Update

Man, it's been ages since I updated this. One reason is due to panic-inducing illness I've been suffering since the middle of November, wherein I am constantly exhausted and panic that my ME/CFS is returning. This is kinda scary and has led to some major schedule reorganisation to try and make sure I don't end up sleeping all the time next term. So, I think I'll plan to go into Uni on a Tuesday and Thursday, plan to not work Wednesday and Friday mornings (unless necessary), and hopefully this will mean that I can actually get some work done, which has not really been a theme for the last month or so.




In other news, AMPAL happened and seems to have been pretty successful, Rosetta Issue 7 launched (and some of the HTML will get fixed over the vacation...I am having issues with images and endnotes; yeah for acquiring new HTML skills :D ), and I have a plan regarding the work I need to get done in the next couple of months.


Hopefully 2010 will bring in a new era of effectiveness and lots and lots of work, and remembering to update this thing a little more often :P


And to end, the greatness of international secret santas - I get a load of real;ly cool Canadian stuff:

japan is amazing and gets me a birthday cake (squee!):

and another internet friend finds me an amazing lolcat:

AMPAL 2009

So, today is the start of the AMPAL conference being held at the University of Birmingham.

Edits will occur during the day with my thoughts and opinions.

12.21pm
First panels of the day are over and people are now enjoying lunch.

I was chairing one the panels on Role Boundaries. It was very interesting encompassing everything from Sophocles up to Claudian poetry. I had to come up with a few questions when the Q&A went a bit quiet, which was a little bit of a struggle as I didn't really have any knowledge of the subjects. However, I think I managed to come up with something half-way interesting to ask. All in all it was a very enjoyable panel.

We also have about 7 posters up now for the competition, which should be interesting.

Now for the long afternoon, and the dinner, and the keynote, and the bar.

ttfn.

1.45pm

So the second panel of the day is currently going on. There seems to be a little swapping between panels which means people have at least read the programme (:D)

I am currently manning the desk, which essentially means watching our stuff and surfing the internet. I suppose I should probably read over my paper for tomorrow.

Sunday, 8.25am.

i have eaten too much cooked breakfast and now feel slightly sick. This is not good given my paper is in half an hour.

Anyway, the end of yesterday seemed to go well. The papers went well and the wine reception was good. The poster competition was very interesting. Finally, dinner was excellent (game pie was delish and apparently the fish was amazing). Ken's talk afterwards was very, very funny and involved lots of audience participation :D

More later...

Sunday 11am.

Paper has been given. It seemed to go fairly well overall and a few interesting questions.

The other papers in the panel were interesting, and I will now have to read up on Declamation after the third paper. Unfortunately I had to leave before the fourth paper as my knees decided to play up a bit.

Ovid is the panel after coffee, which Nikoletta is giving a paper in (a PhD student from Durham with whom I did my masters at Cambridge). The three papers are quite closely related in that panel and it should be informative.

Sunday, 5.30pm.

...and it's finished.

Seems to have gone really well and there have been several complimentary comments from delegates.

Time to not think about it for a while before writing all the evaluation reports.

:D

In The Absence Of Having Done Anything...

...have some pics!

And here is a little octopus a friend from the States has made for me (the green one on the bottom). The grey one will be travelling all over the world and meeting people from an internet forum I spend some time on. It will be epic!

The ERI Building and How I Need To Change The World

Today I happened to have a meeting with the head of the Grad School for the College of Arts and Law, so I have finally managed to see and use the new study space provided.

I am jealous. If I could work up here permanently, claim one of the desks with the lockable drawers for myself, and move every class, seminar and Starbucks up here I would be a very happy PhD student. The only downside of working here is the fact that if anything is happening in the atrium it would be a bit noisy, but I guess that's what the ipod is for.

Alas, I cannot and the walk is just too far for me to do even once a day, let alone several times :(

Instead, have some pictures!

Me all set up on the desk:

The bit the IAA postgrads have "claimed":

General computer booths:

General non-computer hotdesking:

Surfing the Google Wave

So through some kind of magic I have managed to get in the preview/beta of Google Wave.


So far, with very few contacts and it only having been open a couple of weeks it's fun but not that useful.


However, there is one wave I am following on using wave as a collaborative learning tool which is generating some interesting ideas, and another which is random academics introducing themselves (which seems an amazing way of talking to people you might never otherwise have heard of).


When more features are introduced and more people are using this, I can see it being truly amazing!


(f.sapsford@googlewave.com)