Clash of the holiday activities

We decided last night that we'd definitely leave town for the long weekend over Easter. So I was a bit put out to find that my friend Claudio, who is in New Zealand on honeymoon with his new wife, is only going to be in town for one day - and that day is in the middle of the weekend.

I'm a little bit tempted to stay at home after all, so that I can catch up with Claudio, meet his wife and introduce them to my other half. But on the otherhand, my boy really really needs a break and I was quite looking forward to getting away (at least as much as I was looking forward to seeing an old friend).

So I've decided - if Claudio really wanted to catch up, he would surely have allowed for more than one measly day in town, right? So he's probably not going to be devastated if his day in my town coincides with my much-needed trip away, is he?

Great knee-length boots = rapture

I’m so rapt. Yesterday my boy and I went shopping, for boots. I needed to replace the ankle boots which I’ve been wearing for the last three winters, plus I wanted to see if I could find some knee-length dress boots (anything to be able to wear skirts, while avoiding those horrible pantyhose). And we actually found a pair which had enough heel to look dressy, but not enough to impede my walking ability. Not only could I fit my legs into them, but they looked damned fine on me AND were a nice price too. So we went out last night, so I could show ‘em off.

In the process, I discovered that my boy is like most males in this respect – he prefers me to look girly.

W went to see Lost in Translation. I enjoyed watching Bill Murray’s character having a hard time understanding the locals’ English. It made me sad though. Even though both of the characters had found a friend in each other, they were both basically unhappy people. It had a real Indie feel about it, which I like – but it wouldn’t have struck me as an Oscar-winning film though.

Look out - public holidays ahead

Easter's coming up, and with it a four-day weekend. Cool.

My boy's been complaining lately, that he hasn't seen much of me. That isn't surprising, because our normal week looks like this (bear in mind I'm usually in bed by 10.30/11pm):

Monday - he goes to an RPG (role-playing game) evening, and doesn't get in until I'm about to head for bed
Tuesday - I have a class in the morning, so I work late until 8pm to make up the time. It's nearly 9pm by the time I get home
Wednesday - I go to the gym after work, so I don't get in until 8pm
Thursday - no gym, though it's Dinner at Mum's night. We get back home around 8pm
Friday - If I have to work or go to a study workshop on Saturday, I go to the gym again today, so I don't get in until 8pm
Saturday - The boy sleeps in till noon, I go to work or to the gym in the meantime. This is the only full day we have together (see Sunday).
Sunday - It's Take Mum shopping Day . We go to the market, then to Church, then to some supermarkets (maybe just one, maybe 3!), before a late lunch at her place. Losts of driving, waiting and lifting involved. I get home between 2pm and 3pm, in a grouchy mood and in the need for a long walk alone.

So I'll pretend we're going away for the weekend (to avoid the major-ly stressful shopping Sunday), and we'll just hang.

...and a tough afternoon it's been too...

1. I had to rescue the printer (and paper) from trying to produce 500-odd copies of a map, because some kids entered a really big number in the Copies field.

2. Another kid who didn't really know what he wanted to read kept asking me to find books for him on ..I dunno.. kittens...cars...monkeys in circuses...and whenever I found him a book the little bastard said he'd read it already.

3. I was rostered to be at the Information Desk for an hour and a half, from 3pm. This was bad enough, as it meant I wouldn't get my tea break until 4.30pm. What made it worse was that my boss - who not only made up the roster in the first place, but was supposed to relieve me at 4.30pm - didn't get around to relieving me until 5pm, when I reminded her. After a fifteen-minute tea break, she came and got me to take over again so she could send a fax. I was there, mostly doing photocopying for patrons, till the end of my day - 5.30pm.

4. The traffic was worse than usual. I don't know why, but ever since I started working at this place last July it's been taking me longer and longer to get to and from work. It's not seasonal, becase it was mid-Winter when I first started. In this part of the world (except Auckland), a one-hour commute is pretty bloody ridiculous.

5. Someone keeps parking really close to my driveway - less than the legal minimum distance of one metre - so that I can't just swan into my garage at the end of the day. It also makes it harder to get out in the mornings. And that car was parked really close this evening.

Just as well my boy brought home a large bottle of wine, and there's chocolate mud cake in the fridge.

Nesian Mystik

I've decided I'm just going to have to buy the Nesian Mystik CD. They've been around a little while, and one of their songs even features on a Coke ad on television. I heard a song of theirs while I was driving to work this morning, and it was about the first thing to put a smile on my face today.

It's a mixture of Pacific Island music and hip hop, all very accessible, danceable and kinda irresistable. It's the first bit of music I've shown interest in since my discovery of Bach's cello music about four years ago. And to think that once I used to spend all my money on records...(I was fifteen and mad about Jackson Browne and New Zealand Dunedin bands).

The warm fuzzies

Remember the other day, when a baby-dreaded teenage schoolkid came in looking for information on mountain carrot and blue heather? Those are alpine plants, by the way, and apparently are regarded as pests by the Department of Conservation. I managed to find a few websites which had information on blue heather at least, and had the list of URLs printed off for the dreadlocked pupil to collect.

He came in yesterday, five minutes before closing time, for the list. He looked so pleased at my efforts that it just gave me the warm fuzzies. It's nice to see school kids interested in doing their homework, and it's even nicer to get warm expressions of gratitude.

The Libran Librarian

Too late, I've thought of a cool name for this blog. The Libran Librarian. Hooray for the sign of the scales! You are charming, attractive to the opposite sex and an incorrigible flirt (the first half of the horoscope personality profile found on a joke coffee mug).

p.s. the second half is negative and, or course, completely untrue.

The attack of the wheezies

It's the middle of the hayfever season, and I've come to realise that my hayfever medication is not working very well any more. I take a nasal spray every day, and it used to stop me from getting those horrible sinus headaches.

However, this morning I woke up with one of those horrible sinus headaches - they sometimes last three days, in spite of regular doses of paracetamol. And apparently I'd spent all night snoring, snorting, choking and fighting for breath, too.

Not particularly attractive, I'm sure - so I'm utterly grateful that he loves me anyway...

Difficult requests, a fitting curse for book thieves, and a break from televised Buffy

I had a bit of a challenge today, when a teenage schoolboy came to the Information desk to find 'anything' on New Zealand alpine plants. Specifically, he was after two plants known colloquially as mountain carrot and pink heather, respectively. Even more specifically, he wanted to know about biological control of those two plants. The two books I could find on NZ alpine flora weren't useful to him, so I gave him the phone numbers of the Department of Conservation. I had the biggest difficulty not calling it the Department of Conversation! As is usual in cases like this (where I couldn't find anything straight away), I spent the rest of the afternoon looking on the Internet for likely information sources (including the DoC site). It felt pretty good to eventually find some, too.

I found a website which collects curses, to be put on those fiends who steal books. The library's been the victim of a vicious DVD thief - we lost our extended version of The Two Towers a mere months after it was made available for lending - so these curses may prove well worth a try at my library...

This one which follows is supposedly from the Monastery of San Pedro, Barcelona

"For him that Stealeth a Book from this Library,
Let it change into a Serpent in his hand & rend him.
Let him be struck with Palsy, & all his Members blasted.
Let him languish in Pain crying aloud for Mercy,
Let there be no Surcease to his Agony till he sink to Dissolution.
Let Bookworms gnaw his Entrails in token of the Worm that dieth not,
When at last he goeth to his final Punishment,
Let the flames of hell consume him for ever & aye."


I just realised yesterday that SkyOne has stopped screening re-runs of Buffy and Angel, so I'm now going to have a minute of silence to pay my respects to the last (for now) of the Buffyverse re-runs.

Oh well, at least I still have seasons 1-4 of Buffy on DVD to watch, and anyway they were clashing with the latest series of What Not To Wear.

Shotguns and Weddings

There's a big hoo-ha over an advertisement, in a hunting magazine, for rifles especially designed to be handled by children. Having grown up in the city, my own reaction to this news was probably similar to that of the people to complained, saying that the product encourages children to think it's okay to kill. While you have to be sixteen to legally own a gun, it seems that its now okay to get your grandad to buy you one instead. Surely it'd be cheaper for kids to get their kicks by killing things 'virtually' (and it's legal and doesn't leave bloodstains for your mum to puzzle over).

We went to a wedding yesterday, that of a close friend of my boy's. The bride alternated between nervous giggles and huge grins during the ceremony, while the groom cried when it was his turn to say his vows. Apparently he got a bit overwhelmed before the start of the reception too. I knew him from my old work, and had always thought of him as a bit of a smartass. So it was kinda sweet that he turned out to be such a big softy. Not a huge surprise, really. I've worked with several men who were rough and tough on the outside, and ever-so-slightly marshmallow-y on the inside. In fact, I live with one.

What the hell is Turkey bacon?

I don't know what it is, I just read about it in Last Page. It sounds kinda nice, though.

Money, oysters and boots

Yum. It's Bluff oyster season in two days. Contrary to the opinion of most gourmets and foodies, I prefer them deep-fried in batter. And here's a yummy-sounding recipe for deep-fried oysters in coriander and chilli dressing which I found in stuff. I'll do my best to get the cook - I mean, the love of my life - to use it.

We had a bit of good news at our work meeting this morning. I was lucky not to miss it actually, because today the traffic was truly atrocious. It took an hour and a quarter of mostly idling and crawling, for me to get to work - normally it's 45 minutes of pretty reasonable travelling speed. To my slight irritation, the only other workmate who lives in the same city as I, was not late for work. Turns out he'd decided to get the train in.

But the good news was that the City Council, who runs the library, are prepared to subsidize library-related study to the tune of up to $1000 per financial year. That means that if I do the MLIS over three years I'd get over half of my course fees paid for. But, there was a big but. If the subsidized employee leaves her job less than one year after she passes the course, then she'll have to pay the money back.

Which is fair enough I suppose...we'll see.

After the dizzy joy I felt at being able to get my previously muscle-y calves into a pair of mid-knee high combat boots, I've decided to go shopping for a pair of dressy knee-high boots. This is despite the fact that, after paying all my bills for this month, I now have a measly $400 until my next pay day - which is almost exactly one fortnight from now. It will, however, probably take me weeks or months to find the right pair of boots - not too high-heeled, not too casual, elegant yet comfy (impossible?).

A desperate-looking guy came into the library today, looking for a particular book. When I looked up that title, I found that 2 of the 3 copies were out, and the other was being held for someone.

Desperate Guy asked whether it would be possible for him to take that copy for ten, very short, minutes, so that he could photocopy some of it. He needed it for an exam on Monday.

'Sorry', I told him, 'we can't let you take that book out of the library because we can't check it out to you. That book is being held for someone else. But since you're so desperate, I'll let you photocopy some of it here on the library photocopier at 20c per copy'. But no, he wanted to take it to a shop where it would cost only 10c per copy.

'Well, exactly much photocopying are you planning to do?', I asked.

'The whole book', he replied.

'Do you realise that would be breaking copyright laws?'

'Yes, I know the law. I work for [a Government department which I won't name]. Please - I need it for the Police entrance exam. It's on Monday'.

Yeah...

When I don't enjoy reading, and when I do

Some of the stuff I've been reading for my MLIS course is sooo dry. Things I've found interesting were:
1. Positivism vs Post-modernism as applied to information managementm,
2. Public libraries as a symbol of democracy (or is it really just a typically American thing?) and
3. Whether public libraries should deal in pop culture, or restrict themselves to the 'serious' stuff.

What I've found boring includes very long articles on models of communication, and scholarly communication respectively.

I don't think it's impossible to present complex ideas in an interesting way - Carl Sagan did it really well. But most scholars don't write like Carl Sagan. Most seem to want to prove that they know lots of really big words, and can write really long sentences. Articles like that make me reach for the Buffy books. Even scholarly Buffy writing is usually readable.

On a happier note, I've finished two of the four novellas which make up Volume III of Tales of the Slayer.

The first is about a Slayer from an Anasazi community, who is disadvantaged by a complete lack of Watcher-ly knowledge. And she dies too soon for me to get to know her.

The second one I liked better - it's about a Chinese Slayer, set around the time of the Boxer rebellion. Of course, I immediately thought she must be the one of the two Slayers whom Spike killed. But this isn't ever made obvious, so maybe there were two successive Chinese Slayers? This Slayer gets more chance to develop, and probably the fact that she's Chinese made her more interesting to me. There's also a very strong feminist theme to this story - not surprising considering how oppressed Chinese women were at the time.

I'm looking forward to the next two tales, plus getting on with the other four books I'm in the middle of (and those are just the fun reads!).

Single-serve friends for a lifetime

It's funny how you can stay friends with some people for years and years even though you only see each other a few times in that whole period.

Like Claudio, for instance. I know Claudio from about 10 years ago, when I was on a backpacker bus tour of the South Island. He was travelling the world with his mate John, both scientists living and working in Newcastle, England. John was the chatty, flirty one, so it's a little ironic that Claudio's the one who kept in touch over the years. Claudio and his new wife are coming over to New Zealand for their honeymoon, and so it's pretty cool that we'll be able to catch up. I'll get to see whether his taste in spectacles has changed, and he can ascertain whether I ever got my growth spurt.

Or Mike, whom I've known since my OE backpacking days. We hung out together for 3 days in Florence, then I stayed with him for a week about 3 years later, when I went to Seattle for a holiday. And after all this time, we still send other longish Christmas e-mails. Most likely we'll never actually see each other again, but it definitely feels like I have a good friend in Seattle.

That's a long way from to the "single-serve friend" referred to by the protagonist in "Fight Club".

Imagining the pitter-patter of tiny feet

I'm at the age where, if we want to have kids, we have to do it now or else it will be too late (if it isn't already).

If we do it now, then my library career will be on hold indefinitely. But as long as my other half is happy to support me financially for at least the next 5 years, then I'd probably be happy to play housewife (and catch up on the reading and painting?).

If we don't do it at all, we'll be able to maintain a reasonable lifestyle, I can get qualified, and maybe improve our lifestyle. I may end up regretting not having kids, but I'd have a nephew and niece to lavish attention on.

I think what would be the worst would be to decide to go for it, get all psyched, then find that it's no longer possible.

They're everywhere

I went to the park this afternoon and had a very cool time just being with my friends - Vinod has just started studying law part-time, Liz is organising her wedding, Sharmilla has been enjoying the perks of being in the travel industry, and Pravin had his nose in the Property section of the weekend paper again. In the background were the smooth sounds of Jacinta, a lounge singer who calls herself the "Singapore girl", followed by a reggae band and their grooving fans.

So I was rather surprised to find that my boss and her husband (who live 45 minutes away by car), had been sitting about four feet away from us the whole time. Don't get me wrong, she's very nice. It's just that I'd already finished work for the day and wasn't in a hurry to see my workmates again. And she just happened to be loitering about, just half a block from my house, two Sundays ago.

It's as though Fate is tossing us together like an unusual salad recipe.

She's not the first boss who's unintentionally trespassed on my free time, either. A few years ago I was on holiday in Canada and the U.S. I'd just spent a week in Vancouver getting to know the Siegal's Bagels guy (platonically), and had landed on Vancouver Island. It was a three-hour stint before continuing on to Seattle, to visit my friend Mike. In that three-hour period, who should spot me but my manager Pat and his wife-to-be?

Or maybe it's just a truly small world.

Work and Saturdays don't mix

It's a really gorgeous day, and it's Saturday, so I'm not so pleased to be working. However, I do finish at 12.30, so I'll be able to quaff lunch (yummy banana cake bought at the local Asian bakery) and go home in plenty of time to go out for the rest of the afternoon.

My boy's out with a bunch of other boys. They're going to a stag day (that's like the more traditional stag night, but for guys who're too old to stay out really late), leaving me free to do what I want most of today. So I'm going to the park for an afternoon of free Arts Festival gigs with a girlfriend, followed by a gym session and then study.

It's not that I don't like spending time with my other half - just that there are lots of things I don't end up doing because he's not interested. Mmm...I could even go to a foreign-language movie this evening...

Niggling Nasties

Tara's post reminded me of my own thoroughly unpleasant experiences with the dreaded ... cold sore. There've been a couple of times in the past when I've had to deal with continous cold sore attacks (it really is possible to get one attack after another) which lasted months or more.

This is the reason why the word 'crusty', for me, is not synonymous with the word 'baguette'.

The first time I had the continuous nasties, I thought it was because I was dying to go overseas already. Funnily enough, I was completely free of them about two months after I started my first job in Edinburgh, until I returned to New Zealand two years later.

Personally, I believe world travel cures a range of maladies from acne to loneliness and boredom.

The next time it happened, I couldn't figure out what stress factors could have caused it. I was happily in love, had just left my much-loathed (by then) IT job and was a full-time 'artist'. I'll probably never find out. Anyway, the thing that saved me from everlasting nastiness was a year-long course of Acyclovir.

Now I can do all manner of front-line customer service tasks without scaring small children (that's semi-sarcasm).

So many displays, so little time..

I was supposed to get a display for the library, about Race Relations Day (on March 21st). I'd rung the Human Rights Commission for posters, started gathering books, and thought about what else I could put on the display board. Turns out it's only going to be up for a maximum of three days after all, due to the need to use that space for another display on Monday. But I got the posters up, put up some pretty pictures of people looking all ethnic, and laid out some books on racism, biculturalism (in New Zealand, it's not just an attitude - it's law), and immigration on the table. I think it'll do, though it's nowhere near as fun-looking as the St Patrick's Day display around the corner (how can you beat little stickers that read 'Kiss me, I'm Irish' ?).

I went to apply for my new driver's licence today, now that I'm legal to drive the library bus. I was shocked to find that I nearly failed the eye-sight test. The test I'd done at the doctors two months ago was fine - one eye is a bit short-sighted, but the other makes up for it. Today, when I tried to read the letters on that side, they were quite hard to read and I kept getting them wrong. So, I tried again only this time with much more squinting. That seemed to work. I'd better keep my (rarely worn, only at the movies) glasses handy...

no cliches on me - I hope

I'm so glad that this blog doesn't contain the words 'rave', 'rant' or 'musings'.

The quest for misinformation

I've decided that the essay question I'll do, for my assignment, will be on misinformation - what it is, who's vulnerable to it etc. I thought I'd be able to find examples all over the place e.g. the output of the Minister of Information in Iraq, political propoganda in just about any country you can name, scientific hoaxes...

Although I thought I'd be fine with finding material in the university library, I have to admit I have been a little lost there. I haven't used Library of Congress call numbers for many many years, and that's the first unsettling bit. The next is the fact that the library is really huge compared to, say, the public library I work in. Even compared to the public library in the City, which covers three floors. So navigating the place requires, at the very least, a directory. I found it necessary to get help from the library assistant, actually. But hey, I'm not proud. Any place is intimidating for the first (or second) time, eh? Anyone got any ideas on infamous broadcasters of misinformation (plus supporting journal articles) ?

A book is a delicate treasure...

There is a post in The Spectator regarding the view of books as semi-precious objects. He gives the example of a guy who buys cheap paperback versions of classic novels - then rips off their covers so they'll fit better into his back pocket. The Spectator goes on to defend this attitude, with the fact that books are no longer made by hand and hard to come by. Therefore it's not necessary to be so precious about them.

I'm one of those people who really hate marking books with pencil, much less tear pages out of them. In general, I just love books as objects (even notebooks and other stationery - but that's another fetish story).

Well, there was one exception...
Once, I went to Bolivia and Peru, with a short break in Buenos Aires, for a 5-week holiday. I wasn't able to find a Lonely Planet guidebook which covered only those two countries. Eventually I decided to buy their guidebook on the whole of South America, but it's a really thick book. So, after much agonising, I cut the book down the spine into four sections. This meant I could take just the portions which applied to Argentina, Bolivia and Peru, and saved me half of the original bulk. And I did get disapproving gasps from people who saw how I'd mutilated a Book.

On the whole though, I really hate when people borrow books from the library and fold down the corners instead of using bookmarks. Or even worse, cut or tear out pictures or whole pages from library books and magazines.

It's all about keeping the Dead from coming back

I finished reading ‘Sabriel’ today. It took so long because I’m also reading ‘The Lord of the Rings and Philosophy’, ‘Fighting the Forces : what’s at stake in Buffy the Vampire Slayer’, ‘Dreaming of Gold, Dreaming of Home’ (the one about the history of Chinese migration to the US) and, of course, the thick wad of readings related to my MLIS study – all at the same time.

Anyway…I thought it was pretty clever to add Chapter 1 of the sequel onto the end of ‘Sabriel’. The ending of the book was quite abrupt, prompting me to want to know what happens to her next. Discovering an excerpt of the next book was at first a pleasant surprise (because I might find out), then a slight feeling of disappointment (because Sabriel appears to be not in the sequel). That makes me want to read ‘Lirael’ anyway, just to find out what the situation is.

I’d never known what necromancy was, and ‘Sabriel’ gave me quite a good idea of the gist of it. (Obviously, fantasy writers are going to make the details of necromancy very different from each other’s.) What intrigued me were the tools used to put the Dead in their rightful place – bells. It must take a lot of practice to avoid ringing them accidentally, eh?

It’s also a bit of a coming-of-age tale, with our heroine (at the relatively ripe old age of 19) learning about her destiny, her powers and responsibility, and boys. I like Mogget – the Free Magic creature who is really clever and useful when trapped in his cat body, but dangerous and hateful when released. He kind of reminded me of the character of Angel in BtVS, actually.

Yesterday I came home with 'Tales of the Slayer : Volume 3'. Yes, I've succumbed to reading tv series-based fiction.

To sleep, perchance to breathe uninterrupted through the night...

I have sleep apnoea, I think. It's happened to me several times before in my life, and it happened last night. I'm not talking about snoring either - I usually wouldn't know it if I'm snoring at night.

What I'm talking about is having a fine 'ole sleep, then starting to wake up to the fact that I Absolutely Cannot Breathe. When this happens, I know that I have to change the position of my head and/or body, in order to be able to breathe again. But I don't want to, because I'm sooo sleepy. But I have to, or suffocate. So I force myself to wake up enough to move, and finally I can gasp all that precious air again.

It's bloody scary, actually.

Several years ago, a doctor told me to try elevating the 'head' end of my bed. So I brought home some wood off-cuts from a local timber yard and propped up my bed. This seemed to work for a long time. However, it happened last night and now I'm worried again. It's not like my partner is going to notice when and if it happens again, and help me:

a) he'll be asleep and
b) I won't be able to tell him.

Maybe I shouldn't worry - after all, every time this has occurred in the past I've managed to get breathing again. But there's always a first time, right??

Bus-driving and legal

I passed my class 2 driving test today. That means that I'm licensed to drive the mobile library.

The test went quite well, apart from a screw-up at the very first intersection I came to. It's one with a Stop sign, and I never really notice it - I always stop there, but mostly because there's always traffic to give way to. This morning, I got to the Stop and there was no traffic around - so I sailed on through. Oops. But he let me off that one, because it was the first time he'd seen me do it.

So from next week I'll be spending at least one half-day per week on the mobile library.

The Shane Cotton exhibition opening turned out to be in the form of a traditional Maori powhiri. That meant an hour of welcomes, blessings, singing and speeches in Maori, before we were allowed to eat, drink, converse and peruse. There weren't enough chairs around, so most of us stood through the whole thing. So it was a little tiring, especially as it was 10 pm by the time I got home. And I was too shy to go up to the great artist himself and talk to him. What was I going to say - 'hi, I love yer work' ?

The cultural devolution of me

There's a giant Festival of the Arts on at the moment. In my IT days, when I could afford to buy tickets to the shows, I would have booked seats for several. But now I'm constrained by a combination of little time (due to study and late work nights), little money (due to the fact that I'm in the library industry), and a partner who gets a whole lot more excited by movies based on graphic novels and computer games.

However, I did get to see the wonderful Osadia at work - briefly - today. They are a pair of kimono-attired creative hairdressers/makeup artists, and their act consists of giving volunteers highly colourful, abnormal, smile-inducing hairdos. With matching makeup. I was only there for 20 minutes, since it was sleep-inducingly warm in that particular venue. It's probably the only Festival event I'll get to this time around.

There's an exhibition of Shane Cotton's paintings opening tonight. I'm such a fan of his work from a few years ago that - when I was doing my brief stint as an art student, I unwittingly made several paintings using exactly the same colours (dark, red ochre, a glowing sepia yellow and a little bit of red-black). I didn't realise the influence until my tutor pointed it out to me. So I'll be going to the opening, and I've already put up a little display his work and life (he's a local). Maybe I'll even get to talk to him and tell him I love his work ;-)

Gettin' to know you...

I had my first MLIS class today. It was pretty good to be able to discuss the stuff in the readings with my classmates. However the most productive time to do this was before the lecturer actually arrived. Once the actual class started, I found out which three or four students were going to be doing the most talking...

One, who shall remain unnamed (because she's actually quite nice and reasonably intelligent), had a habit of speaking up quite often, but taking a hell of a long time to get her point across. It was a combination of slow enunciation, and simply too many words. I couldn't help but tune out after the first couple of minutes, every time she spoke.

Afterwards, I discovered that I'd chosen the most expensive car parking building in the entire city to park in. I paid $15 for the 2.5 hours that my car was there. Next week, I'll either try the place down the road (further from school), or cruise the back streets looking for that elusive free parking space.

So tonight I'm working late at the branch library, to make up for the time I took off to go to school. It's surprisingly quiet. I'd always got the impression from the previous person who did this shift, that it was always pretty damn busy. Either the customers got wind of the roster change, or she's just a slacker :-)

And I've just remembered that the life drawing session in town will have just started...without me in it, trying furiously to get it all down in two dimensions.

Experimental insult #1

" He's so ignorant he pronounces 'banal' to rhyme with 'anal' "

(I didn't have anyone in mind when I thought of it. Really.)

It's meet your personal tutor day...not

I arrived at the university nice an early for my 8.30 am appointment with my personal tutor. Hmm.. the door's closed, the lights aren't on, and there's a notice on the door which reads 'Student apointments 10am-12am'...
Well - that's a trip into town, plus a $3 parking fee, I could've been saved.

Luckily, complaining nicely does help - the admin person promised to book me in for another appointment and throw in a (free!) Visitor's parking permit too.

I'd already told my boss on Friday that I'd probably be maybe 20 minutes late to work, so I was pretty relaxed about cruising in at 9.15. Only to find that she'd forgotten, and thought I'd gotten mixed up with the roster changes, and had rung me at home to check. She's a little like my mother actually, in a mildly worry-wort kind of way (but she does her own shopping, is quite a bit younger and prefers Malaysian food to Cantonese food. And she's white).

Anyway, I just hope that this morning's no-show won't turn out to be a bad sign for the future. And tomorrow is my first class (they call 'em seminars), when I get the chance to find out whether I'm the only one to have hastily read through screeds and screeds of academic articles on the nature of information (should we take the Positivist approach, or the Post-Modernist one?).

Summer in the City

Summer's back - since last Friday we've had the weather that we should've had all of February (that's the month when we had wind, rain, flooding and the resulting loss of homes and incomes, all over the lower North Island). As a result I was on a bit of a high right up until this afternoon :

1. I had a great bus-driving lesson on Friday (I got up to 80km/hr on the motorway and wasn't scared witless)

2. I got some good news at work (more at a later date)

3. It was lovely and sunny and warm

4. We caught the Rosalie Gascoigne exhibition (a New Zealand artist who started out as a retired ikebana practitioner and ended up making her name in 'found' art)

5. I saw 'Nowhere in Africa' on video and loved it (think 'Empire of the sun'/'Out of Africa' but about a Jewish girl in Kenya during WWII)

6. And I found that, so far at least, the course materials for my first MLIS paper are actually not too hard to understand (for someone who did her undergraduate degree back when tertiary education was almost free)

There's this quiz called 'Which is Worse?' (see the link down on the left), which asks you to decide the worse of two nasties. Well, today it was - 'Which is worse, being trapped in traffic on a hot day with no air-con or being your aged mother's taxi-driver and grocery-carrier for three solid hours?' Actually, today was both of those at the same time.

But I've left that grumpiness behind again, because I strolled down to the local street festival to have a look around. There was live music, busking, stalls selling useless knick-knacks and food. I bought a painting for myself, and a Maori-inspired pendant for my boy, who's feeling a bit under the weather today.

Short heroes

I'm about half-way through the fantasy novel Sabriel, and the heroine happens to be tall and slender. Initially I thought -why are heroes of books and movies nearly always tall?

Traditionally, heroes are always tall (slender if female, athletic if male).

So it's nice to come across short heroes. Buffy (of BTVS fame) is, of course, always referred to as short. She's probably average height for a woman, and her lack of lankiness is always exagerated by the presence of tall male characters such as Angel and Riley. But then, that's all part of the whole idea of having as the Slayer someone who looks like a good victim i.e. small and delicate.

Then there're the hobbits. It would've been too easy for Aragorn, or Legolas to be the main heroes. But it's the halflings who save the world, eh?

Mini-me, from the Austen Powers movie, was evil, so he doesn't count.

Children don't count, because they're supposed to be short, and anyway it's only until they grow up.

I can't think of any others. Can you?

If you're overseas Chinese and you know it clap yer hands...

It's one of those things which come upon you when you get to a certain age, I suppose - the desire to know more about one's cultural roots (along with an increasing interest in opera and jazz as opposed to boozing and bars).

Whilst browsing around in the university library the other day I found a book about the history of Chinese in the United States. I promptly put a request on it of course, and eagerly await the e-mail telling me when it's mine to borrow. I already have a copy of a really interesting book on photographs of San Francisco's Chinatown by a German guy called Genthe. The photos date from 1895 till around 1927, showing not only changes in appearance of the Chinese but also in the streets and buildings that made up Chinatown. Umm.. it's actually a helluva lot more fascinating than it sounds...

So while I've been able to read a bit about the experiences of Chinese in New Zealand, from the gold-mining days to the present - now I can look around for information on what Chinese immigrants got up to all over the world. From what little I've found so far, they definitely had similar prejudices to deal with.

I actually found a blog for, and by, Irish-born Chinese. I wasn't particularly excited about most of it, but I was particularly excited to discover that there are Chinese in Ireland. Do they have green eyes and drink Guinness and sing sad songs?

There's also a site on Chinese in Britain, which was packed with interesting news and titbits. Nice title too.

The end of the almost-holiday and the start of student-hood

It was the last day of my four days study leave, and tomorrow I go back to work. At least it's only for one day before the weekend.

I met Diana today, who is one of the new MLIS students. It turned out that we had grown up in the same suburb and gone to the same primary, intermediate and secondary schools. It's funny how you can remember a teacher from well over thirty years ago, as soon as someone mentions her name.

My course book for the paper I'm doing this trimester is enormous. I'm just doing the one, but those fulltime students who are taking four papers at a time are busy organising wheelbarrows for the forest of paper they have to take home. I have 20-30 pages to read and think about before Tuesday morning - I hope that doesn't mean I won't have time to watch ER on Monday evening...

It's a long way from the tramping club to the philosophy club

Day 3 of the MLIS orientation and I'm finally starting to remember people's names, and getting to know which ones I like talking to. Dan, who is one of the several Canadian lecturers, is friendly, easy to talk to and got my jokey remark about getting photocopier-rage. And there's a Korean girl whose name I can't spell - she's cool because she acts like a local and is learning Italian (which is surely the sexiest language in the world).

In the Quad were dozens of on-campus clubs, as there are in every university during Orientation Week. I got to compare and contrast the variety of clubs on offer this year, with those available when I was an undergraduate (umm - its been a few years).

Probably not too much has changed, but I'm noticing different things.

Back in my day...

the tramping club was king, and there were two karate clubs. Today I was drawn to the diving club (I can't dive due to my asthma, but the guy there was pretty friendly) and a philosophy club. Finally a sociable way for me to ask people what the hell Thomas Aquinas was talking about.

Quickly losing my career focus

The problem is that we've been advised to plan our courses for the whole MLIS programme, especially if we plan to study part-time over 3-4 years. Okay, that itself is not the problem. The problem is that, I don't know for sure which elective courses will be scheduled for which trimester, after 2004. And of course I have to ensure that I don't select two courses which are on at the same time.

I am going to contact the programme director, for sure. But actually I'm no longer sure which electives I want to take (we can take four) i.e. what kind of librarian career I want to aim for. I'm keen on the Reference course because I think I want to be a reference librarian. But I'm also interested in the Digital Library course because I like using electronic resources, have some IT background and am interested in web content management. And I really want to do Art of the Book because I've always been interested in books as objects. But I should really do the Business Information course because it'll be useful in most corporate library jobs. What about Cataloguing? Surely it's important in all library jobs? Arrgh!

Christian humour exists

I know this because I saw an example of it this morning, on a sign outside a central city church.

The sign reads "The Super 12. Weren't they the disciples? Yeah, right'

But you won't get it unless you know that Super 12 is a highly popular rugby competition in NZ (that's all I know about it, I'm sooo uninterested in sport), and that 'Yeah, right' is Kiwi-speak for 'Go on, pull the other one' (if you're English). I can't think of an American equivalent.

If you have come across a better Christian joke (one which doesn't simply make fun of Christians, that is), you're welcome to comment...

First day of the MLIS orientation, and Peter Jackson gets what he deserves

I attended my first day of orientation today, and came out of it dehydrated but well-fed. It appears that most of this year's intake is part-time, and there are quite a few international students as well. Despite my (possibly unreasonable) paranoia about getting mistaken for an international student, I ended up chatting with several women from China and Singapore, and sitting with most of the Asian students for the big photo.

This paranoia comes from years of being mistaken for a Japanese tourist whenever I go overseas, even to cities with sizable Chinese populations. And I'm sure that sometimes no-one came and talked to me because they assumed I didn't speak English. (I did bathe every single day, by the way.)

Most students I spoke to said their respective employers did not pay for their studies, and everyone wanted to know which employers did. So far, the Ministry of Economic Development does. I now want to work there.

The day ended with free pizza and orange juice. I was particularly impressed that it was Hell pizza, surely the best commercially made pizza in the country.

I'm so pleased that our Peter has won an Oscar for best director, and that LOTR got best picture, and that the Weta crowd received an Oscar too. No doubt our PM will organise a ticker-tape parade, and so will Wellington's Mayor - and so they should.

Oh, for a week on a Mediteranean island...

The storm's abated, but this last week we've had nothing but heavy rain - until today. Apparently we've had our Summer, which normally lasts at least into March. Time to put away my sandals which I bought last Spring and got to wear mayber a dozen times...

I had to work yesterday (Saturday), which is normally bad enough. Only this weekend is the weekend of the Cuba St Carnival, so quite a few roads have been blocked off - including a main on/off ramp onto the motorway out of the city. So while it took the usual time for me to drive to work, it took me 75 mins to get home. Thats 30 mins on the highway to travel the 50 kms to the city, and the rest of the time to get the 5 kms or so across town to home.

Being stuck in traffic makes me so grumpy. It feels like precious time is being stolen from my life right in front of me, and I'm helpless to stop it. Time which I could have used to read a book, talk to my other half, cruise the Web, work on my painting, excercise or nap.

We went to see my nephew who turned three a couple of weeks ago. I think he liked his present - a kite in the shape of a dragon - though he'll probably appreciate it a lot more when we get it in the air. Apparently he was so excited about our visit that he sat in his parent's garage for ages, waiting for us. Made me feel slightly guilty that we were about an hour late...

The most exciting thing about today is that the sun has come out enough for me to hang the washing out. Perhaps I should get another hobby...

Giving advice is so much easier than following it...

I was chatting to someone at work today about his website. He's got a commercial website and was wishing he could get more traffic to it. I offered the usual ideas - putting the URL in your e-mail signature and somewhere in all your correspondence, telling people about your site, visiting other people's sites and leaving your URL in the comments. Those are the things I've tried anyway.

Then I decided to look around for advice which I could send him. Well, I found a few short articles - they looked good, but I can't be bothered reading them (except for the amptoons one). So I'm posting them. You read 'em and tell me if it helped
:-)

how to get more people to read your blog from amptoons,
something from The Web Design Company,
and an article from better-homepage.com

Which are your favourite Buffy episodes?

Scrolling through amptoons wonderful blog (the link is down on the left), I came across a list of Joss Whedon's ten favourite episodes.

I'm not yet enough of a Buffy nerd to remember every single episode, but most of those listed were indeed wonderful, especially 'Hush', 'The Body' and 'Doppelgangland'. And I really liked those episodes in which Buffy and Spike get together in that strange, masochistic way. Maybe I just like to see imperfection in people. Maybe it was refreshing for a white, middle-class, nice girl display signs of serious disturbance.

It's boring for others when one does nothing but complain, so ...

it's good to have a site like iworkwithfools, where people write in with their own little grumble-y stories about their workmates, bosses and underlings.

Sometimes they are just silly, other times you'll read and nod your head in recognition. Of course, all my workmates are wonderful - if you guys are reading this and know who I am <:-o .

Muscular women

Last night was my penultimate life drawing session, as I'll soon be starting my MLIS, which will clash. Our model this time was a female trapeze artist.

Tama had already drawn her a couple of weeks ago, and described her to me as a muscular body attached to a delicate and feminine head. So when she turned up last night, I was curious to see how she'd look.

The first, two-minute poses, didn't give much away. 'Huh? What's he talking about?', I thought. 'She's petite and merely well-toned...'.

Then she changed her poses a bit and I could see what Tama meant. I'm not talking bulk, not at all. But she's probably the most well-toned woman I've ever seen in the flesh. Think six-pack abs, back muscles galore and the utter lack of flab anywhere (especially on her bum). I was a bit jealous, but then again - she is after all an athlete and no doubt trains hard every day. I could do without training every day - in fact it's hard enough just going to the gym for an hour, three times per week.

After about four years of going to these life drawing sessions, I'm finally able to fit the whole figure onto an A3 page every time. For me, it's quite an achievement because for some reason my arm just wanted to draw big, sweeping curves. I, for one, was someone who had to 'tighten up' her drawings rather than 'loosen up'. So I'll be sad next week, knowing that my drawing will decline until I go back.

Full-on Academy Awards display at the library

'Tis not an adventuresome place, the library, so we try to make little stuff seem like big stuff. For instance, one of the younger, more extroverted staff members won chocolate bars from the local radio station. When they were delivered in person by the radio guy (who is probably famous to those who listen to him - but not me), she shrieked with excitement and declared there would be chocolate for all. Most of the part-time staff don't have their own desk, so their team leader made the special effort to label each of those chocolate bars with the name of a different staff member. It all looked too cute, a little Post-it sticker on each one...

In honour of the up-coming Oscars, we made up a little display. It consists of the usual - posters of films including past winners, books about films, film-making and film stars, entry forms for a competition to guess the award winners, and film-school information for hopeful potential film industry workers.

Someone had the bright idea of including a dress-makers dummy, clad in a surprisingly glamourous ex-bridesmaid's dress, and putting a large paper cut-out of Nicole Kidman's head on top. Underneath it all was a small roll of red carpet.

I declared that really we should have the head of Peter Jackson (who is God), instead of that of an Aussie actress. Supporting my idea was that the dummy was certainly not wearing shoes and was therefore suited to being our Peter. However while I got smiles, chortles, snorts - I did not get enough support to exchange heads.

Books and Movies

I've only just finished Robert Sapolsky's 'A Primate's Memoir', and I just have to rave about it again as I did when I was only half-way through it. It's got laughs, tragedy, power games, corruption, culture clashes, and horrible diseases. This guy just writes so well, taking us from the beginning of his time in Kenya - young, gung-ho and idealistic - to a time years later when he's lost his innocence and half of his baboon troop to bovine tuberculosis.

Since Janet Frame's autobiography is still out of the library, I've started reading 'Sabriel' by Garth Nix. It's my first foray into fantasy fiction for many years, because I've always been highly put-off by unpronouncable, hyphenated names and the need to consult a glossary every few sentences. But I've decided that I shouldn't ignore an entire genre so I'm starting with an author who is quite popular with the teens and whose books my boy just happens to have copies of. So far I haven't come across any unpronouncable names or strange words, but then again I'm only about three chapters in.

We watched 'American Pie : the wedding' last night on DVD. There were maybe four quite funny bits (if you like toilet humour, which I confess I do), and the rest was just so-so. Let me list the highlights:
1. pubic hair on the wedding cake
2. sex with granny
3. eating dogshit
4. Stiffler and a large gay man having a dance-off in a gay bar.
Disappointingly, Alyson Hannigan didn't get much chance to be funny.

Just another stormy day with 180 km/hr gale force winds

It kind of put me off leaving the house, the wind. But I had to get my three-year-old nephew a present, so we went to Toy World.

I was hoping to find something to satisfy his fish obsession, and move away from the whole 'Thomas the tank engine' theme. But we didn't see anything fish-related, so I got him a kite. It's pretty neat, as it's in the shape of a dragon. His Chinese name has 'Dragon' in it you see, so it seemed an appropriate choice. He probably won't get to play with it by himself - it's too big for a little'un and his Daddy will have to hold it for him. But I hope he enjoys watching it fly...though perhaps not in today's breeze.

I was really pleased to see a couple of comments on a previous posting I'd made, nice to know my efforts aren't being completely ignored. And it'll be a greater incentive to try to write interestingly too. So, if you're reading this now, thanks :-)

Bus-driving, marae-visiting and exploding whales...

No doubt the exploding whale thing is what you want to know about most - I found it on Scattered Speculations blog.

All I can say is, it should've happened somewhere in Japan as revenge for all that whale-harpooning and eating they do. It might sound a bit rich coming from a Chinese person - someone whose ancestors (and relatives, perhaps) have been known for eating anything with legs that wasn't a piece of furniture. But then, I personally have never condoned the killing of (at least) semi-intelligent, rare mammals just because they are a delicacy.

I had my second driving lesson in the library bus today. It was still terrifying, especially when I went on the motorway and tried to reach a decent speed. I was only going at 60-70 km/hr, but I felt a bit out of control. It felt like I was barrelling. Mike asked whether I found it more comfortable driving the bus now, since I'd now had one lesson behind my belt. I likened it to bungy-jumping (which I've never done - I should have compared it to trekking in high altitude). It's something which, before I do it, I don't want to do it. Then once I've done it, I'm really glad I've done it. But I really don't want to do it again.

But I will. I'll be getting more driving lessons until either I get my full HV licence, or leave my job in a radical attempt to avoid being a mobile librarian.

This afternoon, I and about 20 other city council staff visited the local marae. I've never been to a marae, which is really surprising because I've grown up in New Zealand and learned about Maori culture at school. For non-Kiwis - if you've seen Whale Rider then you'll have an idea of what it was like (it's the part where our heroine leads a group of visitors in, chanting at the top of her voice). I even enjoyed singing the waiata (songs), despite my complete lack of singing ability.

Even better, we didn't have to go back to work afterwards. Except my boss said that 'if you were really conscientious, and had stuff to do, then you could come back and do it' - she wasn't necessarily saying it to just me, but I definitely got the feeling she wanted me to come back afterwards and work on the Academy Awards display for Monday.

The temptation of leaving work an hour early on a Friday was far, far too great ...

Not the sweet person I thought I was?

Due to my background as a computer programmer, I became the unofficial apprentice to the Systems Librarian, soon after starting at the library. The idea was that I would be the first port of call for all computer-related problems, thus saving the System Librarian from spending too much time on relatively simple problems.

Apparently, ever since that decision was made, people have been inundating the Systems Librarian with computer problems - rather than coming to me first.

I'd be the first to admit I don't know a lot about computers. I only know how to program 'em.

But it was suggested to me today, that people might be bypassing me because I'm unapproachable, or perhaps seem to be grumpy when asked to fix something.

Me?

I thought I was the model of sweetness, with the higher than normal use of humour to deflect anger, the smiles to hide shyness. Okay sometimes I am grumpy, but that's usually only after work when I've had to sit in traffic for an hour, or after I've spent 2 hours in various supermarkets with my mother on Sunday.

What to do....?

I could try harder to be sweetness and light, or I could celebrate this sweet'n'sour aspect of my personality. Everyone should have a dark side, right? I don't do drugs, smoke or even drink (any more). This could be my second vice, after coffee.

Yeah, I led a very sheltered life.

Storm Aftermath

I got a big fright yesterday when someone told me they'd heard on the radio, that the area where my mum lives was being evacuated.

Scary because, due to my late dad's insecurity, my mother was never allowed to learn English. She's made up for it a little since he died, but her English is limited to getting really good bargains with retailers.

So I rang the Civil Defense office in town to find out whether it was true. I probably should have done that before ringing my mother and asking her whether she'd been asked to leave her home....

Anyway, it turned out to be a false alarm - there was some surface flooding in a different part of her suburb, but the water was receding and no-one had to evacuate.

It reminds me of the time Cyclone Bola struck, leaving devastation all over the lower North Island. I was holidaying in the South Island at the time, and only heard about the cyclone on the news. Worried that I'd get home and find no home and no job, I rung home in a panic. Only to be reassured that my home town was pretty much untouched. Phew.

Gosh but aren't there a lot of sites about the Buffyverse

And who knows how long they'll keep going now that Angel has been cancelled? (See the updates in red).

Big storm leads to a day off work for me

We couldn't sleep last night due to the huge storm over the whole North Island. This morning, we found our fence completely flattened at the front of the house. True, the posts were in a sorry state already - but I'll blame the gale force winds for pulling them out entirely.

And the good thing for me is that I don't have to go to work today. State Highway 2 is still closed, and my boss was told by the Civil Defense guy that I wouldn't get through at all. No mention of the possiblity of taking the train to work instead - but then the trains weren't working at 9am this morning, and might not be still.

Short 'n' Sweet 'n' driving a bus

I had my first driving lesson in the mobile library today. It's hard to express just how nervous I was, let's just say I was terribly relieved that I, the instructor, and the bus all got back into the garage in one piece.

What didn't help was that, being a mere 5' tall, using the handbrake was a major physical effort.

For some reason, the designers of our bus put the handbrake on the far right of the dashboard, really close to the windscreen. In order to take the brake off, I have to lean diagonally to the right (as far as I can), pull the lever up (with my right hand - I'm left-handed), and push it forward (almost further than I can go). It feels about as natural to me as dancing in stilletos, on a cobbled street.

On the plus side, the instructor was great - patient, calm and convincingly assured me that I was doing fine and that he was not at all scared. Actually, he probably wasn't that scared - he kept telling me to go faster (I was struggling to reach 50 km/hr).

So, all in all, I felt kind of good about the whole thing. I'd been worried about it for ages, and now I think I'm going to be okay.

More Buffy-related sites

WHEDONesque has no doubt been around for a while, but hey - better found late than never eh? Handy for keeping up to date with news to do with BTVS's creator.

There are a whole lot of good quotes taken from BTVS and Angel, here at sunnydale-slayers.
Here's one from Season 7, "Bring on the night"...

Giles: Sorry to barge in. I'm afraid we have a slight apocalypse.

what to get him for Valentine's Day?

Last year I got him a tattoo - that is, he picked the design and the tattooist, I went to watch and use my credit card.

I might have to do the same this year, because at least I know he wants another. I did have a great idea today - buy him the complete series of Joss Whedon's "Firefly" on DVD. I found it listed on Amazon, and it wasn't nearly as costly as I'd imagined.

I was all set to order it, and a couple of other items too (the Buffy tv soundtrack, and a Buffy book edited by Glenn Yeffith) - only to realise that the DVD is Region 1 only i.e. it won't play in New Zealand. Cut across to the UK amazon site, and not only is it not available there until April but it's Region 2 only!

Then I found it being advertised on trademe. Turns out you have to pay 'em 10 bucks even if all you want to do is ask the seller more about the product. Luckily I found out (by reading more of his listing) that it's a Region 1 DVD. Guess I wasn't the only one caught out, at least initially.

So at this stage it's back to the tattoo idea. Or a book voucher from Graphics, where he buys most of his graphic novels.

Past Obsessions

From earliest to most recent...

Playing Music - I tried to teach myself to play the guitar when I was fifteen. Gave up when I realised that my fingers are too short for the full range of finger-picking, and I can't get by with strumming if I can't sing in tune.

Listening to Music - Instead I became obsessed with the 'Dunedin sound', that jangly guitar garage band genre of music, and a self-styled Indie. After I returned from my big O.E in Europe, India and Africa, I inexplicably stopped seriously listening to music.

Karate - started when I was a Zoology student. Two years later, I was a brown belt (provisional) and had bought a book by the master of the style (Okinawan something - it was over a decade ago). Lost interest after two years, after I came back from holiday.

Yoga - went to classes twice weekly, even bought a mat of my own and contemplated buying a video so I could practise at home. Gave up after two years, after I sprained my ankle and hurt my back in two completely unrelated, non-yoga incidents.

Drawing and Painting - I was the girl at primary school who drew horses for her classmates. Much, much later, I got the urge to re-learn and attended evening classes. I even enrolled in a full-time, three-month Art and Design course at the local polytechnic. I even sold some of my work. After three years, I've lost the passion. I still do a bit of life drawing, and keep my easel up in case I want to use it, but I haven't painted regularly for about six months.

Web design and digital art - I'm too cheap to pay for my own domain, and can only create static pages on the account I have. Photoshop is a great tool, but trying to make the mouse act like a pen or a brush is pretty frustrating. On the backburner.

Some people are just so nasty

I couldn't help but read this stuff by Blog Heckler. It's almost masochistic, because there's always the fear that my own blog will be mentioned in it, mercilessly put down. I suppose it could be likened to watching torture scenes or something, a morbid fascination.

I've been having the strangest dreams lately, where I'm doing something weird and unshareable, then wake up from that dream only to find that the waking up bit was also a dream. My boy's snoring kept me awake most of the night, but that didn't stop me from having another of those dream-within-a-dream experiences. Apparently I was thrashing around and all feverish. So this morning I let myself sleep in till 10 or so, and take the day off work. Now I've got a headache from sleeping in too much.

Here's where I found that little gem about Harry Potter..

It was in Marginal Librarian blog.

I finally get to watch Citizen Kane

After years of calling myself a film buff, and being embarrassed about never having seen it, we finally got the video out and watched it last night.

Yeah I enjoyed it, but more for the unusual angles and lighting than for the story. It probably would have had a lot more impact on me if I'd watched it at the time it was first showing in the cinemas - but of course many films have since been made, which parody contemporary bigwigs. I'd call it a film-maker's film.

The video had a short documentary on Orsen Welles, and featured several big-name directors revealing the value of Citizen Kane on their own work. That was a real bonus.

But what was it really about? What was the theme? That a man, however famous and powerful, is still only a man? That any idealist can be corrupted?

Whaddya think?

Kids saying the darndest things about Harry Potter

I came across this set of letters from kids on the subject of the Harry Potter books, in light of all the hoo-hah about them being a bad influence on impressionable young minds. My favourite is the one about jumping off a roof on a broomstick, pretending he can fly. I don't want to ruin it for you though, take a look.

Apologies to the person whose blog I found it in, I forgot to keep your URL!

plumbing and driving

My mains pipe broke last Friday, on Waitangi Day. Of course, I couldn't let the leak (which became a major one after we tried to fix it) wait until Monday before getting it fixed. So I got the plumber around, who assured me that it would cost heaps more than normal due to it being a public holiday an all (i.e. the weekend of the Rugby Sevens which I'm sure he wanted to watch instead of fixing pipes).

I have my first bus-driving lesson this coming Friday - me, who has always shied away from driving any car other than my own because it'd be too different from what I'm used to.

Apparently it usually takes only 3-4 lessons for an experienced car driver to gain his or her HV licence. Well, I may just be the unlucky one who changes all that...

Work's thinking of making the mobile library service available at the railway station next door, for the early morning commuter rush. Yeah right, I thought to myself. I'm practically comatose at 8am, when I leave the house to get to work. They'd be asking for trouble, making me get up at 5.30 am to do a 7am bus round. It didn't really put L (my supervisor) off, but I think I made sufficient negative noises to suggest a slight lack of willingness....

Book Rave

Due to the huge demand on Janet Frame books at the library, her autobiography is out - so I'm reading 'a Primate's Memoir' by Robert M Sapolsky.

It's a sort of cross between Jane Goodall and Bill Bryson, being an interesting and amusing account of Sapolsky's time in East Africa studying a baboon troup. He's a grad student at the beginning of the book, studying the link between stress and physical health, and about twenty years before the time of writing.

I found his style highly readable, the kind of writing which would make just about any topic fascinating and funny.

He's written a few other books as well, which I'll have to add to my growing list of must-read-before-I-die books.

Film and Philosophy

More along the lines of what I've already been reading, here is an on-line course called Philosophical Films.
For a refreshing change, The Matrix does not make it into the list of films to be studied. In fact, the list is quite small and includes only a few which I have seen - all of them fairly old e.g.
Apocalypse Now
Educating Rita
What dreams may come (which I found totally boring, despite it being a Vincent Ward film)
and A Heart in Winter.

For each film you get a plot summary, a discussion of the themes, and a related philosophical reading.

There are also study questions if you're really keen. I hope Dr Bramann adds some more recent films to this course, though not The Matrix - I've definitely overloaded on philosophical ramblings on that movie....

My first 'Nigerian' scam e-mail

I'd heard all about 'em on tv - the email introducing its writer as the once-wealthy victim of his country's political instablility. He pleads for monetary help, promising big returns to reward you for your compassion and financial help. Apparently lots of naive would-be investors actually fall for it.

I received my first today, from Robert Asele, eldest son of 'one of the most popular black farmers
in Zimbabwe who was recently murdered in the land dispute in my country' (not Nigeria, for a change).

Yeah right.

I remember reading in the paper, of a young woman who had her huge credit card bill paid off by people responding to her e-mail begging. Makes me wonder why this works!!

Chimp News

An unusual subject to blog about, I would have thought. And yet I saw it and wanted to know more....

When I was young and naive enough to think I could grow up to be anything I wanted, I wanted to be like Jane Goodall and study chimpanzees in the forest.

Since then, I've accepted that as a city person I'd find it a bit of a toil living alone in a jungle for decades of my life. Plus I'm allergic to cats and horses, and perhaps a chimp allergy would have turned up too.

An interest in primates still lurks in the back of my consciousness somewhere, which is why I was curious about Chimp News. If you want to keep up with news on whats happening with (and to) chimps around the world, you could have a wee look.

Life Drawing

It's one of my favourite things to do (though I wouldn't want to do it for a job...). I've been going to untutored life drawing sessions once a week for about 3 years now, and I've learned a few things:

1. The phrase "Use it or lose it" is absolutely true when it comes to life drawing. If I miss one or more weeks, my drawing ability will have deteriorated noticeably by the time I'm back in the life room.

2. Beautiful people don't necessarily make the best life models. What makes a model a good one is - the ability to hold poses, especially standing ones; interesting face; "landmarks" i.e. muscles, bulgy bits, boobs...etc

3. People who do life drawing tend to be art students, artists and those who wannbe either. Most of 'em are introverted.

I never noticed pervy types at these sessions, though I've been told one or two have turned up and been turfed out.

While I've almost given up on painting due to lack of leisure time, and don't actually bother drawing anything else, life drawing manages to hold my interest even after all this time.

That'll all change when I start my MLIS this year, and have to find 10 hours each week to study in (that's 10 hrs per paper).....

Finding a cheaper Electricity provider

I wouldn't be alone in thinking that the power companies are ripping us off. If you live in New Zealand (as I do), you might find this nifty little thingy called Powerswitch useful.

Powerswitch is brought to you by the Consumer's Institute of New Zealand, and its aim is to find you the cheapest power company for your needs. All you do is answer a few questions on their site (have a recent bill handy), and you'll find out who you should look at switching to.

The downside is that a price increase is coming, which will affect some companies in some areas of the country. What this means for me is that I have found a power company to switch to, but won't do it just yet because they're about to put their prices up.....

Death

My sister-in-law's great aunt died this morning. She'd just gotten out of hospital, and moved into a nursing home near her sister's place. At 94 (I think), she'd lived to a good age, and what from I knew, she'd had an interesting life full of adventures and art.

So I'm just having a moment........

Are you morally parsimonious?

Check out this little quiz. You'll be presented with a range of scenarios, on which you'll have to decide your moral stance. I did this one and came up with a 75 % score on morale parsimony.

The word 'parsimonious' has such negative connotations, so I was unpleasantly surprised. But on reading the analysis of my score, I don't think it was necessarily a bad result. The writers of the quiz do stress that there are no wrong or right answers.

a personal message ...

Ian Pryor, if you're reading this - a big fat juicy hi to you!

Its so cool to know someone actually found my blog and read it - seeing your name in one of my posts may have something to do with it....

I'm lousy at phoning people, so get yourself a new e-mail account so we can catch up electronically until my phoning self-improvement plan takes effect (this could take anywhere from 2 weeks to 6 months though!).

My library has your Peter Jackson bio, even before I got around to recommending it to the aquisitions folks.

An exhibition of gown art

My neighbour, Jo Torr, is an artist. (She's also a trained librarian, but thats by-the-by). She's having an exhibition at Avid, of gowns, which opened tonight.

These gowns are sort of 18th Century-ish. The kind with the corset and the bustle and the decolletage. What's different about them is that the fabric has been screenprinted in black and white with images taken from old photos of Pacific Island people.

Now, I only managed to read a couple of pages of the accompanying literature before getting caught up in a conversation with Jo's lovely mum - but I gather that the works are a statement about the way white folks used to objectify non-white cultures.

It was a sort of 'white gaze', as opposed to a 'male gaze'.
Both women and men in the images are 'noble savages', subject to white people's cultural arrogance and stereotyping.

At least, that's what I think those dresses were all about.

Jo's mum introduced herself to me and was really lovely. I was happy to meet Denise, one of the two (identical twin) models wearing the works. I was interested to learn that she's a professional illustrator, and attends life drawing sessions at the school where I learned to draw.

Of course, being an aspiring artist, I wanted to know everything she did and how. It seemed I'd made a friend.

I think I must be good at this social networking thing.

Janet Frame

Janet Frame died yesterday. We wanted to put up a display for her in the library, and got together some books and other display materials. It didn't go up until this morning, because we'd been waiting for the supports for our new display board.

Our display attracted a bit of interest, and several patrons mentioned how great a writer she was.

I really must read some of her books. I think I'll start with volume one of her autobiography, 'To the Is-land'. I'll let you know how I go....

I may be a born-again techno-cretin

I don't know about that RSS thing. I tried out the 'Feed' link mentioned in the 27th, and apparently some sort of sortware is needed for it to work.

Or maybe I'm supposed to copy and paste all that html code which appears when I click on another blog's 'Feed' link...

I can't be bothered trying to figure it out right now. If I wanted to be knee-deep in techie stuff I'd have kept my programming job two years ago...

Well, if it doesn't work for you, here's something else. You can now subscribe to my blog - all you have to do is enter your e-mail address in that text box on the lower left, and click on 'subscribe'.

Each time I make a new post, you'll get an e-mail - hopefully with the whole post in the body of the e-mail. Go on, try it.

'Sex and the City' - for middle aged men

If you haven't seen BBC's comedy series, 'Manchild', yet - start now. It's already in it's second series, and you wouldn't want to miss out on the character development would you?

As you might have guessed from my title, Manchild is about 4 Englishmen in their 50's, all financially 'comforable' and great mates. Two are divorced, one of whom openly chases 20-something girlies; one is happily married yet envious of the exploits of his single friends;and the fourth is a confirmed bachelor of the old-fashioned sort i.e. you never see him with a girlfriend, but he isn't gay (as far as I can tell).

Heres a site which tells you all about the series, including episode guides and a facility allowing you to submit and/or read reviews....

RSS feed now available

This atom thing which Blogger now has available - I suppose it means that all you have to do is click on the link at left and you'll get each and every one of my lovely blog posts in your e-mail. Won't that be convenient?

I take a walk on the wilder side

Or, if you're a bit worldlier than me, a walk on the less tame side....

Last weekend we went to the Cosmic Corner shop to have a bit of a browse, and left with 2 purchases which put a grin on my face :

1. a small black t-shirt with a picture of a small, angular feline and the words 'Bad Kitty' underneath. It's sort of naughty, but in a subtle way. I wore it to work yesterday, wondering whether it would get any comments. The first 2 people to say anything about it were men. The other person was a young, pierced, belly-dancing fellow library-assistant. Not as subtle as I thought?

2. Some 'herbal highs' - 2 capsules per packet. These are supposed to either mellow you out or hype you up, depending on the label. I tried one of the mellow ones, and sure enough I did feel mellow all afternoon. But then, one can't be sure the effect isn't purely psychological. My boy had one of the speed-like capsules, and claimed to feel more 'up' afterwards.

To make this more scientific, we're going to have to try them a few more times.

More on the Peter Jackson biography

The review in my previous post's link is not nearly so positive as the one in The DominionPost. I'd be inclined to go with the latter, since the reviewer is a well-respected rock critic and musician whom I've actually read and heard. And also 'cos Ian's a mate...

Here are are couple more articles on the book,
in Stuff
and in the NZ Herald

An unauthorised biography of Peter Jackson

A few weeks ago, I was pleasantly surprised to find myself listening to a radio interview with an aquaintance of mine, Ian Pryor. He's just had a book published about Peter Jackson, New Zealand's film-maker god/hero.

I'd first met Ian while backpacking in northern Italy about a decade ago, when he was on his way to the Cannes Film Festival. The next time I met him (in New Zealand), he was moonlighting in a trendy video shop while freelancing as a film journalist.

And yet I had no idea he was working on a book about Peter Jackson.

I've since seen the book in the shops, but my library assistant job and salary prevent me from buying books if theres a chance I can borrow it for nothing.

I still don't know for myself whether it's a good book, however The DominionPost has given it an excellent review (its the paper's Book of the Week), so I'll definitely be entering their draw for a free copy.

Heres an online article about the book.

BTW, it's called 'Peter Jackson: From Prince of Splatter to Lord of the Rings' and published by Random House.

Whakapapa photos

In case anyone's interested, photos from the weekend in the mountains can be found here.

Possibly everything you ever wanted to know about dragons

This site has heaps of info about the history of dragons in various cultures, and even something about the physiology and anatomy of dragons.

I've yet to check it for accuracy e.g. whether the Maori word for dragon really is 'tarakona' (I thought maybe it was 'taniwha'?), and there is a bit of a commercial side to it (you can buy dragon merchandise on the site). But the author seems to simply be genuinely interested in dragon mythology.

I'd like to know her source for the anatomical drawings.

Talk about changeable weather!

Over the weekend it was all lovely and sunny and warm...
Yesterday all my extremities froze in the wintery cold and wind, when I was dressed for a mildly cool day...

Overnight there was such a horrible storm that the street sign on the corner blew right off the signpost. My gatepost, which was admittedly rotting already, had completely uprooted and was trying to lie flat against the footpath. The howling kept me awake all night and made me dream of leaks in the roof....

So this morning I dressed for winter cold, only to find once I got to work that the temperatures are merely mildly cool.
Talk about changeable!

Back from a weekend in the mountains

We just got back this afternoon, from a weekend at Whakapapa, staying at a tramping club lodge with about 30 other people.

Several friends, some of whom I've known since primary school, were going to be there. Also, I was looking to forward to a weekend away in which it wasn't just the two of us. The promise of walks was a super-bonus...

I haven't done any tramping in years, and I didn't think my boy was up to it - he's a chain smoker and I've never seen him excercise on a regular basis - so I thought we'd be looking to do a short stroll here and there while the others were out doing the Tongariro Crossing (which apparently takes about 8 hours to complete).

We were spared from deciding whether to do that particular trip however, because we didn't turn up until late Saturday afternoon. On the following day, most people wanted to do something a little shorter, such as the 4-5 hr walk up to the crater lake on Ruapehu. And this is the one we joined up with.

This walk consisted of 2 ski-lift rides which took us most of the way up (in beautiful weather), then a scramble on loose dirt and boulders, then zig-zagging up the soft-snow covered slopes to the ridge, then a walk along the ridge to Dome Hut which overlooks the crater lake.

My boy did bloody well for a sedentary computer-game-addict. He not only insisted on carrying my gear in his daypack, but managed to get to the ridge before succumbing to oxygen-deprivation. So he stayed there, and I kept him company (I was well fit for the full trip, honest!), and other 5 in our group continued on.

Then we had to run/slide back down to catch the last chair-lift back to the village or suffer the consequences i.e. an additional 2.5 hour walk to get back. My claim to fame on this leg of the journey was spectacularly bad slide down a portion of the slope, in which I totally lost control and ended up going head first (though face up) for about 20 metres. And then I had to trek back up a bit to retrieve my sunglasses.

We finished off with a soak in hot mineral springs, after which I almost nodded off to sleep even though it was only about 7pm.

I want feedback

Actually, I want to know whether anyone is reading this blog....
Regardless of the answer to this question, I will keep on posting because you never know. And the mere possibility that you might be reading this right now, or have read one of my previous posts, is enough to keep me writing.

So I've created myself an e-mail account specifically for you, the reader, to enable you to send me a message. You can tell me as little as you want - just let it be relevant to the blog and not just a random rant or piece of spam.

Click on the 'Gimme Feedback' link at the left there, and talk to me.................

A weekend in the mountains, and preparations for Chinese New Year

I'm so looking forward to this weekend. We're joining a large group of friends, aquaintances and strangers, at a tramping club lodge which is approximately 5 1/2 hours drive from home.

There'll be walks, chats, party games, communal meals, quiet reading times and opportunities for drawing and photography - and no work until Tuesday.

Plus its a cheap weekend away, with no chance of frittering away hard-earned dosh on unnecessary stuff like DVDs and such like.

I've been organising a display for the library, to celebrate Chinese New Year. I have to admit that my personal experience of this festival is - lots of food, especially the kind particular to New Year, and receiving 'lucky money'. Giving away money and displaying food wouldn't really work at a public library, would it?

So I sourced a few small Chinese lanterns, a Good Luck poster (bright red and gold and glittery - that shamelessly tacky style done so well in Hong Kong), and some lucky money envelopes. I've collected a few library books on all things Chinese - New Year, cooking, astrology, ink painting, calligraphy...even a biography claiming to cover a period of 900 years (must get around to reading it). Might even try to get hold of some Amy Tan books or similar.

Being the first time I've ever organised a library display, I'll be sure to take photos of the end result, for my CV.....

Hot, hot weather

It's really hot today. I don't know what the temperature is, probably in the mid-twenties (Celsius). That doesn't sound hot compared to, say, Prague at the height of summer (it was 41 degrees C when I was there once), but for the lower North Island it's STEAMING hot.

I'm doing a shift at the branch library this afternoon, and this building has no air-conditioning and no fans. I've opened a couple of windows, but there's very little breeze to blow in. Oh, if only I wasn't working, I could find a nice shady spot under some trees and actually enjoy the sunny-ness.

I shouldn't complain - we generally have disappointing summers. The weather here is so iffy that people actually remember back to that halcyon time (about 5 years ago) when we had two very nice summers in a row. I bet people in Hawaii or Queensland don't have thoughts like that.....

Impenetrable philosophy writing

I've just finished with the book 'The Matrix and Philosophy' (ed. William Irwin), and I have to say a lot of it was a real slog.

As someone who has studied very little philosophy at an academic level, but has a 'pop' interest in it, it was a little frustrating - the stuff I could follow was the stuff which was already getting to be old hat for me e.g. the film's use of the ideas of real vs unreal, knowing vs not knowing, the Buddhist touches blah blah blah. Plus, the same few ideas seemed to be repeated over several articles, quoting the same few quotes from the film.

Where an article was about something I hadn't come across before, I couldn't bloody understand what the writer was talking about...
Prior knowledge was assumed and I didn't have it. It didn't help that some of the language was...impenetrable.

It's a library book, so I don't have the luxury of re-reading it over and over (with a bit of research into Lacan and anything else I am ignorant of). But I suppose if I owned a copy I'd be free to do that, and probably appreciate some of the writings a little more.

Overall, a much less accessible book than 'Buffy the Vampire slayer and Philosophy'.

A work day in the life of a librarian-in-training

I just found out what time my classes will be for my first MLIS (Master of Library and Information Studies).

Fortunately, its at 9am, which means I can go to my class, then drive straight to work afterwards. This, as opposed to the idea of driving allllll the way to UH and then driving alllll the way back into the City for the class, then driving alllll the way back to UH to finish the working day - you get the idea.

There's a young guy who comes into the library quite regularly - an ultra-clever 14 year-old who's been banned from our computers because he's notorious for working around the in-built restrictions which prevent normal patrons from accessing the Internet freely (without paying).

He knows I'm a soft-touch 'cos I'm newish (been there 5 months) and not yet sufficiently fed up with his cheekiness to tell him off when I should. He's likeable y'see, and intelligent. I respect intelligent people and if they're likeable as well, its hard to be hard on 'em.

As for my progress on getting my heavy vehicle driving licence - I've booked myself in for the written test for this coming Wednesday. Once I pass that, I get a learner's licence. That means I'll be let loose on the library bus - with an instructor anyway. What worries me is that the first thing I'll have to do is back the thing out of the garage.

The bus fits the garage like the meat in a sausage roll fits in the pastry. Not one of those dried-out sausage rolls you see sitting, rejected, late in the day in a cafe. I mean those sausage rolls fresh out of the oven, pastry clinging to the filling like ...umm...a clingy thing.....

We went to a birthday/New Year party last night. The first part for ages - that's right, we did not party over Xmas and New Year, sad isn't it?

Great party anyway. The kind where you know and love most of the people there, and the others are really friendly and interesting so it doesn't matter that you have no idea who they are.

Then I got lost on the way home.

Philosophy Humour

I thought this was quite amusing - at least, the bits I understood, anyway. Have a read of this qestion below, then click here to find the answer....

Dear Doctor Rude,

I think I understand what a "platonic kiss" is, but could you explain to me the difference between the following kisses?

Aristotelian kiss
Hegelian kiss
Wittgensteinian kiss
Godelian kiss

Signed,
Flummoxed in Florida

A database chock full of journal articles

I found this site, called FindArticles (see the link in the sidebar) today.

Of course, I had to test it, so I entered 'Buffy the vampire slayer' in the search box. Lo and behold, lots of articles - some of them scholarly, others the kind of thing you read in the entertainment portion of the newspaper.

The one I was most interested in was this one on Buffy and The X Files, because - guess what - I'm a fan of the old X Files series too.

A little bit of introspection....

7/1/04
I saw this little questionnaire in a blog, which I thought was quite interesting. No right answers, you just answer it and other people get to find out more about you....

The questions, and my answers, are below:

If you could afford it at this moment, you would buy -
a car stereo
a bigger house
an overseas holiday
(umm maybe you're only supposed to give one answer..)

Your most beautiful childhood memory of your parents -
Actually I can’t think of a single thing

Your most horrifying childhood memory of your parents -
Waking up one morning to find Mum really sick with an ulcer and about to be rushed to the hospital

At your funeral, you want people to remember you as -
Cool, smart, interesting and funny

Something that makes you happy -
Praise, especially for a painting I did

Your greatest fear about aging -
Getting sick easily, going senile and having no money to make it more comfy


Sex is -
The one activity in which I like to be not in control

If I had extra money -
I’d buy that car stereo. Those long drives to and from work really bore me.

My most important goal right now -
To get back into shape so I don’t have to keep buying bigger clothes

The word to best describe your life -
Nah, I can’t think of just ONE word.. ‘Interesting‘, if I had to pick one.

What would you have answered?

a poem by Alistair Campbell

My friend Tama, whom I know from life-drawing, sent me this lovely lovely poem by a Cook Island New Zealander. I have no idea what its about, but it just sounds lovely....

IX Trade Winds


You were just a girl,
one of two wild sisters,
when he came to Tongareva,
a gloomy trader,
his soul eaten away
by five years
in the trenches.
You followed him
from island to island,
bore his children
only to see your dreams
break up
on the hidden reef
of Savaiki.
Mother,
your footsteps falter
outside my window,
where you have waited
fifty years
for your children
to return.
The moon comes out,
lovely
as a mother's face
over a sleeping child.
the trade winds
are your fingers
on my eyelids.
********************
Nice, eh?

I get to eat out for lunch

My friend Raych was back in New Zealand for Christmas and New Year. She's been in Columbia working on her PhD and will soon be heading off to Berkeley where she's got funding to do more research (don't ask me what its on - something about geographical/demographic information systems).

So for the first time since starting this job last July, I get to go out to lunch with a friend. Actually, two friends and a 3-year-old. Even better, I was shouted food and drink.

A bit of a relief, actually, even the sandwiches are about seven bucks.

It gets a bit socially boring for me out here, in UH. All my friends work in the City, so it's too far for them or I to go just for lunch - its a 45 minute drive each way, with parking anxiety thrown in if you're heading into the City.

I get a bit more reading done I suppose. I keep suggesting to my workmates that we at the library should have paid reading time during the day, to allow us to keep up with the collection.

Its falling on deaf ears though.

End of Hols. Boo

After almost two weeks off work, I've already started thinking about work again (I'm back in tomorrow). Not that work is so bad. Its just so much more fun when I don't. I'm probably speaking for a fair few people out there....

I've been reading the NZ Sunday Star Times, which is our version of all the great Sunday papers available in the UK (but nowhere near as physically big). There is a bit of a feature on how time-poor double-income families are. I don't even have kids myself (but I do have a mother, that might count), and I feel time-poor. And I haven't even started my Masters yet (which I'll be doing part-time). Maybe I'm just sick and tired of working, and it wasn't just a matter of finding my vocation after all.

Before I left my IT job a few years ago, I asked myself what I what do if I won Lotto. My answer, when I was still single, was that I would travel the world until the money ran out. Now that I'm not, the answer would be to live my life out as a perpetual (but rich) student. I'd study whatever the hell I felt like, without caring about how it would affect my job prospects.

Of course, I haven't gotten around to buying Lotto so there's zero chance of winning millions. Damn that sensible, non-gambling gene!

Wear makeup, get a job

I saw this post on the greenfairy blog. There's a newspaper article defending the bias of employers towards makeup for women workers. The post, and the comments on it, make interesting reading

Finding fiction I can relate to - Margaret Forster

For the longest time, I wouldn't read fiction about contemporary family relationships. Those stories seemed to be mostly about white, middle-class people and surely wouldn't have much in common with me (a first generation Chinese New Zealander wrestling with the conflicts between a strict, traditional upbringing and the Western culture of my surroundings).

In order for me to consider reading a novel (unless it was science fiction), it would have to be about offspring of immigrants, preferably female.

That worked for ages, I got to enjoy the work of Amy Tan, Ruth Ozeki, Patricia Chao and, more recently, Meera Syal.

I've since had to take it all back. Margaret Forster. I only discovered her less than a year ago, even though she's been around for decades, and only because a memoir of hers was on the reading list for a course I was doing. But I've now read 2 memoirs and 3 novels by her, and enjoyed every single one:

'Hidden Lives' is the result of Forster delving into her family history, catalysed by the knowledge that her grandmother had had an illegitimate daughter.

'Precious Lives' is about the slow journey towards death, of Forster's father and sister-in-law respectively. Throughout, Forster tries to answer the question of what exactly is it that drives an individual to cling to life - what is it that makes life so precious.

And the novels I've just completed are 'Georgy Girl', 'The travels of Maudie Tipstaff' and .'Mother can you hear me?'

I could identify with most of the female characters in some way, even the ones who were an absolute pain in the neck.

The novels are, I suppose, female-oriented in theme and approach - mothers and daughters; fathers and daughters; the struggle to escape parental manipulation, yet being unable to completely break bonds. They actually are not so different from Amy Tan's books - the cultural settings are different but the themes are universal.