Generation gap
Quite sweet and ever so slightly scary example of the generation gap. Older lady from church says to me "When you go home after church on sundays, has your friend [i.e. flatmate] got your sunday lunch ready for you?" Yeah, right.... Even seeing each other between thursday and sunday evenings is pretty rare, and if we wanted to do a roast I think we might have to do it in a wok or something. Clearly she thinks we drift around at home in domestic goddess mode, without pesky children or husbands to get in the way. She'd be seriously disappointed by the reality...
28 Feb 2007
Costa del Solihull was better than expected. I haven't really been to that part of the world very often, but I knew I was out of London when the person next to me on the train was friendly. Had to make an effort to be friendly in return, instead of fixing her with a 'why are you disturbing me I'm listening to my mp3 player you freaky over-friendly commuter' stare.
Also had the interesting experience of realising I've been talking at cross purposes with someone for almost an entire year. What I thought I meant wasn't what he thought I meant. This surely ought to be some kind of record? Hope it doesn't happen in anything important - on my death bed, saying to partner "I never wanted 13 children but I'm glad I had them to make you happy", partner replies "I thought you were the one that wanted 13 children, I would have been happy with a stick insect."...
27 Feb 2007
grumpy old woman alert Current mood: grumpy
Been having a bit of a sense of humour failure lately. More GBH than GSOH. For various reasons this start of an article from the weekend Guardian sums up my mood:
There's an intangible something that radiates from couples still conscious of their coupleness. When it's new enough for each person to be constantly aware of their special, entwined state, yet old enough for them to be entirely comfortable with it, the pair emits a kind of glow that, as I'm sure you know, is really quite tiresome. You sit across the kitchen table, feeling the warmth of them on your face, and think, "One more little arm squeeze or smile at a shared secret, and I'll have to reach over and pour wood varnish into their hair."
But in the morning I'm off to costa del solihull... How do I stand the excitement???
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22 Feb 2007
defying gravity Current mood: tired
Someone asked if there's a defying gravity story... Well, it's an obvious choice for me: my hobby is free-running, I do zero gravity research, and I'm a great believer in a secret natural therapy that undoes the effect of gravity on the body.
Truth compels me to add at this point that anyone who knows me would cry with laughter at the thought of me running up walls, my research is on the internet and health, and don't even get me started on alternative medicine. So actually the truth is that I was listening to the song 'defying gravity' when I set up my myspace account. The song's from the musical Wicked, as always the book was better, but the musical is pretty good too.
Defying gravity
Something has changed within me, something is not the same
I'm through with playing by the rules of someone else's game
Too late for second-guessing, too late to go back to sleep
It's time to trust my instincts
Close my eyes: and leap!
It's time to try defying gravity
I think I'll try defying gravity
And you can't pull me down!
I'm through accepting limits 'cause someone says they're so
Some things I cannot change but till I try, I'll never know!
Too long I've been afraid of losing love I guess I've lost
Well, if that's love it comes at much too high a cost!
I'd sooner buy defying gravity
Kiss me goodbye I'm defying gravity
And you can't pull me down...
Thursday, 22 February 2007
Wednesday, 14 February 2007
14- 20 Feb
19 Feb 2007
The mayor and the skirt
The Skirt made another appearance yesterday. The mayor of our borough came to church, which precipitated the same type of comments as the bishop's visit - i.e. "what are you going to wear?" Not sure if I mentioned this in the post about the bishop's visits, but my role in the church means that when the bishop visits I have to walk in front of him into and out of the church. Even worse, I have to do this carrying a large stick - not only do I feel like a bit of a prat, it's also quite a feat for someone as uncoordinated as I am. I have visions of accidentally tripping over the stick, falling backwards and knocking the bishop unconscious, and then in the kerfuffle standing on the hem of my skirt which would fall down and/or rip from bottom to top - resulting in me standing half naked over an unconscious bishop, in the manner of a dodgy french farce. Unfortunately I have to do the same thing for the mayor, but I'm pleased to say I remained fully clothed and the mayor remained fully conscious (as far as I could tell).
The visit of the mayor reminded me slightly of what I imagine a visit by the Queen might be like. She sails serenely through the event, while everyone else is running around panicking and painting things so she doesn't have to see plebian scuffed paintwork. We didn't quite go as far as re-painting, though I wouldn't really have been surprised if someone had suggested it. We even sang the national anthem, during which I was standing at the front of the church, next to the mayor, with the stick. Being on display at this point created something of a dilemma - I don't normally join in with the national anthem, but stand with my eyes shut, in an attempt to look respectful without actually having to sing the words. Didn't think that would work this time, and since I'd capitulated on the skirt figured I might as well sing along with gusto... Don't think my expression could possibly have been construed as anything other than 'I'll tolerate this but don't expect me to like it", though I was impressed to note the person standing opposite me knew all 3 verses by heart. Not sure I even knew there were 3 verses... although I can still do you a passable rendition of my school song, which we learnt from cards so old they still had god save the king printed on them.
Am not exactly a republican, but my politics started out so left wing they were practically communist, so even now I've mellowed a bit politically, singing the praises of a hereditary aristocrat is never going to be comfortable. The 'eyes respectfully shut' number has been used in various situations incl churches of wildly differing styles when I've been expected to sing along with praises of (amongst others) St Mary and the jesus army.
10:34 - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove
17 Feb 2007
harley street
Another quasi philosophical thought... (as an aside, my philosophy tutor had the habit of replying to what I thought were interesting and deep thoughts with "yes, that's trivially true". Possibly the same could be said for most of what's written on the internet?)
Abortion rights have been in the papers the last couple of days, because the owners of Harley Street (you can own a street???) are trying to stop what they call 'lifestyle abortions' (compared to 'medical abortions') happening there. I have complicated feelings about abortion, but clearly in this country there is a legal right to abortion. Officially the abortion has to be for 'medical' reasons - usually the mental or physical health of the woman, but also if the baby will be 'seriously' disabled - but as it stands now, in the 1st 3 months of pregnancy it's always more medically risky to carry on with the pregnancy than to have a termination. So any early pregnancy can be terminated on medical grounds. People have been saying there's a right to abortion, and (in a trivial sense?) that's true in this country- there's a legal right. But can there really be a fundamental human right to have an unwanted pregnancy terminated, in the same way that there might be a fundamental human right not to be killed? I can't really see it - the most I could imagine would be a right not to be prevented from obtaining a termination if one was possible. That would amount to the right to do what one liked with one's own body, assuming that the fetus didn't have rights. Surely there can't actually be a (fundamental) right to be supplied with an abortion that would apply in every culture, every human circumstance? What if there was no-one who could do a termination, how would the 'right to abortion' work then? And this is without even starting on the question of whether the fetus should be given rights...
11:25 - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove
It is not only right...
This comes from a discussion I had with some friends the other night. We were talking about making choices, and got on to whether there's a difference between right/wrong and good/bad. They're often conflated, but are they really just the same thing? If you do something that's 'right' but for the wrong reasons, does that make it the wrong thing to do? Or a less good thing to do? And when people make the 'wrong' choice, could they really (given their background, personality, brain chemistry etc) have made the alternative choice? And if they couldn't, then how could it be the wrong choice? And following on from that, when we say something is right and/or good, what do we mean? How are we defining right and good? Is it good because it's fundamentally good in some way, or because god says/made it good, or because it has good consequences? If we go for 'because god says it is', doesn't that make goodness arbitrary? But if it's not arbitrary and there is some fundamental state of goodness, doesn't that take god a bit out of the equation? All getting a bit too philosophical....
1:57 - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove
16 Feb 2007
procrastination, that's what you need
The phd process seems to have unleashed my inner procrastinator. Without the restraints of imminent deadlines, immediate colleagues, or any sense of what the heck I'm doing, the inner procrastinator is thriving. Pretty soon she's going to be demanding a name, passport and blog of her own, or at least she would if she wasn't too busy 'checking' on important things. Current preoccupations include email (of course), website updates, the goldfish to check for gill movements (don't want him to die on my shift), my touch typing speed (abysmal but at least I no longer look at the keyboard), and the current favourite, tracking the progress of an e-bay purchase that's being delivered from the States via DHL (news flash- it's now reached the east midlands).
19:40 - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove
14 Feb 2007
Presentation
The presentation was fine in the end, the audience came to a grand total of 4, which I'm not sure even counts as a presentation. No sobbing in the toilets required. It was, however, without a doubt the most boring presentation I've ever given. The previous holder of that title was my heroic 50 minute attempt on "the mental health impact of the draft wandsworth borough strategy". I was only doing it because my manager didn't want to, and I think the organisers thought we might have some special insider knowledge. In fact I didn't, and my learning point from that presentation was if you don't know what you're talking about, boring the audience to tears with a blow by blow account of a local government strategy is a really good way to ensure you don't get asked to do it again.
I was, however, surprised to be introduced as 'an eminent speaker'. The 3 other audience members just looked blankly at me, I could virtually see them thinking 'but we thought she was just a phd student, maybe she did something interesting before...' Have no idea why he chose that introduction, and this is not false modesty or british self-deprecation. Am genuinely not eminent in any plausible sense of the word - perhaps he meant to say 'emigrant' (am not that either, but it's more likely), or 'ignorant' (closer to the truth, but less likely he would chose that as an introduction)??
13:50 - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove
Postscripts
Couple of postscripts needed on yesterday's posts.
1) The reason the fish is still in the tank is that he's still alive. Seriously worried about my observational skills (animate? inanimate? apparently I can't tell the difference), but at least I haven't been reprising the feeding a dead fish scenario.
2) The presentation is in 20 minutes, I've read it through and then read it through again, and I've checked that the projector works. Now I'm in that 'I've got nothing to do except worry' zone. Reasons to worry are that it's the most boring presentation I've ever given, closely followed by the fact that it's the first one I've done in front of my supervisor. I might post an update later, depends on whether I'm crying in the toilets...
The mayor and the skirt
The Skirt made another appearance yesterday. The mayor of our borough came to church, which precipitated the same type of comments as the bishop's visit - i.e. "what are you going to wear?" Not sure if I mentioned this in the post about the bishop's visits, but my role in the church means that when the bishop visits I have to walk in front of him into and out of the church. Even worse, I have to do this carrying a large stick - not only do I feel like a bit of a prat, it's also quite a feat for someone as uncoordinated as I am. I have visions of accidentally tripping over the stick, falling backwards and knocking the bishop unconscious, and then in the kerfuffle standing on the hem of my skirt which would fall down and/or rip from bottom to top - resulting in me standing half naked over an unconscious bishop, in the manner of a dodgy french farce. Unfortunately I have to do the same thing for the mayor, but I'm pleased to say I remained fully clothed and the mayor remained fully conscious (as far as I could tell).
The visit of the mayor reminded me slightly of what I imagine a visit by the Queen might be like. She sails serenely through the event, while everyone else is running around panicking and painting things so she doesn't have to see plebian scuffed paintwork. We didn't quite go as far as re-painting, though I wouldn't really have been surprised if someone had suggested it. We even sang the national anthem, during which I was standing at the front of the church, next to the mayor, with the stick. Being on display at this point created something of a dilemma - I don't normally join in with the national anthem, but stand with my eyes shut, in an attempt to look respectful without actually having to sing the words. Didn't think that would work this time, and since I'd capitulated on the skirt figured I might as well sing along with gusto... Don't think my expression could possibly have been construed as anything other than 'I'll tolerate this but don't expect me to like it", though I was impressed to note the person standing opposite me knew all 3 verses by heart. Not sure I even knew there were 3 verses... although I can still do you a passable rendition of my school song, which we learnt from cards so old they still had god save the king printed on them.
Am not exactly a republican, but my politics started out so left wing they were practically communist, so even now I've mellowed a bit politically, singing the praises of a hereditary aristocrat is never going to be comfortable. The 'eyes respectfully shut' number has been used in various situations incl churches of wildly differing styles when I've been expected to sing along with praises of (amongst others) St Mary and the jesus army.
10:34 - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove
17 Feb 2007
harley street
Another quasi philosophical thought... (as an aside, my philosophy tutor had the habit of replying to what I thought were interesting and deep thoughts with "yes, that's trivially true". Possibly the same could be said for most of what's written on the internet?)
Abortion rights have been in the papers the last couple of days, because the owners of Harley Street (you can own a street???) are trying to stop what they call 'lifestyle abortions' (compared to 'medical abortions') happening there. I have complicated feelings about abortion, but clearly in this country there is a legal right to abortion. Officially the abortion has to be for 'medical' reasons - usually the mental or physical health of the woman, but also if the baby will be 'seriously' disabled - but as it stands now, in the 1st 3 months of pregnancy it's always more medically risky to carry on with the pregnancy than to have a termination. So any early pregnancy can be terminated on medical grounds. People have been saying there's a right to abortion, and (in a trivial sense?) that's true in this country- there's a legal right. But can there really be a fundamental human right to have an unwanted pregnancy terminated, in the same way that there might be a fundamental human right not to be killed? I can't really see it - the most I could imagine would be a right not to be prevented from obtaining a termination if one was possible. That would amount to the right to do what one liked with one's own body, assuming that the fetus didn't have rights. Surely there can't actually be a (fundamental) right to be supplied with an abortion that would apply in every culture, every human circumstance? What if there was no-one who could do a termination, how would the 'right to abortion' work then? And this is without even starting on the question of whether the fetus should be given rights...
11:25 - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove
It is not only right...
This comes from a discussion I had with some friends the other night. We were talking about making choices, and got on to whether there's a difference between right/wrong and good/bad. They're often conflated, but are they really just the same thing? If you do something that's 'right' but for the wrong reasons, does that make it the wrong thing to do? Or a less good thing to do? And when people make the 'wrong' choice, could they really (given their background, personality, brain chemistry etc) have made the alternative choice? And if they couldn't, then how could it be the wrong choice? And following on from that, when we say something is right and/or good, what do we mean? How are we defining right and good? Is it good because it's fundamentally good in some way, or because god says/made it good, or because it has good consequences? If we go for 'because god says it is', doesn't that make goodness arbitrary? But if it's not arbitrary and there is some fundamental state of goodness, doesn't that take god a bit out of the equation? All getting a bit too philosophical....
1:57 - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove
16 Feb 2007
procrastination, that's what you need
The phd process seems to have unleashed my inner procrastinator. Without the restraints of imminent deadlines, immediate colleagues, or any sense of what the heck I'm doing, the inner procrastinator is thriving. Pretty soon she's going to be demanding a name, passport and blog of her own, or at least she would if she wasn't too busy 'checking' on important things. Current preoccupations include email (of course), website updates, the goldfish to check for gill movements (don't want him to die on my shift), my touch typing speed (abysmal but at least I no longer look at the keyboard), and the current favourite, tracking the progress of an e-bay purchase that's being delivered from the States via DHL (news flash- it's now reached the east midlands).
19:40 - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove
14 Feb 2007
Presentation
The presentation was fine in the end, the audience came to a grand total of 4, which I'm not sure even counts as a presentation. No sobbing in the toilets required. It was, however, without a doubt the most boring presentation I've ever given. The previous holder of that title was my heroic 50 minute attempt on "the mental health impact of the draft wandsworth borough strategy". I was only doing it because my manager didn't want to, and I think the organisers thought we might have some special insider knowledge. In fact I didn't, and my learning point from that presentation was if you don't know what you're talking about, boring the audience to tears with a blow by blow account of a local government strategy is a really good way to ensure you don't get asked to do it again.
I was, however, surprised to be introduced as 'an eminent speaker'. The 3 other audience members just looked blankly at me, I could virtually see them thinking 'but we thought she was just a phd student, maybe she did something interesting before...' Have no idea why he chose that introduction, and this is not false modesty or british self-deprecation. Am genuinely not eminent in any plausible sense of the word - perhaps he meant to say 'emigrant' (am not that either, but it's more likely), or 'ignorant' (closer to the truth, but less likely he would chose that as an introduction)??
13:50 - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove
Postscripts
Couple of postscripts needed on yesterday's posts.
1) The reason the fish is still in the tank is that he's still alive. Seriously worried about my observational skills (animate? inanimate? apparently I can't tell the difference), but at least I haven't been reprising the feeding a dead fish scenario.
2) The presentation is in 20 minutes, I've read it through and then read it through again, and I've checked that the projector works. Now I'm in that 'I've got nothing to do except worry' zone. Reasons to worry are that it's the most boring presentation I've ever given, closely followed by the fact that it's the first one I've done in front of my supervisor. I might post an update later, depends on whether I'm crying in the toilets...
Friday, 2 February 2007
02 - 13 Feb
13 Feb 2007
evidence
2 posts in one day, this has to be some kind of record. This is a brief thought. I'm currently doing one of my less favourite tasks, preparing to give a presentation. I'm presenting at an evidence based journal club, on the topic 'what is an evidence based journal club?' Unfortunately, using my skills in evidence based healthcare, I've discovered that there's almost no evidence that journal clubs work. So, I'm presenting at an evidence based journal club about the evidence base for evidence based journal clubs when there is no evidence that evidence based journal clubs are effective. Nicely ironic I think... and I've just discovered that evidence is one of those words that starts to look funny if you write it too much.
11:11 - 4 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove
Fish
Got home yesterday and noticed 2 things. Firstly my flatmate is stilll alive, despite the fact that I haven't actually seen her since last Thursday. Things in the flat had been moved, so I can be fairly confident that she hasn't died/been abducted by aliens, unless we have a very selective poltergeist. The second thing I noticed was that our house-goldfish was not still alive. This has been coming for quite some time. First he swam on his side for a while, and just when we'd given up hope he recovered enough to spend most of his time sitting on the bottom of the tank looking resentfully at us. (Or he may have been looking resentfully at the bright pink gravel he was sitting on, a kind present from a former housemate.) Recently he's been alternating periods of sitting on the bottom with swimming manically round the tank - do goldfish get dementia?
The fact that the goldfish was no more was brought to my attention by the fact that the pump and his plants had been removed from the tank. It took me longer to notice (ok, til this morning) that the fish himself hadn't been removed from the tank and was in fact still sitting on the bottom looking out resentfully. This made me wonder if I spent the weekend feeding a dead fish, not the first time that this has happened. I once spent a week cycling over to feed my sister's guinea pig and fish while she and my parents were on holiday. The guinea pig was fine (the neighbours got used to hearing me in the garden saying entreatingly 'come on piggy-wiggy, you know you want to come here now, come on guinea-winny, don't make me come in and get you' as the guinea pig cowered in the far end of her run). The fish were less fine, and at some point in the week I must have made the transition from feeding live fish to throwing food in on top of dead fish. Unfortunately I didn't notice...
08 Feb 2007
Teeth
Have been back again to my dentist to have a temporary filling put back in to a wisdom tooth. By now it would have been easier and cheaper just to put in a normal filling, not to mention the fact that v soon I'm going to be noticeably lopsided due to only using the muscles on one side of my jaw. I'm waiting to have the whole tooth taken out, but as my dentist indignantly said this morning "the hospitals give priority to life saving surgery". Couldn't work out whether she was joking, or was genuinely annoyed that troublesome wisdom teeth aren't up there with coronary by-passes.
Clearly I couldn't possibly stagger in to the office through the snow with a dodgy wisdom tooth, so am working at home today. This is proving to be a mistake - having thought 'ah, I can work til 7pm and still get to my evening meeting on time', have so far failed to make much of an impact on my to-do list. Back to it....
21:29 - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove
05 Feb 2007
Neighbours Current mood: sleepy
I am engaged in a long-term war of attrition with our neighbours over whether the windows in the communal staircase should be open or closed. Every time I come in or go out I close the windows and within approximately 30 seconds a person or persons unknown opens them. I thought I was the only one petty enough to be bothered, but I recently discovered my flatmate (R) does exactly the same thing.
Personally I think my reasons for closing the windows are entirely reasonable: it's winter, when the stairway is cold all your heating escapes every time you open the flat door, and when it rains the carpet gets wet. Also we live on a main road and everything gets covered in a layer of black dust when the windows are open. Other neighbour disputes in this block have resulted in hand-written notices being blu-tacked to the suspects' front doors, and then to the main door when the culprits denied all knowledge. I've always considered those kind of notices to be the last resort of the desperate, but I'm seriously considering sticking one on the windows. The fact that we only rent the flat is irrelevant, and my motivation for wanting them closed is nothing to do with pettily wanting to win an argument, no, definitely not. Ahem...
This isn't the first time we've had neighbour issues. Our last (ground floor) flat was damp, oddly decorated, and required extensive net curtains because someone parking their car and walking to the front door had a perfect view into every room in the flat. These things we could cope with. Our neighbours in that block were helpful, chatty and cared about the flats - this we could not cope with. I eventually demanded we move after Neighbour A informed me that the piece of hardboard which had mysteriously appeared next to my scooter had been left there by Neighbour B who had been inspecting the tarmac and noticed that the stand of my bike was leaving dents. I was apparently supposed to have understood the need for the hardboard by some process of mind-reading/extra sensory perception, though if he'd just asked me to do it I wouldn't have minded... much...
02 Feb 2007
Distractions Current mood: blah
I have that Friday feeling... one of those days where I find myself fitting work in between checking emails, doing internet searches and reading the BBC news instead of the other way round. It's not as though I don't have anything to do, it's just that I don't have any imminent deadlines. I finally managed to submit a project proposal yesterday - only a month late, oops - and it feels as though by rights I should be celebrating, not starting work on an update that's needed because the proposal was out of date before it was even submitted. Groan....
I can report that the major crisis of this week had nothing to do with my phd or personal life, or in fact anything very important. Unintentionally this week I've had 2 separate meetings with 2 separate bishops - one during a church service and one at dinner before a meeting. Other people worried about what to call them (Your Grace? Your most importantness?) or what the bishop might think about the service or church. My concerns were less spiritual... WHAT do you wear to meet a bishop? This was made worse by the fact that I'm known (and occasionally disapproved of) for wearing jeans to church...
Briefly considered and rejected the possibility of wearing a big wedding hat (haven't got one), a bishop fancy dress costume (to make them feel at home and make a political protest), or my 'winter' interview suit. Finally decided on my latest wedding skirt for the service and normal work clothes for the dinner. The dinner was ok, but the skirt attracted approximately 746 comments, ranging from the friendly commiseration to the 'oh you look lovely in a skirt, you should wear one more often' (subtext: you look really manky usually).
8:09 - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove
evidence
2 posts in one day, this has to be some kind of record. This is a brief thought. I'm currently doing one of my less favourite tasks, preparing to give a presentation. I'm presenting at an evidence based journal club, on the topic 'what is an evidence based journal club?' Unfortunately, using my skills in evidence based healthcare, I've discovered that there's almost no evidence that journal clubs work. So, I'm presenting at an evidence based journal club about the evidence base for evidence based journal clubs when there is no evidence that evidence based journal clubs are effective. Nicely ironic I think... and I've just discovered that evidence is one of those words that starts to look funny if you write it too much.
11:11 - 4 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove
Fish
Got home yesterday and noticed 2 things. Firstly my flatmate is stilll alive, despite the fact that I haven't actually seen her since last Thursday. Things in the flat had been moved, so I can be fairly confident that she hasn't died/been abducted by aliens, unless we have a very selective poltergeist. The second thing I noticed was that our house-goldfish was not still alive. This has been coming for quite some time. First he swam on his side for a while, and just when we'd given up hope he recovered enough to spend most of his time sitting on the bottom of the tank looking resentfully at us. (Or he may have been looking resentfully at the bright pink gravel he was sitting on, a kind present from a former housemate.) Recently he's been alternating periods of sitting on the bottom with swimming manically round the tank - do goldfish get dementia?
The fact that the goldfish was no more was brought to my attention by the fact that the pump and his plants had been removed from the tank. It took me longer to notice (ok, til this morning) that the fish himself hadn't been removed from the tank and was in fact still sitting on the bottom looking out resentfully. This made me wonder if I spent the weekend feeding a dead fish, not the first time that this has happened. I once spent a week cycling over to feed my sister's guinea pig and fish while she and my parents were on holiday. The guinea pig was fine (the neighbours got used to hearing me in the garden saying entreatingly 'come on piggy-wiggy, you know you want to come here now, come on guinea-winny, don't make me come in and get you' as the guinea pig cowered in the far end of her run). The fish were less fine, and at some point in the week I must have made the transition from feeding live fish to throwing food in on top of dead fish. Unfortunately I didn't notice...
08 Feb 2007
Teeth
Have been back again to my dentist to have a temporary filling put back in to a wisdom tooth. By now it would have been easier and cheaper just to put in a normal filling, not to mention the fact that v soon I'm going to be noticeably lopsided due to only using the muscles on one side of my jaw. I'm waiting to have the whole tooth taken out, but as my dentist indignantly said this morning "the hospitals give priority to life saving surgery". Couldn't work out whether she was joking, or was genuinely annoyed that troublesome wisdom teeth aren't up there with coronary by-passes.
Clearly I couldn't possibly stagger in to the office through the snow with a dodgy wisdom tooth, so am working at home today. This is proving to be a mistake - having thought 'ah, I can work til 7pm and still get to my evening meeting on time', have so far failed to make much of an impact on my to-do list. Back to it....
21:29 - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove
05 Feb 2007
Neighbours Current mood: sleepy
I am engaged in a long-term war of attrition with our neighbours over whether the windows in the communal staircase should be open or closed. Every time I come in or go out I close the windows and within approximately 30 seconds a person or persons unknown opens them. I thought I was the only one petty enough to be bothered, but I recently discovered my flatmate (R) does exactly the same thing.
Personally I think my reasons for closing the windows are entirely reasonable: it's winter, when the stairway is cold all your heating escapes every time you open the flat door, and when it rains the carpet gets wet. Also we live on a main road and everything gets covered in a layer of black dust when the windows are open. Other neighbour disputes in this block have resulted in hand-written notices being blu-tacked to the suspects' front doors, and then to the main door when the culprits denied all knowledge. I've always considered those kind of notices to be the last resort of the desperate, but I'm seriously considering sticking one on the windows. The fact that we only rent the flat is irrelevant, and my motivation for wanting them closed is nothing to do with pettily wanting to win an argument, no, definitely not. Ahem...
This isn't the first time we've had neighbour issues. Our last (ground floor) flat was damp, oddly decorated, and required extensive net curtains because someone parking their car and walking to the front door had a perfect view into every room in the flat. These things we could cope with. Our neighbours in that block were helpful, chatty and cared about the flats - this we could not cope with. I eventually demanded we move after Neighbour A informed me that the piece of hardboard which had mysteriously appeared next to my scooter had been left there by Neighbour B who had been inspecting the tarmac and noticed that the stand of my bike was leaving dents. I was apparently supposed to have understood the need for the hardboard by some process of mind-reading/extra sensory perception, though if he'd just asked me to do it I wouldn't have minded... much...
02 Feb 2007
Distractions Current mood: blah
I have that Friday feeling... one of those days where I find myself fitting work in between checking emails, doing internet searches and reading the BBC news instead of the other way round. It's not as though I don't have anything to do, it's just that I don't have any imminent deadlines. I finally managed to submit a project proposal yesterday - only a month late, oops - and it feels as though by rights I should be celebrating, not starting work on an update that's needed because the proposal was out of date before it was even submitted. Groan....
I can report that the major crisis of this week had nothing to do with my phd or personal life, or in fact anything very important. Unintentionally this week I've had 2 separate meetings with 2 separate bishops - one during a church service and one at dinner before a meeting. Other people worried about what to call them (Your Grace? Your most importantness?) or what the bishop might think about the service or church. My concerns were less spiritual... WHAT do you wear to meet a bishop? This was made worse by the fact that I'm known (and occasionally disapproved of) for wearing jeans to church...
Briefly considered and rejected the possibility of wearing a big wedding hat (haven't got one), a bishop fancy dress costume (to make them feel at home and make a political protest), or my 'winter' interview suit. Finally decided on my latest wedding skirt for the service and normal work clothes for the dinner. The dinner was ok, but the skirt attracted approximately 746 comments, ranging from the friendly commiseration to the 'oh you look lovely in a skirt, you should wear one more often' (subtext: you look really manky usually).
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