Pro-babble and percentages
Interesting fact of the day: according to whatever sources David uses for his news programme on Durham student radio (which pretty much consist of the BBC website, I think), in order to say that something is scientifically "likely", the probability of it happening must be greater than 66%. Quite how they came up with 66% is a matter for eternal curiosity! Is there a percentage for all estimates of probability? How statistically probable is "probable"?
I've had rather a nice day today. Sun's been shining, and it was lovely on the water when I went for my walk this morning. The first seminar for my "Rise of Welsh Writing in English" module was interesting, though possibly a little scary - only three of us in the whole group were born in England, and the third girl speaks Welsh and went to school in Wales, so she fits in with everyone else. It's not a problem at all, until we got into the discussion of Welsh national identity and how Wales was oppressed by England, at which point I started to feel not only more English than I've ever felt, but actually guilty for being English, like it's something to be ashamed of. Hopefully it'll be better when we get onto discussing the specifics of texts rather than just talking in abstracts. This afternoon was good as well - I met up with Amy for tea and cake and chat at Treehouse, which was lovely. I had chocolate mousse cake (which the German waitress pronounced as "mouse cake", and thus it will forever remain so) and it was gorgeous... kind of like the middle of chocolate torte with nuts and bits of dried fruit on the top. Amy's soup was nice as well... curried parsnip and apple, which sounds really odd, and looked an alarming shade of yellow-green, but was actually quite tasty. Anyway, hopefully this sunny mood will hang around a bit longer. According to the weather forecast this morning, it's going to be fine and sunny until Tuesday, which'll make a change. I'll have to make the most of it!
I've had rather a nice day today. Sun's been shining, and it was lovely on the water when I went for my walk this morning. The first seminar for my "Rise of Welsh Writing in English" module was interesting, though possibly a little scary - only three of us in the whole group were born in England, and the third girl speaks Welsh and went to school in Wales, so she fits in with everyone else. It's not a problem at all, until we got into the discussion of Welsh national identity and how Wales was oppressed by England, at which point I started to feel not only more English than I've ever felt, but actually guilty for being English, like it's something to be ashamed of. Hopefully it'll be better when we get onto discussing the specifics of texts rather than just talking in abstracts. This afternoon was good as well - I met up with Amy for tea and cake and chat at Treehouse, which was lovely. I had chocolate mousse cake (which the German waitress pronounced as "mouse cake", and thus it will forever remain so) and it was gorgeous... kind of like the middle of chocolate torte with nuts and bits of dried fruit on the top. Amy's soup was nice as well... curried parsnip and apple, which sounds really odd, and looked an alarming shade of yellow-green, but was actually quite tasty. Anyway, hopefully this sunny mood will hang around a bit longer. According to the weather forecast this morning, it's going to be fine and sunny until Tuesday, which'll make a change. I'll have to make the most of it!