Have realised that if you try to put text and photos in the same entry, the layout goes haywire. Well maybe will try again.....

Yep layout got ruined! Oh well, you can seeI got off quite lightly in our little food fight!

Anyway, so Houseparty was good - despite there being only 15 of us!!!!! Tom's karaoke PS2 game was definitely abused, and having the apple-bobbing and fish-the-sweets-out-of-the-bowl-of-flour-using-your-teeth games next to each other is NEVER a good idea!!!! Spent hours cleaning up the mess yesterday!

So Wednesday night was fun - Italian teacher was really good, Thursday night after 'Yella' Tom, Jo and I spontaneously decided to go for a meal at Paris Texas....and ended up inviting the (mostly very good-looking) French waiters to our houseparty! Well I was obviously responsible for this lol. Four of them turned up about ten ish saying they were on the way to get some booze and would come back in a bit. No sign of any of them till after I went to bed around 2am when Sebastian turned up on his own at quarter to 3 asking for Victoria. LOL Anna told him Id left the house to go to another party cos she didnt want him trying to sneak his way up to my room lol. Found this hilarious when I was told yesterday morning that he d turned up on our doorstep again! Who turns up for a houseparty at 3 in the morning, having popped by 5 hours earlier?!?

So anyway, last night went to the Jazz cafe with Anna for some swingin' and today have been lying in and putting off doin work which will start after having lunch. Presentation went well btw - tutor said it was well organised (after I changed it all round following my meeting with her the avo before ha!) then from 3 till 5 on Fri avo had some live interpreting practice between our tutor and a non spanish-speaking PhD student - scary!

This week have more MLS socials to attend! Yesterday spent an hour or two, emailing the minutes from latest meeting round the committee, planning and sending 4th newsletter, and sending a separate email round the society re the language show in London next weekend

Tom and I at Sara and Kate's house-warming, and more of Halloween! You can even see William the inflatable penis in one of the photos!!!

Me! Me! Me! Halloween Party and my scar before had stitches taken out!

Nearly finished presentation!

Well, read the whole stupid document, condensed it into about 4 pages of notes, and on my twentieth and final slide on powerpoint. Is a complete load of crap. Taking it to my tutor this afternoon to get it checked before my seminar on friday. Have a feeling she is going to tell me it's rubbish and I need to do it all again. Too much effort for 8% of my module mark or however much it is!

We managed to mess up this week's socials a bit for the MLS - might have something to do with the fact that I sent out unconfirmed details re a halloween party that was supposed to be happening tonight! Oooops! To be fair, it's no more my fault than anybody else's since it was due to a breakdown in communication between the 13 of us that are the committee - it's just I'm the one who looks like a wally cos I'm Secretary!

On the plus side, the website has been updated by Vice-Pres/Website Co-ordinator John - here it is!

www.societies.ncl.ac.uk/modlangsoc/FramesPage.htm

So Monday night I stayed in and did my presentation, last night I went Irish dancing for the first time and then to Castle Leazes for a bit of the intermediate salsa class. Tonight we have an Italian taster session for MLS, and tomorrow night we have a MLS trip to Tyneside Cinema to see Yella. Friday night is our houseparty, and sat night will be at the Cluny and Jazz cafe, hopefully!

Looking at plans for next year:
Translating and Interpreting at Bath
International Management in London
GDL at the College of Law, London
Leonardo da Vinci programme
Travellers Worldwide teaching English in Buenos Aires and working in a hotel in Shanghai!!!!

Spent two hours this morn synthesizing dossiers on the environment for my rapport de synthese for French - I hate French writing!

How on earth do I decide?!?

Oh my GOD - this is so dull its blogworthy!

Just downloaded the text I have to present in my seminar on Friday. Is a text only I have to read as is presentation-specific i.e. not essential lecture/seminar reading.

I chose 'Englishes in the Southern Hemisphere' as my presentation topic and chose one of the 2 possible texts at random

Is a 21 page document on the differences of vocalization of /l/ in Australian and New Zealand English - FYI can be postvocalic in coda postion, postvocalic in a cluster or syllabic. How on earth Horvath & Horvath have manged to waffle on for 21 pages on the differences in realisation of /l/ in the words feel, milk and pickle, I do not know. It's admirable, really!

How the hell do I create a 20-minute powerpoint presentation on this that is interesting enough to keep the class (and myself) awake? /l/ in Brisbane English is the least vocalised, and /l/ in Christchurch English is the most vocalised. This is about all I have grasped from this text by the end of page 4. Is so boring I cannot bring myself to read any further tonight!

Well anyway, Barbara M Horvath and Ronald J Horvath are clearly a very boring married couple who have nothing better to do than write a stupid study on the pronunciation of /l/ which
is aimed at postgrad students actually interested in this ridiculous area of sociolinguistics. Undergrad students studying one or maybe two modules of linguistics a year should not be obliged to read, study and present such texts!!!

Have also been freaking out my flatmates by playing audio recordings off Blackboard/Sanako for my French & Spanish interpreting modules! They thought I was entertaining foreign businessmen in my room! At least they were semi-aware I was not just having a conversation with myself! When it got to recording my own voice using sanako lite I encountered technical problems, though. Says is recording and the timer resets to zero etc but it won't playback for some reason. Means I can't do my homework until I can figure out where I'm going wrong. The installation etc instructions given by the head of Spanish seem pretty foolproof, and I followed them word for word.....Have managed to download it and listen to the sample recordings easily enough, just can't record. Oh well, emailed my tutor to say I was having problems but I sincerely doubt she'll be able to help me out on the technical front!

Well, have been busy as usual and not really resting my voice at all!

Thursday night, had Latin & Ballroom over at Castle Leazes which is a right trek now! Then joined Tom et al at Mr Lynch's for Tom's pre-birthday drinks. Fri had my horrible 1-5 classes: 2nd Language Acquisition of French lecture, World Englishes seminar, 2-hour Spanish Liaison Interpreting seminar. Then went straight down to Sheffield with Mum to Jo & Simon's wedding party.

Got back yesterday and last night was Tom's post-birthday night out - Indian take-away and pizza first while watching the match, then to the Hancock, Bar 42 and Bulletproof at The Carling Academy. Today have been doing laundry, washing up, sorting out this internet, reading pages and pages on French SLA, and all my dossiers on the greenhouse effect for my French rapport de synthese. Done my Spanish-English translation (interestingly, also on the Goddam environment). Oh well, last week was a text re whisky distillation. Still have to do my powerpoint presentation on Englishes in the Southern Hemisphere, finish my v short presentation on C&A France, do all my week's readings for World Englishes and await confirmation from the President on this week's MLS socials so I can send out another newsletter. Oh, forgot about French SLA essential reading. Plus downloading Sanako for Spanish interpreting and recording my voice using the programme.

I hate final year!

Anyways, never made it to the careers service the other day, as spent ages sifting through all my hobsons and milkround emails in my hotmail inbox. Came across travellersworldwide.com, and have tentatively applied for teaching English in Argentina, and working at a hotel in Shanghai for next year......

Anna's doing a project involving asylum seekers for some reason for her artwork, and she needs to interview several French-speakers so she's asked if I will play interpreter! I said yes, of course, as it'll be GREAT practice for the exam in January.

Have a busy term coming up - espesh at weekends: next week is our house Halloween party, the weekend after I'm going down to London with modlangsoc for 'the languages show', going down again in mid-November to see Marie-Pierre and stay with Hels, end of November Ruth is coming up to visit, end of term I think we 're taking the society to Barcelona..... want to visit GC at some point......

Should be getting on with my presentations.....zzzzzzzzzzz

Back in Newcastle

Hi all,

Got back to Newcastle on Sunday eve having been home for my op last Thurs. Op was horrible - the most traumatic afternoon of my life and cannot be bothered to go into detail anymore. Suffice to say it was an experience I never want to go through again!

Trying to take it easy i.e. not talk too much - is difficult! Managed to more or less skive a brief presentation in my French seminar this morning. Tutor gave me back a corrected provisional letter of complaint to send to Hautefort - she was v sympathetic but not all that surprised as it is common knowledge stagiaires can very often be treated very badly in France.

Missed French interpreting on Mon because was 'resting my voice'. Went to Tiger Tiger briefly last night to Jules and George's Intermediate class. Sat out of the Intermediate plus as didnt want to knock my stictches or have to make polite conversation with all my partners!

Other than that have tried to do some of my pages and pages of 'essential reading' for my World Englishes and Second Language Acquisiton of French modules, and have *more or less* caught up on last week's lectures. Have updated the Modern Languages mailing list (300 email addresses - took me 2 hours!) and have sent out the third newsletter. Have also compiled separate mailing lists for 'hoodies' and 'the languages show' from replies received from interested parties on the general mailing list.

There is currently a 'make poverty history' march making its way down to the Quayside via Monument. Gathered outside the Union at 1 to listen to the talk but decided I am not political or motivated enough to walk that far with no 'oxjam' t-shirt and all my files and folders. So am going to the Careers service instead (as have no other classes today). Between 5 and 6, Mr Sainsbury is coming round to drop off my one-off online shop (rice, pasta, couscous, wine, sauces stocks and biscuits etc) as I always seem to want to buy just that little more than I can carry back from Morrisons so decided am stocking up on the non-perishables.

Tonight, Mary is coming round to eat and we may head to the Cluny for a bit (def not for long though as I have a lot of work to catch up on still!). Tomo night will go to my first uni Latin and Ballroom class since 2nd year! Missed the LBS Salsa on last night as was at TT instead.

Right, off to try to decide what I want to do with the rest of my life....have filled in profiles online for hobsons and milkround and keep on being bombarded with emails from them which I never actually bother to read. Also visited prospects.ac.uk and a few other careers-related sites but not getting anywhere......

France 2007 - Hautefort, Dordogne

Few photos of AO Reunion and Mum & Dad's Silver Wedding Anniversary

Few more 4th year photos since Freshers Crew

Above - my freshers crew pass before I hand it back in because I dropped out!

Above - A random photo of Anna cooking! Below - the girls of 181 Hotspur Street The banner we made Jo for the Great North Run

4th year photos since Freshers Crew

Photos of Freshers Crew 2007 (The Bath-time Crew - crew 23)

We finally get our famous red t-shirts!

I PROMISE PHOTOS ARE COMING SOON!

Either tomorrow or Weds I WILL get some photos of France up here! Am back home in Worcester for almost a week during uni termtime - shock horror!!!!! Is because on thursday am having a scary operation on my vocal cords.....Cutting into my voicebox and shoving some fake plastic vocal cord against my own to try to improve my voice....under local anaesthetic so that Im awake enough to talk! Have a pre-op check-up appointment etc tomorrow morn (only just got back from Bham New St)

So heading back up to Newcastle on sun avo. Plan to get a lot of uni work out the way while im home and away from social distractions! Never made it to the Trent house last Thurs (rearranged for the Fri night instead). So Fri I met Diane and Laure at monument before heading to the Black Swan. Sat night I did indeed go to the house party and it was good - lots of internationals there, but left quite early (am getting sensible in my old age!)

Last night I considered going to Apartment for the new salsa night (well, new for me cos Ive been away for a year!) but couldnt quite be bothered. Had a v lazy weekend otherwise, did a bit of uni work, 2 loads of laundry, a shop at Morrisons and a little bit of housework (a huge pile of washing-up and a quick sweep of the new laminate flooring)

Today I finally handed in all the MLS paperwork (except the Constitution which needs to be signed by all committee members) watched a fair amount of French and Spanish TV in the OAC before heading to my 2 hour French interpreting seminar (first and only class of the day) at 4. Straight from there to Central Station for my 18.40 train!

Hi all, so climbing meal was good. Went to Revolution for a bit afterwards.

Mon had first MLS committee meeting, decided on bar trail for the pubcrawl on Tues night and I rung a few of them, trying to get a few drinks deals. Mon night I stayed in, because I knew Id been out most other evenings of the week!

Tues night was the pubcrawl (Mens Bar, The Goose, Madisons, Bar 42 and Blu Bambu). Had a few lectures and seminars now - French Interpreting and French writing and World Englishes. Got 2nd Langugage Acquisition of French and Spanish translating this avo. Last night went out for a meal with Jenna and Catherine at Frankie and Benny's and declined the offer to go to Shearers and the Attic with Intsoc.

Tonight am meeting up with my French Erasmus partner at 9pm in the Trent house. Tomo night Ill be at the Black Swan, sat night at a house-warming party and sun night am going for drinks with Robin and maybe to Bar55. Joining the uni gym this avo and need to sign up for Thai-boxing and Irish dancing still. Tomo have 2nd MLS committee meeting.

Gotta go ring Tina and Tom Dexter lol