Salt and corrosion

Weekly update, a day late. Well, a week and a couple of days. But with reason. I've been writing an essay. Not just any essay. My last one. The last one ever. That's the Masters degree finished. All done. I feel unmoored. More so than when I left work. I suppose this has been the one constant thing over the last year, and now it's gone.

I celebrated finishing the degree with a massive spending spree. Massive. I bought two books and some wool. I am hopeless at massive spending sprees. (I also made a cake.) The wool is for a jumper. There's a series of weekly updates to look forward to. It's a knit-along, so I can't start it until the first part of the pattern is released later this month. If I keep up to speed, I'll be finished by mid-December. Hahahahaha.

We are now on week four of the two week bathroom renovation. At least we have a shower and a loo now, although we have been without a washing machine for a week. Fortunately I have lots of knickers and socks to tide me over.

September books read

This time of year is normally when I race through the Booker Prize contenders. This year between being sick and writing that essay, I just wasn't in the mood for all that heavy duty reading. Sorry, 2017 Booker nominees. I needed something lighter this September. You'll have to get by without me.

* Crime at Christmas - CHB Kitchen (1934) ★ ★ ★
( Read more... )

* The Sudden Departure of the Frasers - Louise Candlish (2015) ★ ★
( Read more... )

Weekly update

1. An actual paragraph I had to read this week

The circumstances in which most businesses today find themselves are complex, dynamic and uncertain. These circumstances can be usefully conceptualised using an integrated systemic complexity perspective where macro-scale bundles of contextual influences can be successively unpacked into micro-scale dense networks of complexly interacting, mutually influencing and multiple causally-ambiguous considerations.

Okay then.

2. Bathroom renovations

The solicitors have been faffing about with John's will, but my mother has now received her share of his estate. She and one of his sons were the executors, not that they had to do much. The solicitors did everything, very slowly. John's other two children, who live interstate and rarely visited or called him, have been champing at the bit to get their share. They've been calling their brother, the other executor, weekly to find out where it is, because one of them needs it to pay for a second house he's already started building and the other wants to buy a new caravan. I'd be more sympathetic if they needed it to get by, but they're just coming off as greedy and selfish. But I won't have to have anything to do with them once all this is finalised, so... I guess they can go on being greedy and selfish. I won't see it.

Anyway, the money has been released, so my mother's plans for renovating the bathroom are finally afoot. After playing with the manufacturer's website visualiser, her current favourite is a 1200mm Eden vanity in a Chalky Teak or Charred Oak finish, but not with black handles or taps. Black fittings are right out. For now. She has a week or so before she orders things, so it may change.

Weekly Masterchef update
- Your pannacotta was too grainy and you've... taken your parsnip too far.
- Your presentation was a fail and your parsnip... was too chewy. [NB: This wasn't the same dish as the above.]
- Your duck was inconsistently cooked and that skin... wasn't crisp.
- Your marron was cooked beautifully... but your couscous wasn't, and where was the ras el hanout?

Weekly knitting update
This week I bought some buttons.

I am so close to finishing this cardigan, I spent a happy evening not sewing on buttons and looking at patterns on Ravelry, thinking about what to knit next, when Old Ma Killjoy on the sofa said, "Did you ever finish those mittens?" Oh. No, I didn't. I put that knitting project away to teach it a lesson. It knows what it did. I suppose I should finish it. I think there was about a mitten and a quarter to go, unless I have to rip it out and start again. Time will tell.

If you were wondering, the volcano in Pompeii didn't even rumble until two-thirds of the way through. There were only 30-odd minutes of actual volcano action, and even then it was incidental to Senator Keifer Sutherland's mad vendetta against Jon Snow. I mean, there is bearing a grudge, and then there is making someone duel to the death while a volcano erupts around you. Pompeii was no Dante's Peak, that's for sure. It was more Titanic + Gladiator + fireballs.

I meant to say in yesterday's entry that while I was in Melbourne on Saturday, walking from the train station to the Craft Fair, pedestrian traffic was held up while a film crew shot a car chase scene. Well, they filmed a white car going around a corner with a police car behind. I'm sure there would be more to the chase scene than that. I've no idea what film/show it was for, though.

I should be doing some work on my MBA subject for this term, which is all about Thinking and Decision-Making. However, on reading the study guide, which began "Read chapters 2-6 of the text", I Thought and Made the Decision that I just can't face five chapters about cognitive bias tonight.

Last week we had to do a little activity, which was supposed to demonstrate the dangers of over-confidence in decision-making. Shall we try it now?

Four quantities appear below. Do not look up any information about these items. For each, write down your best estimate. Next, put a lower and upper bound around your estimate so that you are 98 percent confident that your range surrounds the actual quantity. Make your range wide enough that there is a 98 percent chance the truth lies inside it.

a. Wal-Mart's 2010 revenue
b. World population as of January 2012
c. Rank of McDonald's in the 2010 Fortune 500
d. Number of deaths due to motor vehicle accidents in 2008, worldwide

There were more than four, actually, but four will do. This was supposed to teach us the dangers of over-confidence, because very few people manage to get anywhere near the right answer, and their guessed range is much too narrow.

( My answers )

( Actual answers )

My car battery died on Sunday. RIP, battery. The RACV Emergency Assist came and gave it the kiss of life on Sunday afternoon, which kept it going long enough to get it to Mr McKeever for the last rites yesterday morning. 'Well, you can't complain,' he mused. 'Twelve years is pretty good for a battery.' Is it? I mean, I wasn't complaining anyway, because Freddie is a very low-maintenance car and this is one of the very few non-scheduled visits I've ever had to make to Mr McKeever.

Anyway, if I didn't have to take Freddie to Mr McKeever yesterday morning, I wouldn't have had to pick him up from there yesterday afternoon, which means I would have had no reason to drive up the Henna Street hill on my way home. And that means I would not have seen the middle-aged couple in thinly-stretched lycra bike shorts and yellow safety jackets riding a tandem up the hill. I say riding, but they seemed to be stationary. Doing an awful lot of pedalling in order to stay still. It was hugely enjoyable to witness.

My Masters subject this term is an odd one. It is called Executive Leadership. It's a compulsory subject, not something I would have chosen to do voluntarily. I am finding it a bit... scattered. Every week starts off as I'd expect. Academic readings and studies and so on. Once all that's out of the way, it turns into a self-help course. This week, for example, we are learning about charismatic and transformational leadership theories. We read about definitions, studies, difficulties in applying definitions and theory to actual people, criticisms, alternative theories. All that jazz. And then the text has the heading: HOW TO DEVELOP CHARISMA. That seems out of place to me. It's like reading a thoughtful piece about the causes of World War I, then over the page it says HOW TO ASSASSINATE AN ARCHDUKE.

If you are wanting to develop charima, by the way, this is how the text book says to do it:

* create visions for others;
* be enthusiastic, optimistic, and energetic;
* be sensibly persistent;
* remember names of people;
* make an impressive appearance;
* be candid; and
* display an in-your-face attitude.

Don't be me, in other words.

(I do remember names, that's one thing. And I remember faces. I'm just not particularly good at combining the two.)

Actually what I found most interesting this week was the competing schools of thought about charisma. One school says that charisma is something inherent in a person. If you are charismatic, you are charismatic, no matter what you're doing. The other school says that charisma is temporal and situational. Once the need for a charismatic leader has passed, the charisma fades. (Or perhaps moves to the next charismatic leader, like a mist. That's not the text book there. The mist idea is all mine.)

Today is Australia's Biggest Morning Tea, which is a charity thing. Eating cake for cancer*. One of my colleagues is very keen on this sort of thing. He had us eating cake for cystic fibrosis last year. I had something happening that day and didn't volunteer to contribute any cake, so I put my hand up this time. I gave them orange cake. It seemed to go down a treat. The person cutting it did that horrible thing where she only cut slivers. I mean, well done on her fine motor skills because she got the slices so fine, but I prefer a generous slice myself.

The cake's official title, per the recipe book, is Moist Orange Cake, but the word moist has a funny effect on some people. I don't find it terribly attractive myself, but I can live with it. But there's no alternative here, is there? Damp Orange Cake? Wet Orange Cake? Not Dry Orange Cake? None of them sound appetising.

You'll be pleased to hear I'm done with essays. For now. I mean, there'll be other essays next term. Now I am creating a case study about a how an important decision was made in my workplace, and, oh, I am quite good at this. I was pleased with my attempt in the first place, and then we had to put them on-line for discussion, using cunning pseudonyms for our companies (I called mine 'the company'). Compared to the others, mine is precise and salient and gets the job done with no waffle, and I was basking in my hitherto unsuspected ability to write management case studies.

Then I realised I've been bitching about my work here for ten years, so I've had a lot of practice. It's not a hidden talent at all. I've been working at it. Hmph.




* BIG WINNER IN CANCER RAFFLE, claimed the local paper in a not-unrelated story. It meant, of course, that someone received a substantial prize in a raffle aimed at raising money for cancer research, not that a giant won a tumour.

I got my essay back. I've been feeling slightly sick about it since I submitted it, but look at me now with my High Distinction for a 'highly engaging read with outstanding critical analysis'. The next one is coming up and I expect I'll be all cocky about it after this, only to plummet to my doom like Icarus, if Icarus's problem was that he was a bit blasé about writing essays on organisational design rather than flying too close to the sun.

I finally got round to getting my mushroom boxes for the autumn. I've got two boxes of Swiss browns, which have always grown best for me. That was all I was going to get, but this year they had golden oyster mushrooms to grow too. I've never even tried them before (neither to grow nor eat), so I've got them too. I was slightly tempted by the pink oysters too. They're so... pink. Maybe next year.

Being a sheep:



Well, who doesn't?

I'm writing an essay at the moment. Well, not literally at the moment, since I'm obviously writing this at this particular moment. But in this general period of time, I am writing an essay. It's such hard work. Partly because I'm out of practice, I think, and partly because I'm not loving the topic. We've been reading a lot about the use of metaphors in the management of organisational relationships. Yes. There are books -- that's books plural -- on that topic. The things you learn.

Anyway, we are supposed to discuss this, then come up with our own metaphor. Previous students have come up with things like 'management is a trifle', 'management is a totem pole' and 'management is a rocking chair'. So I've come up with 'management is a chemical compound'. You know, different elements bound together that react when placed in different conditions. I was really proud of that.

Would you like to help me with my work's football tipping competition, f-list? (By football, I mean the local brand, Australian Rules). Despite my complete lack of interest in football, I have agreed to participate in order to show willing. I spent a bit of time today with a copy of the fixture, doing my tips for the first few rounds. Round one, I picked teams that had more letters in their names than their opponents. Round two, teams whose name turned into a funnier anagram. Round three, teams whose home ground is closer to the Eiffel Tower. I had to stop then and do some actual work, but I noted down a few more ways to pick in future rounds, like teams with most vowels in their name or teams whose main colour comes first on the ROYGBIV spectrum. (I've got to come up with twenty-three ways to do this, though, so any suggestions would be welcome.)

Round five is going to be teams whose mascot would beat their opponent's mascot in some sort of illegal mascot fight. And that's where you come in, if you'd like:

[Poll #1960943]

I have been out and about in the countryside today. I saw lambs, spring lambs. They were gambolling. It was good.

It has been a funny old week. I didn't take my photo of the day on Wednesday. I forgot all about it until I picked up the camera to take Thursday's photo. Shameful, I know.

But then, Wednesday was busy. Busy, busy, busy. Wednesday morning, my boss beckoned me as I passed his office. 'I've just had Angela in here,' he said, 'telling me she's concerned about you.' What? It turned out she had seen the rat's nest of paper on my desk and on the floor and thought it seemed out of character. So our boss had a look at my desk, realised I was in the middle of doing the half-yearly reports and told her not to worry.

I've just signed up for an advanced Excel course in September. Partly because I have Excel 2010 at work and I'm sick of not knowing where to find anything on the ribbon, partly because it sounds interesting. Custom controls! Conditional formatting! Using the Solver! I actually know how to use the Solver, but I just don't get to use it. Homework will be so exciting.

There was a knock on the door today: a middle-aged woman. I said, 'Oh, you're here to collect the census.' She sighed.

'I'm getting a lot of that today. No. Would you like a copy of The Watchtower?'

I started the readings for my current health economics subject last night. In one of them, the author mentioned that economics is sometimes called 'the dismal science' and then spent half a page in rebuttal, saying it should be called 'the joyful art' instead. Good luck with that.

What did people talk about before mobile phone contracts became a viable topic of discussion? I wish my colleagues could remember. Would it be churlish of me to put a list on my door of Things I Am Not Interested In Hearing About? It would be short(-ish): mobile phone contracts, hours spent at the gym and things done there, food eaten (in relation to how 'naughty' it is) and superannuation (retirement funds). And golf. None of my colleagues are interested in golf, but it would be good to get it in pre-emptively, just in case.

Finally, if you were at all curious to know what sort of television commercials lurk on the airwaves of regional Australia, you couldn't do better than to go here and click on the milk carton on a treadmill (third picture down). I see this ad just about every time I turn on the TV. I don't know what freaks me out more: the enormous lips on the milk cartons or the milk bottle riding a bike.

One of our consultants came in to the office this morning on her day off. 'I'm just on my way to the vet round the corner,' she said, putting a large basket on the reception desk, 'and I thought you all might like to see this.' She was right: who wouldn't want to stop work and play with three two-month-old Jack Russell/pomeranian puppies? It was the best morning break ever.

As I said in my last post, I went to a felting workshop yesterday. That involved vigorous rolling of my scarf (using ancient and traditional tools like a pool noodle and some bubble wrap) for half an hour. At the end of the first three-minute rolling session, my arms objected that they were a bit tired; after that they were fine. At least they were until I woke up this morning. Dearie me, my arms are sore. Right now, I wouldn't miss them terribly if they fell off and, honestly, I think they might.

The women who took the workshop were quite interesting: a pair of divorced grandmothers, who drive around the country in a bus, heading wherever takes their fancy to spread the good word about felting and country gospel music. During the lunch break, they showed us round their bus. I was imagining a campervan, but it's a proper double-decker tour bus with beds and a sofa bigger than mine and a place for their guitars and a garage-trailer on the back to transport their car and two small water tanks that have a little kitchen herb garden hooked up to them. All things considered, not a bad way to spend your retirement, if you're into felting and country gospel music.

When I got home I wrote this week's response for the weekly discussion in my introduction to health economics subject. Before being accepted into this course (a graduate certificate in health economics) we all had to prove that we had appropriate qualifications and work experience, and it's interesting now to see that in practice. Everyone else comes from a health background (pharmacists, nurses, etc) and they need the economics part to be promoted into management. I'm the only one going the other way, with an economics background moving into the health system. So when the weekly question comes around - this week, discuss the factors that will affect the demand for the drug frusemide - they're all worried about understanding price elasticity and I'm more like, well, what is frusemide? (A diuretic, it turns out.) My mother's forty years of nursing experience has never been more useful.