Fame At Last?

Hello dear reader(s), and welcome back! I just have one thing for you today, although I'm hoping to have several posts out in the near future. Today I am pondering the idea that I am now famous :)

Well, sort of.

Earlier this academic year, i.e. before Christmas, I enrolled on a module called "Fremdsprachen; Lernen und Lehren" (Teaching and Learning Foreign Languages for those who don't speak German). The aims of this module were to teach us about theories of language acquisition, to explore second language development at various ages, and to essentially teach us how to teach. It was a great module, and I would highly recommend it to anyone who gets the chance to do it (so, German Studies students at Nottingham Uni.) Despite initial worries that it was just a module aimed at German learners to remind us that our only job prospect was teaching (yeah, right), it was actually very informative and interesting in itself.

The assessment for this class was an essay, but the formative assessment, carried out halfway through the module to ascertain how well we were coping with the content, was to create teaching materials for a Beginners' German first year class. We had the option, in groups, of either preparing a lecture and presenting it, or making a video. I worked with Jordan, and we made a video exploring the difficult pronunciations found in German, which just don't exist in English. Our video was, somehow, a resounding success. Sascha, who ran the module, absolutely loved it (far more than we did!) and this made us all very happy.

A few weeks ago Jordan and I received an email from Sascha, asking if he could use our video as part of a report on the module's success, with a link being put on the University's website. We of course said yes. You know, whatever makes you happy, Sascha.

From Helen

Oddly, this has ended with two people, so far, sending me links to my own video, telling me I'm famous. Well, two is hardly thousands, and I don't really need a link to the video - I'm in it! But it's nice to be recognised. By my housemates.

Anyway, here's the link to the original blog, if you fancy a read. The video link is on there:
http://blogs.nottingham.ac.uk/clas/2015/05/21/flipped-roles-german-students-as-teachers/

Much love xx

Full and Brutally Honest Review of the NUA 2014

When I left home on Friday, my housemate said, “Have a good time. And I hope that things don’t get too bad when you inevitably end up in A and E.” Fortunately, NUSCR’s trip to NUA 2014 stopped just short of a trip to the hospital…

After several hours of train travel, highly scorched burgers and some overpriced pints, Tall Chris, Short Chris, Esther Chris and myself (Chris) followed a couple of total strangers for half an hour, arriving at a church hall; picked for the weekend’s accommodation for the sole reason of being totally inappropriate. Having been reunited with some old friends, and immediately capturing some new ones, NUSCR asked the fundamental question: “Where’s the booze?”, embarking on what turned into an hour-long beer quest which showed us just how far from any form of civilisation we were. Fortunately, New Friend Hannah took this welcome opportunity to reveal her hidden superpower to locate Co-Ops. (Unfortunately, said “convenience” store had just shut. Points for trying, though!) Friday night was otherwise quite a standard affair, involving much drinking, chatting, and Plain Hunt on Beer before falling asleep on a floor which may have been even less comfortable than anything I have ever slept on before, including Ross.

Saturday started early, with an English breakfast and copious amounts of throat-meltingly strong tea. We arrived at our first tower in St Nicholas in Kenilworth (after what seemed like a year on the bus) where, after a short wait, we successfully rang some rounds. Our next stop was at All Saints in "the Bell Ringing capital of Europe" (don't ask me, ask Helen!) Leamington Spa. After yet another bus ride, we finally arrived in Warwick itself and rang briefly at St Mary's, before embarking on yet another epic bus ride, to Stratford-upon-Avon, where we met Lucy and IPM Dan in (where else?) a pub, before "we" (Chris and our new friends from BUSCR) rang at Holy Trinity Church, described as the best tower of Saturday. The rest of stayed at the pub, and so missed out on that one, what a shame! The final tower of the day was Lillington (where I actually did some ringing!!!) and another tedious bus journey brought us back to base just about, but not quite, in time for dinner. 

And a ceilidh. 

Why didn't I heed the ceilidh warnings? 

We (including Becks and Phill, who deigned us with their presence just after dinner) spent the evening flinging each other around the room as hard and as fast as we could. I swear, I have never had so much fun being disregarded by multiple men. The funniest bit for the spectators was probably Short Chris throwing Becks to the ground and then stomping on her hair, which he maintains was an accident. Yeah, right. As for the dancing, whilst I thoroughly enjoyed Baskets and Strip the Willow (look it up, kids), I actually much preferred the dances where my feet were primarily on the ground; bouncing around the hall on the arm of one Chris or another was enough for me, thank you! This merriment finished at around eleven, having started relatively soon after dinner, giving us many an hour of merriment. Naturally, after this, everyone just stayed up chatting for as long as we could hold our own drinks and ended up in bed shortly before sunrise on Sunday.

Sunday morning was a little more relaxed, as the first church of the day was very nearby at All Saints in Allesley, where a nice man with the key to the bell tower recommended that we try a small local tower with a 300-weight six, which was not on our route. So, naturally, we went off-tour to check it out. Right decision. This tower was described by several people as the best of the weekend, missed by everyone except NUSCR and SUGCR. Personally, I was in no position to comment, having only rung three towers that weekend, and only one other tower ever. How do you even decide what a nice tower is? Unless, like Short Chris at St Nicholas, you have real trouble keeping it up. Most of NUSCR somehow managed to miss the next tower in Stoke, when Phill accidentally drove into Debenham's*, and turned up to the pub early enough for a second breakfast. After a very close call involving a BUSCR member who had to have her legs over her head for quite a while (and not in a good way) in the pub at lunchtime we finally turned up at Coventry Cathedral Tower to ring the final bells of the tour. The Coventry experience also included the opportunity to watch the bells from above, as well as a tour of the amazing bombed-out ruins of the old cathedral, opportunities taken up by many.

NUSCR’s tour ended with five consecutive train journeys to different places, all aiming to get us home to showers (not necessarily our own) and bed. Having essentially been tricked into coming on the NUA, I'm incredibly glad that I was; it has been one of the best experiences of my life, with some of the nicest people I have ever met (and Chris). Having joined Bell Ringing Society on a whim, I have come to the conclusion that it's quite possibly one of the best decisions I have ever made, even if more time is spent at the pub than in the tower(!)

*Phill's driving was not (as Short Chris expected) sufficiently bad enough that we actually ended up parked in the lingerie department of Debenham's, more that we turned into an accidental multi-storey and were too lazy to drive out again.

House Hunting

It's now come to that time in my life where I've had to start (and indeed conclude) a hunt for my first privately-rented property (how scary!) So, this led to me pondering the housing market and, well, just everything really.

For anyone who's interested, I am sharing as part of a group of five girls who will all be living in a two-storey house in Beeston; near the university. The property has five bedrooms, three bathroom-esque rooms (only one actually has a bath in it, the others have showers), one lounge, one dining room, one kitchen, a scrubby garden with a "bald patch" (Helen) and a "Bedroom", in which the bedroom furniture doesn't even fit. Needless to say, this will be used as an occasional overnight room for people staying (willingly or because they're unable to use their own legs...) over and (probably) a storage room.

Basically, this whole process has made me feel very grown up; primarily because I have been doing most of the dealings with the estate agents (as the one who was willing to make the phone calls on Monday) and this gives me a terrifying level of responsibility, but also because I now realise that next year I will be responsible for myself; all the payments of bills and rent will be down to me (probably not financially, but I will be in charge of organising it) and if I mess up, it will be my own fault, with no way to blame anyone else.

That's scary.

In addition, I have decided I would be a terrible estate agent. I would feel incredibly guilty for the amount of... not quite lying, but... 'smoothing over' I would need to do to sell certain properties. Did you know there's no patron saint of estate agents*? Somehow it doesn't really surprise me. (At a stretch you could say it was St Lucy, patron saint of salespeople, but I'm not sure that's the entire of the estate agent's job.)

To be honest, my main concern for next year is getting on with my housemates, who are all lovely girls. This may seem a silly thing to say, if they're all lovely girls, why would that be a concern?
Basically, because they're so lovely I'm worried that I will be the one who will annoy everyone to the point where we have an argument and they are no longer friends with me. Apparently there's meant to be someone like that in every house. I really hope we're the exception...

If it doesn't work out, I could always live in a yurt.

Emmatt update: I realised I didn't do one of these last time, so in case anyone's interested, I thought I'd let you know. Matt and I sent a lot of time together over the Christmas holidays, even though we both had a lot to do. We're both very happy that we've now (more or less) reached five months together and are making plans to see each other in a few weeks, just after my Birthday. I also hope during this time to introduce him to some of my other friends (the girls I'm living with, plus other people in my course), although he doesn't know this yet. Sorry Matt.

*P.S. Father mine, the patron saint of Bankers is St Matthew