Gillian Polack's Blog, page 143
October 26, 2012
gillpolack @ 2012-10-26T22:08:00
I started my afternoon/evening off with a visit to the Canberra Museum and Art Gallery. Here I discovered Environa, an undead satellite town that Canberra almost had. Bits were built and it still appears in odd places like this. The bits that were actually built included a bandstand and an arch and some pillars, I believe. I see more research into this failed satellite town in my future. The way it half-reveals in Google Maps is fun. I so want an SF anthology based around this place. It would be such a very fine subject.
After CMAG, I went to find someone a birthday present and found Elizabeth instead. We found the birthday present and I found myself my (belated) Jewish NY present to myself: zebra stone. I have two nice pieces and they're sitting on my kitchen bench until I finish admiring them, when they will join my other rocks (not the ones in the brain - they don't require the presence of zebra stone).
Then we headed pubwards and were met by a bunch of other friends (over 30, which made me feel all kinds of warm and happy). It was a very nice evening. The room in the pub was dubbed "the Harry Potter Room" very early in the evening and the name stuck. Unfortunately, my photos were a bit of a mess, so here's just one, a bit dark, so that you can get the feel of Parliamentary colours (with Hansard being the book on all the shelves) and lots of wood panelling and solid furniture.
After CMAG, I went to find someone a birthday present and found Elizabeth instead. We found the birthday present and I found myself my (belated) Jewish NY present to myself: zebra stone. I have two nice pieces and they're sitting on my kitchen bench until I finish admiring them, when they will join my other rocks (not the ones in the brain - they don't require the presence of zebra stone).
Then we headed pubwards and were met by a bunch of other friends (over 30, which made me feel all kinds of warm and happy). It was a very nice evening. The room in the pub was dubbed "the Harry Potter Room" very early in the evening and the name stuck. Unfortunately, my photos were a bit of a mess, so here's just one, a bit dark, so that you can get the feel of Parliamentary colours (with Hansard being the book on all the shelves) and lots of wood panelling and solid furniture.
October 25, 2012
gillpolack @ 2012-10-26T13:20:00
I took this morning off, as promised, and saw Looper. It was as good a film as everyone told me (and a time travel film was highly appropriate for today, given the nature of the idiot doctorate) but there were certain Rules of the Looper Universe that annoyed me somewhat:
1. Women do not time travel
2. Women only use guns to defend
3. Women don't get to participate in crime except where sex and drugs are involved
4. All women are nurturing
5. All women who speak (and maybe all women) wear size ten or under in clothing. Most of them wear size ten or well under
6. Women do not talk to other women. Grunts and maybe a 'thank you' when one grabs a child from child care are, however, permissible interfeminine social discourse
7. Women are not numerous (which suggests alternate means of procreation or very large families) and have specific social roles, with the largest numbers being either on the street or in nightclubs
I want three more points, but lunch beckons. After lunch I might go to the Canberra Museum after I run my various messages.
1. Women do not time travel
2. Women only use guns to defend
3. Women don't get to participate in crime except where sex and drugs are involved
4. All women are nurturing
5. All women who speak (and maybe all women) wear size ten or under in clothing. Most of them wear size ten or well under
6. Women do not talk to other women. Grunts and maybe a 'thank you' when one grabs a child from child care are, however, permissible interfeminine social discourse
7. Women are not numerous (which suggests alternate means of procreation or very large families) and have specific social roles, with the largest numbers being either on the street or in nightclubs
I want three more points, but lunch beckons. After lunch I might go to the Canberra Museum after I run my various messages.
gillpolack @ 2012-10-25T22:31:00
I'm having some time out and so you get the results of the 2008 Royal Canberra Show in two categories and a couple of judges hard at work in a third. I've never actually entered anything in a Show, even though I have long talks with the judges about why on earth that chocolate cake ever got third place when its texture is uneven and the middle is soggy. One year, though (when I was still blogging food history) the cabinet was unlocked for me and I got to taste home made liquor. The best mead I've ever, ever tasted, and it was made in a backyard near me, from local bees.
October 24, 2012
gillpolack @ 2012-10-25T17:45:00
The weather is rattling inside me. I read Alan Garner's Boneland (been saving that up to celebrate the PhD - it's going back to the library tomorrow) and am more rattled. My neighbours are knocking on my ceiling, which means I'm jumping at sounds.
I shall work this evening, but, in the meantime, I shall watch a daft film and settle down a bit. I need to decide on what to cook for dinner: all the ingredients are ready, but I can't start cooking until I have worked out what I want to cook. Or I could just mess ingredients up in a pot and label them when they emerge, cooked.
And tomorrow I'm taking off. I have messages to run in Woden and the city and friends to meet at King O'Malley's.
Which reminds me - local friends - King O'Malley's Friday, from 5 pm. I've packed celebratory fridge magnets. I think they work out as two and a half for each month of study, but today I can't count*. Please drop in and remind me that I've submitted the idiot PhD.
*Not being able to do basic arithmetic probably means I have a low level weather migraine. That would explain why I'm avoiding the weather and also how I managed to run out of preserved ginger. I suspect that the lovely warm day is turning into a crisp evening rather more rapidly than is comfortable, aided by a gasping wind. This means summer is just around the corner.
I shall work this evening, but, in the meantime, I shall watch a daft film and settle down a bit. I need to decide on what to cook for dinner: all the ingredients are ready, but I can't start cooking until I have worked out what I want to cook. Or I could just mess ingredients up in a pot and label them when they emerge, cooked.
And tomorrow I'm taking off. I have messages to run in Woden and the city and friends to meet at King O'Malley's.
Which reminds me - local friends - King O'Malley's Friday, from 5 pm. I've packed celebratory fridge magnets. I think they work out as two and a half for each month of study, but today I can't count*. Please drop in and remind me that I've submitted the idiot PhD.
*Not being able to do basic arithmetic probably means I have a low level weather migraine. That would explain why I'm avoiding the weather and also how I managed to run out of preserved ginger. I suspect that the lovely warm day is turning into a crisp evening rather more rapidly than is comfortable, aided by a gasping wind. This means summer is just around the corner.
gillpolack @ 2012-10-25T13:27:00
I'm taking a pause in my furious lifestyle to admire the election results. The ACT has one of the most even-handed systems in the world and so the value of each of our votes is as close to equal as values are likely to get.
It's a painfully complex system. There are only three electorates in the ACT, but there are something like 140 forms of the ballot (so that donkey voting won't bias things). Also, ACT voters are sophisticated and many of us refuse to vote along party lines. Most of us recognise that our votes will actually make a difference (unlike when we vote for the Senate) and so we take it seriously.
In my electorate, there are five folks who will get elected so we had to number five squares at least for our vote to be valid. Beyond five, we can number as many or as few as we wish. A lot of people I know numbered all 20 squares. A small group of ratbags - amongst whom I count myself - carefully research candidates and find the most obnoxious purely to give them the signal honour of the highest number. These votes don't count, but it's quite possible that the first dozen of my votes are being trawled through, given where I gave them and how the quota system operates. My ballot, in fact, is one of the many that pass through the system over and again until my vote is actually counted. Giving someone no. 20 is pure ratbaggery, but making sure that more than 5 boxes are numbered is sensible voting in this system if one doesn't follow party lines.
Only 90% of eligible voters have voted#: it's a low turnout for our system, but most of the non-voters have legitimate reasons and the others will pay a small fine and complain about how the rest of us voted for someone dreadful.
The first preferences are basically counted. The cut-off for postal votes is tomorrow, so there may be a last few. There should be a result by now. In most systems, there would be, even if the result were a hung Parliament, which was our most recent Federal result.
We're not even close to a result, however. We're such a sophisticated electorate that we have managed to create the vast discrepancy of 46 votes between the two major parties in the primary vote. We have given neither party enough votes to win outright~ and we have carefully allocated our preferences in such a complex manner that the counting is slow and painstaking and continues for long hours every day.
Zed is looking a bit of a twerp for claiming such a solid lead over Labor last Saturday. His party has benefited by a significant swing, but Labor hasn't actually lost votes at all and has a small swing in their direction. All the minor parties and independents are the big losers. What's exceptionally fascinating about this is that, since we (as voters) have not voted along party lines, and since all our preferences count, no-one really knows where the votes that started off as benefiting the Greens or the Pirate Party or the Bullet Train for Canberra Party will end up. If they go to Liberal, then Liberal is in, and that's what Zed* assumed last Saturday, but mine certainly didn't go to Liberal, for I'm giving low preferences to the Libs until they work out what they're doing with a whole bunch of issues I care deeply about. Labor is vastly imperfect so it's not my party of choice, but Labor candidates went above Libs on my ballot. And this is one system where my preferences count. The question is, who else has done what I've done? A lot of people, it seems. This is why we know that the leaders of the two big parties got in (they achieved their quotas outright) but it's taking a long time to work out who else is there.
We'll know on Saturday, perhaps.
# which is not relevant, but it's the statistic that lured me into checking the count before final results are out - for those who really don't understand Australian elections, most Australians over 18 are eligible voters, that's why I took the photo of the vast crowds at my polling booth
~a candidate needs to reach a quota (a % of the vote - with first preferences counting more and complex formulae to allow for lower preferences for voters whose vote has not yet elected someone) to get elected and we didn't give enough candidates quotas from our no. 1 votes - in fact, we gave almost no candidates quotas from our no. 1 votes, so no party can form government from primary votes - we are so awesomely complicated.
* The reason that I keep referring to Zed rather than to Katy (and yes, we use first names in the ACT - I haven't met Zed, but I have met Katy several times, and she calls me Gillian and I called her predecessor Jon - we are a nation's capital that's a strange cross between city and country and this is one of the places it shows) is because it makes me very happy inside to know that there is a political leader whose name is the last letter of the alphabet. If this was the US, then he'd have to be call Zee, which is, in fact, even funnier.
It's a painfully complex system. There are only three electorates in the ACT, but there are something like 140 forms of the ballot (so that donkey voting won't bias things). Also, ACT voters are sophisticated and many of us refuse to vote along party lines. Most of us recognise that our votes will actually make a difference (unlike when we vote for the Senate) and so we take it seriously.
In my electorate, there are five folks who will get elected so we had to number five squares at least for our vote to be valid. Beyond five, we can number as many or as few as we wish. A lot of people I know numbered all 20 squares. A small group of ratbags - amongst whom I count myself - carefully research candidates and find the most obnoxious purely to give them the signal honour of the highest number. These votes don't count, but it's quite possible that the first dozen of my votes are being trawled through, given where I gave them and how the quota system operates. My ballot, in fact, is one of the many that pass through the system over and again until my vote is actually counted. Giving someone no. 20 is pure ratbaggery, but making sure that more than 5 boxes are numbered is sensible voting in this system if one doesn't follow party lines.
Only 90% of eligible voters have voted#: it's a low turnout for our system, but most of the non-voters have legitimate reasons and the others will pay a small fine and complain about how the rest of us voted for someone dreadful.
The first preferences are basically counted. The cut-off for postal votes is tomorrow, so there may be a last few. There should be a result by now. In most systems, there would be, even if the result were a hung Parliament, which was our most recent Federal result.
We're not even close to a result, however. We're such a sophisticated electorate that we have managed to create the vast discrepancy of 46 votes between the two major parties in the primary vote. We have given neither party enough votes to win outright~ and we have carefully allocated our preferences in such a complex manner that the counting is slow and painstaking and continues for long hours every day.
Zed is looking a bit of a twerp for claiming such a solid lead over Labor last Saturday. His party has benefited by a significant swing, but Labor hasn't actually lost votes at all and has a small swing in their direction. All the minor parties and independents are the big losers. What's exceptionally fascinating about this is that, since we (as voters) have not voted along party lines, and since all our preferences count, no-one really knows where the votes that started off as benefiting the Greens or the Pirate Party or the Bullet Train for Canberra Party will end up. If they go to Liberal, then Liberal is in, and that's what Zed* assumed last Saturday, but mine certainly didn't go to Liberal, for I'm giving low preferences to the Libs until they work out what they're doing with a whole bunch of issues I care deeply about. Labor is vastly imperfect so it's not my party of choice, but Labor candidates went above Libs on my ballot. And this is one system where my preferences count. The question is, who else has done what I've done? A lot of people, it seems. This is why we know that the leaders of the two big parties got in (they achieved their quotas outright) but it's taking a long time to work out who else is there.
We'll know on Saturday, perhaps.
# which is not relevant, but it's the statistic that lured me into checking the count before final results are out - for those who really don't understand Australian elections, most Australians over 18 are eligible voters, that's why I took the photo of the vast crowds at my polling booth
~a candidate needs to reach a quota (a % of the vote - with first preferences counting more and complex formulae to allow for lower preferences for voters whose vote has not yet elected someone) to get elected and we didn't give enough candidates quotas from our no. 1 votes - in fact, we gave almost no candidates quotas from our no. 1 votes, so no party can form government from primary votes - we are so awesomely complicated.
* The reason that I keep referring to Zed rather than to Katy (and yes, we use first names in the ACT - I haven't met Zed, but I have met Katy several times, and she calls me Gillian and I called her predecessor Jon - we are a nation's capital that's a strange cross between city and country and this is one of the places it shows) is because it makes me very happy inside to know that there is a political leader whose name is the last letter of the alphabet. If this was the US, then he'd have to be call Zee, which is, in fact, even funnier.
gillpolack @ 2012-10-24T23:28:00
I wrote a beautiful post about what happened today and I lost it. I think the weight off my shoulders leads to bad typing. Worse typing.
Anyhow, the big news is that my supervisor is a most wonderful supervisor and my whole big document is with the admin people and about to wing its way to examiners.
I won't know what happens from here until the examination process is at an end. At that stage, there are three possibilities: fail, pass with emendations and pass outright. We all hope for the latter, but it's not the most typical result - and the theses I have examined myself, I'm afraid, were all passed with emendations. My best hope is that the examiners will be sensible in what they want changed and not try to do what one of the examiners of the first PhD did, which was demand that I rewrite the whole thing on a slightly different subject. This is one of the reasons the examination of that first doctorate took three years. The examiner didn't understand the system and I paid for it. So I am, at this stage, rather nervous. I can't do anything at this point except wait.
What I'm doing (besides applying for jobs and waiting) is writing up large chunks of my dissertation for publication. This means changing their focus away from my novel (for creative writing dissertations are exegetical) and sorting intellectual contexts clearly. This is the moment when I get to link my historiographical self with my critical analysis self and I really, really like this.
I also have a chapter of a book to write - and am totally looking forward to getting into that. And I promised someone a short story and have notes, but have not actually written it. I gravely doubt that the publication will actually want a Gillian short story when they see it, but I'd like to write the thing. We so need more SF about dentists, after all.
In between all this, the Beast is happening (though we took a break tonight, due to general fatigue) and I must pick up my other work again, the book that got put on hold (after most of the research and before the writing) due to the PhD. I need do a proposal and see if I can find a publisher, I think. I had actually written a couple of chapters, but one wonderful thing that's happened the last three years is that I've had time to think and the book isn't the book I thought it was. I shall leave you not knowing what it is, however, for I am cruel and heartless. Also tired.
And I want to write a novel. I always want to write a novel. It's only in the planning stages, though, so it can mull along in the background while I write these other things.
I think I get a couple of quiet weeks in late January. Maybe. I'm going to enjoy these next three months, though - I'd rather work hard at the things I enjoy than wait in a vacuum for life to go pearshaped again. If I'm really really lucky, may life will refuse to go pearshaped, just this once.
Anyhow, the big news is that the PhD is up to being examined. Wish me luck!
Anyhow, the big news is that my supervisor is a most wonderful supervisor and my whole big document is with the admin people and about to wing its way to examiners.
I won't know what happens from here until the examination process is at an end. At that stage, there are three possibilities: fail, pass with emendations and pass outright. We all hope for the latter, but it's not the most typical result - and the theses I have examined myself, I'm afraid, were all passed with emendations. My best hope is that the examiners will be sensible in what they want changed and not try to do what one of the examiners of the first PhD did, which was demand that I rewrite the whole thing on a slightly different subject. This is one of the reasons the examination of that first doctorate took three years. The examiner didn't understand the system and I paid for it. So I am, at this stage, rather nervous. I can't do anything at this point except wait.
What I'm doing (besides applying for jobs and waiting) is writing up large chunks of my dissertation for publication. This means changing their focus away from my novel (for creative writing dissertations are exegetical) and sorting intellectual contexts clearly. This is the moment when I get to link my historiographical self with my critical analysis self and I really, really like this.
I also have a chapter of a book to write - and am totally looking forward to getting into that. And I promised someone a short story and have notes, but have not actually written it. I gravely doubt that the publication will actually want a Gillian short story when they see it, but I'd like to write the thing. We so need more SF about dentists, after all.
In between all this, the Beast is happening (though we took a break tonight, due to general fatigue) and I must pick up my other work again, the book that got put on hold (after most of the research and before the writing) due to the PhD. I need do a proposal and see if I can find a publisher, I think. I had actually written a couple of chapters, but one wonderful thing that's happened the last three years is that I've had time to think and the book isn't the book I thought it was. I shall leave you not knowing what it is, however, for I am cruel and heartless. Also tired.
And I want to write a novel. I always want to write a novel. It's only in the planning stages, though, so it can mull along in the background while I write these other things.
I think I get a couple of quiet weeks in late January. Maybe. I'm going to enjoy these next three months, though - I'd rather work hard at the things I enjoy than wait in a vacuum for life to go pearshaped again. If I'm really really lucky, may life will refuse to go pearshaped, just this once.
Anyhow, the big news is that the PhD is up to being examined. Wish me luck!
October 22, 2012
gillpolack @ 2012-10-23T14:56:00
I've spent the last hour struggling with edits and footnotes. The struggle is mainly because I can't read my own handwriting today. I am amused by this and really ought not be. I'm also amused because I carefully got rid of all my footnotes, only to discover that three had mysteriously transmuted to endnotes. All that is solved, however, and now I just have to fix my in-text notes and my bibliography and lo, life is wonderfully sane. Or not.
I have until 3.30 pm to do this and at that precise moment I am owed a big cup of coffee and have to tackle my next quest object. I deserve it, for the carefully-created electronic version of the new texts I must add to my bibliography has gone and lost itself. It will appear in six months time, at which stage it will be irrelevant to everything. I have hard copy and I have the articles on my computer, so all this means is ten minutes more work. Redundancy is so important.
Now I'm merely procrastinating. I don't really enjoy the adjusting of references. Or discovering idiot errors.
I have until 3.30 pm to do this and at that precise moment I am owed a big cup of coffee and have to tackle my next quest object. I deserve it, for the carefully-created electronic version of the new texts I must add to my bibliography has gone and lost itself. It will appear in six months time, at which stage it will be irrelevant to everything. I have hard copy and I have the articles on my computer, so all this means is ten minutes more work. Redundancy is so important.
Now I'm merely procrastinating. I don't really enjoy the adjusting of references. Or discovering idiot errors.
gillpolack @ 2012-10-23T00:46:00
My last ANU course for the year starts Thursday week. This means that in a few days time my blog is going to be not quite so obsessed with academia. It's not full (though the class has a healthy number of students) so I'll give Canberrans the URL, just in case there's a wild unmet desire for writing family histories. You can find the link here: http://www.anu.edu.au/cce/cecourses/outlines/literature/Writeyourfamilyshistory.pdf
This isn't a genealogy course (there are better people to teach that than me) - it's writing skills and understanding history and family and how to handle and interpret documents. It's about actually writing a family history: as fiction, as narrative, as something else entirely. I've taught it so many times and each time it comes out completely different for the very first thing we do as a class is work out what each and every student needs most from it and it's never the same needs. I always teach the writing skills, but sometimes I teach oral history skills and sometimes publication options and sometimes give an introduction to document preservation and sometimes teach how to find out about a place and a time when it looks as if there is nothing to find.
It's the last of my non-Wednesday teaching until at least February and it's one of my favourite courses. I wanted something to look forward to, just in case everything went awry with my end of the doctorate. Which it didn't. The materials are now in other hands (mainly my supervisor's) for the next step. I wanted something cheering, though, just in case. It's rather wonderful when the 'just in case' doesn't materialise and there's just that little bit of fun in life without something dire to counterbalance it*.
*I need to touch wood, cross my fingers, mutter warnings to myself, since I do tend to attract the dire and positive statements are probably a bit daring.
This isn't a genealogy course (there are better people to teach that than me) - it's writing skills and understanding history and family and how to handle and interpret documents. It's about actually writing a family history: as fiction, as narrative, as something else entirely. I've taught it so many times and each time it comes out completely different for the very first thing we do as a class is work out what each and every student needs most from it and it's never the same needs. I always teach the writing skills, but sometimes I teach oral history skills and sometimes publication options and sometimes give an introduction to document preservation and sometimes teach how to find out about a place and a time when it looks as if there is nothing to find.
It's the last of my non-Wednesday teaching until at least February and it's one of my favourite courses. I wanted something to look forward to, just in case everything went awry with my end of the doctorate. Which it didn't. The materials are now in other hands (mainly my supervisor's) for the next step. I wanted something cheering, though, just in case. It's rather wonderful when the 'just in case' doesn't materialise and there's just that little bit of fun in life without something dire to counterbalance it*.
*I need to touch wood, cross my fingers, mutter warnings to myself, since I do tend to attract the dire and positive statements are probably a bit daring.
October 21, 2012
gillpolack @ 2012-10-22T13:43:00
I had Mondayitis, but this was redeemed by the unexpected arrival of royalty cheques. I don't know why it was unexpected, as I'd been warned they were coming. Days that have 'itis' in them are not supposed to include income, maybe.
I was inspired by the sight of small quantities of potential money to sort some papers. I found three very bad early short stories. They are so early that two were handwritten ie first drafts in the days of the typewriter. All the good early short stories had been computerised and the paper backups disappeared about the same time as the computer versions died, which is when the transferral from Mac to PC failed dismally. I only regret one of those missing ones. I regret all of these remaining ones, but am loathe to throw them out.
There was a fourth early short story, but it was published by sort-of mistake. Stu Barrow needed his guidelines tested for the Gastronomicon and so I sent him a very mildly adapted version of the story as a practical joke. Alas for me, he accepted it. A reviewer commented that I was a mature writer, which made me wonder about the difference between myself in my twenties and myself in my forties. Maybe I never change?
This is not the first time that a joke of mine has been published. Another time it happened entirely against my will and I'm afraid I leave that piece off my bibliography. I will bribe people into silence with chocolate if they locate it. It was written out of frustration during my first PhD and was never revised or edited. It could have been very funny, but it really needed to be edited for this to happen. And yet it was published. I still find this strange, especially as I never submitted it for publication.
Returning to my other papers, I found a bunch of teaching notes and some very detailed notes from a meeting with the Attorney-General many, many years ago. Despite all the detail, I didn't date those notes. I'm very tempted to scan them and offer prizes for the most entertaining interpretation. I know it must be before 2004, because I've been retired from those things for that long. In fact, it had to be before 2001, because of Helen Leonard. Here is Helen, for those who have the misfortune never to have met her: http://www.womenshistory.com.au/image.asp?iID=198
I remember that meeting fondly. I didn't go to many of this kind of meeting because I really was a behind-the-scenes person. I was sent by the National Council of Jewish Women and was totally scared. Helen beckoned me to sit next to her saying she needed me. I sat next to her and learned an exceptional amount about how to achieve goals in high level meetings. It helps to be junior, for some things. I was much better at meetings after this - presumably that's why I kept the notes. I've not hidden behind my shyness nearly as much since then, because Helen convinced me that it didn't matter how shy I was, I had to make my constituency's needs visible and help set agendas.
She would be raging mad at the current state of things. She would mentor a whole bunch of other young women and teach them the tools of the trade.
There were ripples of change around Helen and Judy (her partner). Not big angry shouting, but quiet institutional change. Lots of empowering of women like me to follow our own stars. I keep wanting to go back and continue the work, but Helen taught me an even bigger lesson when she died: it's possible to push one's body too hard. Even superwomen are not superhuman.
I'm in a strange kind of mood today, aren't I? I shall do more actual work and see if that brings me back into line. I doubt it will, but at least the work will get done.
I was inspired by the sight of small quantities of potential money to sort some papers. I found three very bad early short stories. They are so early that two were handwritten ie first drafts in the days of the typewriter. All the good early short stories had been computerised and the paper backups disappeared about the same time as the computer versions died, which is when the transferral from Mac to PC failed dismally. I only regret one of those missing ones. I regret all of these remaining ones, but am loathe to throw them out.
There was a fourth early short story, but it was published by sort-of mistake. Stu Barrow needed his guidelines tested for the Gastronomicon and so I sent him a very mildly adapted version of the story as a practical joke. Alas for me, he accepted it. A reviewer commented that I was a mature writer, which made me wonder about the difference between myself in my twenties and myself in my forties. Maybe I never change?
This is not the first time that a joke of mine has been published. Another time it happened entirely against my will and I'm afraid I leave that piece off my bibliography. I will bribe people into silence with chocolate if they locate it. It was written out of frustration during my first PhD and was never revised or edited. It could have been very funny, but it really needed to be edited for this to happen. And yet it was published. I still find this strange, especially as I never submitted it for publication.
Returning to my other papers, I found a bunch of teaching notes and some very detailed notes from a meeting with the Attorney-General many, many years ago. Despite all the detail, I didn't date those notes. I'm very tempted to scan them and offer prizes for the most entertaining interpretation. I know it must be before 2004, because I've been retired from those things for that long. In fact, it had to be before 2001, because of Helen Leonard. Here is Helen, for those who have the misfortune never to have met her: http://www.womenshistory.com.au/image.asp?iID=198
I remember that meeting fondly. I didn't go to many of this kind of meeting because I really was a behind-the-scenes person. I was sent by the National Council of Jewish Women and was totally scared. Helen beckoned me to sit next to her saying she needed me. I sat next to her and learned an exceptional amount about how to achieve goals in high level meetings. It helps to be junior, for some things. I was much better at meetings after this - presumably that's why I kept the notes. I've not hidden behind my shyness nearly as much since then, because Helen convinced me that it didn't matter how shy I was, I had to make my constituency's needs visible and help set agendas.
She would be raging mad at the current state of things. She would mentor a whole bunch of other young women and teach them the tools of the trade.
There were ripples of change around Helen and Judy (her partner). Not big angry shouting, but quiet institutional change. Lots of empowering of women like me to follow our own stars. I keep wanting to go back and continue the work, but Helen taught me an even bigger lesson when she died: it's possible to push one's body too hard. Even superwomen are not superhuman.
I'm in a strange kind of mood today, aren't I? I shall do more actual work and see if that brings me back into line. I doubt it will, but at least the work will get done.
gillpolack @ 2012-10-21T22:30:00
I obviously don't go out enough. I didn't think to check online to see if I could find a link for the Pirates of Penzance performance. I am now pretending not to work and have found a link. I gift it to all of you: http://www.piratesisback.com/cast.html
And now I really ought to work. I just have post-thinking malaise, or something.
And now I really ought to work. I just have post-thinking malaise, or something.
