Almost gone

I finished a first version of the taboo-language piece today and put it in an envelope for April together with the write-up from the Shetland conference. Gives her something to do while I’m away. That’s all I did in the office. My lovely Japanese office-mate claims this is “mild weather” and, although now at setting 4 rather than 8, still has the heating on.

The mystery of the droning noise is still unsolved. It can’t be my computer, as I can’t even hear it in the bathroom... Another mystery is now added to this block of flat: a missing package of XXL clothing for the lady in flat 1, which someone has signed for but which she’s never seen. Oddness.

Long walk

Today I went for a Long Walk. I went to Holyrood Park, then started following the signs to Craigmillar Castle. It looked like that would be a boring walk along a main road, so I deviated and took the «Innocent Cycle Path» which, as I learned at the end, used to be a railroad. That was nice. It spat me out onto a main road nonetheless, and I started following signs to Craigmillar Castle again. This is very well hidden behind a new development with, in good Edinburgh fashion, streetnames like «Craigmillar Castle Road North Lane West Crescent Circle Square». I had one pound, so didn’t go into the castle, but continued on the walking path, which ended at the Royal Infirmary. Yay?

Then I had to walk along a main road for forever, and ended up at Cameron Toll. Where I’d never been before so I tried that and almost got lost in Sainsbury’s where I bought malted milk biscuits and chocolate chip biscuits. They have too much choice. Then I walked up to Newington, through Grange, bought new cycling shorts at the Bicycle Coop and sat in the Meadows for an hour.

My sunscreen has glittery stuff in it which is really cool (and glittery) but now I have lots of other things with glittery stuff on it as well.

What I did

On Thursday I had my first year review meeting. It was positive, they had some concerns about the amount of historical research I had to do with very patchy secondary sources (which I share – I might decide to dump some case studies), and there was a comment that in the final dissertation it’s probably more relevant to the research questions to present the case studies thematically rather than geographically. This is probably also true.

I also made an apple pie for Heather, who is leaving to get paid more for less work at the Dick Vet. This went down well. The pie, that is. No one’s too happy about her leaving.

In the evening we had a dem/cèilidh for Davide’s language school kids. Italian teenagers: what the boys have too much in attitude, the girls lack in clothes. They were a bit apprehensive at first, but in the end we did get them up to dance. Got home late.

On Friday I finally managed to book a hall for trip practice on the 30th. I had earlier had an «Allo Allo» experience with the people from the German-speaking church (this also implies they don't speak English very fluently...), and a wild goose chase with Drumbrae Leisure Centre. But finally on Friday I got hold of a school that is available. The woman was obviously Dutch, judging from her accent, but I kept speaking English with her which was awkward.

Then we had a picknick lunch with the English Language and Linguistics postgrads in the Meadows in honour of Heather leaving. I had made date and nut pie which went down even better than the apple one.

The evening was not a quiet evening in as intended, but a late evening out because we were celebrating the fact that ylla got a new job as secretary at the Physics department. (As I write this she has yet to mention this on her own blog.)

Today (Saturday) I sat in the Meadows and got slightly sunburnt. Then I decided it was getting too hot and I went for a walk through Grange and Holyrood Park. Had tea, then read something in the grass outside our flat (for some reason I don’t refer to it as «our garden» even though I guess it is) and then went for another walk approaching Blackford Hill but not climbing it because it was already getting later.

Homophony

Someone on the radio was talking about this street with all sorts of nice ‘eetstandjes’. I wondered what was so nice about ‘aidstentjes’ before she went on about food.

More loop

I am home alone, as MG has had to go back to the US. It’s quiet.

The stuff I had to write for the first year review meeting is now finished, although I have of course spotted some errors already. I am now in the process of putting the entire thing in LaTeX, as Word threatened to die on me on Friday, which is typically one of those things that would happen minutes before the due date. (And this was before putting the pictures in...) The whole coding thing is done now (I managed to automate much of it, at least all the accented characters) and I’m just having to put the references in and cure some BibTeX bugs. Having authors with nice exotic names in your reference list is cool, but a problem for automation... Will ask Cassie or Peter for help.

I am still not going on the trip. I have maintained this position since February, and I do not think I can be held responsible in any way, shape or form for some important event in the realm of marketing classical music taking place at the same time as the Ludwigstein trip.

Message for tigger_boing: Tesco has mugs with Tigger on for £3.97. If you go to the Tesco’s on Nicolson Street (this message goes for everyone) and it seems like you’re getting the slightly large, smiling Indian woman, pretend that you’ve forgotten something and leave the queue. Her “speed” makes a heavily sedated turtle look like an Olympic sprint champion, and she has a habit of putting about two items in a bag before deciding it’s full.

I brought the cheque for Lutton Place to the Docwras on Friday. It wasn’t a very long walk and as I had been wide awake since 6am anyway, it was a nice thing to do before going to the office. They live at number 10b of their street. As I was approaching, I could see number 8 – a massive posh house. Number 10 – a massive posh house. Number 12 – a massive posh house. But where was number 10b? Upon closer inspection there turned out to be a tiny cute little archway next to number 10, with 10b on it. Now I’m curious as to the Docwras’ house...

I also received the cheque for Nic’s costume proposal. It was addressed to me, ‘Esq.’! I looked it up but Esq. really doesn’t mean anything. But it looks cool.

Unfair

It is unfair that the England and the Netherlands are having gorgeous weather with sunshine and real summer and all, while we're stuck with [looks out window] oh look, it seems to be temporarily dry at the moment. Can't complain then.

It is also unfair that loads of people are running experiments at the moment for which they need participants. They dish out money for this, if you participate you often get £5 or £10, or at least chocolate. All the experiments require native speakers of English. Grunt. The one or two experiments that require L2-speakers of English want people whose first language is Chinese or Japanese.

It's unfair!