Gillian Polack's Blog, page 152
September 14, 2012
gillpolack @ 2012-09-15T09:19:00
Today is not a day for multitasking. I keep forgetting what I'm going to do. I did sort out that urgent email last night, though, and now have to wait a few days for a response.
I have three hours before Amy arrives, and my housework will not let itself be done (for my finger is swollen because of housework I have done). Still, there are chairs visible and floors visible and most of my washing is done. It's not at all good, but it could be worse. There is floor visible in every room of this flat, and the stacks of books are smaller than usual.
The bookstacks won't shrink again until December, for I'm now getting Aurealis books and more review books and I'll soon be up to research phase for one of my projects again. This is the calm-before-storm moment and I'm treasuring the walkways it gives me.
Late last night I realised that I still had material for three BiblioBuffet articles (and maybe four) and I also realised that I have a lot of review books arriving next week. I may not get more than a bit of reading done this morning, but I strongly suspect I should do that bit of reading. It's exceptionally interesting reading, too: YA fiction from the Philippines.
I have three hours before Amy arrives, and my housework will not let itself be done (for my finger is swollen because of housework I have done). Still, there are chairs visible and floors visible and most of my washing is done. It's not at all good, but it could be worse. There is floor visible in every room of this flat, and the stacks of books are smaller than usual.
The bookstacks won't shrink again until December, for I'm now getting Aurealis books and more review books and I'll soon be up to research phase for one of my projects again. This is the calm-before-storm moment and I'm treasuring the walkways it gives me.
Late last night I realised that I still had material for three BiblioBuffet articles (and maybe four) and I also realised that I have a lot of review books arriving next week. I may not get more than a bit of reading done this morning, but I strongly suspect I should do that bit of reading. It's exceptionally interesting reading, too: YA fiction from the Philippines.
September 13, 2012
gillpolack @ 2012-09-14T12:44:00
Today is supposed to be more about housework than it is. I do a bit and then my finger tells me to stop*. I think the moral of the story is to never fall on a finger and, if you do, to take it to the doctor no matter how much less it hurts than you think it should** and no matter how much it looks as if you've just done something minor to it. I have successfully done some cleaning and some tidying, but I shall still be very apologetic to everyone all weekend.
The good news is that I'm where I need to be with all the main projects and many of the minor. If I can do more on the minor projects today, I shall be pleased, but if I don't, I won't be in trouble for taking the weekend off. All my BiblioBuffet pieces for this month are in and already edited (for my editor is terribly efficient) and my supervisor and proofreaders currently have the various bits of my dissertation and novel and I have started thinking and note-taking for a new novel (and even written some, but it will fade when I really start writing - it's just drafting to get the characters sorted and the story worked out, at this stage) and written some short fiction (bad short fiction, but still, short fiction) and I have outlines for both papers I'm giving at both academic conferences (and one paper half-written) and panels for the two non-academic conferences I can actually get to, and an outline for the chapter I want to write for a rather interesting book but won't hear about until mid-October. I still have one set of information to get to a course provider and then I'm all done with that, too. And my co-writer has the whole of the Beast: there's only one small task with me right now. I have one novel to beta-read and one super-urgent big email task to deal with by tomorrow lunchtime.
I'm beginning to suspect that I'm one of these people who does a lot of things at once far more easily and at a better standard than she does 2-3 small tasks. This explains why things went so badly wrong for me when I was so ill. People around me thought they were helping by not letting me know about opportunities. If I had less to do, was their reasoning, I wouldn't overdo things and I would get better. I lost my self-confidence rather than getting better. I still can't do much physical labour, but I looked through the last paragraph and realised I'm entirely fully capable of doing a normal academic-novelist's workload. I have either three or four forthcoming publications, plus novels with publishers waiting for rejection, plus two non-fiction and two fiction books I'm working on in the background. I'm teaching. I'm resting when I need it (which is still an annoying amount) and I'm wondering how much of my depression is assuming I was a failure because I need a big workload. I'm easily bored and I fall into the trap of not believing in myself when I'm bored.
That's a nice reflective thought to end the old year on.
Now I must run my messages from yesterday. It's five degrees warmer today and not nearly as wet.
* It's possible to quarantine my finger most of the time while typing, but not while wiping things down or picking things up or trying to wield a broom in tricky corners.
** The people who were telling me how much broken bones hurt were obviously not people who handled significant amounts of pain every day. A broken bone is about the same as a medium to low pain day for me. Now you know and now I know. It's a lot more annoying than a medium pain day, however, for it stops me doing things.
The good news is that I'm where I need to be with all the main projects and many of the minor. If I can do more on the minor projects today, I shall be pleased, but if I don't, I won't be in trouble for taking the weekend off. All my BiblioBuffet pieces for this month are in and already edited (for my editor is terribly efficient) and my supervisor and proofreaders currently have the various bits of my dissertation and novel and I have started thinking and note-taking for a new novel (and even written some, but it will fade when I really start writing - it's just drafting to get the characters sorted and the story worked out, at this stage) and written some short fiction (bad short fiction, but still, short fiction) and I have outlines for both papers I'm giving at both academic conferences (and one paper half-written) and panels for the two non-academic conferences I can actually get to, and an outline for the chapter I want to write for a rather interesting book but won't hear about until mid-October. I still have one set of information to get to a course provider and then I'm all done with that, too. And my co-writer has the whole of the Beast: there's only one small task with me right now. I have one novel to beta-read and one super-urgent big email task to deal with by tomorrow lunchtime.
I'm beginning to suspect that I'm one of these people who does a lot of things at once far more easily and at a better standard than she does 2-3 small tasks. This explains why things went so badly wrong for me when I was so ill. People around me thought they were helping by not letting me know about opportunities. If I had less to do, was their reasoning, I wouldn't overdo things and I would get better. I lost my self-confidence rather than getting better. I still can't do much physical labour, but I looked through the last paragraph and realised I'm entirely fully capable of doing a normal academic-novelist's workload. I have either three or four forthcoming publications, plus novels with publishers waiting for rejection, plus two non-fiction and two fiction books I'm working on in the background. I'm teaching. I'm resting when I need it (which is still an annoying amount) and I'm wondering how much of my depression is assuming I was a failure because I need a big workload. I'm easily bored and I fall into the trap of not believing in myself when I'm bored.
That's a nice reflective thought to end the old year on.
Now I must run my messages from yesterday. It's five degrees warmer today and not nearly as wet.
* It's possible to quarantine my finger most of the time while typing, but not while wiping things down or picking things up or trying to wield a broom in tricky corners.
** The people who were telling me how much broken bones hurt were obviously not people who handled significant amounts of pain every day. A broken bone is about the same as a medium to low pain day for me. Now you know and now I know. It's a lot more annoying than a medium pain day, however, for it stops me doing things.
September 12, 2012
gillpolack @ 2012-09-13T11:23:00
I know I'm running messages today, for it's wet. I'm sorely tempted to put them off until tomorrow, except that tomorrow is supposed to be my quiet day. It's going to be a busy weekend, you see. Except...I don't want to walk in the rain today. So, tomorrow.
This means that I have the whole afternoon to write an article and to do one more stage of Medievalishness, then I teach, and then I wonder whether I can slack off this evening. Which I can't, for I need to get most things done by Rosh Hashanah, and from Saturday lunchtime until Monday there will be no writing time. How odd.
On a related note, Google-docs has changed and I have lost my password. Google always changes things and then I lose passwords. I wish Google weren't so many peoples' default for shared work! Dropbox is a lot easier.
On another related note (the cause of the need for document access) I will be part of Coyote Con again this year. It's much smaller, but looks as if it's going to be fun. It has the same great advantage as last time: it's all online. That's the end of October.
In November I'll be in Melbourne and giving a paper at a gender conference. It's called "The Gender Games: Stories in the Contemporary World" and I shall be looking at how gender choices affect worldbuilding in a particular writer. I do not expect to make myself popular with this paper, but I'm glad to have found it a home.
In February I'll be giving a paper at AMZAMEMS, which I've already said at least once. I've been nervous of even turning up to ANZAMEMS for so long that even though I've been a member for many years, I've never been to the conference. Finally, this will change. If any of my old teachers express surprise at my strange career, though, I might find the nearest bar. So many of us born the year I was born have had strange careers, for a series of changes hit us worse than they hit most others. We had great educational opportunities, but so few job prospects that I look back now (when so many people are telling me "There are no jobs" because, really, there's been some nasty shrinkage recently) and thinking "This is still ten times better than when I finished my first doctorate."
If anyone thinks they saw me at ANZAMEMS in Tasmania, I will have to say (for about the twentieth time) "That wasn't me, it was a paper about my book." I still find it curious that so many people (some of whom know me) confuse a paper with an actual person. It shows how memory operates. Or that we notice names more than people unless we actually sit down with them and exchange personal stories. Or maybe I really am a paper and just didn't know it.
It was a very good paper, BTW. The scholar in question got all but one thing entirely right. The thing she got wrong was assuming that the story was autobiographical. Lots of people get this wrong about my writing, however. The bits that are autobiographical have so far escaped comment and the bits that aren't have been clearly pointed out as part of my life. Something in my fiction blurs these boundaries beyond the capacity of even people who know me well to sort out, so it's not surprising the paper got that one thing wrong. Even my mother tangles my fiction and my reality at times.
What the paper in Tasmania got entirely right was the subtext of historiography that underpins the novel's worldbuilding. It was quite an evil subtext, and I wrote it for me and didn't try to make it terribly easy for readers to pick up. In fact, I didn't really *want* most readers to pick it up: I wanted the book to be read as a straightforward adventure with touches of comedy. I was being quite wicked in Illuminations and telling a story that was - at heart - worse than unreliable, and I was pointing out a bunch of idiot mistakes that certain historians make over and over. If the paper gets published one day, I might find myself in well-deserved hot water...
And now I must return to the Middle Ages. My work until lunchtime is about manners and behaviour in polite society. I might quickly finish the edit of an article first, and get that sent off, though. That will been I move from weapons and armour to courtesy, which, as a direction, has a nice feel.
This means that I have the whole afternoon to write an article and to do one more stage of Medievalishness, then I teach, and then I wonder whether I can slack off this evening. Which I can't, for I need to get most things done by Rosh Hashanah, and from Saturday lunchtime until Monday there will be no writing time. How odd.
On a related note, Google-docs has changed and I have lost my password. Google always changes things and then I lose passwords. I wish Google weren't so many peoples' default for shared work! Dropbox is a lot easier.
On another related note (the cause of the need for document access) I will be part of Coyote Con again this year. It's much smaller, but looks as if it's going to be fun. It has the same great advantage as last time: it's all online. That's the end of October.
In November I'll be in Melbourne and giving a paper at a gender conference. It's called "The Gender Games: Stories in the Contemporary World" and I shall be looking at how gender choices affect worldbuilding in a particular writer. I do not expect to make myself popular with this paper, but I'm glad to have found it a home.
In February I'll be giving a paper at AMZAMEMS, which I've already said at least once. I've been nervous of even turning up to ANZAMEMS for so long that even though I've been a member for many years, I've never been to the conference. Finally, this will change. If any of my old teachers express surprise at my strange career, though, I might find the nearest bar. So many of us born the year I was born have had strange careers, for a series of changes hit us worse than they hit most others. We had great educational opportunities, but so few job prospects that I look back now (when so many people are telling me "There are no jobs" because, really, there's been some nasty shrinkage recently) and thinking "This is still ten times better than when I finished my first doctorate."
If anyone thinks they saw me at ANZAMEMS in Tasmania, I will have to say (for about the twentieth time) "That wasn't me, it was a paper about my book." I still find it curious that so many people (some of whom know me) confuse a paper with an actual person. It shows how memory operates. Or that we notice names more than people unless we actually sit down with them and exchange personal stories. Or maybe I really am a paper and just didn't know it.
It was a very good paper, BTW. The scholar in question got all but one thing entirely right. The thing she got wrong was assuming that the story was autobiographical. Lots of people get this wrong about my writing, however. The bits that are autobiographical have so far escaped comment and the bits that aren't have been clearly pointed out as part of my life. Something in my fiction blurs these boundaries beyond the capacity of even people who know me well to sort out, so it's not surprising the paper got that one thing wrong. Even my mother tangles my fiction and my reality at times.
What the paper in Tasmania got entirely right was the subtext of historiography that underpins the novel's worldbuilding. It was quite an evil subtext, and I wrote it for me and didn't try to make it terribly easy for readers to pick up. In fact, I didn't really *want* most readers to pick it up: I wanted the book to be read as a straightforward adventure with touches of comedy. I was being quite wicked in Illuminations and telling a story that was - at heart - worse than unreliable, and I was pointing out a bunch of idiot mistakes that certain historians make over and over. If the paper gets published one day, I might find myself in well-deserved hot water...
And now I must return to the Middle Ages. My work until lunchtime is about manners and behaviour in polite society. I might quickly finish the edit of an article first, and get that sent off, though. That will been I move from weapons and armour to courtesy, which, as a direction, has a nice feel.
September 11, 2012
gillpolack @ 2012-09-12T15:02:00
I'm a tiny bit tired. I always am on Wednesday afternoon. I don't know how other people deal when they teach late night and then morning, but it leaves me fatigued. I did some shopping on the way home, and I gave my students a tough time and I think I might take an hour off. I was going to do that an hour ago, but emails intervened and had to be dealt with.
Word of the day was 'netsuke.' We spent a lot of time writing about football and the wonderfulness of Hawthorn as a team and why St Kilda only wins on High Holy Days and we proofread the booklet for Mental Health Week and I edited three pieces out of it (wearing my Evil Teacher hat, of course). The excursion this term will be to Old Parliament House, where I have warned my class we will be unashamedly political. We are partying next week (Moon Festival, Rosh Hashanah, a student's birthday - what else could we do?) and I have sorted out much stuff that needed sorting out. If this sounds a bit frenzied, it's because I arrived in Tuggeranong to find coffee and chai waiting for me, so I drank both. Lots of caffeine!
The rest of the day will be busy, I think. I just have to wake up enough...
I have a big box to collect at the post office, but that must wait until tomorrow, for more carrying today I cannot do. I have already bought vegies to cook for Sunday, though, and milk and other necessities. Also, I have Chanukah presents. I do not know why I bought Chanukah presents the week before Rosh Hashanah, but I did. Such is my life.
Word of the day was 'netsuke.' We spent a lot of time writing about football and the wonderfulness of Hawthorn as a team and why St Kilda only wins on High Holy Days and we proofread the booklet for Mental Health Week and I edited three pieces out of it (wearing my Evil Teacher hat, of course). The excursion this term will be to Old Parliament House, where I have warned my class we will be unashamedly political. We are partying next week (Moon Festival, Rosh Hashanah, a student's birthday - what else could we do?) and I have sorted out much stuff that needed sorting out. If this sounds a bit frenzied, it's because I arrived in Tuggeranong to find coffee and chai waiting for me, so I drank both. Lots of caffeine!
The rest of the day will be busy, I think. I just have to wake up enough...
I have a big box to collect at the post office, but that must wait until tomorrow, for more carrying today I cannot do. I have already bought vegies to cook for Sunday, though, and milk and other necessities. Also, I have Chanukah presents. I do not know why I bought Chanukah presents the week before Rosh Hashanah, but I did. Such is my life.
September 10, 2012
gillpolack @ 2012-09-11T13:42:00
My coffee delivery has happened. I'm trying a new supplier, for my old one no longer has a reliable roast (as we've discussed here before) and I refuse to pay top price unless I get wonderful beans, perfectly roasted every time. I don't give myself a lot of treats, but coffee is one of them. Or was. We'll see.
The new supplier has fair trade arabica beans, but they're all blends. I shall miss my favourite beans. I've three blends to try, and if any of them are good, I'm in business. Not as fine business as before, but business. They all smell good, which is a start. They're also almost half the price of my original supplier. I shall spend the money I saved paying the bills which keep appearing on my desk. stuff like electricity and body corporate.
If they're only OK, then these beans will get me through the next little while and I can try someone else. If they're wonderful, then I might be sourcing coffee from Perth instead of Melbourne for the foreseeable future.
I'd just made myself some tea when the delivery came, so it'll be an hour before I know, but the new coffee will also be the impetus to get myself through today. I still have leftover ducks from yesterday, for last night was spent largely on the phone and in thought.
My cup of tea should take me through the bill-paying and finishing one of the articles. Then I get to read before I make coffee and finish the second for the day. And then I teach.
Tonight I'm giving myself a quiet evening, for one thing I learn about bad things happen, is they leave a wash of emotional exhaustion and pushing oneself through that does no-one any good.
ETA: The coffee is a roasted just a squidgeon past perfection and the bean lacks complexity, but otherwise, the first coffee is very tolerable. In fact, the darker roast and the straightforward flavour makes a very Italian-flavoured coffee, which will suit most of my friends and, ground finely, will do nicely for historical coffees and Middle Eastern styles. So I'm fine for this kilo of coffee. I'll report in again in one kilogram's time.
The new supplier has fair trade arabica beans, but they're all blends. I shall miss my favourite beans. I've three blends to try, and if any of them are good, I'm in business. Not as fine business as before, but business. They all smell good, which is a start. They're also almost half the price of my original supplier. I shall spend the money I saved paying the bills which keep appearing on my desk. stuff like electricity and body corporate.
If they're only OK, then these beans will get me through the next little while and I can try someone else. If they're wonderful, then I might be sourcing coffee from Perth instead of Melbourne for the foreseeable future.
I'd just made myself some tea when the delivery came, so it'll be an hour before I know, but the new coffee will also be the impetus to get myself through today. I still have leftover ducks from yesterday, for last night was spent largely on the phone and in thought.
My cup of tea should take me through the bill-paying and finishing one of the articles. Then I get to read before I make coffee and finish the second for the day. And then I teach.
Tonight I'm giving myself a quiet evening, for one thing I learn about bad things happen, is they leave a wash of emotional exhaustion and pushing oneself through that does no-one any good.
ETA: The coffee is a roasted just a squidgeon past perfection and the bean lacks complexity, but otherwise, the first coffee is very tolerable. In fact, the darker roast and the straightforward flavour makes a very Italian-flavoured coffee, which will suit most of my friends and, ground finely, will do nicely for historical coffees and Middle Eastern styles. So I'm fine for this kilo of coffee. I'll report in again in one kilogram's time.
Interview and giveaway
I completely forgot that I was interviewed the other day by the inimitable Rowena Cory Daniells and that (if you answer a very simple question) there will be a bookplate for you (no prize draw, one of each of you) and the art on the bookplate is by Kathleen Jennings (the artist who did the Freedom Maze cover and the Conflux cookbook illustrations). If you want to know more about Kathleen (apart from the fact that she's very tall, a Queenslander, and that her day job is in law) she was interviewed straight after me.
Read my interview! http://www.rowena-cory-daniells.com/2012/09/07/meet-gillian-polack/ Make rude comments! (but not to Rowena, for she is a very nice person - only to me, for I am not)
Read my interview! http://www.rowena-cory-daniells.com/2012/09/07/meet-gillian-polack/ Make rude comments! (but not to Rowena, for she is a very nice person - only to me, for I am not)
gillpolack @ 2012-09-11T09:47:00
Today is so far a bit odd. Three different people have managed to make my life a bit more difficult through a kind of teasing passive aggression. None of them are on LJ, which means they don't know about the bad news behind the locked post, but still, three is a bit of a coincidence. Three, not in a day, but in an hour.
The bad news has been twittered, so I'm unlocking the post. I didn't want anyone who knows her to discover through social media, but if it's been twittered and mail listed, the damage has been done. I think the grapevine has worked, though and that everyone I know who was friends knows. I hope they do. If they don't, then they are not going to read my blog in any case.
Maybe it's just as well my coffee delivery hasn't yet happened, for I quite probably don't need extra caffeine for a few days. Just as long as I have coffee for the weekend, which will be all about friends and moving into the new year.
And everything else can wait.
The bad news has been twittered, so I'm unlocking the post. I didn't want anyone who knows her to discover through social media, but if it's been twittered and mail listed, the damage has been done. I think the grapevine has worked, though and that everyone I know who was friends knows. I hope they do. If they don't, then they are not going to read my blog in any case.
Maybe it's just as well my coffee delivery hasn't yet happened, for I quite probably don't need extra caffeine for a few days. Just as long as I have coffee for the weekend, which will be all about friends and moving into the new year.
And everything else can wait.
Very bad news
For those of you who haven't yet heard, a friend from Canberra Speculative Fiction Guild has just committed suicide. Andrea was the wife of Jimmy, who drowned the day before Christmas. Be gentle to Canberra writers for a little, folks, for we may need it.
I've been in this place before, and it's not a good place to be. One thing that I have learned to appreciate is those who have come close to taking their lives and have found the ability to continue. Thank you, for being you and being alive and enriching my life and reminding me that, at times like these, there are more of us who make that choice than those who make the other.
I was Jimmy's friend, and only got to know Andrea after his death. I met Andrea at the Zeppelin banquet, for she loved food and costume and speculative fiction and Jimmy (not in that order!) and so it was inevitable she would be at one of my banquets with her husband. Andrea was amazingly vibrant and intense and rich and they both deserved a long and happy life together.
I've been in this place before, and it's not a good place to be. One thing that I have learned to appreciate is those who have come close to taking their lives and have found the ability to continue. Thank you, for being you and being alive and enriching my life and reminding me that, at times like these, there are more of us who make that choice than those who make the other.
I was Jimmy's friend, and only got to know Andrea after his death. I met Andrea at the Zeppelin banquet, for she loved food and costume and speculative fiction and Jimmy (not in that order!) and so it was inevitable she would be at one of my banquets with her husband. Andrea was amazingly vibrant and intense and rich and they both deserved a long and happy life together.
September 9, 2012
gillpolack @ 2012-09-10T16:33:00
I've shot two ducks! My supervisor has a swag of stuff to wade through and my BiblioBuffet editor has next week's column. It's not the article I thought I was going to write, yesterday, for that article was being recalcitrant and I didn't have time to sort it. I will write that article one day, though.
I can get one more duck shot by dinner, I think, if I take a few minutes for a breather.
In other news (for today is a bit busy) chocolate has been sorted for Conflux (lots of help from my mother to make this work), presents for Rosh Hashanah are almost sorted, and the next stage of the post burglary insurance is done.
I can get one more duck shot by dinner, I think, if I take a few minutes for a breather.
In other news (for today is a bit busy) chocolate has been sorted for Conflux (lots of help from my mother to make this work), presents for Rosh Hashanah are almost sorted, and the next stage of the post burglary insurance is done.
gillpolack @ 2012-09-10T12:21:00
This morning has been rather futile. I want to do it over.
I've accomplished all kinds of necessary things. I've done my teaching prep for most of this week and I've sorted bunches of stuff that was overdue for sorting, and I've managed to make my still-not-competent finger ache from too much housework (which was not much housework at all, but I'm doing things in stages) but I haven't done anything important. By 'important' I mean 'will help me meet many deadlines, preferably instantly.' My nightmares last night were all to do with bibliographies that needed reformatting and could only be done manually. This says it all.
My way of dealing is going to have to be to meet a bunch of those deadlines today, and this to forestall more nightmares. First the next tour de bibliogrpahie, and then at least two articles (preferably three). They're lined up, like a row of ducks at the Show. The bibliography is ready, all the articles have notes taken and an approach worked out.
Alas, however, I've never tried shooting ducks at the Show. The sideshows were never my family's thing. I'm going to have to learn, for there is another line of ducks immediately behind that one, and then another again, and then one more, and if they're not finished by the weekend I will be carrying this stuff into new year, which is not what I intend to do.
It's going to be an extremely good and wonderfully sweet year. I shall make it so. The first duck is, of course, bibliographical in nature.
ETA: Duck one is nearly shot and chocolate for Conflux and other events is all sorted. The chocolate is all for other people, but I might sneak a wrapped morsel while it's in transit.
I've accomplished all kinds of necessary things. I've done my teaching prep for most of this week and I've sorted bunches of stuff that was overdue for sorting, and I've managed to make my still-not-competent finger ache from too much housework (which was not much housework at all, but I'm doing things in stages) but I haven't done anything important. By 'important' I mean 'will help me meet many deadlines, preferably instantly.' My nightmares last night were all to do with bibliographies that needed reformatting and could only be done manually. This says it all.
My way of dealing is going to have to be to meet a bunch of those deadlines today, and this to forestall more nightmares. First the next tour de bibliogrpahie, and then at least two articles (preferably three). They're lined up, like a row of ducks at the Show. The bibliography is ready, all the articles have notes taken and an approach worked out.
Alas, however, I've never tried shooting ducks at the Show. The sideshows were never my family's thing. I'm going to have to learn, for there is another line of ducks immediately behind that one, and then another again, and then one more, and if they're not finished by the weekend I will be carrying this stuff into new year, which is not what I intend to do.
It's going to be an extremely good and wonderfully sweet year. I shall make it so. The first duck is, of course, bibliographical in nature.
ETA: Duck one is nearly shot and chocolate for Conflux and other events is all sorted. The chocolate is all for other people, but I might sneak a wrapped morsel while it's in transit.
