I am not a lecturer

As mentioned in the previous post, I finally got the results for my MA this week, so I am now unofficially an arts graduate (unofficially as I haven’t actually graduated yet). I’m not entirely sure what mark I got for my dissertation, I think Campus Solutions displayed 60% at one point, which is disappointing as I’d expected to do much better, and I only got a pass because of my Latin result, despite being on track for a merit overall. I’ve decided not to bother with graduation though, mainly because I object to paying an extortionate amount of money for a piece of black cloth to a monopoly supplier and the chance to listen to some pompous person from the higher echelons of the University talk about how well the institution which they contribute nothing to is doing. As well as that, most of the people on my MA can be split into three groups: people who I will see anyway, people who aren’t coming to graduation and people who I never really spoke to on the course anyway.

I also managed to get to the AHC-UK conference this weekend, despite Transport for London’s best attempts to stop me by closing the part of the Tube which I needed to use and just generally being incompetent (the escalators at Euston are still not fixed). I met lots of interesting people, made some useful contacts, and got mistaken for being a lecturer on several occasions—I have no idea why this keeps happening to me (dutyoffice in my department also thought that I was a research associate by now).

On the Friends of the Earth front, I was mocked mercilessly earlier this week when I had to admit that I had no idea who Damien Rice and Ash were. Apparently I have to go to the next James Blunt concert (where we will be trying to get people to sign postcards) in order to make me connect with ‘popular culture’—I feel like Ian Hislop!

PhD-wise, I’m not entirely sure how things are going, as my supervisor has been away for the last couple of weeks. I’ve more or less finished the mini literature review he left me to write, although I’m not entirely happy with it so I imagine the rest of today will be spent redrafting it.

Finally, I have brought Rogue Students back up, or at least the forums part. I have finally discovered how to stop automated registrations on phpBB (image verification doesn’t work as spammers figured out how to crack it ages ago), so the forums are once again manageable. Eventually I will write a proper system for the site as I have a number of plans for it, but I think that will have to wait until the Christmas vacation now.