I'm very close to the end of my degree now - in another two months everything except the paperwork will be finished, and, if I wish, I will never have to sit another exam or write another paper ever again.

Between now and then there is quite a lot of work and a lot of deadlines to get past. Yesterday I found myself starting rather over-intently at the screen and realised that I had not moved from my computer (where I'm writing a GUI in visual c++ in case you're interested) for more than three hours. So I took some time out, went and got a cup of tea, breathed a little and then came back to search the web for something a little more uplifting than SaveFileDialogs.

This is what I found:-

The first step in the acquisition of wisdom is silence, the second listening, the third memory, the fourth practice, the fifth teaching others.

Solomon Ibn Gabriol

It stunned me with its beauty. I feel that I should do something with it - find a beautiful way to have it on a wall at home so that I can be reminded every day. But I've got so many half-finished craft projects I fear that this is also a lesson in discipline.

Due to reasonably poor organisation on my part I have several hours and not alot to do. (I thought that I had a meeting with a Professor, but the Professor disagreed!). University really isn't a stunningly interesting place to be bored in - and I'm going straight from here to tutor book 3 tonight, so I thought that I would take the opportunity to write instead.

We're in the process of playing with the house at the moment - so we've taken the cupboards that we didn't like off the kitchen wall and replaced them with bars that was can hang things from and eventually, shelves, but we haven't got that far yet! Also, our new furniture (sofa and chairs) is arriving on Friday, so we're attempting to get the house far enough sorted so that they will have somewhere to go when they arrive.

The nice thing about all this tidying is that we are getting rid of lots of those things that we never really had a place for, never really used, but for reasons that seem suddenly unclear had decided not to throw away! The exception to this rule appears to be books. We sat down together in front of the bookcase and went through every book to see if there was anything that we could throw away. Having been the whole way through TWO bookcases we found about 10 books that we were willing to get rid of. This was lovely, unfortunately it highlighted that we have more book than shelf.

So off we went to IKEA and came back with yet ANOTHER set of bookshelves, (and had our tea in the process) which I put together this morning. I still don't know quite where it's going, but I do find putting together flat-pack to be oddly meditative, and it's now sorted and looking beautiful, if rather empty.

Unfortunately, to make it to this meeting (that hasn't happened) I abandoned Grant with cardboard packaging strewn all over the Living Room - I find it gently ironic that so much tidying makes so much mess!

Tomorrow is my second anniversary. I will have been married twenty four gregorian months - and they have certainly flown by rather quickly.

Having reminded Grant that tomorrow is our anniversary we are off up to Edinburgh for the night - which we have cunningly turned into a stop-over on the way up to a surprise visit to Grant's family in Elgin. This is one of those last-minute plans, but we think it will be rather pleasant to turn up on their doorstep and we haven't seen them since last December.

We're going to CAMP. Not in Edinburgh, as a treat we're staying in an apart-hotel, which I have NO idea what is going to be like, but I am looking forward to it none the less. But once we hit morayshire we're under canvas. We've bought this rather lovely tent - it's an Outwell Oregon 5 and it's big enough for Grant to stand up in (which, when you are over 2m tall, is a rather novel experience in a tent). We took it to a campsite near Skipton that we knew we liked and it was LOVELY - really well made and pleasant to be in, even when the weather was less than pleasant.

It does however mean that I am currently amassing all those things that need to go into a car so that they can be with us when we camp. So far I've found most of the necessary clothing, but the rest of it is going to require a little more sorting. I think that i am going to abandon it in favour of a cup of tea and bed - it'll look easier in the morning (fingers crossed!)

My exams start next week. I am updating my blog. I wonder if there is a link between these two events?

I had a very interesting meeting yesterday evening. I am on the "Engineering Ethics Theme Team" as a student rep. It has been noticed that really, it would be a good idea for students to be aware of the ethical considerations of their profession, and it would be a good idea to involve students in the process of making that happen. (I delight in the sense that my uni so often portrays!)

Last night was an Ethics Theme Team student network meeting - all of the students involved in the different faculties getting together and chatting about their experiences and what works for them. We sampled a case study that's being written about issues around renovation work in old buildings - the (potential) conflict between maintaining the building using appropriate materials and ensuring that the materials are also environmentally sustainable. Which I found to be fascinating.

After the meeting I had a chance to have a chat with the manager of the centre about the possibility of doing research in a related field - I'm interesting in developing complete approaches to engineering education that consider elements like ethics as a core part of the curriculum. The manager has now gone away to have a chat with the Director of the Centre about the possibilities of such a research placement (the centre just *happens* to be very keen to develop research links!) and it might be that I am going to have an opportunity to do something that makes me smile every time I think about it!

I believe that the purpose of my life is for me to develop qualities that are useful to myself and others. And thus I accept that learning means that once I have mastered the easy bits, the lessons will become more complicated.

This is a lovely, abstract concept. It is unfortunately that reality is never neat - the teenage bedroom of the soul - so to speak. Last year I was registrar for the Baha'i Spring School. We hire a boarding school for the Easter weekend, have between 100 and 150 people turn up, study, relax, be inspired, go away again. My job is to interact with people prior to the event, receive cheques and booking forms, and match up people with bedrooms and courses. The complications that exist is this process are all down to the joys of human beings "I don't want to sleep there", "I've moved my daughter into a different class", "I've decided I am staying tonight, even though I said that I wasn't going to!" etc. and the joys of fellow committee members, who are all involved beacuse they have skills that are different to mine, which means that they too cannot always understand why I make such a fuss when they don't send their booking forms to me...

Last year was my first year as a registrar. And I thought that it went reasonably well, all things considered. So, I thought, I'll be really organised this year, I'll get the booking packs out nice and early so that people have time to register, and everything will have plenty of time, oh how I do laugh! First we couldn't get the same venue we used last year, so a hunt began for the venue. Sorted by December. By now I've written a brand new booking pack, designed to be shorter and easier to use. So now I'm waiting for course information (which MIGHT exist by the end of December) and then, just as the course information all comes together, and we are waiting for price confirmation so that Spring School registration can open the venue retract their offer and we don't have anywhere to hold the school.

Just in case you've missed the point, this is the middle of January (and in the middle of my exams!) and the event starts on 6th April. So, I'm fairly sure that it is dead, after all not only do we now not have a venue but one of the tutors has dropped out as well... but, even as I was informing my assistants that I believed that Spring School was breathing it's last for this year, and would shortly be laid to rest, I got an e-mail telling me that we had TWO other venues to choose between (?????!Q!?!?!?!??!) So last week I went to visit the new venue, which is about an hour down the road from home. And it is truly lovely, and provided that I don't consider that the booking deadline is five weeks away and that registration hasn't even opened yet everything seems fine!

What have I learnt from this? Well, mainly that when I was complaining last year I had no idea of how much more interesting things could be, and that a little bit more compassion and less belief in the perfection of pieces of paper might aid my capacity to serve. As is so often the case, I now find myself being concerned about what next year might hold that I now need to learn!

Friday is deadline day, I've got a project report due in. It is a sign of personal success and development that I can be this close to the end of term and concerned about only ONE of my classes.

I was freaking majorly about it, and then I realised that there wasn't any point. So, whilst I am currently COMPELTELY unaware as to how as I am going to resolve the isssue, I am at least certain that I am going to be able to. *Breathes deeply*

Next Tuesday I head off to Spain for a week to visit an old and very dear friend. It's going to be about 26 celcius, I'm so looking forward to the WARM and it not being dark by four in the afternoon, which is starting to become very wearing. From there we're off up to Scotland to visit Grant's family for a couple of days, home for Christmas day itself and then there is *possibly* a ruhi book to study between Christmas and New Year.

All of which is actually going to leave me something like a week to revise before my exams start in January... I'm debating whether or not to take my optoelectronics book to Spain with me...

I don't feel like I've done anything memorable lately, just alot of rather dull work. I've started picking up Grant's guitar again and reminding myself of the sadly few chords I can play - learning a third instrument might be going to take longer than I was really expecting.

Oh, the weekend before last I had the priviledge of assisting my friends and their two small children pack up their house and move it's contents from Nottingham to Australia. They'd been threatening to emmigrate for the past five years and they are now (I hope) arrived safely. I haven't actually heard from them yet, but I had to send an e-mail today - they've left me with a cheque book to tie up the loose ends, and I've been being suitably efficient and trustworthy. I can't decide whether or not I want to live abroad again, watching someone else move has given me conflicting views on the matter. From the outside it looked like the process was actually quite easy and relatively simple to arrange, and if I ever felt a need or a calling I don't think that I'm afraid to go. But I don't see the reason. Both Komi and Caroline come from Iranian backgrounds, and I understand that the British climate may well have had more of an impact on them than it does on me, but the more I observe, the more I realise that it is not wise to tie one's happiness to any particular place, or one's sadness to it either. It will be interesting to hear from them over the next few months and see how they settle.

Grant would like to go and visit, and I can understand the atraction, they are both lovely people. But I can't currently see a way that will justify me pumping quite that much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere for a holiday (yeah, I know I'm flying to Spain - I have yet to convince Grant that it's worth the 24 hour train journey, and my bank account isn't quite ready for that yet!) But hey, live and learn!

I've been busy lately, which anyone who has spent more than twenty minutes in my company will not find surprising. What has been surprising is how productive my being busy is. It would appear that I am learning how to work smart rather than hard. It's actually been rather disconcerting, instead of running around with a list of things that I haven't done, and wouldn't ever be able to complete without dropping all the important things in my life (sleeping, eating, studying) I find myself faced with a reality in which I am regularly achieving everything on my list.

How have I dealt with this change? I've found it depressing! I'm so used to desperately trying to keep all the balls in the air, that recently I've been angry with balls that haven't been falling fast enough. Following a delightfully frank conversation with Grant last night, I have realised that this is what I am doing, and so now I'm not worried about it - I had been getting concerned that something was wrong. It does not, however, mean that it feels any less strange, I've been playing more music, studying more spanish, reading more newspapers, playing more games, and not because I've been desperately avoiding something, but because, well, I didn't have anything that I *had* to be doing.

All the parts of me that so much want to be paranoid are wondering what is about to happen now that I have freed some space, but since worrying has never changed anything, I'm not paying too much attention to them.



The weather has suddenly turned cold here in the past two days. Several years ago I heard a Billy Connolly sketch in which he explained that there is no such thing as bad weather, there is only the wrong sort of clothes. So, for the first time since I became a student I've voluntarily invested in quality, weather-appropriate clothes. I am now the proud owner of a rather lovely coat, scarf, gloves and hat. I have purchased various trousers and am currently wearing them and relishing warmth. My proudest purchase was two pairs of fleecy pyjamas and a fluffy dressing gown, which means that now when I get up in a cold house in the morning I am now actually willing to drag myself from bed, rather than lying there and refusing to get up into the cold. (At some point I must remember to write about the joys of our irratic boiler, but that's best saved for a day when I am more paranoid/angry and vent at a suitable inanimate object.) The other advantage of these particular pyjamas is that I can comfortably do yoga in them, so there I am, in florescent pink every morning, saluting the sun.

I must start updating more often... there are so many vaguely random things that I could share, mm... I might e starting to get the hang of it.

The reason that I started writing was that I wanted to write about my latest projects. In the past few years the guidance being sent to all Bahá'í communities on the planet has included a focus on three (recently updated to four) core activities that are part of the life of every vibrant community. Whilst I have been aware of them for some time, and been involved in the process, recently they are becoming a more major focus of my activities. The first activity is the study circle, which is a group of people getting together to study a specific series of books which cover a variety of topics aimed at offering people the understandings and skills necessary to become active participants in the development of the community in which they live. The books include reflections of spiritual issues, children's classes etc. and there are seven books in the sequence. I am currently studying book seven, which we hope to complete soon after Christmas. More interestingly, I've been approached, and agreed, to facilitate two different groups of people (One starting book One, and one starting Book Two) in the near future. This will be something new, different, and doubtless provide me with many learning experiences. Grant and I have agreed to do it together, and it's only just now that I've worked out that I don't actually know what I am doing, maybe I'll work it out as I go along!

The second and fourth activities are devotional meetings and junior youth activities, both of which I am involved in. However, it is Children's Classes that are currently involving me. There are children's classes in Leeds, led by a member of my own community (Wakefield). Bets is lovely, swedish, very capable and a university professor. Last year she was assisted by one of the local youth, who is in Japan this year (as he happens to be studying a degree in Japanese, having spent his gap year, you guessed it, in Japan) so I volunteered. Last time we were looking at the latter years of Abdu'l-Bahás life, focussing on his journeys throughout North America. We looked at the story of a group of boys who met with Abdu'l-Bahá, when they entered the room the last to enter was a black boy (what is the politically correct term?). When Abdu'l-Bahá saw him he said "ah, a beautiful black rose" so we talked about racism, and what it is. Then we made black roses with card and pipe cleaners (my idea).

So, getting carrie away with a theme Bets and I decided that our next class (this Sunday) should be a revision lesson to fix things in our students minds, given that they have covered an 80 year period 1844 - 1921. I suggested that we look at the Holy Places of the Faith, because following the developments in Haifa would make us cover the history they already know, and link it with the present day. Bets generally deals with all the content and I get to do the crafty bits. Which is why I now know the chords for "Queen of Carmel" (I've got sore fingers - I don't actually play the guitar, so I've been practising lots, did you know if you try and play the piano after practising the guitar to much your fingers go numb?). I suggested that the best way to learn about the Holy Places was to build models, which is why I now have a half built papier mache mountain in my living room, that I am slowly building into mount Carmel, so that they can make buildings, and put flowers, terraces, paths etc onto it. I haven't had this much fun with wall paper paste in years. If it's successful and I can find a camera, I might let you see the results!

My recent life has actually been quite interesting. Sufficiently so that I have found myself over the past few days mentally composing a blog entry so that I could share it with everyone. Mendon's comment has now galvanised me into action, I do apologise for the length of this, but I hope that it was worth the wait!

I sat, and passed, my exams at the end of August. It was not hugely spectacular, but it was sufficient to allow me into third year, so here I am, still two more years to go.

The second of September was my first wedding anniversary. It was a quietly pleasant day, neither Grant nor myself were feeling exceptionally well, and so spent alot of time sleeping and dosing. The weather was awful, which made me realise how lucky we were to have a smiling sun this time last year. The steady rain successfully drowned any vague plans that we had to go to Newmillerdam (scene of aforementioned wedding) and we sat by a warm fire feeling vaguely pathetic and enjoying the luxury of not having to cook (our anniversary present to ourselves was take away!)

Having had a relatively quiet week the world suddenly realised that we were still here and came to say hello. Having spent the first two years of my university life being useful and friendly I have now become the School of Electronic Engineering's generically useful student. Thus it was that I found myself where a ridiculous red t-shirt yet again and telling more potential students about the joys of life in Leeds. A few more welcome pennies for the bank, and a couple of very lovely professors have started commenting tht they notice that I am always around.

The weekend of the 15 - 17 September I went to a conference on Climate Change jointly organised by the International Environment Forum and the Baha'i Agency for Social Economic Development UK. It was held in Balloil College, Oxford University, where I believe Shoghi Effendi studied for a year just prior to the Abdu'l-Baha's death.

The conference was equal parts interesting and strange. Just prior to going I read a book called "The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight" which I really can't recommend highly enough. It was a delightfully human and surprisingly spiritual look at the issues that humanity is facing. Really, go out and buy it. Infact if you live the UK you can get it here and in the US here (the US version has been updated!). In many ways I found that the conference covered a very similar approach. The difference being that here were people talking about the work that they did every day.

Detailed notes from the conference, including all the talks as audio files can be downloaded from here. Because of the environmental impact of flying many people who chose not to attend the conference because of its location took part in an e-conference, with talks being uploaded onto the net as soon as they had been recorded. I found it delightful to be receiving real time feedback from people thousands of miles away. Equally pleasant was a moving message read out to us from a gathering at the Green Acre school looking at issues of sustainability in education TAKING PLACE AT THE SAME TIME.

Highlights for me - having one of my best friends there (thank you ali) to talk through the varying emotions bought up and a talk on gender and the environment. I still haven't quite worked out why it touched me so deeply, but it was a very interesting hour on gender differences. Focussing not only of different patterns of consumption, but also on the differing impact of major environment disasters. Really, go and listen to it!

At the end of the weekend we got into little groups to make projects that we could take back to our local community. In less time that it took for me to take minutes for the group I had mentally planned an event, that is going to happen eventually, I just don't know how. My plan would be to run an event during the day for kids, lasting a week. So that their parents would be able to drop them off in the morning, go to work, and then pick them up in the evening. I'd get a group of youth to coordinate various activities that all the kids would filter through during the week. Things like assembling and decorating recycling bins for a kitchen, using designs to show which items go in what, which they then get to give as a gift to some one - friends, neighbours etc. Cooking their own lunch, using only fresh local ingredients so that they learn how to prepare fresh food,m and compare that with the waste associated with pre prepared food. Go on a tree planting day. Make map stories of various items - like where does this plastic bag come frm, how was it made from oil, where did that happen? What impact did it have in every place that it visited? Go on a daily walk to visit near by recycling centres and get each child to draw a map of how to get from there how to the nearest recycling centre. Take them tree planting. Have a day cleaning out a local pond. You get the picture, at the end of the week there's a presentation from the children who talk about what they have done, both showing what they have produced and accompanied by slides of the week, for the parents. I reckon the idea still needs some work, and I don't even know any kids at the minute, but I have a distinct feeling that this one will happen and that I only need to be patient.

Oh yeah, and I got a bottle of apple juice for playing violin duets both mornings.

When I arrived back from the conference the next thing I did was spent two days at uni helping out with freshers week. I got paid to play name games with the freshers so that they would have the opportunity to learn each others names, and made them run round the school hunting for pictures of various professors so that they would know where they lived. It was very silly, but rather useful.

By the end of that week I had agreed to be the student representative on the Ethics Theme Team - apparently it has been decided that engineers need to learn about making ethical decisions (I COMPLETELY agree) and that a group is being set up to look into what that would be and how it could be added to existing courses. THe first meeting is tomorrow, oh yeah and I've agreed to mentor a 16 year old lad who is just starting uni.

Beyond that, it's same as ever. The legal case chudders away in the back ground. I've put crocheting my blanket on ice in favour of knitting myself a big scarf for winter. And I tried using the bread maker that we got donated for the first time, it wasn't very successful but the second loaf LOOKS edible, and I reckon that it's just practise.

I've been somewhat busy recently. I hadn't really noticed exactly how busy I've been until I've actually had a very pleasant day doing very little other than a bit of housework, which has just shown me how much I WAS doing!

I finished my work placement two weeks ago, then spent a couple of days with my parents, and very pleasant it was too. Whilst visiting them I discovered that the young people who I was sure were arriving to camp in the field next to the house on Saturday were actually arriving on Friday. We didn't leave Gloucester to come home until 1 am Thursday night / Friday morning and then I've had a week of youth work. We had nine youth aged 13 - 15 camping and using our bathroom and Clive's kitchen and bathroom for a week, I took them on a midnight walk. Actually, that's grossly unfair, I set it up so that they had the map and could walk anyway they wanted to to get home, my job was to keep them safe and make sure that they had the skills to be able to use a map competently.They were excellent, which didn't surprise me, but I reckon some of them were quite surprised at themselves. Then the rest of the week was spent erecting a cabin on the allotment owned by the youth project I work with. Hmm... that wasn't as clear as it might have been, but just about covers it. They got most of the structure up, but I'm popping up most days to finish painting the inside, scrape the paint off the floor, finish nailing roof felt tiles to the outside of the roof, treat the outside walls, finish off the porch etc. I got caught in a thunderstorm up there yesterday, I could tell you EXACTLY where the roof felt still needs to be put up by where the drips came from, but it was quite fun to be painting in the middle of a storm.

All the youth seem to have had an excellent time, and are volunteering to come back and help us build the other cabin. I've also discovered that I'm developing an interesting in learning something about gardening, so once the cabin is set to rights I might start planting potatoes... it all sounds like good fun! And, of course, we now exactly how we should have done it the first time!

Right now I am enjoying the peace of a quiet house, and that delightful sensation which is knowing that everything that I am doing today is beacuse I want to and I could quite happily do nothing. Feeling that free means that I am far more willing to work than when I feel that I should be working, for whatever reason.

Yesterday I ran the Race for Life in Rotherham, it was 5K. It would appear that I have alot to learn about running, because I reckoned that it was going to take me about 50 minutes. I did it in 28, whcih was better than I had expected. It was over 30 degrees C (high eighties if you perfer fahrenheit) and none of the brown washed off when I had a shower, so it may be that I have been a little tanned. For those of you outside of the UK, you probably have little idea how rare that temperature is! If any of you want to sponser me retrospectively to raise money for cancer research then please let me know and I will add your donation to the amount that I am going to send in. The thing that I find odd is that when I woke up this morning it was my SHOULDERS that were hurting!

As a result of the race I have made a couple of decisions - firstly, not only am I going to do it again next year and aim for a better time, but I'm planning to run a 10K as well - there's one held annually to raise money for the local hospice. Secondly, I'm not going running for a month. It might seem a little bizarre, but I want a break, so I'm going to dust off my bike and start riding regularly, as I reckon that having a break will make me MORE keen to run again and the bike will make me use some other muscles.

I'm taking two days off at the end of the week - the last on my annual leave, so go home and actually see my husband rather than pass him as he goes out to work. It just so happens that it will co-incide with a visit from his sister and her daughter, who have decided to come down and visit. It will be the first time that we have seen each other since the wedding last September. Having married someone 15 years older than me does lead to some truly bizarre generational gaps - I'm closer in age to her daughter than I am to Grant and my father in law turned 81 this year! However, it all seems to work so I can't complain too much.

Charlie's coming back to the UK soon!!! I'm desperately attempting to work out how I am going to get to see all the amazing people that I haven't seen in ages - maybe make some new days in the week so that I can fit them all in.