Day
Well, yesterday was a day of catastrophes!
I leapt out of bed at 6.30, all ready for a very virtuous day (after a not-so-virtuous, procrastinatory weekend). The plan was to cycle into college, leaving sometime before 7.30 in order to arrive at 8.00, do my prep for my classes, and then the classes themselves were at 11.30-13.00 and 15.30-17.00, respectively. No problem.
So the first thing I virtuously decided to do, after dressing myself and feeding a mewling Daisy, was to deal with her litter which I hadn't scooped in around a day and a half. That took quite a while. Then I washed my hands and went into my room to change my earrings -- as I left the bathroom I passed Daisy, who mewled at me strangely and ran into the living room. I approached the jewelry box on my bookcase and could suddenly smell something. I looked down just in time to avoid stepping into Daisy's statement that I had taken too long cleaning out the litter tray. Fantastic.
So, after I'd cleaned that up, washed my hands again, and had breakfast, I was running really late. I decided to try and do my study from home and leave at around quarter to eleven.
Well, studying at home wasn't so productive -- I got my prep done for my first class, but made no headway on my afternoon session, which meant I'd have to do it all in my two and a half hour lunch break.
I went out of the house just after ten-thirty with massively heavy panniers with all my books in them, to discover that the chain was off the gears on my bike. I struggled with it for about ten minutes before a good samaritan offered to help. This took an additional five minutes or so as apparently my chain is in need of a good oiling.
I still had no option but to cycle in as planned, as cycling is the fastest way to college and I would have been even later if I'd gotten transport at that point. I arrived into my session five minutes late with greasy hands.
Then I began to get my books out of my panniers. A good number of them were covered with a suspicious-looking white powder. I discovered later that this was washing powder that had leaked during my last grocery trip by bike to Sainsbury's.
There was heavier prep than I anticipated for Criminal in the afternoon, plus I had to run out of college to get money at a cashpoint to buy my lunch, so my "break" wasn't so much so.
In addition to all this, my new cycle to college is not very nice. I have yet to figure out how to get there and back without riding a stretch on the Finchley Road, which is a up-to-six-lane death trap, with roads merging in and out at various odd English angles. After the death trap I get to ride around Regent's Park, which is very nice. But... need to figure out a detour, methinks.
Today is off to a better start. I was in the library at 8.00 and got all my prep done for both classes in an hour and a half, somehow. So I've registered for a free-for-students event on Islam and English Law at the Temple Church in October and looked into registering for the bar conference 2008 but unfortunately it is £125 even for students so I think I may have to pass on that. There's a meeting on mooting at eleven too, so thank goodness today is not as heavy prep as yesterday.
Also luckily, tomorrow is a non-teaching day which should give me time to prep for Thurs and Fri. I've yet to quite get into the swing of this. I better had, soon, we're two and a half weeks in already!
I leapt out of bed at 6.30, all ready for a very virtuous day (after a not-so-virtuous, procrastinatory weekend). The plan was to cycle into college, leaving sometime before 7.30 in order to arrive at 8.00, do my prep for my classes, and then the classes themselves were at 11.30-13.00 and 15.30-17.00, respectively. No problem.
So the first thing I virtuously decided to do, after dressing myself and feeding a mewling Daisy, was to deal with her litter which I hadn't scooped in around a day and a half. That took quite a while. Then I washed my hands and went into my room to change my earrings -- as I left the bathroom I passed Daisy, who mewled at me strangely and ran into the living room. I approached the jewelry box on my bookcase and could suddenly smell something. I looked down just in time to avoid stepping into Daisy's statement that I had taken too long cleaning out the litter tray. Fantastic.
So, after I'd cleaned that up, washed my hands again, and had breakfast, I was running really late. I decided to try and do my study from home and leave at around quarter to eleven.
Well, studying at home wasn't so productive -- I got my prep done for my first class, but made no headway on my afternoon session, which meant I'd have to do it all in my two and a half hour lunch break.
I went out of the house just after ten-thirty with massively heavy panniers with all my books in them, to discover that the chain was off the gears on my bike. I struggled with it for about ten minutes before a good samaritan offered to help. This took an additional five minutes or so as apparently my chain is in need of a good oiling.
I still had no option but to cycle in as planned, as cycling is the fastest way to college and I would have been even later if I'd gotten transport at that point. I arrived into my session five minutes late with greasy hands.
Then I began to get my books out of my panniers. A good number of them were covered with a suspicious-looking white powder. I discovered later that this was washing powder that had leaked during my last grocery trip by bike to Sainsbury's.
There was heavier prep than I anticipated for Criminal in the afternoon, plus I had to run out of college to get money at a cashpoint to buy my lunch, so my "break" wasn't so much so.
In addition to all this, my new cycle to college is not very nice. I have yet to figure out how to get there and back without riding a stretch on the Finchley Road, which is a up-to-six-lane death trap, with roads merging in and out at various odd English angles. After the death trap I get to ride around Regent's Park, which is very nice. But... need to figure out a detour, methinks.
Today is off to a better start. I was in the library at 8.00 and got all my prep done for both classes in an hour and a half, somehow. So I've registered for a free-for-students event on Islam and English Law at the Temple Church in October and looked into registering for the bar conference 2008 but unfortunately it is £125 even for students so I think I may have to pass on that. There's a meeting on mooting at eleven too, so thank goodness today is not as heavy prep as yesterday.
Also luckily, tomorrow is a non-teaching day which should give me time to prep for Thurs and Fri. I've yet to quite get into the swing of this. I better had, soon, we're two and a half weeks in already!