The Blog

Annoyed Cat is Annoyed...

The only thing worse than being woken in the middle of the night in England by a spam phone call when you're on the do not call list is realising you just paid overseas roaming charges to be woken in the middle of the night in England by a spam phone call when you're on on the do not call list.

(I normally sleep with the phone off. I must have forgotten last night.)

Labels: cambridge, losing sleep, phones, trip09

Hey you lot...

I'm exhausted after several days conferencing, but I'm going down to London tomorrow and I'll not be back for a week or more. I don't know what my connectivity will be like, so don't panic if you don't hear from me again until the 21st of September.

I've got my phone if anyone needs me.

And any suggestions for fun things to do will be appreciated.

Labels: conferences, england, london, losing sleep, trip09

Well oops...

I probably shouldn't be spending my first hour back at work planning my next vacation.

Labels: holiday, losing sleep, uni

So tired...

I have entirely too many stories to write before Christmas. Well, at least two, and maybe a few more if I can't sleep. They'll be up here come Christmas day, although they'll be anonymous until new years. Feel free to post guesses as to which are mine here.

Am currently housesitting for my Aunt, and am responsible for three squawking birds, two bloody snakes and a rottweiler in the back yard. It's kinda fun, but a little stressful. I don't like being responsible for quite so many other living things, I have enough trouble remembering to feed myself.

Went into the city at lunchtime for the first test of the emergency sirens they've put in there. Despite the complaining I heard on the news tonight, they really were quite loud, so much so that James and I had to duck out of a direct path to enjoy the clamour better. It was pretty exciting, actually. But if I'd known they were going to test them regularly I wouldn't have gone to so much trouble today. Ah well, he might blog more info since I think he's less exhausted than me.

So, before bed then, two links:

• A review of the DDR Musical - She didn't like it so much, which is sad.
• My Little Princess Leia - Yes, I'm a fan of custom MLPs. Some of them are awesome. Deal.

Labels: christmas, DDR, e-vac-u-ate, house-sitting, losing sleep, ponies, writing

From my notepad...

She was all leg, save for the leather jacket, and blonde, and when she walked her hips moved in aggressive jerks as if to say, "look how more feminine than you I am."

Labels: losing sleep, writing

*sighs*...

Yesterday, Julia and I threw a rather successful party for 20 people celebrating the fact that D'Arth is getting married (I really ought to finish illustrating that, ne?). Was exhausted and overwrought by the time I got home (and thanks again to Mum for being my driver for the day).

Today I'm so lonely I could cry and am getting my kicks by switching off the cable modem for 30 seconds at a time in order to drive my kid brother mad.

Labels: lonely-Cat, losing sleep, photos, weddings

Tired of trekking across the city to see people...

...and yet no one gets that it doesn't mean I'm sick of them. What it means is that it's 7 degrees out, I don't have a car and I currently can't feel my fingers. So I don't want to spend two hours on public transport meeting you on your side of town and then two hours going home when the temperature is most likely sub-freezing. It's decidedly unpleasant.

Also, when I say I don't want to go to a conference, it means I don't want to go. Not that I want to be persuaded by you because look at all the wonderful warm feelings you're going to get out of it and you get to visit your daughter and your good friends in Canberra and you're not even a fucking student anymore, you submitted! Fuck off, I don't want to go, and I really don't want to go with you.

Am looking forward to going home and watching avatar. I still can't quite believe it's nearly over.

Labels: I want to go home now, losing sleep, stupid people, time and space

   This is why I have no faith in the medical profession...

1. Sunday I woke up with a blocked ear. Decided to live with it and got on with life.
2. Wednesday I said "bugger that" and went to the medical centre. Doctor #1 said that I had a build up of wax (I thought "really? okay") and that I should buy these expensive ear drops, put them in my ears each night then come back on Friday to get my ears syringed.
3. Did not sleep Wednesday and Thursday nights due to sloshing in ear (and pain last night).
4. Went to medical centre again this morning. Doctor #2 said that I had a middle ear infection, no sign of ever having any wax in my ears at all and that he was disappointed in the other doctor for the misdiagnose. Now I have a nasal spray (and a prescription for antibiotics if the bacteria don't drain when the congestion does).

I just want to go home.

Labels: losing sleep, sickly-Cat

   Headaches and throat infections and trying desperately to recover before heading out to England oh my...

So I'm feeling decidedly crappy, and have been unable to keep my brain focussed on a single thing for more than ten seconds for the last two days, but the doctor thinks that the headaches belong to the throat infection, which is mild and should be gone within a few days. I just have to survive until then.

In the meantime this story has made my week.

Labels: losing sleep, Neil is our god, sickly-Cat

   So, I'm allergic to cleaning...

No, really.

Pretty much since Honours when Liz had a spack with me owning furniture and decided that she was going to revoke my rights to half our bookcase by dumping half a bookcase worth of books on my bed while I was out one night (which I was sure I had blogged about but I can't find it anywhere) my room has been a mess. A big huge mess consisting of things living in boxes and piles and just generally being all over the place because I've been too busy studying to clean up.

So, when I bought myself the ikea furniture a few weeks ago I realised that I ought to go through everything and properly clean. So far I've filled two bags for the vinnies (uh, goodwill, I guess), thrown out several more and sorted all of my craft projects so that I might actually get some of them done. And I have a feeling that in a few more weekends I might actually have a neat bedroom, just in time to go away. :)

And it's so worth the effort even though I can't sleep properly and I can't stop sneezing because of all the stirred up dust.

My laptop's still dead though, which makes me sad. Question for the readers: Should I buy a new one (probably after the trip), or repair poor old Minako?

Labels: iCatherine, losing sleep, random, tidy-cat

   *snoozes*...

Subconscious decided that after a full day's work and 3.5 hours of tutoring sleep would be overrated, so now I look like a panda.

The workshop was severely overrated (I have no idea what they're talking about, so am going to hit the wiki and ask it). But I think it won't be too hard to catch up enough that I can understand tomorrow.

I wrote 500 words for yuletide, which is a huge improvement over the 0 I had yesterday (hooray for not understanding the workshop and being bored). Sure, it needs entirely too much editing, but it's the first writing I've done for any fandom other than DP for about 3 years, so I'm glad I'm writing at all.

Anyway, dinner now, then tutoring, then catch ups for tomorrow. And maybe I'll have a chance to do the research I need for my fic too. Sleep is for the weak and the tired, after all.

Labels: astronomy, losing sleep, yuletide

   *big big sighs* ...

Well, that went a lot worse than I was expecting. Not the conference, it seems to be going swimmingly; no, the problem is that when you take one Catherine, deprive her of sleep for most of a week, keep her too busy to eat for a day and then ply her with alcohol, she ends up spending large chunks of the night curled up with a toilet vomitting the little bit of food she ate before drinking anything. When she wasn't asleep on the floor, of course.

*is ded from embarrassment*

A random student (her name was Sarah, and for most of our relationship I was convinced she was hotel staff, which makes me even more embarrassed) found me and held my hand for a good half hour or more, and then Korinne and Anna helped me back to the room I'm sharing with Anna.

And of course, I suffered from surprisingly-lucid-but-terribly-honest-drunk syndrome, which I really need to get over. Telling people that you think they have the potential to be great isn't the best way to win friends, although I think she took it in stride. I'm always worried by how I seem to think more about what I'm saying when drink, but I still say all the wrong things.

It's time for the next session of the conference to start, so I'm going to take some rocky road and apologise to Sarah, because she seems like the nicest person I've met in weeks.

Labels: conferences, losing sleep, yay vodka

   Ye gods and little fishies...

I'm so very tired, but I'm done now. Just have to live through the next few days. Not sure what kind of access I'll have, but if you don't hear from me, expect me to be drunk and happy and back on sunday.

Labels: conferences, I want to go home now, losing sleep

   Gratuitous Scarf Post...

So, I've been busy. We got to that horrible point in the semester where I end up with two assignments and a test to mark within two weeks, and it's always nasty. So between the maths department and the conferences I'm organising I've not done much since I last posted.

That said, I did get to do a little last Saturday.

As you can see, the red was where I was up to the last time I took photos, and I hadn't done very much since then. I got to knit a lot that day, as once we got Heidi moved in and she started unpacking there wasn't much else for a large group of us to do (no one wanted to unpack her stuff into the wrong places).

A better photo will follow in the next day or so as I finish catching up and my brain re-engages enough that I can make with the image-editing-fu.

Labels: conferences, crafty-Cat, doctor who, Heidi, knitting, losing sleep, Tony is a legend

   I want my sleep cycle back, you son of a bitch...

Dear PhD,
I'm so fucking sick of the nightmares. Make them go away again, and I promise I will finish this year. Please?
Just let me have one good night's sleep, and I'll even finish that chapter for you.
Stop making things harder than they already are.
No love,
Me.

Labels: hating myself, Inigo Montoya, losing sleep, phd, so I dreamed about my supervisor as Darth Mark - what does that mean?, the Harry Potter / Domus Prime crossover seems more likely every day