k's daze

Catch-up time

Well after deciding that I was going to try and spend this time easing up a bit and being good to myself, I was faced with a very difficult deadline over the past few weeks and spent three weekends solid writing my belated encyclopedia article.  Fair enough really, the original deadline was December, but I hadn't counted on feeling sick and sleepy from the Christmas holidays through till mid-February when I signed up for it!!  I am very proud of myself for having finished the article though - although it did mean rather neglecting Steve when he did come to visit, large chunks of the writing having been done tucked under the stairs with my laptop while Paul and Steve watched Liverpool-Man U in the living room ...  I'm not sure the article's particularly good; I reviewed another one immediately afterwards which seemed a lot better than mine.  But then, I always think that; and the main thing is that for now it's out of the way.

Of course that meant that everything else in my life which normally gets done at weekends got put on one side - mainly house / organisation type stuff - and it seems it's taken forever to get things straight again!  Especially since I was away Friday-Monday this last weekend too, plus had to DRIVE to Liverpool for a fieldwork interview on Thursday, relying on my GPS to get me there (it did, in the end, but I have discovered you can still get lost and stressed out if you don't work out which turn it means and accidentally turn into: a residential estate; a Burger King; a Peugeot car park; a No Entry one way street.  In succession ...)

Still it was good being away. I had a London meeting Friday and then met up with Cath for a weekend at hers in Aylesbury, meeting cats, seeing new house, shopping, chatting and catching up.  I thought I would feel fully revived after that, normally seeing Cath is like going to a health spa, but I think the travelling / lack of sleep knocked me out a bit so I did feel wiped on Tuesday.  This weekend I am in Milton Keynes for a seminar, but that's only Friday night - Saturday night and I get Sunday to chill out - except we are having another visitor to stay Sat-Sun ...

So much for taking things easy!!  Still I must be feeling better if I can cope with all of this without falling asleep at my desk, as I was doing six weeks ago!

Lots of people!

It's nice to be able to write in this now that 'our news' is out and I don't have to avoid writing about the thing at the forefront of my mind!  It's been a busy couple of weeks since the scan, with lots of people phoning, texting and emailing - I'm quite surprised at how excited everyone is.  Paul's friend Steve is so excited he's even coming to visit this weekend - allegedly so he and Paul can pick names - although he is going to have to be disabused of that cherished notion quite swiftly!!  I am starting to feel more energised and back to my normal self, waking up before the alarm and being able to work at more of my normal pace, and have been promised months of 'bloomingness' ahead which I am looking forward to.

Mystery parcel ...

Was, rather excitingly, a copy of a book that me and a colleague have a chapter in!  The Art of English, Open University Press.  Wasn't expecting to see this for months yet so picking it up was a nice way to start the weekend!

Busy birthday week

This was meant to be a post going up last Monday or Tuesday about a 'busy birthday weekend' but events got away from me!  I had a great birthday weekend, but there was a lot going on. 

Friday night went out on a Norwegian DVD-watching night, with my old Norwegian teacher and a work colleague who is bilingual.  I'm going to try and do this reasonably regularly to at least try and keep my language topped up a bit.  It was good fun, and I managed to follow more of it than I'd anticipated I would.  Late night, though.

Saturday had to try and combine getting some work in on the dreaded late encyclopaedia article with getting the house ready for our visitors, due at lunchtime - a friend of GUO's from home and his partner.  Managed some handy bilocation and just about made it!  Too frazzled to make lunch with them at home though, so we went off to the Waterwitch and had a late cheeseboard lunch.  Excellent as usual, but possibly in hindsight not the best of decisions; even after wandering around Lancaster for a few hours and then coming home for tea, chats and Singstar 80s [fabulous], none of us were hungry by 8 when we went out to the Gatehouse for my birthday meal.  But, bravely we struggled our way through some excellent food nevertheless ...

As usual, I went to sleep in the restaurant so we came home and they watched DVDs while I slept in the armchair.  The next day they had to leave after breakfast to pick their son up from the babysitter's, so I spent a few more hours working and made some progress.  That evening was Liverpool on BBC in the Cup, so friends from Lancaster came to us and we ordered in pizzas for a proper birthday-ish feel.

By Monday I felt we'd had a gloriously social weekend but was ready for a long rest! Instead, Miss D from Manchester and her bloke were visiting so we went out for food with them to celebrate them having just moved in together.  Great to see them.

So the rest of the week has really been spent in catch-up mode - though I'm not sure exactly what we have been doing as there are still beer bottles in Paul's room and the sofabed is still made up - but it feels like we've been catching up!

Few plans for this weekend.  I had a mysterious parcel un-delivered in the week, have to go and pick it up from the Post Office this morning, then a clothes shopping trip to Kendal with my friend Tania.  Apart from that, just planning to potter around, do housework, a bit of encyclopaedia work (nearly there now) and recovery time.  It will be nice to finish a weekend feeling refreshed!

Doorbell monsters

Somebody rang our doorbell at 3.20 this morning ... Three times!!!  Of course I sat up bolt upright and wanted to go and see who it was, while Great Unmentionable One insisted it was just students who had got the wrong house and we should ignore them and they'd go away eventually.  Reminded me of the time in the flat when someone rang the doorbell at a similar time and half-asleep I tried to go and offer them a cup of tea, GUO practically had to rugby tackle me in the corridor to stop me letting them in ... Good job he's around really, I'm obviously far too trusting when in sleep mode!  Then the adrenaline buzz from being woken up kept me awake for the next hour or so, and all this on a day when we are having our photos taken for the new Research Staff photo.  And I **hate** having photos taken.  The only photos of me that are any good are taken by friends when I'm not expecting them, preferably when I'm drunk so my natural self-consciousness is somewhat at bay!  Have put make-up on to try and disguise the worst ravages of fatigue (so now I feel like a clown) but I fear this is not going to do much good and yet again, I will have to live with a public photo I hate. :-(

Technically challenging weekend

So this was a weekend of solving machinery and technical problems.  Spent an hour and a half on Friday on the phone to linksys about my dead wireless.  I had worked out by this point that it was probably a hardware problem - according to various fora, the model of router I had was notorious for dropping out wireless capacity unpredictably.  They are, however, very reluctant to tell you it's a hardware problem until every possible setting is checked by three different people.  Fair enough, they probably deal with a lot of people struggling with the settings, which are pretty complicated.  But after speaking to two technicians, then a team leader, then a senior technician, going through very similar processes each time, even my endless reserves of patience were pretty stretched by the time they concluded it was broke.

Fortunately it was still in warranty and the lovely people at Comet were happy to replace it first thing the next morning - and with an upgraded model, yay!  Took me all morning to get it up and running though and by the end of that I was exhausted and had to have a nap to recover ... But I am now online at home again, which is the main thing.

Also tried phoning Sebo to see if they would send an engineer out to sort out my vacuum cleaner. It had lost suction over the past few weeks and nothing they recommended (changing bags, filters, checking for blockages, usual things) had made the slightest bit of difference.  They were closed over the weekend though, and I had visions of dragging the thing back and forth to campus all week for the second time as I have to have it with me when I ring them.  Spent another hour and a half cleaning every bit of it to no avail.  Then I looked through the instruction booklet one final time ... DUH!!!! I had never noticed that the on-off switch can also be twiddled to adjust the suction ... Felt very stupid, but would have felt even stupider if the engineer had actually come out - not sure they would have paid for that under the warranty, either!

I had planned to work all Saturday but all of that plus all last week's writing knocked me out a bit so I am STILL behind on my other big deadline.  Was busy Sunday, seeing a friend for coffee in Williamson Park and then more friends for lunch at the fantastic Gatehouse restaurant on the canal (and then sleeping lunch off while Great Unmentionable depressed himself enormously watching the Man U / Liverpool game).   But I must admit by Sunday evening I noticed how much better I was feeling for having had a rest, so I probably needed it.

Hopefully nothing else will break in the near future and I can get on with the things I actually plan to do!

CoffeeGeek

Today I am having a day writing a review that has to be finished in draft form by the end of January.  I had forgotten that one of my best strategies for sustained writing is to switch back and forth from the work to some Internet obsession or other.  This keeps my slightly ADHD mind from shutting down if it is expected to focus on only one thing at a time, so giving me a much more sustained writing time than if I only focus on the piece I'm working on. 

The only problem is that often these Internet obsessions end up costing me money.  The latest one - courtesy of today's NY times - is this site: CoffeeGeek - News, Reviews, Opinion and Community for Coffee and Espresso.  I realise now that I have been living an impoverished existence without having, at the very least, a high-end coffee grinder in my kitchen to use with my stove-top espresso machine.  In fact, my existing electric machine may make it out onto the counter again this week - or as soon as I have found a grinder which is affordable and well-reviewed.  Which of course means lots of eBay searching too. 

On the plus side I've nearly finished the review draft ...

UPDATE:

I love my job - especially the fact that I am surrounded by people even geekier than I am!  I only had to mention my sudden interest in home-ground coffee to our wonderful admin Jess and she offered to bring me in a grinder that she had sitting in her cupboard at home to try.  She even understood the importance of it being burr rather than blade.  It is nice to feel I am not the only sad obsessive out there!

AND .... Wrote 7,000 words today and have finished first pre-draft of difficult review, thought this would take me till the end of the month, very happy!  Will have to do lots of polishing tomorrow but I feel I have time to do that now, rather than constantly running to keep up.  Off home to celebrate.

I have an audience!

Hello Mum!  Well now that I know you are reading these I will update them more often!  In fact I went to do it last night but we have been having problems with our wireless (grr) so I had to sort that out instead.  Very annoying - I was supposed to be writing a (very late) article over the weekend and in fact spent all my free hours playing with the settings on the modem and talking to technical support.  It seems to be sorted out now - fingers crossed - I am so dependent on being able to fire my laptop up at will at home, everything falls apart if it's not working!

A blessedly empty day at work today, no appointments or meetings or lectures or anything, just a ridiculously long to-do list to work through.  2 days in London last week then a meeting yesterday morning were enough to let things build up.  I think I get 100 emails a day ....

My scariest task today is making two phone calls - why do I still hate using the phone so much?  I'm quite happy to stand up and make a presentation to 200 people, but picking up a telephone requires a great deal of preparation and lots of support!!  Ridiculous.  Still I've made a start on it now, left one message and have a time to call someone back, so that's a great weight off my shoulders.

Onwards with the to-do list.  Feeling pretty knackered - cat decided that she was extra-specially hungry this morning, so was sitting on my head purring loudly from about 6am onwards.  I am very glad coffee exists.

Trapped by reality TV

Oh no - a terrible thing happened last night.  I blame the cat.  She has turned into a lap cat in the winter weather, and I couldn't bring myself to stop watching TV and move away from the armchair, she looked so settled.  I got sucked into watching the 'celebrities' arrive at the Big Brother house.  All was going OK, it seemed an eminently missable spectacle until the very last instant ... George Galloway??  On Big Brother?  More compulsive even than Germaine Greer.  This I will have to watch.

Trapped by reality TV for 3 weeks - disaster!!

Big Brother - the official Big Brother UK website from Channel 4.

Hard to get started!

Anyone else finding it hard to get started again after Christmas?  It's a gorgeous sunny day, really cold and crisp, the sun is reflecting off the windows across the courtyard into my eyes, I really don't want to be in my office struggling with writer's block.  Should have taken a few days holiday to recover from all the Christmas festivities and travelling.  Maybe next year.