How much is too much?

I’ve been a bit quiet over the last couple of weeks mainly because life has been manic. The trip to Malta went well and it was good to catch up with everyone. Trying to fit all the social obligations in made it quite a hectic week but I still managed to get in a morning at Ghajn Tuffieha, enjoying a swim in the glorious clear seas before all the bloody tourists turned up (I suppose I’m a tourist too now).

The flight back was a bit of a nightmare. The flight was delayed by about four hours and then my case didn’t turn up this end. We are still chasing BA but I get the feeling that’s the last I’ve seen of it – and of the dissertation notes I made while I was out there. Urghh!!!

Since we’ve been back I have managed to get some writing done and to really start looking at the data collected. It seems that the community stakeholders of Hackney are somewhat more idealistic about things than the politicians.

The trends seem to show that politicians think they do an OK job but that media and society have turned against them (I am being very simplistic here!) while community stakeholders seem to think that politicians could do a much better job but that the most important factor in engaging voters is not necessarily a communications challenge but one of improving conditions in society.

Anyway, more of that as we get nearer the end of this project. I’ve also been doing some more research on the background of Hackney and the way society in the borough has changed over the last century. Apart from a few hours in Hackney’s central library, I’ll also be off to meet the people from the Methodist church who filled in my youth questionnaire to go through what they said and see what the reaction is. More on that at the weekend.

Apart from all this dissertation stuff there is of course all the ongoing stuff at Propeller and our efforts to set up an online PR unit. It’s going OK and I think we’ve pretty much worked out how the whole thing works so hopefully we’ll be able to get going soon. We are testing our product with Grasswhispers. Tomorrow I should be able to see the first results of our efforts. Fingers crossed!

Oh, and I’ve also been preparing some stuff for EiA and their new PR push over the next few months. Hopefully I can get them to come on board with Propeller Online to help us develop the offering further.

Amongst all that we also managed to squeeze in a trip to the Emirates on Saturday so Clare has finally had her chance to see Arsenal at the new stadium and the odd 30th birthday part. It’s all the rage at the moment! Finally, it looks like we’ve also found somewhere to live after our contract at the University expires at the end of August. Because we’re not in full time employment at the moment we’ve going to have to pay £3,000 up front. Thank God for parents!

I can’t wait for this month to be over. By then this research will be over, I’ll have a full time job (hopefully?!), and we’ll be in a proper house. Maybe then I’ll be able to calm down a bit!