Gillian Polack's Blog, page 316

Questions!

I haven't had a question post in a while. This is largely because the last one was such a squib that I decided no-one wanted to ask me anything any more. I'm getting a lot more odd queries off LJ: everything from the structure of novels to where the site is for the next natcon. There have been Medieval questions and SF convention questions and recipe questions and questions about Australia and about Judaism. I feel a bit like a newspaper agony aunt, except that etiquette questions have no...

gillpolack @ 2010-04-09T14:30:00

I have twelve things to do, four hours to do them in and I'm being lazy. Blogging is displacement activity. I blame my brain. It's doing all kinds of odd things right now. I found myself nearly writing a letter to a friend using their pen name. Now I wonder, would they have worked out it was from me or would they have assumed I was an unknown, being presumptuous?

No more big letters till tomorrow. My mail and email is backed up to infinity already, so infinity and beyond is a good place ...

Australian history for Aussiecongoers

I've been remiss and given you nothing recently. I'm going to continue to be remiss for now. Fortunately, Perry Middlemiss has produced the goods without even knowing that there were goods to produce. He hasn't written about Breaker Morant - he's found and posted on his blog an angry letter from Morant's lawyer, defending the man's reputation.

Morant's case is one of those that we used to defend our Australianness in the early 80s. We were very defensive about our Australianness in the eig...

gillpolack @ 2010-04-07T16:34:00

Last day of my Wednesday class today. We had to move to our old room unexpectedly, since the Leisure Centre was shut this morning. I made us morning tea and had to bring a bunch of stuff that the new room had made redundant. We also couldn't work on our current project (creating ideas books), because our equipment is all in the Leisure Centre.

We had a great time. The admin people from the Tuggeranong Community Centre remembered us all and welcomed us back. The lake had completely forgott...

gillpolack @ 2010-04-07T00:26:00

I need to decide earlier than most about the Natcon next year. It's on the day of my fiftieth birthday. A bunch of my friends will be there but many won't be even within 2,000 miles (mind you, this would be true of any birthday of mine, in any location).

It's also the fiftieth Natcon, which tangles things further. And it's in Perth. My university is in Perth. I could actually meet the campus where I study and go to Natcon, both in the same week. I could annoy my supervisor. Or I can hav...

gillpolack @ 2010-04-06T22:28:00

I have officially opened a file, moved one pile of paper and created a new stack of books. I've also pointed out to a friend that the papers for recycling have a distinctly scholarly air. I have sought and found my first sheaf of missing paper. This means that I'm definitely a fulltime student. I still need a pack of pink cards so that I can institute my magic research technique (the one that saves months of angst, means I don't lose crucial notes and entitles me to claim that my external ...

gillpolack @ 2010-04-06T18:00:00

My cupboards are no longer sealed with masking tape. I have a drainer for my dishes. I'm dreaming of bread.

Passover is finished for another year. Though I still have chicken soup and kneidlach for lucnhes for the rest of the week. Life's illogical like that.

gillpolack @ 2010-04-05T18:32:00

I had some morning news and some afternoon news and now I have some evening news. Life Through Cellophane was given a very nice compliment in the Judge's Report for the Australian Horror Awards. My short story "Passports" listed as of note.

2009 was an extraordinary year for Australian horror, so these are rather nice results. The list of winners makes a rather cool "You'd be silly if you didn't read these" list.

ETA: I need to give you a link to find the winners! http...

gillpolack @ 2010-04-05T13:52:00

Remember that I was caught waiting for a letter, a picture and a medical appointment? Well, the letter has come and I must ask my friends to please not laugh. I'm doing a PhD. I'm officially enrolled as an external student at the University of Western Australia. My supervisor is Van Ikin. It doesn't get any better than this for a science fiction PhD in Australia.

Hopefully this will lead to jobs, but that's a while away. Right now I'm back in the land of full-time studentshipping! (

gillpolack @ 2010-04-05T11:25:00

You may want to check out Bibliobuffet for my first foray into the world of a regular column writer. It answers many questions about my native habitat. While I've linked to the actual page, I do suggest you explore the other articles this fortnight - if you don't, you'll miss good reading. If missing good reading isn't punishable with boredom, it ought to be.