Gillian Polack's Blog, page 177
June 19, 2012
gillpolack @ 2012-06-19T22:14:00
Tonight's microwave surprise dinner looked beef-ish, but turned out to be crockpot chicken and vegies, with lots of ginger.
Tonight's Latin class went well and Latin is now finished with (nice students - I shall miss them).
I have a brand new list of writing tasks to be completed by 1 July. It started off at 20,000 words of work, but I did 1,000 at once and feel terribly virtuous.
I think that I need an evening off, if I'm to be awake to teach tomorrow morning. Teaching on Tuesday night and then first thing Wednesday morning is always draining and this is the 15th sequential week of it. I actually want to work (I have a new list! and deadlines!) but... tomorrow...teaching... Also, I was so tired in class tonight that I couldn't remember the word 'centrifuge' (which was my not-very-technical description of how Classical Latin works). I shall find a DVD and watch something very laid back. For I am a laid back person.
Tonight's Latin class went well and Latin is now finished with (nice students - I shall miss them).
I have a brand new list of writing tasks to be completed by 1 July. It started off at 20,000 words of work, but I did 1,000 at once and feel terribly virtuous.
I think that I need an evening off, if I'm to be awake to teach tomorrow morning. Teaching on Tuesday night and then first thing Wednesday morning is always draining and this is the 15th sequential week of it. I actually want to work (I have a new list! and deadlines!) but... tomorrow...teaching... Also, I was so tired in class tonight that I couldn't remember the word 'centrifuge' (which was my not-very-technical description of how Classical Latin works). I shall find a DVD and watch something very laid back. For I am a laid back person.
June 18, 2012
gillpolack @ 2012-06-19T15:01:00
Only one more (big) thing to do and then I'm completely caught up with my series-of-unfortunate-incidents backlog. I haven't developed quite as big a new backlog as I might have, in catching up, though I admit, the rest of June is going to be exhausting. Still, two articles emailed today, including the one that shouldn't've been difficult but was (it wasn't the article - it was me).
I'm going to do something really unorthodox and take a break. The work won't go away, after all.
I'm going to do something really unorthodox and take a break. The work won't go away, after all.
gillpolack @ 2012-06-19T11:30:00
I keep finding unexpected things in my freezer. I don't know what they are, but they're exciting.
If I were dutiful and sensible and labelled things, then I would lose this joy. I would also lose the pleasure of not having to cook until Thursday in a busy week, for I would have used everything up in an orderly fashion like a well-organised, domestically-sane person.
The only thing I know about tonight's dinner is that it looks beef-based and solid and will almost-certainly go well with whatever exciting vegies need finishing up. And today's lunch is some kind of tomato soup, which might require goat's cheese. And both of them were precisely ready to be eaten, for it's time to get to the bottom of my freezer again.
I will be cooking on Thursday, for friends are visiting. Today and tomorrow, though, between teaching and writing and feeling fatigued, I'm very happy for the excitement that is my freezer.
If I were dutiful and sensible and labelled things, then I would lose this joy. I would also lose the pleasure of not having to cook until Thursday in a busy week, for I would have used everything up in an orderly fashion like a well-organised, domestically-sane person.
The only thing I know about tonight's dinner is that it looks beef-based and solid and will almost-certainly go well with whatever exciting vegies need finishing up. And today's lunch is some kind of tomato soup, which might require goat's cheese. And both of them were precisely ready to be eaten, for it's time to get to the bottom of my freezer again.
I will be cooking on Thursday, for friends are visiting. Today and tomorrow, though, between teaching and writing and feeling fatigued, I'm very happy for the excitement that is my freezer.
gillpolack @ 2012-06-18T19:14:00
I love the University of Western Australia. I now have a completion scholarship to see me through to the end of this doctorate, and it started last week. I just have to get the acceptance form and the bank form to them and I will have a secure income from now until October 26.
In case I didn't mention it, this week I'm drafting Chapter One. It was supposed to be a literature review but isn't. This could get funky...
In case I didn't mention it, this week I'm drafting Chapter One. It was supposed to be a literature review but isn't. This could get funky...
June 17, 2012
gillpolack @ 2012-06-18T16:12:00
I am bruised and amused.
I managed to trip over one of my teaching satchels (the ones that are out because they all get packed away until next term tomorrow at 9 pm precisely) and instead of rescuing myself, or falling onto the floor, I fell into my TV screen.
I tried to re-angle myself so that I smashed into the cupboard below it instead of into the actual screen, and almost managed. The TV turned itself on and started babbling at me.
In saving the screen and turning the TV on, I fell rather heavily. In the process, I also pushed the television towards the mirror wall. I saved the mirror wall. I'm so proud of myself.
The phone then fell off the TV and got lost behind it.
I had find a way of standing up without making the whole thing happen again, then I had to pull everything out from the wall. Finally I found the phone. I nearly strangled myself in the process, but the phone is now safe, too. I have cleared much paper from behind the television. I have lost the key to my letterbox (again).
All this took five minutes and I have entertained myself hugely in the process. It's what happens (though not normally so dramatically) when high pain and high teaching and high teaching and high writing intersect. When I say I am a legend in my own lounge room, this may well be why.
ETA: I've added paragraph returns. It makes me feel powerful and rational and almost as if I know what I'm doing. And you do need to know that I found my key (again).
I managed to trip over one of my teaching satchels (the ones that are out because they all get packed away until next term tomorrow at 9 pm precisely) and instead of rescuing myself, or falling onto the floor, I fell into my TV screen.
I tried to re-angle myself so that I smashed into the cupboard below it instead of into the actual screen, and almost managed. The TV turned itself on and started babbling at me.
In saving the screen and turning the TV on, I fell rather heavily. In the process, I also pushed the television towards the mirror wall. I saved the mirror wall. I'm so proud of myself.
The phone then fell off the TV and got lost behind it.
I had find a way of standing up without making the whole thing happen again, then I had to pull everything out from the wall. Finally I found the phone. I nearly strangled myself in the process, but the phone is now safe, too. I have cleared much paper from behind the television. I have lost the key to my letterbox (again).
All this took five minutes and I have entertained myself hugely in the process. It's what happens (though not normally so dramatically) when high pain and high teaching and high teaching and high writing intersect. When I say I am a legend in my own lounge room, this may well be why.
ETA: I've added paragraph returns. It makes me feel powerful and rational and almost as if I know what I'm doing. And you do need to know that I found my key (again).
gillpolack @ 2012-06-18T11:39:00
I've given into temptation and I'm quite possibly writing a short story. If it happens it will be straight science fiction and it will have a dentist in it.
I so seldom write short stories and I so ought to be writing other things and...my dentist and the nurse and I went round all sorts of lovely ideas for a dentist story and it would be such a shame to waste those conversations and... mostly I miss writing fiction. My month needs that fiction/non-fiction balance or something.
Also, stories about dentists are good things. I wonder if I should sneak in bad puns, in honour of my father?
I so seldom write short stories and I so ought to be writing other things and...my dentist and the nurse and I went round all sorts of lovely ideas for a dentist story and it would be such a shame to waste those conversations and... mostly I miss writing fiction. My month needs that fiction/non-fiction balance or something.
Also, stories about dentists are good things. I wonder if I should sneak in bad puns, in honour of my father?
gillpolack @ 2012-06-18T08:57:00
I have started today the way I meant to start yesterday and the day before. I have polished half the article I had to finish last week. The rest of the polishing takes a different mindset, for I'm unhappy with some of my examples and must do more trawling, so this gives me an excuse for coffee and a break. The whole thing is making more sense, though, and isn't quite so utterly embarrassing.
I'm not over the bad few days, but I'm finding that rest actually results in me being more alert (the end of the pain cycle is near!), which means that if I rest for a half hour before I do the coffeething, I can make much wonderful progress this morning and stop creating difficult situations where there need be none.
The magic thing I did over the weekend was to reduce the pile of "Eek, I have to do this immediately?" list down from impossible to merely rather tough. After this week I regain two more days in my non-teaching week, too, as only my Wednesday teaching survives and even that only has two weeks left, one of which is an excursion.
When I reach an end of this term, I will have taught 110 contact hours since February. This doesn't sound a lot, but I am ready for a breather. Next semester won't have either the same amount of teaching or the same amount of income (unless things change, of course!) so once I get through this batch of queued work, (as I keep saying) things are going to be more straightforward.
The income from the teaching was an important factor in getting me through the financial side of the eyes and teeth, and I was lucky to get so many good classes with cool students, but it makes me really glad I teach adults. If I'm this tired just from 110 hours, imagine how I'd deal with high school teaching!
I like it best when I have 4-6 hours a week: I can fit my other work in and I have energy to write fiction and everything works with everything else, at that pace. Four hours a week if they're entirely new courses or need much preparation. The difficulty recently, of course, is that I'm not a language teacher and so Latin has requires a significant amount of preparation and it has all come at the tired end of term. Let me admit here that I did most of my prep for Latin yesterday, when I was procrastinating.
And now I'm due that rest, and then two big mugs of coffee to see me through the tricky bits of editing.
I'm not over the bad few days, but I'm finding that rest actually results in me being more alert (the end of the pain cycle is near!), which means that if I rest for a half hour before I do the coffeething, I can make much wonderful progress this morning and stop creating difficult situations where there need be none.
The magic thing I did over the weekend was to reduce the pile of "Eek, I have to do this immediately?" list down from impossible to merely rather tough. After this week I regain two more days in my non-teaching week, too, as only my Wednesday teaching survives and even that only has two weeks left, one of which is an excursion.
When I reach an end of this term, I will have taught 110 contact hours since February. This doesn't sound a lot, but I am ready for a breather. Next semester won't have either the same amount of teaching or the same amount of income (unless things change, of course!) so once I get through this batch of queued work, (as I keep saying) things are going to be more straightforward.
The income from the teaching was an important factor in getting me through the financial side of the eyes and teeth, and I was lucky to get so many good classes with cool students, but it makes me really glad I teach adults. If I'm this tired just from 110 hours, imagine how I'd deal with high school teaching!
I like it best when I have 4-6 hours a week: I can fit my other work in and I have energy to write fiction and everything works with everything else, at that pace. Four hours a week if they're entirely new courses or need much preparation. The difficulty recently, of course, is that I'm not a language teacher and so Latin has requires a significant amount of preparation and it has all come at the tired end of term. Let me admit here that I did most of my prep for Latin yesterday, when I was procrastinating.
And now I'm due that rest, and then two big mugs of coffee to see me through the tricky bits of editing.
June 16, 2012
Emailing
PS The awesome and amazing T may well have fixed the email problem. Some of it turned out to be a bloated sent mail that made an illegal copy of itself and filled all my storage. I'm catching up on replies today. If you don't hear from me by tomorrow, then your email may have been lost during the downtime. Please feel free to send it again!
gillpolack @ 2012-06-17T13:12:00
The article I was writing, the one that I was going to read so many books for and then the number diminished and then diminished again, is sort-of drafted at 2,000 words. I want to do a bunch of analysis, but 2,000 words is about long enough for what it is. Imagine if I had included all the books I had intended, plus the analysis I really want to do: it would have been 6,000 words. And fun. Much fun.
I'm going to leave it at that, though. I shall revise it later today and email it and that will mean I only need to do three more BiblioBuffet articles this week. Also, I can put six books away now. One day in my future they (and many more books) will be ripped off the shelves. For someone, someday, will want a 6,000 word article on naming systems in novels, and they will ask me politely and I will do all the analysis I want to do now and cannot. There's so much awesome stuff to be written about recent works and the choices they make (some of which are idiot and some of which add layers of meaning to the book and make it easier to navigate) and I have the right linguistic background to write that awesome stuff. One day.
In the meantime, I only have fourteen things and three thousand words on my to do list for today. Some of them are quite large, but it suddenly looks quite possible to finish them.
I'm going to leave it at that, though. I shall revise it later today and email it and that will mean I only need to do three more BiblioBuffet articles this week. Also, I can put six books away now. One day in my future they (and many more books) will be ripped off the shelves. For someone, someday, will want a 6,000 word article on naming systems in novels, and they will ask me politely and I will do all the analysis I want to do now and cannot. There's so much awesome stuff to be written about recent works and the choices they make (some of which are idiot and some of which add layers of meaning to the book and make it easier to navigate) and I have the right linguistic background to write that awesome stuff. One day.
In the meantime, I only have fourteen things and three thousand words on my to do list for today. Some of them are quite large, but it suddenly looks quite possible to finish them.
Reporting in (not quite defeated)
I had such hopes yesterday! Alas, for reality. High pain changed things.
The good news is that I've now read five of the fifteen books I need to have read by Wednesday/Thursday. I discovered that two others don't actually need to be read (for my current purposes, one volume in a trilogy suffices). This means I only have eight more books to read, only two of which need to be done by tomorrow night. This means that tomorrow has less reading.
If it weren't that the weather-migraine has reached the eyes, it would only be one book tomorrow, but the evening is young and it still may be possible after I've taken a break. I've been taking notes as I go and (until the eyes stopped permitting it) writing them up, so a quarter of the article from the first set of books (the ones I finish tomorrow night) is done and the rest is well on the way. One of my four articles. Yay!
Finishing the overdue article isn't possible today, though I adjusted the opening a little. It's at the stage where it needs stern critical thought. I can manage a lot of things on a high pain day, but stern critical thought isn't one of them. I couldn't send the emails about the interviews, either, for it struck me that I don't know if there have been replies until my email is fixed, so they will have to wait.
Still, today has been productive. Tomorrow will have to be more productive, but this strange build-up of work will just keep happening until I catch up. When I catch up, then it will be dissertation and footnotes all the way for a few weeks. It's the joy of the PhD final year. One of the many.
I shall take my aches to bed for an hour and come back and finish just one more book, I think, regardless of pain levels. That way today will have been full of books and tomorrow full of writing. It will all work, but one editor will need an apology. Not good, but not as bad as it could have been.
The good news is that I've now read five of the fifteen books I need to have read by Wednesday/Thursday. I discovered that two others don't actually need to be read (for my current purposes, one volume in a trilogy suffices). This means I only have eight more books to read, only two of which need to be done by tomorrow night. This means that tomorrow has less reading.
If it weren't that the weather-migraine has reached the eyes, it would only be one book tomorrow, but the evening is young and it still may be possible after I've taken a break. I've been taking notes as I go and (until the eyes stopped permitting it) writing them up, so a quarter of the article from the first set of books (the ones I finish tomorrow night) is done and the rest is well on the way. One of my four articles. Yay!
Finishing the overdue article isn't possible today, though I adjusted the opening a little. It's at the stage where it needs stern critical thought. I can manage a lot of things on a high pain day, but stern critical thought isn't one of them. I couldn't send the emails about the interviews, either, for it struck me that I don't know if there have been replies until my email is fixed, so they will have to wait.
Still, today has been productive. Tomorrow will have to be more productive, but this strange build-up of work will just keep happening until I catch up. When I catch up, then it will be dissertation and footnotes all the way for a few weeks. It's the joy of the PhD final year. One of the many.
I shall take my aches to bed for an hour and come back and finish just one more book, I think, regardless of pain levels. That way today will have been full of books and tomorrow full of writing. It will all work, but one editor will need an apology. Not good, but not as bad as it could have been.
