And a few more of your least favorite things

My girlfriend's best friend turned me onto a group called +Vitamin String Quartet, who do stringed covers of bands. They are just incredible, so click play below and enjoy this band as you read on.

Today I finished the first cut of the Alumni video, which is turning out to be an absolute headache because the star is uncontactable for the foreseeable future and, regretfully, it's seeming like we might need an extra take. Still, the first cut is certainly watchable, and with a few cuts and some movie magic (I immediately regret writing that phrase) I'm sure I can make this project awesome. All the same, his voice was getting a trifle annoying, so while the film exported I started work on some statistical analysis.

In this particular project I'm looking at how many students said they'd take part in extra-curricular activities, how many actually turned up, and how many of those filled out the evaluation forms at the end. The numbers decrease exponentially.

(Side note, evaluation forms that are not anonymous are, to me, little better than useless. Nobody's going to tell their instructor they're rubbish and put their name to it?)

Still, it's a good opportunity to get grubby in Excel, and some string covers of rock bands (a combination of my two favorite things; their cover of +Panic! At The Disco is especially excellent) helped me power through and create some lovely shiny graphs. A short break from that brought me back to my Alumni colleague, with whom I'm working on some designs for our annual dinner - I'm feeling Gatsby Le Magnifique with an art-deco, monochromatic, angular style (say, do I know any event planners/graphic designers?) and then lunch with five women speaking in rapid French. I understood at least 3/4, which I'm counting as a massive win, because the quarter I didn't understand seemed to be a joke based around me. Not in an unpleasant way, but more in a "isn't-the-foreign-boy-cute-and-clueless" kind of way.

After lunch I got on with a couple of translations and was visited by a few colleagues, who seemed shocked that I had DVDs. I'm leaving in 22 days, and they discover this now.

I'm leaving in 22 days.

That's a really upsetting thought.

I don't want to go. I've got crazy stuff lined up; a holiday in Chicago with my girlfriend, a (paid!) fortnight of work with PRCA, and the chance to write a thesis in French. I'm going to see Derren Brown, and if I'm lucky he'll sign a couple of books that I had to summon demons to acquire. And yet -

and yet, I'm speaking to my replacement, and she's so excited and nervous and I remember being there. And I want to be there again. I want to taste that nervousness, and curse every tiny mistake, and meet again these enormous, wonderful characters that I've known while I've been here.

Nostalgia is cruel and kind in equal measure.

Still, there's nothing else to be done. Life must go on. I've got to take the next step, and fight the feeling that the struggle is Sisyphean.

Also, rediscovering +Spotify is amazing. 

Pavlova'd

I've Pavlova'd myself with this blog.

For those who didn't know, Pavlov was a behavioural scientist who found that if he rang a bell before he fed some dogs, those dogs would soon start to salivate at the sound of the bell - not the scent of the food. They had been conditioned to respond in an abnormal way to a stimulus.

I have done the same thing to myself with this blog and the weather. When I started writing this blog, it was as it got dark - around six. I'd write a bit, fix some dinner, sketch out some ideas, speak to my friends, and then polish it off around nine, feeling satisfied and totally missing at least one glaringly obvious spelling mistake.

So now, instead of looking at the time and starting to write at around six, I look out my window, see it's still light, and continue working on my year abroad project or putting a watermark on videos or reading more about the woman-shaped target that "bleeds" when you shoot it, because everyone needs a solid dose of WTF in the evenings. Gender violence is not really gender violence when you present it as a joke. Apparently.

In any case, that means I eventually get round to writing (and eating) at about ten now, as the sun sets. In addition to this total upset to my workflow I'm also running for the position of School of Language and Literature convener at the University of Aberdeen, in absentia, which is proving to be a logistical nightmare and a missed opportunity to harass students outside Taylor building, which I know they pretend to hate but really love.

This morning was a mad stack of recordings as I tried to avoid missing a deadline (a fairly big one, since we've the next five days off) and, aside from one hideous outtake, the recordings are done and I am exceedingly pleased with the results. In addition, Adeline borrowed some more books, although as she did so she also managed to misplace a blank cheque for 3.000€, so perhaps she felt it wasn't worth it in the end.

Don't look at me, I haven't got it, and even if I did, I wouldn't cash it.

Well I mean I probably wouldn't.

The afternoon was given over to more research and more writing; for the first time since arriving here I'm thankful that the work has momentarily dried up because I've got a lot of pages to write and a lot of complex French to wade through. I foresee the next couple of days being dedicated to the same thing, which is good - it'll get me back in the swing of essay writing before going back to uni.

I was given the names of the two potential new stagiaires today, too, which is very exciting. I'm sure whoever gets it will be brilliant, as they're both fantastic candidates. Though - just so you know - you'll never replace me, and sometimes your colleagues will sigh, or look at you strangely, and they'll be wondering why you don't wear waistcoats, or have rugged good looks, or crawl in hungover to high heaven.

And then you will make them love all the things you do instead.

The afternoon was given over to TFI practice where I (still!) need to improve my grammar. It's better than it was but still not good enough, so that'll be an extra hour of work per day until the test. Posts may well get shorter.

To compensate for the huge length of this one, here's a pavlova, to complete the circle.

P.S:

If you are a student at the University of Aberdeen,

You can vote in the elections happening right now!

Just go to www.ausa.org.uk/elections and log in!