Finally got my MSc result

I passed with a distinction :blush: !

Worth waiting four months to find out.

Champagne (a birthday gift from a lovely friend) and picnic on the common to celebrate later.

I tried  to celebrate last night (we were out for a friends 30th) but after queueing for 2 hours to get into the selected nightclub I’d lost my sense of fun (!) and called it a night and left everyone to it

I will write up last weekends conference, probably tomorrow morning.

Conferences Galore!

Well, Unquiet Lands on Saturday was great. I saw really thought provoking papers and there was good discussion about the points people were making.

I’m going to write up the details properly soon, because at the moment I’m working on presentations to our internal Graduate conference within my school in a fortnight, as well as getting ready to start my first fieldwork!

Dancing with the usual suspects on Saturday night was fun, and I had a great afternoon on the common lazing around with Cas yesterday I was so relaxed I even let her take a photo of me!)

I’m at home today working on the aforesaid presentations and reading up about my first case study…

… and listening to the new Nine Inch Nails album, which is great!

I’ve also added some more poetry…

The Usual Suspects

I’m getting ready for a big meeting with both my supervisors tomorrow (!) and so have not had the time to write anything much. I’ll be at the Unquiet Lands conference which is being hosted by my university and the Prehistoric Society over this weekend.

Monday is a special day, and for those in the know the usual suspects will be heading out to the Dungeon on Saturday night in celebration.

I will hopefully have some news about fieldwork and case studies after the meeting tomorrow, so fingers crossed everyone!

The Intro and The Outro- CAA 07 Report

So, I’m a week late with this.

I wanted to have my conference write up done while everything was still fresh in my mind, but when I got back I had people to catch up with (some of whom I don’t see too often) and in the day times really had to get ready for my next meeting with my supervisor, so now is the first time I’ve really felt I could take the time out to write.

Maybe a week’s reflection will make this a bit more ordered and tidy?

I’m going to actually turn it into a post for each day- there are quick links below to each one. It’s just that otherwise there will be far too much text in one place for anyone to read sensibly or comment on.

Sunday 1^st

Monday 2^nd

Tuesday 3^rd

Wednesday 4^th

Thursday 5^th

Friday 6^th

Overall thoughts:

The architecture in Berlin is fascinating; from the huge open streets (to drive tanks down, apparently) to the juxtaposition of very modern and daring with the medieval and faux-ancient. It seemed more daring, and the use of lighting was also very cool. I’d love to go back with a better camera because some of the night light-scapes were just astounding.

Public transport was brilliant. Cheap, clean, reliable and really good coverage of the whole city pretty much 24/7. I didn’t have to worry about missing the last bus as there was no ‘last bus’ apart from on Sundays and public holidays.

Germans do really good Italian food, and really good kebabs and falafel.

I really like wheat beer but it makes me poorly.

That part of Europe is really flat!

Sunday 1st

I boarded the coach here for Heathrow at 10.30am. Really early- my flight didn’t go till 16.00 but National Express advised large amounts of leeway in case of traffic. Net result- I end up sitting in departures for 3 hours reading the Iliad and being talked to by crazy Aussie guys who are heading to Norway to experience Husky Sledding!

The flight was good- clear skies all the way so a good view of the city. I hadn’t realised this part of the world was so flat- last summer I was in Italy and the flight out and back both crossed the Alps. The landscape, even from so high up, was very different.

I met up with MarkD in baggage reclaim and we headed off with our limited German into the early evening to find food and our respective beds. After sausage and chips, German street-food style (and very tasty!) we headed off our respective ways on the U-Bahn.

When I finally arrived at my hostel (a good way out of the city centre but really close to the conference centre), the office was shut and there were some instructions (in German) and some keys. A middle aged couple (who I later discovered were from Munich) helped me summon up the night-porter-type-person who got me a room for the night sorted out and in his limited English managed to tell me reception would fix at nine the next morning. The couple from Munich spoke no English but still managed to realise that I needed help, and summon it for me! I was so grateful and felt awful that I couldn’t thank them properly.

I went to bed…