Gillian Polack's Blog, page 188
May 4, 2012
My blog is seven today
For the first time ever, I have remembered my blog's anniversary. Seven years old today!
I need to celebrate (obviously) and the celebration needs to continue for seven days (also obviously).
My first bit of celebration (since I need to go to the post office this week anyhow) is to give a random book to the person who most needs it. Explain in comments how much you need a random book. Bribery accepted. Blackmail not accepted. Puns and bad jokes very much accepted. Since I'll be going to the post office on Wednesday, you have until Tuesday night (my time, that's Tuesday quite early for most of you) to justify your need for a book.
At this stage I have absolutely no idea what I shall do for the other six days, so I am open to suggestions. If they involve things like me stripping naked and running down Hindmarsh Drive, I shall be less open to them, for Canberra is cold.
I need to celebrate (obviously) and the celebration needs to continue for seven days (also obviously).
My first bit of celebration (since I need to go to the post office this week anyhow) is to give a random book to the person who most needs it. Explain in comments how much you need a random book. Bribery accepted. Blackmail not accepted. Puns and bad jokes very much accepted. Since I'll be going to the post office on Wednesday, you have until Tuesday night (my time, that's Tuesday quite early for most of you) to justify your need for a book.
At this stage I have absolutely no idea what I shall do for the other six days, so I am open to suggestions. If they involve things like me stripping naked and running down Hindmarsh Drive, I shall be less open to them, for Canberra is cold.
gillpolack @ 2012-05-05T12:35:00
I just spent a very nice morning with Conor and Mik. I now have free comic books, but also managed to score free coffee (someone was selling coffee machines) and to find myself a coffee/spice grinder that actually *can* be used for both (has removable innards of metal) that came out of my insurance money. I do need lunch, however, being a tad hungry after all those freebies.
May 3, 2012
gillpolack @ 2012-05-04T13:09:00
![[info]](https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/hostedimages/1380906154i/3157529.gif)
yasminke
sent me a link to a new article about Philip IV of France. The more I learn about him, the less I like him. He was the centre of his own universe and if anyone disputed that, he grabbed more power until he could deal with the irritant satisfactorily. He bowed his head politely to some irritants for a while, just until he could sort himself out. That's my current reading, anyhow. It fits the politics I know and hate. I've taken to looking to see if people I meet today have peers or subordinates in social groups and if they have subordinates, then I don't want to play in that group.Philip was an amazingly capable ruler in many respects. He was also a greedy sod. And he cared about damnation, for he did quite a few things and then took action to ameliorate the effect of those things on his afterlife. He was complex and interesting. This doesn't mean I would invite him to dinner. He was complex and interesting and exactly the sort of person I want to be well clear of.
gillpolack @ 2012-05-04T10:53:00
It didn't quite reach -3 last night. This temperature made me get up at 6 am and do some of the work I didn't do last night. It made me even more happy when my down-filled dressing gown arrived in the mail an hour ago. I can now work when it gets cold! Also, it *does* help with asthma - I've tested it. I can't wear it when things get even vaguely comfortably warm, but there's enough down around the chest area so that it immediately eases the breathing.
None of this explains why I'm working on last minute novel things or, at 6 am, why I chose to do bibliography rather than any of the deadlineish stuff and then why I was finishing that review book. I was doing happy-making work rather than crossing things off lists.
I shall therefore (do I need trumpets to announce a big decision?) finish what I'm doing, then work on that list. Four items into the list I shall wend up the street for my four messages*, and after that I shall do lots of crossing off. That means I only have to do seven things after 3 pm. it can be done! It will be done! Especially as my nice warm bed is out of bounds until that list is finished.
No other news, not really. I didn't count it as news that I made a poor, suffering student put on a cardboard helmet last night and I still don't. I just count it as evidence of the evilness of the Gillian.
* four is the number of the day
None of this explains why I'm working on last minute novel things or, at 6 am, why I chose to do bibliography rather than any of the deadlineish stuff and then why I was finishing that review book. I was doing happy-making work rather than crossing things off lists.
I shall therefore (do I need trumpets to announce a big decision?) finish what I'm doing, then work on that list. Four items into the list I shall wend up the street for my four messages*, and after that I shall do lots of crossing off. That means I only have to do seven things after 3 pm. it can be done! It will be done! Especially as my nice warm bed is out of bounds until that list is finished.
No other news, not really. I didn't count it as news that I made a poor, suffering student put on a cardboard helmet last night and I still don't. I just count it as evidence of the evilness of the Gillian.
* four is the number of the day
gillpolack @ 2012-05-03T23:40:00
I keep forgetting that I never get much work done after the first night of a new course. Years and years and years of teaching and I get home and expect to work. After all, I got home early (8.30 pm!) because of a lovely student who gave me a lift. I ate dinner before 9 pm. That left four hours of work in my day. In a different universe, anyhow.
I've read maybe fifty pages and wittered around the net and watched it get colder and colder (one degree outside right now) and avoided overeating. I will probably read another hundred pages and pretend that it's work. I will definitely watch more Dr Who. I shall cross nothing off any list, which means everything is there for tomorrow. Still, I have a good Thursday class and I prepared two classes and started sorting stuff for the beach teaching and all my copying is done for next week and I have made a start on my multidirectional paper war. What's more, I did all this on a high pain day.
I've talked myself into it. A hundred pages, then two hot water bottles and bed. The two hot water bottles are essential because it will be zero degrees by midnight and who-knows-what until dawn. I guess the weather shift explains the high pain day. It doesn't, however, explain the laziness.
I've read maybe fifty pages and wittered around the net and watched it get colder and colder (one degree outside right now) and avoided overeating. I will probably read another hundred pages and pretend that it's work. I will definitely watch more Dr Who. I shall cross nothing off any list, which means everything is there for tomorrow. Still, I have a good Thursday class and I prepared two classes and started sorting stuff for the beach teaching and all my copying is done for next week and I have made a start on my multidirectional paper war. What's more, I did all this on a high pain day.
I've talked myself into it. A hundred pages, then two hot water bottles and bed. The two hot water bottles are essential because it will be zero degrees by midnight and who-knows-what until dawn. I guess the weather shift explains the high pain day. It doesn't, however, explain the laziness.
May 2, 2012
gillpolack @ 2012-05-03T15:11:00
I'm about to head out to teach worldbuilding. I'm so glad to be teaching it, for I keep encountering novels with certain basics stuffed up. Societies that cannot possibly operate. Lack of women is still too frequent, but I've seen no means of growing food and no means of earning a living and I've seen sustenance level societies with sophisticated coinage and societies where the technologies make no sense whatsoever.
I need to find a geological map, if I can. If I can't, I'll wing it. The next six weeks are not just any worldbuilding, but worldbuilding using the Middle Ages, and it's kinda important to get rocks right and know if the land sustains life or pottery.
And that's an end to my procrastination for now. I need my wormeaten geological map and can't just sit here, wondering if it's where I left it!
I need to find a geological map, if I can. If I can't, I'll wing it. The next six weeks are not just any worldbuilding, but worldbuilding using the Middle Ages, and it's kinda important to get rocks right and know if the land sustains life or pottery.
And that's an end to my procrastination for now. I need my wormeaten geological map and can't just sit here, wondering if it's where I left it!
gillpolack @ 2012-05-03T10:14:00
My curtains will be fitted on Monday. This is the next step in a bunch of things. My place has to be completely post-burglary, so that the curtain people can get in and do their job (I've developed the bad habit of blocking things off, so that evil burglars can't enter) and I have four battles (maybe five) that must be won in the paper war. I need to read at least five books and write them up if they need writing up and put them away if they don't.
None of this is any more than I had intended to do. It's really good to have a deadline, however, and one that's two days earlier than my real one. If I can get the physical mess done and all the work that links into it, then I will have two days with nothing but computer-based work and teaching.
It's a case of getting the right brain set. The further I get into a year when more goes wrong than right, the more I need little pressures to remind me to keep moving. If I move, I can get to the other side of each given problem and my life doesn't stop and stare at me, bewildered. Now I have a goal, I'm much happier about my workload. it's only tangentially relevant that the goal is not being embarrassed by the state of my flat when the curtain bloke comes round.
The ripping of those few hooks off the curtains in the loungeroom and the damaging of the bedroom blinds has actually made a big difference to the comfort levels here. I can't open the loungeroom curtains at all or use the back door, and there's a triangle that won't stay closed. And the bedroom is light all night and extra light during the day, for the vertical blinds are not quite vertical. And I rather suspect that some of my less-than-wellness is due to it being not easy to control temperature when the curtains don't do their job.
This all makes it triply worth while to fight the paper fight and make horizontal surfaces visible. It also gave me the impetus to buy a hanging shoe rack for the back of my laundry door and finally, finally to get coat hooks for my own coats. This means I am in danger of not having shoes and coats spilling everywhere. That and the slight diminution in numbers of black t-shirts makes a big difference to my ability to actually fit into the space.
Normally I do this level of paper sort when I'm getting ready for another big project. There's a small corner of my mind that's saying "I know what novel you're writing next." It's a novel about a house.
ETA: The nice insurance people have been in touch again. Now the work side of things has been approved. I'm another step closer to an end of it all!
None of this is any more than I had intended to do. It's really good to have a deadline, however, and one that's two days earlier than my real one. If I can get the physical mess done and all the work that links into it, then I will have two days with nothing but computer-based work and teaching.
It's a case of getting the right brain set. The further I get into a year when more goes wrong than right, the more I need little pressures to remind me to keep moving. If I move, I can get to the other side of each given problem and my life doesn't stop and stare at me, bewildered. Now I have a goal, I'm much happier about my workload. it's only tangentially relevant that the goal is not being embarrassed by the state of my flat when the curtain bloke comes round.
The ripping of those few hooks off the curtains in the loungeroom and the damaging of the bedroom blinds has actually made a big difference to the comfort levels here. I can't open the loungeroom curtains at all or use the back door, and there's a triangle that won't stay closed. And the bedroom is light all night and extra light during the day, for the vertical blinds are not quite vertical. And I rather suspect that some of my less-than-wellness is due to it being not easy to control temperature when the curtains don't do their job.
This all makes it triply worth while to fight the paper fight and make horizontal surfaces visible. It also gave me the impetus to buy a hanging shoe rack for the back of my laundry door and finally, finally to get coat hooks for my own coats. This means I am in danger of not having shoes and coats spilling everywhere. That and the slight diminution in numbers of black t-shirts makes a big difference to my ability to actually fit into the space.
Normally I do this level of paper sort when I'm getting ready for another big project. There's a small corner of my mind that's saying "I know what novel you're writing next." It's a novel about a house.
ETA: The nice insurance people have been in touch again. Now the work side of things has been approved. I'm another step closer to an end of it all!
gillpolack @ 2012-05-02T22:15:00
Tonight was a very special and unusual birthday party. We celebrated Jimmy's 31st birthday. He couldn't be there, but black forest cake was cut in his memory and there was much amazingly good food and friends and a few tears.
Everything was Star Trek, except for the geek clothes of attendees for we were many fandoms. I'd forgotten how young Harrison Ford was when I was a teenager. I'd forgotten the pure silliness of helium balloons and the wonderful generosity of small children. I was given a purple balloon of my very own and shown good Transformer action (car to something else, not sure what except that it had splayed hands and a big grin) several times by one child in particular.
I made new friends and spent time with friends I already knew. I marvelled at the great heart of the people (Jimmy and his wife, Andrea, who organised the party) who brought us together.
I wish Jimmy hadn't died. He has, however, left a wonderful legacy of friends and of love. May we all be so blessed.
Everything was Star Trek, except for the geek clothes of attendees for we were many fandoms. I'd forgotten how young Harrison Ford was when I was a teenager. I'd forgotten the pure silliness of helium balloons and the wonderful generosity of small children. I was given a purple balloon of my very own and shown good Transformer action (car to something else, not sure what except that it had splayed hands and a big grin) several times by one child in particular.
I made new friends and spent time with friends I already knew. I marvelled at the great heart of the people (Jimmy and his wife, Andrea, who organised the party) who brought us together.
I wish Jimmy hadn't died. He has, however, left a wonderful legacy of friends and of love. May we all be so blessed.
gillpolack @ 2012-05-02T18:52:00
I am entirely in love with the idea of being able to refuse to review a book. First there was the Canberra on the coast geographer (and you have one more day to vote in the poll, while I think on it) and now there is a novel which gets some very basic things wrong. Simple factual errors made over and again. If I reviewed it I would be fascinated by the errors and would focus on them as if they were the book and I would miss the wood for the trees.
May 1, 2012
gillpolack @ 2012-05-02T15:08:00
Today is the day of the insurance claim. I spent a while working my way through shops in Tuggers and I've bought some replacements for some things. After I got home, I had a very long conversation with the jeweller who's quoting on the heirloom jewellery that was stolen. My misspent rocky childhood has turned out to be really useful for quite a few matters appertaining unto jewellery. I know exactly when each setting was crafted and where and the style and even where the stones were mined. I think there was only one question that I was unable to answer, and that one had a perfectly logical answer without me. It took me a while to think through lengths and thicknesses. Anyhow, it's done. The estimate will be complete fairly soon. I will be mostly through this mess.
By 'mostly' I mean I'm only halfway through the megashop of replacing things and I'm still sans computer and camera. It's a plaguey thing from a work point of view, for I can't take work with me. I need to replace my toner three months early because I'm having to use so much paper to reach the same ends, too.
My big accomplishment of today's shop was getting envelopes of all the right sizes.
I didn't manage to find a coffee grinder (which isn't anything to do with the burglary - it's because the one my stepfather gave me chose last week to give up the ghost) and I ran out of energy before I got to toner stage, but I have everything else from my today's list. I even have stockings for Aurealis, should I need them. And I've replenished my chocolate supply. This has nothing to do with the insurance and everything to do with my mental health.
By 'mostly' I mean I'm only halfway through the megashop of replacing things and I'm still sans computer and camera. It's a plaguey thing from a work point of view, for I can't take work with me. I need to replace my toner three months early because I'm having to use so much paper to reach the same ends, too.
My big accomplishment of today's shop was getting envelopes of all the right sizes.
I didn't manage to find a coffee grinder (which isn't anything to do with the burglary - it's because the one my stepfather gave me chose last week to give up the ghost) and I ran out of energy before I got to toner stage, but I have everything else from my today's list. I even have stockings for Aurealis, should I need them. And I've replenished my chocolate supply. This has nothing to do with the insurance and everything to do with my mental health.
