(no subject)

I have started today the way I meant to start yesterday and the day before. I have polished half the article I had to finish last week. The rest of the polishing takes a different mindset, for I'm unhappy with some of my examples and must do more trawling, so this gives me an excuse for coffee and a break. The whole thing is making more sense, though, and isn't quite so utterly embarrassing.

I'm not over the bad few days, but I'm finding that rest actually results in me being more alert (the end of the pain cycle is near!), which means that if I rest for a half hour before I do the coffeething, I can make much wonderful progress this morning and stop creating difficult situations where there need be none.

The magic thing I did over the weekend was to reduce the pile of "Eek, I have to do this immediately?" list down from impossible to merely rather tough. After this week I regain two more days in my non-teaching week, too, as only my Wednesday teaching survives and even that only has two weeks left, one of which is an excursion.

When I reach an end of this term, I will have taught 110 contact hours since February. This doesn't sound a lot, but I am ready for a breather. Next semester won't have either the same amount of teaching or the same amount of income (unless things change, of course!) so once I get through this batch of queued work, (as I keep saying) things are going to be more straightforward.

The income from the teaching was an important factor in getting me through the financial side of the eyes and teeth, and I was lucky to get so many good classes with cool students, but it makes me really glad I teach adults. If I'm this tired just from 110 hours, imagine how I'd deal with high school teaching!

I like it best when I have 4-6 hours a week: I can fit my other work in and I have energy to write fiction and everything works with everything else, at that pace. Four hours a week if they're entirely new courses or need much preparation. The difficulty recently, of course, is that I'm not a language teacher and so Latin has requires a significant amount of preparation and it has all come at the tired end of term. Let me admit here that I did most of my prep for Latin yesterday, when I was procrastinating.

And now I'm due that rest, and then two big mugs of coffee to see me through the tricky bits of editing.

(no subject)

I've given into temptation and I'm quite possibly writing a short story. If it happens it will be straight science fiction and it will have a dentist in it.

I so seldom write short stories and I so ought to be writing other things and...my dentist and the nurse and I went round all sorts of lovely ideas for a dentist story and it would be such a shame to waste those conversations and... mostly I miss writing fiction. My month needs that fiction/non-fiction balance or something.

Also, stories about dentists are good things. I wonder if I should sneak in bad puns, in honour of my father?

(no subject)

I am bruised and amused.

I managed to trip over one of my teaching satchels (the ones that are out because they all get packed away until next term tomorrow at 9 pm precisely) and instead of rescuing myself, or falling onto the floor, I fell into my TV screen.

I tried to re-angle myself so that I smashed into the cupboard below it instead of into the actual screen, and almost managed. The TV turned itself on and started babbling at me.

In saving the screen and turning the TV on, I fell rather heavily. In the process, I also pushed the television towards the mirror wall. I saved the mirror wall. I'm so proud of myself.

The phone then fell off the TV and got lost behind it.

I had find a way of standing up without making the whole thing happen again, then I had to pull everything out from the wall. Finally I found the phone. I nearly strangled myself in the process, but the phone is now safe, too. I have cleared much paper from behind the television. I have lost the key to my letterbox (again).

All this took five minutes and I have entertained myself hugely in the process. It's what happens (though not normally so dramatically) when high pain and high teaching and high teaching and high writing intersect. When I say I am a legend in my own lounge room, this may well be why.

ETA: I've added paragraph returns. It makes me feel powerful and rational and almost as if I know what I'm doing. And you do need to know that I found my key (again).

(no subject)

I love the University of Western Australia. I now have a completion scholarship to see me through to the end of this doctorate, and it started last week. I just have to get the acceptance form and the bank form to them and I will have a secure income from now until October 26.

In case I didn't mention it, this week I'm drafting Chapter One. It was supposed to be a literature review but isn't. This could get funky...