I've got a separate blog for my silly non-real life related ramblings. They've been relegated to SirJolt.wordpress.com
Service continues as normal here, but with more normal.
Sunday, May 31, 2009
Limbo
It happens quite often that I sit down with the intention of writing something, but eventually let myself be distracted by any of the hundreds of things there are to do instead of actually sitting down and committing something of myself to paper (electronic or otherwise). I’m pretty sure that’s a big flaw, so I’ve decided that from now on, once I’ve decided to write something, I will make sure I sit down and actually write it, rather than getting bored and losing interest.
I’m not sure how I feel about having finished college and moving on to work. There’s always a certain amount of sentiment attached to a place or time in your life, especially one in which you’ve seemed to excel with relatively little effort. I suppose that much is only natural. The only problem is that that kind of sentimentality could very easily become a kind of paralysis, an inertia that keeps me from picking myself up and moving on to something else. I wonder is it that I fear change or that I fear work, fear an environment in which making mistakes is a real problem, rather than an addressable issue.
I’ve been thinking more and more about the idea of writing a book. I told the father, and he seems very much of the opinion that there’s no point writing a book with another person (though he did admit this is because he’s very possessive about his by-lines). I suppose the biggest issue is that there’s no way to tell how well I’m doing until it’s already too late and all the investment’s been made… I think it’d be worth the risk though. The worst-case scenario is that I can say that I’ve tried and failed.
Also, I need opinions on fiction blogs… I enjoy tootling around with them, but I’m never sure whether other people like them. I’d love to get some feedback on the whole affair. I think they’re fun writing exercises, though it’s hard to
[Update] Have decided to start a wordpress blog for fictional stuff. Will post links in my real blog as and when necessary. Thanks to flashinnameonly.wordpress.com for the inspiration :D
I’m not sure how I feel about having finished college and moving on to work. There’s always a certain amount of sentiment attached to a place or time in your life, especially one in which you’ve seemed to excel with relatively little effort. I suppose that much is only natural. The only problem is that that kind of sentimentality could very easily become a kind of paralysis, an inertia that keeps me from picking myself up and moving on to something else. I wonder is it that I fear change or that I fear work, fear an environment in which making mistakes is a real problem, rather than an addressable issue.
I’ve been thinking more and more about the idea of writing a book. I told the father, and he seems very much of the opinion that there’s no point writing a book with another person (though he did admit this is because he’s very possessive about his by-lines). I suppose the biggest issue is that there’s no way to tell how well I’m doing until it’s already too late and all the investment’s been made… I think it’d be worth the risk though. The worst-case scenario is that I can say that I’ve tried and failed.
Also, I need opinions on fiction blogs… I enjoy tootling around with them, but I’m never sure whether other people like them. I’d love to get some feedback on the whole affair. I think they’re fun writing exercises, though it’s hard to
[Update] Have decided to start a wordpress blog for fictional stuff. Will post links in my real blog as and when necessary. Thanks to flashinnameonly.wordpress.com for the inspiration :D
Friday, May 29, 2009
SirJolt - No Longer Norwegian
Marc's sunburned-Jane-style blog post...
First off, "No Longer Norwegian" is in the running with "Humanzee" as a potential book title for Jane and I. I like Humanzee more, but I'll have to ask Jane what she thinks. No Longer Norwegian has promise as long as it's not related to the plot in any way. The only other thing on my mind at the moment is that I've pinched a nerve in my shoulder at some point in the last 24 hours. It stopped me from sleeping last night, so I watched Underworld: Rise of the Lycans (which I heavily recommend) instead.
Just thought I'd say, pinched nerves are crap. Normally I'd have Katie address the issue, but she's nowhere to be found and I have to go to work. This leaves me in an awkward position with regard the whole typing business.
SirJolt
First off, "No Longer Norwegian" is in the running with "Humanzee" as a potential book title for Jane and I. I like Humanzee more, but I'll have to ask Jane what she thinks. No Longer Norwegian has promise as long as it's not related to the plot in any way. The only other thing on my mind at the moment is that I've pinched a nerve in my shoulder at some point in the last 24 hours. It stopped me from sleeping last night, so I watched Underworld: Rise of the Lycans (which I heavily recommend) instead.
Just thought I'd say, pinched nerves are crap. Normally I'd have Katie address the issue, but she's nowhere to be found and I have to go to work. This leaves me in an awkward position with regard the whole typing business.
SirJolt
They're making me work in an office... like an ANIMAL
I had forgotten what it’s like to have a full time job. Moreover, I’d forgotten what it was like to have a full time job where I don’t just come up with everything on the fly and then immediately work it all out on the spot.
It’s very strange to be back in a situation where you’re expected to plan out your own work for the next week, two weeks or month and then make sure that everyone you’re working with can put together their side of the bargain. I’ve also learned that I have to actually, physically show up to work every day. I’m not sure how I feel about that. It was always a push before, when it was just one bus, but now it’s a very much longer bus journey to get out here… that MA has never looked quite so appealing.
So far today I’ve spent about 40% of my time working, and 60% of my time pining for an ongoing barbeque it’s looking more and more like I won’t attend. I’m very much hoping the lab guys downstairs don’t rain on my parade when it comes to the actual work I have done, because if they do I might end up having to do about half of the work I’ve done today again.
It’s weird when your job is based around dreaming up ideas to write about and then hoping that the people you work with can supply that kind of content. I’ve been wondering how everyone else is, but the web connection from work is so severely locked down that Mail.app can’t get my mail for me, Adium can’t sign in to my IM clients and Skype won’t let me… talk to Jane.
I sometimes think that’s all Skype is for really; talking to Jane. Not just for me, but for the other 15.3 million people online right now. It’s no wonder she complains about getting no work done; she’s in high demand. I imagine the position I’m in with work now is the position Jane is in every day… I hope I can get to the point where it feels normal again. With any luck that’ll sort itself out and we’ll be cool, work and I.
I’ve managed to get Skype to sign in now though, so I’m going to toddle off and talk to Jane. These are the kinds of privileges you too could have if you were her brother. It’s pretty cool alright.
Skipping the queue.
Also, I’m gradually testing every application I have that will sign in to something, like the tendrils of some kind of weird web-based octopus.
Twitterrific works. All’s good.
I’ve just discovered I’m on a Norwegian proxy; my blog is in Norwegian. By the time I post this I’ll have learned something about the letter O with a line through it.
[Update]:Jane's Skype queue is up to 15.9 million and my blog's are being adjusted for Norwegian time. It's starting to get very hot here, so I may have to actually relocate to wherever our server room is and spend the summer there. I have a Norwegian lecturer, maybe he's put me up.
It’s very strange to be back in a situation where you’re expected to plan out your own work for the next week, two weeks or month and then make sure that everyone you’re working with can put together their side of the bargain. I’ve also learned that I have to actually, physically show up to work every day. I’m not sure how I feel about that. It was always a push before, when it was just one bus, but now it’s a very much longer bus journey to get out here… that MA has never looked quite so appealing.
So far today I’ve spent about 40% of my time working, and 60% of my time pining for an ongoing barbeque it’s looking more and more like I won’t attend. I’m very much hoping the lab guys downstairs don’t rain on my parade when it comes to the actual work I have done, because if they do I might end up having to do about half of the work I’ve done today again.
It’s weird when your job is based around dreaming up ideas to write about and then hoping that the people you work with can supply that kind of content. I’ve been wondering how everyone else is, but the web connection from work is so severely locked down that Mail.app can’t get my mail for me, Adium can’t sign in to my IM clients and Skype won’t let me… talk to Jane.
I sometimes think that’s all Skype is for really; talking to Jane. Not just for me, but for the other 15.3 million people online right now. It’s no wonder she complains about getting no work done; she’s in high demand. I imagine the position I’m in with work now is the position Jane is in every day… I hope I can get to the point where it feels normal again. With any luck that’ll sort itself out and we’ll be cool, work and I.
I’ve managed to get Skype to sign in now though, so I’m going to toddle off and talk to Jane. These are the kinds of privileges you too could have if you were her brother. It’s pretty cool alright.
Skipping the queue.
Also, I’m gradually testing every application I have that will sign in to something, like the tendrils of some kind of weird web-based octopus.
Twitterrific works. All’s good.
I’ve just discovered I’m on a Norwegian proxy; my blog is in Norwegian. By the time I post this I’ll have learned something about the letter O with a line through it.
[Update]:Jane's Skype queue is up to 15.9 million and my blog's are being adjusted for Norwegian time. It's starting to get very hot here, so I may have to actually relocate to wherever our server room is and spend the summer there. I have a Norwegian lecturer, maybe he's put me up.
Monday, May 18, 2009
Richard Entexure - Gentleman Witch Doctor
Just as the train pulls into the station, I feel the slight pull to my left as the train shifts from one side of the tracks to the other. My weight shifts to the left as the train shunts rightward as I sit in the sunshine, the still-dark winter morning or the rainy grey in-between of Spring and Autumn.
It doesn’t matter when it is or how bad the weather is, that tiny pull of the carriage shuffling from one train always feels good… it means you’re there and it doesn’t matter where there is as long as you’re no longer just in transit.
I’m not normally one to rail against states of being, but I find that I tend to oscillate between a profound love, and an entirely unwarranted hatred, for liminality depending on the day that’s in it. There are times when the fact that I will spend X amount of time in a day simply between the locations of my various appointments grate against me tremendously. Conversely, there are occasions when the intermediary state is really the only state you can be in, own, make a part of yourself.
I am on the train. I am a man, wearing a coat on a train. For the next twenty minutes, there are no features about me that anyone else will notice. There is a comfort in that, a stability almost.
Ironically enough, I have made it a professional interest to spend a great deal of my time between two spaces. It is the nature of a detective to be engaged by members of the public to investigate the private lives of others. Moreover, it is my place to employ techniques that are seen as less than reputable, less than reliable, super or sub-natural… in short, a little odd.
I have apprehended a killer based solely on the smell of his dreams, the taste of his future and the gradual decay of his aura. I have woken to the sound of a soul being bought. I have felt a gypsy curse an innocent man from an alleyway a hundred yards from me and known to keep clear.
It’s hard to know if everyone has a vocation, but I like to think detective is a job I was cut out for.
Richard Entexure
It doesn’t matter when it is or how bad the weather is, that tiny pull of the carriage shuffling from one train always feels good… it means you’re there and it doesn’t matter where there is as long as you’re no longer just in transit.
I’m not normally one to rail against states of being, but I find that I tend to oscillate between a profound love, and an entirely unwarranted hatred, for liminality depending on the day that’s in it. There are times when the fact that I will spend X amount of time in a day simply between the locations of my various appointments grate against me tremendously. Conversely, there are occasions when the intermediary state is really the only state you can be in, own, make a part of yourself.
I am on the train. I am a man, wearing a coat on a train. For the next twenty minutes, there are no features about me that anyone else will notice. There is a comfort in that, a stability almost.
Ironically enough, I have made it a professional interest to spend a great deal of my time between two spaces. It is the nature of a detective to be engaged by members of the public to investigate the private lives of others. Moreover, it is my place to employ techniques that are seen as less than reputable, less than reliable, super or sub-natural… in short, a little odd.
I have apprehended a killer based solely on the smell of his dreams, the taste of his future and the gradual decay of his aura. I have woken to the sound of a soul being bought. I have felt a gypsy curse an innocent man from an alleyway a hundred yards from me and known to keep clear.
It’s hard to know if everyone has a vocation, but I like to think detective is a job I was cut out for.
Richard Entexure
Does this make me an anthropologist yet?
I’m updating this again in an effort to ensure that I don’t start to feel like I haven’t written in an age when the time comes for Jane and I to start work on “OUR novel” in a couple of weeks time. I’m not sure what we’re to write about, but I’m sure we’ll patch something together when we get there. I’ve got some vague ideas, but no real story… I wonder how it is that a book normally comes together.
I’ve not yet determined just how it is we’ll tackle the novel endeavour, but at this point I think that I’m in a unique position to produce a sizeable work. I intend to ask my friend Dane’s mammy for her input if possible, she managed to have a novel published entirely unassisted, which impressed me. I’m not sure quite how she managed to knock out a book while working full time in a Spar, but I’m sure she’ll be able to offer some helpful advice. I’m very much hoping her advice isn’t, “Don’t write a novel, there’s no future in it.” Even if that’s the case, I’ll make sure to ignore it and push onward.
Today was my last day as an undergraduate student of anthropology, I sat my exam in “Contemporary Theory and Ethnography” and was quite content that I managed to fit in all of the requisite theory and so forth to earn myself some kind of passing grade. I’m not sure how this works now… do I get made an anthropologist straight away or do I need to wait for my results before I can start postulating reasons for people being different (and therefore inferior) to me.
I haven’t too much to add at the moment, though I’ll try to update again before the end of the day.
Tomorrow, the study for English begins, hopefully I can make this degree a double without completely destroying a grade…
I’ve not yet determined just how it is we’ll tackle the novel endeavour, but at this point I think that I’m in a unique position to produce a sizeable work. I intend to ask my friend Dane’s mammy for her input if possible, she managed to have a novel published entirely unassisted, which impressed me. I’m not sure quite how she managed to knock out a book while working full time in a Spar, but I’m sure she’ll be able to offer some helpful advice. I’m very much hoping her advice isn’t, “Don’t write a novel, there’s no future in it.” Even if that’s the case, I’ll make sure to ignore it and push onward.
Today was my last day as an undergraduate student of anthropology, I sat my exam in “Contemporary Theory and Ethnography” and was quite content that I managed to fit in all of the requisite theory and so forth to earn myself some kind of passing grade. I’m not sure how this works now… do I get made an anthropologist straight away or do I need to wait for my results before I can start postulating reasons for people being different (and therefore inferior) to me.
I haven’t too much to add at the moment, though I’ll try to update again before the end of the day.
Tomorrow, the study for English begins, hopefully I can make this degree a double without completely destroying a grade…
Monday, May 11, 2009
Finally back in the saddle...
Just a very quick update to say that a more normal service will resume as soon as possible.
In the interim, I trust you guys can amuse yourselves with the other things on the internet without giving yourselves some kind of aphasia.
No saddle sores yet...
Marc out.
In the interim, I trust you guys can amuse yourselves with the other things on the internet without giving yourselves some kind of aphasia.
No saddle sores yet...
Marc out.
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