i am writng this, it is currently 3:35 am...i have had an amazing night. it was rebeccas birthday, But i think it is spelt Rebeka because she is mexican...it was brilliant. the thing about cloister house it that we come from so many different countries, i mean tonight we had mexican, spannish, english, irish, venezualan, dutch, german, indian, ghanian, ugandan, french (i think), and greek people, and it was brilliant,...i mean thanks to cesar my salsa has come on in leaps and bounds this year - he is an amazing dancer it is unreal...and it was funny when blowing out the candles on the birthday cake set the fire alarm off, and then broadgate had to come back again to tell us to turn the music down. johan was gutted as we couldnt do the moulin rouge routine - another time - eleni my downstairs neugbour is a grover, and it was altogether a brilliant night, and the best thing is, i can stay in bed for as long as i want tomorrow, and it doesnt matter. brilliant! I think a good night was had by all! i certainly enjoyed shaking my bootie on the dancefloor of flat 5! eh la!

at 9:45 this morning, i handed in my dissertation - that was it - a culmination of a years work, and my masters was over in that one movement of giving in the two spiral bound versions of my work...180 creduts done and dusted.

i treated myself to a thorntons ice-cream - it was gorgeous, and some underwear - thats pretty nice too!

other than that i am taking ben's advice of just having me time for a fort-night - i am not taking his advice on continual drinking

just to say, project is printed, bound and the cds are bunrt ready to give in bright and early tomorrow morning. when printing it out i was shaking - this now means no changes can be made, and i cant do anything now!

relief...now all i have to do is wait for the results....

xxx

today i did my slides for a presentation i dont have to give, but had to sum up my project with, executive summary is complete, and so is my project management report..and so i think is my project. the scary thing is, i still have four days to go! whats going on? i am stressing about being done early.

well in fact i am stressing about other things, but pouring that out into my work. one thing on my mind i cant talk about, but i just ask for prayers for some one who really needs them right now.

the other thing is just me and my usual lame low confidence self in getting off my butt and actually doing something that could make me happy...hence the quote about fear the other day.

anyways....speak soon

xxx

its always the little changes that you want to make in your project that always take so long...and i am now going through it with a fine comb, checking referencing, quotes, spellings and making sure temping or temp hasnt slipped in anywhere - that would be annoying! but am nearly done...just a few other bits that arent graded but just pass/fail to do...executive summary has taken me two days and am still not happy with it, but you never really are with these things.

Other news - since mike has joined cloister there has been more physic/science talk, and less critical theory, but i still dont get some of it...there is never any oss psy talk? then i would be a font of knowledge! never mind...am learning a lot - yesterday it was the stars and galaxies and gravatational pulls and satelites - what a riveting friday night we have here in nottingham!

take care one and all
xxx

good news is that I have just heard from my supervisor...only a few changes to be made to my project, with generally good comments...a few grammatical points that I dont see, and nor did my parents which is a bit confusing - will send it to jon maybe!! then things like page numbers and ketwords which is somethings that I knew i had to do anyways. and i am presenting at a conference in january, my abstract was formally accepted which is good news...so looking up now

if anyone knows their bible, they will know that quote comes from ecclesiasticus and not wisdom - i apologise.
its late, i am tired and upset.

wow, three posts in one day, how can you tell that i am bored? i hope my supervisor gets back to me tomorrow...well today i did loads of reading, finished the Life of Pi

Although I didnt like the official end to the book - the interview transcripts was a lame way to end, his farewell with Richard Parker seems to be mirroring something with me at the moment. Throughout the year I have had ups and downs, as has just about everyone, but I have always had someone that I contacted on about a daily basis, not just God, but a close friend. but as near the end suggests : "i wept as a child...I was weeping because Richard Parker had left me so unceremoniously" later it goes on to say "it's important in life to conclude things properly. Only then can you let go. Otherwise you are left with words you should have said but never did, and your heart is heavy with remorse".

at the moment a goodbye has been forced upon me. for me with no clear conclusion, leaving me indeed weeping like a child.

but i just want to remind my Richard Parker one thing from another great book that I read:

"a loyal friend is a powerful defence: whoever finds one has indeed found a treasure. a loyal friend is something beyond price, there is no measuring his worth"
(wisdom: 6:15-16)

i hope that is clear.

well as my tutor has not got back to me about my project (either a very good, or a very bad sign), i have been doing lots of reading, and have found another brilliant quote from the Life of Pi:

"Faith in God is an openning up, a letting go, a deep trust, a free act of love..."

having spent the last few months burried underneath interview transcripts and psyhcology journals i have found a book that I started to read, and am now reading to finish...but I have just read a few sentences that sums up what i think amazingly...

so thanks to Yann Martel and the Life of Pi:

"I must say a word about fear. It is life's only true opponent...It has no decency, respects no law convention, shows no mercy. It goes for your weakest spot, which it finds with unerring ease. It begins in your mind, always"

I fear a lot. This is a brilliant description of how I often feel.

today has been quite a strange day, from some quite malicious emails, leading to tears down a phone, and having to ask questions of people that i knew were not true anyways...am sorry that i did that - you're a very special person

it took me seven hours to edit my project today - but now it is in a form that i can send to my tutor to proof read, and i only have to do a few little bits and bobs now, which is good. still all i want to do is sleep, which is what i am going to do now...although i have one thing bothering me a lot at the moment, do i do an eye for an eye, or do i offer the other cheek to be slapped? thats my conundrum.

nice way to start a sunday morning, with a fire alarm...it started just as i was coming out of the shower, i was not going to go out in a towel - i managed to survive the horrid noise enough to clothe myself and go downstairs - obviously thete was no fire, someone just carbonating their breakfast it appears....i am now wide awake and in about 1o minutes will be heading off to campus for church. not much is happening this way, its work and sleep - i am so looking forward to the day when i can just lay in bed for as long as i want without feeling guilty that my project isnt being done...that isnt long now - hurrah!

got a bit stuck on my discussion yesterday - read lots of discussions from other journals to give me some ideas, it has worked! yay! will see what i can do today, and hopefully send it to my supervisor. am looking forward to writing my warts and all management report with all the problems that I have had with my project, the fact that the method changed, the number of participants chnaged, the area the participants were from kindof changed, and most importantly my research questions chnaged (the supposed beauty of qualitative research!), so there is a bit to write up.

um, really not much else has been happening - most people are heads down to get their projects/dissertations done. really need to shop - my fridge shlef has on it a yoghurt, half a block of cheese and some celery! will shop with jonathnan when he returns today!

take care my pumpkins
xxxx

yesterdays work day in terms of my project went absolutely crap - i had a complete mind block, so instead i changed all the mistakes in my transcripts - something that needed to be done, but didnt need much thought in it. but today all that changed! i wrote and finished my results section, so have discussion and abstract left to do, and then my supervisor (as i found out today can then read a draft of my project) can have a read through it! then i will have about a week to make chnages, write my executive summary, and my management report which shouldnt be too bad - bound and given in - masters done. prayers please - have been stressing and been a bit panicky - this is a big thing, and i want to do the best that i can, so prayers for strength and motivation will be fab please

jonathan comes back on sunday - that will be good - have missed him a bit - even all the banter that i usually get from him! but that should be nice. oh and we at cloister have a new addition to our gang - his name is mike, and he has joined flat 2...he seems to be fitting in well, already taking the piss out of me, so he has slotted in fine really.

not much else going on - really just going to get typing on my discussion tomorrow - have just over 1,000 words to do it in! oh how you love the word count!

take care my pickles
xxx

once again, it seems that I have not blogged for a while - my apologies, i have been quite busy for one reason or another. the last weeken saw the wedding of Rachel and Oli - the service was absolutely lovely, the worship, the prayers and the Bible passages were all very special, and obviously meant so much to the happy couple, and I wish them all the best for the future, they deserve all the happiness in the world, and I am sure that God wiill guide them in the right direction - they both have very strong faith, and so that will guide them in any decisions to be made....the only bad thing about the wedding was the no single men at the reception - my beautiful dress went to waste!



The other thing that has been taking up my time is obviously my dissertation. this is going ok actually, i am getting there and so I am doing better then i ever thought that i would be doing at this time. I do sometimes get that feeling of panic, but hey ho, that will never stop in me, so what can i do?

we had a full flat for one night on tuesday..Bibii came back from Ghana, and Cathy came up from london for the day, and so we had a flat meal which was just great - spending time with the girls was fun, and meant that i could talk about girl stuff like hair, and my latest crushes and feelings, that the men sometimes seem to shy away from...have been getting on a lot better with my housemates recently - i think that we all realise that we are going to miss each other so much when we leave - we have learnt to rely on each other this year, even if we dont realise it at the time...

men has been a good topic of conversation to get me close to some housemates in particular. they understand just how shy i am when telling certain men how i feel about them, and so can empathise with me about the struggles that I am currently having, but we try and laugh through it, so we shall see...

anyways, must get back to the dissertation now

xxx

the write up for my project has begun, and i have three weeks before the nasty things is given in, and then my masters is over, and i will have just over two weeks in nottingham left for enjoyment and job hunting before my year in nottingham will come to a sad end, and we will all be going our seperate ways - am already beginning to feel very sad about this.

keep on emailing my supervisor with questions about my write up and how things should be as i dont want this to bring my mark down, so we shall see how it goes. but am waiting to see another member of staff regarding my results as i have never done qualititative analysis before, and i have found quite an exciting result which is more a development of some kind of theory then just say content or thematic analysis, and so she doesnt know how exactly i should write how my results were analysed and thus how they should be written up, so this part is still up in the air.

have a wedding to go to this weekend. Rachel from my course is the bride, and she is getting married to Ollie on saturday. can we just pray that this is a good day for them, and that they can grow in the love of God together. They are a young christian couple, and so prayers for them would be great. I have got to get a pashmina and a bag to go with my dress, and i had my haircut yesterday for the first time in over a year so that it looks nice for the weekend, even if andy, mike and enrique didnt notice that i had over an inch off the length, and my sweeping fringe put back in....men!

other than that, have been having some quite vivid dreams recently which have been quite funny and making me laugh, but have been sleeping a lot better which is very good.

take care

this blog post os just for one person who was complaining last night about not being mentioned enough....so here it goes:

Gareth, Gareth, Gareth, Gareth, Gareth, Gareth, Gareth, Gareth, Gareth, Gareth Gareth, Gareth, Gareth, Gareth, Gareth, Gareth, Gareth, Gareth, Gareth, Gareth....





.......is a ...?

xfour weeks exactly today, and my project gets handed in...that time is going to go sos quickly as well, but its coming on ok. today i wrote a summary of my project as i may be presenting at the POP (post-graduate occupational psychology) conference in january, and that was really helpful as it meant that i had a chance to read through notes that i hadnt read through in a while and it also meant that i could get some idea of the direction that my project is going in as well. but it has been sent off to two tutors to check for me now so fingers crossed. anyways, apart from that not much is happening, am battling on, am trying to be over happy to make up for my downess which is freaking a few people out here...may have to bring it down a bit now! oh well. what can you do. johnsons beer festival going on at the mo, the ticket i got last night means that i can ask for three more pints and dont have to pay any money - always good news. thanks to adrian and gareth last night who allowed me to test all the ales that they got - still not an ale liker i am afraid - will stick to the cider!

anyways, speak more soon

xxxx

my tearfulness just has to stop - one minute fine, the next minute i am not...oh dear, its all not good, but i will battle on regardless and be fine hopefully - no i will be fine - before ben starts worrying when he doesnt have to. its just been a hardish month where i have found out stuff and its not what i had prayed for, so i am angry with me and with God which is never the way to be...prayer has been hard, but i have just continued with it, as i know that it does help in the end, and God will be around me when others go.

but work is going on ok, am cutting and pastign my interviews into themes which is quite fun, but i can see it getting frustrating towards the end of it. but finished up my stupid consultancy things now which is good news.