New summer job

Today was the third day of my new summer job. I just wanted to take this post to talk a bit about what I will be doing over the next few months.

From this week until mid September, I will be working in the accommodation office at my university. I have to admit that there hasn’t been a lot of time between finishing writing my PhD thesis and starting this job. I had originally envisaged myself having a nice relaxing break between the two. In reality, it was just a day or so.

My main role with the job will be to deal with first year students applying for university accommodation. This includes dealing with telephone and e-mail queries, working out who is eligible to stay in accommodation and assigning rooms to students. So far it has all been good. Whilst quite quiet at the moment, the pace is sure to pick up in a month or so when exam results are released.

For me, the most challenging thing about the job is the 9am start. I know this is not considered early by ‘normal’ people, but remember, I have spent the last four years going to bed and getting up when I like. I am getting better at the whole sleeping at normal hours thing though, last night I even managed to be in bed by 1am. Tonight I’m aiming for 12.30am! Wish me good luck…

Yet another star performance

A few months ago, I featured in a music video. Last week I posted about a new tv series that I may (or may not) feature in. This week I learned that my acting career has hit new heights.

In a video introducing my university (watch it here), I play a starring role (for all of two and a half seconds (45 – 48 seconds)) by sitting at the front of a lecture theatre. This scene was filmed during the summer and I only found out about it after bumping into a friend on the day. Whilst it was not an actual lecture, thanks to my awesome acting skills it really looks like I am listening intently to what is being said.

update: It appears that I was underselling my performance somewhat. You can also see my right ear at 38 seconds. Hollywood, here I come.

European Society of Biomechanics conference photos

Recently, I presented at my first international conference, the 17th congress of the European Society of Biomechanics held in Edinburgh. Here are some of the photos I took while there.

The conference was held at the University of Edinburgh. The main lectures at the conference took place in the grand McEwan Hall (I think it is where graduations take place). After one of the lectures, I went up to the top-tier of the hall to take a few pictures (despite my aversion to heights). I decided to come down a different way than I went up. However, when I got down to ground level, I found that the exit was locked, requiring me to go all the way back to the top again and down the other way.

Lunch every day in Teviot House consisted of a paper bag containing crisps, a drink, a piece of fruit and a roll. Since these items was randomly inserted into each paper bag, every bag was different! Therefore, I am sure you can imagine the time it took to find the ideal lunch, if say you liked ready salted crisps and bananas but didn’t want an orange Fanta (this is not even taking into account the range of rolls that were available). On the final day, to much relief from all,  delegates were allowed to choose the items that went into their own bags.

In the final 15 minutes of the final session of the final day, it was my turn to give a presentation. I think it went well overall. I got asked some interesting questions from the two chairs (the people who chaired the session that is) at the end.

After one of the sessions, I went round the city centre.

Edinburgh has many good street entertainers/artists, including this guy below who you can see getting pulled over by the police in the background. I don’t know what happened to him since he wasn’t there when I returned later. I guess he didn’t have a licence and just got asked to leave.

I also saw this amazing clock made from flowers…

… and took time to go to the top of The Scott Monument, further testing my fragile nerves. I will post some of the photos I took from the top on my blog later.

On the final evening of the conference, I went to the banquet held in the Dynamic Earth museum. Prior to the meal, we were allowed to wander around the museum exhibits.

Thornbank Gardens BBQ

Last weekend was the annual Resident Tutors’ BBQ held in Thornbank Gardens, one of the off-campus residencies at the University of Bath. I was on veggie burger duty, which was good in the sense that I was not very busy (in the photo below, the large que on the left is waiting for the beef burgers, the single person on the right is waiting for a veggie burger)  and that there was a reduced risk of me poisoning anybody. It was however, bad in the sense that the burgers had a habit of falling apart (hence the tray). Overall, a good day had by all. Even the weather was perfect.

The Bath Award

A couple of weeks ago, I received the Bath Award. This award recognises skills and experiences gained outside of academic study. The application required me to complete at least 300 hours of extra-curricular activity. The experience I used included my work as a resident tutor and SORTED student trainer.

SORTED awards evening

A few weeks ago now, the SORTED awards took place. SORTED is an orginisation at the University of Bath that provides free training workshops for students and I am one of the student trainers (students who provide workshops for other students). As I am also the chair of the student trainers, I was asked to do a speech at the awards evening. Since there were nearly 100 people in attendance, I was naturally very nervous. Thankfully it went ok. Here are a few photos from the evening.