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Friday, July 18, 2008
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
posted by Catherine, 3:35 PM | permanent link | (0) comments
Thursday, May 08, 2008
SC's PhD FAQ of Love and Justice...Q: Why does it take 4 years to write one computer program?
A: Because it's hard.
(I get this one a lot more often than I would like. I could waffle on about ODEs and why they make your life difficult but the simple truth of the matter is I'm not done yet because this stuff is fucking hard.)
Q: You can just buy it with your scholarship, right?
A: No, I don't have a scholarship. It's why we can't find my desk under all the marking I have to do.
Q: But if you don't have a scholarship, how can you afford to live in Sydney?
A: I'm one of those pathetic adults who still lives with their parents because they can't afford to live in Sydney. At least I'm not in the basement.
Q: But, seriously, how do you pay your bills?
A: I'm hasty and a crybaby, but to tell the truth I'm one of the highest paid call girls in Sydney. No, really, stop asking about money, dad.
(This was an actual conversation with my father, but enough variations on it have occurred that it goes in the FAQ.)
Q: So what, exactly, is it that you do all day?
A: I sit in front of a computer, twiddling boundary conditions and running my code over and over again. Sometimes I write to my thesis while I wait for it to run, sometimes I write angry blog posts.
Q: But any monkey could do that!
A: And we're all glad they chose this one, aren't we?
Q: Should *I* do a PhD?
A: No. Seriously, no.
Any other questions?
Labels: faq, phd, rant, stupid people
posted by Catherine, 10:45 AM | permanent link | (3) comments
Friday, June 22, 2007
Believe me, this isn't dark...Dude, we're providing two computers, a Mac and a PC. We're using the university's own system, which takes a bit of learning to drive, but I've managed so far, thanks for asking. The sound system appears to work, and maybe if we're lucky I'll manage to figure out how to record the talks to put online later. Oh, and the lecterns have a full internet connection.
No, we don't have a wireless remote control for the PC. This is a university, and such things tend to wander if they're wireless. Yes, you have to stand at the lectern to speak.
The dark ages would be the slide projector that was used two years ago at Sydney University. That was pretty dark, if I do say so myself.
Labels: conferences, stupid people
posted by Catherine, 11:19 AM | permanent link | (0) comments
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
Dear L...Stop sending out group emails that make it seem like I am completely incompetent. I mean it.
Yes, we're missing 2.5 abstracts. I am well aware of that, given that I formatted the website / book so that those abstracts were just headings, and not proper outlines of their talks/poster. I even talked with the boss and we decided not to include the .5 of one person's abstract that we did have, preferring to leave hers out and include it in a page of errata after the fact, rather than have an unprofessional half-abstract in the book.
And yes, I have repeatedly chased those people up. By sending out your own chasing emails, you make me look completely incompetent in front of people from outside the university.
And yes, I am more capable than you to proofread this book. Just because you used to proofread joe's astronomy newsletter does not mean you have a better grasp of the English language than I. All it does is make you look like a bragging bitch.
Fuck you,
Me.
PS. "Monday lunchbox" is the most dumb name for a lunchtime meeting ever. I hope A smacks you down for it.
Labels: conferences, hating myself, stupid people, unhappiness, uni, wasting my life
posted by Catherine, 9:24 AM | permanent link | (0) comments
Thursday, May 17, 2007
A minor rant...But first, a note to say that if you're going to reference someone in your blog multiple times, Catherine, it helps if you actually post the original rant, rather than keep it hidden. *_*'
Frankly, dude, if you're never in, don't tell me how to run the office. Yes, it's warm in here for the first twenty minutes of the morning until the cold air outside causes us to normalise. It's not hot, and it's not even that stuffy. It's just a bit warmer than you would expect for a May morning.
And don't go switching the air conditioning on without first closing the windows. The gods of climate change (and my rage at your continued existence) will smite you for that.
Labels: odd smells in my office, paging the jigoku tsuushin, stupid people
posted by Catherine, 9:34 AM | permanent link | (0) comments
Friday, May 04, 2007
An open letter to the woman on the train with the nailclippers...Eww! Just eww! There are no real words, merely onomatopoeia to describe how I feel about you leaving your finger and toe nails all over the seat and floor of the train.
I have no problem with you sitting there clipping your nails, but just as I want you to take your used tissues with you, I want you to not leave behind all those scraps of DNA. Because aside from the fact that a witch could use them to hex you something severe, it's just eww!
Please peoples, remember that when you stand up on a train someone else sits down. Would you like to have their toenails digging into your butt?
Labels: eww, stupid people, toenails
posted by Catherine, 10:43 AM | permanent link | (2) comments
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
Elementary, my dear Watson...My first spammer just registered for the conference. This is sad for all involved, because now I have to think about how to stop such fake registrations. I'm pretty certain that nuking anything with the word 'nigeria' in it would stop most of them, but it still makes me unhappy.
The worst bit is, I'm pretty sure he actually filled in all those text fields by hand, and so I know that he knows there's no where for him to link to his website or anything else there. And I think he gave real information too.
*sighs*
Labels: conferences, stupid people, unhappiness
posted by Catherine, 9:02 AM | permanent link | (0) comments
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
Rah...So, they moved me from my office of awesomeness into a cubicle farm of doom and gospel music (and while I have no objection to gospel music as a form, it bugs the hell out of me that I have to spend all day either blasting techno in my ears or listening to how much the person sitting next to me loves jeebus).
Labels: odd smells in my office, paging the jigoku tsuushin, stupid people, why didn't I post this?
posted by Catherine, 3:59 PM | permanent link | (0) comments
I liked my old office...It was nice and big, there were only three people in it on the busiest of days and only one person could be gazing at my screen while they were at their desks.
Sure, it didn't have air conditioning, but it had a fan, which was nice, and most of the time I was the only person there.
Now they've put me in a huge cubical farm, with no whiteboard, air conditioning that is on by the vote of a committee of overheated peoples (I should not have to wear a jacket at my desk) and they won't stop talking. If they're not arguing over the position of the fridge (which I suspect Korinne won't be happy about, since everyone will be congregated at her desk if it stays where it is), they're fretting over what numbers the phones currently possess (which are being changed as soon as IT services gets around to it) or they're just fucking talking all the fucking time!
I was told it was going to be quiet in here. That it was nicer than my old office. That I would be seated with a bunch of people who are never in. Only now those people are saying that they like it so much they want to be in all the time, and they are all looming behind me making it so I can't concentrate and do any work.
Frankly I'm tempted to switch my computer off and move it back, because I'm really very unhappy here. Either that or switch the position of my desk so that I can face the window (another plus of my old office) with my screen pointed away from everyone else.
I hate it here, and I wish that W would get off the fucking phone and do some bloody work. It takes him an hour to drive here, he ought to respect that effort more and not spend the whole time talking to his wife.
Edited to Add: Break out the fucking headphones, or I will break them out for you, dipshit. Your taste in music sucks arse.
Labels: get off my lawn, I want to go home now, never going to graduate, odd smells in my office, stupid people
posted by Catherine, 12:14 PM | permanent link | (0) comments
Thursday, March 01, 2007
ippen, shindemiru?No, I don't care that your logo is smaller than everyone else's. You should have chosen a square design like the other peoples, or, you know, had a bigger logo available on your website. The fact that you don't is not my fault. I'm doing the best I can with what I was given.
Labels: conferences, paging the jigoku tsuushin, stupid people, web stuff
posted by Catherine, 11:40 AM | permanent link | (0) comments
Friday, February 16, 2007
It is amazing, isn't it?...An Eyre Peninsula man is the talk of the town after catching a bronze whaler shark in his hands and wrestling it up onto a jetty.
Phillip Kerkhof from Louth Bay was at the local jetty when the 1.3-metre shark began chasing squid lures.
He says he climbed down a ladder and began to follow the shark in shallow water.
"I just snuck up behind him and eventually I went for the big grab and I fluked it and got him," he said.
"He's just thrashing around in the water but then he was starting to turn around and try to bite me and I thought 'well, it's amazing what vodka does'."
The only damage from the dangerous species was a bite mark to his jeans.
"It's not something I'd recommend to do. When I sobered up I thought about it and I said, 'I'm a bit of an idiot doing it'," Mr Kerkhof said.
- ABC news
Labels: jumping the shark, stupid people, yay vodka
posted by Catherine, 10:49 AM | permanent link | (1) comments
Thursday, February 15, 2007
*sniggers*...If all you have in your "music" collection is porn, don't share your music on iTunes.
Especially not under your real name.
Especially not if you name is rare enough that googling it takes me directly to your profile on a social networking site with photos.
And most especially not if after finding those photos I'll be able to recognise you down in the foyer of E6A.
Labels: names omitted to protect the guilty, stupid people, the internet is for porn, uni
posted by Catherine, 3:10 PM | permanent link | (0) comments
All original content on SC.com belongs to Sailor Coruscant — Catherine 1998-2009. All non-original stuff belongs to someone else, obviously.