Post #8

Good evening. I find myself drawn to blog once more. Guess I'm enjoying having something to do that I can dictate more of. Also it is a more than ample space to fill with ideas, comments and occurrings.
Earlier today I had the presentation I mentioned in yesterday's post. I felt it went well, and in what we were told was a tight run competition, we finished in either third or fourth out of the four teams. (They preferred not to declare an outright "loser"). Not a tale of outright success then? Well, not exactly. Obviously, it would of been more storybook worthy if I came on to blog with a proud feeling of winner's achievement. Alas, I don't have the winners part, but I do feel like I've achieved something.

Each of the groups was there on merit, having presented an idea which was better than the majority that were presented by everyone given the task. The four judges pitched some challenging questions, which I felt we answered well (as did some of the other teams) and I guess it came down to a value judgement based upon investability and orignality.

Perhaps my group had the first element, but maybe not so much on the originality front. We had the idea of a domestic cleaning business, simplified to make it more accessible both for us preparing and presenting it, and for our future make believe customers. This simplification may be why we were't chosen, or possibly the other group's businesses were just more appealing. Either way, I enjoyed presenting again and felt calm when doing so. I am glad I was invited to do something beyond the curriculum and it gives me confidence for future work/projects and some more material for my CV.

Not quite the storybook ending but an experience to value nonetheless. It is also noteworthy to mention that we received certificates for taking part, and an envelope, which upon opening afterwards contained some WH Smiths vouchers as a reward for making the final. All in all, not bad for a number of weeks work.

Following the presentation was the subsequent food and conservation. Just for reference, I would call the food more awkward nibbles than food, because its the kind of food that you don't encounter every day. Lavish sandwiches with few varieties of colourful fillings. Prawns breaded in some manner that seemed new to me. Miniature dessert bites. Nothing overly plain or simple on show other than some fruit. The kind of situation where I felt uneasy as I don't indulge in these foods, save the dessert bites. I don't do this out of some sort of stubbornness, simply because I don't like them. Equally I'm not ungrateful, I appreciate that the food was put on for free for us, just hopefully in future it will be something more familiar to my tastes. So I found myself drinking some orange juice and eating a banana, awaiting a conversation from someone unbeknown to me. In the end a man approached me, who turned out to be the head of the business school. In fact, he had made a speech in my first week at university, though admittedly I did not remember him at first. It wasn't the majorly awkward conversation I had preempted, having experienced this kind of event before. I found grounds to talk about the university, my choice of degree, the Australian Open tennis which I'll come back to, university tuition fees and funding and how the university spends around 70-80% of its money on its staff. I found all the topics interesting and felt I was able to talk about them more confidently and easily than if I were to of had the conversation a year ago. Perhaps it was because I felt more mature standing there in a suit, (which by the way, it appeared that I was the only person presenting to wear one, but why not be formal hey?), or perhaps by reading and keeping up to date with the news online and in newspapers, I am becoming more astutely aware of my surroundings and the workings of the world. Whatever the reason, I enjoyed the opportunity. For the record I'm not unfamiliar with wearing suits, I just hadn't had an escuse/reason to for some time. Moving on...

Due to not having access to tv at university, I have been out of touch with tennis. I have been able to keep up to date with football, watching games at pubs or talking about it with friends. But tennis draws a more selective audience. Come Wimbledon it has much more interest temporarily, but I'm referring to the year-round audience, who follow other competitions and the 3 other grand slam tournaments. Pubs don't seem to show the matches and I have been relatively unaware of the goings on in the Australian Open. But today my eyes were opened and I found myself eagerly checking the score, via my phone, on the second men's semi-final, featuring Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray. I got back from the presentation to witness the last few games of the match, where Djokovic came out victorious and proceeded to the final. A small taste of the action was enough for me though, and now I find myself eagerly awaiting the chance to watch both the women's final tomorrow and the men's final on Sunday.

Come sunday I will also see my parents for a short while. They are travelling down to return some items to Gunwharf Quays. Seeing the opportunity arise, I have asked them to drop some stuff off to me and also take some other stuff back home. Convenient right? The suggestion of lunch was also made. It will be nice to see them, even if it is just for an hour, and I'm looking forward to it.

Then monday arrives and all my lectures and seminars commence for semester two. This means that with the negative correlation between work and leisure, my spare time will diminish a lot. I guess it may come as a bit of a shock to have to knuckle down and work again, although it has always been there waiting and I have been aware of it the whole time. When I say work again, I anticipate that compared to semester one, I will have more work to do altogether, and also more challenging work to complete. Again not a shocking revelation, and I expect that it may take a week or two to settle into the routine of work once more. I guess I'll just have to see how it goes.