jadesfire

Happy Ada Lovelace Day! Head over to the website here and check out some of the awesome women in technology and science. I haven't had much of a chance to do proper reading around yet, but I heard Maggie Aderin-Pocock on Desert Island Discs a few weeks ago and was instantly smitten. She's an astronomer, an instrument maker and a communicator (brilliant article by her here) as well as sounding like an all-round lovely person. If I get a chance later on, I'll add her to the map on the Finding Ada website :)

Otherwise, it's another dull, grey morning here, which is making me long for spring to actually get going. On the other hand, one of the consequences of that will be the clocks going forward this weekend, and I'm not that keen to lose an hour's sleep :S

I've been trying to work out if I haven't been posting because I've got nothing to say, or if it's because I've got too much to say and can't work out how to cram it all into one post. You know what it's like when your head is all full, and everything gets mangled when you try to write it down?

So what *have* I been doing?( Going to talks )

( Going for walks )

Also, we discovered ( the amazing power of furniture )

One slightly disconcerting note is that I'm more or less up to date at work. I mean, I have odds and ends that I'm mopping up, but if I can concentrate today, by 7pm when I leave here, I'll have done...well. Everything. I'm starting to get nervous about what I've forgotten.

Fortunately I have lots of other things to keep me going, and most awesomely of all, I've been writing. My inspiration dried up completely about this time last year, and although I've put out dribs and drabs since then, the urge to write went away almost completely. Ironically, since starting to crochet last November, I've found the urge returning (oh, get your minds out of the gutter :P) and have three or four WIPs that I don't actively hate right now. \o/ The relief is incredible, and at this rate, I should have my help_haiti fic done soon.

Which reminds me, please could someone point me in the direction of good White Collar fic? I'll take OT3 but, as usual, would prefer Gen. I'm gradually reading my way through the AO3 collection, which is pretty good, but would love to find some proper 'caper' stories or episode-style fic. Yeah, yeah, I know, I've lit the landing lights for the flying pigs already...

What about the rest of you? Everyone okay out there?

Could whoever needs to put 50p in the meter to get spring going please do so? The snow is not welcome this morning, mostly because I think I pulled something in my side trying not to slip over on the pavement. Ow.

I'll get to comments and emails later today, I promise, but it's been a real rollercoaster of a week, and I'm not feeling as coherent as I could be. The short version is that we viewed, and eventually had an offer accepted on a flat, but the situation has become incredibly complicated for reasons that don't need exploring at this juncture, and the whole thing is making my head hurt horribly. Hopefully it's all in a good cause, but still. I am not equipped to deal with this!

Work sent me on a course yesterday, which was interesting up to a point, that point being when the trainer showed that he'd gone to the Sybil Fawlty* school of information provision. I never would have guessed that that button labelled "X" did "X"**. Thank you for telling me that.

Otherwise, things continue onwards, as they tend to. I'm crocheting like a fiend, writing my fingers off when I can (and that feels so good I can't begin to tell you), contemplating submitting something somewhere (*gulp* No, no details, I'll let you know when I can), planning on pitching a paper for a conference (*more gulping*) and generally working through my two giant lists of doom. No, really, that's what I've headed them. One is the Big Giant List of Doom and the other is Son of Big Giant List of Doom: The Revenge.

Look, my work can be dull some days, okay?

Hope everyone in LJ-land is coping with February. Personally, I can't wait for Sunday to be over with so that I can get all the hearts off of the craft blogs I follow. Valentines seemed to start in mid-January this year...


*From Basil The Rat: Next contestant - Sybil Fawlty from Torquay. Special subject - the bleedin' obvious.

**The button wasn't actually labelled "X". The course would have been much cooler if it had been.

Despite sleeping extremely badly last night - which I'm putting down to heat and allergies - I'm feeling much better this morning than I did yesterday. Not quite back to myself, but definitely on the way, especially since washing my hair is always theraputic, even if it does need a cut.

Huge thanks to everyone who thought good thoughts etc about the STUFF I was talking about last week. Nothing's going to happen on that front until at least July, but we have good news to be going on with. Work is also still going well, and I'm starting to pick up and put right all the mistakes I made earlier this year when I was not quite as on top of things. I like being good at my job, and it's definitely something with lots of room for improvement!

I'm also encouraged because while the beginning of my tardis_bigbang story sucks like a straw, the final 3rd is actually not too bad. Since I do my best writing under extreme time-pressure, that's not really surprising, I guess, but it's given me hope for finishing by the weekend. My spn_summergen prompts are perfect for me and I feel like my brain is starting to come back online and wanting to do stuff.

Speaking of which, today's list looks long, but most of these are small jobs:

~ Listen to podtour
~ Record podtour
~ Go through flagged messages
~ Send stamp to Dawson
~ Send book to Houtschild
~ Covers to BR
~ Update Georgia list
~ Create East Asia fund
~ Untangle Brill invoices
~ Copy serial invoices
~ Sort order folder

~ Find ALNM tickets
~ Choose Red Letter Day
~ BAU Big Bang admin
~ Tidy new story list
~ Buy shampoo, anti-histamines, lunch Shampoo, conditioner, drugs, fruit, paper and roll achieved for under £8. Result!

Did you miss me? Did you? Considering I only had to skip=80 to catch up with everyone, I'm thinking that there wasn't anyone around to miss me! But at least you left the place standing, so that's something.

The exhibition was a bit of a wash-out in the morning, but got interesting in the afternoon. If you've never seen Turning the Pages then open that link in another tab NOW so that you can explore. Seriously, I can't think of a single person around here who wouldn't enjoy it, and the things they're planning to add next year? Wow. This is as close as most of us are ever going to get to seeing a Leonardo da Vinci notebook or illuminated Haggadah up close. Just incredible.

My biggest disappointment of the day was not managing to get one of the free stuffed pigs that the British Library stand were giving away. Since I'd told my husband I'd get him one, I popped into John Lewis in the evening and bought him one. It has incredibly long legs and weighted feet so that it stands up! I got so distracted/excited by this, that I forgot I'd already bought my work secret santa present in M&S and bought a second one in JL *facepalm* All this shopping goes straight to my head.

Of course, going to the JL website (to try to find you a pig picture), I've just seen that they have a 20% off sale on Radley bags until Saturday. I love Radley bags *whimpers*

Otherwise, things about me take the usual list form:

- I went to the doctor this morning for other things, but also because I appeared to be growing scales on my face. You can't see them unless you look really hard, but they've been a little bit itchy, and more than a little disconcerting. Apparently it's eczema (which I guess I should learn to spell), which isn't a huge surprise, but it does mean that a)it's going to be tricky to get rid of and b)there's no telling when it will come and go. Grrr.

- My manager and I are being taken out to lunch by a book supplier today. My first business lunch!

- I have further proof that my flist is the awesomest thing in the history of awesome, since crystalshard sent me a beautiful pair of sparkly earrings and a silky jewellery roll. Thank you! They're lovely!

- I had dinner with an old, old friend last night, and it was brilliant. We've been through a lot together, but lost touch a little, and it's liking meeting her all over again. I think we like each other even better this time round, and I feel as though I'm getting a little piece of my past back.

- I really, really need to do the Christmas shopping thing. Meep!

- My sga_santa story collapsed. Again. While my Yuletide one is getting sorted, thanks to some timely intervention from the flist (thanks, guys!), I don't seem to be able to get the SGA one sorted in my head. And with miss_zedem not able to get on Yahoo much either, I feel like I'm missing the other half of my brain, and it's the half that has the good ideas... I'll think of something, but I'm at the flail stage where I'm convinced I just need to give up. That's not going to happen, but this bit's always a struggle. Worth it, but a struggle. At least part of the problem is my usual 'shape' issue. ( Cut for odder-than-usual writer-babble )

As I think I've already said, I'm not really doing holiday cards this year - if you put a wishlist up, or I already have your address, and I manage to get organised enough, I hope to send you something, but I'm not doing a big shout-out for addresses yet. This is because I will be doing one in January for Morocco postcards, and if I attempt to do both, I might just bankrupt myself buying stamps. But I've skimmed everyone's wishlists, and do hope to make a post office trip soon...

Otherwise, things I want to do today/tomorrow apart from work-type-stuff:
( Read more... )

Do I owe anyone anything? I get the feeling I do but can't quite remember. Please yell at me if I've forgotten (at jadesfire2808[at]gmail.com if you don't want to embarrass me in public ;)).

Ooh - fajrdrako, did you get my email? Gmail's been erratic lately, so just checking.

How's everyone doing? Good days yesterday? What did you get up to without me?

I haven't done a proper 'so, how are you all' post in a while, and since I had a good weekend, I felt the need to share.

In list form, of course. Lists are good.

1. ( Saturday shopping in style )

2. ( Back in the real world )

3. ( And in my imaginary world )

4. ( And when I'm not doing all of that )

ETA 5: Today's face_of_joe picture is making me sporfle. Image is from S4, and potentially spoilerific. The caption is brilliant and potentially giggle-inducing.

So. That's me, more or less. How's everyone else?

I hope everyone will forgive my current flakiness, but I am *reading* my flist to keep up with you guys, even if I can't get to comment on everything. Hopefully normal service will be resumed next week, especially since I can get wi-fi in the staff room!

It's still going fine, although my brain is really, really tired now. I have some time on the main desk today, where I get to pretend to know what I'm talking about. No change there then. I'm also working til 7 which makes it a long day with even less chance that I'll get to chat to people tonight. This makes me sad, but keep my seat warm, I'm coming back!

I also have 2 fics to write - one for Sunday, one for Tuesday - one plot bunny and the contents of miss_zedem's brain. That should probably do me, assuming I find time to write it considering we're in Sheffield Friday night/Saturday. I'm not flailing yet. You'll know when I am...

How is everyone? Having a good week? Hopefully I'll get to comments today - I miss you guys!

My new job starts in...*checks clock*...1hr 45mins. General busyness means that I haven't been around as much as I would have liked to have been, and since there's no let up in the foreseeable future, I'm liable to turn into a hermit for the next few weeks. There's a picspam lurking on my camera, but I couldn't find the time to post it - maybe tonight if my brain survives the day.

I have to admit that my biggest fear of the day is so many new names! I'm really, really terrible at names when I'm not trying to learn new procedures and subjects. When I'm distracted like that, I think my only chance is to scribble things in the back of my notebook and hope.

Anyway, I'm wearing my posh new skirt that I got for my birthday, the posh new jacket that I picked up on a charity shop, I have a Moleskin notebook and an MP3 player. I'd say I have my brain but we all know that's an exaggeration.

*deep breath*

I think I'm ready.

*wibbles*