Tutorial 2
Yesterday, I woke up at 7 to go to Regent’s and print out my paper on the book. I wasn’t sure if he wanted me to give him that early or anything, but I thought I would be safe. After dropping that off, I went to the library and finished taking notes on the discussion questions until it was time for the tutorial.
When I got there, he said he read the paper, but there wasn’t much he could mark or anything since it was mainly a summary. He did say I wrote very well, which I took as a very good compliment. Then we went through the questions. The third one, I was a littl confused about so we spent some time on that. I did make one big mistake. At one point I was having trouble explaining something, so he told me to put my notes down and use the graph, so I did. Only he had drawn the picture backwards from what I normally see, so I was thinking employment was on the horizontal axis when it was actually unemployment. So everything I was saying was completely opposite of what I was supposed to be saying. After I finally got it, I did explain to him what I had done, so hopefully he doesn’t think I’m a complete idiot. But then the meeting ended on a good note. We finished up the last question, which I had done a lot of reading on, so I was fairly knowledgeable about it.
Then he asked me if I wanted another book to read and I said sure. He said he didn’t really want to give me a book arguing for globalization, but he let me borrow a book of his, “Why Globalization Works,” but he said I could probably read like the first 5 chapters and get the idea of it. However, the reason he gave it to me is that it was written by an economic journalist and he is going to be speaking at Oxford next week so he wants me to go to that. He can’t go so I’ll tell him how it was next tutorial. So I think that will be good. Next week will be busy though, so I’m going to have to organize my time well.
After the meeting, I went to the library and got my books for next week so I would have all that done and could just start reading easily. Then I went over to Regent’s, eating crackers for lunch on the way, so that I could listen to the guy speaking on “Alternative Religiosity in Postcommunist Russia” and don’t ask me what that means. The guy got his undergrad degree from St. Petersburg, his Master’s from Harvard, and now is working on his Ph.D. from a university in Germany. I didn’t really understand much of what he was saying, but it didn’t seem like he made that much of an argument, but I guess he’s really smart so maybe it was just over my head.
After this I walked with him and Dr. Peterlin to the Keston Institute. Dr. Peterlin showed me around and asked me if I was still interested. I’m not sure if I should have taken this on, but I couldn’t say I didn’t want to do it now and I’m sure I’ll learn a lot, so I’m going to be volunteering every Thursday after my tutorial and lunch, starting next week.
I walked back to Stanley Rd. and finished reading the first book in Hitch Hiker, and then read the preface to the globalization book. Then I downloaded all my articles and marked places in my books so I could start reading today. I walked back to Regent’s for dinner, which was fine but it didn’t really fill me up. It had a tomato and feta salad for the starter, which was good, but then just more salad for the side and I got vegetable kabobs. Then the dessert was pretty much all sugar, peaches on top of whipped cream, on top of hardened meringue, with some honey in there too. Very sweet but I ate it all because I was hungry.
I stopped by Borders on the way home because yesterday was the last day of a student discount. When I got home, I talked to Kyle and realized I haven’t stretched the past couple days. I forgot again last night, so I really need to do that. Then I talked to my mom, and fell asleep, early. I think I sleep more here and I feel tired quite a bit of the time. I don’t know why. It’s really hard for me to get up early, when I usually get up quite easily. Hopefully when I get back I’ll get back to normal. So six more tutorials to go!!! And that was my day.