Sunday 27 November 2011

Remind me, no more education

This weekend has been possibly the most stressful ever. Today I wrestled with a printer that didn't want to print, a photocopier having a mini breakdown, all in order to finally print out my dissertation and take it to be bound. On Thursday I'll finally be handing it in. It has been a long hard trudge to get here. I have literally sweated to type the damn thing. Now I'm, at long last, done.
Obviously I'll spend the next four days obsessing over how much better I could have made it, and what else I could have said. Knowing there's nothing more I can do.
So now I'm going to go out for dinner with The Boy and a friend and try not to think about it anymore. Wish me luck!

Monday 21 November 2011

Apparently Christmas is coming...

I have bought exactly 2 presents. Other people seem to have bought, wrapped, addressed, posted and generally organised themselves into an early grave. Christmas is for children, as an adult I'm pretty disinterested in the whole charade.
I enjoy elements of it, Midnight Mass, spending time with my friends and family, watching people's faces light up as they open the perfect present, sausages wrapped in bacon, stuffing, being able to have a lie in as I'm off for over a week.
There are some things I can definitely do without. The crowds, so I'm doing as much of my shopping online as I can, having to schlep around endless family gatherings, no getting around that, the excessive food, not really a good time to be trying to lose weight, and how cold it's going to be. I really should buy a coat sooner rather than later, although I do have my snowboots ready!
I've also set myself the task of getting the dreaded dissertation finished by Saturday, then I can take it to be bound and hand it in next week when I have a day off and can get down to the campus.
Hopefully once that particular stress is over and done with, I can move swiftly onto stressing about Christmas and all it's myriad stresses.

Thursday 17 November 2011

It's been a while...

Hi,

Me again, sometimes I disappear for a bit, you've done nothing wrong dear little blog of mine. It's just I've been busy, and then I got sick again.
I never used to get sick, clearly the long commute on a packed train and the office full of people with germs I'm not used to is not working out. My immune system needs to man up and adjust. I cannot be sick all the time, it does not look good.
Anyway, this weekend I'm going to my friend's wedding, which should be really lovely. Hopefully it won't be too cold or rain. I need to make sure my camera battery is charged so I can get some pictures.
Hope things are well with you little blog.
Til next time. xxx

Thursday 10 November 2011

Mastiff - Tamora Pierce

Finally, finally a new Tamora Pierce book arrived in my excited hands. It's been a couple of years since the last one, but it feels a lot longer. Pierce's books have helped me through dark times by reminding me to be my own hero and not to need a knight in shining armour to save me from myself and my darkness. Her heroines are smart, funny, strong and surrounded by awesome people (and sarcastic cats).
Mastiff picks up Beka Cooper's story from Bloodhound, a few years down the line. Beka is now a full member of the Provost's Guard and a trained tracker, with her scent hound Achoo.
She and her partner are sent on a Hunt to find the kidnapped Prince Gareth and bring his abductors to justice. Completing the Hunt team are Lady Sabine, a female knight, and Farmer Cape, a mage. Beka is accompanied by her black cat, Pounce, who provides some of the humour, mostly in his exasperation with humans.
Like a lot of Pierce's books there is a deeper concern running throughout, in this case, slavery, through the character of Gareth and his experiences.
Beka's story takes place about 200 years before the events of the Alanna quartet, Pierce's first series, and Beka is an ancestor of George Cooper, Rogue (chief thief), who befriends Alanna in the first book.
The Beka Cooper trilogy is a welcome look at Tortall's history and explains some of the background to her other books.
Even if you've never read one of Pierce's books, I recommend you pick one up and Beka's story is as a good a place to start as any.
The Beka Cooper books; Terrier, Bloodhound, Mastiff.