Oh, Tassimo! Simple Pleasures of A Studious Weekend (and Week)

 Oxford may be one of very few schools where you can be a complete, totally studious geek ---and still be both totally normal and  MILES behind! For the "weekend" (the last four days), I have avoided the Friday/Monday useful, but optional seminars and have been cooped up in my house, writing the "formative assignment" --the unmarked, one-and-only chance for feedback before writing  our four, end-of-term, graded exam papers worth 100% of our mark for the course. They are the four papers that will determine my (hopefully successful) future and PhD (they call it "DPhil" here) application. 

With the exception of 2 hours of kickboxing, 2 hours of taking my broken Samsung Galaxy S3 screen to Vodafone to be fixed, a couple hours of cleaning the house/laundry , two, 2 hours walks with Kiara,(one to the vet at 8am this morning) and a mere 3 hours a night of sleep, it's been study, study, study - and figure out my dissertation plans. In fact, except for kickboxing training, I've been wearing glasses instead of contacts for the last four days in a row (a rare occurrence!)

Tassimo  has been my saviour!  Thanks to Aunty Viniti and Uncle Steve who gave me this generous gift! While I had a Nescafe "Dolce Gusto" when I lived at home in Edmonton, this Tassimo T40 is much better, with a greater variety of flavours and stronger brews of both tea and coffee, as well as hot chocolate. So far, Kenco espresso (using my own milk to make a cappuccino), Carte Noir Latte, and Chai Tea Latte are my favourites, but look at the variety I get to choose from! Now, all they have to do is get Illy, the smoothest Italian coffee, to let them make Illy T-Discs...and we will really have PERFECTION!

My Illy Espresso Can! 

Now, as much as I'm trying to be on as protein-high, low fat, low-ish carbs diet as possible (Varsity Kickboxing Match against Cambridge in under 6 months!!!), I will admit that this weekend has involved my deepest sin ----Nutella! (on the lowest calorie bread slices I could find). Trust me, there's something to be said about Nutella and extreme studying energy! (that, or it's just a really great excuse).

 

Week 6 was one of the most intense, exhausting weeks I can imagine. In fact, on the subject of linguistics and "codeswitching" (words from one language to another during the same sentence/conversation), I think the French word "epuisé" more fully conveys my feelings! Plus, I still have to review my notes for Weeks 5 and 6 tonight , and prep for my Week 7 (second) meeting with my supervisor tomorrow morning. Is it only Oxford that "numbers" the weeks of term?

Handing in my formative assignment ("How Fluently Can L2 Learners Speak?: Evaluating Definitions & Measures of Oral Fluency in SLA Studies") last night and receiving comments on it this morning made me breathe a sigh of relief. The comments were exactly what I thought the essay needed myself ---more examples and definitions of researchers' terms in the four studies I chose to analyze --- which definitely could not fit in a tiny 1500 word count. Perhaps I chose too loaded of a question to ask in 1500 words--but the answers I found will definitely help for my Msc dissertation and PhD proposal. 

Good news is ---researching oral fluency in French and its most effective measures is getting really interesting, and I'm looking forward to making this part of my new career. More on Dissertation Fun in my next post!

Good news # 2 ---Week 7 "weekend" will be an awesome break in Dartford, Kent. Kiara is off to Canada Farm Dog Daycare (I'm a raving fan of that place) and I'm off to visit Aunty Viniti, Uncle Steve, Jhaiji and family (you know you've been reading too much literature when the word "et al." comes to your mind before "and everyone."). Family time and perhaps a play in London coming up on the weekend.

Thanks for staying tuned for my update of this relatively dry (though linguistically exciting) week! More to come, soon!