New Life Now!

Dear all,

Finally another post from me! Sorry to have kept you waiting for so long, but as you will understand I have been busy in my new job and by the time I get home I usually do not want to go back onto the computer. Nearly 6 months it has been now: CRAZY!

The weekend of the 2nd of September I moved all my things out of my room in Glasgow. When we had put it all in the corridor it really looked like it was never ever going to fit in the car, but miraculously it did! We even managed to add some of Derek's leftover stuff on top. It was an emotional goodbye for me; saying goodbye to my friends, Glasgow, and my lovely flat in the West End was not something I was looking forward to.

My arrival in Cambridge was joyous however, and it was lovely to move into the wee house with Derek. The house is in an area of the city called West Chesterton, a new-built estate. All the houses are individual (to a certain extent anyway) however, and it is actually quite a pleasant area that is lovely and quiet. The house is really a flat size-wise, but instead of splitting the house horizontally, these houses are purpose built split vertically. That means that downstairs the front door opens into the living room, with behind it a kitchen, and in the living room you take the stairs up to the bath- and bedroom. Some of the decoration is quite horrible, but we still managed to make it quite homely. It is a bit far from work. so over the past few weeks we have actually been looking at moving somewhere else, but it is proving rather difficult to find somewhere where we get the same or better for not too much extra money. I will keep you posted!

Cambridge is still Cambridge, and I do still miss Glasgow terribly (thankfully we will be visiting coming weekend!). I have however made a conscious effort to enjoy my time here; I have joined the Cambridge University Union Society and I regularly attend their debates, I go to a pub quiz with friends every Tuesday night, we regularly have new people over for dinner, I joined the Welcome International Students Cambridge program and met a very nice Chinese student, we regularly go to the local alternative cinema, we go on trips to different places in the area, we regularly visit London to go to the museum and meet up with friends. All in all I am certainly not bored!

Work is about a million times better than the old job, although I do still manage to complain sometimes. The college is a very nice and friendly place to work and my boss is lovely, working times are flexible if necessary, and work is never terribly stressful. What more might one ask for? In recent times my job has become more clearly defined, after I had spent the first months just doing bits and bobs, as I arrived in the busiest time and there simply was not time to teach me my job as well as keeping the college running smoothly. Now however I really am the Postgraduate Administrator, and I deal with all "my students" from admission to graduation. It is a rewarding job, and although I am still craving more responsibility, I am starting to feel good about it. I guess we all have to start somewhere, and this will definitely give me a good grounding if a career in Higher Education Administration/Management is what I want to do, and that is one of the things I am interested in. The fact that the college has mostly international students, about 75%, moreover will help me if I do decide to look for a role in an International Office one day.

Of course I still dream about either going back to uni to do a PhD, or about working in publishing, but both those dreams are, for the moment, on a bit of a back-burner. The former is not financially viable, or indeed sensible when it comes to future career prospects, while the latter is an extremely competitive world I may not actually want to work in. I have decided however that I ought to actively pursue my much more attainable idea of writing for a local newspaper, and I hope to come up with a proper plan to achieve that in the coming weeks/months. It would be a joy to write a monthly book column. I was looking at my new year's resolutions for last year, and I realised that I also still have not joined a political party. One of the reasons, apart from just being lazy, is that I now live in an area I do not know a lot about and I have little affinity with, which makes me feel less inclined to get involved, but it is another one of these things I might do one day!

Talking about politics; Derek and me are both going to an event at the House of Commons in March. It is a local "Glasgow Alumni from after 1980" get-together organised by Liam Fox MP, and I am really looking forward to it. It is a bit daunting, as most of the people there will probably be established business people and the like, and we were asked to "bring our business cards", but it will be a good place to meet new people and to 'network'!

I have been trying to organise a reunion with my friends from my exchange year in Glasgow, so hopefully that will soon go ahead. I have not seen some of them in years, so it is a very exciting prospect. It looks like it will take place in Paris, as two of them already live there, and it is easier to get to than Glasgow.

Much too long a post from me! Hope you are all well!

Lots of love, Mariken