…because sometimes people think that I’m not if I don’t blog, appear on MSN or update my status for over a month, here is a brief update on what I’ve been up to as of late.
Friends of the Earth stuff is still taking up large chunks of my spare time, but I’m enjoying it and this seems to be my main social group at the moment too. I’m also not sure what’s happened recently, but all of a sudden national Friends of the Earth has started asking my opinion about things, which is cool—I think this means I’ve now been around long enough that people actually know who I am.
In terms of my PhD, things seem to be going quite well. My literature review is coming together, which means that I won’t have to write my entire transfer report at the last minute as this will form a part of it. My supervisor also commented that my writing is far better than what he usually sees at this stage, which I think is largely thanks to my MA. In fact, I think my Masters degree was far more useful in general than my undergraduate course, as the latter taught me things which I already knew or could find in a textbook, rather than teaching me how to think for myself.
I also got bored of wearing black all the time and being mistaken for various combinations of goth, assassin, hacker and bouncer, so I switched to some more colourful shirts from M&S about a week ago. This resulted in my supervisor nearly having a heart attack every day for a week, and he now believes that a woman is behind the change—i.e. that I’ve suddenly got a girlfriend. Alas, that’s not the case, although I did get several compliments on how I looked so it’s not too bad. 😉
Finally, I’m looking forward to the UKUUG Spring 2008 conference, where I will be in attendance as a Council member and perhaps chairing a session. Oh, and you should all go and listen to Jennie sing and read poetry, and particularly check out the amusing logo next to ‘My Conservative Friend’. 🙂
The UKUUG conference looks like another good one, congrats on organising another good one! Alas i’m missing out on it again as other colleagues are going (and someone has to stay in the office!).
I can’t really take much credit for this conference as I didn’t have much to do with organising it, though I’ll probably be helping out on the three days which it’s running for.