Induction checklist

Tick when complete

1. Have you registered on the programme on UEL Direct?
2. Have you paid your fees?
3. Have you registered on your modules?
4. Do you know how to use UEL Direct and UELPlus?
5. Are you able to use your UEL email account?
6. Have you got your student ID card?
7. Do you know how to access library facilities?
8. Do you know how to register for UK Libraries Plus and ATHENS?
9. Do you know who your Personal Tutor is?
10. Do you have your first semester's module study guides?
11. Do you know where to find the University's Regulations?
12. Do you know how to get in touch with module leaders and tutors?

No. of ticks.... uuurm only 4 so far, but hey at least I know how to contact my tutors and access the library (open 24/7 I'll have you know!). We can iron out the little details like paying tuition fees and accessing the online course guide later - ho hum..

In case you're wondering what I'm on about, today was my induction day for the herbal medicine course I'm about to embark upon at University of East London. My first coursework deadline is 30th March and the amount of knowledge I need to acquire between now is faintly terrifying.. but then what did I expect? Certainly not a walk in the park.. more like a swift kick up the behind for my lazy brain! It'll be a bit like attending a gym for the first time in 6 months. The pain will be real, quite debilitating and linger a long time, but the results will eventually come through ;)

The Alma Mater to be (UEL's Stratford campus)


My old haunt.. Canary Wharf


The Carsten Höller piece at the Tate Modern, a friend's inspired choice of venue for her birthday party last Saturday. I didn't dare try the slide from the 5th floor..

The friendly taxman..

The modern version of this age-old figure of hate is now so well-mannered that he (or she in this case) even takes the trouble to give you a phone call to remind you not to miss the deadline and incur a STG100.00 fine. I can't help wondering if she bothered to call people who were due a refund? Cynical - moi? ;)

PS By the way if you ARE under the UK tax regime, this is my friendly reminder (no strings attached here!) that the deadline is tomorrow! The Self Assessment helpline people are genuinely helpful when you call them, and the number is 0845 900 0444, or +44 161 931 9070 (from Overseas).

So long and thanks for all the fish..

Looks like it really is curtains for tuna (at least the good stuff - i.e. the sashimi) for the foreseeable future :( And the prospect of leftover (post scientific research) whalemeat doesn't quite fill the gap for me..

Tuna conservation
Fins with the blues

Jan 25th 2007 | TOKYO
From The Economist print edition
Japan finds itself on the other side of a conservation debate

FEW Japanese would go out of their way to eat whale meat. Most would defend their country's right to harpoon cetaceans to the edge of extinction. But that is more out of resentment at the cultural imperialism of the anti-whaling countries than any memory of the role whale meat played in feeding a starving nation after the war. But when it comes to tuna, most Japanese would go a long way for a morsel of o-toro. Now that tuna risk going the way of the whales, the Japanese are among the first to start clamouring for conservation.

At a 60-nation gathering in Kobe this week, Japan urged the world's tuna conservation organisations to join forces in curbing “purse-seine” fishing, which uses large, circular nets that catch everything in their path. Japan, along with Australia and America, also proposed a global monitoring system—in a bid to protect the world's tuna stocks.

Widespread illegal and unregulated fishing has pushed tuna stocks near to utter destruction. According to the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organisation, the global tuna haul increased steadily from 200,000 tonnes in the early 1950s to peak at 4.3m tonnes in 2003. Catches are now falling and prices rising—thanks largely to an insatiable demand for tuna, canned and raw, from health-conscious Americans and Europeans, and now from affluent Chinese as well. Meanwhile, as tuna prices soar, more fishing vessels put to sea.

In the western Atlantic, the number of mature blue-fin tuna—the most prized member of the species reserved for the best sashimi and sushi—that are capable of spawning has fallen by 90% since 1970. In the Mediterranean, stocks of blue-fin tuna have crashed by 80% over the past three years alone. The southern blue-fin has been so heavily over-fished, especially by Japanese fleets, that quotas have had to be lowered by a further 20% all round. In return, Japan has agreed to cut its own blue-fin take by 50% annually for the next five years.

As the biggest consumers of the blue-fin delicacy, the Japanese could find themselves priced out of the tuna market and forced to eat something else. On hand, thanks to the number of minke whales caught annually for “scientific research”, is a whale-meat mountain that at present is going to waste.

Blog address

For those of you getting this sent directly to your emails, you can see the original blogsite at http://melgoesbacktoschool.blogspot.com/

A New Look!

So the haircut I got last Tuesday may have been a disaster (the girl cut my hair like she was shearing a sheep - baaaaahh :( but at least the new blog is looking shiny and refreshed thanks to RPC's usual wizardry on the graphic design front :) The photo he skillfully cropped for the blog header was taken in Cape Town on the beach as I was dipping my toes in the chilly waters of the Atlantic - sigh... wish I was there again!

Snow, jamming and imminent risk of serious brain usage..

Hello and apologies first of all for my long silence! I got back to the UK on 17th December after 6 and a half months of travel and I must confess, though happy to be back, it took some readjusting! The complete lack of responsibility and pressure of any sort of deadlines while I was travelling combined to give me an enormous sense of freedom. So returning to an environment where all my peers not only had plenty of responsibilities, but were also busy laying out sensible plans for the future (investing in property, sorting out pensions etc., and having more beautiful children :)), left me reeling somewhat. It was hard, when looking at my own unplanned and "unsorted" life situation, to resist the urge to PANIC! However, I had little time to contemplate my navel (and thus spiral further into anxiety and despair!), thanks to a big family Christmas in Wiltshire and a trip to Germany over New Year to visit the other side of the family. Then on 9th Jan I went off to deepest, darkest (well, actually very beautiful) Herefordshire to immerse myself in a 10-day meditation course I signed up for a while back and returned to my Mum's place in Woking only a week ago. While you might think a meditation course might have left me far too much time to contemplate, it actually seemed to help keep in check my knee-jerk reaction to panic, which was a bonus!

So, with my new-found, almost-zen calm, I started calling the Universities to which I wanted to apply to study Herbal Medicine (BSc (Hons) in Herbal Medicine, Combined BSc (Hons) in Herbal Studies) from September this year. Naturally I called my first choice, University of East London, first and got through to the administrator for the course. She was friendly but confessed that she and the teaching staff would be able to be more helpful to me the following week, when the pressure to prepare for the "February starters" had eased off. "February starters????", said I. "Yes, February starters. You could still get in an application if you send it back to me today.", said she, half-jokingly. "The Induction day for new students is next Wednesday." "Alright then. Email me the form and I'll take a look.", said I, and so began a frantically busy day of hunting down and begging referees not only to support my application, but support it NOW, and cutting and pasting bits and pieces from old CVs and writing what I hoped would be a vaguely coherent page explaining why I wanted to join the course and why they should let me (especially as I had proven my scattiness by completely missing the fact that you could start in Feb.. doh!). It was slightly surreal, but somehow I managed to find two willing referees and send off the application by 16:15. That was Wednesday, and later that evening I went off to the gorgeous flat in Holland Park of a former client to "jam" with a bunch of people from my old industry, the leveraged loans market (which by the way, is hotter than ever). It was a fabulous evening and probably just the tonic (or rather, red wine :)I needed to come back down to earth after the frenzy of the day!

On Thursday morning I started receiving emails about the course timetable and details about the induction. Then shortly afterwards, I received, by email, an offer letter inviting me to join the BSc course the following week. Of course there is still some paperwork to get through with admissions (not least fees to pay!), but assuming all that is surmountable, I'm in! :) This means any plans to travel between now and September need to go on hold until I work out exactly what my commitments are (the course is mostly correspondence, but some attendance at the Stratford campus is required), but at least my hungry brain will be occupied, a whole 7 months early :)

So that's my news for now. As you will have seen, there is a shiny new blog (though I've stuck with the old green template for now because I like it), which you can take a look at any time you want to find out what I'm up to. The website is http://melgoesbacktoschool.blogspot.com

Bye for now M xx


Snow where it normally isn't: Woking, Surrey, early morning 24th Jan '07


Little snow where there is normally lots (as in 1-2metres' worth): Yamagata, Northern Japan, Jan '07

hmmmm...