A summer of firsts

I know...I was doing so well with my 'one post a month' schedule this year. And now every time I look at my post history for 2010 July will forever be a sad zero. Then again, everyone deserves a holiday right?

So, A LOT has been going on in the last two months. I finished and submitted my upgrade document mid-June and met with a panel for my defense (aka viva) at the end of the month. I was probably the most nervous I've ever been, and I think a lot of it had to do with the fact that I was completely on my own. Usually whenever I've had a major exam or presentation in the past, my parents have been there to give me their blessings or in some cases, even drive me to wherever I needed to be. This time, I was flying seriously solo. I got into the room though, and had a very informal discussion with the panel - they were all very friendly and I was lucky in the sense that it didn't seem as though anyone had a strong desire to 'trip me up' by asking extremely difficult questions. It felt more like an opportunity to get some helpful advice, take in the suggestions of experts, and have an overall 'test-run' for the quality of my research.

An hour later, they asked me to leave the room so that they could come to a decision regarding my 'status'. At this point, I wasn't sure whether I would be given a straight pass into my second year, or if I would be asked to make any amendments and re-submit my work (I knew that I had done well enough for either of these outcomes to be applicable rather than something scarier like "maybe you should think about downgrading to our MPhil instead of PhD"). By God's grace, when I returned to the room, the panel informed me that I would be passed straight through, and I couldn't stop grinning after that! Being asked to make some changes is never a big deal - and it happens quite often to a lot of PhD candidates. In fact I was preparing myself to have to make changes because I submitted my work quite early. But at the end of the day, nobody wants to be told they left certain points out or that they overlooked a specific idea. It's just a nice little cherry on top the upgrade sundae to know that other scholars think your work is stellar, just the way it is. And of course, my supervisors played a major part in my success this year.

Two short weeks after my viva, I flew back to Canada, celebrated my quarter-of-a-century birthday (and did suffer a brief quarter-life crisis), spent loads of time with family and friends, squeezed in a trip to Ottawa for some white water rafting (first time ever!), signed a tenancy agreement for a new (and very beautiful) flat in the city centre (if you want to see a video tour e-mail me) and am now in the last three weeks of my visit. And as usual, I am still in awe of how quickly the time has passed. But the adventure continues, because I will also be headed to Manhattan and Disney World for the first time and I am really excited (they were both on my list of places to see before I turn 30). This has been one of those 'catch-up' entries but once I've done all my travelling I will write something a bit more substantial to summarize all the exciting experiences!

I hope you have all been having an equally eventful, fun and safe summer!

I blinked and summer was gone...

In 2008, I survived my first summer in England. And to be honest, it was much more pleasant than I thought it would be. Most of June and July were quite warm (around 20-25 degrees) and sunny. I didn’t understand why people had complained so much about the dreadful British summer. But now...I understand. Maybe it’s because I’m a bit more north, or maybe in 2008 we just happened to be lucky, but this year...the weather is AWFUL!

Ok, ok...maybe I should be less dramatic. Three weeks ago, we did have a weekend of really beautiful sunshine and 26+ temperatures. All of Leeds was out and about enjoying the sun. Leeds has a small canal and the surrounding area is called Clarence Dock. It has been developed into quite a posh and lively part of the city. Along the water there are many small restaurants, cafes and bars with terraces facing the canal. There is also a very iconic white bridge (see pictures for details) that gets used in promotional material for the city. We spent most of our weekend in and around Clarence Dock so here are some pictures documenting the weather!

But then, it all went downhill. The last two weeks has been about 15 degrees and mainly filled with grey skies and rain. Everyone still has to wear their sweaters (or 'jumpers') and jackets, and it has been extremely depressing! Luckily there were a few reasons to celebrate even in the rain. About two weeks ago my friend Sachin, who I knew from my undergrad, and who studied with us in Leicester came to visit a few of his friends in Leeds. It was really great to see someone from Canada and hear all the updates (and also really crazy to hear how much everyone has progressed in their careers and lives since we finished in Leicester).

It's funny sometimes how you still see your friends as being students even after they've moved on with their lives. In 5 days Sachin will be taking his 'oath' and will officially be a criminal defense attorney. In 15 days my ex housemate, fellow MA alumna, and in general one of my best friends, Zainah will be getting married in Syria. This kind of news usually travels in threes, but for now I just have those two updates! At the end of the day, they're still my schoolmates, and after all the education and hard work, we're all just a bunch of big kids behind closed doors (and for some of us, not necessarily that big!). Many of the friends I made in Leicester are to date some of the closest ones I have in my life - even though we are all over the world at the moment we always find a way to reunite and keep in touch. It really makes a difference when you have people of quality in your life.

Last week was my friend Lia's birthday. Most of my friends here are actually from the Master's program in the Communications department. They're still older than me, but not as much compared to my PhD colleagues so I prefer to socialize with them. It will be sad when they all graduate in September though...luckily there are one or two PhD students who are closer in age to me, and I'll be moving in with one of them in September: Kheira (pictured below with the glasses). I'm actually excited to be in a bigger flat and to have some company - living alone is not as fantastic as it seems! It's nice to have privacy but I've realized (and maybe this is after spending 24 years living with people) that company is much more important, especially when it's the right kind of company.

The girls on Lia's birthday

My beautiful building on a sunny day :)

Sachie!

Most of the Masters' students + about 4 phds

And before I go, just a quick update on my upgrade process. My upgrade viva is scheduled for the end of this month, so hopefully if all goes well I will officially be a PhD student rather than a candidate, and I can start to arrange my fieldwork for September. I don't think I've mentioned this before, but a viva is when you have to meet with a panel of faculty members who asks you about your research, and the work you've done this year, and judges whether or not they think you are competent enough to see your doctorate through to completion. So yes, it sounds like a big deal, and it is. But I'm not all that scared about it - in fact I'm quite confident that the upgrade will be a very helpful process. Even if I'm asked to make some corrections, it's not the end of the world, and actually it will be a good opportunity to get insight from other faculty about my work. To be honest, the worst part was trying to get my thoughts down on paper (10,000 words worth of paper to be exact). And now that I've actually managed to put together something worthy of submitting to my panel, everything else seems like a breeze.

On second thought...make that a chilly, rainy, British summer breeze. But a breeze nonetheless :)

Surprises

As most of you know, I decided to 'drop' in on the 11th as a surprise visit for my mom's birthday. Everything went exactly as planned. My sister and brother-in-law picked me up from the airport, brought me back to our house, and just as my mom was lighting the candles on Cassia's birthday cake (she's my cousin's daughter who happens to share my mom's birthday) I walked into the house, covered in tissue paper and a bow!

Usually, my mom always gets a 'whiff' of these sort of things and spoils the surprise. At Christmas, she manages to find where we hide her gifts, or she 'accidentally' picks up the phone while we're secretly devising our master plans to shock her. This time though, nothing was prematurely uncovered, and we finally succeeded in genuinely surprising her (and my dad!). I was really fortunate that my brosin (brother-cousin) Darin, his wife Sarita and their baby were also able to be there and we celebrated her first birthday together.

All in all, it's been a very lovely trip. The sun has been shining all week, it's been relatively mild (compared to Leeds!), and I've spent some much-needed quality time with my family. I was meant to fly back to England this evening, but due to the volcanic ash over most of western Europe, that is not happening anymore. To be honest, I'm not sure when I'll be able to leave. Luckily this time I flew in through Manchester, which is near Leeds and as such a lot more north than London. They are more optimistic that flights to the north will resume earlier than to the south, so hopefully by Friday or the weekend I'll be on my way back. To be honest though, being forced to stay for a few extra days has been a nice little gift. I've also managed to get quite a bit of work done here as well. Something about being back in my room, at my desk has been conducive to working. I brought all my marking with me and finished it, and now I'm working on my upgrade document (which is not quite as simple to finish as the marking!).

I have to say that I am so impressed with the progress of the students I have taught this semester. The first essays they submitted in February were very poor quality. When I realized how much help they needed, we started to go through essay writing tutorials during the seminars. Just basic tips with referencing, paragraph structure and argumentation. While marking their second essays these past couple of weeks, I was shocked at how much their writing had improved. They really paid attention in seminar and applied what they had learned to their own work.

It just goes to show you what little it takes to make a difference (and how enjoyable marking can actually be when you have good work to evaluate!). I've always believed that education is the answer to so many of the problems we encounter. But not really because of any amount of knowledge or material you may come across in your studies. There is an endless amount of knowledge to gain even within a single subject, and it's impossible to try and absorb all of that material in a lifetime. What is most valuable in education is not all of the information it provides access to, but rather how it cultivates one's ability to understand that information. And maybe you've experienced this too in your own daily lives, where someone is trying to explain something to you, or you're reading a book and suddenly it clicks, and you figure out what is being said or how something works - and you shout "I get it!". We derive so much satisfaction from 'understanding' rather than just 'knowing' information. It's the moment when we finally figure out how to operate our DVD player, or how to write a good essay that we feel a sense of accomplishment.

Sometimes in academics, we get so caught up in the content, that we forget about the importance of understanding. It can often feel like a big race to see who can absorb the most material the quickest. One of my favourite quotes from Malcolm Gladwell, who has authored The Tipping Point, Blink and Outliers (all must-reads), states: "The key to good decision making is not knowledge. It is understanding. We are swimming in the former. We are desperately lacking in the latter". I couldn't agree with him more.

It's beginning to look a lot like....

CHRISTMAS!!! I love this time of year. And as hard as it is, being away from home, there have been so many festive decorations in the city, and activities happening to keep me excited in these last couple of weeks here. Every year in Leeds, the month leading up to Christmas brings a German Market to the town square. Every night you can take a walk into town and indulge in some mulled wine or German truffles. You really feel like you've run away to some small Bavarian town when you walk around! In January, the market is replaced by a giant, outdoor skating rink! I remember seeing it last January when I visited Leeds after my graduation. This time I'll get a chance to actually skate on it!

A few weekends ago I went to London with some of my Leicester friends, and spent most of our time walking up and down Oxford Street - one and a half miles of all the shops and department stores you could possibly want. They had some really beautiful decorations up as well - the department stores like Harrods and Selfridges always have themed 'holiday' showcases. In hindsight, I wish I had taken more pictures, but the traffic on the weekend was life-threatening. And I'm not really talking about the cars - I mean the people! They were everywhere, sometimes I was at a complete standstill on the sidewalk, waiting for the crowd to shuffle their way forward and escape into one of the shops.

On Saturday, we ventured out to the Notting Hill district to visit another famous stretch of road called Portobello Road. It was very unfortunate that there happened to be a torrential downpour at the same time - and I nearly drowned in the rain trying to get there! Luckily though, once we got there, we came across a never-ending block of antique stalls. Turns out, on Saturdays Portobello Road turns into Portobello Market - the world's largest antique market! Antique shopping isn't really my forte, but it was still a different experience to visit some of the stalls and browse through all the bits and bobs (most of which cost more than my rent for the month!). Sorry there's only one pic, as you can tell by all the umbrellas and chaos, it wasn't the most conducive environment for photography!

Other than that, things have been normal out here - the PhD is going well. Unfortunately my TA duties are almost complete for this year (aside from the 40 papers I have to mark in the week before I leave!). I haven't found any teaching jobs for next term as yet. I know some of you have been asking what my research is all about - and I think I'll have to work on writing up a post about exactly what it is I'm studying here! The problem with that is, I'm still figuring out the best way to communicate it myself, it's an ongoing process, one that I hope to share with you in the weeks to come.

Hope you're all enjoying the holiday season - can't wait to see you in two weeks!

(I've got some leftover pics of Leeds and the campus that I never got around to posting, so here you go, enjoy!)

This is the Roger Stevens building - I pass by it on my walk to town and just think it's really pretty. :)
This is the Parkinson Tower, the landmark of our campus (you can see the tower from almost anywhere in the city - really good for people like me who can't navigate!). Inside is the Brotherton Library which looks exactly like a typical traditional English library you would imagine to find here)
Remember how I said churches have been converted into all kinds of other buildings? Well, this one is a nightclub called Halo. I've never actually gone to one of their events - but they do hold one called Midnight Mass on Saturday nights...really odd, I know.

This was back in October, in my friend's car on our way to Leicester. I thought it would come in handy when I need a reminder of what the sun and sky look like. Smart thinking...

Back to the Beginning...

Hello from Leeds! I’ve been in the UK for nearly two months now and I thought it was about time to sit down and give you some updates. I have to admit that in comparison to Leicester, it has taken much longer to settle into Leeds. I think in part because the campus and the city overall is just so much bigger than I’m used to, but also because the pace in the UK is much slower than we’re used to in Canada. It takes three times as long for the same correspondence to go through here in comparison to home! Overall though it’s been a smooth transition, and there is something I find really fun and exciting about settling into a new place and starting all over again. I’m still discovering new parts of town, and some of the shortcuts through campus (mostly by accident because I do have a tendency to get lost easily!).

So let me start with the PhD. I really have no complaints at this point. There is a completely different dynamic to being a PhD student in an academic department versus an undergrad. First of all, we are treated more like part of the staff than the student body – we have two PhD offices and access to the staff rooms and resources (I am taking full advantage of the free ‘perks’ that come with all this access by the way!). The faculty see us as their colleagues and we have a very informal and amicable relationship with them. My two supervisors in particular have been extremely helpful in providing guidance for my research. One of them even offered me a teaching assistant position for her undergraduate class and I am really grateful for the opportunity and thoroughly enjoying the interaction with the students. My colleagues are all much older than me – some of them are married, some have families of their own – and almost all of us are international students. At times it can be intimidating because many of them are bringing years of industry experience to the table and have published research and/or attended conferences. So I do feel like I’m a bit behind in that regard. But it was something I had considered beforehand, and on the positive side even with all their great experience, I’m happy to report that the majority of them are approachable and friendly, and very willing to provide whatever advice and support they can. The nice thing about doing independent research is that the level of competition isn’t as high as it can be in other fields. There is a strong sense of camaraderie amongst us and it’s been very reassuring.

At this point, I’m not really considered a full PhD student. I’m still what they would call a provisional PhD - or a PhD candidate. By next summer, I have to go through an ‘upgrade’ process, which involves me submitting a small portion of my thesis (called an upgrade document) and having it reviewed by a panel. Then I have a kind of interview called a viva where they ‘grill’ me about my research (it does have a very ‘scary’ reputation around here...) and if they’re pleased I am upgraded to full PhD status in my 2^nd year. Everyone in the department categorizes themselves in terms of whether they have had their upgrade or not so it’s a pretty big deal and that is my goal for this year – to have my upgrade document completed by June. I’ve also got other duties like attending PhD seminars, conferences, and other training sessions.

Now onto more personal details...I really love my place. Leeds used to be (and arguably still is) a very religious city. There are an infinite number of really old churches throughout the city that have been converted into nightclubs, office spaces, and...accommodation! That’s right people, I live in a really old church. From the outside, the building is this massive gothic structure with iron gates and old, glass windows. But inside, they have built self-contained studio flats that are quite modern. Mine is really tiny (we have an expression here when a place is small, you say “you can’t even swing a cat in there” and that pretty much describes the space of my room) but it’s perfect for me. I have my own bathroom and small kitchen area, and I don’t have to worry about security or utilities. But the best part for me has to be the old cobble-stone road that I live on (although I would argue it’s more of a cobble-stone hill because the incline is ridiculous – I am going to have great legs by the end of this year!). Both sides of the road are lined with these massive trees and my room faces out to the road. In the morning, it is so quiet outside – all you hear is the sound of little leaves shivering on the trees and birds chirping (there are the cutest little bird houses nailed to some of the trees on the front yard). It is one of my favourite things to do in the morning, to lie in bed and just listen to the soundscape going on outside my window! I really couldn’t have asked for a nicer place to live in for my first year here. Oh and it is so convenient and close to the city centre and main campus buildings (the city centre by the way, is a thing of beauty and I will have to rant on about all the wonderful shops and buildings at some point). I’m no more than a 10-15 minute walk from most places though.

I guess if I really had anything to complain about it would the social side of things. Leeds is supposed to be one of the liveliest cities to live in, and it definitely looks like there is a lot going on in the city centre...but I haven’t really made too many friends to explore it with. I think it’s a bit harder when you live completely by yourself because you tend not to take as many ‘risks’ (not the dangerous kind). I’ve actually made a few trips out to Leicester for Thanksgiving and Diwali to visit my old friends there, because it gets a bit lonely here sometimes. Anyways, everything takes time and it’s actually given me a chance to focus a lot on my research and teaching which is always a good thing.

The weather has been surprisingly cooperative since I’ve been here. There have been the typical rainy and grey days but for the most part, the temperature is quite mild, and whenever we do have those lovely sunny days with blue skies I make the most of it! Pictures are coming soon – I’m just waiting for another day of nice weather to take them!

Miss you all so much! Hope you’re doing well, more details to follow in upcoming posts :)

Officially a Magister

It's been two weeks since I returned from my graduation trip to Leicester, and I am still a bit jet-lagged and 'heart-lagged'. I was incredibly fortunate to spend time with all my friends again, but it was also very difficult to say goodbye. They are like family to me, and leaving them never feels quite right. Thankfully some of them are coming to Canada in June for two weeks and I am counting down the weeks!

Graduation was a very momentous occasion for me. I remember the summer before I left for Leicester, I had framed and mounted all of my highschool and university degrees on a wall in my room, leaving a space for my Master's. And now the wall finally feels complete. Of course it's not the degree itself that matters, but the hard work and dedication it represents. The ceremony was somewhat dissapointing, in terms of the speeches and procession, but having the opportunity to officially be awarded my degree was still special. Even though it was only about 5 degrees outside, Z and I took some pictures on campus. We also went for a celebratory dinner that evening with all of our friends at San Carlos, an Italian restaurant in town we used to frequent last year (for the delicious food and Italian waiters...).





We also made a day trip out to Leeds, where my friend Bindy is originally from. I've always been interested in doing my PhD at the university there as well, so it was nice to go and see where I may end up one day. Leeds is a city in Yorkshire, which is about 1.5 hours north of Leicester (and VERY north from London). In comparison to Leicester, it's also a few degrees colder, and many degrees nicer! Leeds is actually the third largest city in the UK in terms of population (after London and Birmingham), so it's become quite a commercial centre. I've never been a big fan of the busy city life, but there's something very traditional and charming about Leeds. Z actually put it well when she compared it to Montreal. The city centre is comprised of so many historical buildings - there's a very European aura there. I've always found London to be overwhelming for me - it's a nice place to visit and spend a weekend, but I think the city would swallow me up if I lived there. Leeds on the other hand is still a big city, but it's more intimate manageable. I think after visiting so many different cities and countries, I've developed a keen sense of knowing when I feel comfortable somewhere almost immediately. Leicester always felt 'right', and Leeds does too! Who knows, maybe sometime in the near future I'll move out to Leeds for a while (to the dismay of my parents!).


I mentioned in my last post that I'm teaching at a learning centre for kids these days, and it has been such a learning experience for me. The truth is, I probably learn just as much from my students as they learn from me! What I always find terribly ironic about this whole situation, is that I've never been very 'good' with children. I never know what to do with them, how to interact with them, I am completely missing that maternal gene all women are supposed to have. Somehow though, I enjoy teaching these kids! We always have something to discuss (their work) and it gives me such purpose to help them understand difficult concepts, or suggest ways to improve their work - at the end of the day, I feel like I've made a positive contribution. It's true, not all of them are darling little angels! Some actually try my patience quite a bit, and I welcome the challenge because it keeps me on my toes. Actually I've noticed that a lot of this younger generation is really zoned out! Sometimes I feel like I'm talking to a ghost with these kids - their thoughts are completely elsewhere. But, like Eckhart Tolle suggests, I stay present for them, and hope that energy reaches them eventually too.

I'm going to end off here today, but I hope you all have a wonderful long weekend (I have a very special guest coming to visit me and I will tell you all about it next time!).