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Dusting the Vaults
20/02/2004 10:29 pmIzzie has been dusting the virtual vaults and casting the green light in some dark corners of Cyberia.
Monday 1st March we are back in the service of the goblins and having a mere 4mb of the Izzzie ration of 50mb remaining on the Ministry H drive was rather risky.
Was quite amazed at how quickly the odd wave of the Izzie wand got the free space up to 22mb.
After tossing a few things in the yahoo briefcase, there may even be room for more wicked web pages. On the subject of wickedness - looks like Izzie has managed to insinuate herself into the inner spiral. A big squishy serpentine thanks to Nichers for inviting Iz into her den of Darkness :)
Three whole months Izzie had to learn Dreamweaver and other web spells but was too busy lurking in the Dungeons and Secret Diary Land. and did pretty much zilch.
Of course the whole point of this exercise is to find an excuse to avoid doing the same sort of essential spring cleaning in the Izzie lair.
Been a strange day. Iz has been hostage lately to rampaging hormones. Have been irritable and cranky since Wednesday evening when we had that stinking weather and the nasty creepy crawlies to contend with at St Salazars.
After a sizzling stinking sticky 41.5 on Tuesday followed by a 39 something the following day and the temperature at night never dropping below 27 - with the resultant lack of sleep lately, Iz well and truly had steam coming out of her ears. I don't mind heat too much but just hate humidity. You will never ever catch Iz on holidays in Singapore or Bali. Was in Malaysia once and never again. How half the humans on the planet manage to live in such stinking climates never ceases to amaze this serpent.
And today was being really silly. Got up at 5.30 am and never had proper munchies until 12 ish. Iz got herself some sushi with nuclear horseradish. Evil green stuff.
Last week I checked the owlery to discover that Iz was on the speaking list for the Friday morning club. Not just any old four minute speech on some topic or other but a fifteen minute workshop or tutorial! And that was for today! Iz was utterly clueless. What on earth can I amuse these folks with for 15 minutes or so. The Ministry would certainly not approve of demonstrations of the unforgivable curses - assuming Iz would not end up making an absolute fool of herself by not getting the desired results. Practise makes perfect and proper planning prevents piss poor performance.
I settled instead for explaining the esoteric art of drawing mind maps. Started off well - had handouts, colored whiteboard markers and stuff but it was not a good idea to decide to make one up on the spot instead of copying a premade one from the Izzie collection. So after what seemed like ages, I felt that I was running out of steam and asked how much time was left. Nine minutes! Nine whole minutes. So Iz admitted defeat and a few folks did impromptu speeches with the time left over.
We have actually had people forget their speech, stand there for ages trying to remember it and then burst into tears. It is pretty awkward but the whole purpose of the group is to learn how to do this sort of stuff in a safe setting so we can acquire our learning experiences (ie stuff ups)there and not out in the big bad world. There are some things that can only be learned by doing and speaking in public is definitely one of them.
Even when you know stuff fairly well, or think you do - getting up there and explaining it is pretty damned difficult. Iz cannot help but be amazed at teachers who have to do this sort of thing all day five days a week. I mean if you do a good job then there is a pretty good chance that lots and lots of time went into preparation. I guess all the students ever see is the tip of the iceberg and the better you prepare the easier you make it all look.
But funny thing, it was a laugh and I did not spend the rest of the day beating up on myself for stuffing up. It would have served no purpose at all. Just hope that it's a long long time before the Izzie name gets pulled out of the bag for that particular exercise again. The only thing worse is having to chair a meeting. Now that is really exhausting and demanding.
Not that long ago, the Izzie attitude would have been infinitely less forgiving.
Was ever so amused then to read in today's paper about a 23 year old student with the same name as some famous economics professor being approached by 2 agents to do an all expenses paid speaking tour in Beijing. The cheeky bugger accepted the offer and bluffed his way for quite a few days. But in the end it all got too much -especially when the audience turned out to be graduate students and he ended up doing a runner. But you got to admire him in some ways. The real professor when he found out said that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
So apart from the mind map book, Izzie has been busy listening to "Prisoner of Azkaban" on CD. Mr Stephen Fry has the most irritating and annoying posh English upper crust accent. He does Draco Malfoy perfectly but his Professor Lupin is way way too posh , aloof and snooty. Not nice at all. Iz wonders what Jim Dale is like.
Iz likes northern English, Scottish and Irish accents and definitely does not like those old fashioned BBC Queens English or even worse Margaret Thatcher accent. It just pushes the wrong Izzie buttons.
I wonder who in the USA is considered to have a posh accent? I guess the New Yorkers would look down on everyone else.
Gradually getting through "The Two Towers" So far have got to the Palantir and am looking forward to lots of chapters of the Sneak. Must admit that I am really enjoying it. Iz has got some very Entish tendencies and is delighted to know that Treebeard and friends are taking such good care of Saruman the serpent. Izzie too hates Tree Killers.
Well - now is time to be positively hasty and potter off to the lair for a glass or two of red and some nice crusty Italian bread with cheeeeeese. Izzie loves cheeeese.
Let's just all eat cheese
Monday 1st March we are back in the service of the goblins and having a mere 4mb of the Izzzie ration of 50mb remaining on the Ministry H drive was rather risky.
Was quite amazed at how quickly the odd wave of the Izzie wand got the free space up to 22mb.
After tossing a few things in the yahoo briefcase, there may even be room for more wicked web pages. On the subject of wickedness - looks like Izzie has managed to insinuate herself into the inner spiral. A big squishy serpentine thanks to Nichers for inviting Iz into her den of Darkness :)
Three whole months Izzie had to learn Dreamweaver and other web spells but was too busy lurking in the Dungeons and Secret Diary Land. and did pretty much zilch.
Of course the whole point of this exercise is to find an excuse to avoid doing the same sort of essential spring cleaning in the Izzie lair.
Been a strange day. Iz has been hostage lately to rampaging hormones. Have been irritable and cranky since Wednesday evening when we had that stinking weather and the nasty creepy crawlies to contend with at St Salazars.
After a sizzling stinking sticky 41.5 on Tuesday followed by a 39 something the following day and the temperature at night never dropping below 27 - with the resultant lack of sleep lately, Iz well and truly had steam coming out of her ears. I don't mind heat too much but just hate humidity. You will never ever catch Iz on holidays in Singapore or Bali. Was in Malaysia once and never again. How half the humans on the planet manage to live in such stinking climates never ceases to amaze this serpent.
And today was being really silly. Got up at 5.30 am and never had proper munchies until 12 ish. Iz got herself some sushi with nuclear horseradish. Evil green stuff.
Last week I checked the owlery to discover that Iz was on the speaking list for the Friday morning club. Not just any old four minute speech on some topic or other but a fifteen minute workshop or tutorial! And that was for today! Iz was utterly clueless. What on earth can I amuse these folks with for 15 minutes or so. The Ministry would certainly not approve of demonstrations of the unforgivable curses - assuming Iz would not end up making an absolute fool of herself by not getting the desired results. Practise makes perfect and proper planning prevents piss poor performance.
I settled instead for explaining the esoteric art of drawing mind maps. Started off well - had handouts, colored whiteboard markers and stuff but it was not a good idea to decide to make one up on the spot instead of copying a premade one from the Izzie collection. So after what seemed like ages, I felt that I was running out of steam and asked how much time was left. Nine minutes! Nine whole minutes. So Iz admitted defeat and a few folks did impromptu speeches with the time left over.
We have actually had people forget their speech, stand there for ages trying to remember it and then burst into tears. It is pretty awkward but the whole purpose of the group is to learn how to do this sort of stuff in a safe setting so we can acquire our learning experiences (ie stuff ups)there and not out in the big bad world. There are some things that can only be learned by doing and speaking in public is definitely one of them.
Even when you know stuff fairly well, or think you do - getting up there and explaining it is pretty damned difficult. Iz cannot help but be amazed at teachers who have to do this sort of thing all day five days a week. I mean if you do a good job then there is a pretty good chance that lots and lots of time went into preparation. I guess all the students ever see is the tip of the iceberg and the better you prepare the easier you make it all look.
But funny thing, it was a laugh and I did not spend the rest of the day beating up on myself for stuffing up. It would have served no purpose at all. Just hope that it's a long long time before the Izzie name gets pulled out of the bag for that particular exercise again. The only thing worse is having to chair a meeting. Now that is really exhausting and demanding.
Not that long ago, the Izzie attitude would have been infinitely less forgiving.
Was ever so amused then to read in today's paper about a 23 year old student with the same name as some famous economics professor being approached by 2 agents to do an all expenses paid speaking tour in Beijing. The cheeky bugger accepted the offer and bluffed his way for quite a few days. But in the end it all got too much -especially when the audience turned out to be graduate students and he ended up doing a runner. But you got to admire him in some ways. The real professor when he found out said that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
So apart from the mind map book, Izzie has been busy listening to "Prisoner of Azkaban" on CD. Mr Stephen Fry has the most irritating and annoying posh English upper crust accent. He does Draco Malfoy perfectly but his Professor Lupin is way way too posh , aloof and snooty. Not nice at all. Iz wonders what Jim Dale is like.
Iz likes northern English, Scottish and Irish accents and definitely does not like those old fashioned BBC Queens English or even worse Margaret Thatcher accent. It just pushes the wrong Izzie buttons.
I wonder who in the USA is considered to have a posh accent? I guess the New Yorkers would look down on everyone else.
Gradually getting through "The Two Towers" So far have got to the Palantir and am looking forward to lots of chapters of the Sneak. Must admit that I am really enjoying it. Iz has got some very Entish tendencies and is delighted to know that Treebeard and friends are taking such good care of Saruman the serpent. Izzie too hates Tree Killers.
Well - now is time to be positively hasty and potter off to the lair for a glass or two of red and some nice crusty Italian bread with cheeeeeese. Izzie loves cheeeese.
Let's just all eat cheese
