Back to school

It's definitely autumn - I can tell from the weather and the way it's getting colder, and from just how dark it seems to be almost all the time.

And it's back-to-school time.  Uni starts again tomorrow.  I seem to remember that I liked going to uni last year.  I liked learning things, I liked drinking coffee, I found it interesting to find new ways of looking at my work.

But I also vaguely remember losing whole vast swathes of my life to essays, and to the time wasted not doing essays but not actually doing anything else, and not seeing my friends or my husband or my family.  I've enjoyed the freedom I've had over the summer to do those things and I don't want to lose it.

Still, we're doing law and finance, how hard can it be?*

*I also seem to remember saying that about a masters in International Political Economy and that turned out to be so hard I just cried all the time until I gave it up...

Things to do when you're ill (1)

So I am ill and stuck at home on the sofa with a very low boredom threshold.  To make myself feel better I am knitting very small hats for innocent smoothies' The Big Knit.  So far I am up to 2 1/2 hats.  Each one takes about 45 minutes to knit which, coincidentally, is about the same length as Any Questions.

Admittedly, I could more easily spend a couple of hours asleep on the sofa and send them £1.50 but I'm not sure that's the point.

thebigknit2008

I'm not a student any more, dammit!

For a long time, September was a funny month.  It heralded a new academic year, either as a student, working at a university or working with students.  Every year, for approximately a decade, September would be a hectic month filed with freshers' weeks, late nights and lots of hard work, followed by an unpleasant week of so of Freshers' Flu, that delightful result of meeting lots of new germs from all over the country, which takes the form of a runny nose, sore throat and an overwhelming urge to stay in bed until I feel better.

While technically I am still a student, it's on day-release now, which is completely different - the new term starts on Wednesday, I know I've passed my re-sit essay (that one on Polish migrants I was telling you about) because I've been allowed to register on-line but I still haven't had my results through the post - but my body does not seem to have grasped the idea that it has no reason to be ill.  It's September and I'm off work with what feels suspiciously familiar.  A runny nose.  A headache.  A sore throat.  An inability to process thoughts or communicate coherently.  I have The September Malady.

Here, there and everywhere...

Just about getting over Greenbelt - it's tiring but completely awesome, and I feel like an amazing person when I'm there, and then I come home and I'm just tired and feel slightly less awesome - it takes me a week to get used to normal life again.  

And now I'm off again - going to Quinta with SPEAK to do Vocal Training, a weekend getting network people together to do training.  I haven't been for a while as I no longer work at SPEAK, and this time I'm just cooking - it should be a lovely relaxing weekend with lovely people in lovely countryside.  And I'm hoping to fit in a visit to my favourite baby on the way home.