2010!! Part 1

No photo of the day for this post.

Despite the fact that I have enjoyed three very memorable years in Manchester and made so many friends for life, I am compelled to say that these past three MONTHS have been absolute heaven for me in Norwich. I have not looked back since I left Manchester, and even though I still miss everyone there especially my Wing Tsun partners and my mentee Bradley, I am finding Norwichian life extremely relevant to my interests! I have made a few good friends from the US, Northampton, Nigeria and London/Kenya and I am so glad that I chose UEA as a perfect base to do my Masters. Term one has been challenging, and it’s probably not going to let up in Term Two, but I say bring it on! These past three weeks have been spent huddled in a special corner in the library, working fervently on my readings and subsequent essays; the lack of a personal computer meant that I had to do my first essay on university computers, which had the atrocious Internet Explorer installed on it, which INSISTED on hanging the computer every time I chanced upon a PDF file. However, this was soon circumvented by the timely assistance of Christopher Portway who suggested that I install Firefox in the U:\ drive, which worked. Fortunately, my new charger arrived, and I popped down to The Forum (Norwich Central Library) yesterday to do my last essay, and plugged in my laptop as well as my phone charger. Was working solidly for two hours, when a librarian walked by and happened to glance at my various electronic appliances plugged into the electrical sockets by my feet. She came up to me and told me that I had to disconnect it immediately for fear of catastrophic failure and explosion! I very patiently, trying not to laugh, explained to her that I felt at no risk from an adapter that I had purchased 4 days ago, and that my phone charger was unlikely to blow up. However, she was adamant! She insisted that I took these appliances and got them PAT-ed (Portable Appliance Test) for $3 each. I got annoyed and said that there was no way I was going to pay for my phone charger to be tested, promptly packed up and left. I appreciate that the United Kingdom has health and safety procedures put into place to stop idiots from possibly self-harming, but I could not help feeling that today, somehow these rules had made a joke out of the system.  I left in a huff and completed the rest of the essay at home, eventually going to bed at about six in the morning. I woke up at about eleven, mucked about in the house playing computer games and then tried to access my web print at about 2pm, only to find out with panic that it simply would not respond.  Flustered, I rang the university, who told me that there was a 24 hour deadline extension due to the fact that the IT system was down. I was overcome by relief, and am sat here now typing this post, in the hope that I will finish it before I need to go at half four to meet my mentoring supervisor. The UEA website and webmail are still down; what a day for it to occur! But enough about university for the time being; I have done my best and do not wish to bore you with any more Tales of UEA. 

Christmas is nearly upon us! I really hope that the gifts that I purchased on eBay for a few special people. The youth section of the church is running a Secret Santa occasion, and I really hope that the gift that I purchased for my secret… recipient (?) comes on time from a different continent. I know it’s going to be really, really obvious who sent it them when they open the present, but meh. I am seriously considering taking the next train up to Manchester and spending Christmas with my friends there; everyone in Norwich seems to be going away and I don’t fancy spending Christmas and New Years on my own. Yi Xuan Woo and Fariq are all returning to Kuala Lumpur, so much for a meeting in London, Ben Bradley will probably be busy at work so don’t want to bother him, Thomas Maxwell got girlfriend (sic) lor. It seems that the only people available for spending time with are Chun Wai Sin, Kit Perry, the Aus and the Rusties (If the oldest dog returns from the Navy in time). Plans for hiking up Snowdon in the wake of Boxing Day are being set in motion and I hope they are engendered in due time; I would not like to think that all my winter equipment (balaclava, hat, microfleece, waterproofs, etc) have been purchased in vain. As a matter of fact, I think I’d better go order some winter gloves because my leather gloves are just not cutting it in this weather. And also someone let out the tires in my bike again! I wonder who is doing this, and praise the lord that I have a hand pump in my possession, lest I miss all my essay submission deadlines for hindrance of cycling to campus. The snow was good, but unfortunately only lasted two weeks. I would have liked to see some more white, and I don’t mean skin colour.  Hopefully this year we’ll have a White Christmas, although that will probably mean that I won’t be able to cycle as fast as I would like to. 

I really, really hope that I get a positive reply from the Overseas Development Institute regarding my application for a two year fellowship. I sent off my application with the scrutiny and subsequent approval of Dr Ed Anderson; a job in this organization would bring me absolute buckets of joy. The ODI is an independent commission on international development and humanitarian aid. What it does is review policies that international bodies undergo and give its best suggestions about poverty alleviation and sustainable development. It does a lot of work in developing countries. The Fellowship  (of the Ring, NOT!) I applied to basically gives me two years work in a developing country of their choice (I’m not really too fussed; as long as I get the pay and more importantly experience, I would be delighted to go to any hole in the Earth). However, now is not the time to worry! I shall be sending off job applications and internship applications to various international bodies in the hope that perhaps one will see imperfect me as a suitable candidate for their program. Hope for Latvia is still very much on my books; I am hoping to slot in perhaps a 2-3 week voluntary expedition in order to gather information for my dissertation and ultimately experience.  

Right, I think I’ll be off now. I need to be at the mentoring workshop for 5pm, and it takes 15 minutes to get there. I might continue later at night, but adios for now.

Clement.