Hello my lovelies!

How are you? I’m so glad that you found time for coffee with me for this week’s Weekend Coffee Share! Come in, come in, what can I get you? I’ve just made coffee but I can also put the kettle on.

It’s a nice day out but a bit chillier than it was, so while the windows are open and letting the fresh spring air in, I think it’d be too cold to actually sit outside on the patio today – unless you want to wrap up in blankets, then I’m all for it!

If we were having coffee today, you’d notice I’m a bit giddy. Well, a few minor but good things happened this week and I’m excited.

First of all, I’d tell you that I managed to get 100% on that course I told you about last week. According to the professor that makes me the first student in the 7 years she’s been teaching the course to achieve that. But finishing that course also means something else: I am now only 4 assignments and a thesis away from graduating!!

As of yesterday, my last 6 months of uni have started and I finally have access to the online module through which my thesis work and supervision is being monitored. I’ll have a chat with my supervisor next week regarding my research proposal, so hopefully I can start my proper research after that.

Weirdly enough, though, my M.A. thesis has to be rather short. It says “between 10.000 and 15.000 words” on the module. My (double) B.A. Hons dissertation was 16.000 words (54 pages plus bibliography), and I only had 6 weeks for that. But hey, I’m not complaining because that workload in 6 months is more than doable!

If we were having coffee, I’d tell you about my gorgeous new notebook cover from Altguild finally arrived!

It’s a Midori style cover in Field Notes size which looks like River Song’s Diary. So, of course I had to take a very Whovian picture with River’s red high heels, Eleven’s sonic, a miniature TARDIS and a charm that says “We are all stories in the end.” I love it!! I can’t stop sniffing the leather. This notebook cover will be my new, small companion for story research, blog drafts, study notes and trip memories. I even stocked up on the iconic, orignal Field Notes brand notebooks because I love them – and because Field Notes is an awkward size to make your own inserts in.

Yes, hello, my name is Conny and I am a stationery addict. Happy now? If we were having coffee, I’d tell you that my colleague recently returned from a six-week trips

If we were having coffee, I’d tell you that my colleague recently returned from a six-week trip to New Zealand. I used to live there as a teenager and have missed Aotearoa ever since. So she brought me back some Lemon & Paeroa flavoured white chocolate. L&P is a fizzy drink, including carbonated water from Paeroa and lemon. But it’s iconic (maybe even world-famous in New Zealand) and the chocolate is really nice. It even includes popping candy to get you that fizzy feeling. Yum.

If we were having coffee, I’d also tell you about my 2 A to Z Challenges. Here on Study.Read.Write I’m writing travel posts, mainly to justify still calling myself a travel journalist – it’s what I trained as, after all. So far I’ve revisited Amsterdam and Berlin. On my book blog Literati Girl, I have reviewed A Study in Scarlet as well as Bonjour Tristesse.

If we were having coffee, I’d tell you that tomorrow, April 3, it will have been 3 years since I was last a resident of the United Kingdom. And I miss it. Recently, I’ve taken to watching two of my favourite shows again: Life on Mars and its sequel, Ashes to Ashes. Especially Life on Mars, which was set in Manchester, triggers a lot of memories, and it’s only now that I don’t live “up North” anymore, that I realise how distinctive northern accents really are. I lived there for 6 years (in Cumbria and Merseyside, and working in Cumbria, Merseyside, and Lancashire with frequent trips into Manchester) so everybody around me had a northern accent all the time.

I’d also tell you that next to all the Challenge posts and general upkeep of two blogs, I’ll be doing Camp NaNoWriMo but with a really low word count goal. I’ve had another bout of inspiration – obviously once again when Ive already got a million things going on – so now I’m writing again.

For Literati Girl, I’m working on a series of interviews. I’m trying to interview people who work with books in whatever form – from librarians to bibliotherapists.  Do you work with books? I’d love to interview you about what your job involves!

Anyway, that’s it from me for this week. I’m sure the other Weekend Coffee Sharers would love to see you too.

Thank you for having coffee with me. Same time, next week?