todayiamadaisy (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
todayiamadaisy) wrote2006-08-14 03:53 pm
todayiamadaisy) wrote2006-08-14 03:53 pm
Entry tags:
Beep beep beep!
Stopped at traffic lights in the morning peak hour (well... peak quarter of an hour here) someone honked a car horn. The note held for quite some time and I looked about to see who had cut off whom, until the woman in front of me realised she knew the car in the next lane and waved to the occupants. Car horns are not subtle communication tools; it's so hard to tell the difference between "hello" and "watch out". I suppose cars could be fitted with two horns, friendly and not friendly, but that doesn't seem practical. I propose an International Language of Car Horns: one long note for "I say, you cut me off, you dashed fool", one short one for "sorry, I didn't see you", three staccato notes for "hello", etc. What do you think?
I sat down over the weekend to do some mucking about with maps - how I love maps! I was thrilled to find that one of my units this semester had a project devoted to making several maps of South East Asia (one for language groups, one for geographic features, and so on). I started the easiest one first, carefully inking in countries and capitals, until halfway through when I thought, I don't want to do this. I think spending the first half of the year first fretting about my mother's illness and later running her about to various medical personnel, on top of work and radio and uni, has finally caught up with me. I've been looking forward to my two units this semester (South East Asian History and Screen Theories), but my heart just hasn't been in it and I've been putting off all sorts of other little things as well. So this morning I sorted out a six-month Intermission from Monash (formerly known as a Leave of Absence, as the application form helpfully notes) and at lunchtime I went to the library and borrowed a stack of mystery novels and I'm already feeling much happier.
Mentioning library books and my mother in the same entry reminds me that I picked up one of hers a while ago. It was one of those historical Brother Cadfael-style mysteries; I've forgotten its name and author, sadly, but not the back-cover blurb that promised that at the heart of the book was "the forbidden love between a priest and the ditcher's wife". Fantastic.
I sat down over the weekend to do some mucking about with maps - how I love maps! I was thrilled to find that one of my units this semester had a project devoted to making several maps of South East Asia (one for language groups, one for geographic features, and so on). I started the easiest one first, carefully inking in countries and capitals, until halfway through when I thought, I don't want to do this. I think spending the first half of the year first fretting about my mother's illness and later running her about to various medical personnel, on top of work and radio and uni, has finally caught up with me. I've been looking forward to my two units this semester (South East Asian History and Screen Theories), but my heart just hasn't been in it and I've been putting off all sorts of other little things as well. So this morning I sorted out a six-month Intermission from Monash (formerly known as a Leave of Absence, as the application form helpfully notes) and at lunchtime I went to the library and borrowed a stack of mystery novels and I'm already feeling much happier.
Mentioning library books and my mother in the same entry reminds me that I picked up one of hers a while ago. It was one of those historical Brother Cadfael-style mysteries; I've forgotten its name and author, sadly, but not the back-cover blurb that promised that at the heart of the book was "the forbidden love between a priest and the ditcher's wife". Fantastic.