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January 16th, 2007
02:34 pm - indoor water feature/torture
I'm sitting working on PhD things at my table, whilst being serenaded by the constant dripping of water falling through my kitchen ceiling onto the floor...this is not a good thing.
Also not a good thing is that the flat above me is currently empty, so I seem unable to contact anyone who may be able to assess whether the leak is a) coming from there, and b) stoppable.
The ONLY thing keeping me sane is the knowledge that upon finishing work this evening, I can treat myself to another few episodes from Season Two of Battlestar Galactica, assuming of course, that I've not had to escape in some sort of makeshift boat affair, possibly constructed from my research materials/kitchen utensils.
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November 17th, 2006
03:38 pm - boring EMO academic wank pt. 2
In fact maybe I should have just posted this, which as ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) xxxlibris and I agreed earlier this week, just about sums it all up...
The bunny school of writing
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03:26 pm - boring EMO academic wank
I've managed to claw out about 1000 words from my head so far today, which is all i've manage to get written in the last two weeks. I feel like the last remaining pieces of my sense of humour may also have come out with the words, as I ain't smiliing about it.
If anyone hears me talking about becoming an academic on the other side of this hell, you have full permission to dip me in Chris Claremont's sweat and throw me to the fatbeards.
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October 25th, 2006
02:40 pm - Sweet respite....and not such a shit academic.
I've just emailed off the first draft of the piece of research work that has been hanging over my head ever since I got paid ridculous sums of money to do it in March. I can't tell you what a relief that is!!!
Clearly I know have the scary task of picking up my PhD and trying to knock that off in the next three months or so....which I already know will be completely impossible, however, for now I shall bask in the warm feeling of being able to not think about, or feel guilty about, this other work.
Current Mood: happy, happy! joy, joy!
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September 28th, 2006
11:14 am - Let's go fly a kite,,,,
I managed to pull a muscle in my back last night at work, and consequently could not find any position comfortable enough to sleep in, nor did I have any pain killers in the house, so no sleep whatsoever.
Popped a couple of ibuprofen and codeine on the way to work today and now as high as a kite, trying to keep it together enough to sell tickets, run box office etc...
I want to crawl under my desk and sleep.
Zzzzzzz.
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September 17th, 2006
12:22 am
A very last minute call from a friend in London with a spare ticket for the free Scissor Sisters gig in Trafalgar Square had me hopping on a train to London faster than you could say Babby Daddy....and they Rocked. My. World. Sadly not quite enough cash or stamina to go on to Duckie, which was I am told where the band was planning to end up later tonight...instead the last train back to Brighton....happy and content however.
And I still get to see them at Wembley in November too!! Hurrah.
Nice to bump into those Barbeloids that I did too...sorry to miss those that I didn't.
Zzzzzzzzz.
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September 12th, 2006
10:41 am - How not to be woken up in the morning...
...by your new neighbour drilling holes into the other side of the wall next to your bed. At head height. At 8am.
*groans*
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August 25th, 2006
06:44 pm - In more encouraging news...
I managed, largely thanks to the support of xxxlibris to sit in Sussex Uni library and do several hours of work today.
It appears removing the possibility of using the inernet/cleaning my flat/licking out my wheelie bin is conducive to more work and greater concentration.
*very tentative sigh of relief*
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06:32 pm - bugger.
I've just turned up to work at the theatre for a 6 hour evening shift and think I may have left the oven on at home...I'm sure these sorts of things are not supposed to happen in real life.
Less funny is the fact that i'm now going to have to go back to my flat after work at about 11.30pm, and then schlep all the way back over to the other side of town to my mother's house where i'm staying currently to feed the cat...gah.
I'm so stupid.
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August 23rd, 2006
11:00 pm - Meh.
And the question is: Why am I doing this PhD again?
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August 22nd, 2006
02:18 pm - Yiddish Word of the Week...
FERCOCKT - "All Fucked up"
As in: "My week is already fercockt, and it's only Tuesday."
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August 15th, 2006
12:31 pm - Goy Vey!
Since moving into my mother's house my Jewish genes seem to have kicked into high gear...I was here no longer than about an hour before I was whipping up borscht in the kitchen and eating viennas from Blooms. For those people that know me IRL this may not seem so strange....but I always find it interesting that despite not being brought up with any of the religious aspects of Judaism at all, and only really being exposed to the very cultural sides (the food, the humour, the family guilt issues) how much I can retreat to the stereotype of a Jewish mother without even trying.
Let's examine the checklist:
Has an uncontrollable urge to feed people constantly? - check.
Can make a mean chicken matzo soup/chopped liver/gefilte fish? - check.
Family gatherings reminiscent of a bad Woody Allen film? - check.
Staying with the Woody Allen theme....when ill, watches only Woody Allen films and makes chicken soup? - check.
When telling a story, has to describe the food eaten first and foremost, however tangential to the story? - check.
Likes a good Yiddish insult? - check.
Almost became a doctor, like a good jewish boy should? - check.
There is no escaping it....I am going to be Olympia Dukakis/Joan Rivers when I am 60.
For those that are interested,( a brief family history behind the cut )
So the strange thing is, that despite not really having been brought up to be indoctrinated with any religion, I clearly have absorbed a lot of the more cultural aspects, and whilst of course Jewish humour, sayings and food have been assimilated into the broader western culture, I definitely have my yenta tendencies...perhaps its a double jewish/gay whammy combo?!?
So this very long winded entry has led me to two places. The first is to ask whether anyone else has similar experiences of reverting to familial cultural stereotypes without even realising that you had them in you??
And secondly, I think my LJ is finally ready for Yiddish word/phrase of the week, a new weekly series of Yiddishness. Oi vey I hear you all cry!
So in honour of my lovely dental surgery John Merrick face, this week's will be an insult, one of my grandmother's favourites too.
A shtik fleish mit tzvei eigen
Which translated means you are telling someone they look like 'a piece of meat with two eyes'.
Repeat after me now.......
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10:47 am - Dental Damnation.....
I had dental surgery yesterday under a local anaesthetic. The whole thing was not pleasant, and after they injected the anaesthetic into my palette I could feel myself start to have a panic attack..thankfully I managed to calm myself down and get through the hour long procedure without flipping out whilst they had a drill in my mouth or something.
I now have about 6 stitches in my upper gum, my upper lip is swollen and I can't smile....bah.
I looked like something from a horror movie yesterday all bloody mouthed, today I just feel like it...or perhaps the Elephant man....even though a cursory glance in the mirror tells me otherwise, weird how your sense of perspective is totally off when you have a swollen face/mouth...thank god for prescription painkillers and the massive amount of stuff i've downloaded to pass the time today (Justice League Unlimited Seasons 1-5, Angel Season 5, Transformers the Movie (1986)).
I'm cat sitting at my mother's at the moment too....but I'll get to the vats of melted chocolate descriptions later, as today they are so out of the realms of enjoyment for me...she really did marry Willy Wonka though.
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August 7th, 2006
09:42 pm - *ouch*
Well just about survived my first Brighton Pride intact...well actually I sort of didn't, as I managed to make such a night of the Friday, which went straight on through into Saturday, the Parade and the Park, that i'd crashed out by 8.30pm on the Saturday evening. Still the whole event was great, much better than the London thing, as smaller, friendlier, and so lovely to see and bump into so many of the lovely people I've met down here since arriving 9 months ago. Yesterday was spent in recovery, which largely consisted of playing computer games, baking cakes and making jam....peach and amaretto....mmmmm.
I now have my 14 year old brother staying with me for the week, which is great and a bit weird in equal parts. Great because I love the fact that I can do this, and offer him a holiday away from the wilds of nowhere in Wales, and weird because, well, what do you do with him?!?! I'm quite enjoying seeing Brighton through a 14 year old's eyes though....it's one quite weird place when you look at it that way...
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August 1st, 2006
10:48 am - through a child's eyes...
A snippet of a conversation between two five year old boys at the bus stop this morning:
Boy One: "and Yoda stabs him in the chest!"
Boy Two: "I'd chop his head off..."
Boy One: "But you can't....he's too small!"
Boy Two: "Do you think Yoda is a midget?"
Boy One: "Yeah, and if I was a midget, that's what i'd do too..."
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July 21st, 2006
05:21 pm - *sob*
I'm considering thing the anti-to-do list:
Things I have done this week which have not been my PhD, or research job:
Monday:
am/pm: A lovely four hour hike in Friston Forest and through to the coast as Cuckmere Haven for a post hike swim.
eve: work at theatre
Tuesday:
all day: London to see friends A and R's new twins who were born on Saturday. Cue much squeeeing.
Wednesday:
am/pm: Theatre work
eve: sleep, due to only getting an hour in the ridiculous heat the night before.
Thursday:
am/pm: Theatre work, followed by visit to comic shop, home to read comics
eve: started to do some work only to be distracted by friend D's 30th birthday, BBQ in back garden, followed by champagne in the hot tub they've had installed for the party on sat.
Fri:
am: swimming
pm: baking a cake for said friend's birthday party tomorrow...currently covered in chocolate
Do you see all the work i've achieved...do you?!?!
I need help.
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February 15th, 2006
February 14th, 2006
12:46 pm - Cold Comfort
Today I am full of cold....or maybe bird flu. As yet undecided.
In honour of which, here are six fun facts for you:
1. Colds make you fat.
Yes, high fatty convenience foods, lack of exercise, and a apathy toward cooking proper meals are possibly nothing to do with 'Teh Obesity Epidemic!11!' sweeping the western world. The fact that the sold has been traced back as far as the Egyptians, who by all accounts were not the most rubenesque of cultures, seems not to have weight here.
2. When looked at under a microscope, the common cold looks like this.
It is normally about 20 nanometres in diameter.
3. Skunk Oil was a common treatment in ye olden days for the cold, either on it's own or, a la Mary Poppins, on a spoonful of sugar.
A mixture of chilli pepper, honey and tobacco was an old Aztec treatment of the cold.
4. Never borrow a doctor's mobile phone.
However someone enterprising person has already made a mobile phone charger with sterilizer.
5. I went to the chemists and they sold me this as a precautionary measure.
6. I may have made a couple of these up.
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February 13th, 2006
02:36 pm - Things I have learnt since waking up this morning. Part One in an ongoing series.
Online gamers who identify as gay are called 'gaymers' and Gay Pride marches have taken place within the World of Warcraft world.
As if we're done fighting for acceptance and recognition in this reality. Who knew?
[EDIT: And, as is evident, another thing I have learnt is that I am failing to read everything on Barbelith I may be interested in atm *sighs*]
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February 8th, 2006
01:42 pm - Green swedes vs. GM swedes
I was pleasantly suprised by this article on Sweden's future energy policy. They are trying to be completely switched over to renewable enrgy sources within 15 years, and are not likely to take the same route that we, and the US appear to be taking (if only rhetorically at present) of trying to convince their electorate that nuclear power is THE ONLY solution to combat climate change which is quite frankly a load of old tosh. So big round of applause for the Swedes.
But, for every good bit of news there has to be a bad (or often several bad) and so less impressed by the WTO ruling in favour of the US whinging that the EU was blocking a market for GM products. So despite the overwhelming public opinion in most EU member states landing firmly on the side of 'no thanks to GM', we're going to get them anyway. On can only hope that the labelling rules are subsequently tightened so that we as EU consumers still actually get some consumer choice in terms of deciding what we buy to eat. Hopefully this way the market opportunity over here will still be small.
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