I'm submitting an abstract for a symposium in September. If the paper is accepted, it will be MY FIRST PAPER! *faints*
And selected papers will form chapters for a book publication. A book!
Figures. My first chance at professionally publishing anything and it won't involve vampires, forced bethrothals or heaving bosoms :)
Actually, I don't think I've written anything involving heaving bosoms or marriage law, but there's still time :)
And then next year there is a major conference for which I am on the organising committee, will probably be presenting (hello anxiety!), and this means there's another paper!
The move to Brokedown Palace completely derailed my study. I forgot where I had left off, lost vital photos of my whiteboard notes and have had to reverse engineer some of my own writings in order to work out what I was trying to do/say. Stupid moving house! It was unbelievably expensive and stressful and the last thing I needed to happen at that point in time.
But, no matter. I've opened my document boxes, filed everything anew and am ALMOST back on track.
Before I begin, I just want to make the following comments:
Team Breezy is batshit crazy! What is up with these kids?!
I am rediscovering my love and appreciation of a well-executed laksa. Sadly, this is not through actually eating fantastic laksas, but really mediocre ones.
I’m still loving Game of Thrones (though, Theon Greyjoy can hurry up and die, thank you very much) and Big Bang Theory (or ‘Bang Bang Terry’, as Willa calls it).
“Sheldon is a good scientist, but a bad talker to people,” says Willa.
Star Trek Next Generation and Voyager has been playing a lot on TV and it’s the most awesome thing to have Picard and Janeway in my lounge room for dinner! Unlike a lot of other people, I dislike holodeck episodes and away missions. I prefer the episodes when they encounter strange nebulous clouds/organisms/Q, which inevitably cause catastrophic systems failure before power is re-routed from life support, but only temporarily. I also find it adorable how the ship computer can tell you the 3000 uses of Enolian swamp juice but can’t actually do any cross referencing. I guess maybe they just use Google?
Also, Riker’s beard really is a thing of beauty, is it not? I get the heebie-jeebies when I see episodes sans beard *shudder*
( life and times )
The series is a New York Times best-seller and movie rights are currently being negotiated. I always get super excited when fanfiction authors go big. It gives me the warm fuzzies.
From the series' wikipedia entry:
The Fifty Shades Trilogy was developed from a Twilight fanfiction originally entitled Master of the Universe and published episodically on fanfiction websites under the penname "Snowqueen's Icedragon". The piece featured characters named after Stephenie Meyer's characters in Twilight, Edward Cullen and Bella Swan. After comments concerning the sexual nature of the material, James removed the story from the fanfiction websites and published it on her own website, FiftyShades.com. Later she decided to rewrite Master of the Universe as an original piece with the principal characters renamed Christian Grey and Anastasia Steele and shortly prior to its publication withdrew the fanfiction version from her website.
Has anyone read the work? From the reviews I've seen, it seems to contain (and celebrate!) every romance/erotica cliché known to mankind. ONTD's has just run a critique post on the books' anti-feminist, Bella Swan-like, fairytale-perspective endorsement.
Plus, they're not actually really related in the movie, therefore the enjoyment I experience from having Hemsworth and Hiddles, er, standing together is not completely...unsavoury.
I think I am a fan of the brooding, 'Hey, Baby, I Have A Jacket Sleeve' pose. It's the man-pose de rigueur, innit? :D
The issue: numerous problems with the new apartment and my washing machine has apparently not survived the move.
Knowing me, I do one of two things when I am presented with a situation that stresses me out and upsets me. I either keep it to myself and it quietly festers like a rancid wound. Or I run around like a headless chicken worrying loudly, emphatically and prematurely.
No. Not going to do that this time. I am going to be positive. Maybe it's not too late to learn a new trick. I am, right this moment, taking deep, calming breaths and engaging in a bout of Damn, I Am So Thankful For.
Damn, I am so thankful for all of you lovely ladies who read these posts and comment with support, advice and hoorays, way back since 2003. I am thankful for my health, my ridiculously flexible job, my family and friends, the fact that unlike the lovely young man who lives above us, I get to use my two, perfectly functional legs to get me everywhere. I have a warm place to sleep, hot showers in the morning and as soon as I find the box where I've packed my electric kettle, I'll have as many hot coffees as I want. I have a wonderful, kind and sweet daughter who thinks all this is one big adventure and didn't mind that mummy exploded her oatmeal in the microwave today. There's always more oatmeal.
I'm thankful for love and companionship and conversations that make my toes curl with delight.
There's a lot to be said about redefining situations. I'm not talking about self-delusion, just the act of acknowledging problems and not letting them become 'indefinitelies' in my mind.
Everything will get fixed, one at a time, over time. I need to stop standing over and staring at the flaws, with a bad attitude. This behaviour, more than anything else, is going to stop me noticing all the good stuff. I got more than most. I'm doing OK.
Special shout out to ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=92.1){kind=small}
sunflowerkudi and Mr Food for being very kind to a frazzled friend.
( Cut for potential triggering discussion )
( Listy Things! )
It amazes and amuses me how kids who are just about to drop from exhaustion will STILL insist that they have enough juice left for 'just FIVE MINUTES more please please please???!!' of playing.
They also have no concept of time. Five minutes is this magical, flexible, place-holder amount of time roughly proportionate to a parent's patience.
Earlier in the day, we traveled to the other side of Sydney to attend a friend's Easter Friday BBQ. After that, Alec took us to see Mirror Mirror. On the drive home, she snuggled up with Blankie and stared dreamily out the window. Maybe she was thinking about the movie; about brave princesses who rescued sheepish princes (who kept managing to lose their clothing to bandit dwarves)?
"Would you like mummy to read you a story when we get home?" Alec asked.
"Yes, please," yawned Willa.
I doubted she would be awake by the time we reached home.
"I have an idea. How about a Harry Potter story?" Alec suggested.
This made her sit up. Willa is four. I would have assumed that that was still too young to be read 'The Philosopher's Stone'.
Only, not really.... We've recently made our way through 'The Twelve Labours of Hercules', which had some turns of phrase that even I found a tad challenging. I thought I would have to stop to explain words like 'benevolent', 'sympathetic' and 'abroad', and I did.
But after a few pages, it got in the way of the narrative flow, so I let it go. She asked me to explain things only occasionally after that, which was a preferable way to go about it. The thing is, it's not meant to be a vocabulary lesson. As often happens with stories, the unfolding situations are often better at explaining things than you are. And, invariably, she came to realise, "Oh, that's what 'abroad' means. Hercules went to another country."
So that night, when we were finally nice and snug on the top bunk of her bed, I asked her again what story she'd like me to read and she reconfirmed that she'd like Harry Potter. But before I could go and get the book, she said, "No, mummy. I want you to make a story for me like in the computer."
Well, perhaps not quite like the ones I do 'in the computer' :D
Making up our own bedtime tales is not an unusual request. We already have a repertoire of about a dozen stories involving a fictional kid from my childhood called 'Dennis'--a cheeky little terror who licks other people's sandwiches, who has a penchant for timely, comic flatulence and hiding all the girls' shoes. Dennis stories are punctuated with Willa's peals of laughter and loud, resigned, "OH, THAT DENNIS!"
Of course there is no Dennis. I went to an all girls primary and secondary school. Willa is aware of this and doesn't seem to mind that I continually insert our much loved Dennis into classroom situations where every other student is female. She knows he is our special little creation.
What was unusual was the fact that she wanted me to insert her into what is essentially Harry Potter fanfiction.
"Let's do Harry Potter stories every night and I'll tell you which ones are good and you type them for me on the papers!"
So I told her a story of how a very little girl with magical ability was given a wand to practice on, which she could bring to Hogwarts after she received her letter. It's all about getting that letter...
"Because I'm too young to go to Hogwarts now," Willa said, solemnly.
"Yes. You have to wait until you're eleven."
With a her new wand, we practiced turning Blankie into a striped, wooly, winter scarf (it was already hanging off the bed and I was too lazy to go and get a stuffed animal or something).
"And can I be best friends with Harry, Ron and Hermione?"
"Definitely." Of course she would be, with me telling the story.
I'm going to type out the stories and we're going to use them for reading practice and keep them all in a folder. I picture her thumbing through said folder as a young adult. Would she smile fondly? Would she cringe? Probably a little of both! I don't know. But for now, for a lapsed fanfiction writer, it doesn't get much better than this.
I used a voucher for a mani-pedi during my lunch break, but on account of being a complete doofus, I have managed to smudge two small toenails, my index finger nail and both thumbnails. What a waste of a voucher! Yep, only the fourth time in my whole life I've gone and got my nails done and I've botched it up :( Thankfully, I got a nude colour, so it's not super noticeable.
Mum ironed my dress for me. One of the many benefits of having one's mother around. I can't iron for nuts. It's hanging up in the ladies toilets. And then, there are my shoes! The offending small toes should be hidden, thankfully.
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