I welcome you back for a friendly chat. 

So as we are here and the new year begins,

I’ll tell you a bit of what is happening.

There’s not many problems, or trouble and strife,

But plenty of variety in my day to day life.

It starts in a second and shows you the way,

Take a sneak peak and come relive my day.

A Day in the Life….

06:30-06:45 Wake up, sit-ups for breakfast

07:00 Swimming at the gym (1mile or 2k)

07:45 Showered, dressed and in the car to join the A5 and M54

08:30-08:45 Arrive at Wolves Uni car park

08:50 Breakfast (either a bagel or a bowl of cereal) & a cup of tea

09:00 Check emails & calendar

09:30 Executive meeting

10:00 Staff briefing/update

11:00-13:00 Open Surgery in Students’ Union

13:00-14:00 Lunch

14:00 Meetings

15:00 Order and payment signing

16:00-17:30 Various duties, student issues etc

18:00- Gym (weights, cross trainer, rowing machine, swim, steam room, sauna)

20:00- Dinner, various choices but today it was a huge mixed grill!!

21:00 Reading & Internet related research-typically on Conflict Studies or Deafness

23:00 Sit-ups, Brush teeth, bed

23:30-06:29 The creation of letter “Z” (aka sleeping).

Cheers!

My drive to work starts here

Mocha

Enjoying some free time

Gym pool

Dinner!

The Essay

Hello again and here is instalment two.

So what have I been up to since the Christmas break?  I’ve been doing lots of reading, lots and lots of reading!! Turns out I had a 6,000 word essay to do as part of my MA. It was an independent study, so I eventually decided to base it around Racism in the U.S. Military during the Vietnam War. I got deep, I got well deep. That’s what I love about history and the whole subject. I love the fact that on this course I’m able to choose where and what I want to study and can shape it to what interests me. It’s a very interesting subject, whether you’re a geek or not.

12 Book Limit

So once again I had a pile of books, definitely not enough to only have a twelve book limit on this library card. Eight short loans and four long loans. It never really works out, especially when you have a lot to read about.  I’m so glad that we have Ebray. If you don’t know what it is, I strongly recommend that you look into it, but basically its an on-line library of books and texts. Perfect for when you are up to your loan limit and cant get any books out. Plus it saves you getting a muscle work out by not having to carry a massive pile of books home.

Pebble Pad

I was even back on “the award winning pebble pad”, (I can’t call it anything else now, not since hearing it said at every graduation I attended this past year).  Managed to get the final entry submitted.  I really tried to push the boat out by making sure that this last entry met all the assessment criteria.  I challenged, related to other comments and even underpinned my comments with quotes from relevant sources.  Its worth 50% of the total module so no point in throwing away valuable points.  I now have to just keep my fingers crossed and hope for the best.  Phew…….

Submitted!!

The bonus is, (back to my 6,000 word essay) that by careful planning and organisation, I was able to finish my essay, leave it a day, then come back to it and read over with fresh eyes, and a clear head.  None of this running from the printer and trying to get to registry to hand in before 5pm.  Not me!!  I printed it out, then took a leisurely stroll over to “Here To Help”, handed in my assignment and thought about a short period of relaxation.  Well at least until next Saturday and my whole day of lecture.

Personal Life

The holidays are a great thing.  A chance to relax after a semester of hard study. I managed to enjoy a selection of cocktails, visit friend, spend some quality time with family and loved ones.  Enjoy and indulge in my love of cooking and my greater love of eating. Managed to catch up and step-up my gym activities. I haven’t played snooker in a while, so I enjoyed the chance of getting a few games in, verty expensive now!! One of the best things about having a little time off from work and studies, is I was able to wash my car, finally!!!

There are times when I have to really sacrifice my gym/swim for the sake of the degree, but I do enjoy getting back into the usual swing of thing. Luckily for me, it’s too cold to do any work on my allotment garden. Yes that’s right, I have an allotment garden!!

January is looking like it’s gonna be a very busy month full of lots of new things especially work and play. So much to say that I think I’ll have to save it for another blog entry. If you can’t see it above this one, then that means I haven’t written it yet. So check back shortly and enjoy.

Thanks for taking an interest. See you soon.

The Lecture

What’s the best way to start my latest blog entry? Usually I jump straight in with my first thought, but today I’m thinking ‘let’s do something a little different’. I’m not sure what it is, but let’s go with it anyway. So it’s been just over a week since I had my Saturday lecture “Understanding War in the Modern World”.  Got there and started with my usual cup of tea, of course, and a blueberry muffin. So tea and cake in hand I head over to MC Building and I’m off at the third floor. The first part of this lecture we looked at different tactics used in World War Two and Blitzkrieg Operations. Extensive scribing on my note pad, lots of interesting facts to get down, really looking forward to getting my teeth into this one. I’ve gotta do a presentation and an essay for this module. Hopefully I’ll not have to spend two long trying to decide what my topic will be, guess I’d better start doing some research around the subject and start sooner rather than later. Besides the fact that I always feel motivated by an impending assignment deadline, I really feel that I should step my game up and really get an early start on this one. Hmmmm,  I’m gonna really try and stick to this one, think I’ll make a schedule. 

Part two

The second part of my lecture was on the Holocaust. Not really an area that I’ve studied much, but obviously very relevant to WW2. Found out that my lecturer has two PHD’s. That makes him a double doctor! So back to the blog... and the lecture. So the theme of the lecture was on Historiography and Controversies, looking at some of the current and past writers on the subject, early instances of the word Holocaust, and some of the events that happened. Lots of food for thought, this is a full day of lectures and by now I’m low on paper and my energy drink is nearly finished. Next Lecture in a few weeks, in the meantime I’ll be getting stuck into my new online module, looking at War Media and Propaganda. History has never been so exciting, I can’t believe I hated history in school, but here I am now having completed my undergrad and now doing an MA in the subject.

What a coincidence that after a weekend on the subject of war and conflict I turn up to work the following Monday and the front entrance of MC Building is filled with a tank, rocket launcher and a load of army vehicles and soldiers.  It’s not the latest tactics by students fighting the war on tuition fees, but a new course just launching at the uni.  Weird coincidence, but the court yard is full and everyone is getting their photo snapped as they pose in front of the tank. 

Tank on campus!

Closing Thoughts- The Next Instalment

I’m trying really hard to update this blog on the regular, but I’m also still trying to decide on the exact mix between my academic, work and personal life. What do I write about? What do I include? What do I miss out? Do I keep it jovial or serious? Think I’ll go for all of em and try to get a decent mix. So that’s what you have install, but for now, I said earlier I was gonna start a schedule of work and make sure I get stuck into these new modules. So why am I writing this blog entry?

See you soon.....I’ve still gotta work on planning the International and Erasmus events at the Students’ Union, Welcome party, and sort out the site visits to our other campuses.

Introduction

So it’s Saturday night. A guy like me you’d expect to be out on the tiles, dressed up to the nines and making some serious funky moves on the dance floor, with a JD & coke in hand.  Guess where I am right now?  I’m sat in front of my laptop working on my latest assignment!  Back on the ole pebble pad baby!  Just submitted my final entry to this week’s online task.  I’ve been writing on Propaganda and the Media.  Had to answer two questions.  I had to answer the second question first because I didn’t have the book needed for it.  Managed to find it in the library, or should I say, ‘Harrison Learning Centre’. The only downside is I’ve been off all week so had to make a special journey in on Saturday to finally pick it up.  But when I finally did, oooooh it was well worth it, cus here I am on this Saturday night tapping away at the keys on my trusty Samsung. Like I said before, I’m really gonna try for an ‘A’ on this module, so that means making sure I contribute to the forum every week and interact with the rest of the group. 

The middle bit

It’s not all bad though, I’m sat here with a Budweiser, some cheese biscuits and ‘Dusk Till Dawn’ is on the TV while I’m working away.  I’d give you a quote right now from the scene where they pull up at the bar in Mexico, but then I’d have to put a reference into this blog, but I think I’ve done enough Harvard Referencing for tonight.  Oh look it’s not a bar after all!  Someone pass me a stake!

Conclusion

Tomorrow, week two’s task is posted online, so I’m gonna switch off and catch the end of the film. Goodbye for now.