Just this 'n that
Sep. 7th, 2006 09:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lady_schrapnellFirst the good: Older Daughter got another story accepted - to GrendelSong this time - AND a good review in Tangent for her story in Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet! Yay!
With a starting date of the 25th of this month for the MA, I'm slowly starting the melt-down into the 'why in the name of all that's holy did I think I could do this' state, but I hope I'll re-solidify a bit when coursework finally arrives. (Who knows when that will be - I'd have started by now with the OU, but I'm trying not to expect anything organisational to be the same. Though I would like to get my stuff sooooon... )
In the meantime, the entertainment has been getting a digital picture sent off to them for a student card. Very specific they were about all this - especially as a lot of the distance option students may never set foot in Roehampton. You know it's bad when the picture you have to be satisfied with only makes you look about 20 years older than your real age (Old as it is!), and in need of good dose of anti-depressants. And preferably, your children to submit you to one of those makeover shows on tv, where they discover the potential behind the layers and layers of dowdiness. And maybe throw in a bit of cosmetic surgery as well! But at least it didn't seem the kind of thing to make the i.d. card division contact the tutors immediately and warn them that they'd admitted a crazy-woman who would undoubtedly come and blow the university sky-high over a mark dispute.... I've never even disputed a mark without explosives. Honest...
In other matters, not going as swimmingly through Enna Burning as I did
the other Shannon Hales, but I think that's more me than the book. Though it is grim enough, in all honesty. I just can't handle the burning part... Also reading George Saunder's In Persuasion Nation, for something completely different. I was given it as a late birthday present, and think it's better read in small doses - technically excellent satire on materialist culture run mad (at least the stories I've read so far) with damaged and sometimes horribly naive narrators.
And when I saw How Opal Mehta Got Kissed (&tc) in my friendly neighbourhood second-hand bookshop, I couldn't resist having a look myself. So that's on the table for the odd breakfast read. And so far, it's about what I expected: not so funny, not so wonderful chick-lit, which wouldn't have been worth near half a million dollars had it been the most original book ever written. But knowing it had been withdrawn made the temptation to buy it secondhand much, much greater.
With a starting date of the 25th of this month for the MA, I'm slowly starting the melt-down into the 'why in the name of all that's holy did I think I could do this' state, but I hope I'll re-solidify a bit when coursework finally arrives. (Who knows when that will be - I'd have started by now with the OU, but I'm trying not to expect anything organisational to be the same. Though I would like to get my stuff sooooon... )
In the meantime, the entertainment has been getting a digital picture sent off to them for a student card. Very specific they were about all this - especially as a lot of the distance option students may never set foot in Roehampton. You know it's bad when the picture you have to be satisfied with only makes you look about 20 years older than your real age (Old as it is!), and in need of good dose of anti-depressants. And preferably, your children to submit you to one of those makeover shows on tv, where they discover the potential behind the layers and layers of dowdiness. And maybe throw in a bit of cosmetic surgery as well! But at least it didn't seem the kind of thing to make the i.d. card division contact the tutors immediately and warn them that they'd admitted a crazy-woman who would undoubtedly come and blow the university sky-high over a mark dispute.... I've never even disputed a mark without explosives. Honest...
In other matters, not going as swimmingly through Enna Burning as I did
the other Shannon Hales, but I think that's more me than the book. Though it is grim enough, in all honesty. I just can't handle the burning part... Also reading George Saunder's In Persuasion Nation, for something completely different. I was given it as a late birthday present, and think it's better read in small doses - technically excellent satire on materialist culture run mad (at least the stories I've read so far) with damaged and sometimes horribly naive narrators. And when I saw How Opal Mehta Got Kissed (&tc) in my friendly neighbourhood second-hand bookshop, I couldn't resist having a look myself. So that's on the table for the odd breakfast read. And so far, it's about what I expected: not so funny, not so wonderful chick-lit, which wouldn't have been worth near half a million dollars had it been the most original book ever written. But knowing it had been withdrawn made the temptation to buy it secondhand much, much greater.
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Date: 2006-09-07 08:23 pm (UTC)Good luck with the studies!
One of these fine days we'll have to do that meetup!
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Date: 2006-09-07 08:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-07 11:15 pm (UTC)Friday I could do lunch or around 6pm city centre.
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Date: 2006-09-10 07:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-10 08:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-13 07:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-13 09:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-10 08:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-07 09:24 pm (UTC)I'm glad to hear you're struggling more with Enna. I really wanted to love that book but ended up thinking it was good but not one I'm passionate about. But I've just read Princess academy, which I liked more and have Goose girl out in the TBR pile. I've heard so many good things about the latter!
And it's funny how negative publicity can work that way! I remember one of my history lecturers saying how he'd always dreamed one of his books would have a fatwa declared on it so he could sell more copies :)
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Date: 2006-09-10 08:02 pm (UTC)Opal has now hidden itself somewhere. Whether in shame or just to fit in with other things hiding around this house, I've no idea....
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Date: 2006-09-08 03:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-10 08:04 pm (UTC)