My Homework - Halloween at Home

I go crazy with the Halloween shopping every year, but this year it was slim pickings - and also I didn't have as much time to shop, so my contribution to this year's Professor Z Homework assignment is very small.

I did however find one cool thing in an unexpected place. In the pet section at poundland I found these fleece blankets with spider and bat designs:

I brought 4 - 2 bat and 2 spider ones. They are really quite small so I really want to make them into a patchwork throw. I already have a black fleece blanket and some leftover purple fleece (somewhere in a box...), so I just need to buy a small amount of white fleece fabric and then I will try be able to start stitching.

This is my design, please ignore the MS Paint drawing! The spotted bits are the pattern fleece blankets.

Hopefully it will be ready for next Halloween!

A Special Occasion Of Sorts

This post is very long overdue but it seems to have come at a fortune time, to allow me to participate in Sophistique Noir's monthly theme, albeit in an unconventional way (I know it's been ages since I did an outfit post, I've been so lazy lately).

 

I've finally opened my Etsy shop! I talked about doing so last year when I started making chokers. I would have done this sooner but you used to need a credit card to open an Etsy shop and I can't find mine anywhere (I put it somewhere safe...). Luckily you can now link it to a paypal account instead.

My shop is called Flightless Phoenix Designs, a name I've been using at craft fairs and so on for a few years with my sock animals and other hand-made things.

This is the logo I'm using for now. I know it's very rough but I'm no artist, I drew this on a lunch-break at work and edited it in photoshop. The font is based on a vintage typography sample from The Graphics Fairy. I'm sure I'll have to pay an artist to re-draw it for me if my shop takes off, but fortunately I'm lucky enough to have plenty of friends who'd give me mates rates =]

At the moment there are only a few things in my shop, but I'll try to add more soon, and take better pictures too! If there is anything you'd like to see, please leave a comment below!

As a reward for all my lovely readers I've made a 10% discount code for you. Enter BLOGLOVE1 at checkout to get money off =]

Now I'm off to read the other posts for this monthly theme =]

Monthly Theme: Purple!

 This month's theme over at Sophistique Noir is purple! Which I love, because purple is one of the colours I wear most often (black technically being not a colour but the absence of one).

I only remembered the theme this morning though, which left me with limited options because the washing pile is rather large at the moment!

I did have these purple tights and a strap top in almost the exact same colour clean though so I built the outfit around them.

What I'm wearing:

Purple strap top: New Look, Christmas present
Tights: New Look, Christmas present
High neck top: Charity shop £2.50, I added the belt because it's a little baggy!
Fluffy cardigan: New Look, Christmas present
Skirt: Black lace skirt and petticoat layered over each other; I've never actually worn these together before which is odd because I've had them both for years. I quite like it though; what do you guys think?

I was getting ready to take the picture when I noticed the little mousie sitting on the table, he seemed to be saying 'I'm purple too!' so I picked him up! I wrote about him in yesterday's post, I'd love to know what you all think of my first attempt at a none sock toy!

I wish I'd had a better purple outfit to share! Do you like wearing purple?

Password? Mimbulus Mimbletonia!

Sorry for my long absence, I've been busy busy with Uni work and also...

I've been at Hogwarts!

The Warner Brothers Studio Tour London; The Making of Harry Potter was wonderful. It's the perfect museum for a Harry Potter fan which me and Ash both are! I got there and realized I'd forgotten my camera, but luckily my friend Kelly took looks of photos! I won't post many here in case any one is looking to go; I don't want to ruin the surprises!

I will however show you how big the Hogwarts gates are, how small I really am, or a combination of the two:

I know I promised photos of me and Ash playing quiddich in my homework, but there was a line of school children an hour long so we didn't go flying, in fact as per usual getting a photograph of Ash at all is difficult! He has a talent for avoiding cameras! Kelly took this one without him noticing =P

We were going to go on to London for a few days, but unfortunately we couldn't afford to, hotel prices in London are extortionate and we decided that we'd rather stay home, relax with some new video games and have Chinese take-away for tea =] We might go away somewhere more locally later in the week instead.

I'll leave you with a photo of all of us (except Ash who took the picture) on the bridge, one assumes from before Neville Longbottom and Seamus Finnigan got their hands on it =P

Status Report and Homework.

Love What You Do



Thank you to Trystan for this topic! Visit her blog and take part here

(warning this post is a lengthy ramble, because I found it very hard to write. Feel free to skip down to the tl;dr section at the end!)

Paid work; I'm a web-monkey, a very chilly one!

The paid job I have now was obtained simply to provide the necessary funds to allow me to complete my PhD, I think I was unbelievably lucky to find it too. I love working for a small company, I love that I work in IT and Photography despite having no qualifications at all in either, I love that very little of my work involves dealing with the public, I love that my bosses are understanding about my PhD and thus my hours are very flexible, they don't care how I dress either.

 If the office wasn't so cold in winter I would happily stay working there for the next 3 or 4 years while I finish my PhD. I know that the temperature of an office is a silly thing to change jobs over but the days of not feeling my feet and typing in my mittens have really taken their toll on me this winter. I think my health is suffering and I worry about the long term impact. So unless they heat the office better; which I doubt (the big boss doesn't feel the cold, but does see the electricity bill). I will be looking for a new job before next winter.

Volunteering; history nerds paradise

 My unpaid job, volunteering for the Moseley Society Local History Group is fantastic, I'm getting involved in local history, finding out about fascinating people, discovering the transferable nature of the skills from my paid job to the field I really love. It's really helping me be inspired again too. Also I'm making connections with people who could offer me a job one day in the future if my ultimate academia dream doesn't come to fruition.

PhD of doom; you don't have to be mad or morbid to do this but it helps!

I've been really struggling with my PhD the past few months, I'm working on a very theory dense chapter which means fighting my way through other people's confusingly and often pretentiously written textbooks in order to decipher their theories about landscape, ritual, monuments or power, try to get my brain around them and apply them to my vastly different case studies. It's hard and it makes me feel stupid. Feeling stupid is not good for a researcher; it makes me feel as though I'm not worthy of my PhD. I'm still slogging away though, slowly, oh so slowly and I'm sure I'll get there in the end. In fact I wrote 2,000 words yesterday so hopefully I can keep that up, If I do that another 3 days in the next week, I'll have the chapter done in time to meet my supervisor!

The fact my university is closing my department and my supervisor might leave is really not helping my motivation. I couldn't even bring myself to apply for funding this year because I would have had to lie on the form. One of the sections was '100 words on why the University of Birmingham is the best place for you to study'. The truth is it’s not, I wanted to put;

 ‘I have dedicated 5 years of my life to this university already and I'll be damned if you closing the department and my supervisor threatening to leave is enough to make me uproot my whole life to another city. I've been working to pay for this PhD myself including all my fieldwork trips and a Human Osteology course because you cut that from my masters without the courtesy of telling me. Please just give me a break and hand me some money so I can live like a decent human being for a year whilst I write up my findings?' (100 words)

I didn't think that would go down too well though!

I also have things to look forward to though; fieldwork, which I am good at, which I do enjoy. I love finding a headstone that has faded through weathering, tracing the faint letters with my finger or looking at a memorial with missing lead lettering to play connect the dots and work out the inscription (lead lettering is held in with tiny pegs so when it's missing the holes from the pegs are left behind in the shapes of the letters). I love the peace and tranquility of the cemeteries and being surrounded with such beauty.

I need to spend one more day at Cathays in Cardiff, hopefully during March, then in May I finally get to go to Highgate and do my recording in the West cemetery! I'm so excited! The new CEO has been in communication with me to resolve the insurance issues and I can go ahead with my work! The photographs I take whilst I'm there will have to be for research purposes only, but I'll take some when I'm volunteering and share those with you instead =]

 I also have my Human Osteology course in April, a 3 day intensive course in Bournemouth, where I will hopefully pick up some of the knowledge I missed during my masters when the module was cancelled.

The tl;dr version:

My paid job has it's advantages but it's too damn cold there, at least I've lumped my hours into 3 days now to make time for volunteering at the Local History group which I really enjoy.

Sometimes it's hard to remember why I love my research but I do love it and I know it will be worth it in the end. I know more about the topic that anyone at my university, probably more than all but a handful of people in the world. My research, like my attire, is a way of making the fact I will never fit in work for me.

One day I hope to be the eccentric professor in the top hat, lecturing in a slightly over-excitable way about death and burial!

Homework: Date Night




Instead of turning in my Homework, this is an IOU Professor Z!

Me and Ash are celebrating Valentine's day late this year (combining it with his birthday celebrations) and going to London for a few days of wandering around museums, going to The Making of Harry Potter and generally being soppy romantics!

We don't go on 'dates' very often, especially not now we are living together, so It'll be really nice to spend 'quality time' together! Also I'm sure i'll find some excuse to get all dressed-up!

I'll certainly be taking this hat:

Let's hope I don't leave this one at Euston station!

Top Hat: From the Rag Market for £25, it's their children's size and I had to get it ordered in specially, decorated with ribbon and lace from another market stall!

I need to clean my camera lens!

I promise lot's of gooey, romantic pictures on the by the 2nd of March! Or at least pictures of us pretending to play Quiddich =P

My Most Prized Possession

I've been following Le Professeur Gothique's Monthly Homework assignments for a while, but somehow something has prevented me from turning in any homework on time until now.

This month's assignment was really easy for me, the answer was obvious, because although I have a lot of stuff, clothes and books galore, most of those things are replaceable.

The item that I would grab in the event of a fire, flood, horde of zombie etc is more than an object to me, she's someone very special.

Her name is Sandy:

She's a miniature teddy bear. I brought her in a sea-side gift shop when I was 8 for 99p. Since then she has been almost everywhere with me. Sure she's a little grubby (although she does get  regularly washed; I stitch her into the corner of a pillow-case for safety before putting her in the washing machine, twice a year), a bit frayed (see the little hole in her foot?) and her original jacket fell apart years ago (and all of her limbs have had to be re-attached at least once), but she's my friend. She's brought me a great deal of luck over the years (I still sit her on the desk when I do exams) and I'd never be able to replace her.

If I had more time? I'd grab my laptop because having to re-write my thesis would be a dreadful experience!