llamas, or Cual es tu nombre?), ask how the other person is doing (Cómo estas?, or Qué tal?) , and also ask for where the other person is from (De donde erres?) and also answer that question (Soy de Allemania). Most of this I have seen before, but I don't mind... it is nice to be learning another language, although occasionally my first language gets in the way with pronunciation... because some of the sounds are much closer to German than they are to English and I need to be careful that I don't pronounce them like German, but like Spanish. The rest of the day I just lounged around and was lazy. Yesterday I met a friend from when I did my MSc at Boston Tea Party in the morning and again for the rest of the day I watched some DVDs (House is getting really good!) and then went to bed by about 9-9.30.
Today I have some meetings and then I teach in the afternoon for 3 hours (the same thing three times.) Shouldn't be too bad, it is first level, so it isn't too difficult. I am just a little bit worried about the subject... I have never actually taken developmental psychology in my university life. it never really interested me and I never had to. Oh well, I just need to make them think I know more than they do... that should work, most of them can't even follow the most simple directions (like please read through your handbook for the next meeting... but I am not complaining really...)

ok time for breakfast now and then I am off to another week of stress and work at uni...

Friday the 13th...

not that I am superstitious... but so far it hasn't been the best day. I didn't really feel like getting up, then I couldn't decide what to wear (all my clothes are boring and stupid anyway and I need to go shopping) and then it started raining on my way to uni. Now I am in the office (once again the only person here on a Friday morning) and I have to see another one of my students before going to help out with an induction session for new PhD students in Psychology, Business and Sports and Health Science. Oh well, maybe it isn't all that bad... it is just the rainy weather and the not wanting to get up on such a miserable day.

it's been a while since I updated my blog, but I have been so busy at uni and equally stressed out because of it. New students arrived two weeks ago, and last week was the first week of classes. I found out just before the registration day that I am a personal tutor to 18 (3 groups of 6) first years students and 7 second year students, as well as my usual group of masters students. And besides all that I still need to work on my PhD, which I haven't been able to do for about the last two weeks. Oh well, I am sure things will settle down soon enough and I will be able to enjoy my days working on my PhD again... I hope anyway. Let's see what else is going on... oh yeah I have started a Spanish class yesterday. Should be fun. The teacher seems really nice and she already spoke a lot of Spanish even though it is a complete beginners class... I hope I can pick up enough over the next 10 weeks so I can go on to the next level after Christmas, but I will see how much time I have...

I am also teaching on one course this term, but that should be ok. It is only one class for the first years and I just have to teach 2 tutorials and help out with two practical classes, and then mark their practical reports. I have done that last year for another course and it wasn't so bad. The only thing really annoying was the marking, but the pay is worth it in the end!
Not much else has been going on really. I have been really tired and not been sleeping too well, and now I keep going to bed at about 9 every evening to catch up.

We went to see Little Miss Sunshine last week, very funny film!