Esk

I am asked this at least once a day by someone or other so I thought I’d post about it. I have little in the way of content apart from what papers and reports I’ve already written for other purposes. I have a very long list of references which is only going to grow. I expect to finish my experiments within a month or two and then get started in earnest writing, which should take 3-6 months. Given that I’ve got 8 months in which to finish as a final deadline, this should be doable. 100′000 words is the limit, but it’s not really about size but content.

In case you’re not aware, dear reader, of what happens after that: you get a “viva voce”, which is a several-hours-long presentation and interview where you a) prove that you know your stuff and therefore probably wrote it yourself rather than paying someone on the internet to do it, and b) defend your work as significant enough, new enough, thorough enough and substantial enough to be considered worth a PhD (Doctor of philosophy, called DPhil in Oxbridge). There are 2 examiners in the viva, one internal and one external, neither of whom can have helped you with your work at any point. After the viva one of several things will happen:

1. You totally fail. This is incredibly rare as people don’t normally make it this far with nothing to show for it, and no supervisor worth her/his salt would put you in for a viva knowing it’s likely to be a fail.
2. You get dropped down to an MPhil. This is worth maybe 1/3 of a PhD, gives you a research masters degree. It happens when you have done some good work, but not enough of it to make a full PhD.
3. Major corrections. You are given a long time (months to a year) to make adjustments to your thesis and do extra work to make it qualify for a PhD.
4. Minor corrections. You are given a short time (weeks to months) to make minor adjustments to your thesis and possibly a little extra work to make it qualify for a PhD. With corrections you don’t have to go through another viva, you just send off your corrections to the examiners and they say if they think you’re done. At this point, you may start referring to yourself as “Doctor”.
5. This never really happens, but occasionally a very clever and thorough person gets a pure pass. Not at all likely.

What do I think will happen to me? Well, I’m probably major or minor corrections. If I did exactly nothing for 8 months it’d be an MPhil. So, some work done, some still to do. If you’re curious as to what it’s been like to do a PhD, Jorge Cham has it covered pretty well - Piled Higher and Deeper!

“What makes music beautiful, then?” - in large part, it’s not putting in things that are awful. After that, the parameters are quite similar to what makes music sad. I can’t really give too many details when I’m trying to publish them - some enterprising soul might get there first!

“Did you enjoy doing a PhD?” - No. But I don’t think that’s the point of a PhD, is it? I have had points of enjoyment but mostly it’s been a long hard slog. I expect to feel satisfied when it’s done. I wouldn’t want to do it twice. If I could go back and pick a different more useful topic, I would.

“Will you be more employable with a PhD?” - Yes, about 5% more employable - it adds the chance to be a postdoc, of which there are very few in the country at the moment because no-one has any money. Hopefully this situation will improve when we properly dig our way out of recession. Every so often people in industry want a PhD holder, too.

“What’s next?” - I have no idea. Research or software engineering, most likely. It is highly dependent on what jobs are out there. Location is no object. Maybe Jim will get a job first and I’ll find one wherever that is, or vice-versa. Looking at the options I am tempted to do a genetics degree so I can work in bioinformatics - that field is huge! Looking for jobs is now my top procrastination device, even above social networks, and, of course: blogging.

[Background: A few years ago I was involved in several relationships at once with the knowledge and consent of all involved. This is known as polyamory.]

It didn’t work for me. I won’t be pursuing this type of relationship in future. Polyamory is a legitimate and happy way for people to live, and I support anyone’s right to do so and not be harassed into persistent justification of their lifestyle. What didn’t work for me was the plate-juggling aspect of trying to keep everyone happy with the level of attention they were getting. I have enough trouble keeping one person happy! I didn’t want extra emotional attachments, I just wanted to be able to sleep with other people. Not very poly. It’s also hard to openly maintain a lifestyle that goes against prevailing social mores - I must admit that’s part of the reason my life is so much easier now.

I am irritated to find myself included in conversations where poly and open relationships are derided, as if “all that’s behind her now, she’s one of us normal people again.” I am tired of speaking up and find myself nodding along to keep the peace. It’s funny - I am now free of being constantly put on the spot about it, but I can’t help but feel that an erasure of history is being attempted. “She made a mistake”, “It was just a phase”, “That was then, this is now” and other dismissive comments about a time in my life that was turbulent and unpleasant but still happened, because I wanted it to happen. I think I needed to go through that to find out where my limits were, so to erase that experience would erase my way of knowing what I want from a relationship. For me, it was a phase, but there’s no call for “just”.

Plenty of people who knew the situation are surprised that I still have anything positive to say about polyamory, but I just don’t feel that my experience is generally how it goes. I had some awful times, but I put that down to the people involved including my own inability to set boundaries until it was far too late. I have met and spoken to several poly groups who are happy (and not suicide cult happy, just normal, everyday happy). They are at the point where the fact they are poly doesn’t even come up that often, they are just getting on with life. I’d wish them the best of luck but they simply don’t need it and it would be patronising to do so. I also have some admiration for their ability to live against the norm, which they aren’t doing for the sake of being alternative but for the sake of their own happiness and authenticity.

Dan Savage recently has something to say about open relationships, which triggered this post.

No really, it is. Well, there goes another year. Did you know that in September I’ll have lived in Aberystwyth for 10 years? Now *that’s* a scary thought.

Last night we went out for drinks and curry and more drinks to celebrate mine and Dave’s birthday, which was very pleasant indeed. This morning Jim brought me a cup of tea and various presents to be opened, and I got more and more excited with each one. Jim got me chocolates and the game Dominion, which I’ve been pining after for a while. Jim’s parents got me a Steelpan with which I annoyed him for most of the morning. My Dad got me a set of decent headphones and a flute of a type I’ve never seen before - will have to investigate. Kevin deposited a beer on my desk which I didn’t notice for ages as I’m highly unobservant. Sandy got me the Game of Life Adventures, which should be a laugh if I can contain my feminism/alternativism for long enough. (”What, you can only be married to *one* person at once?”, “What, you can’t have children unless you’ve had a wedding?” “What, the career cards are blue, and the family cards are pink? What are they trying to subconsciously imply?”) - You get the idea.

Today, I’m in work as usual, but I may be leaving early because, hey, it’s my birthday, I shouldn’t be here at all, right?

At the weekend I may be sponging a lift down to Pontypridd for a different Dave’s birthday if I can justify disappearing on Jim right before he buggers off to Belgium for a week on holiday for work.

This result, truly the first result from the 8ball, amused me:

This is the sort of thing I do with my day.

If you noticed my site being down for a little while, you’re one of the select few, an elite group that as far as I know only contains my Dad. Hi, Dad! If you’re reading this, I’ve managed to repoint the DNS correctly. Go me! So, I’m now in control of (and paying for) my own hosting, and this is a good thing, I think. Who knew what a compsci masters graduate could manage when she absolutely couldn’t put it off any longer…

A comment or two would help in order to reassure me I’ve done it right and it’s not my hosts file fooling me. Lemme know.

Dan writes about the Aber Effect, inspired by Adam apparently.

I’ve been feeling it a lot since I’m one of the few who is *still* stuck here, and the lifestyle Liz has described was sort of whipped out from under me — at least that’s how it seemed! But I, too, am coming to terms with the fact this mass exodus had to happen sooner or later, and I’d be feeling similar even if I were the one who’d moved. I’m looking forward to getting out, eventually, maybe getting that push to grow up a little. The students are only getting younger and thus more irritating, plus I have less and less desire to make friends who are going to bugger off in at most 3 years. To be sure, there’s still enough people around that I can go for a pint at short notice, and I do appreciate that, but we’re all a lot older and busier than we used to be and we have to be in bed by 11!

What Ruth commented on Kit’s blog about the family in Aber is true, and I doubt I’ll ever be part of such a close group again. I’m going to have to break the habits of a lifetime and get good at long-distance, because it’s never going to be as easy as it has been here to make friends and maintain friendships. On the plus side, I hear outside of Aber you can go to things called “nightclubs” and “comedy venues” not to mention “see a band” (without driving for 3 hours) so I’m looking forward to all that. Scratch the nightclubs, actually.

It’s an open day today, and throwing Aber open day tradition to the wind, the weather isn’t great (cloudy, and windy). There are still nervous young’uns wandering about with yellow bags, and their parents look as worried as they always do. One day I’d like to be a worried parent at a university open day, making sure they’ve picked the right place and they’ve got their meal vouchers and they aren’t going to drink too much and they’ll definitely call me once a week (Sorry, Dad). And that shows a change in me I’d never have thought possible. So, I’m not worried about stagnating, nor wallowing in nostalgia. I miss the closeness, both figurative and literal. But I no longer think it’s the end of the world as we know it. I feel fine.

Hello again, blogosphere! I was gone, but I return.

Jim and I did a bit of a tour last week 2 weeks ago 3 weeks ago. We first travelled down to Hythe to spend a few days at his parents’ house, where…
…We did a lot of geocaching, including one bike ride out to the east. ‘Caching is so much easier on a bike, it seems the natural mode of transport for it. Thankfully I remembered how to ride a bike with little trouble (it was just like… itself) though I don’t seem to do very well with hills in either direction. I blame my place of upbringing.

…Walking the dogs by the rifle range, we found lots of spent ammunition which we carefully collected. (I could have spent hours doing that, I love finding things, unless it’s something in the house that I actually need, in which case I am incapable of using my eyes.)

…We took a trip to Ramsgate (which is lovely), where we ate a lot of seafood including whelks. I wasn’t that impressed, tbh. The prawns and tiny shrimp and cockles were excellent, especially with a bit of vinegar. Also in Ramsgate whilst sat for coffee Jim’s dad revealed that Jim’s great-uncle once worked on British rockets that were used to send up the only British satellite (it beeps like Sputnik apparently).

…We visited Canterbury. Jim and I went to the awesome museum there, it covers prehistory all the way to Rupert the Bear. I think my favourite bit was the 1980s mural in Bayeux tapestry style of the events leading to the death of Thomas Beckett. We also saw some street performers, and visited a slightly disappointingly warhammery gaming shop who only had expansions, no starter packs, for all the games we wanted.

Following our Hythe visit we headed over to Southampton where Andy and Faye’s wedding reception awaited. Our hotel was an old coaching inn, we liked it but you couldn’t describe it as modern! The reception was a blast, held on the Princess Caroline out in Southampton water, the water was fairly calm so it’s only the champagne I can blame for my unsteadiness at times! We danced the night away, and I think some people even went out for more drinks afterwards — I would have been there too but I promptly fell asleep on returning to the hotel to change my shoes!

The next day I was of course quite hungover, so the impending early morning ferry crossing did nothing for my stomach, though actually I survived the crossing without being ill, just sat by a table with my head on my arms the whole way. A ferry? Yes, for this is where our camping holiday began - we spent 3 days on the Isle of Wight.

Eventually I was a bit ill in the car, but we’ll skip over that part to say that driving through the Isle of Wight is really picturesque. Our campsite was in Shanklin, which had a nice beach, much nicer than the one at the Needles where there were more people trying to sunbathe. Fools. Campsite was a bit regimented, I’d have preferred slightly worse facilities in exchange for fewer rules about where you can park your car, and what time you have to be quiet. Especially since we were camped next to what can only be described as noisy toffs, who had visitors and totally ignored this rule in order to discuss which of their foreign holiday homes they liked the best. They did lend us a tin opener at one point though, so we can’t be too mad.

The first day we set up our tent (well, Jim did, I was still hungover) and then headed out to the Garlic Festival. This was much bigger than we anticipated, covering an enormous field and including a large stage for bands, a dog show, and lots of large tents with stalls inside where you could purloin any kind of food or hand-made craft object you desired. And yes, there was a lot of garlic about. We bought a bottle of garlic beer, but it was quite terrible so we used it in stew instead, where it seemed much more palatable!

The second day we paid a visit to the needles, probably the most touristy bit of the Isle of Wight. Highlights include watching traditional sweets being made, finding oh-so-many fossils in the mud and cliffs, and visiting the rocket testing site where apparently a relation of Jim once worked on the Black Knight rocket. I’m sure he can tell you more about the details, suffice to say it is very very cool indeed. There was also a national trust site on the old battery. If you go down into the tunnels they come out onto a searchlight and a brilliant view of the needles themselves, better than from anywhere else we tried. The cafe there also has free use of binoculars, and very good lemonade.

Day three saw us off Ryde on the train, which was an old London Underground carriage! This was an exciting way to travel on the way there, but on the return journey we were fearing for our lives on our sideways seats at the back of the train whilst the driver, apparently having a deathwish, sped all the way back to Shanklin. Anyhoo, whilst in Ryde we visited the Orrery Cafe, activating the planets that dangled from the ceiling whilst sipping tea and watching in the mirrored tables. Brilliant. Then we took a bus to Cowes for a quick look around, very yachty. The chain ferry was also an interesting experience - I guess it saves needing a rudder? It seems to be the only sensible way of getting from one side of Cowes to the other, and takes cars as well as foot passengers, who go free. Returning to Ryde by bus, Jim made me ask for “Two tickets to Ryde!” and the bus man was unexpectedly cheerful, asking: “Aren’t you going to sing as well?”

We struck camp the next morning in time to catch our ferry back, and the rest of the journey home was so uneventful I seem to have forgotten it entirely. I really must post this now, it’s been ages since we went and it’s getting silly.

PS: Congrats, Andy and Faye!

I finally started putting my new computer together from its constituent parts, and I bought DDR3 to go in it. Well, I should have looked harder at the motherboard spec, evidently…

Anyone:

a) want to buy 4GB (2 sticks) of DDR3 RAM from me, I paid £83, make me an offer.
b) want to have for free the old DDR1 RAM (2 1GB sticks) from my old computer, oh yes, it was time for an upgrade. (plenty of other bits going spare, including a *single core* processor, how retro.)
c) want to sell me at least 2GB of DDR2 RAM for less than the market price, let me know quickly as I’ll probably cave and go to Crosswood tomorrow otherwise.

On the plus side I’ve sewed up a hole in my coat, and Jimmy and I got another 5 geocaches today, bringing our total to 22. Lots of fun!

Was great to see folks from out of town visiting last week. Sorry I was so snuffly. Jimmy and I went to see Electric Six for his birthday (yes, they are still going and have released 6 more albums (of varying quality) than when I last paid any attention to them) on Saturday in Birmingham. Our plans were thrown awry at several points along the way…

1. I was so ill Wednesday evening that I almost didn’t make it out for Jimmy’s birthday meal. That night I didn’t sleep a wink and was feeling far too hot but also shivering, leading me to believe I had fever. The next day I convinced myself I had swine flu, which, given the symptoms *at the time* was fairly reasonable. I got myself a useless swine flu number for England and started thinking I might not be ok for the concert.

2. I stayed off work the rest of the week, causing me to leave the tickets on my desk.

3. I decided to print out the tickets again Saturday morning, only upon arriving on campus, we discovered the entire network down, so we couldn’t use Jimmy’s computer or a 24hr computer room to get anywhere.

4. I have no key to my office, where the previously printed tickets were, so I had to get a friendly gent with a key to let us in.
First success of the day here, we get the tickets from my desk, noting the address of the venue, O2 Academy, Dale End so that I could plan a route with my phone.

5. We head back to Jimmy’s car to discover a flat tyre. He changes the wheel whilst I try to buy some lypsyl at the union shop, as my lips are still killing me from the cold. Shop is shut.

6. I get lypsyl from Morrisons in Newtown. We have a fairly uneventful journey to Brum. We go round in only a couple of circles before finding the car park to Birmingham Central Travelodge. We park. It is £6 for 24 hours, which is what we thought, and Jimmy was prepared enough to have brought it in change, the clever bunny.

7. We can’t check in until 3pm, we are told. We wander off to the german markets and I soothe my lips on some lovely mulled wine.

8. We do a bit of looking at shops and fighting through crowds and then return to our travelodge, only to be told at checkin “you’re not staying here, you’re at Newhall Street”. Whoops, my bad. Off we trot to our actual hotel, leaving the car where it is. We find our actual hotel (much nicer and closer, in fact), check in, and have about a half hour break before getting changed ready to go to Dale End for the concert at 6, as it states on our ticket.

9. We wander back out again, arrive at the venue obviously too early as it all looks shut. We go for a pint and a bit of grub, and come back at 6.

10. Venue is still shut, despite sign outside suggesting it is the correct location. Two other groups of attendees appear. Only one of these thinks they are going to see Electric Six, the other has Shed seven tickets for the same venue. We begin to feel mild panic. The Electric Six group say “Oh, it must be over at the new place” and proceed to hike across town. We follow, seeing no better option. The Shed Seven people follow too.

11. After a long walk, we discover they were right. The O2 Academy has moved to a new location, and has 2 rooms. Both Shed Seven and Electric Six are on. There are 2 shortish queues and they haven’t even opened the doors yet. We get in with no hassle, get pints in, start looking at the youth of the crowd and feel old, deride the first act, love the second act, enjoy Electric Six but feel knackered by this point and the room is like a sauna. I think I was about 2 songs away from giving in and dancing in my bra. Didn’t help that the setlist was so long!

So thanks, Ticketweb, for making our day just that little bit more complicated, by not informing me in any way that the venue on the bloody ticket was not in fact the location of the concert. If it hadn’t been for the group ahead of us, we’d probably never have found it. Genuine thanks to those knowledgeable people, whoever you are.

Despite all the aggro it was actually a nice weekend, we did a little shopping, raped Borders for cheap books as it’s closing down, and ate at the cute Mount Fuji cafe that Penny recommended to us, where I had the tastiest Miso soup and a lovely chicken bento box, whilst Jimmy had an even tastier pork bento box with delicious sticky sauce. It’s round the corner from Wagamama, good for small lunches and devoid of queues — or at least it was at 12pm on a Sunday. I want to go again already.

I’ve not updated in a while, and since last time I’ve got my own flat, been to Portugal, been to Bicon and released a survey for my research. It is the latter to which I draw your attention at this very moment:

Compare Music (go on you know you want to)

Please rate some music, if you have the time. I am working on a reward system to encourage you all, possibly in the form of a shiny facebook trophy to display to all and sundry from your profile. I am also working on a non-facebook version for those of you who are anti-social-networking!

Again I find myself with little to say that hasn’t already been said by Dan, but Bicon was fab as always, Portugal was fun but not warm enough, and my flat is still on the wonk, and still nice to have.

At the weekend I attended Herofest, a Live Roleplaying festival down in south Wales. I have up until this point never done any live roleplaying, nor have I really done any table-top roleplaying. I have played quite a lot of Oblivion, but that probably doesn’t count. Despite my complete lack of experience and my trepidation, I thoroughly enjoyed it and would really like to go again. It’s all Rich’s fault.

We travelled down on the Thursday as Rich was faction rep for the Dai Fae Dyne so needed to be there a day early. On the way we visited a Welsh cider mill where we spent copious quantities of money of even greater quantities of alcohol, some of which I have brought back with me, you’ll be glad to hear. After trying a few “tasters” of cider, which were about a third of a pint each, I was a little bit tipsy and might have sung all the way to Candleston, which is roughly here.

Having arrived we met with the few others who were that early, and tried to pitch our tents. Rich had brought a 5m diameter bell tent which proved not too difficult to put up once we found enough space for it, whereas I’d borrowed Jimmy’s 3-man tent. It’s a nice tent, but without any instructions I’m ashamed to say it took me probably 45 minutes to pitch. One reason might be that I started with the outer sheet both inside out and rotated 90 degrees from where it should have been. The other is that the double guy ropes confused me. Ah, it’s been too long since I went camping.

After that I think we went shopping for food that we never ended up eating because we were too busy to even keep a fire going most of the time. I did buy two fold-up chairs though. I spent most of Thursday and Friday worrying about my costume, which I’d basically picked up in a few charity shops at the last minute with the instructions “find something green and brown”. It was alright, not too obviously modern but I still ended up buying a few extra bits and pieces from the traders at the site. I now own a large brown cloak, which I might take to the beach and sit on to ensure it gets some real-life use.

I paid for the meal deal which was well worth it, as it meant we got Friday supper through to Sunday breakfast for £30 and no need to cook over the fire, and proper cutlery and plates and a tavern with a roof in which to eat and drink without getting rained on. The food was pretty good, especially the tasty chilli, and a full breakfast was plain necessary after a day of running around. Talking of the facilities, unlike mose camp sites the showers not only worked but were quite strong and plenty hot enough. The toilets even had loo roll. Whatever next?

The rest of our faction turned up a bit later, until there were 6 of us. Uglee (Shane) the half-orc warrior, Angus (Dave) and Haggis (Andy) who were wee free men warriors, Prudence (Helen) the witch scribe, and Fylgar (Rich), who was faction rep so automatically was a healer-scribe, and Esk (me) the bard healer. Since my guitar didn’t work properly, I ended up being Esk the cursed Bard for the duration.

(photo courtesy Tim Salmon, thanks Tim)

Our faction — The Dai Fae Dyne — are essentially neutral ruthless traders, so I spent a lot of time making series of lucrative trades so that we could get what we needed, but also what everyone else needed and then sell it to them at high prices. This was really fun and got me running around to see all the camps, some of which were impressively decked out, in particular the Wizards Concillium and the Dym Wan.

One thing I thought was a great idea was having each faction play some wandering monsters. Costumes were provided and there is very little that is more fun than running around looking scary and trying to hit small children with a sword. The kids’ faction, the Squires, was actually one of the most violent ones, as they seemed to lack the subtlety of diplomacy and intrigue and far preferred to beat people up. Can’t blame them, really.

The people were by and large less geeky than I expected, and yet the roleplay standards were higher, despite which I found myself welcomed by mine and other factions equally well. I threw myself into things on the Friday evening when I was left representing the Dai Fae in the Tavern accompanied only by Uglee, who being an orc was not a lot of use when it came to wheeling and dealing. Since I didn’t have the scribe skill, I couldn’t write anything down, so I had to remember 3 or 4 different trade agreements that I’d tentatively made before the rest of the faction came back and someone could make a note of it all!

Being new, I wasn’t entirely aware of all the rules, which meant that I’d made the assumption that you couldn’t be attacked in the Tavern. This is almost entirely true, however it turned out that there were certain exceptions to which I was not privy, with the result that I was coming back from the loo, spotted an enemy, went in to tell Haggis, and then we both turned round to find it raised up preparing to strike — I actually screamed and tried to run but failed and took a body hit - went down, crawled off to the side and waited for someone to come and heal me. Pretty much everyone had run off, but eventually someone, I think Uglee, came and fixed me up. It was a properly immersive scary moment, which pleased me as I’d clearly suspended my disbelief to the right degree.

The focus of the weekend was the ritual of the Wizards Concillium, which appeared to involve setting fire ineptly to fireworks and a big sigil dug into the ground and filled with cotton balls. It provided an impressive end to the Saturday night, especially when it inevitably all went horribly wrong and we had monsters coming out of our ears (well, mostly the rift gate, but y’know).

After we handed in our game money for safekeeping we sat around in camp for a good while chatting before going to bed. After going to bed, the Keepers sang “I am the Music Man” with their own instruments each round, so I didn’t get a lot of sleep. I didn’t mind really, if I had been a bit more awake I might have got up and joined in, but that would have involved getting up and out of my cozy sleeping bag. Not going to happen.

Sunday morning we were out of character again and made a leisurely day of packing up and returning home, stopping off at Dave and Helen’s for a cuppa on the way. It was quite odd getting breakfast called out in my own name, and I nearly forgot that ‘Claire’ — rather than ‘Esk’ — was me. That could have happened any morning though, I suspect. We made it back to Aber at about 5.15 and I still went to Buffy night despite being fairly knackered.

It was somewhat like a big murder-mystery with strangers and lasting over a weekend, but with subplots and sidetracks along the way, and a lot more freedom. So if you don’t like dressing up, or you don’t like camping, or you don’t like new people, it’s possibly not for you. However, if you like most of these things, and also cider, you should let me know and come along to the Interplanar Fayre in July! If you’ve managed to read this far down, that is. Sorry about that.