Gillian Polack's Blog, page 139
November 18, 2012
gillpolack @ 2012-11-18T21:19:00
I was possibly not full enough of spoons today for dancing, but there were so many years when I was unable to dance at all that I dared it anyway. That's the thing about chronic illness. I've had some bad times, but now I'm in a good period (less pain and a lot less physical incapacity - I can do all my work and even stuff on top of it), and dancing is one way of maintaining that capacity. Also, I love it.
Anyhow, my daring paid off. I'm not going to get the work done tonight that I'd planned, for of spoons I now have almost none, but I feel happier anyhow. And besides, I did so very much this morning that I can get the remainder of my deadline stuff done by tomorrow evening even if I do nothing tonight except complain about not working. The one important piece due isn't due until tomorrow evening in any case. (And let me admit, I have a printout to work gently with - I'm not doing nothing, just not doing as much as I'd planned).
Today's was very gentle dance session, for it was an introductory workshop for the general public. Mostly modern Israeli, with one traditional dance. Lots of flowing arms and clapping and balances from side to side (much Shlomo Maman, in other words). There was a single dance I remember from my childhood (this was the childhood before Greek dancing took over - the year before I joined Girl Guides). And there were two friends from the Israeli dance group I joined twenty years ago. Their little baby girl is just finishing Year 12! I used to play with her when she was the grand age of four...
My wits are scattered. I shall collect them and sit quietly in front of television for an hour then maybe have a cup of tea. If I then feel like working i shall, and if I don't, I shall have an early night.
Anyhow, my daring paid off. I'm not going to get the work done tonight that I'd planned, for of spoons I now have almost none, but I feel happier anyhow. And besides, I did so very much this morning that I can get the remainder of my deadline stuff done by tomorrow evening even if I do nothing tonight except complain about not working. The one important piece due isn't due until tomorrow evening in any case. (And let me admit, I have a printout to work gently with - I'm not doing nothing, just not doing as much as I'd planned).
Today's was very gentle dance session, for it was an introductory workshop for the general public. Mostly modern Israeli, with one traditional dance. Lots of flowing arms and clapping and balances from side to side (much Shlomo Maman, in other words). There was a single dance I remember from my childhood (this was the childhood before Greek dancing took over - the year before I joined Girl Guides). And there were two friends from the Israeli dance group I joined twenty years ago. Their little baby girl is just finishing Year 12! I used to play with her when she was the grand age of four...
My wits are scattered. I shall collect them and sit quietly in front of television for an hour then maybe have a cup of tea. If I then feel like working i shall, and if I don't, I shall have an early night.
November 17, 2012
gillpolack @ 2012-11-18T09:18:00
My day is split into three. This morning I need to finish at least two of the 'must-do-before-Monday-lunch-or-entropy-wins' tasks*. This evening I shall make significant progress with the Big two, which I'll finish Monday morning. In between, however, I'm dancing. My daft dancing shoes are all packed**.
Coffee and writing - this is my morning - except when it's writing and coffee.
*There are no Aurealis books on this list for I have run out of novels until the nominated and missing works arrive. I've read forty-something novels and there are only fifty-one on the list, so, unless there are three dozen published in the next few weeks, I'm through the big reading splurge. It was fun while it lasted!
**My non-daft dancing shoes unaccountably fell to pieces and I can't worry about replacing them until I know my future just a bit better. All sorts of things aren't being replaced until I know my future a bit better. I told myself I was saving money, but then I find a book I need. Books I need are part of my now, not part of the future I don't yet know.
Coffee and writing - this is my morning - except when it's writing and coffee.
*There are no Aurealis books on this list for I have run out of novels until the nominated and missing works arrive. I've read forty-something novels and there are only fifty-one on the list, so, unless there are three dozen published in the next few weeks, I'm through the big reading splurge. It was fun while it lasted!
**My non-daft dancing shoes unaccountably fell to pieces and I can't worry about replacing them until I know my future just a bit better. All sorts of things aren't being replaced until I know my future a bit better. I told myself I was saving money, but then I find a book I need. Books I need are part of my now, not part of the future I don't yet know.
November 16, 2012
gillpolack @ 2012-11-17T13:30:00
I've decided to be fascinating today. It will be in writing, so you won't see the benefits here, alas.
What has happened is that I've done so many of the easy things, that I'm left with the hard things and I have to get them done. If I'm going to jump hurdles that are uncomfortable (mainly because I'm nervous) I am determined to jump them in style. Since they all involve writing, being fascinating is the way to go.
Now, all I have to do is work out how on earth to do it. For I do not feel fascinating today. I feel like eating chocolate, actually. I rather wonder what an editor would think if I sent in chocolate wrappers in lieu of scintillating prose.
What has happened is that I've done so many of the easy things, that I'm left with the hard things and I have to get them done. If I'm going to jump hurdles that are uncomfortable (mainly because I'm nervous) I am determined to jump them in style. Since they all involve writing, being fascinating is the way to go.
Now, all I have to do is work out how on earth to do it. For I do not feel fascinating today. I feel like eating chocolate, actually. I rather wonder what an editor would think if I sent in chocolate wrappers in lieu of scintillating prose.
November 15, 2012
gillpolack @ 2012-11-16T14:40:00
My mother is a source of infinite entertainment. She does a lot of volunteer work and someone just nominated her for Victorian Senior Citizen of the Year. This upset her. "Why would anyone do such a thing? I shouldn't have it. I don't do anything worthy of note." I am an evil daughter, for I laughed at her for thinking this.
My mother has, in fact, done an enormous amount. The trouble is that she's infinitely unselfcentred and also that she assumes that if she does something, other people must be doing a lot more. I checked out the award and when I told her that she was nominated but that several other people were shortlisted and someone else entirely won and when I recounted *their* work to her, she admitted that she could tolerate having a certificate that says she was nominated. She still thinks it's wrong, however, and refuses to tell anyone.
Me? I'm proud of her, but I've been proud of her for many, many years. She doesn't complain about anti-Semitism: she works long hours in the Jewish Museum to answer questions about being Jewish in Australia and she works with groups of schoolchildren and gives talks to community groups and puts in very long hours and much work to make sure that those who want to understand have access to that understanding. So many of our phonecalls are about what approach will work for this subject or that, to help people of all backgrounds understand.
Since she retired, she's done about 25 hours a week of work in this area, and recently she has also worked to help sustain an old steamtrain line*.
She's not a leader. She's the person who does the work that makes things last and makes operations effective. She's the one who turns up when other people can't and who will put in the extra hour or two when things take longer than expected or when something goes wrong. She's the one who gets the difficult groups at the Museum (for they're never difficult with her) and who doesn't take offence at questions or assume that a question from a child requires a childlike answer, but who looks the questioner in the eye, nods gently, and gives the questioner a serious answer.
My mother is a solidly good person with a very keen sense of the importance of giving more than she receives. She's the sort of person you want in a community, the kind who helps keep things cohesive and kind.
I told her this and she said that if I had nominated her, she would have strangled me. I didn't nominate her, I said, but that didn't mean I wasn't proud of her. She's promised not to hide her certificate until I have seen it.
*This has led to an obsession with jigsaw puzzles.
My mother has, in fact, done an enormous amount. The trouble is that she's infinitely unselfcentred and also that she assumes that if she does something, other people must be doing a lot more. I checked out the award and when I told her that she was nominated but that several other people were shortlisted and someone else entirely won and when I recounted *their* work to her, she admitted that she could tolerate having a certificate that says she was nominated. She still thinks it's wrong, however, and refuses to tell anyone.
Me? I'm proud of her, but I've been proud of her for many, many years. She doesn't complain about anti-Semitism: she works long hours in the Jewish Museum to answer questions about being Jewish in Australia and she works with groups of schoolchildren and gives talks to community groups and puts in very long hours and much work to make sure that those who want to understand have access to that understanding. So many of our phonecalls are about what approach will work for this subject or that, to help people of all backgrounds understand.
Since she retired, she's done about 25 hours a week of work in this area, and recently she has also worked to help sustain an old steamtrain line*.
She's not a leader. She's the person who does the work that makes things last and makes operations effective. She's the one who turns up when other people can't and who will put in the extra hour or two when things take longer than expected or when something goes wrong. She's the one who gets the difficult groups at the Museum (for they're never difficult with her) and who doesn't take offence at questions or assume that a question from a child requires a childlike answer, but who looks the questioner in the eye, nods gently, and gives the questioner a serious answer.
My mother is a solidly good person with a very keen sense of the importance of giving more than she receives. She's the sort of person you want in a community, the kind who helps keep things cohesive and kind.
I told her this and she said that if I had nominated her, she would have strangled me. I didn't nominate her, I said, but that didn't mean I wasn't proud of her. She's promised not to hide her certificate until I have seen it.
*This has led to an obsession with jigsaw puzzles.
November 14, 2012
gillpolack @ 2012-11-15T15:49:00
I'm just finishing my conference paper for Melbourne. Edits then check for length and then I'm done. Except...
I've been so worried about its controversial nature (in feminist terms it's not controversial - it's in the geekgrrl world that I will most certainly get into trouble) that I failed to notice just how many names are in it. I like pronouncing things correctly, but I think, this once, that just a couple of names will have to take potluck.
I get diverted too quickly by side issues. Why does Gaiman use the Arabic name for the Queen of Sheba, for instance? And isn't it a bit of a worry that he does so and then turns her into a god, given that Islam is so very monotheist? He knows different things about Islam to me. And ... there are so many possible distractions.
I need to stop being distracted and do some work, since tonight is about teaching and the conference paper must be entirely done by then. I want it printed in large font (if I use a large enough font, I can see the audience while I read it) and packed. I can then move on and do other work and get things out of the way. This is a fine theory and would work if it were not for incoming Weather and the sleepiness that results from the diminution of pain (and that fury has now gone!).
En avant! (why doesn't Gaiman use lots of French names - I can pronounce French names...)
I've been so worried about its controversial nature (in feminist terms it's not controversial - it's in the geekgrrl world that I will most certainly get into trouble) that I failed to notice just how many names are in it. I like pronouncing things correctly, but I think, this once, that just a couple of names will have to take potluck.
I get diverted too quickly by side issues. Why does Gaiman use the Arabic name for the Queen of Sheba, for instance? And isn't it a bit of a worry that he does so and then turns her into a god, given that Islam is so very monotheist? He knows different things about Islam to me. And ... there are so many possible distractions.
I need to stop being distracted and do some work, since tonight is about teaching and the conference paper must be entirely done by then. I want it printed in large font (if I use a large enough font, I can see the audience while I read it) and packed. I can then move on and do other work and get things out of the way. This is a fine theory and would work if it were not for incoming Weather and the sleepiness that results from the diminution of pain (and that fury has now gone!).
En avant! (why doesn't Gaiman use lots of French names - I can pronounce French names...)
gillpolack @ 2012-11-15T12:03:00
I'm having another things-go-awry morning. That's three this week, which makes my share of them, I think.
The big things are going right, but oh, so many small things go wrong! I've started fuming in advance, just because it's easier. The problem is that i seem to have a bad case of PMT, so I focus on the collapsing word processing program even though my file is actually rescued and managed to pass by the fact that I checked a book on teaching narrative theory and am well-equipped to teach it. I knew I had the theory, but I had no idea if my approaches fitted anyone else's and yes, I'm fine. Although my adult ed classes tend to get more advanced theory than some undergraduate ones, it appears. I'm not going to teach down: if students are up to thinking then I shall teach at that level. I do suspect, though, that it's about time I taught specialist classes at grad level for some subjects.
Narrative theory is not on the roster for tonight's class. We're going to talk about research techniques and about identifying and describing family cultures. Also about taste and writing it.
Since, overall (when I turn the fuming off) the day has much more good than bad, maybe I could go to bed for a half hour and pretend to start again? Some of this is most definitely the result of my first unasthmatic night's sleep for two weeks, after all. My breathing is still not wonderful, but it's significantly more stable and just enough deeper to make life feel almost normal.
I am totally scatty, though, as you can tell my this blogpost. I have ten things (some large) to finish by Saturday night and I'm not making much progress. I shall have taht rest and then I shall finish with the conference paper and then I'll be allowed a big pot of coffee and can tackle the rest.
The big things are going right, but oh, so many small things go wrong! I've started fuming in advance, just because it's easier. The problem is that i seem to have a bad case of PMT, so I focus on the collapsing word processing program even though my file is actually rescued and managed to pass by the fact that I checked a book on teaching narrative theory and am well-equipped to teach it. I knew I had the theory, but I had no idea if my approaches fitted anyone else's and yes, I'm fine. Although my adult ed classes tend to get more advanced theory than some undergraduate ones, it appears. I'm not going to teach down: if students are up to thinking then I shall teach at that level. I do suspect, though, that it's about time I taught specialist classes at grad level for some subjects.
Narrative theory is not on the roster for tonight's class. We're going to talk about research techniques and about identifying and describing family cultures. Also about taste and writing it.
Since, overall (when I turn the fuming off) the day has much more good than bad, maybe I could go to bed for a half hour and pretend to start again? Some of this is most definitely the result of my first unasthmatic night's sleep for two weeks, after all. My breathing is still not wonderful, but it's significantly more stable and just enough deeper to make life feel almost normal.
I am totally scatty, though, as you can tell my this blogpost. I have ten things (some large) to finish by Saturday night and I'm not making much progress. I shall have taht rest and then I shall finish with the conference paper and then I'll be allowed a big pot of coffee and can tackle the rest.
November 13, 2012
gillpolack @ 2012-11-14T17:33:00
I have good news. My eyes are stable. The hospital has discharged me with instructions to report back if anything new happens to that eye. It's not impossible that the eye will play up again but, since it's now stable, it's apparently not likely.
I started the day with an invisible eclipse (I woke up for it, though I didn't mean to) and had done an hour and a half's work before teaching, and then there was my hospital check up and now all I want to do is sleep. I might try resting for a half hour before I do some urgent work (I tried it before, but the telephone rudely intervened).
I started the day with an invisible eclipse (I woke up for it, though I didn't mean to) and had done an hour and a half's work before teaching, and then there was my hospital check up and now all I want to do is sleep. I might try resting for a half hour before I do some urgent work (I tried it before, but the telephone rudely intervened).
November 12, 2012
gillpolack @ 2012-11-13T15:21:00
Today is officially a not-good day. I'd say it was a bad day, but the wrong things that keep on happening are all quite small. They add up and up and up, however, and my virus now is at the stage where I have to sleep a lot and have miserable fever dreams, so it all feels much worse than it is.
It will be over tomorrow. The virus, I mean. My fever has just broken and I can breathe almost-properly for the first time in days. Also, I shall be happier tomorrow, for teaching always makes a difference and tomorrow is the best class in the known universe. One of my students wrote me a poem at the beginning of term wanting me to find a job, but also wanting me to stay with them and keep teaching. In the mood I'm in, that made me cry. that's when I realised it was not a cold I had, and that it was not a good thing to ache so much and to breathe so little. After reading that poem, I started sleeping and discovered (again) that fever dreams when one is depressed are not necessarily a happy experience.
I didn't realise that I kept the miseries at bay by hard work, and something as simple as the fatigue from a minor illness means I can't do that.
My problems are fewer. I have enough money to get through the summer. I've done a ton of things to improve my life after the impossibility it reached a few years ago. Most of my things-to-impove-my-life (the PhD, the job applications, the being courageous about my work) haven't turned into realities yet. And they may not.
Days like this, I see the unlikelihood of getting a job in the current market and wonder what on earth I should do with my writing when I have no shortage of publishers who want to see it, but a dearth who want to actually publish it.
I keep reminding myself that I do know where I'm going. I just need the job and the publications to get there. And also, I need fewer days like today.
It will be over tomorrow. The virus, I mean. My fever has just broken and I can breathe almost-properly for the first time in days. Also, I shall be happier tomorrow, for teaching always makes a difference and tomorrow is the best class in the known universe. One of my students wrote me a poem at the beginning of term wanting me to find a job, but also wanting me to stay with them and keep teaching. In the mood I'm in, that made me cry. that's when I realised it was not a cold I had, and that it was not a good thing to ache so much and to breathe so little. After reading that poem, I started sleeping and discovered (again) that fever dreams when one is depressed are not necessarily a happy experience.
I didn't realise that I kept the miseries at bay by hard work, and something as simple as the fatigue from a minor illness means I can't do that.
My problems are fewer. I have enough money to get through the summer. I've done a ton of things to improve my life after the impossibility it reached a few years ago. Most of my things-to-impove-my-life (the PhD, the job applications, the being courageous about my work) haven't turned into realities yet. And they may not.
Days like this, I see the unlikelihood of getting a job in the current market and wonder what on earth I should do with my writing when I have no shortage of publishers who want to see it, but a dearth who want to actually publish it.
I keep reminding myself that I do know where I'm going. I just need the job and the publications to get there. And also, I need fewer days like today.
gillpolack @ 2012-11-13T10:34:00
Nothing terribly exciting to report today, except that I spent too much time in bed yesterday and had to skip dancing today for my breathing is not up to the task. I have no apparent infection and no fever, just an idiot virus (it wasn't a cold, after all). This morning is better than yesterday was and I shall take care today and be much better again by tomorrow.
My grumpiness yesterday was mainly due to viral aches and pains. Also because I didn't have the energy I wanted, to get things finished.
I'll be fine, workwise, for I try to allow for these things. It's annoying, however, for I want to finish everything and move onto exciting new things.
The best thing about yesterday was working on the Beast with K. We're at the stage where we can actually see how things will look. What this means, of course, is that there's massively big work ahead, but we can see that it's going somewhere and will end one day. Even if we were just updating it (which we're not, as it turns out) there is such a lot of research in this kind of project. I don't know about K, but it feels as if I've got all the background on the Middle Ages I thought I had prior to that first doctorate. I understand a lot of basics in a lot of areas. This means that my actual specialist areas have much more solid ground to rest on.
Oddly, it also means that I understand how the Catholic Church in Australia got to the stage it did, institutionally, where it could fail to address child abuse. This doesn't make *any* of it forgiveable.
One of the reasons it can't address problems of abuse is because it hasn't sorted out some basic issues that were problems (often of jurisdiction, often of addressing power issues) in the twelfth century. Jurisdiction in the twelfth century should not be at all relevant to the protection of those who hurt children in the twentieth and twenty-first. It is, however. Tragically so.
I had read of church reform and now I understand that it wasn't as deeply structural as it looked, which means that some potential problems were swept under the carpet. Well, now we have a Royal Commission. It's not just about the Roman Catholic Church; it's about institutions in general, but the Church will have to look under that carpet.
My grumpiness yesterday was mainly due to viral aches and pains. Also because I didn't have the energy I wanted, to get things finished.
I'll be fine, workwise, for I try to allow for these things. It's annoying, however, for I want to finish everything and move onto exciting new things.
The best thing about yesterday was working on the Beast with K. We're at the stage where we can actually see how things will look. What this means, of course, is that there's massively big work ahead, but we can see that it's going somewhere and will end one day. Even if we were just updating it (which we're not, as it turns out) there is such a lot of research in this kind of project. I don't know about K, but it feels as if I've got all the background on the Middle Ages I thought I had prior to that first doctorate. I understand a lot of basics in a lot of areas. This means that my actual specialist areas have much more solid ground to rest on.
Oddly, it also means that I understand how the Catholic Church in Australia got to the stage it did, institutionally, where it could fail to address child abuse. This doesn't make *any* of it forgiveable.
One of the reasons it can't address problems of abuse is because it hasn't sorted out some basic issues that were problems (often of jurisdiction, often of addressing power issues) in the twelfth century. Jurisdiction in the twelfth century should not be at all relevant to the protection of those who hurt children in the twentieth and twenty-first. It is, however. Tragically so.
I had read of church reform and now I understand that it wasn't as deeply structural as it looked, which means that some potential problems were swept under the carpet. Well, now we have a Royal Commission. It's not just about the Roman Catholic Church; it's about institutions in general, but the Church will have to look under that carpet.
November 11, 2012
gillpolack @ 2012-11-12T13:21:00
And in other news - a topic that's come up on my blog and on friends' blogs has been the curious relationship that the ex-British colonies have with England. I explored this a little in my latest BiblioBuffet article. Only a little. There's so much still to say!
