In a very busy month since my last post, I have technically become a lecturer!

But not in the sense of a permanent member of academic staff holding a lectureship, but I have given a guest lecture on Europeanisation to the second year undergrad module of EU Politics and Policy for which I am a seminar tutor again this year.

I have to say it went well enough. I mean, I would have been happy to get out alive, no fires or anything like that. But I think I did a decent job. And, while making a career out of it would be nice but given the state of university finances may be tricky, I know for a fact I shall definitely have another go at it in a couple of weeks when I lecture on EU security policy.

So it’s good to be a lecturer, but also good, after my time away on fieldwork, to get back into seminar teaching. It’s definitely a whole lot easier this year, as I don’t have to do the reading all over again! And having the confidence of having done it before definitely helps me this time. And I’m quite pleased with how the five weeks of seminars have gone so far. This week in particular, when we did a little European Council role play. Another two weeks of seminars and then group presentations to mark.

My standing up in front of crowds this past month has not been limited to undergraduate teaching either. I presented my fieldwork findings to our Politics Internal New Voices seminar series. That too went well and I got some useful feedback. I went with another PhD student doing some weird and wonderful research on a Japanese thinker so I really learnt something from his presentation before I stood up to give mine! I hope the audience learned something from mine! But I definitely got asked some challenging questions and got some great feedback – which is the main thing!

So with preparing for my presentation and teaching commitments, I have clearly been busy. But I did pop home at the end of October as it was my Dad’s birthday. That was a nice weekend, and even managed to get a few pints in at the final day of the Norwich beer festival!

But there is a little thing called a thesis which needs writing! Apparently they don’t write themselves!!! So I have also been busy redrafting the chapter I did over the summer and trying to organise my thesis outline as best I can. But I think it’s coming together. I have also blitzed the British Library and got hold of lots of books on inter-library loans not to mention chapters from library e-books printed off and making a few purchases from Amazon! Finding new material in the final year of your PhD isn’t nice, but hopefully I will now not be found lacking in my viva. But a couple of the books I bought were ones I wanted for keeps that I was fed up of having on loan from the library! The book shelf needs to be improved upon to get anywhere near the required standard for a proper academic!

The Christmas decorations are starting to go up in town and the spectacle of the Fenwick’s Christmas window has been revealed to the world. It’s not too bad this year, they went quite traditional with the nativity last year, so this year is more Santa’s workshop. It does look nice, although it’s not quite put me in the festive mood yet.

With all these things to keep me busy I’m sure it will be December before I know it, but hopefully I will find time for another blog update before then. If not apologies in advance, I really do have a good reason!