What Bridget Jones Did Next

Silent Night

2009-12-30T22:12:54Z

Back from the family holiday and trying to sort out something flash to do for New Year's because I feel the need to finish off 2009 and move on. But yeah - silent night so far...

I had a really good time up north, which was a pleasant surprise, given that family functions and changes in my routine tend to stress me out. Stayed several days with my cousin T and his wife M and their kids, who I get on with really well, and the rest of the time hung out with my dad and stepmum at Waikanae beach. Read a bunch of books, saw a couple of movies, most notably The Girl with The Dragon Tattoo. Could have been really good if it wasn't so graphic and it didn't get more and more conventional as it went on. Feeling relaxed and ready to get on with things, which is just as well as I have heaps to do!

In prep for Japan I have started to work on writing my classes. I will be teaching 3 streams of level 1 academic writing and 2 streams of level 2 academic writing and 1 stream of public speaking. I have written the outlines for these classes but need to flesh out my first units so they're ready to go when I arrive. I am yet to do any but the sketchiest prep for my 'Non-fiction Genres' or 'Legal Conflicts in Literature' classes, so much work to do there.

In addition, I have publications to work on. One of my publishing bursary articles bounced back yet again, so I need to figure out a new home for it and format it to suit. I had a proposal accepted for a chapter in a book on gossip and gender, which is great - except I have to write it by May. I sent material to a couple of publishers to scope out the possibility of getting my thesis published, and it came back from both with the advice 'condense and retarget' so that is my main publishing task for 2010.

My resolution for 2010 is to have increased self-reliance. I have let learned helplessness get the better of me too much, and looked around for other people to help me with whatever problem I was having rather than trying to solve it myself and consequently know nothing more about computers etc than I did years ago. I've got slightly better at cooking but I have a way to go with that too, and will have plenty of chance to practice now I'm back living on my own - albeit at a swanky Bed and Breakfast for the timebeing. So that's the plan anyway.

I hope you all had a great Christmas and wish you all the happiest of New Year's.
xx

Doctor, Doctor

2009-12-19T08:58:00Z

It's time to make a change

2009-12-12T19:27:48Z

I graduate this coming Wednesday and I have every intention of making a big fuss - photo shoot, celebratory dinner, the works. I need closure after this long drawn out process. I still can't quite believe that I'm not going to be notified that I need to make more pages of corrections or that someone somewhere hasn't suddenly changed their mind about me getting my doctorate. Because it is now six months since I finished, I almost feel as though I'm about to be rewarded fraudulently - praised for something I can barely remember doing.

I move out of my current place in two weeks (23rd), and keep finding caches of possessions which I will have to box up and post to my dad in Palmy North. By now he probably has to squeeze between box forts when he gets up in the morning. Over the last 18 months I must have freighted/posted something like 30 boxes of junk to his place. I'm going there for a week in March to go through things, hopefully by then my attachment to most of it will have waned and I will be able to recycle it on. I try at such times to step away from my sentimental bonds to knick-knacks that haven't done anything other than collect dust for the last ten years, by calling on my inner possessions-assassin who is a real minimalist, anti-materialistic type - but this p.a. has a tendency to be just a tidge too ruthless and accidentally throw away things I mourn for later. I've already looked into the issue of taking stuff to Japan, and I will certainly have to consult my p.a. on that matter - utter minimum only. I got a quote from Crown for what I thought I would like to take (3 x 60cm x 50cm x 40cm boxes [think mini-fridge size] with 10kg contents in each) and the price came back at $3,000 - in other words $1,000/box. Ludicrously, I can post stuff to myself for half that price and get it there faster. Even so, think I won't be taking much with me - I'd only have to pay to ship it home again when my time was over, along with all the other possessions I would magically have collected by then.

When I accepted the job in Japan, my plan was initially to work there for a year and then try and use it as a springboard to move quickly to something better. However, the world seems more and more hostile. I never contacted my other hypothetical employers and told them I already had a job, so the rejection letters keep rolling in. It is fascinating to watch my parallel lives crash and burn - but also depressing. While it doesn't effect my immediate future, it certainly does not bode well. It may be best to stick it out in Japan for a couple of years (maybe even all of the 3 they will potentially hire me for) and build up some safety cash before re-braving unemployment. Of the people I know who graduated a year before and had employment, both are job-hunting again. BH, a guy I met at a conference in Australia, had a postdoc in Canada but his funding just got withdrawn. AE, who was one of my British supervisor's other students and who graduated with a PhD from Oxford, had a one year research job that has now come to an end.

Meanwhile, the Japan job keeps getting better. Yes, I will be teaching lots of academic writing classes, but I've also been given three 'advanced content' classes on topics of my choice and one assigned lecture course. The idea of advanced content classes is to give students practice in being taught in English - listening comprehension and note-taking, essay writing etc etc. My three are going to be on New Zealand Short Stories, genres of non-fiction, and film versions of famous Shakespearean tragedies. It is a little tricky because these are going to be very smart young people (uni level) but without great English (high school level), so I'm trying to find ways to work with complex ideas but relatively consumable texts. My lecture course just got assigned to me a week ago - 'Legal Conflicts in Literature.' It floored me at first, but the more I think about it, the more ideas I have. The one problem I'm still having is that I tend to only come up with literary examples from British/American authors; so if you have any more diverse suggestions I'd love to hear from you.

Preparations for the big readjustment are going well. I am still in tri-daily contact with my handler guy over there by email, so have had a lot of information now. I'm working away at on my Japanese and making slow progress. Getting learning to move from short term to long term memory is hard. I'm very good at dutifully doing my language lesson, then shutting the book and forgetting everything. However, my flatmate has introduced me to this electronic flashcard programme that is helping through the sheer force of repetition. Oh, and I bought a cute illustrated dictionary. I have all the accessories - surely buying the books is the same as learning? Or at least causally related?

So that's where I'm at. In the next couple of weeks I have graduation, then moving house, then Christmas with the family, so that's all going to be fairly big stuff. I may not have the time or energy to write until I'm back in early January, so...

Have a great Christmas everyone! And may the New Year bring you all good things!
xx

Cool kid FAIL

2009-11-26T17:56:27Z

So I'm a week and a half into my new job, right? My second day answering the phones, with my training partner eavesdropping and writing little notes in front of me to help me out. Having one of those days where I'm cranky with myself for making all sorts of dumb mistakes and my training partner is getting a little impatient with me too, because despite telling me the same things over and over I still can't seem to get it right. The classic was that I was supposed to check the phone display screen each time before I picked up, and then have a different intro line for internal vs external calls. Fairly simple concept, but I only got it right some of the time because of coincidence. So my partner is having to point out the same mistake over and over, in her being-patient-with-you-voice and I'm feeling irritable and overly sensitive.

Mid afternoon my boss asks for a volunteer to go and pick up a box of 2010 copies of these uni info almanac books we use, from the uni admin building a 5 min walk away - wondering aloud whether anyone but him would be strong enough to carry them. Almost all the phone operators are women, except one of the other new trainees, then all the middle managers are men, then the upper level managers are women again, then the uber bosses are men. Fascinating. Anyway, I recognise that a 10 min walk in the sunshine would do me good and volunteer for the job. The boss is surprised and states again that the box will be heavy. Ill advisedly, I say in my most playground braggy voice 'Yeah, well I do weight-lifting.'

One of those moments when you realise that everyone in the office just went silent in order to listen intently while the speaker humiliates themselves. 'Really?''Yeah' 'So how much do you lift?' Inevitable question really but the confident jargon of the gympro "well I bench 20 and squat 40" temporarily deserts me and instead I say 'In what direction?' To which the reply is 'Uh, up?' and all I can manage is the impressive 'Lots.' Oh yeah, wowed the crowds with that one. It was like being 10 all over again and having a bragging competition in the playground. If my attire had been less unsuitable I might just have flexed my wee muscles, to Show Them.

So without waiting for the round of applause that was surely my due as a cool kid, I flounced out to go and get the box of calenders. About two minutes of stomping and muttering in my head later, it occurs to me that the humiliation I had just experienced is nothing compared to how I'm going to feel if I get to the admin building and then can't carry the box. I slow to a dawdle, there is a certain amount of foot dragging. But it was not to be. I get to the place and tell the guy there that my boss has sent me for a box of these books, and the guy looks me in the eye - he Knows - and says "No, Boss said I was only to give you these four" and hands me four little books. I protest "Box?" and am told again "Four." So I can only imagine that as soon as I disappeared out the door, Boss was on the phone to admin guy explaining the situation and expressing doubt in my ability to carry more than four little books. Oh joy. So I carry the books back and insist on saying that 'I Could have carried a box if I Wanted to but the guy would only give me four and here they are.' Boss takes books and distributes them, no one looks at me.

Oh well done.

Operator operator

2009-11-25T08:35:07Z

End of my first day answering phones. I wanted a suitable heading, but because I have said more than a dozen times today that The UIC Is Not A Directory Service, We Offer An Information Service I just about wouldn't let myself use that one...
I've had a week and a half training prior to this, thank goodness, because today was full on - 44 calls. You just hit information overload after about the fifth one and can only retain information long enough to enter it into the database and then it is gone. If I was tortured, I couldn't tell you more than a couple of names of the people I talked to today. And today was a 'slow' day!
Interesting how fidgetty you get, too. I think I put lip salve on as many times today as I have done in the last six months, just for a 5 second breather while still looking busy. I even hankered after a nice nailfile.
It is kind of like chocolates being thrown at you from a box - you never know whether what hits you is going to have a soft or hard centre.
Anyway. Brain = goo = need to go be passive.

Workin 9 to 5

2009-11-19T05:33:19Z

Almost a week into my new job, and it is going fine so far. I have a boss who says things like 'this isn't the kind of job where you take work home' and shepherds everyone out the door pretty promptly after 5. So that's all good.

I have two problems with it, and they are inconveniences more than anything. The first is that I'm struggling to get to the gym. Working 8:30-5 means that going to the gym is hard to fit in at either end of the day and I haven't been at all this week which isn't good. However, I just bought a bike secondhand off an exflatmate, so am going to try to make that work for me. Still tricky logistically - I don't have anywhere in my office that I could regularly store bulky smelly gym gear without getting in people's way, and I don't want to arrive at work scrumpled because I had to shove my work clothes in the bottom of a bag - or bike in them. I dunno - bike to the gym before work, bike home again, shower and change and get to work at 8:30? Might manage to make myself do that a couple of times, but it doesn't seem that plausible. Biking would mean being able to go at night though, whereas I've avoided walking. Hmm. Have to think on this some more.

The other problem I'm having is severe email withdrawal. We're not allowed to access private email or use cellphones within the office for several good reasons (including there having been too many mistakes with people sending private messages on corporate stationery and vica versa), so in my breaks I find myself rushing to the library pool computers for my fix. Meanwhile, a bunch of the other staff barely get out the door before they're beeping away on their phones. Txting, its the new smoking. I can be superior because that isn't the addiction I have, but I think I'm probably worse...

Oh - entertaining random grafitti in the woman's loos in the link.
People who like the Twilight films too much = Twihards.

Workin 9 to 5

2009-11-16T05:12:31Z

Started my summer job in enrolments today. I'd been a bit anxious about it, mainly because the job description and interview were quite heavy about the idea it was going to be stressful and involve learning loads of new information, but everything went swimmingly today. Even though I'll only be working there for 3-4 months, because we are doing the same job as the regular staff we are getting a full 2 week induction so there is to be no dumping in the deep end. Oh and these people understand the value of 'thermal comfort,' nice stationery and morning tea. It is going to be just fine...

A little bit of resolve/Is what I need now..

2009-11-12T21:21:36Z

My last day in my postgrad office today, and I would characterise my current mood as Daunted.

I start a new job on Monday - I am working in the enrolments call centre for four months over summer - and while I am sure it will be fine, just thinking about the energy it will take to learn a new job and learn everyone's names and get up early every morning makes me feel tired.

The two articles I wrote for my publishing bursary have now both been rejected. No big surprises there - my supervisor encouraged me to apply to highly prestigious journals with a 90% rejection rate - but nonetheless, it is a bit of a downer. Have to put more effort into them now - dust them off, put a new shiny red bow on them and find somewhere else to send them to.

Starting to try and think about writing my courses for Chuo. I'm in almost daily contact with the guy over there appointed to answer my questions and I've learned a lot about the job now. I will be teaching 8 1.5hr classes a week. Three of those classes are first year academic writing (eg three streams of the same class), two are second year writing (ditto), one first year public speaking class and two 'advanced content' classes - which seem to be teaching whatever I want, for the purposes of giving the students practice in listening/note-taking/essays/research and other such study skills within an English immersion programme. Haven't yet decided what to do for those. On the one hand, it is tempting to teach content in my subject area and build up my cv (Shakespeare for example) but on the other hand other content (eg short stories) is probably more suitable/manageable for second language students. So I need to think about that some more.

I'm less and less intimidated about the prospect of moving to Japan, and actually looking forward to it - I'm sure that after four months in the enrolment office, I will actually be counting down - but I do find scary that I'm going to have to at least pretend I know what I'm doing with stuff I'm actually pretty unsure of. I will need to be professional/command respect yadda yadda. My secondary school experience will help a lot I'm sure, but ultimately it will be up to me to make things work and stand on my own two feet.

Which all just makes me want to spend the weekend in bed, to be honest...

Poem I liked

2009-11-11T06:38:36Z

Came across this poem in the dedication of a book and really liked it.

'To Sergei Yessenin'
- Vladimir Mayakovsky

Our planet
                     is poorly equipped
                                                        for delight.
One must
                    snatch
                                   gladness
                                                       from the days that are.
In this life
                   it's not difficult to die.
To make life
                        is more difficult by far.

It's a whole new world

2009-11-09T04:10:16Z

Welcome to my revamped blog - reading no longer causes headaches!
I've got a shiny new look for a shiny new life and will be inviting my family to read Tokyo postings etc so have gone back through and locked all the cringeable content. Don't worry, still plenty of whining and whittering on. Can't figure out how to modify my level back to PG so I figure people will anticipate reading something rude and end up with a Sunday drive. There, have a nice wet blanket.

Between lives at the moment. Doing choresy things this week (getting my thesis bound, packing out my office etc) waiting to start my temporary existence as call centre operator which starts next week. I'm sure that will give me lots of exciting things to talk about....

Had a lovely week away in Whangarei with the northern clan, catching up and chilling out - and catching a cold. Sigh. I swear, they could make biological weapons out of preschool kids' snot. See? There's some whining for you : ) Read lots of books, watched lots of stuff, stared blankly at beautiful landscapes. It's all good.

News!

2009-10-26T17:42:45Z

After a tense couple of weeks I have a result - I will be moving to Tokyo in April to take up an English Lecturing position at Chuo University : ) So I expect my blogs are going to become a whole lot more interesting - and read by family as well, so I'll be going back and archiving/locking lots of stuff... Anyway, yeah! Employment!

News!

2009-10-15T19:01:37Z

Heard yesterday that my thesis has passed 'subject to amendments.' Hurrah! So have a pile of changes to make by mid November but it looks like I'll be graduating in December. Already planning the party...

The wheels on the bus go round and round

2009-09-19T20:38:11Z

Still here, still chugging along hopefully towards somewhere good.

Submitted the second article for my publishing bursary to my supervisor at 11:40pm last night - only just managing to stay only one day overdue. I meet with her on Thursday and then she'll give me the revisions and then I need to get these polished up and away to journals asap, because if I can have two more accepted publications that will help my cv a lot.I have three in print now: a Troilus and Cressida one that came out of a chapter from my Masters, which you can see the front page of here: www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~content=a906241242~db=all~jumptype=rss, one on Hamlet that came out of another chapter from my Masters and is printed in the proceedings of a postgrad conference we had a while back, and one that just came out a couple of weeks ago which was based on the paper I gave in Tasmania in Feb last year. I've also got two chapters in books that have been pending for literally years - one for 2 years, one for 3. But I realise I need to keep putting stuff into the start of the pipeline, because publishing is very hit and miss (I've been rejected a lot) and just takes so long. I've got another rejected piece to dust off and polish up in the next couple of months, as well as trying to start getting my whole thesis ready for a publishing proposal.

No sign yet of my PhD marks, the average time is 4.5 months and I'm just creeping up to 3 months now. It seems so long ago now, it's amazing. There's a line in a Muttonbirds' song, Dominion Road, that describes how I feel really well - I feel like "a mountain climber looking back having made it across/the steepest face." I have no idea how my thesis came to be finished - I guess I put one word in front of the other for a really long time, and then it was over. The song it is actually about recovering from a relationship breakup, but a breaking up a bad relationship and finishing a thesis are not actually as dissimilar as you might think: a huge sigh of relief, lots of change, and lots of debris hanging round for months.

That said, my life hasn't really changed that much in a practical sense - I still go to uni every morning, work all day and come home at teatime, then work more... I have been (and will be for this next week until my publishing bursary is done) ridiculously busy. Part of that is that I have been anxiously trying to scrape together rainy day insurance, in case I have a prolonged period of unemployment. So I've been effectively working three half time jobs: doing my publishing bursary, tutoring, and doing a couple of editing contracts. I'm enjoying the tutoring mostly, although teaching the first year 'academic English' paper and the editing work have been good reminders that I really don't want to get stuck correcting people's grammar for the rest of my life, either as a 'Composition' lecturer (where about 40% of the jobs in English are) or in publishing (an idea I toyed with for a while). Getting back to multi-tasking was really hard after having just done pretty much the same thing day after day and my brain was scrambled for a while, but I'm starting to get a handle on it again. Although, if this is what I want to do with my life, I really need a better way to manage my time and workload that is a bit more sophisticated than 'work all the hours you're awake.'

Still applying for loads and loads of jobs - stopped counting a long time ago - and have recently surrendered my preference not to work in the States and have started applying there as well. As the MLA joblist (list of all academic positions in the States starting mid next year) just came out, I have about 15 applications backed up waiting to be done but they'll just have to wait one more week. Haven't had so much as a nibble yet, which causes me panic occasionally, but mostly I can stay positive. I fully believe that my non-selection has very little to do with me, because I doubt most of my applications get read beyond the section which explains that I've submitted my thesis but not graduated yet. There are a few things I'm crossing my fingers especially hard for, but I would take whatever I was offered really. I don't expect to particularly enjoy my first job, because it is unlikely I will get to be somewhere nice or be doing what I really like, and a lot more probable that I will end up teaching composition in rural Taiwan, but if they give me the title of Lecturer and a decent salary then I'll stick it for a year or so. I just need to get my foot on the bottom rung of that ladder, in order for my cv to make it into the shortlist pile next time around.

All the academic stuff I've been doing (the publishing bursary, the tutoring) - wraps up in a couple of weeks when the semester ends. I had been quite panicked about the prospect of pending unemployment, but I've applied for a few filler jobs (customer service/data entry at uni) and had one interview, so hope that things will pan out money-wise. It will actually be quite nice to do some semi-mindless job that doesn't leave me totally drained at the end of the day. I might even get to watch the occasional movie or get out of town. Wild.

Anyway. I'll keep you posted. xx

Further evidence I live with feral monsters...

2009-09-11T22:58:48Z

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/2857951/Undie-500-chaos-in-Dunedin-again
http://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/73770/castle-st-burns-again

Interesting thought

2009-09-08T05:23:00Z

I'm busy writing an article about Shakespeare's reluctant bridegrooms and am trying to write a bit about sex. It occurs to me that all the 'proper' words for what a man and a woman do when they 'really love each other' are nouns - sex, intercourse. A couple HAVE sex - they do the noun. All the informal terms are verbs - couples screw, fuck, etc. Thoughts?

Digging for my dream

2009-08-31T19:43:13Z

Just posting to let people know I'm doing better. I finished my editing contract and handed in the first half of my work for my publishing bursary, so that has taken the pressure off a bit. It is currently midsemester break, so I have some time to try and catch up with myself. Still applying for a gazillion things, still no luck, but it isn't hurting at the moment. Got to start thinking about accommodation for next year too, given that it looks like I'll still be here. Hmmm...

Digging for my dream

2009-08-26T08:16:34Z

Made the mistake of going along to a career/job hunting seminar and ended up getting horribly depressed. My number of job rejections are creeping up somewhere round the 50 mark (hard to tell when most of the time I just never hear back) without so much as a nibble. Even if I was fully graduated and proshly ready to go, there just aren't really any good jobs out there... I've been working flat out (the equivalent of 3 jobs) because in October the semester ends and academic work dries up. I've got a lead on some casual data entry for the summer, and I'll be thrilled if it comes through, but then?

Trying to keep my chin up but my lip is starting to wobble.

All the honeys making money

2009-08-07T20:19:00Z

As far as short-term work is concerned, I'm flat out. I'm currently working the equivalent of three jobs - tutoring four classes (two for an academic English paper, two for a Creative Non-fiction paper), editing a book, and trying to write articles to earn my publishing bursary. I actually don't have enough hours in my week to do all that work so it is driving me a bit crazy (and my articles are losing out), but I am keenly aware that after October (when the academic year ends) all this work will dry up and I may well be unemployed.

On the job front, there hasn't been anything much for ages, and my standards are dropping. I've put some pressure on my British supervisor to find me some tutoring work in the UK, and I've applied for a part time not very interesting research assistant job in Melbourne in the hopes that I could pad that out with tutoring work. At this point I am anticipating having to do some kind of 'do-it-yourself' postdoc: bits of tutoring and research, very much what I am currently doing but elsewhere for the purposes of increased kudos.

In other news, it is my birthday tomorrow, which would usually make me gloomy (another year older, still no spawn), but I'm very happy with what I've achieved so far this year. My one goal was to have submitted before my birthday, and I have achieved that. I'm loving flatting, which is very surprising considering how much I used to hate putting up with other people's quirks - I guess that in contrast to having to live with the horde at Abbey, living with only four people is practically monastic seclusion. I am slowly learning the cooking thing - actually not as intimidating as I expected. I only cook for other people once a week, so I've got plenty of room for trial and error. My two other objectives before the end of the year are to learn to budget properly and to relearn how to drive. All the better to be a self-sufficient spinster in a foreign land.

Right. I have about 60 assignments to mark today, having marked about 20 last night while I was out trying to socialise. If I'm lucky, I can edit a book chapter for dessert.

Movie review - Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince

2009-07-21T20:54:51Z

Decidedly meh, I thought. Harry and Hermione didn't seem to be giving the acting that much effort, the lighting was weird, Malfoy seemed too old, and I'd forgotten how sexist JK Rowling got - two girls mooning over boys and made to look silly for it. Getting really bored of how Harry's specialness trumps him out of every situation. Sigh.

Movie review - The Black Balloon

2009-07-19T19:54:15Z

Saw this last night - very good. Apparently it was made by the same people that did Strictly Ballroom, so the filming is excellent. It is about an Australian family with a very difficult autistic son. Toni Collete was brilliant and I thought it was a very honest, if somewhat gruelling portrayal of how difficult things can be. My only criticism would be that the brother, around who the film centres, and his girlfriend are a bit too air brushed and gorgeous in comparison.
Reminded me a lot of a film I saw a while back - Coming Down the Mountain - about a boy with a brother who has Downs' syndrome.

Dream - alien amoebas

2009-07-17T21:30:33Z

Very complex sci fi dream that retrospectively makes very little sense. Something along the lines of: broke into a big science lab facility with my hazy sidekick and the objective seems to have been to steal some petri dishes with alien micro wierdoes on them. Someone in the facility was trying to help us and when we got to the floor with them, it was kind of like an Easter egg hunt - there was a sealed petri dish waiting for us on top of the airdryer in the bathroom, one between books in bookcase, "I see a red one!" - that kind of thing. Then someone came around with a tray as if they were offering us canapes, except it was petri dishes, and they asked if we were the visiting scientists from Sumaria (with lots of significant eyebrow wriggling) then offered us the tray. We went into a kind of booth to look at microscopes, but then my sidekick sneezed and everything around us shattered and we had to climb down the tower by climbing down shelf after shelf of people's stored stuff - I specifically remember seeing an OHP machine and a game of Twister. Then at the bottom was a kind of carparking building staffed by these amorphous yellow (like vinyl raincoat yellow) blobby robots on wheels with hard hats on, but we managed to dodge them by following this fairy thing. Then we were caught but given 'another chance' by being whisked into managing this big kind of garbage hotel on another planet.

I dreamed a dream

2009-07-15T21:15:48Z

Vivid dream last night, probably some combination of getting too hot (yes really!) and lying on my arm in an uncomfortable way. I was with a bunch of Abbey friends but they were running round like naughty school children and getting into trouble. They kept lighting fires and then about half of them decided to go skydiving. I tried to convince them that it wouldn't be nice and then when they insisted on going anyway, gave them most of my clothes to try and at least keep them warm. Watched all the parachutes come out of the plane and then they were suddenly landing and I was appalled because a friend of mine bounced, like skipping a stone in a pond. Got someone to call an ambulance for her and managed to establish that none of her bones were broken, but instead of just an ambulance a whole armed defenders squad, a helicopter and an ambulance with 'postwar' written on it all showed up and blew everything out of proportion. Once they got my friend, Ly, into the ambulance I was going round seeing that some of the others were ok, and some of them had transformed into inanimate objects on impact - kind of like pokemon, but backwards - and I specifically remember one friend, J, having turned into a set of nailclippers. I carefully picked them up and asked if she was ok in there and she said she was fine, she just needed me to put her in a glass of water. I went into the kitchen to get some water and the girl who had been hurt was doing the dishes and asked me to take her injured self some water. I said 'ok' and she handed me a glass of water with plants in it. I started fishing them out (this went on and on) and she said no, she only liked water with mint in it. There was some other bit with me in a hospital bed and a nurse trying unsuccessfully to stick a drinking straw into my leg but it all got very muddled after that.

Just eat it

2009-07-12T21:06:57Z

Now that I'm flatting again, I'm trying to get into the routine of cooking healthy meals for myself (eating separately at the moment, as people are a bit all over the place). I've bought a few cookbooks but I'm on the lookout for really easy 'combination meals' eg nice stir fries, easy-peasy things to do to make frozen veges somewhat delicious. So if you have any suggestions, or good links, please let me know : )

Free to do what I want

2009-06-29T20:44:11Z

So I've nearly come to the end of running round trying to sort my life out and tomorrow I head off on holiday for a week - going to the family beach house to read trash fiction curled up by the fire and stomp up and down the stormy beach before going and hanging with my cousins. Bliss.
Then when I get back I'm pretty much good to go with moving flats and starting semester two. So yay : )
The plan at the moment is to spend the next six months rattling round Dunedin, doing some bits of tutoring and similar work pretty much just to pay the bills, while applying for jobs all over the place and trying to have some fun before I get locked into the 9-5 somewhere.
So hopefully this will lead to more exciting blogging in the future : )
I'm carting off a collection of books that people have highly recommended to me and I'll post if any of them are any good. I'd love to hear from you if you've read anything really fabulous lately too.
xx

So [I'm] back from outer space

2009-06-21T02:25:10Z

So now I'm back in the real world (blinking in the bright light of being outside during working hours) I figured I should write a post that didn't read like some kind of to do list. Well - not totally like one.
Super relieved about having handed in - it wasn't all that intellectually hard for the last month (not counting writing the Conclusion which was a far higher order task than I was able to manage that well) but it was just feeling like a real obstacle course of mini-dramas.
So - now what.
I'm rattling round Dunedin until the end of June, trying to deal with a long list of backed up chores and catching up with all my friends and doing niceness, then I'm off up north for a week (July 1-7) to crash at the family beach house and read trash fiction then catch up with my cousins in Welly and have some more niceness.
Once back in Dunedin, I move out of Abbey on the 11th, so I've started pottering things into boxes. Then sorting out tutoring to start 2nd semester, from 13 July.
The plan at the moment is to be here for maybe six months, applying for jobs, publishing some work etc etc, but also HAVING FUN! Once I start some serious 9-5 gig I can't do the student flexi-time thing anymore, so have to make the most of this while it lasts. Sign up for lots of trips away, get back into my hobbies... as much niceness as I can handle.
I'm having quite a few dilemmas over the job thing, but I'm trying not to think about that too much at the moment, so I'll post on that later.
Hope you are all well.
xx