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Aug. 25th, 2011 10:53 amMy rather nice chest infection and my teaching and the brisk Canberra air meant that a lot of things didn't happen yesterday afternoon and evening, including blogging. I'm on minimum work for today, too, because I need to be well for Sydney teaching. Today I'm doing the preparation for Sydney, and I'm doing my Beastly work, and I'm maybe doing some dissertation and everything else will have to wait. I've only got three books in my Aurealis pile, and even though the review books are mounting up, I don't actually owe any articles at this stage, so it could be a great deal worse in terms of catch-up next week.
The antibiotics *are* working, but I need to rest. Every time I get out of bed, I discover this anew.
It appears that many, many Canberrans are keeping me company. This is a season full of ailments and stuff that goes wrong in lives. One good thing about all this bedrest is that I think many sympathetic thoughts outwards at all the friends who need them (I meant to read, but I can't, yet, which just demonstrates that I really am less than well).
Despite all this, and despite a break-in at yesterday's teaching place, class went well both Tuesday and Wednesday. Also despite me not having a voice. With no voice I taught, for instance, Planck's constant and the rhythm of bush poetry, how to write short stories involving doorways, how the sound of vowels can influence the reader's emotional perception of a story or poem. On Tuesday we dealt with how to look at another culture without instantly judging it by our own rules (specifically talking about how to evaluate Medieval medicine) and what techniques there are for so doing ("That's Plato's cave!" said a student, happily) and the complexities of a culture and how dynamics push some ideas on and into the future and not others. Bearded wizards may have been mentioned and also JK Rowling (who really does know her cultural trigger points) but what we talked about most was the effect of cosmology and religion on everyday understandings of life and stories. Also, my Tuesday class discovered there was an Evil Gillian and my Wednesday class were upset that the Tuesday class got Evil Gillian and that they didn't.
Today I have half a voice. The book-that-came-in-the-mail today was something I ordered when i was at Leeds: Bottero's The Oldest Cuisine in the World. I've given up trying to find a reasonably-priced copy of the original and settled for the English translation with Leeds discount.
Now that I've reported in, I'm going back to bed for a bit....
The antibiotics *are* working, but I need to rest. Every time I get out of bed, I discover this anew.
It appears that many, many Canberrans are keeping me company. This is a season full of ailments and stuff that goes wrong in lives. One good thing about all this bedrest is that I think many sympathetic thoughts outwards at all the friends who need them (I meant to read, but I can't, yet, which just demonstrates that I really am less than well).
Despite all this, and despite a break-in at yesterday's teaching place, class went well both Tuesday and Wednesday. Also despite me not having a voice. With no voice I taught, for instance, Planck's constant and the rhythm of bush poetry, how to write short stories involving doorways, how the sound of vowels can influence the reader's emotional perception of a story or poem. On Tuesday we dealt with how to look at another culture without instantly judging it by our own rules (specifically talking about how to evaluate Medieval medicine) and what techniques there are for so doing ("That's Plato's cave!" said a student, happily) and the complexities of a culture and how dynamics push some ideas on and into the future and not others. Bearded wizards may have been mentioned and also JK Rowling (who really does know her cultural trigger points) but what we talked about most was the effect of cosmology and religion on everyday understandings of life and stories. Also, my Tuesday class discovered there was an Evil Gillian and my Wednesday class were upset that the Tuesday class got Evil Gillian and that they didn't.
Today I have half a voice. The book-that-came-in-the-mail today was something I ordered when i was at Leeds: Bottero's The Oldest Cuisine in the World. I've given up trying to find a reasonably-priced copy of the original and settled for the English translation with Leeds discount.
Now that I've reported in, I'm going back to bed for a bit....