The best of budgies
A grand old lady
Who never let being crippled with arthritis slow her down
Who never gave up, even on the worst of days
Who couldn't sing but never let that stop her
A constant source of laughter and love

Your indomitable little budgie soul has gone to join the great soul
and your feet don't hurt anymore.
Sweet dreams of all the strawberry tops you can eat.

Don't think we'll forget you, sweet bird.

Recipe: Derek’s Kind-of-Moroccan Chicken

Made this very tasty tucker last night, thought I’d write it up (so I remember what I did) and share (‘cause I can, not like anyone’ll read it anyway).

3-4 sizable chicken thighs, cut into roughly 2cm cubes. (I hate chicken thighs, btw, the fat pisses me off no end, but they’re cheaper than breasts, so needs must.)

A rough assortment of vaguely Morocesque spices – I used:
About ½ teaspoon cumin (Steph doesn’t like cumin much)
1 loaded teaspoon allspice
1 loaded teaspoon coriander
At least 2 teaspoons cinnamon
2 teaspoons turmeric
A pile of sweet paprika (probably 3 heaped teaspoons; we like paprika, but you might want to cut it back if you’re not so fond of it)
Enough lemon juice and olive oil to make a nice thick paste.

Coat the chicken. Leave in a covered bowl in the fridge for a while – the length of a TimeTeam is plenty.

Chop an onion into 16ths, or whatever fraction is appropriate to the size of your onion.
Heat a deep frying pan, preferably one with a lid, with a bit of oil, fry two cloves of crushed garlic and the onion. (Don’t forget to clean out your garlic crusher before washing up, as it saves much smelly utensils and hands.)

Add the chicken. Cook for about 5 minutes, deglazing with lemon juice at least once to stop the spices burning on the bottom of the pan (see that, fancy cooking word “deglaze”, Steph taught me that).

Add any extra vegetables you want, chopped quite small (I used a fist-sized chunk of zucchini and a medium-sized carrot, I imagine eggplant would also go nicely, but we don’t normally have aubergines around the house). Mix in for a minute or two.

Add a tin of diced tomatoes, and about ¼ to 1/3 of the tin of water. Add a good handful of dates, roughly chopped in half. Stir in, cover, and leave to cook for as long as it takes mother to get home from Tai Chi (about 20 minutes to ½ an hour), stirring occasionally to make sure nothing is sticking to the bottom.

Serve with couscous and a spoonful of plain yoghurt if you like.

Yum, I cooks good tucker yes.

Not much, to be sure, and nothing of what I am supposed to be writing, but rather what would probably be the beginning of a new Guy-fic that's been kicking around in my head for a few months. It was only one scene, and not very good, but still, it was something, probably not drought-breaking, but something.

The internet is shitting me at present - not as a whole, but in that I'm averaging about nine minutes before something in the system between my computer and the wider-web is unplugging itself. So I'd better type this quick. We're thinking of going wireless, so I'll do most of my stuff at uni and the stuff I can't do because of the uni firewall and filter I'll do on wireless at home (read - 'naughty stuff, mostly concerned with the e-word or the p-word (i.e. 'erotica' and 'poser')) There it goes, flashing at me, I'd better hurry before it goes down.

It's TimeTeam Tuesday, so that's cool, but I have to vacume - not cool.

Last day of work, just submitted my last timesheet for the semester. Ah well, no "distractions", just have to slog into the Alexandrian Greeks looking for something that I know doesn't exist, trying to find if it might once have existed and where. Greek sucks, by the way, shit of a language. Do you have any idea how hard it is going to be to successfully argue a negative?

I'm not going to Perth. I have no desire AT ALL to go to Perth EVER. The thought of going to Perth in the middle of summer sickens me. Armidale is bad enough, Sydney is hell, but Perth, NO!! I'm not wasting my or anyone else's money to spend three days in a furnace being utterly miserable just to present one 25 minute paper that no one wants to hear. And that is final. Sound fair? Now I just have to make it clear to my supervisor.

Ah, the joys of academia in Australia.

My books came from Amazon today, sitting there in the post-grad pigeonhole, all patienty waiting for me to set at their inglorious postage box with a penknife in a deliriously desperate struggle to free them into the flourecent light of my office (which is, unfortunately, necessary in winter, as there isn't enough natural light coming down between the buildings). Ah, books, glorious, wonderful books - Reading Medieval Latin, and, finally, The Lost Love Letters of Heloise and Abelard. I am a happy boy.

Well, in the deliriously joyful "I have books" kind of happy, 'cause other than that, life sucks - My sister finally caught the wrong end of her bosses paranoia and was fired, for no reason whatsoever (did I mention "paranoia")and Steph isn't the kind of person to contest that sort of thing, and I think in a way she's kind of relieved, as she was getting thoroughly sick of working there. But, it was the same week as her birthday - oh joy, the car insurance is cheaper - and now comes the task of finding another job in a downturned employment market. My contract is at an end next week, and I most likely won't be getting any teaching next semester, though there is likely to be some quiz work (boooooorrrrrrrrrrrrring), and hopefully some marking - I did my first marking job a few weekends back - it was exhausting. Getting up to 0 degrees Celsius in the mornings is not pleasant in anyone's book, certain colleagues are shitting me to tears, but I can't say anything because "junior" does not begin to describe my position on the academic hierarchy, and my MA topic is among the most boring things on this planet - ok, maybe not quite, but I would need a seriously powerful microscope to be able to see how much I care about the thing - It is at the point I am doing it simply because I do not want to leave yet another thing unfinished. That said, I still have terminal writers' block, whether it be thesis related or fiction related, I literally haven't written anything in months.

Still, I have books, and that makes everything OK ... ish.

I'm writing this because I need to say something and I don't have anyone's email on this computer, they're all on my Outlook, which is on my laptop and won't connect to the internet from here.

I just submitted my first, ever, job application.

And I feel completely lost.

It's really weird, I want to cry, I can't quite breathe properly, it sort of hurts.

It's my ideal job in pretty much my ideal place. I wasn't going to apply for it. I'm not going to get it bar some miracle, and I don't believe in miracles - strange, unexplainable happenings, yes - but not miracles. And I thought that, if by some miracle, which I don't believe in, I did get it, it would be selfish of me to take it, leave my sister and I didn't think I could handle turning it down. But I was convinced this morning to apply for it, basically 16 hours before the dead-line, so went into a spin of worry, panic, self-recrimination, frantic typing of letter I have no idea how to write, more panic, venting via email, running to emergency councellor appointment, talking it all out for 50 minutes, calming down, sitting down to actually get letter written, not monkey-typed, get home, beg sister for help, cook dinner, type some more, beg for help, watch telly while sister makes letter make sense and makes list of things still needed, they go bizarko and panic again because my brain is fried from thinking about this too much and calling mother, finally getting the rest written, taking the laptop into my sister in bed for final check, then onto the other computer to complete the application form, and submit the whole chaotic mess.

Now I just feel lost.

I'm not going to get the job, I'm under no illusions about that at all, especially not with the UK, understandably, if frustratingly over-protecting local employment, and my non-existent work experience - it is irritatingly true that if you haven't had work it is extremely difficult to get work. Yes, I will probably feel terribly disappointed when they reply that my application is unsuccessful. I will not, now, regret not having applied for the one position I've seen advertised in the last nine months which I could not only fill, but very likely enjoy and would give me six-months of real-life experience working in the UK, which is my nut-case dream for that non-sensical, unexplainable reason that involves place and connection and deep, real history all around me, not just in my head, and is probably just a fantasy, but I won't ever know until I get there.

I feel very alone and very lost, and I should go to bed, but I'm afraid I'll just lie there and feel lost until I cry.

I wish I could write, but nothing comes lately, and lately seems a long time now, six months or so. I seem to have lost the touch, and haven't found the discipline to push through that. So there are two stories sitting half-finished on my computers, and I look at them once a week or so, maybe re-arrange a line, start a sentence, save them three times, then close. My concentration is shot to pieces, I really need to get off these anti-depressants, but I'm scared of where I go without them, they've been a crutch for so many years now. Maybe it's not the anti-depressants, maybe it's just being incurably lazy and being good at plenty, but talented at nothing, and having no toleration for boredom.

I'm tired of being dissatisfied with everything, especially myself. Maybe I'm just tired.

It's called Spooks

Specifically, series seven still on my 'puter, thankfully I haven't deleted them yet, which I should after watching them. It might have something to do with Richard Armitage. I'd better check when the DVDs are expected out.

Two hours of Spooks, I still can't think anything much, but at least I am not just about ready to stamp on Stephanie's Galactica DVDs.

There's a new Michael Wood series on in ten minutes, after that I might watch some series five.

Spooks, like porn, makes everything OK.

Actually, Spooks is much better than porn.

And it has Harry, Harry is made of Awesome, His Awesomeness eclipses even that of Teal'c, no one can match the Awesomeness of Sir Harry Pierce.

And Bring Back Ruth.


...I'm bonkers...<:S

My Sister marathon-watches tv. She will regularly start at the beginning of a series and watch right through to the end, watching four or five episodes a night, sometimes eight or so on the weekends. Most I can handle, sure, I got over Stargate, Buffy and Red Dwarf a while ago, but I'll watch the odd episode with her and I don't mind it being on in the other room. M.A.S.H and Dad's Army can get irritaing, but they are vaguely amusing. And Firefly's just brilliant and only thirteen episodes, so that's ok. But at the moment it's Battlestar Galactica.
I didn't mind Galactica when it first came out, I like Mary McDonnell (my first ever actress-crush, I was about twelve at the time, so I have a certain residual fondness for her), and I like the concept of a refugee society that exists solely on ships, space- or otherwise, the music is pretty good and a few of the early episodes were actually quite good. That lasted through to about the middle of the second season, then it just got boring and increasingly irritating.
When you've had it for over a week straight, it begins to grate on the nerves in a way akin to scraping fingernails down the blackboard. I have been blocking it out somewhat with computer games, but I'm fed up with them too at present, what I really want is some quiet with no stuffing television constantly in the background. Stephanie has fairly severe tinitus, she tends to have everything up loud so she can hear it over the buzzing in her ears; for me, who doesn't like loud things, and prefers to have the television on fairly low, it is a constant source of irritation.

Right now, I just wish gloom-and-doom-space-operas would frak off and give me some peace.

A classic case of 'be careful what you wish for'?

Did someone say they needed work?

Um, yeah, that was me, I think.

So, I get back to uni after a reasonably successful paper at this years ASCS conference, my first ever out-of-school paper, in the middle of a bloody heat-wave in stinking Sydney, anyway, got shifted into the next office, which is ok, 'cause I'm in with Paul, whose just had his thesis accepted, he's a medieval historian focus on 11th-12th century Sicily and Southern Italy, we start talking and there goes any hope of getting any work done for the next three hours or so, anyway, back to the WORK. Maxx, across the hall, I went through Latin with him, he's got the first-year Latin, even though he's not a Latinist, rather a Roman and Military Historian, there was simply no one else to take it on. He's got money from the school to set up online quizzes for Latin 101, and if it works out, and it looks like it is, for 102 second semester, as well as for Greek 101&102 for next year. So he hires me for thirty hours to do all the data-entry. Cool. Boring as heck, but money, so who cares, goes on the resume and all that.
Now Maxx is seriously over-worked this semester, and I don't mean that sarcastically. He's got e-marking-system work and marketing as well as his teaching, basically doing the work of two people. So head-of-school manages to get him thirty hours for a teaching assistant for Latin. That's three hours a week for the rest of the semester and I'm officially a Teaching Assistant. It also looks like I'll have marking.

OK, that's roughly 5 hours a week at present. Doesn't sound much to people that have full-time jobs, but I have never had a job before, not a real one with a contract, a staff-number, timesheets and a pay-check (albeit a direct-deposit one). I've never filed a tax-return, that'll be a first.

It feels like a lot of work.

Not helped by my laptop stuffing up yesterday, so I spent most of yesterday afternoon getting everything set up so I could do the stuffing job, and about an hour today of my own time catching up on the unit forums so I knew what was going on, and having to fork out nearly $200 for the textbook and some software (not directly job-related, but to clean out laptop so it is reliable enough to do the job, I don't want it crashing while I'm emailing or posting replies on the forum, which it has been, continuously, it does, thankfully, look like it worked, I've been online most of today and it hasn't crashed once). It still bothers me a bit that a job should actually cost money. Admittedly, once pay comes this week it will have paid for that, but until thursday I'm skint.

5 hours

Doesn't seem like much, does it.

So why is it so bloody daunting?

The vending machine in the Arts Building has no Diet Coke, and I NEED Coke, and no, I'm not drinking that sickly sweet crap that passes for regular Coke. So I tramp up to the cafeteria - NO COKE!!! Needless to say, I throw my hands up in disgust and swear (sotto voce). OK,now I slog all the way up to the uni shop - finally, a fridge full of chilled 600ml bottles of Diet Coke, I'm saved. Just have to tramp all the way back down to my room in the Arts Faculty Building to sit and enjoy it with two slices of Lamington Roll I brought for morning tea.

Bit extreme really, just for Coke, but I just spent and hour and a half in a tiny, airless, stinking hot cupboard-masquerading-as-a-mail-room wrestling with the photocopier getting the text for one of my supervisor's classes next semester ready, 'cause there isn't one in print. Photocopying is my least favourite job. but - exciting news (or was, now it's getting iritating) - Mam has a new job and is moving to - wait for it - Canberra, so I'm staying here with the Brat and the Cat and finishing my ruddy MA, but we did the budget at the weekend and it looks like I'll be left with a grand total of $58 a week, so, any work a boy can get a boy is going to take.

We may be needing a lot of Diet Coke.

Aching bad inside tonight - this morning actually, it's quater past 12.
It is all so hopeless. I'm so bloody hopeless.

1.33, listening to Samson then going to bed - I seriously doubt there is going to be any sleep in that proposal. Need a drink first.

Why are there never any research assistant jobs in History/Classics? Thousands in Molecular Biology and Physics and the Sciences in general. Well, I gather that's where the money is to pay for them.

I need to start the Registerd Charity of Derek Needs a Fucking Job.