so i finished it. and i loved it. i was berated by my 11 year old friend bethany for being far too slow - well i think a week is pretty decent going considering i had to work for half of it! bek tells me it is even better on the second reading, but my mother has commandeered the book so i won't be able to revisit it for a while.

now, alas, i am once again in the harry potter wasteland. how long till the next one, joanne? i have to say i think it was worth the wait anyway, and although that brick of a book was very difficult to read in bed comfortably, it's very satisfying to know how much book you have to look forward to. :) reading books like this is like eating chocolate pudding, totally indulgent and probably not very nourishing but extremely enjoyable and comforting. i agreed with most of andrew shead's review (a christian perspective, if you need warning).

now i have oryx and crake by ms atwood and wee free men by mr pratchett (this is not counting uni books of course because they never count). i also want to get hold of coraline and american gods by mr gaiman, but that will probably have to wait until the next pay packet.

speaking of mr gaiman, where the hell does he get the time to do everything he does? his must be the most comprehensively updated blog i've come across - well, that actually has interesting content - where he gives great insights into the life of a writer, as well as answering rather a lot of fan mail. and he travels all the time and gives speeches and does signings. and he manages to write amazing stuff across a wide range of media. i have a great admiration for the man. and i also get very, very tired thinking about it.

oh it's exciting to get deliveries! i got up this morning feeling slothlike, miserably anticipating monday after a day in bed yesterday with an unshakeable cold. i went out the front door to get the newspaper and - lo and behold! - there were two boxes on the top step! finally my books from amazon have arrived! cheered me up immensely, it did. particularly since i finished night watch last night (an excellent pratchett in my opinion, very well paced) and had that aimless, vaguely depressed feeling i get when i have finished a good book and am not sure what i will read next. should it be an extreme departure from what i have just finished, or should i go and find everything the author has ever written and devour it until i feel sick? (in pratchett's case there isn't much choice as i did that a few years ago and have been meandering through his published works again this year again in an attempt to avoid, well, everything.)

but it's all a moot point now. so. i will be absorbed in a kilo of jk rowling's words tonight and then, when that runs out, on to margaret atwood's latest, oryx and crake which also sounds excellent. bliss!




PS in case you are wondering why i ordered books from amazon, that huge and scary beast that doesn't even operate in the southern hemisphere, let alone australia (apparently, according to brett, in marketing terms our population is too negligible to warrant having our own amazon...we have a smaller population than some small african countries apparently...i stopped listening and started making fun of him when he dragged out the statistics, although admittedly they were from michael moore and were quite interesting):

1. i had a gift certificate
2. both books were half price
3. it's nice to get packages in the mail
4. when i ordered them i was in the middle of thesis writing and thought if i had them in my hot little hands i would procrastinate by reading them, but if i ordered from the UK, no less, then they would take a while to get here and by that time i would have finished writing and would be ready for some diversion (and not tempted to buy them in the meantime)

all good in theory, but when the books arrive ten days later than you were anticipating, you can get a little impatient. still, i stand by my actions and it has all worked out well and i'm happy. :)

i've just noticed what a satisfying word 'tidbit' is, on the page. not quite palindromic, but with a lovely balance and quirkiness.

tidbit

(as you can tell, i'm quite unwell)

I'VE FINISHED IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

aaahhhahahahahahahhaaaa

boy it feels good to be free. to have sixty-four pages bound with a clip, my name on the front, handed to my supervisor and promptly ejected from my brain space. it's good to be able to not...do...anything...

and i'm so bloody exhausted, it's just as well i don't have to do anything. worked till late last night on the endings to the two stories, slept for a couple of hours, got up and worked some more, went to my job for a while, went to uni to drop the manuscript off, went to my other job, then came home and fell asleep on the couch. then my bro came over and we watched the animatrix, which totally kicks butt, and i'm almost starting to feel human again.

going to a conference on the northern beaches over the weekend, so even though the weather probably won't be great, it will be good to be out of the house and away from my computer for a couple of days... :)

ah...bliss! bliss!

monthly procrastinatory objects

monthly procrastinatory objects
new month, new financial year, but i reckon my list of stuff will be a lot like last month's...

movies:
haven't actually been to a cinema all month, i don't think. maybe i have but i just can't remember.

the shipping news on DVD
surprised that i enjoyed this a lot. but you can't really go wrong with kevin spacey and judy dench, and i liked julianne moore a lot in it too.

books:
the shipping news by e. annie. proulx
okay finally started it as a result of watching the movie. avoided it for years because of all the hype. enjoy her style and like the story but have only read the first fifty pages or so...

good omens by terry pratchett and neil gaiman
because i got sidetracked by this instead.

music:
a whole hodge podge of things...just shoved a whole bunch of ani, badly drawn boy, b52s, the sundays, rickie lee jones and barenaked ladies into itunes (ouch!) and i play random selections from time to time as i'm working.

got the chicago soundtrack too. that's fun.

most successful procrastination technique:
cooking. yesterday, while i was supposed to be writing, i made some vanilla ice cream with chocolate fudge swirly bits (yummo), a boxful of merengues, char-siu (that red marinated Chinese roast pork), and some stir fried gai-lan, carrots and asparagus to eat with the char-siu. YUM. i did do some writing in between, but it's mostly in annoying editing stage and so lots of getting-up-and-doing-stuff occurs in the meantime.

sleeping is also good. and playing the sims, which has to be one of the most pointless, annoying and completely addictive games i've ever played. possibly even beats tragic...actually, no, on second thought, probably not.

:P