Today I booked my plane ticket to Lisbon! It hit home when I went down to pick up my TAP print-out and it had the time and dates of my flight to Portugal. And of course I have to get all my fieldwork done by the time it’s time to come home again…March 31st! Scary, scary, scary!

So between now and Christmas so much to do. But it’ll be good and I’m looking forward to it. I am in the process of sorting out all those annoying little things which I need to sort out now before I leave and then have a sort of methodology drafted by the end of term. I will make the most of this weekend to really make some dents in my to do list.

But I have met with my supervisors and all seems ok, it’s just a question of me finding the time to get ahead. Motivation shouldn’t be a problem, and the closer it gets to that day when I step onto the plane the more motivated I need to be to get everything sorted and in place. Can’t wait! Although not looking forward to the hassle of setting up a Portuguese bank account, something I avoided doing during my year abroad in Lisbon before.

The teaching is going well. I enjoyed my first proper seminars with my three groups. But as of Monday it’ll only be two groups as we’ve merged them together. Which is a shame because I liked the small group and it worked well, but it’s a necessary evil in order for them to do the group projects. Slowly getting used to the idea that I’m the seminar teacher, but I have a bright group of students who seem to ask just the sort of questions I wished they wouldn’t! But it’s fun to think on your feet.

Anyway, I promise to update soon. But right now I better be off… got lots of sun cream to buy and pack 😉

Not that I’ll be needing any in January, February and March!

Sounds strange, but it’s true. Or at least by tomorrow morning I will be!

I went along to the first lecture of the module and got my first look at the second year undergraduates I will be teaching. They seemed a nice bunch. They did all the same things like what I used to do when I was a second year, i.e. not sit in the front two rows of the lecture theatre and at least pretend to take notes of what the lecturer is saying. It seems strange to think that a mere five years ago I was taking this module, and now I’ll be teaching it. But, luckily for me, the EU has changed so much in that time that it’s like taking a completely different module.

Now, with news of the Irish referendum approving the Treaty of Lisbon on Friday, I know what I’m supposed to be teaching. You can always rely on the EU to leave it until the last minute before letting us people, who have to teach the young people of the world how the EU works, know until the last minute quite what treaty is supposed to be in force!

Anyway with that headache just about resolved there remains the main issue… How am I going to handle this? What if they ask me really awkward questions? What if I don’t know the answers? What if they undermine my authority? What if they destroy what confidence I have in a matter of seconds? The best I can do is just to do my best. If I don’t know an answer, I’ll look it up and get back to them. Hopefully they’ll be able to accept that and I’ll be able to give them the benefit of my many years of experience of studying and living in the EU.

So once I get over that surreal experience of walking into the room and occupying that teacher’s chair, I’ll have to get to know my group and work through what I have planned (which isn’t as well planned as I would like at this stage, so may require more work later tonight). An hour will soon fly by and once the first group is done, the next two tomorrow will be easier to deal with. But I will definitely have earned a pint at the end of the day and some film night pizza!

Right, I shall report back how I get on later in the week. Together with an update on how my PhD is going in general since I’ve been back for the new term.