Talk about the weather

Last week absolutely nothing exciting happened. So I told that I had no idea what to write for the blog and he suggested now that we live in Great Britain I might as well talk about the weather.

So here it goes. This is really the most dreadful summer I have ever experienced. Not even the one we spent in New Zealand was worse- and it was supposed to be winter there. What makes it even worse is that my workplace has no windows, so that sometimes I do not even notice that there actually are some very few hours of sunshine. So if you have any ideas how to fight the gloomy, rainy weather and how to keep spirits up, please let me know!

Apart from that I am going to have my annual review next week and I am still curious about what is going to happen!

I am also invited for a job interview in September. However, this is only a temporary job, so I’m not getting too excited about it. Yet, it might be useful for the CV as it is teaching.

Currently; I am working too much, well not really, but I tend to get stupid shifts in the middle of the day so that I don’t get much Uni work done before and/or after. But it’s good for the money, of course- we never seem to have enough anyway.

Ben is going to start his new job on September 1 and Maya is going to get her first vaccination next week. Maybe this week is going to be more exciting

A Growing Family

No, we are not getting a baby! And still we had an addition to our little family last week. She arrived at our flat last Wednesday at 8.34 pm and her name is Maya. Maya is the cutest little kitten. She is between black and brown with a white spot under her chin and she is so tiny but growing every day. She is also a great explorer and interested in the most obscure things like computer cables and lamp feet. But most of all she brings joy, fun and excitement in our lives, which sometimes seem to involve only work and study. Ben (that’s my partner’s name and he officially allowed me to use it) is especially excited and he says he spends a lot less time in front of the computer and rather plays with the kitten instead.

Maya had her first vet visit on Friday and he discovered that she has ear mites. Now she needs to get drops in her ears twice a day. I guess you can imagine how much she enjoys that. But apart from this she is perfectly happy and healthy, plays a lot and sleeps even more. She even starts to get picky about her food. Thankfully she prefers the cheap stuff!

 

And now for those of you who aren’t interested in my private life one bit: I have finished the first draft of the first chapter of my thesis. It is a little more than 16000 words or 53 double spaced pages long. I am so proud and happy that I still could jump up and down and dance around! For those of you who know me personally, maybe I even will. J I am just so glad that finally I have something to show for all the time I have been here. In the beginning it certainly felt as if I would never get used to studying again. And when I finally had gotten used to it and had found a rhythm, then it felt as if I was always working too much and was too tired to study. But now that I can show results, I don’t feel all that bad anymore.

 

But first I have my first annual review coming up. And I have no idea what that is going to be like as nobody tells me anything. All I know is that another person of the department is going to read what I have written and then he/she, my supervisors and I will sit down and talk about it. So if you know anything else, please feel free to enlighten me!

 

And once more back to private life: Ben is going to get a new job! He has still an upcoming interview and one job offer. So, I am not going to spoil it for him by spilling the beans and you will have to wait till next week, when we will definitely know which it is going to be. So, finally things seem to turn out really well for us. Of course, I would still appreciate a scholarship, but it looks as if we are going to make it either way now. Life’s good!

 

Language, or the fascination of Glaswegian

When I first moved to Glasgow and someone talked to me, I often wondered, “was this English?” By now, I have come to the conclusion that Glaswegian is an extreme form of Scottish which might have English roots, but that’s it.

When I did my first degree back in Germany, I took a class in Middle Scots and was utterly fascinated by how different it was from Middle English. However, I never expected to find a living language that is so different from English and yet is supposedly a form of English. There are not only words that are different, but the pronunciation and melody are entirely un-English.

Well, Glaswegian is pretty much as my German dialect “schwäbisch”, if you talk fast enough nobody who doesn’t speak the dialect will be able to understand you. That’s why I am quite proud that after 10 months of listening and talking to Glaswegians, I am finally able to understand people- well at least if I can look them in the face and lipread

But honestly, I am getting asked for directions (or fags) in the streets of Glasgow and I am finally able to reply. Of course then people get sceptical- “Do we want to trust this person wih the strong Geman accent? She does not sound Glaswegian at all, does she really know where she sends us?” That’s at least what I imagine they might think.

But what is even worse, I, like many others, had to study English at school, which, of course, involves learning an enormous set of rules! You try to learn and memorize and maybe even understand them and then of course to use them in order to finally speak and write English properly.

AND THEN YOU GO TO GLASGOW!!!

Where people say things like “What are you wanting?” “Rebecca has did that” “It has took me five hours to do that…” And you wonder whyever you bothered sticking to the rules. Well, of course your marks at school would have suffered consicerably, but appart from that… Who needs them? Definitely not Glaswegians.

OK, but that is still not the worst part of it all. I have lately discovered that my brain is using patterns of Glaswegian when thinking. For example, a couple of weeks ago I thought, “Who has did that?” Or something like it. I was shocked accordingly, and my brain took countermeassures before uttering the sentence, so my teachers back home can still be proud of me. But who knows how long it is going to take till the little aliens -or in this particular case, Glaswegians- in my head will take over and I will start saying or writing down things like that? What will my supervisors say? And it is not too far fetched either. I have started pronouncing words Glaswegian style ages ago. I don’t even know how to pronounce eight (‘eeht’) or three (thrrrrree’) properly, anymore. And last week I even officially started using ‘aye’ instead of yes. My colleagues find that rather amusing and every time I say ‘aye’ they either laugh or I can hear a choir of ‘ays’ behind my back. However, I had a compliment as well. ‘You start talking real Scottish now!’ At least I think it was supposed to be a compliment. I don’t mind the laughter and choir either, I know they love me anyway. Well, at least as long as I keep teaching them German swearwords- which of course we Germans do not use at all…ever…German is a very polite language, after all I ried to teach them ‘Alter vor Schönheit’ which translates as ‘age before beauty’ and whatever they said was definitely not German, so I guess I can be content that at least I can understand what they are telling me (most of the time) and reply without them having to guess what I am saying.

Appart from all the difficulties, I really like Glaswegian. As I mentioned before, it reminds me of my own dialect, and maybe, just maybe, it makes me feel a little bit more at home away from home.

I came up with a couple of new examples:

“My brother telled me a joke last night”

Glaswegians aldon’t seem to be too keen on the plural indicator s

“two saussage roll, please” Well if your lucky you’ll get the “please”

“I’ve been working here for 15 year“

I’ll keep you posted if I come across something new…

Another wee update: Glaswegians love to give you names, and I don’t mean that in a bad way. Of course they swear a lot, too and sometimes there are more f***s in a sentence than anything else, but this is not what I meant to tell you. They like to call people (even total strangers) for men mate and pal, and for women darling, pet, or hen. I don’t know about you, but for me it really took some getting used to.

Oh and they like to use yous as plural of you….what would the grammar book say?

How to sum up a year

Hello everyone,

I will start this blog by trying to summarize the experiences I gained during my first year at the University of Glasgow. I think they describe the first impressions of not only me but probably many other students moving to the UK from abroad.

I came here after a year of idleness (not true of course, as I worked hard and forced my way through Moby Dick) travelling and working in Australia and New Zealand. I did not come all by myself as well. No, my loving and caring and most of all supporting partner of quite some time moved here with me:

Finding accomodation

So first of all we had to find a flat that would be big enough to fit in all our stuff. This proved more difficult than we expected in several ways:

1. we have a really big bed and British bedrooms seem to be really small

2. We have a lot of stuff (i.e. books and shelves)

3. we used to be spoiled with space in Germany

4. renting in Germany is different from renting in the UK: you definitely do not get the same value for money here.

But after we looked at some places with disfunctional heaters, or no heating at all, too small rooms, carpets stained during centuries, and my personal favourite: “This flat has rats,please do not leave your rubbish in the hallway, if you see a rat please call…”we found our perfect 2-bedroom affordable flat. As it is outside Glasgow, some of you might not consider it quite that perfect, but as we are both no city people, we liked it immediately. And it even comes with a little strech of garden.

Setting up a bank account

So now that we had a UK we could finally set up a bank account. Accordingy, we went to all the major banks and asked what documentation they required etc. No surprise there: every bank wanted different things and most of them did not want to give us a debit card unless we could prove we are employed, which, of course, we weren’t. But then I attended the international welcome week and a solution presented itself. They gave us n internet link, where you could ask the University to write a letter to the bank with which you want to set up an account. I still did not get a debit card but at least they finally agreed to give me an account which I urgently needed to transfer my money to in order to pay my first installment of University fees.

So here are my two pieces of advice:

1. attend the international welcome week, it is really useful and you can ask all your questions, plus they take you on a day trip!

2. Go to the international office and ask them to provide a letter for your bank and ask them whatever else you need to know, they are really helpful there.

First steps at the university

That settled, I could finally focus on what I was here for: studying!

I set up a meeting with my second supervisor, as the woman who was supposed to be my first supervisor unfortunately had left for another university. Which was a pity as she would have suited my research perfectly. This meeting went really well and gave me my first and lasting impression of the University: helpful, friendly, efficient. And ten months later this impression still probes valid. Every time I have a question- and believe me, that happens rather frequently- I send an email to the person I think might be best qualified to answer it. If they can’t, they point out the person who can; if they can, you usually get a quick and detailed answer! I really like that. My second supervisor quickly found me other supervisors whom I briefly met the same day and who gave me “homework” for our next meeting. This slightly shocked me, as I officially had not even started research yet, this was only supposed to happen a little later, in early October. I was in the beginning also startled by the frequency they suggested we should meet: once a week. I just thought I would never get anything done in one week. But now, with a part-time job next to studying, I am quite happy about this arragement, as it forces me to do something and prevents procrastination. They always give me great input, and are really supportive.

The rest of the year…

…sums up pretty quickly. I attended many workshops e.g. on project planning and time management, which, at least in part, I thought extremely useful. I worked on two conference papers, one of which I presented by now (this was my very first conference, and I think it went really well). I applied for about 100 000 scholarships and bursaries (note the slight exaggeration, but that’s how it felt at times) none of which I received But does that stop me from trying?

A couple of months ago my computer stopped working and I freaked, as I really could not afford to buy a new one. But thank God (or whatever deity or philosophy you choose to believe in) I could recover windows XP and all has been working well since- knock on wood!

In February, a bit of a tragedy hit my family. My dad, only weeks before his 52nd birthday had to get a bypass peration. Here again my supervisors wre extremely supportive and always enquired about the state of things. Of course, I wanted to fly straight home, less because I was worried about the operation itself- it seems to be routine today- and more to keep my father company in hospital. he is a very active man and I knew he would be bored senseless in hospital. However, my family told me to stay, and so I did. My dad was up and about again in no time and he has not lost his sense of humour either. So I am very happy. We went home for three weeks in May and he was just his same old self. I found this very comforting. I also enjoyed the trip, as the weather back in Germany was really nice and I could use the change. Sometimes the constant clouds of Glasgow can get a bit depressing.

Conference

About three weeks ago I attended my first literary conference and I was quite overwhealmed- as I often am- by how much some people know. I am always awed by wisdom and knowledge and I always feel that no matter how long I have been studying my subject, I am always only still discovering the margins an there is so much more to know.

But back to the conference: It was just great. so much wisdom united at one spot. It was a four-day conference and the days started at 8am and never ended before 9pm. There were parallel panels and I always found something that interested me, so I went to listen to every panel & plenary lecture. After the four days I was exhausted accordingly but I had to work for the next four days and on the fourth I got a bad migraine that forced me to bed for the rest of the day. I guess that was my body telling me not to overestimate how much I can do. But now I am back on track and short of finishing the first chapter of my PhD thesis. So I guess after all I am doing ok.

Work

For those of you who are wondering what kind of work I do, I am not going to tell. This is just a preventive measure for the days that are sure to come at which I will say work just got on my nerves etc. And I don’t want to blame the company for it, as I still feel very lucky that i got this job, as it is so extremely flexible. All I can say is that it is one of the really stupid, non-academic job that are necessary to feed the body that houses the brain.

I think this gave you a pretty good overview of the last 10 months of my life here in Glasgow. I will try to keep you posted on a more regular basis now, and I promise future posts will not be this excessively long! I hope you’ll bear with me…