It's beginning to look a lot like...well you know

Winter greetings from the Midlands!

The weeks leading up to Christmas have been filled with funding  applications, ethics approval forms, emails, reading, and meetings. Somewhere in between all of these things, I've managed to eek out a bit of holiday spirit. Please enjoy.

Jeremy and I spent a lovely day in Nottingham. We walked around the Christmas Market in the centre of town several times.

We ended up treating ourselves to some hot chocolate and snow cakes. (Snow cakes are really just chocolate covered marshmallows. They had lots of different flavours like Toblerone, tiramisu, and cinnamon.)

The market at night was very pretty.

There was even an ice skating rink. Though Jeremy boasted of his skating chops, I didn't put him to the test; mainly because I am an appalling skater.

We did however, take this very nice selfie.

Queens Road in Leicester all lit up at night. 

In the middle of town in Leicester, they had this lovely display of the story of Mr. Toad. Some of the figures moved.

Check out the lovely weasels! I know they are the bad guys in the story, but I am still their biggest fan. 

There is Mr. Toad and Badger

The Town Hall was lit up to the nines!

It was all very beautiful...

...and shiny!

Leicester has another large tree in the centre of town where all the shops are. 

The Haymarket Memorial Clock Tower was all lit up behind the tree as well.

There were lots of chalk messages on the ground around the tree. Mainly they were anti-war and anti-hate messages about Syria and the refugees. It was lovely to see such an outpouring of support for those who had been forced from their homes.

What is Christmastime without baking cookies?

I have learned a lot of the Dutch names for spices from using Ceciel's containers. Here we have Nutmeg, Ginger, and Cinnamon.

Mount Gingerbread

The recipe called for molasses. After staring at the shelves in the Sainsbury's for a good ten minutes, I googled black treacle on my phone and discovered that I could use this instead.

Even my camera began to go into a sugar haze from this stuff!

The batter came out perfectly!

I let the dough chill for about an hour in the refrigerator. 

What? T-Rexes are Christmasy!

I was so glad the cookies came out so well. I let them cool overnight.

Alright, so I'm not the most accomplished icer in the world but I have to say I got a lot better as I went on. 

See this one isn't terrible!

And this T-Rex is positively adorable.

Thanks for reading! Happy holidays!

Achievement Unlocked: You have reached a new level!

Winter has cast her cloak over the Midlands and Leicester has gotten colder and grayer than before. The thirty minute walk into town or to the CrossFit box now feels as though it would take days and as a result I've not strayed too far from the house this past week, leaving only to go into the department. 

As a matter of fact, I've gone into the department almost every day this week which is quite unusual for me. I tend to prefer working from home where I can spread my papers out in bed, grab a cup of tea every now and then, and meow at Poes on the occasions where the work gets a bit too much for my fragile brains to handle. This week was different though.

On occasion, the department has paid work available to PhD students. I've taken advantage of this quite a lot recently. I've done transcription work, marked essays, delivered a two hour workshop on dialogue in the museum, and this past week I was a second marker for presentations the MA students had to give as part of their second module. 

As someone who has been known to play games on occasion, I am no stranger to the concept of leveling up a character. In fact, from January to about August I leveled up a Worgen Druid in World of Warcraft. You go out into the world, take on a bunch of quests, grind for months and pretty soon you've got a max level character, a garrison, and more gold than Donald Trump could imagine. The only thing is, that it's all in a digital fantasy world. (Honestly, I wish I could transfer some of that gold into the real world so I could pay off these lousy student loans!) 

Here she is. My level 100 Worgen Druid taking a selfie in Stormwind. (Yeah, you can take selfies in the game.)

Anyway, marking the presentations this week, I feel as though I've leveled up in real life. I'm no stranger to grading. I taught primary school music for four years and I did give some assignments which required me to mark my students. I'm not even a stranger to having to mark in real time as presentations require you to do. I used to give my recorder students performance tests to check on their progress. I will admit, however, that there is a rather large gap between marking a nine year old's recorder playing and an MA student's fifteen minute presentation on either human resource management or how external political relationships exert pressure on internal missions. As I learned this week there are many ways to approach this task.

What I struggled with most as I was marking was being able to take myself outside of the content of what the student was delivering and to look at the elements of the presentation as well as it as a whole. It wasn't until the end of the second day that I started to be able to do this and it wasn't until the last day that I could do both: look at the whole picture and the content at the same time. It's a lot like conducting a choir actually. You have to be able to hear the harmony but also what each part is doing at the same time. It's something that really took me years to develop. In the end, I found that I could write my feedback while the student was delivering their talk. I also found that I was able to ask better questions which helped me to probe their understandings of the issues they researched. I really felt myself move beyond my original capabilities this past week. It was like discovering another part of my brain. 

It was as though I had accepted a quest to mark eighteen MA presentations and during those nine hours of grinding,* I actually leveled up. I think my Worgen would be proud of me. 

Well, she would be proud of me if I hadn't gotten her shot with an arrow while taking a selfie in enemy territory.

*Grinding is a term used by gamers to describe repetitive tasks which help you level your characters. And yes, I did just put a footnote into my blog. I think this PhD is getting to me. 

A Massive Update

Have you ever just gotten lost while scrolling through old photographs? Over the past few weeks, I have found myself falling down the rabbit hole of the past as I click through all the pictures on my Facebook page. It starts out innocently enough, just checking that photo I just posted but before I know it, I've gone two or three years into the past. Weddings come and go in reverse, my European holiday, my year in Durham, photographs from my life back in the US; it's the closest to time travel into the past as I think I'll ever get.

Perhaps it isn't too surprising I'm having these nostalgic feelings. Thanksgiving was yesterday and as I did two years ago in Durham, I spent it away from my family. I was lucky in that most of my meetings for that day were cancelled so I could spend time Skyping my parents (and the ferrets) and some friends as well. I cooked myself a nice vegan Thanksgiving meal and settled in to watch Miracle on 34th Street, the film which traditionally kicks off my Christmas season. Though I didn't get to watch it after the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade, I did get to catch some live glimpses of the Snoopy balloon and Santa courtesy of my good friend Erika. It wasn't lonely for some reason and for that I am confusedly grateful.



I feel as though I am forever apologising about not keeping up with this blog. I have decided to be brutally honest and simply say, I've not been as inspired to write in and about Leicester as I was two years ago when I wrote about living in Durham. I have found being an ex-pat a second time around to be much more difficult. I'm not sure if it's because after living abroad for a year and being home for four months I found myself growing even closer to people I then had to say goodbye to for a second time. I'm not sure if it's because Durham was only a one year commitment and Leicester is at least a three year commitment. I'm not sure if it's because I knew this time, Chase (my eldest ferret who turned 8 last month) would not live beyond my time away. I'm not sure if it's because I have not found a community in Leicester the way I found a community back home or in Durham. Most likely it's a combination of all of the above.

Whatever the case, I have been trying to force myself to write about my experiences here and I just haven't felt very inspired to do so; until this evening I suppose. Let me take you through some happenings from the past few months.

1. Erika came to London for a brief work trip. It was really fantastic to see her and I spent a lovely day with her and our friend Ibi. First, her hotel was first rate, top of the line, fancy schmancy. I mean, there was champagne in her room, heated floors in the bathroom, and a lovely restaurant where we ate a scrumptious lunch. We unexpectedly got to go to the Ai Wei Wei exhibition at the Royal Academy when her boss's wife offered us tickets.

Being reunited with one of my best friends from back home is an indescribable feeling. First there is the disorientation of not quite knowing which side of the ocean you are on. You see, when you're an ex-pat your brain sort of compartmentalises your life. There is here and there is there. When the two mix, it can throw your brain for a loop. One of the best bits though about being reunited with someone from home (especially someone who is as close a friend as Erika) is that your friendship hasn't faded one bit. You just pick up right where you left off. To be honest, at some parts of the day, I felt as though I would just make plans with her to see her in a week, as though we still lived on the same continent, it felt so comfortable. I guess the hard part though, it when you have to say goodbye at the end of the day. When you realise, no, you won't see her next week nor the week after. In fact it may be months before you can hug each other again. The walk to the train station is always extra cold after saying goodbye to someone you love.

I mean, champagne IN THE ROOM!

Gorgeous ceiling over a beautiful wooden staircase.

The Ai Wei Wei exhibit at the Royal Academy

The best part of it all was spending time with my awesome friend.

2. The past few months have been critically important in PhD land. At the end of October I went before a panel of two academics from my department to defend the work I have done up to this point. All PhDs are required to go through a probation review at the end of their first year. (It's hard to believe that I've been at this for almost a year, but there we go.) Before the interview I had to prepare a bunch of documents and write a 5000 word paper fitting in everything I had been up to for the year in clear, concise, academic language. At the same time I was busy with a bunch of side projects, helping to run an event for local schools about Black History month, being an SSCC (Student-Staff Consultative Committee) representative, doing some lecturing in the department, and taking on some odd jobs to pay for it all. Truthfully from September until now has been a blur.

Anyway, the good news is that I received official word yesterday that I passed my probation review. (Insert triumphant trumpeting here.) In fact, professionally, things have been rather good for me lately. I got very good feedback on some transcription work I did and really encouraging feedback from my supervisor and from students about the teaching I've done. I think these successes have really helped to make the loneliness and isolation feel a little bit better.

3. Earlier this month I attended the opening of the Diwali festival in Leicester. It's the largest Diwali celebration outside of India and believe me, the Golden Mile, which is where the festival takes place, was packed with people. I had never been to this part of Leicester before and it was the first time in weeks that I'd been out after dark. The beautiful lights were definitely worth the hour walk there. 

We so got on the giant Ferris wheel.

Statue of Ghandi

See, I told you it's the largest festival outside of India. Check out all of the people!

 No, really, the largest outside of India!

4. I should probably mention that I've gone and gotten myself an English boyfriend. In fact, those who have read my other blog, An American in Durham, may remember him. Jeremy and I have been seeing each other since the end of April. I know, I know, I didn't mention anything before now. Secrets, secrets.

It's actually been a pretty nice few months and just a few weeks ago, for my birthday, we went on holiday to York. It was a much needed break from Leicester and work and being back North again just made everything feel much better. We went to a choral concert at the Minster on our first night. Hearing beautiful music in one of Britain's most beautiful buildings was the sort of salve I needed after going so hard at work. We walked the length of the walls and visited the Castle Museum (hey, we're museum people, we can't help it).

The best treat was being able to visit Durham again when the Lumiere festival was happening. The timing was just perfect. I can't describe the feeling of seeing the Cathedral from the train, walking in those familiar streets, breathing that air. It was like coming home. Jeremy quite rightly pointed out that Durham was my UK home. It was the first place I knew and loved in this country. 

We met up with some old friends, James, Nathalie, and (Scottish) Sophie and chatted about how things were going. In the evening we walked back into town and braved the crowds to catch glimpses of the beautiful lighting displays. They seemed much better this year than they'd been two years ago. How did I ever take this place for granted? How could I face leaving it again and going back to my present? It wasn't easy and even now I have homesickness twinges not just for the place, but for the time I had there.

Betty's Tea Rooms is the best. You must visit when you go to York and eat ALL THE THINGS!

The back of the Minster from the walls. It's truly a beautiful building.

I just can't get away from this guy!

Some of the city walls

Ruins in the York Museum Gardens

Me and Jeremy with the Minster peeking over my head

Quintessential view of York

Clifford's Tower (no not Clifford the Big Red Dog)

Whip-Ma-Whop-Ma-Gate is the smallest street in York. It also has a funny name.

The Castle Museum has an awesome old Victorian Street.

I ended up in the old gaol. Ooops.

I have missed this view. 

The streets seemed very much the same 

The Lego Cathedral had grown quite a bit though since I last saw it 

My favourite view of the Cathedral from Prebends Bridge 

The Cathedral at Night 

The streets were packed for the last night of the Lumiere festival 

The Castle was beautifully lit with a changing display of images 

These were probably one of my favourites. They danced all above the Square. 

The Cathedral display was brilliant. It took you through the study of astronomy from ancient texts on through to black holes with views of the planets and different galaxies. 

 The Cathedral was lit in a tribute to Paris in between shows.

That about brings us up to date with some of my doings. It's been a whirlwind of a year. Some of it has been good, some of it has been bad, and most has been in between. As the holiday season approaches, I'm hoping to find more inspiration to keep writing. For those of you who haven't lost total faith in me, thank you for your readership, but mostly thank you for your patience. 

With that, I'm off to have some Thanksgiving leftovers. Sending my best wishes out into the interwebs!