It feels extremely strange to be blogging again, but the times we live in are even stranger. So much has happened since I last posted here (February 2019), both in my life and in the wider world. So, since I'm never one to ignore inspiration when it strikes, here's a quick update:

June 2019: I went on holiday to Spain with three of my closest friends from university, which was a lovely reunion. It was so nice to get away for a week or so and just sit on the beach or by the pool every day - or so we thought. To cut a long story short, we ended up spending more time waiting around the local hospital than on the beach after my friend was taken seriously ill and spent around a week in hospital. Luckily she made a full recovery, but it was one of the more dramatic and traumatic experiences of my life so far, especially as I was the one who called the emergency number and had to negotiate hospital fees in my very inadequate Spanish.

September 2019: I went to visit family in the UK and travelled around a bit, notably visiting a part of the country which has a lot of significance for my mum's side of the family on account of our ancestors having lived there hundreds of years ago.

October 2019: I started an internship with a seriously cool organisation! I've decided I'm not going to give any employment-related details (past and present) on this blog, but lets just say it's a global organisation that deals with humanitarian affairs. I was working on communications which was completely new to me but I actually enjoyed it a lot and met some amazing people who I know I'll stay in contact with for years to come. In October I also got my grades back for my MA and I passed with a Distinction, and received a prize for the highest dissertation mark on my course!

January 2020: January feels like an age away now - before any of us had likely even heard the word 'coronavirus'. Towards the end of the month I went back to Brighton with my parents for my graduation, which was about as different from my Durham graduation as it possibly could have been. Whereas in Durham I graduated in the historic cathedral, in Brighton it was on a stage in a huge events building that's often used for conferences. All in all it was a very low-key affair, as I had far fewer people from my course to celebrate with and (though I don't want to sound blasé) after only one year it didn't seem like such a huge achievement as my undergraduate degree did. However I did celebrate by going out to a vegetarian restaurant for dinner with my parents and one of my best friends, which was lovely.

March 2020: After finishing internship number one at the end of February, as March rolled round and the coronavirus crisis started to really take hold in Europe, I started another internship. This current one is at another major organisation and (without tooting my own horn too much) it's one of the most prestigious programmes that exists in my area of interest, namely international politics, migration and EU affairs. So far it's going really well, except that barely 2 weeks in we went into enforced teleworking mode which means that as of this weekend I've now spent 7 weeks working from home. While tt's certainly not the ideal situation as I'm missing out on many of the aspects of the experience that I would have hoped for, I am of course grateful to still have a job (even if it's a lowly and poorly-paid internship) and that it wasn't point-blank cancelled. I'm still managing to get something out of it, even as the entire organisation learns to navigate the new normal and all the technological aspects that come along with that. 

A couple of days after teleworking began, Belgium entered into a nationwide lockdown which is still ongoing at the time of writing this. It looks like it will stay in place for some time yet, and even if it's lifted to some extent it's likely that I'll continue working for home and that, more broadly speaking, life won't return to any recognisable normal for the foreseeable future. As a lifelong introvert who is used to living somewhere which doesn't make going out to the shops (or anywhere else) particularly easy, I'm coping fairly well, especially as my friends mostly live in other countries anyway so it's not like I would get to see them normally. I'm making sure I switch off from work at 6pm every day, taking breaks when I need them, baking and cooking more than usual, and getting into a lot of books and series that I told myself I didn't have time for before. While I'm not aiming to come out of lockdown with a bunch of new skills, I'm also following a couple of online courses on FutureLearn.

That's all for now - to anyone reading this, please stay stafe, stay happy, and stay healthy.

x

Last week I made the trip from Brighton all the way to Durham to see friends and get back in touch with the city I lived in for three years for university. Compared to some of my trips abroad this probably isn't all that interesting to read (or even write) about, but I've realised how much I enjoy looking back through old blog posts about things I did as it really brings the memories back to life.

I arrived on the Wednesday evening, having got the train up after my 3 hour-long morning seminar, but because I arrived late there wasn't really time to do anything that night except catch up with my friend Jill who I was staying with. On Thursday I slept in while Jill went to a lecture, then met up with her for coffee and scones in Cafedral, one of our favourite cafés. The morning had started out rainy but gradually cleared up so we took the chance to go for a walk along the riverbank. For lunch I met up with another friend at another of my favourite cafés (Leonards) and we chatted for several hours. To be honest I can't really remember where the rest of the afternoon went, but for dinner we cooked vegetarian shepherd's pie and then had a chilled out rest of the evening.

On Friday I spent the morning wandering around the cathedral where I somehow ended up doing a guided tour. Even before I graduated there last summer the cathedral had always been a very special place for me (even though I'm not religious in any sense), and I've always enjoyed learning more about its history and taking in the stained glass windows and other magnificent architecture. At that point the rain returned in a torrential way, so I decided it wasn't worth the effort of walking all the way up to my old college as I had planned. Instead I stopped by the geography department which was oddly nostalgic, and ran into my dissertation supervisor from undergrad. For lunch I met up with Jill again in Whitechurch, a new restaurant that has opened since I left Durham but which is run by the same people as the famous Flat White Kitchen café (another favourite - do you sense a theme?). It was nice but the bar is high for Flat White so I was slightly disappointed, if only by the small portion size and proportionally high price! We then mooched around the shops for a few hours, avoiding the rain, and in the evening my other friend Carys picked me up in her car to go back to her house where I was staying for the next two nights.

On Saturday we headed to Newcastle for a day out. I've always found trips to Newcastle to be very refreshing in terms of getting out of the Durham bubble, so it was nice to recapture that feeling of openness and possibility. First we went to the Literary and Philosophical Society, which is the largest independent library in the UK outside of London. I'd never been there before but it was a lovely experience to just walk around and browse the old books, and I can imagine it would be an amazing quiet place to get some work done. It was also pretty great for instagram opportunities!

For lunch we went to Super Natural, a vegan and vegetarian cafe on Grainger Street. After spending ages deliberating over the extensive menu we eventually all went for burgers which were enormous and very filling but good value for money. Then we wandered around some shops before making our way down to the quayside and across the millennium bridge to the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art, one of my favourite places in Newcastle. The Baltic is always well worth a trip and no Newcastle day out is complete without it in my opinion. I love that there's always something different to see as the exhibitions are constantly changing. This time the main ones we saw were called 'Digital Citizen - The Precarious Subject' - which spoke to a lot of key concepts in geography such as citizenship, identity, transnationalism and activism - and 'The Age of Love' by Heather Phillipson. The latter was frankly one of the weirdest things I've experienced as it involved lots of psychadelic imagery, random sculptures, smells and textures all set to pounding synth music. By then the sun was setting so we made sure to catch the beautiful lighting over the Tyne from the observation deck.

Finally we headed back to the station for Durham, and had about half an hour before we needed to go out again for my birthday dinner. Stupidly I had forgotten (or rather, not thought it necessary) to book a restaurant table for seven people on Saturday night so it proved a bit tricky to find somewhere to eat, but after a few false starts we eventually found a Mexican place. I'd wanted to find an excuse to see all my friends who are still in Durham so doing a dinner out in honour of my birthday seemed like an obvious way to do it, and it was so nice to see everyone again and catch up with those I hadn't yet seen on my trip.

On Sunday we had a very chilled morning and cooked a delicious vegan brunch before driving to Wharton Park, which I'd somehow never been to before. It was a lovely sunny morning so it was an ideal time to get some fresh air and exercise and made for some stunning views across the city. Then all too soon it was time for me to catch my train and begin the 5 hour journey back to Brighton. Unfortunately due to works on the rail line I had to get a bus replacement part of the way so it ended up being a very fragmented journey but I eventually made it back to my new home in the south.

I'm so glad I decided to make the trip up to Durham, despite the lengthy journey and the sheer expense (the train tickets alone were £100). It definitely confirmed to me that it's a place I'll always identify with and consider as my first UK home, even when the people who shaped my undergraduate experience have moved on.

Happy New Year! First of all, I can't believe that this will be my 7th year of blogging - or rather, the 7th year *in which I will blog*, as I started my blog in mid-2013. Anyway. In this post I thought I'd look back on the highs of 2018 as well as assessing how I've done in terms of the goals I had for the year. In the New Years' post I did this time last year I said that 2017 had been pretty great for me, and to be honest 2018 was even better. If you've been following my blog for a while none of this will come as a surprise, but I like the idea of gathering it all together in a single post that I can look back on in the future.

What with graduating from university it's safe to say that 2018 was the Year of the Academics, so here are some of my academic highlights:

(Wow OK, boasting over). And here are some personal ones:

So, how did I do compared to the goals I set out at the beginning of the year?

When it comes to this year, I have been unusually inspired in the resolutions/goals front and I've got quite a few typical resolutions. But rather than just aimlessly stating them I also want to think through how I'm planning to achieve them.

And that's my year in review and the next one planned out!

Over the last three years I've done a blog post at the end of every term of my undergraduate degree at Durham University, so I thought I'd do the same for my Masters in International Security at the University of Sussex. It's been a hot minute since I last posted but to be honest that's a function of both being busy and simultaneously feeling like I have nothing interesting to say. These past three months have been a weird time on a lot of different levels, mostly as a result of adjusting to the big changes involved in moving to a new city and new university and trying to work out some new routines and habits. In my October update post I spoke a bit about settling into uni and how that was going - and if you haven't read that post, please do, because it covered quite a lot of what I would normally say here.

On the academic side of things, I've mostly enjoyed my course so far although it has been quite mixed. I think the reason why there were some parts I didn't find that interesting was because this term we didn't have any choice in our modules as they were kind of a broad introductory base for the Spring term when we actually get to pick what we study. So in that sense I'm looking forward to next term when we have a lot more choice and have to start thinking about our dissertations. My timetable stayed the same throughout the term, meaning my weeks were consistently unbalanced and always felt like the whole week was building up to my full-on double-seminar Wednesday. The good news is that as the weeks wore on I got a feel for what I could sort of get away with not doing, which sounds awful but honestly it wouldn't have been possible to do all the reading thoroughly, especially as we started to think about essays towards the end of the term. Speaking of essays, I've done one out of the two I need to finish this holiday which is OK going, as I have until the 10th January to finish the other one. 

In terms of my house, I think I've really settled in now. We've had a few maintenance issues already (boiler pressure, smoke alarms, radiators - you name it) and a weird encounter with a man a few doors down but apart from that it's been smooth sailing. I feel like I've got to know my housemates as well as can be expected (given that we started off as total strangers); they're second years so we're at different stages in our academic lives, but I still get along with them pretty well. We even managed to cook a full Christmas dinner in our teeny tiny kitchen at the end of term and it was actually amazing and such a nice festive evening.

What else? I've been meeting up with my best friend from Durham who lives in Brighton pretty much every week for lunch which has been lovely; I'm a student rep which so far has mostly just involved sending emails and attending a couple of meetings but hey, one for the CV; I've been doing some yoga classes which I've enjoyed a lot; and I'm also a library advisor so I get to order books for the library which has been cool. Apart from that, things in first term just went on more or less the same week after week. 

However, a couple of exciting things did happen that are worth mentioning. For one thing, my parents came to visit me over Halloween when I had a reading week, which was lovely especially as this is the first time they've ever been able to do that. They were only around for a couple of days and we just went out for lunch in Brighton one day and then went to visit my aunt and uncle who live nearby, but it was still a nice break, albeit very surreal.

Then my best friend came over from Ireland to visit me and our other best friend who also lives in Brighton. The weekend basically revolved around food (which is fine with me) as we started off with breakfast at The Breakfast Club, had lunch in a cafe in the Lanes, and had Thai food in the evening, but not before going ice-skating at the Pavilion. I'd forgotten just how much I love ice-skating, I really wish I could do it more often and maybe even take lessons. On the second day we went for brunch and then braved the winds on the pier, walking all the way to the end. We'd planned to go to the village of Lewes for a look around but for various reasons we ended up going to the Pavilion instead, which I'd done earlier in the term but it was still nice to see all the beautiful interiors again. All in all it was a lovely weekend and so nice to see my friends given that we're rarely all in the same place these days!

The other exciting thing is that I was asked to be on an academic podcast and actually travelled down to London to record the episode in December, but I don't want to say too much about it until the episode is actually out. It was a really cool experience though and I got to chat about European identity and other topics that I'm really passionate about with some people who are equally interested.

Given that it's now after Christmas I might as well add that I had a lovely, if understated Christmas this year just at home with my parents and brother. Last year we went away to stay with family for Christmas so it was nice to be back in our house to do all our traditions the way we normally do them. I've got a few weeks before I head back to the UK so once my essays are in I'm planning to take some proper time off, and also probably start thinking about my dissertation. 

A few weeks ago I met up with my housemates from last year in London for a little reunion, as we hadn't seen each other since leaving Durham just after graduation in June. Since we now live fairly spread out across the country and are doing very different things, it's difficult to find a time and place to see each other so it was lovely to catch up. It was also really nice to explore a little bit of London, as even though I now only live an hour away the only place I can say I'm truly familiar with is the inside of King's Cross and St Pancras stations! I wanted to capture the memory of this little day out so voila, a blog post. Enjoy the unusually high quality photos, courtesy of Ashleigh and her fancy camera!

After a quick initial catch-up (and coffee) at the train station our first stop was Camden market, where we stopped for (yet more) coffee at a cafe which I've forgotten the name of but it was very cute and rustic, if slightly overpriced.

Then we spent a couple of hours wandering around all the stalls and shops and taking in the sights, including this really cool huge sticker wall. I think everyone bought something except me as surprisingly I just didn't see anything that captured my attention (and that was also in my budget). After some deliberation over where to go for lunch we settled on Rudy's Dirty Vegan Diner which does a range of burgers, hot dogs, mac n cheese etc - basically vegan junk food and it was incredible! I got the dirty burger and then felt extremely full for the 6 or so hours (which is an achievement for me as I tend to get hungry really quickly).

As we digested we headed back to the tube - via Urban Outfitters because why not. We then battled the crowds of Saturday afternoon shoppers as we made our way along Oxford Street, stopping in a few shops including Zara and the Lush flagship store. Next was a quick stop at a bubble tea place - where I made the terrible choice of kiwi and tapioca, a combination I do not advise - before we ended up on Carnaby Street for more shopping.

At this point the tiredness was beginning to hit and the sun was starting to set, so we decided to give our feet a rest and catch the last rays of daylight during golden hour in Regent's Park. With the warmth of the day gone the evening turned chilly, and we headed back to the train station with the intention of having some dinner before we left. After a few false starts (it can be a legitimate struggle to find any viable vegetarian/vegan food options without doing your research beforehand) we eventually located a Wagamama's and actually sat outside under some heaters as the night fell properly. In a departure from tradition I didn't get my usual but instead went for something ever so slightly different which to be honest will probably become my usual now.

With some time left before we needed to part, we regrouped in Spoons for warmth and drinks and said our goodbyes and caught our respective trains and coaches. Although I was exhausted from all the walking we did it was a lovely day out and so great to catch up with some of my best pals - here's to future reunions, wherever they might be!

It's Saturday evening and for some reason I'm in the mood to write a long reflective blog post about my first few weeks at university. Well, that's kind of a lie because I wrote quite a few half-posts at various points over the last month that were more or less a stream of consciousness - so in this post I'm going to gather them all together and kind of rewrite them into something coherent.

The first topic on my mental checklist is Freshers' Week. Not living on campus it pretty much passed me by, although I did attend some academic induction events and spent some time leeching off the uni WiFi while holed up in the library. I suppose it's an age thing, but the whole freshers experience has absolutely no appeal to me anymore (if it ever did). I really wish there was less pressure to have an absolutely amazing time during your first few days at university. Despite living in college for my own 'proper' freshers experience with ready-made socialising opportunities and the ease of making friends that that provides, I remember feeling extremely overwhelmed by the whole change, and frankly the last thing I wanted to do was go out clubbing with a brand new group of people I had just met. Of course I realise that freshers is such a huge part of the UK uni experience, but in general I think more needs to be done to cater to those who - for whatever reason - don't want to go out every night for a week.

Another point I wanted to touch on is homesickness. Homesickness is something which bothered me less and less as my undergraduate degree wore on, I suppose just thanks to having made friends and eventually feeling totally at home in Durham. It's the kind of place which is so friendly and small that it really didn't take long. Having said that, I soon realised that I needed a couple of days to adjust to coming back to uni at the beginning of every term, just to get over the stress and anxiety provoked by the long journey and the jarring shift in circumstances. For some reason I didn't expect to feel homesick when I got to Sussex. It just never crossed my mind that, as a Masters student in my fourth consecutive year of university, I might miss home to a greater extent just after going to a brand new university. I told myself that I wasn't a fresher anymore, and not even an undergraduate, that I knew how this university thing worked, I had it down. But I didn't factor in that I would miss Durham quite so much. It's weird that this time my homesickness is directed almost entirely at Durham, rather than my actual home and family.

So how's my course and general life actually going? Well, I only have six contact hours per week and five of them are on one day, so I have a really intense day of workshops once a week and then the rest of the week is basically just me at home reading to prepare for the next week's classes. This means that my week is quite unbalanced, because it feels like I’m always working towards one big day and counting down the time I have left to do the work before it comes round again.

I do like having whole free days because it lets me get a lot done, however because I tend to work from home rather than going to the library it can get quite isolating sometimes - on certain days the only conversation I’ll have is with my housemates if I happen to be making dinner at the same time as them. On one hand this does suit me: being an introverted person, my long day of workshops completely drains me so it’s something of a relief when I can just be comfortable and quiet in my house and work away. But I’ve been realising that ultimately it isn't a good balance - while I don’t deal well with a lot of socialising all day every day, I do need some human contact even if it’s just a casual chat or FaceTiming my mum. This is something I’ve had to deal with during my whole university experience, but before I’ve always felt slightly more connected to the people around me - I don’t know if it’s to do with living in a still unfamiliar city or just the whole move from one end of the country to the other. 

It’s not that I’m miserable, it’s about adjusting and I think that process is going to take me longer than I thought and is going to require an active effort on my part rather than simply waiting for things to fall into place. But I have been making an effort to chat to people I meet and establish friendships, and I think those will come to fruition over time.

And that's all I have to say for now - please forgive an utterly self-indulgent post, it's not often I write so much about myself!

It creeps in slowly, this time of year. You have to have a sharp eye and a nose for the weather to notice it in the first few days of the month. I suppose it's like a rollercoaster, inching slowly along as we cling to the last warm evenings and the heat retained by the pavements after months of sun, before suddenly the seasons go into freefall - the mornings getting darker day by day, the temperature dropping half a degree at a time, muted then vivid shades of orange, red, yellow and brown flooding into the leaves. I think the leaves are the first thing I notice starting to change where I live, because there are so many trees. 

But then every so often a day like today comes along - it's currently 24 degrees outside with a cornflower blue cloudless sky, and I am wearing a summer dress and no socks. To me September always seems like a dance between summer and autumn, where sometimes one is a step ahead and other days we have both in tandem or taking it in turns as the day wears on, but ultimately you know that autumn is going to finish on top.

I associate this time of year so strongly with going back to school and university. After 18 years of education my mind and body clock are hardwired into the academic calendar, and I see the beginning of a new school year as far more of a chance to start over than in the New Year, in spite of the narratives around resolutions that inevitably crop up around that time.

It's also very bizarre to think that although I'm going back to uni, I'm not going back to *my* uni. I keep catching myself thinking that I'm heading to Durham for another year, which I could easily have done, playing it safe and familiar and living with other friends who have decided to do Masters courses there or have found jobs in the area. But I decided last year that I wanted to step outside my comfort zone and go somewhere completely different for my Masters so I need to remind myself that I chose Brighton for a reason, and I need to stop mentally comparing it to Durham. I'm also not trying to tell myself that I will love it straight away without question - because you can never tell how these things are going to go - but I hope it will become another second home in the same way that my little city up north has.

This has been more of an introspective post but I like to do them once in a while, especially when big changes are coming up. Wish me luck with the move and the new start - more blog posts will be coming (including a room tour) when the internet is finally installed in the new house later in the month.

x

Last Friday I graduated from Durham University with a First Class Honours degree in Geography (BA). To be honest it hasn't quite set in yet that not only do I have a degree (!!!), but my time in Durham has come to an end. I'm going to do a separate post reviewing my third year but I just wanted to capture my experience of graduation because it was the most magical day and I want to remember it for a long time (as a side note, here's the post I wrote after my school graduation).

When I arrived in Durham in October 2015 as a fresher I had no idea what to expect. I'd visited once before during half-term of my final year of school and I'd liked the university 'campus' part and my college, but if I'm honest what really drew me there was the university's reputation and league table rankings. I suppose it's as good a reason as any to choose a university, and I really didn't know much about Durham as a place. Fast-forward three years and I've fallen in love with its cobbled streets, quaint shopfronts, the cathedral and castle, the marketplace, the riverside, Gilesgate, the local cinema, even North Road. There's something special about Durham; it's a tiny, beautiful, ancient place and in many ways it is very much a university town, but alongside the student life there's also a vibrant regional culture that draws on the proud history of the north east of England. Given the importance of the cathedral to both town and gown alike, as well as its status as a UNESCO World Heritage site, I think it's very fitting that the graduation ceremonies (or congregations, to use the official name) take place in that incredible building on Palace Green.

Once we were inside we walked past the rows of guests to the transepts on either side of the main nave where we waited while the ceremony was opened and the dean of the cathedral and the vice-chancellor of the university both addressed the audience. Then the time came for the conferment of degrees, and we were called up in alphabetical order to shake hands with the chancellor. Unfortunately we didn't receive our actual degrees on the day as they are only posted out later in the summer, but this was sort of the equivalent. Once we'd shaken hands we returned to our seats to wait for all the other degrees to be awarded, including Masters and PhD students. Finally there was a closing speech by the chancellor and then it was all over, lasting about an hour in total.

With the main formalities over, we all headed up to the science site for a reception hosted by the Geography Department outside the main geography building. There were lots of refreshments and canapés and it was still an extremely hot day but it was nice to chat to some people I hadn't seen yet and to catch up with some of my lecturers. As well as just chatting, the head of department also awarded some prizes for academic achievement - and I got a prize! I received the Robin Mills prize for the second-highest first class honours degree in geography, but I also got the highest mark in third year alone. Also, the person who achieved the highest overall mark was on the BSc course, so I can say that I got the highest mark on my course as I was BA. It was a huge honour and I totally hadn't been expecting it, but I was so so pleased! All the recipients of the various prizes (6 or so in total) received a certificate and a cheque, but for some reason the Robin Mills prize also includes a huge trophy which Robin Mills (who was a geography professor and later worked for the UN) donated to the department in 1978. Unfortunately I wasn't allowed to keep it, but it has all the names of the people who have been awarded it over the last 40 years engraved on the side so at least I know that I will have left my mark for years to come. I don't usually make a big deal out of my academic achievements in real life or here on my blog, but I am hugely proud of myself for this so I wanted to mention it, especially as it was such a lovely part of my graduation day!

So what are my plans for the future, I hear you ask? Well, in September I will be starting an MA in International Security at the University of Sussex, so I'll be moving to Brighton for a year which I'm hugely excited about. At the beginning of June I went down to view my new student house for next year and visit the campus, and while Durham and Brighton are pretty much polar opposites in every single way I think it'll be a really interesting experience to live somewhere in the south, by the sea and in a much bigger city. After that I'm hoping to get a graduate job in a field related to my degree(s), but that's all to come and for the moment I'm just planning to enjoy the summer!

Last Friday I had my last exam of third year, which was also the last assessment of third year, which was also the last year of uni - which means I am essentially done with uni. To be honest I am still processing all this. I can't quite believe that my time at Durham has nearly come to an end, and that soon I won't be able to call this little city in the north home anymore (although I think a part of me will always consider it home in some way). 

My last post was about the week I spent in Jerusalem on a uni research fieldtrip over Easter and since I got back from that trip I literally have not stopped. First I had the entire analysis section of my dissertation to write more or less from scratch, which took the two weeks until I travelled back up to Durham for the final time. Then when I got back I had an essay to write, then I put the finishing touches to and finally submitted my dissertation (see pic below), after which I had an 8-page research report from the Jerusalem trip to write. As soon as that was handed in it was straight into revision for my three exams, two of which were luckily 'seen' which means we got the questions two weeks in advance and had time to basically plan and memorise them before actually writing them under exam conditions. The thing I've struggled most with around uni exams in the past has definitely been the fear of the unknown and the infinite amount of information it's possible to learn in preparation for the questions which are impossible to guess, so it helped enormously to have the questions in advance. I'm also fairly good at just straight up memorising information so that part of it wasn't a problem for me either. The one unseen exam out of the three was potentially the worst exam of the education so far, but it's only a small part of one module which is a small part of the whole two years of assessment so I can honestly say I'm really not that bothered about it.

A couple of weeks ago I spent a week in and around Jerusalem on a university fieldtrip. The module the trip was part of is called Territory & Geopolitics and it basically functioned as an opportunity to apply the theoretical material we had spent the year learning in lectures. It was an incredibly packed but fascinating and hugely enjoyable week, which I'm documenting here so make sure I don't forget anything! Be prepared for a long read...

View over Silwan from the City of David

My friend Alice and I got the train down from Durham to London on Sunday and checked into a hotel near Luton airport as our flight was leaving early Monday morning and it was impossible to make the whole trip in time on the day. We got to the hotel in the afternoon and spent most of the rest of the day watching a three-part documentary about Jerusalem that I got on DVD for Christmas to get us in the mood - it certainly worked and we got super excited about the trip! The next morning we took a bus to the airport and met up with the rest of our group. We pretty much spent the whole day travelling as the flight was nearly 5 hours and there's a two hour time difference between Israel and the UK, so we only arrived at the hotel in the evening. The hotel was located exactly between East and West Jerusalem and turned out to be really handy for getting just about anywhere.

Day 1

On the first proper day of the trip we did a coach tour of the West Bank. The first stop was in Beit El, an Israeli settlement where we met a guy living there who told us his life story and how he came to live in Israel, as well as his vision for the future of Israel-Palestine. It was interesting but as he was the first speaker we'd heard it was hard to make any critical judgments straight away. He also took us on a brief hike of the surrounding hill areas and pointed out some religious sites that apparently appear in the Bible.

The final stop of the day was another Israeli settlement, Dolev. Originally we were a bit confused as to why we were stopping as it was already dark, but it turned out that we were actually visiting our lecturer's brother's house and meeting his family. It was slightly weird because all his nephews and nieces were there and it was a bit of a family reunion with all 34 of us students just sitting there but it was actually really nice, and his sister-in-law had prepared some snacks for us all. After that we piled back on the coach and headed back to the hotel for dinner and an early night after a tiring day!

Day 2

On the second day we did a guided walking tour of the Old City and visited the major religious sites, including the Temple Mount, the Western Wall, the Dome of the Rock and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. It was one of the hottest days of the week and for a lot of it we were walking, sitting or standing in the sun, but because we were going to the religious sites we also had to dress modestly which meant covering our legs and arms. Our guide talked a lot at every stop and we all took a lot of notes, but most of it was related to the history of the sites and their relevance to Biblical history which was all interesting background information but the detail wasn't vital to our geopolitical perspectives. As an atheist I think I potentially lacked a genuine appreciation of the holiness of the sites, but I did my best to try to understand the meaning of each one and how they fitted into Jerusalem's story. I did however appreciate the beautiful architecture of the buildings, especially the stunning Dome of the Rock and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which was a fascinating building full of nooks and crannies and rooms leading off at unexpected angles. Before we went in we sat in an open area surrounded by buildings near the Ethiopian church in the Christian quarter, and it was only when we were standing in the Holy Sepulchre that we realised the small domed building we'd been sitting next to - which had looked like some kind of shrine - was actually the domed roof of one of the main chambers and we had been sitting on top of the Church! After the tour we wandered around the Jewish quarter and Muslim quarter, where we had lunch in one of the souks and had some free time to browse the various stalls.

Day 3

On the third day we visited a range of sites but the main theme was archaeology. The first stop was across the road from the hotel which actually formed the green line which divided the city from 1948 to 1967 and which the light rail now runs along. At this point I managed to smash my knee into a fence at full force and ended up spending most of the next couple of days hobbling along at the back of the group, which wasn't ideal. We then walked to Mamilla Cemetery, which is a Palestinian cemetery near the Old City that has largely been constructed over with a park, erasing the evidence of the historic Palestinian presence in the area. Here we met with an archaeologist who became our guide for the rest of the day and took us around the City of David, one of the most extensively excavated sites in the world where findings from particular historical eras are used to justify the Israeli presence in the area today. The City is now mostly a tourist site, and people come from all over the world to see 'where it all began' and are even able to taken part in the excavations themselves.

Day 4

The fourth day was the last day of tours and site visits. We took the light rail to Mount Herzl and spent the morning going round Yad Vashem, Israeli's official memorial to victims of the Holocaust. The tour was more of a 'counter-tour' as it was led by our lecturer rather than an official guide and he presented a much more critical geopolitics take on it that was highly relevant to our course. We also walked around Israel's national military cemetery at the top of Mount Herzl. Despite the hot weather it was a sobering morning still really interesting.

Days 5 & 6

Saturday and Sunday were our designated research days where we were completely free to work on our group project. My group actually did some fieldwork on the Friday as there was an English-language tour that was perfect for our project but only three of us went on that, myself not included. Our research was into collective memory and memory activism in the abandoned Palestinian village of Lifta located on the north western edge of Jerusalem. Lifta is unique in that it's the only village that wasn't either repopulated or completely razed after 1948 but it now stands pretty much in ruins and is all overgrown. Another important aspect is that since the 2000s there has been a plan to demolish the village, develop the site and build a luxury neighbourhood and hotel in its place. Our research basically involved three separate trips to the site, the tour, a couple of interviews and some informal chats with people we encountered walking around the village or sitting by the spring. I ended up not going there until Sunday which was the final research day but it was so worth the wait! It was such an adventure to explore the buildings and head off down overgrown paths with no idea where it would lead. The rest of the time was mostly spent at the hotel reading, discussing and putting together our presentation. There were 8 groups in total so we basically took over the hotel's conference room with our laptops and ended up working really late - my group went to bed at about 2:30am but some groups got barely 2 hours sleep! The presentation was worth 20% of the module mark though so it was worth putting in the time and effort.

Day 7

On our final day in Jerusalem we had the presentations in the morning which took over 4 hours as they were half an hour long. We were all absolutely shattered from the night before but we pushed through and everyone did a really good job. There were some really interesting projects too, so I did my best to pay attention even though I spent the first half frantically reading over notes for our bit and the second recovering from the experience of public speaking. Then at about 2pm we left the hotel and got on the bus for the airport, stopping along the way for some lunch. We got to Ben Gurion airport in plenty of time for our flight but somehow with the many layers of security and the difficulty of doing anything with a massive group we made it to the plane with relatively little time to spare, really just enough to buy a sandwich and find the gate. We arrived back in the UK at midnight so once again Alice and I stayed in a hotel near the airport and got a train into London the next morning (after the best lie in ever). 

And that's it! I think I've managed to remember all the important details. It really was an amazing week and I'm so glad I had the opportunity to go on this trip, even though parts of it were physically and mentally challenging. Now all I've got to do is write up the project field report...

Somehow it's the end of another term, and what's more the final Epiphany term that I'll be spending in Durham. I really have no idea where the time has gone but it's honestly been one of the best terms of my university experience so far so I wanted to capture it here as usual.

One of the highlights of the term was the geography ball which I attended with my friends in early February. It was an absolutely amazing night, from the venue to the meal to the dancing, and it was a really lovely way to round up our three years together - and get lots of photos!

Later in February one of my best friends visited from her year abroad for a few days and we hung out a LOT, just shopping and going to cafés and catching up - even though we'd seen each other fairly recently when I went to visit her in Paris in the New Year! But it was lovely to see her again and show her my little house as she hadn't seen it before.

In terms of my actual degree, things have been going well. In fact, this term I received 100% on two assignments! If you're not familiar with the British university system, there are four grade classifications: 40-49% is a 3rd, 50-59% is a 2:2, 60-69% is a 2:1 and 70%+ is a 1st. It's pretty hard to get over 70% - especially in a social sciences degree when everything is so subjective - but I managed to get full marks on two separate occasions! I don't usually brag about grades but this really was a big deal for me and I'm proud of myself for making such progress over the course of my degree as I definitely wasn't getting those kinds of marks in first year. To be honest when I got the first one I majorly freaked out and nearly cried with happiness because that assignment was worth the whole of the module mark so it's really going to stand me in good stead. The second assignment was actually only formative - meaning that it doesn't contribute to anything - but it was still really nice to have as a confidence boost, especially as I wrote it on The X-Files and feminist geopolitics (aka two of my favourite things).

The other major thing that happened was the series of lecturer strikes which took place at a number of universities around the UK, including Durham. The background reasoning behind the strikes is quite complicated but it is primarily about proposed changes to pension schemes which are likely to hit academics quite hard in the future, but it has expanded to concern the current state of higher education more broadly. On a practical level the strikes meant that I didn't have any lectures, seminars or tutorials for the last 4 weeks of term which was weird as it felt like term ended early, although it did mean I had more time to work on assignments including my dissertation. Having read up on it I personally support the strikes and on a couple of occasions I joined my lecturers on the picket line at the entrance to the main campus and even took in strike-themed cupcakes on one day. I also attended a student-staff solidarity event in Durham Miners' Hall which was incredibly interesting. In the long run, however, the strikes have created a lot of uncertainty for students, especially those in final year such as myself, and all the more so as another round of strikes are planned for next term. This means exams and other assessments are likely to be impacted which *could* affect whether we're able to graduate or not. This level of industrial action within higher education is totally unprecedented so no one is entirely sure what the implications are but I suppose we've just got to trust that some mitigating arrangements will be put in place in time.

Apart from that it's been another lovely term of living with my lovely housemates. We've had some really great times, from quiet evenings in watching Black Mirror to house meals out and a formal dinner at my college together. It's just such a lovely environment to live in and I've realised how much I'm going to miss them all next year. Speaking of next year, in exactly three months time we'll (hopefully, strikes permitting) be graduating! After that I'll be leaving Durham to do a Masters course somewhere else in the UK - I'm not sure where yet but I have finally submitted my applications and got references sorted so I'm just waiting to hear back from one more before I make a decision.

I have mixed emotions about next term at the moment. On the one hand I can feel the usual stress/sense of impending doom around exams, dissertation deadline and the assignments I have yet to start - so I can't wait for all that to be over and done with. But on the other hand I'm definitely not quite ready for my three years in Durham to come to an end and to say goodbye to all the friends I've made and the places I've come to call home. It's going to be emotional, that's for sure, but luckily I have a whole 5 weeks between my last exam and graduation to make the most of the end of my degree.

The other major thing which I haven't even mentioned here is that I've just got back from a fieldtrip to Jerusalem - there's a whole separate post on that coming soon!

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