East of the Sun, West of the Moon

Auras

2009-07-29T14:24:04Z

I don't actually believe in them but at the moment, I'm in the midst of laying out a skeleton (wanted to write my thought before I forget) and she feels high status somehow as though she is looking over my shoulder and saying "Mind you lay me out properly, do you know who I am?". I wonder why that would be. Maybe it is because she is so complete and smooth. Any thoughts on what might cause said feeling?

Hmmm . . .

2009-03-23T17:30:12Z

You know, there are advantages and disadvantages to having a partner who reads anything as long as it is interesting.

For example, raygungothic has begun to call me "carrots." I, unfortunately, do not possess a convenient slate. On the other hand, he's only doing this because he's enjoying the book. So, how many of you can guess the reference?

Am down in Canterbury again working on my skellies. I did 12 today. Hope all is well with you.

I love gmail adverts

2009-02-10T10:31:51Z

Was just responding to a discussion about Dr. Who when this popped up on my gmail ad section:

Doctor Who Tardis
Get the best deal on the product you're looking for at Shopping.com!
www.Shopping.com

What would be a good deal on the TARDIS? And does it come with its own Time Lord?

Incidentally, I read something the other day that suggested Mary Poppins is a Time Lady and her carpetbag is her Tardis and she missed the wars because she was looking after Jane and Michael.

Growl

2008-12-13T11:55:02Z

Stupid trains spoiling my plans. I thought my weekend was going to go as follows: Friday evening: mulled wine and mingling at the arch dept christmas party, decent night's sleep
saturday morning: travel to Bristol and the rest of saturday hanging out there and playing with kittens
sunday morning: more bristol hanging followed by a return to London wherein, as is tradition, raygungothic will get a bloody mary for me and a g&t for himself thus ensuring that we can deal with delays in a cheerful manner

But no. It is raining and therefore all trains to Bristol are cancelled. Because, I mean, rain . . .it never happens in England, oh no.

*Sigh*. Well, at least the uni library is open and I'm a postgrad so I have swipe access to everything. So I am going to work and be productive today.

Sorry Bristol folk and felines. FGW have done it again.

Memes because it's December and I feel like it

2008-12-11T12:07:34Z

Stolen from omylouse

What we have here is the top 106 books most often marked as "unread" by LibraryThing’s users. As in, they sit on the shelf to make you look smart or well-rounded. Bold the ones you've read, underline the ones you read for school, italicize the ones you started but didn't finish. I've starred the ones that I read for school but also reread numerous times because I like them.

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Anna Karenina
Crime and Punishment
Catch-22
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Wuthering Heights
The Silmarillion
Life of Pi : a novel
The Name of the Rose
Don Quixote
Moby Dick
Ulysses
Madame Bovary
The Odyssey *
Pride and Prejudice*
Jane Eyre*
The Tale of Two Cities
The Brothers Karamazov
Guns, Germs, and Steel: the fates of human societies
War and Peace
Vanity Fair
The Time Traveler’s Wife
The Iliad
Emma
The Blind Assassin
The Kite Runner
Mrs. Dalloway
Great Expectations *
American Gods
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
Atlas Shrugged
Reading Lolita in Tehran : a memoir in books
Quicksilver
Wicked : the life and times of the wicked witch of the West
The Canterbury Tales *
The Historian : a novel
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Love in the Time of Cholera
Brave New World*
The Fountainhead
Foucault’s Pendulum
Middlemarch
Frankenstein*
The Count of Monte Cristo
Dracula
A Clockwork Orange
Anansi Boys
The Once and Future King
The Grapes of Wrath
The Poisonwood Bible : a novel
1984
Angels & Demons
The Inferno*
The Satanic Verses
Sense and Sensibility
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Mansfield Park
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
To the Lighthouse
Tess of the D’Urbervilles
Oliver Twist
Gulliver’s Travels
Les Misérables
The Corrections
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Dune
The Prince
The Sound and the Fury
Angela’s Ashes : a memoir
The God of Small Things
A People’s History of the United States : 1492-present
Cryptonomicon
Neverwhere
A Confederacy of Dunces
A Short History of Nearly Everything
Dubliners
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Beloved
Slaughterhouse-five
The Scarlet Letter
Eats, Shoots & Leaves
The Mists of Avalon
Oryx and Crake : a novel
Collapse : how societies choose to fail or succeed
Cloud Atlas
The Confusion
Lolita
Persuasion
Northanger Abbey
The Catcher in the Rye
On the Road
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Freakonomics : a rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance : an inquiry into values
The Aeneid
Watership Down
Gravity’s Rainbow
The Hobbit
In Cold Blood : a true account of a multiple murder and its consequences
White Teeth
Treasure Island
David Copperfield*
The Three Musketeers

and from luckykaa

You Are A: Lamb!

Peaceful and gentle, lambs have been used in religious imagery for millennia. Lambs are baby sheep, an animal tended by shephards since the dawn of history. As a lamb, you tend to stay together in a flock and graze on grassy land. Lambs don't mind being led and tend not to go off on their own.

You were almost a: Pony or a Bunny
You are least like a: Kitten or a Squirrel What Cute Animal Are You?

Awww. Hope you all are well

gryffin23 @ 2008-12-03T13:35:00

2008-12-03T13:37:09Z

Sorry about previous post. Displaced anxiety over meeting with supervisors etc. Am a bit better now; thank you for all your support.

Couldn't really do the emo thing anyway, not pale or gaunt enough. Plus like good food and wine far far too much.

Obama wins! Champagne!

2008-11-05T11:36:15Z

(title taken from a text L. sent this morning). Oh thank goodness. My faith in my country is restored.

I was very scared. I was also impressed with McCain's concession speech. It was gracious and well said.

gryffin23 @ 2008-10-22T11:28:00

2008-10-22T10:38:46Z

Somebody tell me I'm not a failure as a woman.

There are things that I noticed at Bradford when talking to other people. All the disorganisation stuff that my female friends referred to as irritating in their male partners: losing keys, being forgetful, not knowing where things are . . .that was me. It made me feel very insecure as women are supposed to be better at these things.

And then today, I try to clean the place I've just moved out of (only there for a month, long story) and it looks ok to me but not to the estate people. Is there some fundamental thing I'm missing? I don't necessarily see dirt everywhere. I mean I appreciate cleanliness as much as the next person but I somehow can't see things as well. I don't know.

I wanted, yesterday, to buy a SHE or Cosmo or any of those just for the hell of it and what I said above stopped me. I felt as though I didn't deserve to look at a magazine like that, not that I didn't want to but that I wasn't allowed to. And I've been feeling like that a lot recently-I look at a nice skirt and think that I shouldn't have nice things . . .I don't know.

Any of you ever had moments like that?

Even in Australia

2008-07-18T11:29:46Z

I am not in a happy mood.

Yesterday, I was informed by telephone that my office was needed by monday so I had to clear out. I'd somehow missed the email about this but when I checked the email had only been sent a day or two before.

I thought, ok, I have a few days so today I can do some work. I called raygungothic to arrange his help to clear out and while I was on the phone, two of the administrators who had told me this appeared. When I got off the phone, they made it quite clear that they wanted me out of there RIGHT NOW even if it was in an indirect way. So I had to box up my things and then move to a space that I needed to get a new key for (it's a communal space supposedly for postgrads but heaven forbid they actually give all the postgrads keys to it) which meant I lost a day of work. Also, I know it's unreasonable but I feel quite annoyed about it; it made me feel extremely worthless. I understand the needing of space, it's a university. But I hated their approach which seemed to say "Get out of that space, you worthless waste of said space"

I feel quite rootless at the moment. There doesn't seem to be any permanence in anything. I spend 2-4 days a week in London and depending on weekends, 3-5 days in Reading. I don't feel quite at home in either place. The small office I had was the only place that felt stable, I guess, and now I've lost that.

I'm overwhelmed by what I need to do. Am getting another hundred skellies next week so that's good. But I can feel depression and rumination trying to get to me. I keep thinking I'm getting somewhere and I know I am but the thing that remains hardest to deal with is the desire to punish myself all the time. I may not be physically self-harming but mentally, I am. There's something in me that wants to punish me for not being perfect at everything and also wants to punish me for daring to be happy. Every time I ever get really happy about something, I seem to need some way to hurt myself for it.

And then this morning, after a horrible night of tossing and turning (the only part of the night I slept well was after a dream about snuggling up to raygungothic and two cats), I bent down to pick up my rucksack and promptly pulled a muscle in my back.

I just wish I could sleep away my worries. Of course, that's silly because they come from inside me and even Sleeping Beauty had to deal with a dusty palace when she awoke.

Oh well, my mum says some days are like that, even in Australia.

100 done

2008-07-10T14:21:02Z

850 or so more to go. Still, not a bad thing as I have found a way to get through them quickly.

thoughts

2008-05-22T08:48:26Z

Why is it that depending on the tone used strangers (shopkeepers and the like) who call you dear can either sound patronising or simply really nice? I had to do some shopping at a little corner shop and the man behind the counter called me dear and the thing was the tone of his voice made me feel that he was being friendly and that his calling me dear was a way of letting me know how happy he was I was in his shop. I suppose I felt liked which is always good.

Had an odd dream last night wherein my supervisor's partner told me if I was unhappy I should go and talk to her because she was really good at making sandwiches. Makes no sense but I was amused.

Of course also dreamed of raygungothic meeting his doppelganger who turned out to be extremely carnivorous . . .don't know where that came from.

And yesterday I had a skeleton with trauma and osteomyelitis and fusion and possibly an arthritic toe. Now since the trauma and osteomyelitis were all on the extremities on one side, it is possible that this guy may have been in Canterbury to heal that (lameness being a major reason for pilgrimage)

Boasting

2008-05-09T12:39:14Z

I have the most wonderful fiance. Not only did he take me out for a lovely dinner last night (you have turned 27! Champagne!)but today, I got home to discover that he'd been sweet enough to send me a card through the post as well because he thought I might want one!

I am a very lucky woman.

Also, am happy because I got to go on a dice buying spree yesterday.

ok, off to do some shopping. (am baking a cake)

WTF?

2008-05-08T10:58:31Z

They're mummies Now I appreciate the idea of covering for preservation, but this? Really now.

Also, I'm 27 today. I'm in my last year of being in my mid twenties. How weird is that?

One of those days

2008-04-21T17:42:10Z

I'm just annoyed that people besides all of you and my other friends exist. Or at least certain types of people which I will list in hopes it will make me feel better.

1) The mother with the SUV of a buggy who blocks the bus exit and complains that buses aren't big enough. Babies aren't that big and if they're big enough to need that size buggy there's something else wrong (note for Americans: buggy=stroller)

2) The chavettes smacking gum as loudly as they possibly can while discussing as shrilly and loudly as possible the, erm, anatomical merits of someone they know.

3) the guy who apparently deems it necessary to spread his legs and his body over two whole seats on the bus and treat us all to a loud inane conversation conducted in an accent that would give Henry Higgins an ulcer.

4) all those who act as though you are somehow in the way when you are sitting down in a seat on the bus.

I'm just feeling anxious, irritated and nervous. I need a bit of sunwashed silence. One day, when L and I were in Cornwall, it was especially sunny and we reached a barrow and then we just stopped and there was no sound, all was still. It was wonderful. The last time I had that feeling was when kayaking in a lake in New Hampshire on a hot August day. I was paddling ahead of my parents, sister, etc and suddenly I was just there in that stillness punctuated briefly by cicadas. I need that now.

I do feel better after writing that.

Confessions of a Part-Time Scout

2008-04-18T21:16:35Z

You know you've gotten into your character when you start thinking about songs from musicals that might reflect their way of thinking about things.

I really love Vola (my character's name; her journal is vola17). I've discovered many things about her as I play her. She has a more complex backstory than I first thought if she is only 17. She also has a ridiculously pragmatic approach which is actually serving me well outside Kystatia. I'm more efficient and less afraid of criticism from my supervisors. raygungothic says a really good way to improve your public speaking is to DM so I may have to have a go.

I might also have a chance to play a changeling archivist for a bit which I look forward to but Vola is the first character I created all by myself (at Christmas, raygungothic fell asleep before me, a startlingly rare occurrence, and I tried rolling up a character all by myself and Vola was the end result)and so she is very special.

The other reason I'm enjoying this so much is that raygungothic is a darn good DM. He does good creepy voices which I sometimes ask him to do out of context because I like the shivers I get.

Plus I'm a dice addict now. I went into my local games shop to buy dice for a fellow player and the owner grinned at me and said "so what pretty dice are you after now?"

Anyway, am going to go write in Vola's journal now.

Animaniacs

2008-04-16T18:35:40Z

Anybody besides me remember Animaniacs? I've just rediscovered them. They had some great songs about the nations of the world, US Presidents, the 50 state capitols. Cartoons for smart kids.

Just wondering.

A Room With A View

2008-03-16T13:23:13Z

So, how many of us girls have watched A Room with a View and loved the romance of Lucy and George?

I know I have and I was rewatching it and loving it more than usual and here is where I pay raygungothic a compliment that he won't get because he hasn't seen it but that any of you who've watched it will understand. I realised while watching it that not only can I be as pretty as Helena Bonham Carter if I set my mind to it but that the Lucy in me has definitely found her George. In other words, I was loving it because this time the romance looked familiar (also I have her gloves and parasol).

So, raygungothic, honeymoon in Florence?

Random

2008-03-16T10:13:28Z

For all Ring lovers Oh no!.

Also, as I am one of the people in cath_er_ine's D&D party, I have taken her lead and made a journal for my character. That would be vola17. I've taken a different approach to cath_er_ine's character friskeya but it's a different character. I'm really quite excited as it's my first time in a party.

On more D&D related notes, I was indulging in bad Saturday morning telly and was watching a casting call for a stupid reality show entitled "Beauty and the Geek". One of the 'geeks' they interviewed was a DM and apparently a girl he rather fancied called him up on D&D night to ask him to come over and he said no, he was playing D&D. The telly tried to make this seem pathetic but all I could think was what a decent DM who knows not to let his players down. Clearly the makers had no idea of how D&D works and the responsibilities of the DM.

I also realised something interesting yesterday. For a very long time, I used to run fantasies in my head whenever I was doing anything wherein I was always someone else (Mara Jade, Scully, Rose (from Titanic when I was 16), Hermione etc). And now I can't do it any more. But I can't do it because each time I try, I realise that I don't feel like it and I don't need to. And this is significant becuase for the first time in my life, I actually AM myself with no need to be anyone else. Playing D&D in some ways feels more like acting which I suppose is why the character I'm playing is so different from me.

So I feel I'm doing well and I'm weaning myself off the anti-depressants and walking and my mum accepts me as a complete nerd (she asked me about Terry Pratchett and Alzheimer's yesterday because she wasn't sure if I knew and she knew if I didn't, I'd want to).

That's all for the moment.

Earthquakes, plasters, and typing

2008-02-29T12:35:42Z

So, I know everyone's posted their earthquake experiences already; now it's my turn. I had just finished a chapter to hand in the next day and was lying in bed reading (I have to read a bit of something before I go to sleep) when it seemed to me that the bed was shaking. I spent the whole of the earthquake trying to figure out what was going on. I didn't know it was one until my friend asked me if I'd felt it the night before.

That makes two earthquakes I've been in in my life: one here and one in China.

In finger related news, as of Monday I will have graduated from dressings to heavy duty plasters which is major progress! The human body really is a fascinating machine. It's remarkably efficient in many ways and its ability to essentially remake the part of my finger is just . . .wow. Along those notes, check out this. I love that it appreciates in some ways the nature of femaleness. And here's another one that seems to be appreciating the girl who cannot pass a bookshop or a library without going in: bookish girls are sexy .

It's funny, my rant about dyspraxia and dyslexia lumped in together is not entirely fair as from my research into dyspraxia, I've learned that in over 50% of cases, these things are linked. So, really, I'm quite lucky that my verbal and reading aptitudes are so high. Also, I'm improving my spatial reasoning thanks to a tangram calendar that Lester's dad gave me for Christmas. I've gotten much better at it since January and thoroughly enjoy it so now I want more.

snuggly_llama, I'm so glad you enjoy your job. Also, even if it is blurry, cat pics, please? I want to know what the kitty who hides toys in your shoes looks like.

conflict of the modern woman

2008-02-06T20:03:59Z

Today I had an experience which to me defines the difficulty of being a woman today. I was at the cashier at Boots paying for a simple manicure set and some nail polish remover with Naomi Wolf's The Beauty Myth tucked under my arm. Hmmm . . .your thoughts?

gryffin23 @ 2008-02-06T12:33:00

2008-02-06T12:39:39Z

I really do love teaching. Seeing a blank face brighten when you've shown them something is one of the most rewarding things. Also, I love it that my students now feel comfortable enough with me to wave me over if they're having trouble and feel they can ask me questions. It's a wonderful feeling.

There are difficulties of course, I gave my first seminar yesterday on the ethics of reburial. You'd have thought that was a topic of some interest but clearly some had not actually done the reading. And a lot of them were very diffident and afraid to speak even if they were just in pairs. I feel sorry for my former TAs who got met with blank faces when a question was asked; I understand more now how they felt.

Still, the only way to be a better teacher is to teach.

Found some flats that work so have been wearing those and it is nice to have a pair of shoes that look decent. I like having found a sort of style for myself that fits and acknowledges my dyspraxia.

Also, black salsify is really quite tasty. Thank you Abel and Cole.

Right, back to work on pilgrimage.

Lumps

2008-01-30T22:48:06Z

Why is it that people insist on assuming that if you are dyspraxic then you must be dyslexic or have ADHD or ADD or something?

Dyspraxia DOES NOT EQUAL Dyslexia. It drives me nuts this lumping of things in with each other as though that were ALWAYS the case. Yes, some things do tend to coordinate with each other but this doesn't happen all the time.

I say this because I was looking at a book claiming to be about dyspraxia and it kept saying if you are dyslexic or dyspraxic . . .as though dyslexia and dyspraxia were the same thing. They're not. There are plenty of athletes who are dyslexic but certainly not dyspraxic and plenty of nerds who are dyspraxic but certainly not dyslexic.

Now, I'm not saying that people can't be both; they can. I just don't like them being looked at as though they were exactly the same disability.

*sigh* rant over.

I am easily amused

2007-12-07T12:45:52Z

I find it highly amusing that a man called Gary Slapper has written an article defending one's right to offend others

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/law/columnists/gary_slapper/article3003316.ece

And on the note of amusing names, my father's college roommate was a surfer named Sandy Shore.

List Post

2007-12-05T08:28:42Z

1. I really love the University of Reading. They support their students without spoonfeeding them and give them the confidence that they can do it themselves which of course causes a lovely virtuous circle. Of course, students do have to swallow their pride and sometimes ask for help but once asked for it is always given willingly and warmly. And this extends even to the gym. I had an assessment yesterday to start a program and my instructor was really nice and really knowledgeable and the fact that he had not only heard of dyspraxia but had worked with students with dyspraxia and knew techniques to help and understood that it would take me longer to learn new techniques and was encouraging to me anyway meant a lot to me.

2. I've just read The Whole Woman by Germaine Greer. Now that is what I mean by feminism. She is a wonderful, insightful writer.

3. I sometimes feel discriminated against because I can't wear heels. I tried, briefly, but faced strong disapproval from all angles (and ankles for that matter ;)) so I gave it up. And that was very hard for me because when I wore heels, I had so much more choice in the shoes that were available to me especially the delicate feminine ones that I found to be beautiful. But now, faced with wearing flats, I find the problem that there are no shoes that are really pretty that are flats. Flats are apparently designed for ladies d'un certain age and tend to be heavy and, in my eyes, frumpy. Maybe I'm looking in the wrong stores, I don't know. I mean, how is it so difficult to build shoes that are pretty and comfortable? raygungothic says I should get a pair of boots like his thereby reinforcing a gender stereotype that straight men just don't understand the appeal of shoes to a woman who likes them. His boots are functional and comfortable yes but they're not pretty. I want pretty shoes. Is there anything wrong with that?

I'm starting to take pride in my appearance and beginning to try to maintain it and be stylish because I want to and I like how I feel and because when I'm in the field, I won't be stylish because it's impractical and I will enjoy that too. I think you can have it both ways. So the shoe thing is very important to me. I don't want clunky shoes because those aren't me. One suggestion of raygungothic's that I agree with is a pair of Victorian governess boots but where I'm going to get those, I have no idea. He also made a spectacular save the other day when he objected to the coat my mother gave me for Christmas last year. It's a puffy coat that's warm and he objects to it because it's puffy but then he added "And it doesn't suit your fashion and glamour" thus implying that I was too good for the coat and that he supports my desire to be stylish because I want to be. So lucky me!

So, to all those who like shoes, any advice?

4. I really really love my haircut. The stylist knew exactly what she was doing and understood the sort of person I was and cut my hair in a way that allows it to be natural and easy. I just looked in the mirror and my hair is falling around my face in natural ringlets because with the layering she did, that's just how my hair is and my hair is naturally curly/wavy anyway so a simple haircut that emphasises how pretty those curls and waves are is perfect. I'm asking for her next time I need a cut.

Lynne Truss post

2007-11-27T19:09:42Z

Lynne Truss wrote a book that came out a year or so ago, maybe more entitled Talk to the Hand about the lack of politeness in everyday life.

I've been thinking and I'm wondering whatever happened to the concept of being too late. If you're too late for the train, you miss it. Why can't the same thing be true of lectures?

If a lecture starts at 5, you shouldn't be able to wander in at 5:15. It disrupts the audience and the lecturer even if the disruption isn't visible. I'm sorry but if you get there at 5:15 you're too late. I know everyone will talk about public transport and that but you have to take that into account when you're planning to go somewhere in the first place.

also, isn't it a little bit disrespectful to show up that late for a lecture? It's as though you're doing the lecturer a favour by showing up. This goes back to the authority issue I talked about in another post. By giving the lecture, the lecturer is in authority and should be given respect until he or she loses it by the substance of the lecture or in some cases increases it. By coming late, you imply that the lecturer isn't worthy of respect before even hearing what they've had to say.

when I'm a professor, there will be a 10 minute grace period but after 10 minutes, I won't let a late student in. Now, I won't penalise them completely, I will ask them to go away and see me after class but if they can't be bothered to come on time . . .and just so I'm not seen as a hypocrite, this applies to me too. If I'm not at class after 10 minutes before the class starts, then my students can go off. That, at least, is what I hope.

OK, rant over.