The Blog - The Archive

   100 word posts...

So, way back in April or something I wrote a bunch of drabbles. 13 of them, in fact, following the first list of prompts from the 13drabbles community on livejournal. They’re all Domus Prime stories of one sort or another, all dabbling with an individual character, though sometimes it’s hard even for me to know whom they were written about.

It occurred to me that I really ought to get around to posting them and so I ask you, dear blog and planet peoples, should I post them here, to the forums or to the DP archive?

Labels: Domus Prime, fickle-Cat, the Harry Potter / Domus Prime crossover seems more likely every day, writing

   Beto said I sounded too happy in my last blog...

So here's grumpy-Catherine in full force.

In my few free hours a week I tutor people. It's a grand and noble profession, and I get to charge $50 an hour for it. Which is $20 more than the university pays me for teaching, so it's worth my while to tutor. And I like the thrill of seeing someone's eyes light up as they finally *get* something. It's a rush.

But the problem is that the people I tutor expect me to be on call. They email me at all hours, and expect immediate responses. Sometimes they will email me five or six times an hour, regardless of whether or not I'm responding. I don't get paid for any of the time that I spend reading and replying to these emails, but that's okay, because when you get right down to it, I like what I do.

The problem I have is that I'm not appreciated.

Last night I got six emails from one of the students I tutor. All in netspeak, with terrible grammar and spelling. One sentence ("If I can get quest 6 and 7 out then imp rob ok…") had to be read eight times before I could translated what he meant ("If I can get questions 6 and 7 out then I'm probably okay"). He included attached scans of the working he had done on the assignment, but he hadn't even bothered to rotate them so they were all upside down.

Please people. Show me some respect! I'm good at this stuff, but I am not going to put up with being treated that rudely.

And to get your mind off my rant and (possibly misguided) sense of entitlement, here's a brilliant political essay by Charles P. Pierce: Battle for the Planet of the Apes.

Labels: grumpyCat, imp rob ok, politics, tutoring

   300 posts later...

...and I still want to do this blogging thing. Who would have thought?

So, in the personal news, Minako is back! Woo! *does the happy laptop dance, which sounds much dirtier than it actually is*

James bought me some stickers from MOO with my flickr photos on them, and I've been gleefully sticking them all over my once immaculately white iBook. I'll post photos later, I imagine.

Actually, on the subject of photos, the other week I knitted a scarf in three days for my dear friend Nilanka's birthday. It was the short row rib from Magknits, knitted in Vintage Hues by Cleckheaton and it was really fun to knit something fun and simple for a change. Which is to say something other than my jacket of doom (last seen in this blog post by my mum), which is coming along nicely, but the last stages (knitting the collar and sewing it up) are going very slow.

As a part of her birthday present I also promised to teach Nilanka how to knit herself, and so last Sunday I went to see her and taught her how to both knit and purl and she's now the proud creator of the first 15cm of a scarf in a 3 rows knit, 3 rows purl rib (much the same as the one I knitted for her, but without the short rows). It's very pretty and I hope she enjoys knitting from now on. I may have to go back in a week or two to teach her how to cast off.

I've also knitted a scarf for Heidi in the last few weeks, but I forgot to photograph it. :(

I'm currently at 6 pages on "Skirting the Paradox", for those who care about my fictional works. I'd love to have this finished soon, but I'm really bad at writing fight scenes, and when you get right down to it the whole story is one long string of fight scenes. *sighs* I kinda just want to skip them and get on with the fun mystery stuff, because that's really the point of the story, but the violent setting keeps getting in the way.

Oh, and I suppose you want to know about the PhD. Well, I think I finally made a breakthrough today. I'm still not going to finish anytime soon, but I feel like I know what's going on and where I'm headed. I'm sure that'll only last a day or two, but right at this moment, I'm feeling good about it.

James has started a new job today. That makes me inordinately happy. I imagine he'll be blogging about it soon enough. In the meantime, everyone should go and read his post where he points out the uncanny resemblance between the latest iPod posters and screenshots from Battle Royale. Because it's awesome and while I believed him when he first told me that was what they look like I didn't realise just how similar the imagery was.

My sister has packed herself a "go-bag" in case of terrorist attack during the APEC summit next month. We're reasonably certain she's being ironic, since it primarily consists of her St John's Ambulance first aid kit (which she keeps in her car anyway), a change of clothes and a packet of timtams (which will someday run out), but you can never be too sure.

My grandmother on my father's side is currently in the Sydney Eye Hospital (she had the cataracts removed from one eye last week and it promptly became infected) and yesterday she had an operation which was apparently successful. She's in the room next door to Anthony Mundine, who's got himself a horrible eye infection because he noticed a speck on his contact lens and licked it to get it clean. The good news is that my nanna will be fine, the bad news is that no one is sure about "the Man".

Actually, while we're on the subject of Catherine's relatives, my grandmother on my mum's side recently loaned me her collection of newspaper clippings about her father (my great grandfather), Edward Michael Boland. My mum took the time to scan them all into a pdf file for posterity, and it's available for download if you are interested in my family history. He was a great man (even the Queen recognised it, giving him an OBE *smiles*), being Apprenticeship Commissioner in NSW for more than 20 years, known for being fair minded and working with Liberal governments in power despite him being a Labor man through and through. Grandma informed me that the Liberal government actually changed the age of retirement laws so that he could stay on longer in his job.

My favourite quote from the collection reads:
The Commissioner is not concerned that his OBE puts in the same order of chivalry as the Beatles with their MBEs. But he commented wryly: "I still prefer youths with hair short back and sides."
- (We think the Sunday Telegraph), 27th June, 1965


Moving on to the world outside my circle of peoples, we have a couple of great bits of news to discuss:

Giant Lego man washed up on Dutch beach
This is just amazing. Both for the quotes ("I saw the Lego toy floating towards the beach from the direction of England.") and for the thought that maybe he was made to walk the plank on a giant Lego pirate ship. Or maybe he was just washed overboard. We may never know!


China tells living Buddhas to obtain permission before they reincarnate
You read that right. The Dalai Lama must now ask permission (no doubt in triplicate) before he reincarnates.
And while that sounds amusing at first (and indeed, those of us here in the office laughed when we first read it), it's also terribly sad when you think of the Chinese government using this power to corrupt the beautiful mysticism of the Tibetan people.

Skipping away from depressing news, the new iMacs were released today. I think they're pretty ugly, what with the giant black border around the screen (which is really a quite clever way of hiding the fact that you can't actually fit a computer in the space behind the screen alone), but they're better than the mockups James showed me last week and still reasonably sexy. And I'm sad to say that I want one like burning. Good thing they haven't released Leopard yet, or I'd be in trouble. Bloody Steve.

And this story about Magic has just made my day. I must wire some of those switches into my life.

So, this is the end of my 300th blog post. Was it good for you too?

Labels: crafty-Cat, Domus Prime, family, history, iCatherine, knitting, lego, longest blog ever, magic, never going to graduate, news, old photographs, phd, reality distortion field, web stuff, writing