Its a big word. SARS was touted as being a possible pandemic. Now we have the Asian Bird Flu. It could get into a person who has human type A virus, morph a bit, and voila, we have a new flu virus that no-one has immunity too. So far, most people who get the ABF die, so the potential new flu could be a killer too. Last bad flu was in 1918, and 20 to 50 million people died. No wonder everyone is taking this seriously...
Found the recalcitrant supervisor has been writing to the wrong email, and have got his email from that account, and sent it home. maybe more progress is happening than I thought.
Hubby told me when the next Afghanistan trip is and that he would like to go. I told him I would be very unhappy and angry if he went. I will be 8 months pregnant and still doing full time work possibly, and that I need him here helping me. He then claimed I haven't supported him going on trips. So I listed out the trips he has been on in the last four years, and what I was trying to do while he was away, and pointed out that I have been making a lot of sacrifices for his career. Actually. And he did admit when I listed it all out like that he has been habitually away when I needed him most. (Progress) Next step is to see if he actually turns a trip down...
I have always thought I was the selfish one in the relationship, as I was the one that has been doing a PhD, which has been a long running and very expensive exercise. Last year I realised that actually I have not disrupted everyone in the family as much as he has.(more progress) The dynamics of our relationship are likely to change with this realisation...
Am I allergic to my cat? Last night, as she tried to nick our dinner for the seCd time, when I picked her up I could immediately smell that cat dust they give off, and sneezed twice. I certainly get through more tissues at home than I do at work. Is it just the siamese, or am I actually allergic to all cats? It would be damn hard if I am, because I can't imagine life without a cat. In fact one of my long term ambitions is to have two siamese, boy and girl, from the same litter, and to call them Oswald and Bridget. But I digress...
Much as I love cats, having a home that doesn't have tissue boxes strategically dotted round it would be rather good. I could live without the fine veneer of cat fur on my clothes too. But can I live without a cat? I've tried and failed before. Can I get desensitised? Perhaps I should do that skin test thing and find out if I am allergic, cos I know I am allergic to dust mites, and perhaps that is the problem, that all the housework in the weekend stirred up so much dust it is taking days to come right again.
When you are pregnant, no medicines for hayfever are approved for use, so you are more inclined to sneeze for days. Dammit.
It has been a while it seems since I have worked on the thesis especially in the weekend. Maybe its the hormones from the pregnancy, but the thesis doesn't seem terribly important, and cleaning and organising the house does. And so does doing the family outing things, shopping, catching up with friends and all that stuff seem more important. I have enjoyed behaving like a semi-normal person, it feels so much more like a real weekend when I am not spending a lot of it doing the same computer and filing type work I do all week. But now I am starting to get a bit worried that this would be so much more comfortable than doing thesis, and it could just become too easy to let it slip away. The solution, as with most of my problems, lies with me. If I discipline myself back into working weekends, the thesis will get done. That's all it will take. It sounds a bloody sight easier than it looks from this side of self discipline.
We are leading an auction on Trademe for a cot. Hope we get it, and for a good price too! Then the only major purchase will be complete, and the sprog can arrive anytime, and still have a place to sleep.
Via mamamusings to the yeti, who is a lot closer to Mt Doom than I am.
The small person within is making their presence felt these days. It can be quite disCcerting to be having a serious Cversation about select committees and legislation drafting while within your stomach it feels like someone is dancing the lambada. I really wasn't sure I liked it last time round, to have someone else inside me felt a lot like an invasion of privacy. This time I don't feel that way so much, the wriggling and jiggling and tickling inside feels more like a reassurance that all is well.
I do resent every skinny woman I see. Silly, eh? But its just the way it is, it might be because I have been going to the gym and feel like I had earnt my figure. Last time it was just so exciting to be pregnant, I loved every inch I gained.
It is hard to sleep while my tummy is working out without me!
Got up this morning and said to hubby, 'feel bad, feel sick' and he said 'stay home'. I'm glad I took his excellent advice, as I didn't feel able to eat or stand up properly till lunchtime and after lunch I slept the afternoon away. I can't imagine having done anything useful at work.
We have had nearly two inches of rain in the last 3 days. The return of summer will be welcome.
The siamese caught a bird today. It came as a major surprise - she doesn't give any impression of having that kind of competency. She still falls off stuff, and seems more interested in chasing balls, and hitting the dog. I hope she doesn't become too good at it.
Have fluked making some decent compost. Feel rather smug!
Some of the substitutions in everyday life:
Acquaintences = friends
Takeaways = food
TV = leisuure
Talk = communication
Proximity = intimacy
Busy = productive
Cruelty = humour
Stuff = wealth
Fashion = style
Solitude = unpopular/lonely
Yesterday R was described as 'laCic' and I thought 'great word, much more positive than silent, uncommunicative, aloof or antisocial'. So I told R about it and he went home and looked it up. The Oxford defines it as "using very few words: terse." and adds it derives for the greek Lakōnikos for Sparta, the Spartans being know for their terse speech.
This was interesting - I'd never looked it up before, and I had always thought laCic had an element of unemotional, as well as brief in speech. Perhaps there is a NZ take on this word, as I have seen the Kiwi male described as laCic in more than one essay type article, and it seems to be associated with words like reserved.
Saw an article in the paper saying 2500 homes had burnt down in a shantytown in the Phillipines, leaving 25,000 people homeless. By my maths that is about 10 people per 'house' and I don't think shantytown houses are four bedroomed mansionson quarter acre sections either... that's crowded. Cut to chorus of "we don't know how lucky we are"
LaCic?
More people are back at work now, so more work can progress.
Had a pretty interesting weekend. R got involved in a small film project, sourcing weapons and uniforms, and being a Csultant on the set for military matters. He had a great time, and he also ran the home end well. There was very little mind reading required on my part as to what was going on, and he made space for us to do a family outing as well.
Our outing was to the international jousting tourney held in Upper Hutt in the weekend. R and Cn got dressed up in their kilts, took a sword (c) and a double headed throwing axe (r). I just wore a tartan dress and took my spindle. It was stinking hot up there in the morning, the horses were behaving themselves, and there was a big turnout of spectators. It looked a lot of fun, but I don't feel any urge to get involved. About time I stopped thinking I would like to have a go at everything I see!
Went from glum windy cool to breezy warm and sunny today - damn hard to dress for. Went shopping at lunch time and actually bought someting. Very out of character for the perpetual browser. Had a very late lunch with a friend who has applied for a job here, sounded like her interview went well and she certainly has a chance. Yesterday out of 3 interviews there were 2 no-shows and one no-hope. Must get very irritating interviewing people. I know I didn't really think it was fabulous last time.
Going to go to a jousting competition in the weekend. Hopefully Cn will have a good time watching the horses and the archery etc. Thinking about trying to find some appropriate costume type thing to wear - hard when your waist is but a memory, but the wardrobe hasn't changed. R going to a film shoot for one day, he hasn't been to one before so it will be interesting to see what he makes of it.
Last night at 11.45, someone parked and torched one of these about 5 metres from our bedroom window.
It burnt with a lot of explosions, and took an hour to put out. We are buying a fire extinguisher today (we hadn't noticed we didn't have one in the house) and are going to get much much more emergency ready.
Check the price of those things - $230 000 NZ. Golly.
Had the midwife check today. She was stuck in the delivery suite, and so I have now been to the hospital where I will be going in May. We now know how to get into the hospital grounds. And where the door is. And even more to the point where the door is after hours. It wasn't a planned visit, but did work out to be very useful.
I only saw the midwife for about 10 mins for the a) pee on a stick routine, b) measure the bump, c) listen for a heart rate and d) check the blood pressure. We waited for about half an hour with a hungry three year old to do this, and I was thinking as we left the building it was a bit of a waste of time. But you know, it only feels like a waste of time because everything was normal and healthy. If there had been anything abnormal, it wouldn't have felt like a waste of time, it would have felt critical and vital. So I have the luxury of health, and can feel like a 10 minute check is not important, and that sounds like the thinking of a smart-aleck.
We have a new big boss and one of her first decisions is to be whether we have an intermediary boss. I can't see the intermeidary is required in such a small team, and nor has she achieved a great deal... But the new boss doesn't have the history to make the decision. I suspect the intermediary will stay, which is a minor irritation.
Spent about half an hour lisstening to the mother in law witter on last night. She is pretty boring to listen to so I always end up doing something else at the same time - last night was weeding. If I do something else she gets to talk as long as she wants to rather than as long as my tolerance - its an easy way to keep her happy without getting too homicidal. And I usually get something done that needs to be done as well.
Have recently found a very local weather station at http://homepages.paradise.net.nz/aandjisa/trenthamweather.htm - sorry that isn't a proper link but the button has just stopped working for me. Technology ay? The link is pretty cool for really local weather - I wonder if he takes his own readings?
Returning to work after being away for nearly 6 weeks was not a happy thing to anticipate, but the reality wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. Nothing too disasterous happened in my in-tray during my absence, and the new boss is practically suggesting that I should be part-time when I get back from maternity leave. Which is what I wanted.
Home life has improved a great deal from the all time low of xmas, and we have started what will be a long Cversation in stages about what happened, and what could happen differently next time. It will take a while as we don't get big patches of uninterrupted time, and we both get pretty tetchy about the whole xmas subject (which makes regular breaks advisable). Personally I am thinking that we should buy a big tent and go camping Every year for xmas, and not see family at that time. It is too fraught with expectations, and not actually very interesting. Both sides sit around and talk and eat. We don't see the extended family very often with the proposed new system, but frankly I don't think it much of a loss. If we don't see them any other time, why fuss around with it at xmas?? We'll see, but it doesn't seem healthy that most xmas's I start thinking about a divorce!
that C who is only 3 and a half is sleeping tonight, outside, by himself, in a tent. I didn't think he would be brave enough for that... need to work on expectations again.
Being a natural Hermione type, when we got home the first place I went to was the library to see what I could find on the troubles that R and I have been having. R asked how I found anything, and I told him I typed 'divorce' in the catalogue. That produced a rather studied silence...
Anyway, I got something called the "Couples Survival Workbook", its a bit different from most of the self-help type books I have seen. It works on the principle that you can't change anyone else, only yourself. But in a marriage there are three entities: you, your partner and the relationship. So if you change yourself (or more specifically they way you interact with your partner), the relationship will change. That makes two out of the three, and that usually results in some change in the behaviour of the partner. Mind you there is no Ctrol on what that change might be! The next chapter is on the Cversation/argument patterns in the relationship. We have extremely patterned Cversations about the garage. Neither of us is happy with the outcome of the pattern, but we keep tracking down the same paths. So I might give it a go, and see what deliberately changing the pattern brings...
The kid needs to go back to childcare - he is full of beans and needs some other kid equally full of beans to run him round. We ain't that energetic these days. By the end of the day, I feel like surgically removing the beans...