Hello! It’s good to see you again! Glad you could make time for this week’s Weekend Coffee Share as initiated by the lovely

Glad you could make time for this week’s Weekend Coffee Share as initiated by the lovely Part Time Monster!

We’d meet in town today, I’ve been holed up all week and the weather today is gorgeous. It’s getting warmer again and the sky is bright blue.

If we were having coffee today, I’d have a large Chai Presso, mainly because I can’t decide whether I want coffee or tea. I’ve been up until 2.30am every night this week and lived on coffee non-stop.

I’d tell you that I have been busy studying and managed to stick to my schedule, despite having had things added to it.

On Wednesday, I attended a very informative talk about TTIP (the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership) between the US and the EU. What’s so scary about it is, that nobody negotiating it (in secret, I might add) was actually elected to office to speak or negotiate on behalf of the concerning countries. It’s also not the Free Trade Agreement is claims to be. It clearly says “Trade Investment Partnership” – that’s not Free Trade!! But worst of all is that things like minimum wage (and other things that could mean an increase in expenditure) could be viewed as non-tariff barriers, in which case companies could sue whole nations just because of the way things are done there. But in return, the countries would not be allowed to sue the companies. Countries with strict laws against genetically modified food, for example, would not be able to keep it out. And that terrifies me.

I’ll write up a proper article about the talk sometime next week, hopefully. But for now, we’d probably talk about this. Have you heard of TTIP? Are you for or against? Why are you supporting/opposing it?

If we were having coffee today, I’d tell you that uni assignments are going well and I’ve definitely got a rhythm now. I’ve handed one in on Wednesday and I’m working on the next.

My free courses (MOOCs) are also going extremely well! So far, I’ve finished the weekly modules of 4 courses, with only two more to go for this week. That’s about four hours total, so it’s nothing drastic. I’ve now made binders for the Coursera and FutureLearn courses so I won’t mix them up.

I’ve also got one more assignment  to go for uni this weekend, but I’m prepared for that. Just having had to clean the entire house top to bottom yesterday (the four parties in this house are on a rota) stole some time from me. that I’m now trying to make up. Luckily for me, I don’t have much more planned for today after this chat, except for more studying.

We could talk about loads of things, if you like. What are your hobbies? What are you interested in? Have you read anything good, lately? I’m reading Mark Gatiss’ The Vesuvius Club at the moment, though I’m making slow progress as I’m usually too tired to read more than a few pages at a time.

Anyway, I’d better get back to my studies. Thank you for having coffee with me! I’m sure the other Weekend Coffee Sharers would love to see you, too!

Same time, next week?