triskellian

A group of us in Oxford got together and ran a stay-at-home roleplaying con. We invited some out-of-towners and others who live nearby, solicited and wrote roleplaying games, and planned board games and social events.

I played in three roleplaying games, ran one, went to two gatherings, one barbecue, and several river swims, and saw loads of great people, many of whom I don't see often enough, and the whole thing was all kinds of awesome. But the bit I want to talk about is the GMing.

( Talk about roleplaying below )

I've been in London for the last few days, treating kauket and zenithed like a hotel while going to Colindale to read magazines(*).

(*This is actually work: the British Library keeps most of its newspaper and magazine collection in the Colindale Newspaper Library, and if I'm going to eventually write a hundred thousand words about magazines, I have to read some at some point. Apparently.)

In between the research, I squeezed in lots of tasty food of various types, cooked by zenithed, Wagamamamamama, and a local pan-mediterranean-type restaurant, and kauket and I, with her friend Z, went to a different bit of the BL for some scifi-themed comedy and music (highlight: realising that the Doctor Who geek, who was very funny, was rather a lot like we are about Buffy).

( But, fantastically fun as all that was, that's not what I want to write about. )

This evening, I've been to the first event of my life as a doctoral student: the school of Arts and Humanities' first session of "research training". It was kind of strange and unstructured, consisting mostly of the professor who was leading it giving us random pieces of advice as they struck her. There was wine, and nibbles, but no chance to mingle or chat with the seven other students, although each of us got to talk to one other, in a "give the five-minute version of your research" exercise. The one I got allocated seems nice, but I've no idea if any of these people might end up being my friends. And I've been thinking wistfully of first meeting my Women's Studies cohort, a year ago, and of the friends they have become since. I know that, being doctoral students in varying different fields (no others in mine, publishing), our cohort experience will be different, and this makes me a bit sad. I miss my classmates from my masters, all but one of whom have now departed to search for jobs and homes and lives elsewhere, although today I've been talking to the one who remains, and am seeing hir later in the week.

Incidentally, I still don't officially have an offer of a place, although I've been assured today that the relevant letter is just awaiting signature before they send it to me. But at some point in the next week or two, I'll have to work out how I'm going to start doing this.

( What I'll actually be doing (skippable!) )

*Five years because I'm doing it part time, sticking with the day job two days a week. This will be the first time in my life as a mature student that both the things I'm doing are part time, and I'm very excited about it. In theory, this means I will be able to maintain an actual life as well as the job and the research. Yes, I know this is ridiculously optimistic, but please don't disillusion me yet.

...One which ends with a load of new handspun yarn, a swimsuit and a towel, all hanging on a clothes airer to dry :-)

In between the spinning and the swimming, I went to a mini-festival at the allotments round the corner, where I bought vegetables and books, and saw birds of prey; did a load of sock- and jumper-knitting; ate sweet and sour prawns with strawberries (strange, but not un-nice) at metame's birthday meal; walked along the river with smiorgan; saw two episodes of season 2 of The Wire; read half of Swallows and Amazons; cooked yummy stuff-I-found-in-the-fridge risotto, and still felt like I had a decent amount of time at home doing nothing in particular.

(Next weekend, being the Reading festival, will be rather more action-packed and rather less restful ;-)

Joy: I swam in the river twice this weekend. This is a consolation for the fact that the weather is really too hot for me. (Note to universe: no hotter please!) (Note to self: arranging picnics is a good way to con friends into being bankside emergency crew.)

Irritation: Toilet-flush buttons that are recessed flat with the wall are really hard to operate if you have fingernails that extend beyond the tips of your fingers. (Note to architects/building designers/plumbers etc: please don't use them. I'm hardly the only person in the world with long fingernails.)

This weekend I blended some fibre, and spun some yarn:

This entry posted from the eeeeeee, running eeebuntu :-) Next up: seeing if it works with the wireless at work...

( How it was done )

I have:

• An offer of a college place to accompany my faculty place: I will be at Linacre, which was my first choice for not much more reason than: it's a graduate college, it has a pretty building, and it's on the correct side of town.
• A scary financial guarantee form which smiorgan is going to have to complete to assure them that he's going to be housing and feeding me.
• A sneaking suspicion that the combination of the Women's Studies course and the financial-guarantee-from-husband is rather ironic.

A year ago, I:

• had just had an academic achievement
• had just finished knitting a pair of socks from my handspun yarn
• ... and was about to go away for a week's roleplaying.

Now, I:

• have just had an academic achievement
• have just finished knitting a pair of socks from my handspun yarn
• ... and am about to go away for a week's roleplaying.

For a couple of years, I've been talking about knitting (and latterly spinning and weaving too) over on Vox, but I've been getting increasingly annoyed with it, and realising that it didn't allow commenting from people without accounts was sort of the last straw.

So now, for anyone interested in me talking about doing things with wool, I have a shiny new crafting blog :-)