Hey. It's been a while hasn't it?

The last time I wrote, it was February, the final semester of my undergraduate degree had barely started. I'd not even begun writing my dissertation. Now, it's nearly November and the year is drawing to a close.

In the intervening months between now and my last post, I graduated from my undergraduate degree. It was rough towards the end and I spent many hours in the library sat looking exactly like the above gif of Casaubon from Middlemarch. However, the panicked hours paid off after I graduated with a first.

I worked over the summer as an administrative assistant in an academic department at the University. It was certainly a learning experience, and I met some people who I really gelled with. The main good thing about working 35-hour weeks was the money, though I did spend the majority of the summer in various points of my overdraft. It also gave me time to reflect on what I wanted to do next. It really cemented my desire to study for a PhD following my MA, which I suppose is the other big 'new' thing in my life. I'm currently working towards an MA in Language and Linguistics, again at Sheffield Uni. So far, it's going okay, I've not completed any assessments yet so I don't yet have a yardstick for my progress. I'm hoping to make more progress on the Spanish project I was working on a few summers back while I'm not super busy. I've got some academic adjacent posts planned for the next few months, including an adaptation of an essay I wrote at the end of last year on accent, dialect and social class in George Eliot's Middlemarch.

Outside of academia, I'm climbing semi-regularly again and I've started Couch-to-5k. In a somewhat maniacal move, I've signed up to run the Sheffield 10k in September 2024 but to be able to do that, I need to be able to run for extended periods. I've recently been working on this orange project. It's fun but it's proving extremely annoying when taller people can come and flash it >:((

The quizzing continues in earnest. Our favourite pub quiz stopped running when the pub closed but the same quizmaster has since taken on a quiz at a new venue. It's the same quiz, but with an added audience participation element as well as access to Proove pizzas. I sense this is a dangerous combination. I'm also writing weekly for the University Arms quiz (would recommend but I may be somewhat biased) and helping to organise a QuizBowl tournament in Sheffield at the start of November. Haven't played a tournament yet this year but hopefully there will be some in the new year that I can play. I'm hoping to blog about the various Sheffield Quiz happenings over the next few month so stay tuned for that.

I've now also decided that I'm going to be taking a year out after I complete my MA with the intention of working in an administrative role. I'll be working full time to support my hedonistic Sheffield lifestyle, but it does mean the city is stuck with me for at least another year. Hopefully, I'll also have time to work on research-related things. I'll be applying for PhDs in that year as well now - so it gives me an extra year to really hone in on what it is I want to research.

Stay tuned to see what I get up to next!