Alexandra Taylor's Blog, page 2
May 2, 2015
Word of the Day: Hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia
Hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia
From hippopotomonstrosesquipedalian, an extension of sesquipedalian with monstrum “monster” and a truncated, misspelled form of hippopotamus, intended to exaggerate the length of the word itself and the idea of the size of the words being feared; combined with phobia.
– source
In other words? It is the fear of long words.
April 28, 2015
Cover Reveal: The Last King by Millicent Nankivell
Millie is a very good friend of mine and I promised to do this for her on my site Novel Thoughts. Unfortunately that site is having some problems so we’re doing it here instead. I’m very excited for this book. She’s been working on it for ages and has always been writing in her spare time.
How awesome is that cover? I don’t know about you but I love it! The cover was done by the wonderful BookNerdFangirl and is due to be released later this year.
Anastasia Avignon has always known she was a witch.
It’s only now that mysterious shadows have begun chasing her that things have started getting weird. Yes, weird even for a witch.
For the sake of her safety, Anastasia has been taken to the Blackthorne Estate, run by Lady Mirabelle Brackens, a friend of her mother’s who she’s never heard of before. There, she meets Warren Brackens and Dara Robbins.
But there’s something curious about them. They seem to have access to more power than is normal for any witch…and she’s burning to find out why.
When Anastasia begins displaying unnatural powers of her own, it only fuels her desire to find out more. As a long forgotten curse is revealed, Anastasia finds herself in a tangled web of whispers from the past.
Like many other events in history, fear and shame have concealed the truth behind the fate of the last royal family. So why is it that now, centuries after their defeat, Anastasia is seeing their history everywhere? Why has she suddenly become the target of the one who destroyed them all those years ago?
Anastasia is convinced that Warren and Dara have the answers to her questions, but is the price of their knowledge worth paying?
Now she is being hunted, Anastasia must learn to trust in her own abilities and follow her instincts. But is Anastasia on a path predestined for her, or does she have the power to shape her own?
Remember you can add it on Goodreads
Most days, Millicent Nankivell believes she is a unicorn. Please don’t ever shatter her illusion.
As far back as she can remember, she has been creating stories that usually involved magic, mythical beasts, and creatures of her own invention. Not much has changed over the years. Well, except for also becoming a hopeless romantic as she got older.
If Millicent isn’t curled up in a dark corner with her laptop, sketch book, or reading a novel, you’ll probably find her out roaming local parks and gardens with her camera. She lives in Melbourne, Australia, and will argue that it is the best Australian city until she’s blue in the face!
You can find her on her Blog ♥ Facebook ♥ Twitter ♥ Google + ♥ Goodreads
April 26, 2015
From Gallipoli to Fromelles
Did you know I’ve published a short story?
From Gallipoi to Fromelles is a short story written as an extract of a World War One soldier. It’s available here on Amazon Kindle store.
Getting this out is making me motivated to finish my other things off too!
April 3, 2015
The life of a 21st Centurary Person: The Connected Generation
I was listening to a Webinar the other day which spoke about the ‘Connected Generation’. These are the people that have grown up using technology and in some cases don’t know anything but how to be connected. When I saw this picture on my Facebook I couldn’t help but think of that. In many ways I’m very much a part of this generation, though not as much as the younger people of today. My parents got their first computer in the late 1980s, I was born in 1990, they gt the internet in about 1996 or there about. I literally grew up with a computer in the house. Some of my earliest memories are playing Pacman on a Microsoft Dos computer, of mum sitting in the front room in one of the earliest houses we lived in (I was perhaps 3 at the time?) working on her University work. I got my first computer a few months after I turned 10 as the school required us to have one.
Even as I sit here typing this blog post up I have my phone next to me with email I’m checking, my iPad on my other side with some websites, other email and games I’m playing and I have five tabs open in this browser – a surprisingly small number for me. Besides all of that I have a Jawbone (a type of Fitbit), an eReader and an iPod. I use a computer for the majority of my work, for my uni work, for my volunteer positions and oh for my hobbies too. While I am a veracious reader I spend a LOT of my free time on my laptop. So do my house mates and many of my friends.
I’ve always been a big user of my computer, being highly introvert and not that great in social situations, though at first it wasn’t that common these days it isn’t odd for people to spend a lot of time on the computer or some other device.
As the person taking the Webinar said about this ‘Connected Generation’ is that they expect to be able to access the internet, to be ‘connected’ no matter when it is or where they are. If they can’t do something straight away then they just give up, they need the instant gratification that the internet and so forth can bring them. In many ways I’m no different, yes I will ‘disconnect’ and read a book for at least half an hour a day, go to the gym or go swimming but even then they overlap – on the top of one of the piles of library books is Android Application Development for Dummies – my reading is starting to give me new ways of being ‘connected’.
One of the things we stress despite that is that being ‘ connected’ all the time is bad but what do we do to discourage it? Not much. Yes, I’m someone who believes that we should introduce a lot of the emerging technologies such as the cloud into our schools, universities and day to day lives but at the same time the nature of Bush Schools/Forest Schools have their appeal to me just because it allows children t get out and explore the world in a way that many of us no longer do. We need to find the balance between the two because who knows what the future will hold. Will we end up teaching mediation like they are in the picture above? When I saw it my thought was a lot of children would be able to do that just because of their reliance on technology. It paints a pretty grim picture of the world we live in, in many ways.
April 2, 2015
QUEERMANCE
Lately, one of the things that I have been working on is Queermance
As described on their website it is:
Queermance 2015 is a celebration of GLBT relationships in fiction. It is a chance to catch up with the authors and publishers of GLBT fiction, pick up tips, find opportunities and ask all the questions you always wanted an answer to but didn’t know who can answer them.
Some of the authors include Hazel Edwards (Yes the author of There’s a Hippopotamus on my Roof Eating Cake. She’ll be discussing her book F2M, a YA co-written novel about a Transgender person). We’ll also have Kevin Klehr, CS Pacat, Toni Griffin and NM Harris among many other wonderful authors. We’ll have a number of publishers there on Sunday afternoon as well including Dreamspinner, Clan De Stine Press, Firebrand, Dark Matter Zine and MidnightSun Publishing.
Taking place between April 17th and April 19th it’s going to be a fun filled, highly packed weekend and TOTALLY worth the time and effort it would take for you to come.
March 10, 2015
A True Inspiration
A quick post as I’m on the train but I thought I should share this link
March 2, 2015
Library Review: Carnegie Library (Glen Eira)
Carnegie Library, is a part of the Glen Eira Library Service and is located just meters from the Carnegie Station. Not one of the largest libraries that I’ve seen but certainly not the smallest, it has it’s pros and cons like many of the libraries that i have visited over the years. One of the first things that I spotted when I entered the library was their take on the ‘blind date with a book’. Instead of doing just one book wrapped up they had a bag for each genre.
To your right, are the self serve stations that have just recently been installed as well as the selection of new books. The library is on two levels with the adult fiction, movies and magazines on the top level. Down the bottom are the computers, coffee machine ($2 a cup and Chicken Soup is provided too!) and the non-fiction and biography. The biographies are cataloged and shelved, not by dewey but by the author (or the person about in some cases). Truth be told, I’m not all that sure about that as I’d prefer to go to say 940 for Europe and the War etc than find the author especially when I’m just browsing. The non-fiction is categorised by categories as well as the dewey but that is something it seems more and more libraries are doing these days.
Hidden behind one of the catalogs is one of my favourite things: The purple chair!
One of the other things that I thought was a nice touch was in children’s area where there was a parents room. The wall clearly labelled that breast feeding was allowed in this room. Next to it were child sized toilets too – something I find a lot of places lack!
As stated before there were some bad things about the library. One of the more annoying things in my opinion are the lack of efptos facilities, which is something that is across all of the Glen Eira libraries that I have visited. As someone who doesn’t carry cash this can be rather annoying. You also cannot borrow if you have a fine (though this seems to vary from librarian to librarian but I’ve encountered it a few times). Also supposedly you cannot renew an overdue item due to a glitch in the system. In these cases they can return and reloan it to you. All in all the loan/renew seems to be rather clunky and just not useful. I haven’t used the self loan system yet so we’ll see how that goes.I do like how they allow multiple renewals despite that. They also allow renewal reminders if you are contacted via email.
One of the more interesting things that they seem to do loan Kobo ereaders out to patrons as well as the ability to download ebooks on your own which many libraries are starting to do. As someone who isn’t big on ebooks I haven’t tried this out yet though.
I probably give it a 6/10 overall. It’s not bad but it could use some improvements. No library is perfect though.
February 23, 2015
So what have I been up to?
That my dear readers is an excellent question. What have I been up to? Sometimes I wonder this myself. At the moment my life consists of working two days a week (Tuesday & Friday), Japanese for an hour Tuesday evenings, beginners dance classes Friday evenings, gym Monday morning and volunteer at the Australian Gay and Lesbian Archives on a Thursday. In between all of that I work a casual job, apply for other work, go to the gym for extra workouts and go swimming. I’m also now the Technical Person (official title totally) of Queermance. Somehow in all of there I’m also going to have to fit in University as I have just been accepted to study a Bachelor of Information Studies through CSU. That’s going to be an interesting experience, classes haven’t already started and I can tell you that. Oh and keeping up with my writing and hobbies.
Wait you’re studying Information Studies? I thought you were doing a Bachelor of Eary Childhood Education? I was. Simply put? A room of 16 1-2-year-olds scared the crap out of me. After I finish this one which will only take me a year or so I plan to go back to teaching but as a Primary teacher. I wanted to do Kindergarten to Year 2 as it was so that makes more sense to me.
So first and foremost, let’s talk about Queermance. It’s run by some of my friends (Matthew Lang, Isabelle Rowan and Nikki). It is essentially a festival that celebrates Queer Authors (writers of Queer Fiction) here in Melbourne. It’s running from 7pm April 17th to Sunday 19th April. It’s going to be a lot of fun. I’ll probably talk about it a bit here.
In relation to that and my writing. I’ve given up on my couple of novels that I’m working on for the moment and am working on a short story. It’s set in three hundred years in the future in Melbourne featuring the MC Abigail and her partner Jasmine who both work as Private Detectives. Sci-Fi and Crime Shows are some of my favourite things at the moment so I’m combining them. It also involves Time Travel.
I was planning on writing more but as I have work in the morning that means I really should be thinking about heading to bed. I shall also hopefully finish off the drafts I have waiting to be finished which are reviews on various different libraries. I’m a member of something like ten different ones here in Victoria so that’s a lot to review!
May 25, 2014
Welcome to my new blog
Welcome, I don’t know exactly how you stumbled upon my blog but here you are. As you might have gathered, it is a rather new blog given this is the first post. Despite that, I’m hoping to regularly update it with my thoughts on topics relating to my job as a Librarian and to my degree in Early Childhood Education. I’m a firm believer that people need to be introduced to technology at a young age but not overwhelmed by it, it needs to be used correctly and that is something a lot of people don’t actually manage to do. As a person gets older they use technology more and more especially in the current world which is become more reliant on technology than compared to when I was a child.
It is something, we need to seriously consider. At the school I work at children get their own laptops at the age of eleven but before that there are classroom sets that they can use – laptops and Chromebooks. Until recently there was desktops in the library too but they were removed due to a reshuffling of the library which meant there was no longer any space for them – they were only used for the children to play games on at lunch time as it was.
I know I might be one of the few people but something I’m looking forward to at least trying is Google Glass. I first discovered it at least a year ago, if not more when it still wasn’t in the trail run and was just fascinated by it. Perhaps because of just how much the world has advanced and changed in the past few years and there is still so much to come too. Perhaps it is because I’m a fan of science-fiction and that sort of technology just appeals to me? I don’t know but I do know I am looking forward to the chance to try it out myself.
