As the end of term, and Christmas, draws closer there a lots of things which need to be done. For this reason I have been especially busy over the last few weeks but the weather this November has insured that I am indeed snowed under at the moment!
Firstly, the craziness of the weather. While Newcastle isn’t, by any stretch the Bahamas, when they said there’d be snow this week I didn’t think we’d get as much as we have done. Literally several inches of the stuff and not just in the sticks but in Gosforth and the city centre. Now I don’t mind the snow at all and it does make things seem properly Christmassy. I haven’t ventured outside today, but I think I shall have a walk in the snow tomorrow for sure.
As part of the getting into that Christmas mood, a visit to the Newcastle continental Christmas market was in order, particularly for some mulled wine! But in order to justify that I needed a good reason. That reason, this Friday, was that I have finished my teaching for the term now. I still have presentations and papers to mark, but the hard work of teaching, and me doing the talking most of the time, is now over. I have enjoyed teaching my seminars this year and I think the group as whole show some promise so I am optimistic that I shall have some good marks to award this year! This week I gave another lecture for the module and had that observed. I think it went well, but I’m sure I will get some useful and constructive feedback. If I’m not too bad on only my second attempt, then with more practice and experience, I should be a more than competent teacher!
The main monkey on my back is the chapter I’m in the process of (re)drafting. I’ve nearly got a complete version, but once I do that it won’t be finished because I need to go through it all and beef it up rather. I have done a fair bit today, but I’ll have to see how I get on tomorrow regarding what I can realistically achieve by Tuesday. But it’s great to have words on the board and to have a whole chapter pretty much ready.
I’m also looking forward to Thursday of next week. António Costa Pinto is coming to give a lecture on Portugal: from Empire to Europe. He is not only a scholar whom I cite in my work but I have met him and when I was at his Institute in Lisbon earlier in the year he pointed me in the right direction to send me on my way for my fieldwork. It will be nice to hear what he has to say, but more importantly to him again – he’s a lovely guy. Also on Thursday, me and my fellow PhD students in Politics have decided to have a bit of a coffee afternoon which will involve caffeine, cake, and moaning about how useless the undergrads are that we teach. That’s the recognised formula! But also we need to get some volunteers to take roles and responsibilities on, otherwise when me and the other 3rd years are gone, there won’t be a Politics postgraduate community to speak of and that would be a great shame.
I’m going up to Berwick next weekend with the girlfriend, which should be nice and from there we’re going to have a day trip to Edinburgh. So I’m looking forward to that, assuming, of course, that I get done all that I want to this week and that the snow doesn’t pile up any higher!