You'll love this one...!! A book club & more discussion
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Watcha Doin' - 2019
Jayme wrote: "This weather is crazy. We have a Nor'easter forming off the coast and they are calling for high winds, rain and tidal flooding. Perfect excuse to stay in my pjs, make chili and read. Stay safe ever..."You too! And sounds like a perfect emergency plan
Margo wrote: "Listening to you guys makes me realise how luck I am to live in a temperate climate. We get a lot black ice and fog here but the our main danger is from flooding. One third of the county I live in ..."Hehe the news told me today that a lot of the Midlands and Wales (I know, not Ireland) was flooded and showed two swans swimming into a shop.
But point was, you temperate zones are also doing you part. But glad your neck of the woods is pretty chill at the moment Margo :D Mind you, you had some pretty full on storms earlier this year from memory.
Rusalka wrote: "Shirley wrote: "Rusalka wrote: "Stay safe everyone with that ice. Sounds absolutely horrendous to drive in. It's going to be a world of extremes I think these next few months. You guys are freezi..."
WOW!!! That is crazy! Glad everyone was okay.
Jayme wrote: "WOW!!! That is crazy! Glad everyone was okay.."Of my family, yup, very luckily. A lot of my friends' houses burnt down that day, and some of my friends were the only ones at home to defend their properties as their parents were away for summer, and we were all 18, 19, 20. 470 houses were lost in that fire, 4 people too. 70% of the entire Territory burnt in that fire too, as it is mainly forests and national parks.
It was those fires that scientists learnt that fire induced tornadoes were a thing. As in the fire front causes a weird sucking vortex with the need for oxygen/burning of oxygen that can make a fire tornado. Yay, science.
But it's the same conditions that happened that day that we are seeing around the country at the moment, and now in the most populated parts of the country too. And the official bushfire season hasn't started yet...
Rusalka wrote: "Shirley wrote: "Rusalka wrote: "Stay safe everyone with that ice. Sounds absolutely horrendous to drive in. It's going to be a world of extremes I think these next few months. You guys are freezi..."
Rusalka wrote: "Shirley wrote: "Rusalka wrote: "Stay safe everyone with that ice. Sounds absolutely horrendous to drive in.
It's going to be a world of extremes I think these next few months. You guys are freezi..."
Rusalka wrote: "Shirley wrote: "Rusalka wrote: "Stay safe everyone with that ice. Sounds absolutely horrendous to drive in.
It's going to be a world of extremes I think these next few months. You guys are freezi..."
What a memory to have Rusalka. But you have to do what you need to do at the time. Sounds scary though. Let’s just hope these bushfires ease off soon. No more racing through a bushfire in a borrowed car!
Indeed! Sending you thoughts of rain up there. Although maybe not the weird freezing rain our North American compatriots are describing...
Hey, don’t knock freezing rain, it’s the least fun way to get a car that looks like a glazed donut . . .
Rusalka wrote: "Oh and do not underestimate the sun in Tassie! Lexx's dad lives there so we visit a lot and I get incredibly sunburnt every time. It's 20 degrees and you turn into a lobster. Enjoy though, I love..."
Thinner ozone layer down there. Damn global warming. I’ll stay in the shade to drink and eat!
Jenn wrote: "Hey, don’t knock freezing rain, it’s the least fun way to get a car that looks like a glazed donut . . ."Hahaha! Not to mention that the extra glaze runs off to cover everything around the car.
I love when you leave the car out in the freezing rain. You open the window and their is an ice window. I know its a bit strange but I really like that
Absolutely Renee, and then having to break a little whole in it for talking to the drive thru (you just suck it up and open your door so they can hand you the coffee). Ahhh, winter, good times, although I’ve usually had enough good times by January but at that point there is still five months of winter coming 😣
I don't know what we had this year, but I think Summer took a pass and acceded the season back to winter.My car is a wimp. Going through the drive through is not a winter option apparently. The windows refuse to roll down.
There was a 'job' available within my job, as thesis coordinator. I was asked several times whether I wanted to do it but had my doubts for several reasons, but in the end I decided to apply. And now I am the new thesis coordinator! I'll be doing it with another colleague, but it's quite an important and big role, as it's set at 16 hours per week for each coordinator! It involves literally everything surrounding the students who are writing their thesis, and I'm sure it's going to be challenging but also interesting. I'll have to give up some other courses I'm teaching but I think it will be nice to not just teach but also do this.
It's actually a bit weird because I only work there since February, and the colleague I'm doing it with started September last year. But because everyone's so busy and people who work there longer already have so many other tasks and this one's so big, there wasn't much interest. I don't even meet all the requirements!
That is great news, Peggy. I think it is good to broaden the spectrum of your job. It's less boring than doing the same thing all the time, and also improves your CV, if you ever want/need to look for another job.
Congrats, Peggy! That’s great!
It certainly makes you more important to the team, Peggy. No one wants to replace someone who takes on extra responsibilities. I’ve done that many times. My daughter loves her job and always takes on more things. Although, to be fair, she probably needs to limit how many extras she takes on. She’s getting stressed lately.
Congratulations, Peggy! I think the year that I joined this group we had a celebration for your PhD. You are doing amazing things!!
Grats Peggy!! Very cool, and a super important job. Is it just PhD theses? Or Masters as well? Do you guys even write a thesis for your Masters? I know you don't have Honours theses like we do, but I have no idea about whether your Masters are coursework only or research. So many questions!
Either way, will be great for your CV and for you! Ticks off a service requirement for promotion too ;)
This is a positive move, Peggy! Well done.
A wonderful new challenge for you Peggy. But have you left enough time in your life for reading?
Thanks everyone!@Kristie: very true! I keep working the same hours so I give up teaching some courses to do this, but this is a more responsible and difficult thing to do than teach, so it might be more stressful. On the other hand, with teaching I can't be very flexible because I have to be there when my classes are scheduled, and this new role has more flexibility as it isn't tied to specific times of the day.
@Jayme: That was a fun event! 4 years ago already...
@Shirley: Lol, I'll always make sure of that!
@Rusalka: I'm not at a regular university anymore, but one for applied psychology. I don't think other countries make this distinction. There are no PhD-students, and after 4 years of studying students have a bachelor's degree, not a master's. So basically they write their bachelor's thesis.
I think all universities may have slightly different requirements, but where I worked master's thesis always involved conducting your own study and writing it up. Mostly quantitative research. Bachelor's thesis were either an extensive literature review, or also doing research, but on a smaller scale or with an existing dataset. Now at this Applied Psychology students have to find an organisation where there's a problem that's psychology related and for which they can create an intervention. I have now for example students looking into loneliness among people with an intellectual diability, stress among volunteers in an organisation that works with refugees, teachers who struggle with problem behaviour in the class room at a high school, stuff like that. They conduct a study (mostly qualitative), write a research report, and based on the results design and carry out an intervention aimed at solving or diminishing the problem.
What's a Honour's Thesis? I googled a bit but sounded like the master thesis we know it. What's the difference?
Sounds like your guys are doing something like our Honours, but crossed with an internship. Actually, sounds really close to the program I was running in the first 9 months of the year where students had to do an internship for a semester with a research project, and depending on their coursework units they were taking it at, had to write a report of 5-10 000 words. But my guys were public policy related, where your guys sound heaps more interesting and useful!!Honours is a completely Australian thing. So you do your bachelors degree, and if you say have a GPA of 6, or a distinction average you can apply to do an Honours year. It's six months of research focused coursework, and then six months of writing a 20 000 word thesis.
In Aus, you can do Honours and go straight to a PhD (100 000 words), as you've shown you can do research. No other country counts it as a thing though, so if you want to do a PhD in say the UK, or the US, or the Netherlands, you would have to do a MPhil which is 60 000 words (or a coursework Masters depending on the uni/country) to get into a PhD as you would be aware. But we put a huge emphasis on Honours which unfortunately means you have a few disappointed students who then realise it's not useful outside of Aus (Masters is really not a thing here, coursework or MPhil) but they are more competitive in Masters programs as they have that research up their sleeve already.
Substitute guys for students. I really have trouble remembering I am not a peer as I am old lol
It's really interesting to learn about how this works in other countries and at other universities!
Completely agree! I've had some really interesting conversations with our Associate Deans in our College (faculty) about your need to have 4(?) published articles to graduate with a PhD that you mentioned when you were studying for example. Where our PhD students don't have to publish a thing, but how competitive does that make them in the global market? Are we failing them when other standards are so different?Bubbles are fun to pop ;)
YLTO: Changing the World :P
I think rules for that differ per university. At one uni I worked at the rule is that you need to have 4 articles. They don't need to be published yet, but do need to be 'of publishable quality'. At another uni the standard is 5 articles, of which 3 are actually published. But yeah, the whole quantity of publications criteria to assess how qualified someone is as a researcher is ridiculous. There are so many factors that influence how much you can publish..
Happy Thanksgiving to all in the US that are celebrating!
Happy Thanksgiving to you guys celebrating.
Thank you and happy Thanksgiving to everyone that's celebrating today. I had a really nice Thanksgiving. :) I had three friends who ended up being alone for Thanksgiving for different reasons and ended up having them all over. It was a good time chatting with everyone. I see that the threads for the yearly challenge have been posted and I can't look at them yet! I will have to finish my test this weekend. I think I'm going to check out the first card to see what it's like, since I already answered the questions for that one. Actually, Janice, let me know if that's ok or if it might ruin something for the other cards I haven't answered yet. I won't peek until you say it's ok.
Kristie, don't worry about ruining anything. The cards threads are for recommendations. We'll have a thread for each card so recommendation don't get lost in a unique long thread. The tasks hasn't been posted yet.
Of course the threads are empty so far. No tasks, no book recommendations.
Thanks, Sandra. I just noticed that all the threads said Questions Recommendations, so nothing to peek at yet.
Kristie wrote: "Thanks, Sandra. I just noticed that all the threads said Questions Recommendations, so nothing to peek at yet."I had to set them up so that I can link to them in the task threads.
Gotcha. I just didn't want to look at the yay/nay tasks for a card if there was a pattern of some sort or something that would give away tasks for questions I haven't answered yet. Hopefully, I'll have time to finish my test tomorrow.
Something bad is kicking off in London again. Not a lot of information coming out at the moment.
I was just reading about it Sarah. Doesn't sound good.
It seems to be another terrorist attack on the London Bridge, but not details have been disclosed yet.
Happy Thanksgiving to all here and there
Just heardd that 2 people were stabbed and died, a few others injured and the attacker was shot dead by thee police. They are suspecting a terror attack but no details about thee attacker have been released yet. One happened on the bridge two years ago, also just days before a general election.
Goodreads annoys me with the gargantuan advertising on the main book page. The book itself is dwarfed by the oversized advertising. It makes me not want to go to MacDonald's or see the movie Little Women. I would pay to have an ad-free membership.
Rob and I went axe throwing at the weekend. It was great fun. We threw a range of different things including tomahawks. I didn't do too badly either. But bending over andd picking up axes that didn't hit theeir target has made my legs and lower back seriously ache now. Haha. I think we might do it again wwhen the weather is warmer as it was good value and enjoyable .
Sounds like fun, Sarah. :)
It was my birthday on Monday and it was the most depressing day ever. I was so homesick that I have cried the whole day. Sad :D
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You'll love this one...!! A book club & more
Books mentioned in this topic
The Rithmatist (other topics)The Starless Sea (other topics)
The Arsonist: A Mind on Fire (other topics)
The Doll Factory (other topics)
The Binding (other topics)
More...
Authors mentioned in this topic
Jamie Ford (other topics)Madeline Miller (other topics)
Jamie Ford (other topics)
Madeline Miller (other topics)
Ruta Sepetys (other topics)
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Enjoy though, I love Tassie, and this time of year is amazing. And enjoy all the food and the booze. It's a foodie paradise!!
And I'm really glad you enjoyed the Chloe Hooper book. Been meaning to check it out, but definitely will now i know someone has read and enjoyed.