13 Days of 2013
13/01/2013 10:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
izmeinaThe first two weeks of the bright shiny new year are over. The weather has been seriously sucky from even before the year started with only four decent days for doing useful stuff rather than just moping about and melting
Finally slinked outside to plant the bags of seeds that have been sitting for weeks patiently waiting. There’s supposed to be rain on the way.
The latest stash was a mix of buckwheat, alfalfa, mustard and fenugreek. Its sole purpose is to grow quickly in order to cover the soil and protect it from the big yellow microwave in the sky
So much of the ground has been nuked due to the recent weeks of sizzling sunshine. Aside from the sweet potatoes which are the only weeds that thrive in this weather, so much other stuff is looking seriously sad and shriveled.
The only consolation is that the well established weeds such as the grape vine, fig and woolly bush trees are now big enough to be able to look after themselves and to provide much needed shade and nibblies for the visiting birds.
The tiny mind game of tossing ten things is slowly producing results. It’s a sneaky way of getting past the inner beast who likes to sabotage any plans to make things better.
Decided to be a good serpent this evening and finally catch up on some of the online courses. Now I can understand what all the folks on the discussion forms were complaining about. After three weeks of watching a jolly happy and enthusiastic professor who pulls funny faces and obviously loves his little patch of logic, we now have a boring as bat shit grumpy guy who with just one sentence could cure the nation of insomnia.
But we cannot really complain when the course costs nothing at all except time. Still trying to work out what kind of business model can offer university level online education for free to students and somehow manage to make a profit. Even if the teachers offer their services for free, the internet structure required to manage 100,000 plus students for just one course must be quite costly
Lucky I’ve already come across the same material in a previous course. This was another twinkle eyed professor of mathematics with a gorgeous Scottish accent called Keith Devlin. Liked his stuff so much even went and got one of his books over in Amazon. It’s still in its bubble wrap due to the temptation of other distractions such as “The Idiot’s Guide to Zombies” and “This Machine Kills Secrets” Nothing like a deadline for getting stuff done and having to return those to the library by the end of this week was a pretty good incentive to finish reading
Still on the scrounge for a decent diary than won’t fall to pieces half way through the year. Until then will be using a spiral bound student diary with a week to a page. There’s less room for writing in every single silver sickle spent per day. But since I’m supposed to be spending lots less maybe that is not such a bad thing. So far this year scored four "Buy Nothing" days but the long term average is more like 25% rather than this outlier sample way up at 30%
Last year the better quality diaries were already 50% off in the very first week of January. Now two weeks have gone and no one seems to have taken off a single cent. Such mean shop keepers.
The culture vulture season will be starting soon with both the Fringe and the main arts festival in full swing for February. Lucky there’s quite a few freebies - especially the writers’ festival and this time will be able to attend weekend events.
Got only two guilt free weeks left of slacking off on the job front. After all, you cannot be properly called a dole bludger if you are not actually claiming the dole but living on old nest eggs. But as of the end of the month will be officially unemployed and will have to actually do some serious searching for paid work. And if no one wants to employ a fat frumpy serpent on the other side of forty will just have to find some greenie good cause happy to have volunteers.
Just as well I know only need 15 hours per week to get by since banishing the house goblins. But the really scary thing is having had a whole three months off and having done rather little with it. A good bit of that was spent just getting over the whole drama of the old day job but it’s all ancient history now since the stroke of midnight on Monday 31st December last year
So there’s no excuse not to be polishing the fridge condensers, counting the peppercorns in the pepper mill, finishing Coursera Quizzes before they have even been posted, revising and editing three nanowrimo novels and the grand procrastination project of the century - that DIY deck of tarot cards
A big fat new year needs a big fat new project (and a skinny slinky serpent)
Finally slinked outside to plant the bags of seeds that have been sitting for weeks patiently waiting. There’s supposed to be rain on the way.
The latest stash was a mix of buckwheat, alfalfa, mustard and fenugreek. Its sole purpose is to grow quickly in order to cover the soil and protect it from the big yellow microwave in the sky
So much of the ground has been nuked due to the recent weeks of sizzling sunshine. Aside from the sweet potatoes which are the only weeds that thrive in this weather, so much other stuff is looking seriously sad and shriveled.
The only consolation is that the well established weeds such as the grape vine, fig and woolly bush trees are now big enough to be able to look after themselves and to provide much needed shade and nibblies for the visiting birds.
The tiny mind game of tossing ten things is slowly producing results. It’s a sneaky way of getting past the inner beast who likes to sabotage any plans to make things better.
Decided to be a good serpent this evening and finally catch up on some of the online courses. Now I can understand what all the folks on the discussion forms were complaining about. After three weeks of watching a jolly happy and enthusiastic professor who pulls funny faces and obviously loves his little patch of logic, we now have a boring as bat shit grumpy guy who with just one sentence could cure the nation of insomnia.
But we cannot really complain when the course costs nothing at all except time. Still trying to work out what kind of business model can offer university level online education for free to students and somehow manage to make a profit. Even if the teachers offer their services for free, the internet structure required to manage 100,000 plus students for just one course must be quite costly
Lucky I’ve already come across the same material in a previous course. This was another twinkle eyed professor of mathematics with a gorgeous Scottish accent called Keith Devlin. Liked his stuff so much even went and got one of his books over in Amazon. It’s still in its bubble wrap due to the temptation of other distractions such as “The Idiot’s Guide to Zombies” and “This Machine Kills Secrets” Nothing like a deadline for getting stuff done and having to return those to the library by the end of this week was a pretty good incentive to finish reading
Still on the scrounge for a decent diary than won’t fall to pieces half way through the year. Until then will be using a spiral bound student diary with a week to a page. There’s less room for writing in every single silver sickle spent per day. But since I’m supposed to be spending lots less maybe that is not such a bad thing. So far this year scored four "Buy Nothing" days but the long term average is more like 25% rather than this outlier sample way up at 30%
Last year the better quality diaries were already 50% off in the very first week of January. Now two weeks have gone and no one seems to have taken off a single cent. Such mean shop keepers.
The culture vulture season will be starting soon with both the Fringe and the main arts festival in full swing for February. Lucky there’s quite a few freebies - especially the writers’ festival and this time will be able to attend weekend events.
Got only two guilt free weeks left of slacking off on the job front. After all, you cannot be properly called a dole bludger if you are not actually claiming the dole but living on old nest eggs. But as of the end of the month will be officially unemployed and will have to actually do some serious searching for paid work. And if no one wants to employ a fat frumpy serpent on the other side of forty will just have to find some greenie good cause happy to have volunteers.
Just as well I know only need 15 hours per week to get by since banishing the house goblins. But the really scary thing is having had a whole three months off and having done rather little with it. A good bit of that was spent just getting over the whole drama of the old day job but it’s all ancient history now since the stroke of midnight on Monday 31st December last year
So there’s no excuse not to be polishing the fridge condensers, counting the peppercorns in the pepper mill, finishing Coursera Quizzes before they have even been posted, revising and editing three nanowrimo novels and the grand procrastination project of the century - that DIY deck of tarot cards
A big fat new year needs a big fat new project (and a skinny slinky serpent)
