(no subject)

The Gender Games symposium is full of people doing fascinating things. I keep missing papers I want to go to for there are others at the same time. It's not bad scheduling - it's an immensely good program. They say they're putting out a book later and that book will fill in some of the holes.

I didn't do the best job ever with mine, for I was more than nervous, but the audience was interested and thoughtful and one person in particular made a very salient comment about Mr Gaiman's fiction. I had not thought about the link between Gaiman's obsession with writing about dead women and his choice of bride. Now it's stuck in my mind and I cannot get it out.

There are lots of grads and postgrads and some totally cool work being done in gender studies of various varieties. There's also catering and unlimited coffee and some very impressive organisation.

This was so worth a detour to Melbourne.

I can do a fuller report tomorrow night (when my thoughts are more together) if anyone expresses an interest.

PS Sorry about the typos. It was Management's fault. Again. He wanted me to report to Mum that there was no grass outside. In his previous life (obviously a human) he was a John Christopher fan.

(no subject)

I have liberated some rocks. Rutilated quartz. Devil's dice. Fossils: trilobites, snails, brachiopods and some nice laurel (lauris werribeeensis). Barytes. Limestone (Devonian with big fossil and more recent with small). Turquoise. Garnet crystals, green and red. A third of an enormous olivine bomb from Mt Noorat in Victoria. Bits of rock from underneath ancient towns (for use in worldbuilding teaching). Possibly a piece of a pyramid. Also other things.

Mum and I have finished sorting all her rocks. She's keeping 4 boxes. She's given me one box. She's given my sister some jars and things and another sister a box and a half for her rather fancy rock garden (which will feature another third of the olivine bomb).

I will have the devil's dice with me in case of need, but everything else is in storage until my life is a bit less undecided. This means that one day, I will discover what I own, all over again.