Studying.
I have been sitting at my desk, and various other desks, and on my bed, and at the kitchen table, and I've been thinking and formulating and assimilating (to an extent) all this information we, as law students on the course, have been exposed to. Lectures are a welcome introduction to topics, believe me, but gosh are they fleeting. Oh, what a brief window of interest they open for us! And then the hard work begins. In lectures, I sit and I take notes and I assume I'm making sense of all the words and phrases and images I'm given to make sense of, but of course it's passive learning. And so I have to go away and read and commit myself to hours of thinking about the same things and working out how all those things fit together. It's wonderful, readers! I'm really enjoying myself learning things at university.
But of course the result of all this time-consuming studying is that I get good marks. I am getting good marks and I am very proud and because of that I can truly say that I feel I am spending my time well here. Of course I take time off! Of course I spend time procrastinating, and watching movies, and reading non-academic books, and sleeping and eating and just relishing being able to think. So far I've given in two essays. The first was a 2:1 (a high B) and the second was a 1st (an A). I am enjoying that. And then today we participated in a test in class, multiple choice but quite difficult all the same, and I scored 35/36.
...Baking?
It was Patrick's birthday at the weekend and so I went home for four days. We baked a lovely chocolate cake on Friday, which we didn't finish until after his birthday dinner on Saturday, when I made the ganache and put it on. That word's a link because EVERYONE I told asked what ganache was and I couldn't define it well.
Here's a picture of the birthday boy exercising his self-control with said cake.
It's a pretty big cake, I tell you! It was/is lovely (I still have a slice keeping me company up in Oxford). I also bought Pat an Euler's disk, because he really loves physics and he specifically asked for one. Youtube it and see how they work, they're pretty cool (and heavy).
I got the recipe for the cake here, it is delicious, I recommend you all try it. I am having a lot of fun with the whole baking shebang now I'm older and able to do all that stuff I didn't understand when I was younger.
...Didn't stop me from melting a spatula when making the ganache, though. Moving on!
Coursework obligations
I have a piece of coursework due this Friday, which I am currently part of the way through writing, and two pieces due in three and a half weeks' time, so I'm likely to be quite busy between now and then! However, I will try to write after that, which shouldn't be too difficult as my Christmas holidays start once I've handed those in, so I should be back home for roughly December 15th. This is an exciting last month of my first semester at university, I must say! I'm being careful not to do so much work that I burn out and do terribly next year, but I also want to do well this year because I want a proper foundation year (looks good on CVs and also to any prospective employers to show that I'm trying hard even when it's not completely necessary!
I would put up some coursework extracts but we're not allowed for reasons such as cheating and plagiarism. Sorry folks! Don't hesitate to ask questions if you want to, though.
Happy reading, folks!
Victoria Jane
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