A break from it all!

Not been on here for way too long but a quick scan over my long overdue friends feed does make me feel its a much calmer place than FB is at the moment.  I really don't know why I keep going on there, it just depresses me.  Yes, we're living in nasty, scary times. However the anger, hateful and close-minded views all over FB (and yes I am referring to both sides here) is just making me want to scream.  Anger is understandable, however so much hate and vitriol towards others just feels counterproductive - I am more scared of the rift that has developed in this country than the politics behind it, as it feels that unrepairable damage has been done.

I'm damned if I do and damned if I don't though. If I post my thoughts on this, they get misinterpreted, which only serves to make me even more upset and if I keep to "fluff" I get accused of being shallow - or at worse a potential "traitor" who is letting my friends down. I can't do protest marches because I panic in an uncontrolled crowd and nobody needs me having a panic attack (those who saw me have a slight wibble at the themepark in WGT last year will understand this!) but I can't say this on FB as I get accused of being unsupportive etc etc.  I feel I need a break from it before I start to fall out with friends that I really don't want to lose, just through rash words written in haste.

I've also more important things to do online, as I now start to embark on my dissertation, which quite frankly is terrifying me!  A big part of this fear is the feeling that the timetable is just out of my hands - at least with the modules there were start and end dates, assignment dates etc.  This is just ambiguous.  I've not been assigned a supervisor yet.  I emailed a general overview of my proposed topic to the College before Christmas and was told it was an interesting idea but I needed narrowing down.  So two weeks ago, when the term officially started, I emailed with a "narrowed down" topic - no title yet but a summary of what I wanted to research and referenceing a few articles I've used as my starting point - and to date, no response!  According to the guidelines, we are supposed to submit our topic/draft title within two weeks (ie next Monday) and then when its approved, we have 3 weeks to submit a research proposal. And finally, once a supervisor is appointed we have up to 9 months to hand in the completed dissertation.

So now, due to lack of response, I don't know whether to start drafting the research proposal, just in case the topic isn't approved or just keep collecting literature, reading, and getting myself into even more of a panic. :-)

But anyway, that can wait until Tuesday - bringing me back to the original subject of this post.  Tomorrow morning, at "oh my god how early" Rob and I fly to Seville for a much needed short break to get away from it all.  I started to get feelings of wanderlust when we came back to work after Christmas and started looking up the feasibility of a trip to see the northern lights.  Somehow this went off on a tangent after watching Assassin's Creed, reminding me of the moorish architecture that I studied at Uni and always longed to visit, discovered it was surprisingly cheap to get to and stay in Seville and managed to convince Rob.  So tomorrow, we shall be in Dorne!*

or possibly Naboo*


*GOT filming location - aka Real Alcazar palace.  And Plaza de Espana ended up in the Star Wars franchise.

You never know, I may even get round to posting photos on my return!

This wasn't intended to be a vent/rant post but evidently it needed to be done, as that is what came out of my fingers as I typed. Hopefully some photos lightened the tone a bit. :-)