A Plea from a Pedestrian

I don't drive. I had lessons a long time ago. I hated it and I gave it up. I plan to learn again one day (this is one of those very vague at some unspecified distance from now, 'one day's), but for the moment, I am predominantly pedestrian or a public transport user. I have already posted about the joys of using public transport. Today I want to make a polite request to road users from a pedestrian.

When the traffic is busy, you know you have to use indicators to indicate that you intend to take a particular road at a junction (having travelled in cars, I know that not all of you actually do this, but you should, and you know you should). However, some of you feel that this is not necessary when only pedestrians are anywhere near. There are no other vehicles, so you choose not to indicate your intentions because no one else needs to know where you are going.

Well, that's not true.

I need to know where you are going if I am trying to cross a road. Any pedestrian needs to know where you are going so that they can make a sensible judgement as to whether to step into the road. If you don't tell me you are turning up that road, and I step into it, it is your fault if I am in your way. It is not my fault. I think - reasonably so, because by not indicating a turn you implicitly indicate to me that you are not turning that way - that you are not turning up that road. Equally, if I am trying to cross the road you are already on, and you don't indicate but then turn off anyway, I have lost an opportunity to cross a potentially busy road safely whilst you are holding up the traffic. In the rain, or if I'm in a hurry, this is extremely annoying.

It would be much less stressful, and much safer for all of us - drivers and pedestrians alike - if you drivers always indicate your intentions at junctions.

Please.

Fashion?

I've never really been into fashion. I wear clothes that I like, that are comfortable and that, I hope, suit me. Even when I was a teenager the girls my age wandering around in the evening / at night wearing tiny dresses and no jacket because "coats aren't fashionable" puzzled me. I'll take unfashionable over hypothermia any day. So, clearly, I'm a lost cause when it comes to fashion.

But last week, when I was in a fairly fashionable high street store, looking for something specific, this lack of fashion understanding was pressed home to me in a big way. I looked at this 'item' (I was going to say 'garment', but I'm being deliberately vague) and thought "What is that? A skirt? a dress? a top? an Elizabethan ruff collar? How would one wear this item?"

I think I won't shop there again. It makes me feel very old. And I'm not.

Waiting

Today, I'm waiting.

For two things.

For my new passport to arrive through a secure mail service where I had to confirm a day when I would be home so that they could hand it to me when I provide identification (funnily enough, they list passport as an acceptable form of this), and for the chair of the panel who interviewed me yesterday for a short term teaching post to call me with the good / bad news.

The first will happen some time 'between 9 and 5' today. The second, either 'late morning' or 'early afternoon'. No doubt they will both happen at exactly the same time.

In the meantime, I am filling in another job application for another short term contract that needs to be sent off today (the PhDLitChick has applied for the same job), and I'm writing a reference for a student I taught at my previous post because he wants to take an MA course next year.

So, off I go. To keep waiting...

At the next table...

Working in the coffee shop yesterday was more productive than I expected. Having got over (well, just about) the fear that a random stranger would steal my notes on incest in 'Tis Pity She's a Whore, or my copy of the New Casebook on Revenge Tragedy if I went to the counter to order a new coffee or left the table to go to the toilet, I settled quite happily into reading and note taking in a corner of the room by the window. I like to work outside, or at least outside my flat / the office (when I used to have one) - it's good to have a change of scenery, and I'm much less likely to watch TV if I'm not sitting on my sofa!

Some environments are not good for working. I used to work at the Castle in the Beautiful Scottish City that I Miss, but during the summer tourist season, there was too much noise. I admit to feeling slightly resentful that noisy families had invaded my peaceful castle, but I also know that's the chance you take when you choose to work in a public place. And as much as I like to think of it as such, it is not my castle, and I have to share it. And if those people didn't visit the Castle, then Historic Scotland would have to close it. So, I don't get too cross when there's noise around me when I'm working in a public place. In fact, some noise in the background often helps me to concentrate, as long as it's at reasonable levels.

So I did feel a little guilty when a man with his two small daughters sat at the next table, and from the moment they arrived he kept "shhh"-ing them whenever they opened their mouths. I don't expect or ask for silence, and his daughters seemed to be very sweet and well behaved children. And, as she kept trying to tell her dad - she really did have very cute new shoes. I tried smiling at them when they looked over, especially if they were talking, so he didn't feel he had to keep them quiet but it didn't seem to make a difference. So, I feel bad about it. I didn't want to spoil their morning out.

After he left, two ladies with a baby and two young boys sat across from me. The ladies were so busy talking that they did nothing about the boys screaming and shouting , and running in and out of the toilet, causing a queue without actually needing to be in there (there is only one multisex toilet in the cafe) except occasionally shouting at them. By this time, another lady had set up her laptop elsewhere and was also working. When the ladies noticed the boys jumping up and down behind her, one of them said "that lady is going to get very cross and shout at you, so come and sit down". Well, yes, maybe she would get cross with him, but surely "come and sit down" is something the boys should be doing in a coffee shop anyway? They left. The other studying lady and I looked at each other and breathed a sigh of relief.

Another two ladies with two small boys arrived. They two were shouting and screaming and running around. They entertained themselves by playing trains noisily all across the floor, particularly at the top of the stairs and by trying to climb over the window guards behind me, put up specifically, I would guess, to stop people falling out of the windows (we were on the second floor). The women made little if any attempt to calm their boys down, or move them out of harms way for some time. Eventually they made them sit down, but only to then allow the older one to climb all over his mother, with his legs flailing dangerously close to my face. And this time I was cross. Not because I was trying to work - it would have annoyed me if I was only there for coffee with friends - but because this was disruptive, anti-social and potentially dangerous behaviour. They could have been hurt on the windows or on the stairs; people carrying trays of hot coffee, small children, trains on wheels and narrow staircases is not a good combination. If I could see that, why couldn't their parents? I grumbled quietly to myself, giving the occasional glance of disbelief toward the boys / waitresses / parents. Another sigh of relief when they left.

Finally a group of teenage boys came and sat down. They weren't noisy or disruptive, and I settled back to work. They were just chatting and then suddenly one of them said abruptly "Oooh, look at her!". "Where? Where?" was the rapid response. They were looking out of the large window by their table. "Ah, the one in the little blue skirt?... Yeah, she's well fit. But I'd rather have her friend with the pink shoes..."

I guess I wasn't the only one people-watching in the coffee shop.

On a shop door:

During the summer, opening hours will be:

Monday: 10.30am -4pm

Thursday: 10.30 - 4pm

Friday: if it's raining

Who are my friends?

Well, I finally gave in and joined up to Facebook. Joining didn't seem to be difficult, but there is so much stuff on the screen that I'm finding actually using it very complicated. No one who told me to join told me it would be confusing. I think they should have.

But I have to say the strangest thing about it, is being told who my friends are. "Autumn and ThePhDLitChick are now friends", it tells me confidently at 11am; "Autumn and the Italian Speaker are now friends" it tells me slightly later. And I find myself thinking surely this was true before? Does it take linking to them through an internet networking site for this to be true? Does linking on Facebook suddenly make this indisputable fact? And then I think, can friendships be facts? And then I think, perhaps I should be thinking about something else...

Cut Adrift

I went to my graduation ceremony in the last week of June. I can now officially call myself Dr Autumn Song, and am slowly but steadily changing information so that my mail comes addressed to Dr Song. Hurray!

Graduation day was lovely, the ceremony wasn't too long, and several of my PhD peers graduated at the same time. I was a little disappointed that most of them didn't hang around for very long, though; I wanted some group photos! (If any of you are reading this - you know who you are - consider yourselves told off...) I can't blame them too much though - the department did forget to let us know that they were having a party for their graduates...

So, I have now officially left the university in the Beautiful Scottish City that I Miss. I am still, of course, emotionally attached to it. I have friends who still live around the uni, and of course, friends and former colleagues in the department. But officially, I have no reason to be there. And just to make sure I know it, my network username has been deleted; my email access has been cut off. I remember asking about this some time ago, and I was sent an email telling me I would be given notice before this happened. I wasn't. And I can't prove that I was told that, because I can't get into my emails. Clever, eh?

As of July 1st, I am also unemployed. My contract at the university in the City where the Castle is also a Prison ended at the end of June. Fortunately, my computer access is still active and, they tell me, will continue to be so for a couple of months. We shall see. I did, however, have to clear my office and surrender my key, and my library card ceased to be valid at the end of my contract. I now finally have time to get on with my own research, and don't really have the facilities with which to do it. I believe I can join the library as an external reader. This means I can borrow three books at any one time, and for this privilege I have to pay £60 for the year. Sixty pounds.


"Congratulations on your graduation. Get out."

"Thank you for your help teaching our undergraduates. Please don't now do any work here that we can't use to our advantage / for our ratings."


I'm feeling decidedly cut adrift...