I feel I ought to update my blog now and provide an account of how I spent the month of April 2010 after safely returning from Portugal.
It was a month where I made a brief visit to Newcastle but also attended two conferences and had to prepare my documentation for my annual progress review.
Starting at the beginning of April, I landed back at Heathrow and made the journey back to Suffolk to spend the Easter weekend with my parents and girlfriend. Once it was back to work on the Tuesday, I had to set about reorganising my life again and transferring all my books and papers I acquired in Portugal from my luggage into my bedroom. My suitcase actually weighed in ok for the plane back, but good job they didn’t weigh my hand luggage as that was probably heavier!
Coming to terms with being back in the UK meant firstly dealing with the inevitable email backlog, but then organising a visit to Newcastle to see my supervisors and whoever else was hanging round the department at the time. It was nice to return to the office again after four months away and it was good to have a catch up with my supervisors. They seemed to be pleased with my efforts in Portugal and from what I told them they felt it had gone well.
The middle of the month of April was spent preparing for the first of the conferences I was attending and presenting at – ‘The Cold War and European Integration 1945-89’ at the University of Reading. I got my paper ready before I left Portugal but I needed to sort out my powerpoint and spiel for my presentation at the conference. I took the train down to Reading from Newcastle and stayed over with my cousin. This was nice and he showed me some of the local ale pubs!
The conference itself was good, a diverse mix of papers some from historians some from political scientists and it was a relaxed, friendly atmosphere. The conference dinner after the first day was nice too! I was down to present on the second day, which meant I had to stew all through the first! I was down to present alongside a Spanish girl presenting a paper on Spain similar to mine on Portugal. But this conference was at the same time the volcanic ash cloud was wreaking havoc on Britain’s airspace and she was unable to attend. This meant that I was the sole presenter in the panel and this was a good thing as I got the full attention of the audience as well as not having to hurry through my paper or skip bits!
In the two weeks that separated the Reading conference from the Bath conference I had to put together all my documents for my progress review and crucially write my paper for the Bath conference! This is the reason I have been too busy to update my blog recently!!! But I got it all done and took the train down to Bath for the two day conference. I had a look round the city and took some photos – it’s really nice! The conference itself was stimulating and again the conference dinner was a good opportunity to chat to fellow research students. Again, my paper was scheduled for the second day – this time in the last panel in the afternoon! I was presenting in the same panel as a Portuguese student who I had met before who was presenting on a similar topic. This was really useful as there were lots of links between the two papers, and we were able to give each other useful feedback.
Those were my first presentations outside of Newcastle and although I was a little nervous I didn’t feel too panicky. I enjoyed the experience and didn’t feel too daunted. But I’m glad the busy month of April is now over and I can use the feedback I have received to improve my research as well as use the presenting experience to improve my skills for the future.