| An anecdote for the ages. |
[15 Nov 2009|03:48pm] |
I've told some of you about this a bit, but I feel like giving it a full write-up.
Someone I know at work has her own company doing typing and related stuff freelance, and offered to let me take on some of the work she doesn't have time to handle herself. She gave me the contact details of a prospective client, I finally got around to calling him this week, and that's why on Thursday morning I was having a meeting with a nonagenarian Islamic scholar.
I met him at 9am, having not quite realised how early that would mean I'd have to get up when I suggested that time, or that I'd just be turning up at his house. He's written oodles of things before about aspects of Islamic law and the ancestry of the prophet Mohammed and so forth, and he needs someone to help with typing and typesetting his latest book. And I guess I might be doing that.
He seemed a nice man, as did his son/assistant/whoever that other guy was. But it was an odd morning. The other guy offered me tea or coffee, I politely declined, and he sort of hesitated for a moment and said, "We usually have a drink on these sorts of occasions, so... tea or coffee?" And once I had my tea they both seemed to be oddly concerned about whether I was drinking it before it got cold. They weren't pushy or anything, just giving it more attention that I normally would.
And he was convinced he'd seen me before, this prestigious scholar with impressive-looking certificates all over his walls. I'm pretty sure I can categorically say he hadn't. There's no reason our paths should ever have crossed that I can fathom, and even if by some quirk of fate they had it'd be odd that he'd recognise me from randomly being a bit near each other on a bus.
The other guy also seemed rather keen that I be aware of some of the things the good doctor had achieved in his life. It was him who pointed out the certificate honouring him for being a member of the Institute of Civil Engineers for fifty years. And apparently it was due to his work many decades ago that deafness is officially recognised as a disability. Before he played some presumably instrumental role in changing the law, there was apparently no recourse of any sort available, no kind of benefits or legal allowance, based on a trifling matter like being completely deaf. Which is actually kind of impressive.
I'm still not entirely clear what exactly I'd have to do in this job, though. He has a load of hand-written and type-written notes, and wants me to produce "a disc" which the printers can then turn into a book. I... don't really know what this means, assuming there's more to it than just putting together a neatly aligned Word document. I'm not familiar with the exact specifications of what's necessary to be able to send it to the presses, and possibly he's not entirely up on the technical computery side of word processing, and I don't think you can blame either of us. I've also no idea what sort of quote I ought to provide. I may need to consult with the woman who does this professionally and has a company website and everything. I'm just some idiot who can type quite fast, has some free time, and could do with the extra income.
In retrospect, I'm not so convinced that this was really worth fleshing out into a full anecdote. At the time it felt more eventful. But I'm making words, which is a plus.
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| Hi |
[01 Nov 2009|05:27pm] |
Remember me? Yeah, I'm still here sometimes. I should probably be using this place more to provide updates of things that are going on in my life. I suppose it could be argued that there's been one or two of those, but none of you are missing out on anything that much. You'll hear of any major upheavals, I assure you. I'll remember to post many pictures of my eventual cat here, that sort of thing.
Anyway, just two things I thought worth mentioning for now.
1. I've started another blog, which I also intend to update regularly at the expense of neglecting this one. It's called The Daily Half-Truth, and it's intended mostly as a regular writing exercise for me, but also might be interesting to read sometimes as an occasional serendipitous side effect.
2. Someone I'm talking to, on another of those social networking sites all the cool kids are talking about these days, is currently writing essays for uni on topics including (but not limited to):
- Critical Literature Review on Gender & Politeness in Speech
- Comparison of depictions of Thomas Moore's death from various sources
- A write-up of a participant observation she did last week (about deference in speech)
- A mini-essay about a topic of her choice (providing it's to do with Shame and Shamelessness)
- Analysing Bisclarvet and the representation of werewolfs and werewolf activity in the Medieval period
And I thought I'd share that list because it took me right back to my own uni days, when I lived with people who were always writing all sorts of essays on bizarrely fascinating esoteri-souca along similar-sounding lines.
Right. That'll do. Now go away, you're interrupting my yoghurt break.
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| Arch-nemeses |
[23 Sep 2009|11:02pm] |
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Random discussion question of the day: If their nature is defined as being the exact opposite of you, what would be the predominant characteristics of your arch-nemesis? This came up out of nowhere on Twitter earlier, and I decided that one of the things I’d have to watch out for would be someone who really hates marzipan.
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4 deep thoughts| share and enjoy
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[27 Aug 2009|12:57pm] |
It's been ages since I've had anything interesting to say in here. I'm sure my life's still been going on, I just haven't been compelled to write about it.
Anyway, this isn't much of a life update either, more of a public service announcement to any interested parties: I met ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) aredhel_72 in London yesterday, we had a fun night out, she slept well on my sofa, and I saw her off on her way to Paddington a couple of hours ago, from where she was going to try and visit some apparently interesting churchy place a few tube stops away before heading on to Cheltenham. I'm sure she'll be updating Facebook with progress reports soon, if she hasn't already, but I thought I'd put this up too on the off-chance that it's useful news to anyone.
I suspect that, if you're not diviana_nyx, you'll have no interest in any of this, but it's my journal and I ain't here to amuse you. So ner.
(We saw the musical of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, by the way. It was actually kinda fun.)
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| You say shameless self-promotion, I say... it's a fair cop |
[07 Jul 2009|08:45pm] |
I haven't really said much on here lately. I don't imagine anyone's been bereft and heartbroken at this, but in case I should explain myself, I've been rather more chatty over on my other blog lately. Which may or may not be a great idea, if I'm going to start blathering about rape or gay rights as if I knew anything about either of those things, as I have done lately. But it's what's keeping me occupied. And I am still spending more time being casually dismissive of all your sacred beliefs than anything else, so, that's fun.
Also, today the woman behind the Atheist Bus Campaign called me a bumhead. <3
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| Obesity? Normal? Surely not! |
[29 Jun 2009|12:18pm] |
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Oh, fuck off, Prof Michael McMahon. Maybe it would be nicer for you if all those hideous fat freaks could be reviled and spat upon every time they dare to invade your TV, but it's not going to happen. [Further irate rantings deleted because they don't make much sense, and because hopefully arguing the point is redundant. So "being overweight is now perceived as being normal." Fucking good. Ugh.]
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| The beginning of the end |
[13 Jun 2009|07:36pm] |
Oh god. I just replied to an idiotic comment on YouTube.
It can only go downhill from here, right? Anyone have a nail-gun? I think my brain needs to borrow it for a sec.
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[11 Jun 2009|11:41pm] |
Ooh, I finally got some feedback on that other story I submitted:
It's very good. I really like the concept and the ending. The flowery prose was a bit much at times. I think the piece would be much stronger if they spoke in plain modern-day English. Could you cut it back and resubmit?
I'm not sure if they got that the flowery prose was deliberately overblown, but I'm also far from certain that it works that way and shouldn't be cut back. Might give it a shot over the weekend. This is all going remarkably well, so far.
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| bee bee one zero |
[04 Jun 2009|11:02pm] |
Well, it's that time of year again. This is becoming one of my favourite annual traditions. Let's see if I can beat my record for how soon after the initial round-up I get completely bored of the whole thing. I think it was only around a fortnight last time.
( Big Brother launch night )
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[03 Jun 2009|09:27am] |
On my bus into work today, someone had written the word "MOO" on the back of one of the seats. Then someone else had turned it into a picture of Homer Simpson, where the O's were his eyes and the M was the little tuft of hair behind his ear.
Apparently this is the first thing in over a fortnight worth mentioning on this blog.
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[15 May 2009|07:38pm] |
WOOP WOOP
Never mind. I wondered why nobody else was mentioning this and some of the original links I'd seen to it were vanishing. Move along, folks, nothing to see. I'll leave this here for posterity. Y'know, so they can mock me.
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[11 May 2009|06:39pm] |
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Woohoo! I just got my first rejection letter (well, email) for a story I submitted to a paying fiction market. I feel all growed up and professional. Okay, not professional. Still more, y'know, the other thing. Seeing as how it was a rejection and all. But still, yay! I'd better go write something that sucks less now.
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2 deep thoughts| share and enjoy
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[01 May 2009|12:35am] |
It's that time of year again.
If you happen to be out selling ice cream or walking your dog today, watch your back.
Happy First of May, everyone. May the grass always be below you, and the sky ever above, as you celebrate spring in whatever manner you deem appropriate.
(Context, if you need it.)
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[09 Apr 2009|09:09pm] |
You know how, if you keep saying a word often enough, it often eventually starts to seem weird and formless and lose all meaning and seem less like a word? It seems to work completely the other way around with the word "cake". The more you say cake, the more cakey the word seems. Cake cake cake. Cakey cakey cake. It helps if you say it out loud. It's a great-sounding word. Cake. Cake cake.
I'm hungry.
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5 deep thoughts| share and enjoy
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[01 Apr 2009|09:58pm] |
I didn't mean to imply, with that last post, that I had something particularly devious and sneaky and untrue planned myself that you should watch out for. I just thought that, rather than annoying and upsetting people by completely misjudging the tone of another hilarious jape, I'd make a general public service announcement, and remind you all to be on the lookout for such trickery.
This is my favourite example so far. (This one's good too.)
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