Fast

So fast I don't feel like writing, what I write will be out of date by the time it's in print ;-)

So just a quick summary:

I’ve been dumped on from on high, I mean I’m being tested :-`
- I got my exam timetable on Friday.
Instead of 3 weeks to study for and sit the equivalent of 6 exams (3 double semester exams), I have a single week.

The exams are all in the first week of the exam schedule, with one day between each.
The first one is 6 days (or 5 ½, but who’s counting?) after the Friday at end-of-term when I hand in 17500 words for 2 different papers, each an exam’s worth (paper in lieu of exam).

So the harsh reality is – I’m full on till exams are done, see you afterward.
Weird but that seems to be the way of it.


And also -
http://www.spark.auckland.ac.nz/challenges/winners/2011/100kqualifiers
I am part of a group in the final of a business planning competition; we're starting up the business anyways, but a prize would be a great way to start ...


And also -
I will probably get a final decision on the recommendation regarding operating on my back as a last resort in my next consult with the surgeon Mon 5th 8 am.
I've had a consult and fresh MRIs and Xrays.
Peter Roberson wrote a VERY long and sympathetic letter (copied to me) to my doctors – it was also helpful to give the kids to read to give them a clue.

Peter Robertson is the surgeon – I don’t know anyone he has operated on but have 2 friends he refused to operate on – he is conservative.
Which gives me comfort either way.


Back to work.

Protecting the Readable Machine
- to what extent are the functions of a software program protected by copyright in NZ?

Doha as Dodo?
- are the talks resumable and if so on what basis?
- what are the main points of agreement and contention in Trade in Services, and Development, in the Doha round negotiations between WTO members and groupings of members?

Wise traitor

I just wrote to a friend / family member, then realised I had encapsulated a core concept of the times (I mean my little piece of reality)!

I'm at the stage where moving on seems traitorous, and staying in the same place seems foolish.
Well, exactly.
Can't help but agree with myself.

Resolution of the day, probably related to the fact that I am sick and can't see or hear comfortably, stuck inside my tired sore stuffed up head -
- I am going to take a couple of days out every month.
I've been doing it every 2 months.
It isn't enough.

Will I be brave enough to do it?
Dunno.

Why would I?
- I function far better with regular time-out from responsibility
- I get desperate without it
- I need to be on my own or with someone close to wind down. At all.
- I have found myself feeling desparate for non-exhausted moments without study and without children
- I recreate quite well
- I don't like spending so much time plodding and trying too hard

Why wouldn't I?
- It's hard to organise.
- I feel guilty about it.
- I am embarrased. Really. The practicalities may be manageable if I had the wiil. Or not.

I'm sorry, would you repeat that?

http://sophiwophi.blogspot.com/

I have to do this again.
Say - go there.
There is more work.
More works.

And some of it is - to me - outstanding.
At the very least, it is stunning -
- knock you sideways, insist on being read over again, sparkling, wrenching, wry and unfathomably mature stuff.

That's mothers for you.
But don't assume - take a look for yourself.

Slow

And not very sure.

Step.
Step.
Step.

Where is
Who is
Can I?

Sophie is sad. A little. She and me, big ups and downs, exhilarations and despairs. But I am more used to them.
Alex is on a a little roll.

The PPTA (the Teachers' Union) wants to give Gerald a posthumous award for services above and beyond.
And we've been invited to "Harbouring Ghosts" at Otahuhu College. With Gerald's music.

But I've / we've just started to move past ... I don't want to take the knock right now.
This degree ... sparked by Gerald's illness and need for care combined with inability to find work back in the small NZ market - it really is that small! ... is scary, some of the time.
And now the first semester with a chance to focus - I'm not sure I could manage being knocked over by another series of speeding waves of emotions and recover quickly enough.

Is there a part of me that manufactures the ability to keep going, to not give up, not give in - and to revel in that tense, peaked energy and pitch of effort, some of the time?
I need a new one. Or maybe it needs cleaning. Or plugging in.
It's still sort of working, but without the revelling.

I'm hoping they'll be able to postpone a little - the Teachers' Union, that is.
I am moved that they would wish to go to trouble and time to honour someone for no obvious reward - dead people don't contribute.

The drains are growing stuff.
I need to ask for help.
I have paid someone a lot of money to haircut and shave the grounds.
That was a good thing.

Validation.
One could look for it forever -
Unconventional must equal unsafe and therefore disliked, misunderstood, unencouraged, considered foolish and left alone - at least some of the time by some of the people, by definition. I think.

And that's a good thing. I think.