Julie

That's me graduated. Bit of an anti-climax really but hey, at least I finally got the chance to graduate in the end. Off to be a teacher now so I can add more letters after my name...

I found a caterpillar in my broccoli last night. I'm not sure I want to eat broccoli again.

Do lecturers deliberately try to mess with your head? Not only are we facing the prospect of not graduating this July but the exams are SO fucking difficult, any chance I may have had of a 2:1 and a place at Queens next year is very rapidly slipping away....

Hehe, I want to go to Edinburgh ;)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/edinburgh_and_east/4770287.stm

That's another exam over. Just the small matter of another 10 to go.......

Glasgow - Seventy-six - one to change the light bulb, fifty to protest the light bulb's right to not change, and twenty-five to hold counter-protest

Strathclyde - Five - one to design a nuclear powered one that never needs changing, one to figure out how to power the rest of Scotland using that nuked light bulb, two to install it, and one to write the computer program that controls the wall switch

Caledonian - Seven - one to change the light bulb and six to throw a party because he didn't screw it in upside down this time

RSAMD - Five - one to change the bulb and four to do an interpretive dance about it

Edinburgh - One - he holds the bulb and the world revolves around him

Heriot Watt - Three - one to change it and two to figure out how to get high off the old one

Napier - Only one, but he gets 10 course credits for it

St Andrews - Five - one to arrange the party, two to co-ordinate
the press, one to call the electrician, and one to get daddy to pay
for it all.

Dundee - Ten - one to buy and fit the bulb, and nine to petition
for the electrification of Dundee

Aberdeen - Two - One to change the light bulb and one to crack under the pressure

Stirling - None - Stirling looks better in the dark.

That's 1 exam down, just 11 to go.....

It was a bit weird as I haven't sat proper written exams in 2 years as I was away in Espana last year. I've totally forgotten how to manage my time and how sore your hand gets after writing for so long! It was just so much pressure on my wee brain!

Btw, if any of you have a BEBO page, I've just set one up.

I'm so sick of the uncertainty over whether exams are going ahead or not. It's hard to study when you can't even be sure that there will be an exam paper sitting on the desk in the exam room or people to invigilate. If you do sit the exam, you can't be sure it will even be marked and if you are lucky enough to have it marked, they might not necessarily pass the marks on to the people who number crunch and figure out your degree classification....When the hell is their conscience going to kick in and when will they realise they are going to cock up people's futures if they don't stop?

This strike action by the AUT is not even remotely funny anymore. Another one of my exams, due to take place on Monday, has been postponed. Everyone is so angry because these postponed exams will have to be rescheduled for another time i.e. in the middle of our written exams. We already have 9 written exams as it is and they want to reschedule Spanish interpreting for the week when we have 3 written exams. Not funny. French was postponed today. It was a presentation exam and I already had mine prepared and was geared up to do it.
Before Easter, we were quietly optimistic that the union would resolve the dispute before the exams began. We also had the vain hope that our lecturers would not let our 5 years of hard work and parent's financial contribution go to waste. Well, we were wrong because it's now looking increasingly likely that our exams will not be marked (if they even go ahead) and our graduations will not take place as planned. Someone please wake me up and tell me this is a bad dream...

Go to Wikipedia and look up your birth day (excluding the year). List three events, two births and one death in your journal, including the year.

Events

* 1066 - Norman Conquest: Battle of Hastings - In England on Senlac Hill, seven miles from Hastings, the forces of William the Conqueror defeat the Saxon army and kill King Harold II of England.

* 1322 - Robert the Bruce of Scotland defeats King Edward II of England at Byland, forcing Edward to accept Scotland's independence

* 1962 - Cuban Missile Crisis begins: A U-2 flight over Cuba takes photos of Soviet nuclear weapons being installed.


Births

1927 - Roger Moore, English actor

1940 - Cliff Richard, British singer


Death

1977 - Bing Crosby, American singer and actor


There was a hell of a lot of stuff that has happened on my birthday so here's some more:

1586 - Mary I of Scotland goes on trial for conspiracy against Elizabeth I of England

1912 - While campaigning in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, former president Theodore Roosevelt is shot by saloonkeeper William Schrank. With a fresh flesh wound and the bullet still in him, Roosevelt still delivers his scheduled speech.

1926 - The children's book Winnie-the-Pooh, by A.A. Milne, is first published

1963 - The term "Beatlemania" is coined by the British press to describe the scene at the previous night's performance by The Beatles on the TV show Val Parnell's Sunday Night at the London Palladium.

1969 - Britain introduces the 50p (fifty-pence) coin, replacing the ten-shilling note, in anticipation of the decimalisation of the currency in 1971.

2005 - Daniel Craig is announced by EON Productions to be the sixth actor to appear in an official James Bond film, Casino Royale

Plus I share my birthday with Steve Cram, Winnie the Pooh, Paul Hunter (the snooker player), Matt le Tissier,Dwight Eisenhower, Eamon De Valera, Ralph Lauren and Vanessa Lane..an American porn star.

Always knew I had the gift of the gab....

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/4871684.stm

The dreaded exam timetable is out. Thankfully, it's not too bad. I have 2 exams in the first week, 3 in the second and 3 in the third. My written exams will be over by the 25 May and then I'll prob have a week of speaking ones (that should have taken place either this week or straight after Easter but have now been postponed due to the strike action.)I can't complain as at least I haven't got two on the same day or anything. Some people are acting like it's a disaster but if you have 8 written exams then you should expect to have quite a few each week. They are over-dramatising the whole thing. Just get on with them for God's sake.

I'm now finished classes- forever. It's a bit weird but nice to know that once exams are out of the way you can finally move on, get a job and earn some money. Well, I won't be earning money until after my teacher training but Gordon Brown has been very generous in the last budget and offered teachers a pay rise so I'm not complaining. I have my primary school placement sorted now and I'm actually quite excited about it. I'm going to be teaching two lessons a day in Omagh County P.S. for two weeks in September. Have no idea where I'll be put for my secondary school placements but I just pray I don't get shipped off to some dodgy school in West Belfast. That would be a nightmare. Will just have to wait and see I guess!

I swear I'm going to crack up. I'm trying to write a 2000 word essay on a data sample of approx 50 words. It is bloody hard to elaborate on something that is only 50 words to begin with. At first, I didn't have a clue and was only able to manage 300 words. Now I've got into my stride (although I'm fairly sure what I've written is turd) and on the last word count (and I've plenty more to say) I was over 3000 words. Godammit. I'm now going to cut it down big time as she's sure to penalise me for going over the word limit. I hate writing essays. I can never get it right. At least this is my last ever essay for uni. Well, that's not counting the ones in the exams. That's if the exams go ahead. It's starting to look a bit dodgy as to whether they'll go ahead or not. Once again, the lecturers have decided to strike and aren't marking our work. (***Thought to self: why am I stressing over this essay when it prob won't even be marked??!!***). We were supposed to have part of our final speaking exam this Wednesday but it's now cancelled due to the marking strike. It'll prob be re-scheduled for June but if this strike goes on much longer, all written exams will be affected and worst case scenario, we won't graduate as scheduled.
When our Spanish tutor tried to justify the strike to us, she didn't do a very good job of convincing us. She said it wasn't fair that lecturer's get paid less than GP's. Hello?! Doctor's save lives, you stupid woman. You sit on your arse and pretend to know what you're talking about. Makes my blood boil.

Anyways, was in the beloved Union on Thursday night for the first time in years. Remember the Barony, on the Thursday night? Heaving and lots of cheap drink, couldn't move there were so many people. Not any more. It was dead. About 20 people at most. No cheap drinks. Expensive drinks served in plastic cups. Female DJ who's idea of good music was Kylie, Robbie Williams and other random pop shite.
Also, what happened to Rage on Level 4? Have I missed something? Where did it go? It certainly wasn't there on Thurs night.
At least the pool tables are still there. That gave us a few hours entertainment, as did the weird Finnish guy who tagged along with us all night and embarassingly, gave a break-dancing display on the Barony floor....

As of September, I'm going back to NI to be a teacher of French and Spanish albeit trainee. Just have to get my degree first. Very pleased with myself.

I haven't updated in ages because I've been so busy. I'm still waiting to find out if I've got on the Queen's uni course but as yet, have heard nothing. There was a 2 week long postal strike in Belfast so it's going to take a month to clear the backlog. Godammnit, I just want to know now if I've got in and you can be sure my letter (of rejection most probably) is somewhere in that mountain of 7 million letters that have not been delivered in recent weeks...

I'm actually heading home this weekend for a few days. I was supposed to go back a couple of weeks ago for my cousin's wedding (who the hell gets married at the start of February?!) and my dad's 50th but wasn't able to make it. It will be nice to have home comforts for a few days. You can't beat my mum's cooking!

Been glued to the Winter Olympics. I'll be devastated once they finish because I'll have nothing to watch in the evening when I get home. Skiing was something I never really considered that interesting but I've got quite hooked on it. Almost peed my pants laughing at that dumb Italian ice skating pair fall on their ass last night. It was worth it just to see the look on their faces!

Four graduates each have a question that they ask in their jobs. The engineering graduate asks "How does it work?". The science graduate asks "Why does it work?". The economics graduate asks "How much does it cost?". The arts graduate asks "Do you want fries with that?"

I had my interview for the postgraduate teaching course at Queen's in Belfast. It was odd. I've never really had a proper interview before as I've always got jobs and so on through people I know or whatever. They asked the weirdest stuff like "What changes will you have to make when going from your current undergraduate course to a postgraduate one?" Uh, apart from changing universities and moving back to Northern Ireland, not much. Plus when I was questioned in Spanish, I was distracted by the hideous accent of the interviewer. Spanish with the heavy undertone of a Belfast accent - nice! I'll hopefully find out next month if I've got a place but I'm not holding out much hope as it seems very competitive and I perhaps didn't do myself justice in the interview. But I did feel teacher-like in my nice, smart, black trouser suit.

My next door neighbour is playing James Blunt- You're Beautiful full blast and on repeat.

It makes me want to slit my wrists.

After a quiet Christmas and New Year, I'm now back in Glasgow and not particularly looking forward to heading back to uni. Have had a lot of work to do over the holidays- I'm 2 essays and an assessment down, another 2 to go plus a presentation to write. Guess who's in for a fun week?!

Had the most awful flight back over here on Thurs afternoon. I'm a frequent flyer and have been on turbulent flights before but this was bad. I felt ill. The plane was still violently shaking from side to side as we were about 20 feet off the ground. Not pleasant I can tell you.

Not been up to much recently. Just the usual pre-Christmas exams for us linguists. Semester 1 will be done and dusted as of 11am tomorrow morning. Thank God.

So Happy Christmas everyone and best wishes for 2006. Eat loads and be merry ;o)

I just saw on the news that Friends Reunited has been bought over and since I haven't logged on in about two years, I thought I'd check out what people are up to (not that I was particularly fond of some of the people I went to school with, quite the opposite in fact.) Out of all the people who are registered from my year at school, I'm the only one to have not graduated. Most people graduated two years ago and now have various jobs- accountant, RAF, teacher, optician etc. And here's wee me sounding like a right stew saying I'm still at uni and possibly have another year of study before I start earning a living.
I wonder if people are actually happy with what they do though? Most of them have gone back to live in Omagh, continue to go out with all the old group from school at the weekends and have their mum do everything for them except wipe their ass. Well, whatever I end up doing, I would rather stick pins in my eyes than go back to being molly-coddled by my parents and venturing no further than Omagh town centre!