This term, I'm running a seminar group called the Graduate Interdisciplinary Seminar (GIS), which basically involves getting people to present interesting facets of their research, advertising it, relentlessly browbeating people into presenting/attending, asking intelligent questions and then buying the speaker a drink (and filling out the forms to get reimbursed). Exhausting, really. I've no idea why I took this project on, but it's good fun. The first meeting was today, and with five minutes to go, I was feeling on top of everything and relaxed and in control...until I was informed that there were interviews happening in the room we'd booked, and all the academic staff has left because it was 5pm on a Friday. I could have cried. My boyfriend and I ran around like headless chickens until we found a room we could get into. Sadly, it was a computer room, but it still worked. By the time 7pm rolled around, I felt I'd earned my gin and lemonade!
I've also been productive in other areas. I've been trying to be more active of late, since I'm finding a lot of truth in the phrase mens sana in corpore sano (a healthy mind a healthy body). I cycle about 20 miles a week at the moment, but that's just to get from A to B, and I wanted to take the time to actually do some exercise just for the hell of it. So, on Wednesday, I duly relagated myself to Parkside Pools for a lunchtime swim. I've been swimming one evening a week with some friends, but I didn't realise how much faster you go when it's just you. I swam a kilometre in 35mins - I was so proud of myself! Not to mention that nothing beats the way your skin buzzes with that incredible post-exercise feeling. I'm hoping to make it a regular thing - watch this space!
This week has also reaffirmed to me how lovely my parents are. My mum, stepdad, brother and I went to dinner with my visiting uncle at Teri-Aki, a really amazing Japanese restaurant in Cambridge. I had a bento box, which was absolutely delicious, but unfortunately the tempura vegetables were absolutely huge, and it took me quite a while to eat them with chopsticks! The next night, my dad and stepmother treated my brother, boyfriend and I by taking us to the Yes, Prime Minister play, which was brilliant. I've been a fan of the original TV shows for a while, but seeing this updated vision of the show was a real experience - it was surprisingly edgy, and hilarious. I have a very generous family, and I'm very grateful for them.
Sitting in cafes working with coffee. You can't really argue with a gingerbread latte and chapters about extreme mimesis: they go together like cats and sleep.
Cows on Midsummer Common. Apparently they're owned by a local vet who saved them from slaughter, and now they graze on the common land. They're so beautiful and placid and relaxed, they make me smile everytime I cycle past them.
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I've been listening to a lot of Silversun Pickups in the library in anticipation of their new album, and I'm utterly addicted to Future Foe Scenarios. It's a brilliant song from their first album, and it epitomises everything I love about this band. I have a feeling I'm soon going to be unable to work on Tarquin without listening to this song.
Tea and cake and good company at Fitzbillies. My friend Hannah had never been, so I had to introduce her to the delicious food there. It was particuarly gratifying to watch all the people walking past the window get soaked in the rain...until we had to go out in it. Eep. This coffee choux bun was incredible, but there was so much whipped cream in it that I couldn't manage it all!
Beautiful blossoms brightening up the grey day as I cycle into the faculty.
So, the usual week then: geeking out over Cambridge being amazing, academia, swimming, food, theatre, tea, cake and shoegaze music. Can't complain at all, really.
