A good month
September's one my busiest work months, because annual reports for June financial year-end companies (the norm in Australia) have to be lodged by September 30. Normal Accounting Job has a December year-end, so with it I'm busiest in February/March, but all my Extra Accounting Jobs are for small June year-end companies. This year I've had five: a scaled-down version of the one I got all worked up over last year, three for someone else that the guy from EAJ1 recommended me for, and one for the person I used to work for before my current NAJ. All manageable, interesting and done completely from home, and only the first one was particularly frustrating!
In between I've been consuming fannish stuff at an unusual rate for me these days, probably semi-deliberately using it to balance all that extra accounting. After I'd finished Wiseguy Season 3 and while waiting for Season 4 to arrive, I suddenly got interested in LA Confidential again. Read all astolat's stories multiple times and even found one I hadn't read before: some linked drabbles that pretty much make up a full story. I keep thinking about a scenario where Exley and White have been sharing Exley's house for a while, say following Payback or Partnership, and Exley starts thinking ahead and asks White what his plans for the future are, whether he wants a wife and children and whether he's only with Exley because he's afraid of becoming violent with a woman again. Exley's thinking that it would be much better for his career if he himself got married, and that he doesn't want to sacrifice his career if Bud is going to leave anyway. But what he really wants most is for their relationship to continue, and that's what Bud wants too, so all's well and good. (If I were most of you, that could become a story, but from me it only makes it to synopsis stage.)
Plus, there's been episodes of Lewis with sarren, and Lewis stories she recommended, and I've reread some of my favourites from The Sentinel, which I think is my top comfort fandom. It seems a little less harsh than most of my others - maybe I think Jim and Blair are less damaged and more likely to be able to make a relationship work. House has just started again, too. Then on Thursday I was sitting at the computer waiting for one of the EAJ people to get back to me about something, wanting to read something very good and new to me, so I started in on astolat and cesperanza's SGA stories. To my surprise I found I had actually already read a lot of cesperanza's, but not OK Computer. I'm pretty much in awe of the mind that can think up such a complicated, but still relationship-focused, plot. In some ways I found that story pretty creepy, but it was certainly entertaining and left me full of admiration. Then I headed off to Bullsbrook to work on a supposedly foundered horse (serious) that turned out only to have an abscess (not serious) in front of a large admiring audience (rare), and came home to do complicated accounting work until 11:30pm (fun and much appreciated by the guy, who was still up and struggling to get everything finished by the next morning) and all in all it was one of the better work days I've ever had.
In honour of hosting the month's slash gathering and to do something fun with some of the money from this extra work, I bought a media player so I can watch downloaded things on my TV. (Yes, I'm a late adopter of everything.) I underestimated how nice it would be to see my own personal favourite songvids on a bigger screen. Definitely a good acquisition.
The Gathering was on an unfortunately rainy day, but at the time of year when my place looks its best and I love having people here to see it, and we made use of my new gizmo to watch the first episode of second season Merlin. Thanks to everybody who made the trek out here!
My workload drops a lot from now until the end of the year and I'm going to catch up on doing New Things. I've only added one more in the last few weeks, which was go to a lecture on medieval history run by the UWA "Friends of the Library". Strangely, I'd never been to a history lecture before, despite being genuinely interested. It was about marriage and the structure of the family in the 1300s, and how the nuclear family often wasn't the norm. What's really stuck with me from the evening, though, was being absolutely transfixed by the enormous lemon-scented gum between the Reid Library and the Arts Building. I stopped, I stared, I walked around it (approx 7.5m circumference, much much bigger than the ones in Kings Park!), I thought grateful thoughts in the direction of the person who planted it and resolved to go back in daylight to take pictures. I think the fact that I now notice trees properly might be the biggest difference to the way I am now compared to the me who studied there.
And I'm running short distances again after my ITB injury and doing things with my horse in preparation for a horsemanship clinic next weekend. Today I'm playing hooky from the Royal Show, where I should be supporting the alpaca association, to finish my weed spraying in the last remaining window of opportunity. I'm three litres of spray down for the day, maybe 15 to go. Life is good and I send positive thoughts to those of you for whom it isn't right now!
In between I've been consuming fannish stuff at an unusual rate for me these days, probably semi-deliberately using it to balance all that extra accounting. After I'd finished Wiseguy Season 3 and while waiting for Season 4 to arrive, I suddenly got interested in LA Confidential again. Read all astolat's stories multiple times and even found one I hadn't read before: some linked drabbles that pretty much make up a full story. I keep thinking about a scenario where Exley and White have been sharing Exley's house for a while, say following Payback or Partnership, and Exley starts thinking ahead and asks White what his plans for the future are, whether he wants a wife and children and whether he's only with Exley because he's afraid of becoming violent with a woman again. Exley's thinking that it would be much better for his career if he himself got married, and that he doesn't want to sacrifice his career if Bud is going to leave anyway. But what he really wants most is for their relationship to continue, and that's what Bud wants too, so all's well and good. (If I were most of you, that could become a story, but from me it only makes it to synopsis stage.)
Plus, there's been episodes of Lewis with sarren, and Lewis stories she recommended, and I've reread some of my favourites from The Sentinel, which I think is my top comfort fandom. It seems a little less harsh than most of my others - maybe I think Jim and Blair are less damaged and more likely to be able to make a relationship work. House has just started again, too. Then on Thursday I was sitting at the computer waiting for one of the EAJ people to get back to me about something, wanting to read something very good and new to me, so I started in on astolat and cesperanza's SGA stories. To my surprise I found I had actually already read a lot of cesperanza's, but not OK Computer. I'm pretty much in awe of the mind that can think up such a complicated, but still relationship-focused, plot. In some ways I found that story pretty creepy, but it was certainly entertaining and left me full of admiration. Then I headed off to Bullsbrook to work on a supposedly foundered horse (serious) that turned out only to have an abscess (not serious) in front of a large admiring audience (rare), and came home to do complicated accounting work until 11:30pm (fun and much appreciated by the guy, who was still up and struggling to get everything finished by the next morning) and all in all it was one of the better work days I've ever had.
In honour of hosting the month's slash gathering and to do something fun with some of the money from this extra work, I bought a media player so I can watch downloaded things on my TV. (Yes, I'm a late adopter of everything.) I underestimated how nice it would be to see my own personal favourite songvids on a bigger screen. Definitely a good acquisition.
The Gathering was on an unfortunately rainy day, but at the time of year when my place looks its best and I love having people here to see it, and we made use of my new gizmo to watch the first episode of second season Merlin. Thanks to everybody who made the trek out here!
My workload drops a lot from now until the end of the year and I'm going to catch up on doing New Things. I've only added one more in the last few weeks, which was go to a lecture on medieval history run by the UWA "Friends of the Library". Strangely, I'd never been to a history lecture before, despite being genuinely interested. It was about marriage and the structure of the family in the 1300s, and how the nuclear family often wasn't the norm. What's really stuck with me from the evening, though, was being absolutely transfixed by the enormous lemon-scented gum between the Reid Library and the Arts Building. I stopped, I stared, I walked around it (approx 7.5m circumference, much much bigger than the ones in Kings Park!), I thought grateful thoughts in the direction of the person who planted it and resolved to go back in daylight to take pictures. I think the fact that I now notice trees properly might be the biggest difference to the way I am now compared to the me who studied there.
And I'm running short distances again after my ITB injury and doing things with my horse in preparation for a horsemanship clinic next weekend. Today I'm playing hooky from the Royal Show, where I should be supporting the alpaca association, to finish my weed spraying in the last remaining window of opportunity. I'm three litres of spray down for the day, maybe 15 to go. Life is good and I send positive thoughts to those of you for whom it isn't right now!