Tenants

Our house is a transit house .

There are 3 bedrooms. The smallest one was supposed to be mine. But as the thought of a 2x3 arms length of a box room as an abode seems unimaginable to me, I managed to get the housemates to let me have the living room instead. The bed upstairs was dragged downstairs. Tried to camoufladge the bed by having duvet covers whose colour would streamline with the rest of the furniture. This huge room - same width as the garden and about 3/4 of the length of the house is all mine..cept that I would need to have it available for functions, get togethers etc. I said truly I don't mind.

Because of the unoccupied room upstairs, we have been having 'unofficial' tenants for the past year or so. There have been two so far...and another one is in the pipe line. These tenants are students who are into their final leg of their thesis writing their final chapters. Finishing a PhD is not a straight forward procedure. Even if you're nearly there,waiting for the supervisor to read your drafts, finding an external examiner and setting a viva date, to say that it can take weeks or month can be anybody's guess but it is usually less than a year. In this small town, to get a place for less than 6 months is ..I dun think so. And it seems the small room upstairs would be a haven for them... and us (for the extra income).

A push and a shove is all I need

After the Bath trip, I wasn't able to get into my 'gear' for a week. Yesterday morning BB2 came into the office. First thing he asked was..

"What are you doing now"

Granted, it's a natural question to ask since I haven't seen him for a week. Tis a good thing that I did do something last weekend. I need the 'spanking' now and then. I am that kind.

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Came home early yesterday evening from work. Had a meagre lunch and was already thinking about food at about 4 in the afternoon. The plan was to go home, eat dinner, watch Big Brother and climb up the hill once again to the campus. Hmmm..I ended up on the sofa with a book(unacademic) instead, silently vowing to set off to work veerry early in the morn the next day. It was quite relaxing really, me-sofa-book-enjoying the view from my back garden. Blissfull. I should do this more often provided that I make full use of my working hours efficiently.

Today, fuelled myself with a big breakfast and lunch. Hopefully I won't need recharging till late.

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The house seems quiet

Visitor left yesterday. There would be no more girly giggles and chatting before bedtime. House seemed defiantly quiet and I'll miss Visitor tremendously. I guess it is true when they say that you will only know a person well until you have lived with that person even if that person is a stranger to you some two weeks ago.

Tidied the room and had a late shower. Was thinking of going to the office but felt that the lawn needs mowing. Have been thinking of the state of the house too much that I cannot concentrate fully on work, so might as well take care of this thing now. It took me a good few hours doing the back and front garden. Trimmed some of the branches away and discovered soft pink roses blooming behind some unruly wild climbing plants. The birds seemed to have a feast on the ground once the lawn was cleared. Finally planted the 'Busy Lizzies' that have been sitting in my room for a few days now. Didnt realize until yesterday that touching soil with your bare hands makes you feel connected to the earth and somehow makes you think about the other world (barzakh). A new found therapy for me.

Day1: Bath- Tadwick Farm for shut eye

At the end of the day, ££ won over niceties. After all that c**p(ownmaking) on taking Victoria hire because the man at the reception is a gentleman and friendly, a friend recommended 'Enterprise'. Enterprise offered a better deal than V.Hire. So instead of paying £65 from Saturday to Monday, got a better price at £45 from Friday to Monday. Plus, Enterprise can pick u up at your choice of location and bring you to their office to get the car at no cost. Cool. We got a Tanned Mettalic Vauxhall Corsa.

Decided on heading to Bath. Started out late after preparing for breakfast cum lunch cum dinner of fried rice and fried eggs- Visitor's idea. Stopped for awhile at the office to make last minute research for the trip. Reached the outskirts of Bath around mid-day. Was driving on the main road towards the city centre, thinking of finding a B&B in town when we passed by a sign that says 'B&B- single track road'...we like intriguing signs and agreed to check out the place! The main road that we were on was a bit winding and it was on top of a hilly plain. There were too many fast cars on the road that we had to drive on before making a careful U turn. At the curb of the road, before making that turn, there was a huge black blanket of cloud hovering above the sky. It seemed to disperse rain what looked like water sprinklers from afar (truly beautiful- SUbhanAllah).

Entered the single beaten track, but made a couple of stops of vogue moments. Who could resist taking pix with backdrop of rolling hills and farmhouses in between the cleavage of the valley, set far apart from each other.

Drove on until we reached Tadwick Farm. We were welcomed by two big dogs that Irene (the Missus of the farm) later assured us that they are just babies. I'm sure they are, with a height up to my waist on all fours! She looked a bit hesitant when we asked if there were any available room for three, hopefully not due to the fact that we wear scarves. But we got in finally. The price was reasonable at £65 for three. We had two adjacent windows at the corner, one overlooking vast sloppy hilly green and the other facing two horses grazing (of which k.TT conveniently called Brownie and Blackie for obvious reasons). It was an en-suite room, elegantly but simply styled.

After namaz, we got back in the car and set off for Bath.

to be contd..

Phewwww

Alhamdulillah. Yesterday afternoon at about 3pm I presented my 2nd year work to the masses. I was the third in line after DaveM and Daniella. Their work was really good and I was a bit worried on the standard of my work. When my name was called, I just stood there, did my silent prayer and started it off. BB2 was really a distraction. His face was like scrunching ..like what the heck is this girl talking about. So, I stopped myself from looking at him. At the end of the session, there was a 5 mins period for questions and answers. Some say that the number of questions could show how interesting/uninteresting ur talk is. I only got one. I was quite dissapointed really.
I caught BB2's eyes when he was walking out towards the door of the lecture room when the seminar ended. He just puts his thumbs up. And I breathed 'yeah rite'. If it's good then why were u making that facial exercise when I was at the podium eh???
At tea, I pulled him to one side and asked his comments on my presentation. He said,
"It's ok. You're more confident than last year"
"But the others are better. Just look at David. I want to be at his standard"
"Maybe you can send me the slides so that I might use it for my talk"
"Uh..ok"
Perhaps, he did approve of my talk that he wanted to use my slides(??). Then we talked about my future work. He is truly cool, my BB2.To tell the truth, I felt at that time that he was just trying to make me happy by saying that I did great. Until this morning that is..
Was about to step out of the room when Takis (the next door greek lecturer whom I feel terribly needs a haircut) was about to do the same. He complimented me on my talk. Not one who trusts compliments, I had to ask, was he sure about his complimentary statement. He then compared me with the others and said that I seemed better prepared than the rest. I don't really care about the way I presented the talk, but what about the research, the content of the talk? Does he think that perhaps I need to really step up on that department? He said, no it was fine and reassured me again. He did looked and sounded sincere. I looked at him in gratitude and said "Thank you Takis. You really made my day"...

Lesson learnt here is perhaps. Yes, you need to be critical of yourself but you just need to take pride in somethings, sometimes. After all, the good that comes out of anything in your life comes from HIM. Those compliments that you get are actually not yours but it is for Allah, so just say thank you for HIS sake with no qualms attached.

Weekend drive

Called Victoria hire today. The very friendly & attractive long haired man who normally mans the reception recognised my voice.

"You're the one who live in Farthings?"

.."Ummm..yeah"
It's not really my address but that was the address I used to rent the car out for the first time back in 2002. At that time, we got a Toyota Avensis which is big enough to move my things from Sheffield to the south east.

"I thought I'd recognise your voice"...

Hmmm..must be my non-sultry non-sexy neither British nor American accent that jogged his memory. It must be one of his lines with his customers. But good for him, I am a sucker for good service and good rapport even if it costs a lil bit more. Am taking the Ford KA for two days. Haven't tried this one so it's going to be doubly fuun.

Nobody seems interested to go but Visitor. But she needs to return to base by 3pm on Sunday to meet a friend who has come all the way from Wales. So, that rules out going further north than Birmingham. I have been looking at the internet for places to visit. Am thinking of Uffington where the white horse lies (not sure whether it's the same horse during the reign of Peter the Great), the Roman bath at Bath, Cornwall, Cotswold...or perhaps we should just take the ferry to Calais. We'll see.

Letting my hair down

I'm entertaining a visitor at home. She's been here since Friday and will be staying for 2 weeks on a working trip at the uni. She's a fun person to be with although i reckon she's a bit older than me. I almost forgot what it is like to let my hair down. Living and breathing PhD has made me lose touch with the outside world somewhat. I just work-work-work, whether I'm working efficiently or not is another matter. I often wondered whether it is healthy for me to be this way. The visitor said that maybe i am the way that I am, because I do not have the 'right' people to chill out. Here, the only person that I know who has my 'drop everything and let go' streak is my Saudi housemate, A. The problem with hanging out with A is that I can only do it once in a while. This is mainly due to my just enough monthly allowance vs hers. It's just arithmetic, £435 of mine vs. £600-800 of hers, so go figure. Last week, after the unsatisfying meeting with BB1, I had to get away. Found myself with A, we had orange/mango/guava + pina colada smoothie with jacket potato + cheese and onion potato skin at the funky juice shop in town (the only hip but tame place - in this wee town of mine- but it'll do). For all that, it costs us £12- and it's not even a full meal. I am thinking of whisking myself away on a weekend retreat after the presentation. Here's hoping somebody would join me.

What do I make of this

Just got back from a meeting with BB1. I'm feeling soooo depresssssssssssssssssed. Nowadays I'm just reporting to him but I dun get the feedback that I want!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! At the end of the meeting, I asked, "Any comment?".. he replied the same thing that he said last week.. "Good. It seems you're working hard"- in that toneless voice. Why do i feel that he doesnt seems to care???? Can't he just say.. you need to do this and that or do more on this and that. Just say anything!!!!

A discourse with DaveM

Had a chat with Dave M just now. We were discussing our worries (my worries mostly) on the development and direction of our PhD. Unlike some other students in our vicinity, both our PhD started with a very broad subject..which is data analysis. No model no nothing. Told him that I haven't been up to the level of being 'opinionated' about things. He said that we will not reach that stage unless we know a lot. Which is true. Although he did say that Jim(junior lecturer) says that sometimes you will not be at that stage even when you are in your post PhD position. DUn want to be that! Dave did ask BB1(we share the same supervisor), how would he know if he has done enough because Dave seems to think that he hasn't done enough because he hasnt got much interesting results. BB1 told him that sometimes to get a PhD, it depends on how you package it ... really aaa??? Dave was putting a picture that we are wearing the 'same shoes' but that I am in a better position than he is, this time last year (he's a year senior). Let truth be told that he is waaayyyy ahead of me. I feel that of course he dabbles with methods but he goes deep into the methods. For instance when he started doing his SVD last year, he somehow rerouted himself to the path of latent variables. While I did similar works on SVD but just stop there because my purpose in doing SVD was to apply it to the data in order to reduce its dimension. FULL STOP. I guess maybe this is where my weakness is, i.e. since I made a full stop there and not a pit stop to go deeper. As a result, I can't even answer BB1 question(till now) of why I did the SVD. The only reason I can give BB1 at the moment is they show consistent results in my clustering which BB1 said "ooo.. that's a pragmatic way of doing it", which certainly doesnt carry any weight in his books. Anyway, the discussion with Dave M was quite enlightening.

Sis may get hitched soon

She textd me yesterday. My first comment to her was Wowwwww.. that's fast. No wind and suddenly the big M. She got proposed along the line of 'Why don't we get married' sort of line. She hasn't really said yes, but was excited anyway. The parents are so into it too. I will be so very happy if she said yes. Truly I don't mind if she wants to go ahead before me. Who knows I might get a car for the 'langkah bendul' gift (dream on!). The parents would be so relieved. It must have been difficult on the folks having 4 girls in the house and wanting them all to be taken care of before they leave this world. Sis said mom wants me home for the wedding. Wish i could but I am up to my neck here. And if I do go home, I'm giving myself max-2 weeks and to get into gear for work upon returning would take another 2 weeks. Am I being selfish here? The only concern of mine is that I feel sorry for mom to have to manage everything alone. Sure, there's Along ..err with her troops, Linda would surely be bz preening herself for the big day.. and that leaves Apai, my youngest resourceful baby sister. Camner ek? Hmmmm... I guess we'll see .. I just might go home and face the 'music' in my stride later.