FiveThings
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Thing The First I bought a car. As you have probably surmised from my various financial whinges over the past few years, I can't afford a new car, but beggars (aka people with cars with broken gearboxes and no chance of passing the MOT next month without £100s of work) can't be choosers. It's an older car than I'd intended to get - 9 years - but only has 27k miles on the clock, so theoretically the gearbox should be trouble-free for another 50k or so. And I put it on my credit card, which is very bad in terms of financial management, but was also My Only Choice. On the plus side, it was also about £600 less than I thought I'd have to spend.
However... I don't like it. I really dislike driving it.
But I'm being sensible and am pretending that I'm accepting that it's a very different car to the one I've been driving for three years and it will take a while for me to get used to the differences. And I've really only driven it for two days - five trips. All I know is it feels funny when it's going uphill/downhill. And we live... in the Cambrian Hills.
Thing The Second The builder who (eventually) did our futility room has taken Tiger (my old car) to break. He gave us £25, which is the approximate scrap value. I wasn't here when he picked Tiger up on Wednesday evening, for which I am very grateful. I cried buckets when I had to take Blodwen The Mini to the garage that bought her from me, and I think I'd have been nearly as upset if I'd seen Tiger being taken away, even though I know he's old and broken and not really fixable.
Thing The Third I went to my first academic conference yesterday, and it was ACE. I don't think I made a tit of myself (which is always my first question after any event in which I am required to interact with other people), and I met some really nice people and heard some very interesting papers.
Had a squeeing session about The X-Files with a woman who'd done some interesting research into Twitter communities, and had a brief discussion about real person fanfiction with a couple of people who are researching victims of online crime/assault/abuse.
Thing The Fourth I (finally) submitted part of my (draft) literature chapter to my supervisor on Thursday. It took me ages to get back in The Writing Zone, and it's not very good writing (I keep looking at my master's diss and thinking, "Wow, I can't believe I wrote that - it's quite good. Why can't I write like that any more?" Which I am assured is normal.). However, I have at least done something concrete, and between that and the conference I'm feeling quite positive about the whole PhD thing. Hurrah!
Thing The Fifth I slept until half past ten this morning, and probably would have slept for longer if The Husband hadn't come in to check whether I was still breathing.
ETA because I can't count.
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Also posted at Dreamwidth. Please comment either here or there.
Thing The First I bought a car. As you have probably surmised from my various financial whinges over the past few years, I can't afford a new car, but beggars (aka people with cars with broken gearboxes and no chance of passing the MOT next month without £100s of work) can't be choosers. It's an older car than I'd intended to get - 9 years - but only has 27k miles on the clock, so theoretically the gearbox should be trouble-free for another 50k or so. And I put it on my credit card, which is very bad in terms of financial management, but was also My Only Choice. On the plus side, it was also about £600 less than I thought I'd have to spend.
However... I don't like it. I really dislike driving it.
But I'm being sensible and am pretending that I'm accepting that it's a very different car to the one I've been driving for three years and it will take a while for me to get used to the differences. And I've really only driven it for two days - five trips. All I know is it feels funny when it's going uphill/downhill. And we live... in the Cambrian Hills.
Thing The Second The builder who (eventually) did our futility room has taken Tiger (my old car) to break. He gave us £25, which is the approximate scrap value. I wasn't here when he picked Tiger up on Wednesday evening, for which I am very grateful. I cried buckets when I had to take Blodwen The Mini to the garage that bought her from me, and I think I'd have been nearly as upset if I'd seen Tiger being taken away, even though I know he's old and broken and not really fixable.
Thing The Third I went to my first academic conference yesterday, and it was ACE. I don't think I made a tit of myself (which is always my first question after any event in which I am required to interact with other people), and I met some really nice people and heard some very interesting papers.
Had a squeeing session about The X-Files with a woman who'd done some interesting research into Twitter communities, and had a brief discussion about real person fanfiction with a couple of people who are researching victims of online crime/assault/abuse.
Thing The Fourth I (finally) submitted part of my (draft) literature chapter to my supervisor on Thursday. It took me ages to get back in The Writing Zone, and it's not very good writing (I keep looking at my master's diss and thinking, "Wow, I can't believe I wrote that - it's quite good. Why can't I write like that any more?" Which I am assured is normal.). However, I have at least done something concrete, and between that and the conference I'm feeling quite positive about the whole PhD thing. Hurrah!
Thing The Fifth I slept until half past ten this morning, and probably would have slept for longer if The Husband hadn't come in to check whether I was still breathing.
ETA because I can't count.
~
Also posted at Dreamwidth. Please comment either here or there.