12.07 BIRTHDAY

We are the spring-fever babies. It's Friday night and Clare, Dan and I are celebrating our upcoming birthdays collectively and in advance with a bunch of friends from uni. I have always been accustomed to sharing the spotlight around and on my birthday because there seems to have been a boom of births around the month of December.

At my (young and spritey) age I have no problem drawing attention away - it is becoming a burden to explain my age...to explain how I came to look so young for a 27 year old (and no, I don't feel old at all...). Physically, I am ageing at a slower rate than most but have realized that I am emotionally old enough to appreciate the astonishment when someone learns I am 10 years older than they think.

I still get asked for ID here and there, and always have it on hand. Actually, once this fall I was carded in line at a Wilco's for a purchase of scissors. In the UK you have to be 16 to buy the common kitchen utensil. The woman working cash was stupefied when I kindly told her I was 10 years older than she had assumed. Mouth agape with awe, she asked to see a second piece of picture ID.

Can't wait till I'm forty and I look 29.

12.06 CLIFTON CAMPUS

I took a bus to NTU's Clifton Campus today for 5 hours of intensive training for a new job I am taking on. In the new year I will begin tutoring primary students in literacy and numeracy.

Clifton is about 20 minutes outside the city centre by bus. It is quite a small campus and remote and houses the Department of Education, Sciences, Medicine, and Technology. It is generally the university's science base, whereas the city centre site hosts the arts and humanities.

It made me feel a world away from where I began, academically. With a background in sciences I feel somehow more at home around this centre - although a departure from my norm has served me better. I think the matter that I am focused now on a discipline that requires that I get out into the community, make contacts daily, and engage in my social environment is a needed break from the path toward the sometimes isolated and independent work-style of academic research.

12.05 NIGHT LIGHTS

This is the Old Market Square dressed up for Christmas.

Just in front of the council house the German Markets add to the seasonal effect.

A fountain at the far end of the square reflects the lights on the municipal building.

Seems like only yesterday I was here in the city square, a copy of The Guardian in hand, enjoying the last few days of warm weather and sunshine before the school semester set in and daylight savings stole my nightlife. The night lights help.

12.04 CHRISTMAS BALL

The CBJ hosted its department Christmas party this evening. Organized by undergrads, the shin-dig was more a display of fashion and flare as the HK formals of my undergard years (although it was there that I once wore a home-made dress that barely departed from a poorly wrapped toga except that the material was a pattern of shimmery green.)

Anyhow, the food was scarce but the wine was plenty and my clothes were buttoned and stitched by a proper manufacturer. I was safe to dance the night away.

But the spotlight was already had by Shanks - the international student from India who managed a few hard-core break dance moves which left me on the sidelines having not yet mastered my 'freze.'

Alternatively, there were always folk to hang with at the bar. Here I am with radio students Jenny and Simon, our hair neatly swept to the same size after at least three attempts at a satisfying portrait. I say for only three attempts, we've done pretty good given none of us are TV journalists...

That's besides the point. There is little time to waste taking photos, when there is break dancing to be done. Back to the dance floor.

12.03 A LANGUAGE LESSON

There is a traditional butcher in Mapperley where I frequently pick up random and sometimes exotic cuts of meat. Venison from the Queen's plot in Scotland, ostrich farmed in Lancashire, and Lorne sausage among the varieties I've sampled.

This afternoon, I tried a fagot. It was less a force of appetite than a whim of curiosity that landed one of these traditional English meatballs in my grocery bag.

The first thing that comes to mind upon hearing the term is obviously not a meatball - or bundle of meat - although the etymology of the term does trace back to its 13th century definition of a bundle of sticks, often used to kindle a fire.

Instead, our generation would more readily associate the term, spelled with a double-'G', as a derogatory reference to a person who is homosexual.

For myself, one of Dion's home rolled cigarettes immediately sprung to mind. When I asked him whether he could quit smoking by replacing one fagot with the edible other he kindly reminded me that a ciggy is not a fagot, but a 'fag.'

This was my brief language lesson for the day - and I have one encouter with a foreign phrase or word nearly every day. It's a constant reminder that English - UK-English that is - is not my first language after all...

12.02 POPCORN

"Once you pop...you can't stop." We all know it as the catchline for Pringles. For Maddy the phrase applies doubly to popcorn.

I have mixed feelings about the toasted maize. It is bland without butter, boring without salt, and far too healthy to gain any sense of indulgence - even after bottoming a pot of freshly popped corn. And there's nothing worse than the lodging of a kernel between a freshly flossed set of pearly whites.

On the topic of my dental works, sugary variations, like caramel corn, satisfy my sweet tooth enough that it's not bothered by an extra sweep with the waxed wire. In addition to this, a visit to the theatre isn't the same without a bucket of popped corn of by your side.

And beyond its crave-curbin functions, popcorn has other varied uses. For instance, this time of year it reminds me of my role in the mass production of endless lengths of strung popcorn for the classroom Christmas tree in primary school. On a cloudless day it also provides an alternative to hunting for vague shapes in the sky - most popcorn pieces, I have found, bear some resemblance either to a zoo animal or a character from The Simpsons.

For Maddy none of this matters. There is no need to dissect the popular popped snack. A sprinkle of salt and a near-bottomless pot of popcorn is good enough. It's appeal is rubbing off on me - but then my appetite succumbs to peer pressure quite easily...

12.01 CONFUSED CHRISTMAS

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas.

But not much like the Christmas I'm used to.

The German markets in the city centre are enough to confuse my seasonal spirit. My own traditions include stringing tin foil ornaments on a two-foot tree, attempts at baking cookies amidst a dust-storm of flour and a tornado of candied fruit; potlucks and Chris Kringle's; and the occasional forage into a turkey's ass with a fist full of stuffing; and late-night treks through a neighbourhood aglow with Christmas bulbs.

None of these traditions will hold this year. I'm trying to make the best of enjoying the novelty, of breaking free of these so-called customs before they become ingraine in my habit like a Whopper on my birthday (more to come).

But for a Canadian girl at a German market in the UK, it can all be a little confusing.