Gillian Polack's Blog, page 66
May 15, 2014
gillpolack @ 2014-05-16T11:17:00
I'm finally making progress on things. I'm down to just over 5000 words, in fact, which means (if all goes well, just for a change) I should be caught up on two projects next week. Then I have 2 weeks to catch up on the delayed book. Then it will be June and all sorts of new deadlines will pop up and scare me silly.
Now that it actually feels possible that I'll be caught up before panic sets in, I'll give you another post with one of my promised reprints. Then, soon (probably not today, for I really need to do more words and teach and stuff today), I'll catch up with the blog hop that should have happened, oh, about the time everything went pearshaped. And then the world's my oyster!
Now that it actually feels possible that I'll be caught up before panic sets in, I'll give you another post with one of my promised reprints. Then, soon (probably not today, for I really need to do more words and teach and stuff today), I'll catch up with the blog hop that should have happened, oh, about the time everything went pearshaped. And then the world's my oyster!
May 14, 2014
gillpolack @ 2014-05-15T11:48:00
Today is another day of little things. My fifteen year old friend likes Andra, for instance, and I got an extra hour's sleep this morning. I also took last night off, because it turned out that 9 hours of work was all I could manage in a day (I'm getting better, but obviously not that much better quite yet).
Today's work is solid catch-up on the various things that have fallen behind. I have to find a poem to match tomorrow's story and to do the printouts, so I don't have any teaching prep to do until tomorrow. Nor do I have any messages to do. And my flat is not beautiful, but the real basics of housework are done. And all my emails can wait until my handouts are printing, tomorrow. Which leaves the deck clear for various kinds of catch up.
I've finished with one of the seven books that need reading between now and Monday, and intend to do just one more before lunch. I'd cleared all my back reading, but then I was invited to interview Jack Dann for his 20th anniversary of life in Australia (which is not a little thing, and will happen in June) and, since Jack is a friend, it was something I could not possibly pass on. There are a few books of Jack's I need to give a bit more attention to if I'm going to do a good job for my share of the interview (the other interviewer is Jason Nahrung, who's a journo as well as a writer of fiction, which gives me more reasons than usual to do my homework) - so there's some extra reading for this next week. It and my regular reading adds up to seven books by Monday. I love numbers this week, quite obviously!
None of this is wildly exciting. It will be, though, if I can catch up with myself by the end of May. Watch this space...
Today's work is solid catch-up on the various things that have fallen behind. I have to find a poem to match tomorrow's story and to do the printouts, so I don't have any teaching prep to do until tomorrow. Nor do I have any messages to do. And my flat is not beautiful, but the real basics of housework are done. And all my emails can wait until my handouts are printing, tomorrow. Which leaves the deck clear for various kinds of catch up.
I've finished with one of the seven books that need reading between now and Monday, and intend to do just one more before lunch. I'd cleared all my back reading, but then I was invited to interview Jack Dann for his 20th anniversary of life in Australia (which is not a little thing, and will happen in June) and, since Jack is a friend, it was something I could not possibly pass on. There are a few books of Jack's I need to give a bit more attention to if I'm going to do a good job for my share of the interview (the other interviewer is Jason Nahrung, who's a journo as well as a writer of fiction, which gives me more reasons than usual to do my homework) - so there's some extra reading for this next week. It and my regular reading adds up to seven books by Monday. I love numbers this week, quite obviously!
None of this is wildly exciting. It will be, though, if I can catch up with myself by the end of May. Watch this space...
May 13, 2014
gillpolack @ 2014-05-14T13:49:00
Today started with a bit of unexpected excitement when I mislaid 5000 words of first draft academic prose. I found an earlier draft and sorted the introduction (which needed sorting in any version) and went off to teach, puzzled about so much going missing. During class, I had a Eureka moment and when I got home, I looked at the backup of my backup's backup. There was just one version of the original remaining, and now I've integrated the new bit with the old bits and have only 800 words to write and 2000 words worth of stuff to write it in, which is exactly where I needed to be on this one today.
I'm only a thousand words into the second article, though, for life is doing lots of caddish interventions right now, but I have all my notes for that and I've identified the missing source and live in hopes that I'll get a complete and solid draft done by the weekend. This is two weeks later than I had hoped, but when life does these things, one has to deal.
Class this morning was, as ever, a lot of fun. We talked about the power of simple language and my students learned how to handle adding meaning and character without adding verbal complexity. They also played with autumn leaves.
All the rest of my life seems to be post-budget analysis. There are massive higher education implications, for instance, but the government has managed to persuade the universities to try to sell them as overall-positive. Or maybe it's only my university who's doing that. We no longer have free postgrad study, for the RTS scheme now has fees. Small fees, we're told, but the low end will probably be around $1700 a year. The RTS scheme meant Australia got loads of research done for next to no cost and that people could retrain cheaply (just as I did, recently). Now, unless a person gets a scholarship, they will think twice or three times before spending more than a few months on retraining, which means they will have fewer choices and research will become more of a commodity.
For fun (given some strange notions of 'fun') I spent my walk to teaching making up formulae to compare the impact of the $7 medical visit co-payment on people with different incomes.* I made the $7 the rate for poverty-level (since people living on or below that little are the ones who most need no co-payment at all), which gave me a base for the formula (if 7 is to this amount, then what amount equates to the equivalent expenditure for those with higher salaries**), and then calculated up to various levels of parliamentary salaries. (There are reasons I was recruited into the public service, all those years ago. There's probably a paper in Treasury that does this precise thing. And if there isn't one, it explains why the co-payment made it as far as policy.)
And that's enough of our charmingly depressing budget. I shall cheer myself up and go add to my wordcount. I shall also make a giant pot of coffee.
*From this you know that I can breathe again and that I slept the whole of last night without a single asthma attack.
**Without allowing for the effect of the bare minimum one needs to live on, which I also did and made an entirely different set of calculations. I had 20 minutes to fill while I was walking, after all, and had no book.
I'm only a thousand words into the second article, though, for life is doing lots of caddish interventions right now, but I have all my notes for that and I've identified the missing source and live in hopes that I'll get a complete and solid draft done by the weekend. This is two weeks later than I had hoped, but when life does these things, one has to deal.
Class this morning was, as ever, a lot of fun. We talked about the power of simple language and my students learned how to handle adding meaning and character without adding verbal complexity. They also played with autumn leaves.
All the rest of my life seems to be post-budget analysis. There are massive higher education implications, for instance, but the government has managed to persuade the universities to try to sell them as overall-positive. Or maybe it's only my university who's doing that. We no longer have free postgrad study, for the RTS scheme now has fees. Small fees, we're told, but the low end will probably be around $1700 a year. The RTS scheme meant Australia got loads of research done for next to no cost and that people could retrain cheaply (just as I did, recently). Now, unless a person gets a scholarship, they will think twice or three times before spending more than a few months on retraining, which means they will have fewer choices and research will become more of a commodity.
For fun (given some strange notions of 'fun') I spent my walk to teaching making up formulae to compare the impact of the $7 medical visit co-payment on people with different incomes.* I made the $7 the rate for poverty-level (since people living on or below that little are the ones who most need no co-payment at all), which gave me a base for the formula (if 7 is to this amount, then what amount equates to the equivalent expenditure for those with higher salaries**), and then calculated up to various levels of parliamentary salaries. (There are reasons I was recruited into the public service, all those years ago. There's probably a paper in Treasury that does this precise thing. And if there isn't one, it explains why the co-payment made it as far as policy.)
And that's enough of our charmingly depressing budget. I shall cheer myself up and go add to my wordcount. I shall also make a giant pot of coffee.
*From this you know that I can breathe again and that I slept the whole of last night without a single asthma attack.
**Without allowing for the effect of the bare minimum one needs to live on, which I also did and made an entirely different set of calculations. I had 20 minutes to fill while I was walking, after all, and had no book.
May 12, 2014
gillpolack @ 2014-05-13T12:14:00
I'm practising many delaying tactics because of a not-good night. I'll be over this thing one day, but that day has not yet come. So, if whatever-my-illness-was can be a Roman general, so can I. I could rename myself Cunctator, except that I have the sneaking desire to consider that I'm more Punctator. Punctator is a perfectly historical Jewish surname, after all. There was this guy, you see... I think he was in Oxford and I half remember his first name as Baruch.
By the vile Latin jokes and the faint presence of Jewish history, you know that last night was bad, but that I did get a few hours sleep and that today is not beyond bearing*.
My great aim for the day is only, really, a moderate aim. I have a small amount of housework that I must do, I need to finish watching Redfern Now (which is as good as everyone says) because it's due back tomorrow, and, most of all, I need to work through all my handwritten notes for one of my two hurry-up-and-get-this-done things, so that my work experience student can play spot the typo tomorrow and so that some of the pressure is drained from my week (the surgical approach to over work and over fatigue). Teaching is already prepared for tomorrow, and the one book I had to read got done in the two hours when I was sitting up, watching my breathing (it stabilised before it went so very low this time and then it started responding to medication, so it was a bad night, but not an uncomfortable night - it makes me suspect I might have a slow and long virus that is sensitive to sudden drops in temperature, though, which means it will be over when it decides to be over and I will just have to get on with life regardless) so, really, the only big thing I need to do today is much thoughtful writing. I'm just delaying because it's a bad habit of mine, after not-good nights.
What I want to do, at this very instant, is read a short fiction about a bloke called Benedict Punctator (Benedict being the proper English version of Baruch) who was inordinately fond of Oxford commas. I know of no such fiction. It's time, therefore, to stop pretending I'm Fabius Cunctator and to just get on with things.
*And yes, that was a Susan Cooper joke and I am obviously in one of those moods. Deal with it.
By the vile Latin jokes and the faint presence of Jewish history, you know that last night was bad, but that I did get a few hours sleep and that today is not beyond bearing*.
My great aim for the day is only, really, a moderate aim. I have a small amount of housework that I must do, I need to finish watching Redfern Now (which is as good as everyone says) because it's due back tomorrow, and, most of all, I need to work through all my handwritten notes for one of my two hurry-up-and-get-this-done things, so that my work experience student can play spot the typo tomorrow and so that some of the pressure is drained from my week (the surgical approach to over work and over fatigue). Teaching is already prepared for tomorrow, and the one book I had to read got done in the two hours when I was sitting up, watching my breathing (it stabilised before it went so very low this time and then it started responding to medication, so it was a bad night, but not an uncomfortable night - it makes me suspect I might have a slow and long virus that is sensitive to sudden drops in temperature, though, which means it will be over when it decides to be over and I will just have to get on with life regardless) so, really, the only big thing I need to do today is much thoughtful writing. I'm just delaying because it's a bad habit of mine, after not-good nights.
What I want to do, at this very instant, is read a short fiction about a bloke called Benedict Punctator (Benedict being the proper English version of Baruch) who was inordinately fond of Oxford commas. I know of no such fiction. It's time, therefore, to stop pretending I'm Fabius Cunctator and to just get on with things.
*And yes, that was a Susan Cooper joke and I am obviously in one of those moods. Deal with it.
gillpolack @ 2014-05-12T22:20:00
My tax is done! It is all signed and dispatched. I'm still behind on all my articles (which were the things most heavily affected by me being ill) but at least I'm caught up on the financial side of life. I'm also caught up on the admin side of life. All my current admin and financial deadlines have been met - some fairly tightly. I'm pleased about this, for having big things fall due when I was so ill was just not pretty.
My next trick will be to get my head down and catch up on the things I enjoy. This week is now about writing and thinking and teaching and thinking and writing. And a bit of admin, for more comes due later in the week. There's no end of admin at this time of year, but at least all the course titles and dates are sorted and my second half year is gaining clarity and potential income.
The writing has been delayed because one thing I've discovered about real shortness of breath (not the kind that one gets when running for a bus) is that it does affect thinking capacity a bit - I talked big about writing earlier, but I've had to wait until my breathing was stable before actually working on things that required thought and insight.
What I've done in the interim is sort out how my research is going (and where it's going) after the history and writers thing is finished. I've talked about it here, so you know I was thinking about it, but I now have it down to a five point plan and a viable series of tasks. My tests of things like gendering world building have been factored in, and also the work I've done on how genre is articulated. I need an academic job to do this particular project, I'm afraid, but at least I have my dream worked out and planned and ready to go. Also, I've worked out the path for both the seventeenth century novel and the suburban housewife one and I know precisely how they intersect with my research and where they intersect and why. All this is brought to the world by too much slow time.
While I've been on slow, time, other things have been happening. Most is unreportable at the moment (and will probably fall through, for this is the story of my life), but the GUFF voting is happening in a fannish friendly way. My favourite comment online for this GUFF season is by Rik Lagarto. He explained GUFF to CSFG and outlined why he was supporting me: "it appeals to my sense of irony to send an exceptionally intelligent cantankerous middle aged Jewish female writer and academic to the UK as our latest export." This is my personal favourite reason.
And the only other item of note today is that I classified my chocolate according to degree of purity while waiting for my tax return scan to reach its destination. Priorities are important.
My next trick will be to get my head down and catch up on the things I enjoy. This week is now about writing and thinking and teaching and thinking and writing. And a bit of admin, for more comes due later in the week. There's no end of admin at this time of year, but at least all the course titles and dates are sorted and my second half year is gaining clarity and potential income.
The writing has been delayed because one thing I've discovered about real shortness of breath (not the kind that one gets when running for a bus) is that it does affect thinking capacity a bit - I talked big about writing earlier, but I've had to wait until my breathing was stable before actually working on things that required thought and insight.
What I've done in the interim is sort out how my research is going (and where it's going) after the history and writers thing is finished. I've talked about it here, so you know I was thinking about it, but I now have it down to a five point plan and a viable series of tasks. My tests of things like gendering world building have been factored in, and also the work I've done on how genre is articulated. I need an academic job to do this particular project, I'm afraid, but at least I have my dream worked out and planned and ready to go. Also, I've worked out the path for both the seventeenth century novel and the suburban housewife one and I know precisely how they intersect with my research and where they intersect and why. All this is brought to the world by too much slow time.
While I've been on slow, time, other things have been happening. Most is unreportable at the moment (and will probably fall through, for this is the story of my life), but the GUFF voting is happening in a fannish friendly way. My favourite comment online for this GUFF season is by Rik Lagarto. He explained GUFF to CSFG and outlined why he was supporting me: "it appeals to my sense of irony to send an exceptionally intelligent cantankerous middle aged Jewish female writer and academic to the UK as our latest export." This is my personal favourite reason.
And the only other item of note today is that I classified my chocolate according to degree of purity while waiting for my tax return scan to reach its destination. Priorities are important.
May 11, 2014
How to Avoid Gillian at Continuum
The draft programme is out for the Aussie NatCon. When we have a final, I'll do a new blogpost, perhaps (if things change) but anyone intending to be in Melbourne in June may want to start planning now to get the best out of their trip, and the very best trip avoids anything that has even the least possibility of me singing or making bad jokes. Here, for your Melbourne pleasure, are the times and places to avoid (and the subjects and speakers you will be sacrificing):
We Do This Stuff Friday 17:00-18:00 with: Amanda Elliott, Alex Matti, Fran La Fontaine, Dan Rabarts - you can attend this one safely, actually, for it's not a panel. Just avoid my corner.
Solo Presentation: Seventeenth Century Borderlands Friday 18:30-19:00 - this is the first time I'll talk about the results I've been getting from the 17th century stuff. I'm giving a presentation about that hinterland between magic and science and how the people of the late seventeenth century handled living there.
Medieval Diversity Friday 20:00-21:00 with: Brendan Carson, Jane Routley - Brendan and Jane are both very nice people. It's a shame they're stuck on a panel with me. I'm not sure that Brendan knows about my historian-self. You might want to come to cheer him on and to support him during moments of woe.
In Conversation: Jack Dann Saturday 11:00-11:30 with: Jack Dann - this is the 20th anniversary of Jack living in Australia. I get to interview him, possibly as a tandem interview with Jason Nahrung. I'm happy to consider any questions people have been dying to ask him.
Fans and Faith 2 Saturday 17:00-18:00 with: Kathryn Andersen, Alex Pierce, Brendan Carson - Poor Brendan. Twice in two days. I don't think he knows I'm so very Jewish, either...
Researching Other Cultures Sunday 14:00-15:00 with: Cat Sparks, Ambelin Kwaymullina, Jack Dann, Tracy Joyce - This is totally the panel to not avoid, simply because of Ambelin. Sorry I'm on it, but maybe you can wear special glasses with attached ear plugs and put them on when I speak.
Perceptions of Witches Sunday 18:00-19:00 with: Jason Nahrung, Julia S, Tracy Joyce, Stacey Larner - this panel brings out one of my not-terribly-deep secrets. I studied witchcraft at university. Mum hid the belladonna when she heard what my third year history subjects would be. She only worked out years later that it wasn't witchcraft I was studying, but the history of witches in Europe. I've maintained the interest, and the Continuum programme people knew about it (it strikes me from this list that they know a bit about me). You won't get views of modern witches from me - I'm the history component of this panel.
Solo Presentation: Writers and History Monday 14:00-15:00 - this is where the results of my recent research will be unleashed onto fandom. No-one wanted to hear at Conflux, so I'm really, really happy to be given a chance to talk about it at Continuum. This is the stuff that follows the stuff that was in the PhD, and it's all about genre writers. SF writers are, it seems, very different to historical fiction writers in a number of ways, and history is a key to unravelling the differences. There will be a book on this sooner or later, but the fun stuff will appear, magically in the presentation that you will not attend for you have been warned that I shall be there!
We Do This Stuff Friday 17:00-18:00 with: Amanda Elliott, Alex Matti, Fran La Fontaine, Dan Rabarts - you can attend this one safely, actually, for it's not a panel. Just avoid my corner.
Solo Presentation: Seventeenth Century Borderlands Friday 18:30-19:00 - this is the first time I'll talk about the results I've been getting from the 17th century stuff. I'm giving a presentation about that hinterland between magic and science and how the people of the late seventeenth century handled living there.
Medieval Diversity Friday 20:00-21:00 with: Brendan Carson, Jane Routley - Brendan and Jane are both very nice people. It's a shame they're stuck on a panel with me. I'm not sure that Brendan knows about my historian-self. You might want to come to cheer him on and to support him during moments of woe.
In Conversation: Jack Dann Saturday 11:00-11:30 with: Jack Dann - this is the 20th anniversary of Jack living in Australia. I get to interview him, possibly as a tandem interview with Jason Nahrung. I'm happy to consider any questions people have been dying to ask him.
Fans and Faith 2 Saturday 17:00-18:00 with: Kathryn Andersen, Alex Pierce, Brendan Carson - Poor Brendan. Twice in two days. I don't think he knows I'm so very Jewish, either...
Researching Other Cultures Sunday 14:00-15:00 with: Cat Sparks, Ambelin Kwaymullina, Jack Dann, Tracy Joyce - This is totally the panel to not avoid, simply because of Ambelin. Sorry I'm on it, but maybe you can wear special glasses with attached ear plugs and put them on when I speak.
Perceptions of Witches Sunday 18:00-19:00 with: Jason Nahrung, Julia S, Tracy Joyce, Stacey Larner - this panel brings out one of my not-terribly-deep secrets. I studied witchcraft at university. Mum hid the belladonna when she heard what my third year history subjects would be. She only worked out years later that it wasn't witchcraft I was studying, but the history of witches in Europe. I've maintained the interest, and the Continuum programme people knew about it (it strikes me from this list that they know a bit about me). You won't get views of modern witches from me - I'm the history component of this panel.
Solo Presentation: Writers and History Monday 14:00-15:00 - this is where the results of my recent research will be unleashed onto fandom. No-one wanted to hear at Conflux, so I'm really, really happy to be given a chance to talk about it at Continuum. This is the stuff that follows the stuff that was in the PhD, and it's all about genre writers. SF writers are, it seems, very different to historical fiction writers in a number of ways, and history is a key to unravelling the differences. There will be a book on this sooner or later, but the fun stuff will appear, magically in the presentation that you will not attend for you have been warned that I shall be there!
May 9, 2014
gillpolack @ 2014-05-10T10:46:00
Marketing is done and Orphan Black has been watched and the rest of the day is work. Work goes much easier with chestnuts and persimmons and beautifully fresh cucumbers. It also goes much easier when I have bribery at the far end: if I finish my computer work in time, I get to watch the 2nd Eurovision semifinal while planning out tomorrow's writing.
gillpolack @ 2014-05-09T21:02:00
My students have put in a particular request for a story next week, and it's my own fault for introducing them to the notion that there are local writers. Next Friday could be interesting...
It was an interesting class, though, for it's such a good group. We talked about the horror in society, the horror in the everyday and a whole bunch of other things. My favourite question was a very intent "Why do you say that AD Hope was sarcastic in that poem?" My favourite moment was when the silent student spoke and then when she spoke again and again and again.
After teaching was grocery time and my inner cupboard is now replenished. Next emergency, I will have more than pistachios and cheese to get me through. Now I'm making chicken stock while finishing my taxes. There's a Fred Astaire musical to usher me through both and a manuscript assessment for dessert.
Tomorrow morning I'm hoping for persimmons and pomegranates as a reward for good behaviour. If I'm really lucky, there'll be chestnuts and Orphan Black before I settle into a serious afternoon of writing. Or an afternoon of serious writing. Or maybe both. My secret equipment (strong coffee and my down dressing gown) is waiting until I've caught up tonight and am all writing-ready.
But right now, I must go, for my soup demands onions and my taxes keep sending me urgent reminders.
It was an interesting class, though, for it's such a good group. We talked about the horror in society, the horror in the everyday and a whole bunch of other things. My favourite question was a very intent "Why do you say that AD Hope was sarcastic in that poem?" My favourite moment was when the silent student spoke and then when she spoke again and again and again.
After teaching was grocery time and my inner cupboard is now replenished. Next emergency, I will have more than pistachios and cheese to get me through. Now I'm making chicken stock while finishing my taxes. There's a Fred Astaire musical to usher me through both and a manuscript assessment for dessert.
Tomorrow morning I'm hoping for persimmons and pomegranates as a reward for good behaviour. If I'm really lucky, there'll be chestnuts and Orphan Black before I settle into a serious afternoon of writing. Or an afternoon of serious writing. Or maybe both. My secret equipment (strong coffee and my down dressing gown) is waiting until I've caught up tonight and am all writing-ready.
But right now, I must go, for my soup demands onions and my taxes keep sending me urgent reminders.
May 8, 2014
gillpolack @ 2014-05-09T12:04:00
I'm trying very hard to get my printer to print the handouts for today's class and it's being a bit of a brat. I've got today's poem all done (AD Hope's Australia), but the story is suffering sequential headaches. The story in question is Kaaron Warren's The Glass Woman (From The Grinding House) and my theme for the class is work by Canberrans, since both Hope and Warren are local writers. Australians tend to do cultural inferiority rather effectively, and I thought it would be interesting to see how the students approach world-class work by people who know (or knew, since Hope is dead*) the streets they know.
My printer is now pottering and has managed to produce one usable copy of a full half of the story. This could be a slow task. Fortunately, I have just roasted some chestnuts to keep me company and, if it continues to potter (if it doesn't need intervention) I can always enter the next bit of tax data. I only have about an hour to do on my tax - it took much longer than I expected, but I just kept nutting away at it yesterday. Sort of like the printer and me, today.
*His library was sold locally, too. Or parts of his library were sold. I managed to get a volume. It's hidden in my boxed non-fiction right now, waiting for my life to resolve itself.
My printer is now pottering and has managed to produce one usable copy of a full half of the story. This could be a slow task. Fortunately, I have just roasted some chestnuts to keep me company and, if it continues to potter (if it doesn't need intervention) I can always enter the next bit of tax data. I only have about an hour to do on my tax - it took much longer than I expected, but I just kept nutting away at it yesterday. Sort of like the printer and me, today.
*His library was sold locally, too. Or parts of his library were sold. I managed to get a volume. It's hidden in my boxed non-fiction right now, waiting for my life to resolve itself.
May 7, 2014
gillpolack @ 2014-05-08T09:04:00
This autumn is surprisingly cold. We've had at least three nights with negative temperatures already.
Last night was one, so I worked late. I dealt with a weather migraine because I couldn't sleep through it, and then I work up early because my neighbours couldn't sleep and decided to do the car-outside-my-bedroom-window thing. Fortunately, my today's meeting is at a coffee shop (for I am a civilised bod and will arrange meetings in coffee shops where I can) and the odd night means I'm almost finished my preparation for it. If I can finish this and finish one of my four forms for today, then I can turn seasonal malaise into jobs well done. That's my theory, anyhow. In practice, what I want to do is curl up and sleep until the autumn weather changes are done.
Today's forms are wildly unexciting, quite difficult, and exceptionally important. They're all also quite large and contain deadlines. There might also be a fifth and sixth task (or sixth and seventh, if I count the meeting) for someone is getting back to me today (ideally, today, but today is not a day to yearn for ideals) with information.
For each form, I have manga or anime or a novel, since my work experience student has decided my education needs expanding again. Last week's novel was a generational ship one so I had her borrow Louise Lawrence's Andra, which made a big impact on me when I was ten or eleven. This week's is Veronica Roth's Divergent. The manga is another volume of Dengeki Daisy, Phantom Thief Jeanne and Ai Kore! The anime is the next season of Clannad. My only other recreational reading before next Wednesday is Django Wexler's The Forbidden Library.
My serious work for the next eight days is to catch up on everything that's fallen behind due to illness. My May deadlines are going to happen, by sheer brute force and focus and by taking one step at a time. Now I want to declaim "So there!" and fall into petulance over a cup of hot coffee. Instead I might see if I can finish the next task.
Last night was one, so I worked late. I dealt with a weather migraine because I couldn't sleep through it, and then I work up early because my neighbours couldn't sleep and decided to do the car-outside-my-bedroom-window thing. Fortunately, my today's meeting is at a coffee shop (for I am a civilised bod and will arrange meetings in coffee shops where I can) and the odd night means I'm almost finished my preparation for it. If I can finish this and finish one of my four forms for today, then I can turn seasonal malaise into jobs well done. That's my theory, anyhow. In practice, what I want to do is curl up and sleep until the autumn weather changes are done.
Today's forms are wildly unexciting, quite difficult, and exceptionally important. They're all also quite large and contain deadlines. There might also be a fifth and sixth task (or sixth and seventh, if I count the meeting) for someone is getting back to me today (ideally, today, but today is not a day to yearn for ideals) with information.
For each form, I have manga or anime or a novel, since my work experience student has decided my education needs expanding again. Last week's novel was a generational ship one so I had her borrow Louise Lawrence's Andra, which made a big impact on me when I was ten or eleven. This week's is Veronica Roth's Divergent. The manga is another volume of Dengeki Daisy, Phantom Thief Jeanne and Ai Kore! The anime is the next season of Clannad. My only other recreational reading before next Wednesday is Django Wexler's The Forbidden Library.
My serious work for the next eight days is to catch up on everything that's fallen behind due to illness. My May deadlines are going to happen, by sheer brute force and focus and by taking one step at a time. Now I want to declaim "So there!" and fall into petulance over a cup of hot coffee. Instead I might see if I can finish the next task.
