Hello again

I have absolutely let go of this blog. I have by now finished my Masters, and also graduated…

Yesterday, Facebook brought up photos of my matriculation ceremony at Oxford 2 years ago.  2 years ago I became an Oxford student.

I am really missing Oxford and have been suffering from nostalgia. I absolutely miss rowing, Linacre, the awesome people at Linacre, the atmosphere at Oxford and yes, even studying. Which is why, I guess, I have started the early stages of a PHd application. This is an idea that I have toying with for a while, and have finally decided to go through with.

Cycles of Work

Sometimes I feel that I pass through cycles of work – I will spend a period of time focused and working hard and then a period where I will not work. During a work cycle I will be lost in whatever I am writing – I have written my introduction chapter and methodology chapter in this way. I am now trying to start my lit review but I just can’t settle to work.  I think however the phase is about to change as I think I know how to start the lit review – an idea is forming so I will hopefully now go into work mode.

I feel that I work in the way the following graph is depicted but instead of volts it should show ‘work’.

At least I do not think that this is my productivity graph!

Too busy

Time is passing way too quickly. This is my last week of lectures. Which I am very happy about as this means that next term I will only have my dissertation left. However I am disappointed that I haven’t been writing on the blog as much as I would have liked. I just seem to forget or would be to tired to write. Recently I have started a kind of cross stitch piece (I think that the technique is cross stitch but using wool like tapestry) which I enjoy doing in the evening. Which is great to not think – just focus on the stitch and counting how many in a row or where the next one should go.

During this term I had to concentrate on my lectures and their assigned readings, assignments and dissertation planning along with submitting the CUREC and Fieldwork forms.  The forms were a true pain – they ask for a lot of information at times seemingly pointless.  The Fieldwork form is required if you are going away from Oxford to work on your dissertation, now I am going back home for my fieldwork and they ask for address and contact details of where you are staying and a person to contact in case of an emergency. In my case the person to contact in case of emergency would know if something happened to me before the university would. I understand the need for such forms in case of high risk areas, or if someone goes elsewhere than Oxford or their home country. I asked the person in charge of the Fieldwork form and though I haven’t not heard anything by email yet, it would seem that it has been approved, unlike my CUREC form.

The CUREC form is for ethical clearance. I submitted this form on the 21st of January. I received an email from the person who had been assigned my form on the 28th of January. I had to arrange a number of things in my consent form and information sheet so it took me some time to send it back with the amended forms. I however emailed back with some questions on the same day and received an answer the next day.  I emailed the amended the forms on the 8th of February, to which I received a reply a week later on the 15th of February, with more items that I had to amend. I amended them and sent them within 2 hours.  Nearly 2 weeks (2 weeks less a day) passed since I sent the email and I had not received anything back. I had started to get worried that I will not get a result in time as I am aiming to start data collection around the 18th of March but before this I had to email the research office in Malta and the school. I therefore emailed the person with a reminder on the 28th of Febuary, to which I received an email on the same day stating that it is on the person’s list for the day. I however received no answer re the CUREC form after that.  I sent another reminder on the 6th of March to which I received no reply at all.  I appreciate that the person is busy, however it has been nearly 2 months since I submitted and I need to the approval to start my data collection!! I already sent my things to the research office in Malta though I would have preferred to get CUREC approval first as I didn’t want to leave it to the last minute. I am afraid that the approval will not be given in time to start data collection which will throw me off my timeline.

I have also been busy creating a website to go with my dissertation to try to increase my response rate.  I am planning to send an email to the Head of School to pass on to their staff, however I am also going to try to put a leaflet in teacher’s pigeon hole in case they don’t check their email or prefer a paper copy. I therefore needed to get my information sheet online, not just as a paper copy or through email. Hence I decided to set up a blog to place this information online, as well as posting any interesting articles I find during my dissertation and some resources for teachers. It can be found here. I have a number of posts ready but not publicly published so as to leave the post related to the questionnaire at the top during data collection. I will then post the publicly after the data collection period is over as well as adding others.

Hopefully I will soon hear re the CUREC form, in time to keep to the timeline I set for myself.  Though for now I need to focus on my assignments so that maybe I can finish them before going home for the holidays, so that I can focus on my dissertation there as well as in the last term.

The last term, I hope should be better that this term and the first one since I only need to focus on one thing only!!

Productivity

Yesterday I felt really productive. I managed to:

• filled out the fieldwork form
• submitted an assignment
• handed in the fieldwork form
• created a leaflet to give to teachers to promote my questionnaire
• bought a kindle to as incentive to teachers to fill my questionnaire
• replied to an email about the fieldwork form (had to list all the 28 schools that I will visit)
• changed a pjs that I had bought but didn’t fit well
• dusted my room
• washed clothes
• vacuumed room
• bought printer toner

In the evening while I was creating a poster to hang in staff rooms to promote my questionnaire, a friend messaged me to go have a drink in the common room, from where we ended up going out. We went to a party and I came back home at 1am.  I then finished up the poster and edited something small in the leaflet before going to bed.

Today I spent a day tired and didn’t manage to do much 😦 I only:

• folded and put away the clothes I washed yesterday
• started my dissertation blog
• updated my curec form with the things that the person in charge told me I’m missing and sent it back
• updated this blog

If I manage I will try to do a formative assignment that is in the shape of a blog post as well. Tonight I will not be going out, even though some friends are going for drinks as tomorrow I have to wake up at 6 to go to Dorney Lake to go rowing. I will hopefully be productive and get some readings done when I come back from rowing.

Christmas Cake

Over Christmas I had made the following cake for my Grandfather.

Time Flies

Time flies way too quickly. I am also rather angry at my self for not writing on this blog. Since the last time I wrote I have

• Submitted all formative assignments
• Went home for the holidays
• Met some friends
• Caught up with Nadine…a person who I can spend hours talking and laughing with
• Came back to England
• Started kickboxing again
• No rowing due to floods
• Submitted a formative assignment
• Started thinking well about my dissertation
• Started a blog to write about my dissertation, the reasoning behind that is to make myself and the topic more approachable to teachers, so that maybe it helps my response rate.
• Started Curec approval…which is proving to be longer than I expected to get right
• Submitted the fieldwork form as I’ll be in Malta during the data collection period
• Booked my flight back to Malte from the 25th March to the 23rd April

That is what I can remember. Really need to keep this blog up to date, can’t forget it again.

Cake decorating classes

I have been going to some cake decorating classes here which are really fun. Look at what I made this week:

Rowing

The first term at Oxford is over, and I managed to keep up Rowing.  I am really enjoying it, even if at times it feels a bit too much added on to University obligations.

We also took part in 2 races, the Nephtys novice regatta, we lost in the semi final and the Christ Church novice regatta. The Christ Church regatta is held over 4 days. We raced in all 4 days, though we got through to the fourth day through a combination of luck.  On the third day, we unfortunately lost due to ‘catching a crab’, we were disappointed we lost but also kind of happy as this meant that the next day (a Saturday) was free to do what we wanted/needed to do. On our way home, we stopped to talk to the boys’ Linacre team. While chatting, 2 girls come up to us, asking if we were the team that had just race them (which we were) and they told us that they had senior rowers in their boat, so though they won, we would be the one going through to the next day.  On saturday, we started the race well, but unfortunately we also caught another crab, so we lost. Though we made it to the last day, which is great and it was fun.

I have never taken part in a team sport before (unless you count some basket ball practice for about a term) and never before have I taken part in any sport competition (my old school’s sports day definitely doesn’t count) before and it was great.

 Rowing kit arrived!!

So happy that they arrived. I wish I also bought the splash jacket but it is so expensive so I had to make do with out it as I couldn’t justify the price of it, even though I really want it.  It costs £88 + £3 to personalise it. Buying it with a club order gives you a discount (it would probably be £78, which is still too expensive, especially since I am not sure that I can make use of it after I leave Oxford).

Annoying Mobile

My dear mobile has decided to stop functioning as well as it used to.  Its battery is lasting for half a day, down from around 3 days. It is also reporting messages as pending, even after they are sent which is really annoying.

So message might or might not be sent and battery is crap, therefore if you try to contact me and get no answer, that might be the problem.

Playing Santa

Having 2 younger siblings is great fun during Christmas.  I get to play Santa and buy stocking fillers. At times also the actual presents themselves as well.  This year I got permission to buy the stocking fillers, and I also ended up getting my brothers present from Santa.  I also proposed a deal to my mum, that I but the stocking fillers (no need to pay me back) and Santa visits me too. I want a surprise.

Here are the stocking fillers I bought. I only need to add one more thing to my brother’s pile (an electric toothbrush, same as my sisters but not blue).

For Luke:

• Manchester United Socks from Sports Direct £2.99
• Binoculars from Sports Direct £2.99
• Green wrist watch from Sports Direct £2.99
• One direction wristband from Primark £2 (my brother hates one directions, so as a joke I bought him one for his stocking)

I also found a Manchester united duvet cover for £17.99 which is Santa’s gift to him.

For Mattea:

• Electric tooth brush from Booths £5.29
• Replacement brushes from Booths £1.99
• Pink wrist watch from Sports Direct £2.99
• Glow in the Dark nail polish from Poundland for £1 (obviously)
• Nail stickers from Poundland for £1 (obviously)
• Hail clips  from Poundland for £1 (obviously)

After Halloween, when shops wanted to get rid of the Halloween candy, I bought a huge bucket of sweets for around £2.50, to which I added candy canes and that takes care of the sweets stocking fillers, all that is left are some juices to add and bulk up the stockings if need be.