Reasons to be cheerful: 1 2 3, er, and 4

Being in the new house now, I have 3 new housemates. And in the two weeks or so since moving in, I think I've had more interesting conversations with each of my new housemates than I did with any of my old housemates in a whole term. So, reasons to be cheerful:

1. Tony is the quietest of the people here. He's also the responsible one, (not that the rest of us are irresponsible) his name is on the phonebill and he was the contact on the leaflet for coming to see the house. He's also the oldest of us. Tony is doing a Phd. in linguistics and he's taught modern languages in schools in the past and I think he does it part-time now to keep a bit of money coming in.
2. Ramley is from Malaysia and he's doing a Phd. in Electrical Engineering (I think) Ramley's a Muslim and it's really interesting to learn about his faith - such things as the fact that he has to keep his crockery seperate because he can't eat off a plate which has had pork on it, I would never have thought of that. I'd describe him as quite devout in a down-to-earth way, the way it should be I think. The only thing I don't like about him is that he's a Manchester United fan. I tried to persaude him that we should have a sort of Haj and throw stones at the devil on the MU badge on his hat but he wasn't having it.
3. I first met Jo at a Post-grad and Mature Students Association quiz at the start of term in September. He's doing a Phd in Physics, and what struck me most during the quiz was how much he knew apart from physics. Not at all like the science student stereotype. He was far and away the best in our team. It was a pleasant surprise when I came to look around the house and he opened the door. He reminds me a bit of Dr McKendrick, with the laid back yet cynical approach to things, and penetrating insight. Jo and I have some very interesting and sometimes surreal conversations about politics, films, comedy and anything else that comes into view. I've started to repeat myself a bit now, though, so he might get fed up of me soon. Last week we did The Times cryptic crossword one night followed the next night by the Guardian. Jo did about 75% of the work but I was glad to get some of them. He reckoned it would have taken twice as long on his own.
4. Completely unrelated to the house, I helped out at the English Club again last week. I had just two students in my group, one Chinese and one Korean. I think it went really well, and it reminded me why I wanted to teach English, especialy with Asian students. We had a really good time.

[Is that better Miss Leahy?]