Entries tagged with uni

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ENABLEnet, the WiFi at the State Library of Western Australia, is... temperamental. I'm having pretty much no luck with it, but I can live with that.

I'm currently at one of the Genealogy computers, discovering that, awesomely, the State Library has the 1881 Census, amongst a bunch of other useful data available. One of the librarians was acutally really helpful, showing me what resources they have.

( Notes for my reference: )

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THE MIRROR. No. 83. Tuesday, February 22, 1780.

IN a paper published at Edinburgh, it would be improper to enter into any comparison of the writers of this country with those on the other side of the Tweed : but, whatever be the comparitive rank of Scottish and English authors, it must surely be allowed, that, of late, there have been writers in this country, upon different subjects, who are possessed of very considerable merit. In one species of writing, however, in works and compositions of humour, there can be no sort of doubt that the English stand perfectly unrivalled by their northern neighbours. The English excel in comedy ; several of their romances are replete with the most humourous representations of life and character, and many of their other works are full of excellent ridicule. But, in Scotland, we have hardly any book which aims at humour, and, of the very few which do, still fewer have any degree of merit. Though we have tragedies written by Scots authors, we have no comedy, excepting Ramsay's Gentle Shepherd ; and though we have tender novels, we have none of humour, excepting those of Smollet, who, from his long residence in England, can hardly be said to have acquired in this country his talent for writing ; nor can we, for the same reason, lay a perfect claim to Arbuthnot, who is a still more illustrious exception to my general remark. There must be something in the national genius of the two people which makes this remarkable difference in their writings, though it may be difficult to discover from what cause it arises.

I am inclined to suspect, that there is something in the situation and present government of Scotland, which may, in part, account for this difference in the genius of the two countries. Scotland, before the union of the two kingdoms, was a separate state, with a parliament and constitution of its own. Now the feat of government is removed, and its constitution is involved in that of England. At the time the two nations came to be so intimately connected, its great men were less affluent than those of England, its agriculture was little advanced, and its manufactures were in their infancy. A Scotsman was, therefore, in this situation, obliged to exert every nerve, that he might be able to hold his place.

If preferment, or offices in public life, were his object, he was obliged to remove from home to a city, which, though now the metropolis of the united kingdoms, had formerly been to him a sort of foreign capital. If wealth was the object of his pursuit, he could only acquire it at home by great industry and perseverance ; and if he found he could not easily succeed in his own country, he repaired to other countries, where he expected to be able to amass a fortune. Hence it has been remarked, that there are more natives of Scotland to be found abroad than of any other country.

People in this situation are not apt to indulge themselves in humour ; and few humourous characters will appear. It is only in countries where men wanton in the extravagancies of wealth, that some are led to indulge a particular vein of character, and that others are induced to delineate and express it in writing. Besides, where men are in a situation which makes it necessary for them to push their way in the world, more particularly if they are obliged to do so among strangers, though this may give them a firmness and a resoluteness in their conduct, it will naturally produce a modest caution and reserve in their deportment, which must chill every approach to humour. Hence, though the Scots are allowed to be brave and undaunted in dangerous situations ; yet bashfulness, reserve, and even timidity of manner, unless when they are called forth to action, are justly considered as making part of their character. Men of this disposition are not apt to have humour ; it is the open, the careless, the indifferent, and the forward who indulge in it ; it is the man who does not think of interest, and who sets himself above attending to the proprieties of conduct. But he who has objects of interest in view, who attends with circumspection to his conduct, and finds it necessary to do so, is generally grave and silent, and seldom makes any attempt at humour.

These circumstances may have had a considerable influence upon the genius and temper of the pepole in Scotland ; and if they have given a particular formation to the genius of the people in general, they would naturally have a similar effect upon its authors : the genius of an author commonly takes its direction from that of his countrymen.

To these causes, arising from the present situation and government of our country, may be added another circumstance, that of there being no court or seat of the Monarch in Scotland. It is only where the court is, that the standard of manners can be fixed ; and, of consequence, it is only in the neighbourhood of the court that a deviation from that standard can be exactly ascertained, or a departure from it be easily made the object of ridicule. Where there is no court, it becomes of little importance what dress the people wear, what ours they observe, what language they express themselves in, or what is their general deportment. Men living at a distance from the court become also unacquainted with the rules of fashion which it establishes, and are unable to mark or point them out. But the great subject for wit and ludicrous representation arises from men's having a thorough knowledge of what is the fashionable standard of manners, and being able to seize upon, and hold out a departure from it, in an humourous point of view. In Scotland, therefore, which, since the removal of the court, has become, in a certain degree, a provincial country, there being no fixed standard of manners within the country itself, one great source of ridicule is cut off, and an author is not led to attempt humourous composition ; or, if he does, has little chance of succeeding.

There is another particular which may have had a very considerable effect upon the genius of the Scots writers, and that is, the nature of the language in which they write. The old Scottish dialect is now banished from our books, and the English is substituted in its place. But though our books be written in English, our conversation is in Scotch. Of our language it may be said, as we are told of the wit of Sir Hudibras, that we have a suit for holidays and another for working-days. The Scottish dialect is our ordinary suit ; the English is used only on solemn occasions. When a Scotsman therefore writes, he does it generally in trammels. His own native original language, which he hears spoken around him, he does not make use of ; but he expresses himself in a language in some respects foreign to him, and which he has acquired by study and observation. When a celebrated Scottish writer, after the publication of his History of Scotland, was first introduced to Lord Chesterfield, his Lordship, with that happy talent of compliment for which he was so remarkable, addressed him, at parting, in these words: "I am happy, Sir, to have met with you, - happy to have passed a day with you, - and extremely happy to find that you speak Scotch. - It would be too much, were you to speak, as well as write our language, better than we do ourselves."

This circumstance of a Scottish author not writing his own natural dialect, must have a considerable influence upon the nature of his literary productions. When he is employed in any grave dignified composition, when he writes history, politics or poetry, the pains he must take to write in a manner different from that in which he speaks, will not much his affect his productions ; the language of such compositions is, in every cafe, raised above that of common life ; and, therefore, the deviation which a Scottish author is obliged to make from the common language of the country, can be of little prejudice to him. But if a writer is to descend to common and ludicrous pictures of life ; if, in short, he is to deal in humourous composition, his language must be, as nearly as possible, that of common life, that of the bulk of the people : but a Scotsman who wishes to write English cannot easily do this. He neither speaks the English dialect, nor is it spoken by those around him : any knowledge he has acquired of the language is got from books, not from conversation. Hence Scottish authors may have been prevented from attempting to write books of humour ; and, when they have tried it, we may be able, in some measure, to account for their failure.

In confirmation of these remarks, it may be observed, that almost the only works of humour which we have in this country, are in the Scottish dialect, and most of them were written before the union of the kingdoms, when the Scotch was the written, as well as the spoken language of the country. The Gentle Shepherd, which is full of natural and ludicrous representations of low, life, is written in broad Scotch. Many of our ancient Scottish ballads are full of humour. If there have been lately any publications of humour in this country, written in good English, they have been mostly of that graver sort, called irony. In this species of writing, where the author himself never appears to laugh, a more dignified composition is admissible ; and, in that case, the disadvantage of writing in a language different from that in which the author speaks, or those around him converse, is not so sensibly felt.

F.

Current Mood: productive
Current Location: Reid Library
Current Music: Cold Fairyland - Shrove Tuesday

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Comment replies will be forthcoming soonish...

So, I accidentally lost my previous draft of this, but:

So far it's a little hard to tell how well my new meds are working. I was getting a bit distracted from the article I was reading, but the article was somewhat tedious and annoying. It's probably worth noting that the time it took me to lose focus could be measured best in paragraphs/minutes, not words/seconds, and I was able to refocus my attention on what I'm doing fairly easily, without that internal-static sense of impossibility about it. I can do it. My difficulty with the article can quite possibly be ascribed to the part where it was tedious and annoying.

(Any article where I expostulate things like: "So you're arguing that because you're stupid, everyone is?" and "... You sexist bastard." is going to be be a little problematic. But seirously, he argued that a certain change was irrelevant because it barely affected men, and the population-wide percentage change was explained by it affectiong 40% of women.)

Pleasingly, I seem to have made a friend. D. is the woman with the toddler in my Linguistics class from last week. We chatted before class today and now we're sitting together for this lecture. When I turned on my laptop she admired the beauty of Mizushima Hiro on my desktop background. This is clearly a sign that we are meant to get on.

No, really so far I still get distractions tugging at my attention all the time, but it's something I can resist. It's a real improvement, even if it's not perfect yet.

( Linguistics, Thursday. )

Lecture ended, I made my way to the library - where, it turns out, SNAP is down so I have no internet. On the bright side, I suppose, I can get the work done I need to do today. On the down side, I have no internet, which means no googling things quickly that I either don't know or want to refresh my memory about, no e-mail, no WoW on study breaks, and this post threatens to become monster.

Interestingly, my anxiety problems seem to be a side-effect of ADHD. A little while ago I had a problem with my computer - no matter which way I flicked the switch that turns WLAN capabilty on and off, it kept reading as off. I couldn't work out how to fix it, and if my computer had somehow broken, that would be really quite a problem.

And I... didn't panic. Didn't even come close. I tried to fix it, failed, considered calling Chas, noted that he'd still be asleep and I didn't want to wake him for something that would be difficult to sort out by phone, and instead took my laptop over to SISO, where

reaps fixed it in about ten seconds and explained to me what had gone wrong. (This was also where I was informed that SNAP isn't working, so I came back prepared not to be concerned that that wasn't going to work.)

Too easy, as they say. Taking dexamphetamines has made me feel really... calm.

We'll see how I go with rising levels of complexity in my reading for the day, and the ongoing question of concentration. I just thought of writing, as something I've been having trouble focussing on of late, but I realised immediately that I won't be able to focus on that at all, because I will have this relentless feeling of pressure that what I should be doing is my History work - which, coupled with the fact that what I want to do is my History work, means the only thing I'm likely to be able to do successfully is certain. (But will be left as an exercise for the astute reader.)

Also notable: Today is quite a good day for pain levels so far, although as my days have some variation it's too soon to ascribe it to the possibility that ADHD exacerbates chronic pain, even if the possibility seems real based on the physiological basis of ADHD essentially being over-exposed nerves.

I'm having trouble concentrating on this article still. I'm due to take more pills in twenty minutes, but also, this article still sucks. It is tedious, the arguments are rubbish, and the guy is way too impressed with himself, so possibly my minimal retention is based on the fact that I am, as I go, categorising a lot of what he says is rubbish. I can call to mind the salient (for want of a better word) points he's trying to make, which is an improvement, though, so yay for that.

By the way, I recommend the soundtrack to Charlotte's Web (which I bought on CD a while ago for reasons that elude me, since I haven't seen the movie) as background music to listen to while reading annoying things. Very soothing. (I wanted something more pleasant to listen to than people shuffling around with bags at the desks around me. Light music + canalphones is win.)

Hmm. On a better-written article - after taking my second dose of meds, but immediately after, so relevance is questionable - I read the whole thing on one go, only getting vaguely distracted a couple of times, and I was able to refocus quickly and easily.

Is this what it's like for normal people?!

Anyway, now going to take a break between articles to relax for a few with a game, because I have 50 more pages of course reader as target for today, plus another chapter of The Nature of History to get through before I want to go to the Scholars' Centre and get some more research done.

This may take me less time than it would have yesterday, but I also don't want to end the day with my shoulders locked up and serious eyestrain, so.

Yay, SNAP is back!

Current Mood: productive
Current Location: Destiny; kitchen table

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More of my studies for our pleasure

So, I've finally finished transcribing the first of two articles I photographed today.

The following was first published in April 1740. Note that I have transcribed into modern font (e.g. all those esses I've put in) and that all proper nouns were italicised in the original. I'm not cutting the final paragraph because I think it's brilliantly fascinating that it was written when it was.
( Cut for length: A satirical piece about English customs, as nominally described by visiting Indians. I am reasonably sure the Indians in question are native Americans, but they may in fact be Indian. )
THE Author then proceeds to shew the Absurdity of Breeches and Petticoats, with many other curious Observations, which I shall reserve for another Occasion. I cannot however conclude this Paper without taking notice, That amidst these wild Remarks there now and then appears something very reasonable. I cannot likewise forbear observing, that we are all guilty in some measure of the same narrow way of Thinking, which we meet with in this Abstract of the Indian Journal, when we fancy the Customs, Dresses, and Manners of other Countries are ridiculous and extravagant, if they do not resemble those of our own.

Current Mood: ecstatic
Current Location: Reid Library

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I feel ali-i-i-ive...

So, I've been hanging out in the library since my lecture ended at 11, both restoring my sanity levels (yesterday I got too overstimulated, I need a quiet, restful day today) and doing necessary work for History.

I'd forgotten how good this feels - the thrill, the charge of reading books, tracking sources, finding texts. In addition to the Times' online archives and various other links, I spent a productive hour or so in the Scholars' Centre reading original copies of mid-19th century publications. Oh so fragile, and oh so fascinating.

Adjusting to reading the typeface can be disconcerting - mostly it's standard, except for those half-crossed "f"s in place of "s" - but only when not capitalised or word-final. My brain keeps parsing them as "f"s, but I'm gradually breaking that.

There are strict rules about using these ancient texts - pretty much all related to not damaging the materials, which can be quite fragile. (As I discovered when I untied the ribbon holding the first volume of The Mirror together, and the covers and half the spine turned out not to be actually attached to the bulk of the book.) But modern technology is not wholly forbidden. Taking notes on laptops is permitted (taking bags into the Centre is not), and digital cameras may be used to take pictures of the contents of the book if done with care not to damage the binding and the consent of the librarians. (Mostly so they can remind you to be careful of the binding, I think.)

For consideration as my original sources to take to my workshop this week, I have a couple of pieces photographed, but I'm leaning towards a really interesting column(ish thing) on the dearth of Scottish humour. It has a range of interesting ramifications implicit in the text - I'll post it here when I've typed it up - but it's some time before the author approaches what I suspect is the central issue: the Scottish language being banned in print, but still widespread in spoken conversation, the Scots are writing in a second language that does not entirely lend itself to natural humour-writing. The author notes that there was a great deal of written humour in pre-Union times, written in Scotch; now, however, the only real humour-writing tends to bitter irony.

Oh, the wealth of material in this one column alone! I am in love.

Current Mood: nemui
Current Location: Destiny; kitchen table
Current Music: Chas on the phone

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And the sign said the words of the prophets are written on the subway walls...

It's amazing how much my posting rate goes up when I have interesting-to-me non-angst-based things to write about.

Today's Odd Thing that I forgot to mention earlier: In the Arts block women's toilets, end left stall, there is a sticker. Someone has, at some point, tried to remove this sticker, but it shredded, leaving glued-on paper residue.

On this paper, three words are written.

In my handwriting.

They've been there about nine years now.

Other graffiti has come and gone - in the long tradition of university toilets, scurrilous toilet humour regularly shares space with grand ideological battles and simple exclamations of raw emotion on the toilet walls. (My current favourite: Reid Library, first floor, women's toilets, right-hand stall: Fuck comp.sci deadlines and segfaults.) Periodically the walls are scrubbed blank, and then the conversations start anew. (Another favourite: a warning against toilet vampires having been seen in the area.)

Somehow, those three words - a remnant of an ideological fervour I outgrew not long afterwards - have remained.

I am not sure what to draw from this, really.

Meanwhile, for vague reference, today's book tally:

Bought:

History course reader (well, ordered; they'd sold out)
Dear Fatty, by Dawn French

Borrowed (Reid Library):

A History of European Socialism (Lindemann, 1983)
Scottish Harbors (Morris, 1983)
The History and Archaeology of Ports (Jackson, 1983)

I'm not sure why they're all from 1983.

The three borrowed books are vague pre-reading, trying angles in search of a topic for the 4,500 word research essay I have to write by the 20th of May. Perhaps something on the ideological movements of the Industrial Revolution, perhaps something on the effects on and of trade both domestic and overseas... Perhaps nothing related to any of this, but I live with the belief that no knowledge gained is worthless.

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:psy:

Liveblogging: Tutorial

( Possibly fewer notes. )

So intense discussion started and I mostly stopped typing. A couple of people in my tutorial group kind of irritate me so far, but it should be okay, and the unit looks way, way more interesting than I'd thought from the handbook outline.

later

AHHHHH

So I downloaded the video version of my Linguistics lecture I missed while I was at uni, so I could catch up at my leisure with all the lecture slides etc.

Except for some reason? My Linguistics lecture is set with the slides for a lecture on Genomics.

*points at icon and flails*

I have e-mails to write to both my lecturers, now, both about Lectopia. One hasn't got downloadable lectures and the other ended up with the wrong slides.

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I think never is enough, yeah, never gonna do that stuff...

I thought my SNAP access had somehow broken today, but it turned out it was just the SNAP deadzone around ALR 8 and 9. (Which I have already reported to a relevant authority. *cough*) Ended up going to the library to download lecture recordings, where, at SISO, I had the reassuring presence of

cthulhubitch to keep me from panicking.

I've been kind of high-anxiety the last couple of days. (Originally, typoed as "king of...". It almost works.)

The previous class is in progress in ALR8 still. 9am Monday in an ALR; it's gotta be a first-year class. (I'll check when I have internet again, am currently back in the deadzone.) I just saw a student walk out and back in again ten minutes before the end of class. That's just not done.

My history class's lectures are set to streaming only. This makes me sad and distressed. I may speak to the lecturer about it. In the meantime, after class I shall be listening to the lecture while on-campus. It's just so much easier to do that kind of thing as local traffic. (For example, downloading my Linguistics lectures, my transfer rate got to about 1500k/sec over wireless.)

Class has opened up/entered. I snagged a seat by a powerpoint, and my lecturer is surprisingly young and seems very pleasant. My network list shows SNAP at two bars but can't connect; I'll live. I'm sitting right at the back, but: powerpoint! For a two-hour lecture when I've already been running my laptop off battery for a while this is reassuring, especially since it means I can run in full performance instead of battery-saving mode, which means my desktop background returns. It's currently a very, very pretty picture of Mizushima Hiro looking swoony DON'T JUDGE ME.

And now, both by request and because until I get ADHD meds it's relevant to my ability to focus:

( Liveblogging History of Industrial Revolution Britain. )

OH GOD THE CO-OP *cries* And I couldn't even get my course reader, I just had to order one 'cause they were sold out of the one I need. But I also bought Dear Fatty by Dawn French.

Due to getting held up at the co-op and leaving as early as I did, I was over four hours from breakfast by the time I got to UniSFA - and was shaking and queasy and feeling terrible. After I got here I slammed most of a can of Apple Isle for quick transmission to bloodstream.

Time to post.

Current Mood: tired
Current Location: Destiny; kitchen table
Current Music: Abandoned Pools - The Remedy

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And you can be the remedy...

Something I can hardly believe I only just worked out today:

The reason the 97, 98 and 99 bus routes pretty much invariably get served by the new-style buses is simply explained: they're the main routes that go to the hospitals. All three of those pass by Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital, and the 98/99 go by RPH (Shenton Park) as well, and maybe others.

The new-style buses are the ones that are wheelchair-accessible, with hydraulics to lower the boarding side of the bus closer to the ground and an extendable ramp so wheelchairs can just roll on. Obviously when you're looking at a route that goes past the major hospitals, including Shenton Park Rehabilitation, you're looking at a route that's going to have quite high frequency of disabled passengers, so you want the buses that can handle that smoothly.

Something I've noticed, mind you: The wheelchair zones of the bus have seats that occupy the wheelchair space, for use by other passengers when wheelchairs aren't present. The seats flip up to make room for the wheelchair.

People are good about vacating these seats when someone in a wheelchair is boarding, but hardly anyone thinks to flip the seats up. On some level I find this outrageous, because that's something that's necessary but likely to be problematic for the disabled person, while being a trivial act for someone with fully-functioning limbs. (Many of the buses have signs requesting that people leave the seats up at all times they're not being sat on, but sadly pretty much no-one does this. Including me. We default to "these are seats that can flip up to provide a wheelchair zone", not "this is a wheelchair zone into which seats can be pulled down". Because we are all ablist in subtle ways, I think.)

I've found myself getting up from my seat in a different part of the bus to flip the seats for incoming disabled people on a number of occasions, and it can be quite hard to resist the urge to give the people who didn't do it when they got up a dirty look.

This morning - during my lecture in my now-defunct class - I was informed that the 12-point version of my course had been cancelled. I logged in to WebConnect to check my enrolment, and discovered that 3323 was now marked as DISCONTINUED but I hadn't been enrolled in 2223, which is vaguely irksome, but only vaguely since I decided against doing 2223. Instead, I switched to the 12-point unit (4,500 word research essay incoming...) on Industrial Revolution Britain.

Tomorrow morning, if all goes to plan and I'm not just too freakin' exhausted, I shall be having a bunch of blood tests done. Huzzah. These are for hypoglycaemia investigation, not junkiehood investigation.

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linguistics,
uni

Uni, day two

My pain continues: I was all set to poke the internet through this lecture, and then discovered... SNAP doesn't reach in here.

Also, the previous class (run, according to comments I overheard by a student who was in it, by "the most boring man on the PLANET") didn't turn on the air-conditioning in here and the room is hot and muggy and sticky. It's not that hot this morning, but it's extremely humid, and this room is currently substantially warmer than it is outside.

I turned the A/C on, because I Know How ~~Shit~~ Stuff Works around here.

(Today is Shrove Tuesday. Tomorrow is Ash Wednesday. I decided to try and stop swearing for Lent, and I can't remember offhand whether Lent starts today or tomorrow.)

Assessment so far of the class:

theducks's cousin is in it.

Heh, the lecturer just arrived. Looks around classroom. "Is the air con on?"
Me: "Yeah. But I only just turned it on when we came in."

Him: "Oh. Right."

FAIL, PREVIOUS LECTURER

More random things:

Him: It's really disconcerting for there to be no-one talking when it's still, by the clock, three minutes to ten.
Me: Before you came in we were all plotting against you, but now we've had to stop.
Him: Thank God I remembered to take my paranoia pills this morning.

I am Old and relatively confident, and also, I have met him before more than once, and I know he does in fact have a sense of humour.

There's a MAKE HOWARD HISTORY sticker on the back of a chair a couple of rows in front of me. He was dropped by the nation as a whole in late 2007...

( I promise not to liveblog ALL my lectures, but today I am still having focus issues and this helps. )

later

And now I'm home to post.

Current Location: Reid Library

Entry tags:

Uni, day one

I picked up my course reader and a proper diary and a guild diary today; other than that, I mostly hung out at UniSFA. I got

cthulhubitch to help me set up my SNAP account, only to discover when I went to use it that I had no idea how to set up the VPN I require.

I'm currently sitting in the Fox Lecture Theatre, waiting for my history lecture to start, poking my computer and watching a peahen cleaning itself on the windowledge. (I tried to take a picture of it with the webcam on my laptop, but I can't get it to handle the contrast between the niterior of the lecture hall and the brighter light outside. Why can't cameras work like eyes?)

The lecturer has arrived and begun, but she's having trouble with the technology. She's trying to play a video of a cigarette advertisement - "More Doctors Smoke Camels" - but can't get sound.

She has a strong Italian accent. I think I'm glad I have Italian family friends - I'm very much more accustomed to it. (Also, she just asked the class a question, got no immediate response, asked again, I answered - she gave me a momentary deer-in-headlights look I'm not sure how to interpret.)

She's not a very good lecturer, but as she was introducing herself she said she'd only just finished a Ph.D. I suspect she hasn't got as much experience as most lecturers I'm used to. Also, part of the problem is just poor microphone technique - she has very strong plosives and they are making the mic she's talking into very, very sad. To many people don't realise that good microphones aren't designed to be spoken directly into, because that creates that popping sound on plosives, especially /p/s. You speak near it, they pick up the sound, and lo, you have sound pickup with good fidelity that doesn't create traumatic popping sounds.

The trouble is, her rather non-dynamic way of speaking is really hard for me to focus on.

Also, I just switched Destiny to "battery-saving" mode, and its projected battery duration isn't improving to speak of.

Man, I'm glad a lot of History stuff rests primarily in the stuff you read, because I'm not following this lecture closely at all. If I weren't sitting at the front, where most of the class can probably see my screen, I'd be playing Chess or something.

*watches the peahen twisting its neck in impossible ways* Seriously, it's, like, helixing its neck.

*checks watch* Twenty minutes in, bugger. Stupid light levels, I could have that peahen on my webcam.

For those unfamiliar with why I'm looking at a peahen at university: since time immemorial, there has been a peacock (actually, for a while, there were two) and a handful of peahens living in and around the Arts buildings at UWA. This is why the Arts union paper is/was known as the Peafowl. They're always terribly remarkable to freshers, but by the time you've been around campus a while they become a sort of idle diversionary sight.

OH NO the peahen just got bored and jumped off the ledge. What will I look at now?

*resists urge to load episode of Boukenger* Sure, I have the sound on my computer muted, but it has subtitles...

Bad Sami.

Argh, non-native speakers of languages. (I am well aware that, when speaking other languages, I totally do this too, so spare me cries of prejudice.) She keeps emphasising the wrong syllables and inflections, and leaving out phonemes that are relevant, dammit. If the twelve-point stuff that was the whole reason I enrolled in this unit does get cancelled, I'm so dropping the unit, even though I spent $15 on the course reader this morning.

Well, maybe not. The subject matter is interesting, just... blah. I didn't sleep spectacularly well last night or the night before, so I'm tired and distracted and her slides of quotations are in Comic Sans MS. COMIC. SANS. MS. In a serious and important history lecture. My anonymous comment card at the end of the universe will say "Using the font Comic Sans MS seriously undercuts your academic credibility and is a bothersome distraction from the course material."

Anyway, enough bitching about my lecture.

Hanging out in UniSFA half the day was very reminiscent of old times, despite the hordes of people I'd never met before coming by. Most of them seemed very nice. Fresher.Michael reminded me in ways it's hard to place of

maelstrm. Sort of similar demeanour, without the sense of humour - which could very well be just a product of newness and unfamiliarity of surroundings. He spent most of his time there reading. (He likes epic fantasy.)

(Apologies to those of you who don't know

maelstrm.)

I would browse the internet, but I don't know how to set up my SNAP VPN. Blah.

At some point this year, clearly, I should sit in the back and play WoW during a lecture, just because I can. (Although WoW nukes hell out of my battery life, funnily enough...)

I really should give her some kind of points for launching straight into lecturing instead of spending twenty minutes repeating the same administrative crap that anyone who's had one university class, ever, at all, does not need to hear, except she's too monotone a speaker. It's like she's trying to correct for Italian cadences, because she occasionally half-slips into them and then stops herself, and in doing so has gone too monotone, because she doesn't have native English-speaker cadences. Everybody knows you're Italian, lady, because you told us you were when you introduced yourself, let your natural Romance-language styles flow. You'll sound better for it.

She's announcing next week's film, and it's quarter to four, awesome.

... sooo, due to various people screwing up - none of them, I suspect, the lecturer - my unit may not be As Advertised. This is the face of an irked Sami. I'm now waiting outside the SISO office to try and get connecting to the internet via SNAP to work, because apparently I'm not doing it right, but SISO is right here (since I'm in the Reid) and I even know people there. Although Bear isn't there, Stuart and Reaps are.

Hopefully my battery lasts that long...

All fixed now.

Someone just behind me was asking at the information desk about speaking to the "head librarian" or "whoever's in charge... the boss." I'm always suspicious of that kind of request. When it's made of me, I always ask what they want to speak to them about, because people in charge of things tend to have stuff to do, and often people who want to speak to them but don't actually know who they are want to speak to them because they're whiny bitches.

Anyway, I need to drag myself off to a bus.

Current Music: Sendai Kamotsu - Risque Santa Monica~2toshi ato no saipan

Entry tags:

food issues,
uni

I'm gonna trade this life for fortune and fame, I even cut my hair and changed my name...

Tonight I am cooking. With uni starting Monday, I want healthy packable snacks, so I have a pile of ingredients to combine into just that.

Planned varieties:

- chicken sausages (er, slightly burnt, fortunately neither

velithya nor I is particularly picky about that)
- beef, broccoli, spring onion and pineapple in honey-soy sauce
- chopped chicken sausages with spring onion and broccoli and pineapple (I like pineapple)

Along with apples and bread rolls, I should be able to keep myself stocked with healthy food to take to uni with me.

Slightly unfortunately, I'm often bad at judging the volume of ingredients once combined, but there should be enough containers. It helps that I bought some new boxes today - small ones, appropriate for Sami-snacks. (The endocrinologist endorsed the Frequent But Healthy Snacking plan until further information is available, hence aiming for broccoli-heavy things, since broccoli is very good for you and I'm okay with eating it.)

Props on all this must go to Chas, since he cut up the broccoli and spring onion for me, because he awesome.

I have a line of little boxes, all carefully filled but with their lids off so they can cool before I seal them up. I also bought some plastic cutlery so I can have cutlery to take that it's okay if it gets lost/destroyed.

I have yet to find an appropriate backpack (i.e. one that can comfortably and securely hold a 17" widescreen laptop - they're all designed for 15" or less, it seems), so it looks like I'm going to have to go to uni with two bags, which is kind of annoying, but I can handle it. The important thing is to stay on top of everything, including making sure I have food (it's not that easy to get healthy gluten-free food on campus, and it's expensive), and am keeping up with my classes, and everything will be okay.

It will. Especially since if I'm lucky I won't be battling my brain as much, because I'm seeing the psychiatrist on Wednesday.

Current Location: Destiny; kitchen table
Current Music: Chas and Dave playing Left For Dead

Entry tags:

brain ferrets,
uni

Peter Piper Picked A Peck Of Pickled Peppers

Today has been a day of quite good news. I'm even going to make a stab at catching up on some LJ (although I'm a week-ish behind on it, so there'll probably be stuff I'll miss).

I had an appointment with an endocrinologist regarding this hypoglycaemia crap - unsurprisingly, that resulted in: "Hmm. Get these three zillion tests done, then we'll talk again." The good news actually came in before that.

By a combination of some outstandingly good luck in timing and the persuasive efforts of my psychologist, my psychiatrist appointment for addressing issues of ADD has been moved from mid-May to...

*drumroll*

Wednesday.

Wednesday, people. That's TWO AND A HALF MONTHS of coping without even getting near a psychiatrist I don't have to deal with.

*returns from getting distracted by tabbing out to read a webcomic*

Ahem. Time was, I would have mentioned something like that with the rider, "I don't have ADD, I swear." As it turns out, I would be lying, but it makes things make so much more sense.

*gets distracted again*

ANYWAY LJ ENTRY.

Uni starts Monday. Found out today that there are "some perplexities" about how my 12-point unit can be run; the project may be offered in second semester, which would be rather annoying. The software involved is Adobe Flash, which, I could do worse than learning to use Flash, I guess.

Other stuff that has happened today is neither particularly interesting to most people who'd read this and not something to discuss in a public post, so! I might end it here. Especially since I'm having trouble staying in this window for more than one sentence at a time. (My focus issues are worse when I'm tired/have had a busy day, and having spent part of it actively doing stuff related to my focus issues I'm really freaking aware of them.)

Entry tags:

brain ferrets,
uni

Sometimes I succeed at life

I am awesome.

Today I:

- made an appointment to see a psychiatrist in re: ADD, and also begged a place on the cancellations list, since the appointment I got is in May
- updated my SmartRider information, address, contact details, and emergency contact information with UWA
- called the Co-Op Bookshop and inquired about course readers/textbook information for History, and discovering they had no information...
- e-mailed the lecturer to ask, as in order to thrive I need to get into the reading ASAP, and also explaining that due to chronic pain caused by injury, the Multimedia Centre computers are likely to be difficult for me to use, and asked about the software required with a view to installing it on my own computer, which I can use in a setup suitable for my needs

Since the ADD issue isn't going to be resolved that soon, I'm looking to coping strategies. The big difference it's making, really, is that instead of resolving that this time I'm going to "work really hard", like I've always done before, and going on to struggle through the semester and get grades I'm a bit disappointed with, I'm acknowledging that I do, in fact, have a legitimate learning disability, and so my approach shouldn't be to try and push through my focus issues by sheer force of will but rather to come up with strategies to work around them.

I know all this probably doesn't seem like a lot, but factoring in my problems with pretty much everything lately, it really does feel like an achievement.