WIDAWTW

My weekly 'what I did at work this week' post usually goes up on a Friday evening, but on that day this week I still hadn't quite finished the marking which represents the last of my teaching duties for the next year. So I have let the post run on into Saturday instead, finished up the marking, and can now add it to this post and capture a nice clean break between my normal academic routine and the proper start of my research leave - yay!

From next week onwards I'll be recording my weekly work-related activities here in a different format, to suit the fact that I will be working in a different way. I'm not quite sure what that format will be yet, but I will figure that out on Monday.

For now, this post is part of a regular series made largely for my own benefit. You can pretty much scroll right past.

Teaching
Evidence and Enquiry - marked 20 assignments.
City in the Roman World - marked 60 exam scripts.

Admin
NOTHING HA HA HA

Research
Nothing, because even though this was the first week of my research leave, in practice I was busy finishing up my marking. :-/ But that will completely change from next week onwards. :-)

Other
Wrote and submitted a 3700-word article about the spatial aspects of Clodius' murder for the Journal of Classics Teaching.

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Breaking my conditioning

So, I fully appreciate that this post is a bit loser-ish, but here I go anyway.

My last bottle of the conditioner I like (Garner Fructis Sleek 'n' Shine, pictured below left) has just run out. I've been using it for a good ten years, I'd say, but over the last three years it has gradually and steadily been disappearing from every shop where I used to buy it. We're now at the point where the only place I know of that I can reliably get it is a large edge-of-town supermarket (the Asda at Holt Park, for locals), but that isn't where I shop normally, so it means a special journey out there just for this one item. And given past form I wouldn't be surprised to see it disappear from there soon enough too.

So it is time to explore other options. Earlier this week, I popped into my local Superdrug, and bought one each of every one of their little travel-sized conditioners. Or at least, one each of the ones which didn't claim to be completely unsuitable for my hair-type - so I left behind the ones for dyed hair, blond hair, frizzy hair, and the ones which claim to produce 'volume' (or, as I like to call it 'tangles'). These are the results:


I'm now going to work my way through each one sequentially, and - this is the really loser-ish bit - write a quick review of each one here when I get to the end of the bottle. I apologise in advance for becoming The Girl Who Blogs About Conditioners, especially since my findings probably won't be readily applicable to anyone else. I don't think very many of my friends share my very fine fly-away hair-type, which is so ultra-sensitive to any kind of residue left on it - be that conditioner, limescale in the water, or just sweat - that different products can genuinely make a huge difference to its appearance and manageability. But I promise they won't be very long. It is just my way of ensuring that I systematically write down a few notes about each one before I forget and move on to the next, so that I can compare them at the end and choose the best one to stick with.

For the sake of science, I will ensure comparability by continuing to use the same shampoo throughout: the matching Garnier Fructis one, which I get through much more slowly than the conditioner, and therefore still have two and a half bottles of. I also won't take these conditioners with me when I travel anywhere other than Leeds, in spite of their temptingly handy size, so that my observations are not skewed by different water types. (This is what I mean about my hair being ultra-sensitive - I barely need conditioner at all in Birmingham, which is supplied by pure spring water from the Welsh valleys, but need a ton of it and a lot of patience in Oxford, where the water is so hard when it comes out of the tap that you have to break it up with a hammer before you can use it.)

First exciting results on this journal in just a few short days - woo-hoo! Betcha can't wait.

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