graculus

Status: currently waiting for an email to tell me what classes I'll be teaching in September, which is apparently also known as 'the time when we all try not to kill each other' according to one of the admin folks.

At least I have passed my probation, with comments being made about how much better I was than they expected a new tutor to be and how their feedback was to help me be even better, rather than just 'good enough'. Hopefully that bodes well for what will be offered from the pickings of the carcass of classes left by the permanent contract tutors (and yes, I am one of the hyenas in this scenario, but meat is meat). I could do with the same hours again as I have been teaching, to be honest, but I'll take what I can get.

I need a minimum number anyway, as I plan to get qualified starting in September - my tuition fees loan application came through very quickly and I won't have to pay it back till I'm earning at least £21K, which could take a while. ;)

The main craziness of exam season is over too, though there are still the August resits to cover - I fully expect I'll see a few of the folks I did exams with these past few weeks again, like the lass who came to a foundation science exam but forgot to bring a calculator. *headdesk*

In other news, I went to the GP because I've been feeling lethargic and cold - though as I'm getting older, it's becoming increasingly difficult to separate 'feeling tired' and 'getting older' - and the blood test says I'm on the borderline for hypothyroidism. So, back in a few more weeks for another test to see if that's what is going on. In the meantime, I've been really glad I'm not working full time, because I can drag myself off to work to teach for a couple of hours (perform, really, because that's what it is - a performance) and that's perfectly doable.

As I write, I am in the process of applying to get back on the academic merry-go-round for the 4th time in my life - this time around, I even get to apply for a tuition fees loan, like a proper student!

Yes, I am biting the bullet and starting a PGCE in September. I've finally managed to get the local college to tell me which day the class will be (the classes run from 4pm-9pm) and resigned myself to the fact that this is going to be my life for the next 2 years. I'd already deferred for a year, and that was the right decision, but I don't really have any reason to put it off any longer other than 'oh god, assignments!' and I know that won't wash.

So the plan is that by the time WorldCon is in Helsinki in 2017 (*crosses fingers*), I will be a qualified teacher, which gives me lots more options for the longer term.

I don't want to work for anyone other than the folks I'm working with now, but funding is never certain and anything could change over that period (or sooner!). My boss has been off work for an operation and is due back shortly, so we'll be discussing the new academic year's timetable, where I will hopefully get more hours. I could do with about 8 more hours teaching in order to be comfortable financially, but I can get by if I don't get them - I understand at least one regular tutor is moving on over the summer so there ought to be hours available for me (*crosses fingers again*).

This should be helped by the fact I've had a really good observation recently - one of the senior managers just 'dropped in' and sat in on the 2nd half of my class, without warning, and her feedback was really positive. I'm also getting my paperwork done, while laughing inside at the comparison with the amount I used to have to do in my previous job and how much of a fuss other teachers make about the current requirements. And my students should shortly be passing their exams (and we get bonuses from the government if they do). All these sort of things help, I'm sure.

Meanwhile, this week and next, I'm invigilating exams - full time next week, because it's half term so I have no classes to teach - which has ranged from aggravating to a pleasant passing of the time. Next week's look like being mostly the latter, I am pleased to say; old school hand written stuff with small numbers of students because they have extra time or are allowed breaks during the exam.

We also have some exams where students can use computers instead of writing by hand (if they have permission to do so), usually because of dyslexia, at the end of which we're supposed to save their file and print a copy that they approve. Which is fine until you have (as I did on Wednesday) 22 students doing 9 different exams between them, all with different durations for their exams, and NOTHING IS PRINTING!!!! Everything was just 'churning' for 10-15 minutes before it'd print - we got them all done eventually but it was a nightmare.

From conversations with other invigilators, I understand this isn't uncommon (though the two similar I've done since have been much less traumatic) and some invigilators just don't do computer-based exams so they don't ever have to work that hard. We all get paid the same, depending on our role in running the exam, whether you're run off your feet or just watching one student write for 4 hours.

So, after telling you about shows I've stopped watching, how about some that I started (or will shortly start)?

1. iZombie - it's a new Rob Thomas show! It's essentially Veronica Mars with zombies, as our main character is one and also helps solve crimes by eating the brains of murder victims. And then we also get David Anders and Bradley James (yes, Arthur from Merlin) as recurring characters - Bradley looks really strange with dark hair.

2. Empire - I love Taraji P. Henson and what I've heard about this show, which is about the rap music business, sounds good. It's going to air in the UK on E4 from next Tuesday (28th).

3. Jane the Virgin - the title of this originally made me go 'hmmm' but I've now seen the first 3 episodes and was sufficiently entertained to want to see the rest of the season. It's essentially a US remake of a telenovela-style storyline with all that entails. For example, our eponymous heroine goes for a routine gynaecological exam and gets accidentally impregnated, and the sperm involved of course belongs to her boss, so now despite planning to save herself for marriage, she's pregnant. Hijinks ensue. Anyway, if you're in the UK, E4 have just started airing this (first episode was last night).

4. Daredevil - no, not the appalling Ben Affleck movie, but the Netflix-produced series, which has just ordered season 2. I've only seen the first 3 episodes so far, but it's been pretty good, although I think the pacing in eps 2 and 3 hasn't been great. Cool fight scenes, though.

5. Aquarius - this looks interesting, so we'll see how we go. It's a 1970's police drama with David Duchovny as the main character. It's airing in the US from 28th May.

Okay, it was going to be five (as per previous posts) but then I realised that wasn't going to work. So it's 10 this time, 10 places you can find interesting short SFF to read if you're so inclined - other websites are also available, and lots of them. I have also been reccing profic from these on Recs by Grac, in case anyone is interested in seeing what I like/what I fruitlessly nominated for the Hugo this time around.

1. Lightspeed - what I like about Lightspeed is that you can get both text and audio version of anything they publish, if you so desire. They also do reviews and non-fiction columns, as well as excerpts of books (which I stay away from, because the TBR pile is already too large, thanks very much).

2. Beneath Ceaseless Skies - BCS is more interested in fantasy than SF, so if that's your thing you may find something you like here. What I like about BCS is that I can download the entire issue as one PRC file, rather than futzing about with the individual stories.

3. Giganotosaurus - they only publish one story a month but it's usually novelette or novella length.

4. Shimmer - publishes what it calls 'speculative fiction' with an emphasis on 'odd, unclassifiable stories'.

5. Strange Horizons - fiction, poetry, editorials and reviews for SF and fantasy. Again, does audio versions of stories, if that's your thing.

6. Tor - all sorts of opinions and posts about all sorts of things (including a load of re-reads and re-watches that I pretty much delete from my RSS reader on sight - I don't care what professional tie-in writer Keith deCandido thinks about Stargate SG-1, thanks so much!) and also some fiction.

7. Uncanny Magazine - another one that does both text and audio versions of SFF stories, as well as non-fiction and interviews with the writers whose work appears there.

8. Kaleidotrope - a new one to me, SFF and horror (which really isn't my thing, to be honest).

9. Clarkesworld - monthly science fiction and fantasy magazine first published in October 2006. Each issue contains interviews, articles and at least three pieces of original fiction. Again, does audio versions of stories.

10. Crossed Genres - thematic issues published monthly, including new authors never before published; if you're looking for stories about minority groups and individuals, this is probably a good place to start.

Yep, I know it's April but still, here's my top 5 books that I desperately want to read (with the assistance of either my local library system, or what little spare cash I can rustle out of the back of the sofa):

1. Ancillary Mercy by Ann Leckie - no surprises there, as Ann finishes off the Imperial Radch trilogy, even if I have to wait till October 8th.

2. The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison - I have heard such good things about this book, so I think it will hit all my buttons. It's now out in paperback and my library hasn't bought it, alas...

3. Sorceror to the Crown by Zen Cho - this isn't out till October, so there's still time for the library to pick this up. I was hooked the moment I read this: In Regency London, Zacharias Wythe is England's first African Sorcerer Royal. *falls over*

4. The Just City by Jo Walton - out in paperback in July, but my local library has bought it! \o/

5.The Grace of Kings by Ken Liu - this was on my wishlist pretty much the moment I heard about it. First of a trilogy, described by some as a 'wu xia take on Game of Thrones', it's out in hardback in the UK next week but again will have to wait for a bit...

Honourable mentions go to City of Stairs by Robert Jackson Bennett (waiting for the call from the library!) and The House of Shattered Wings by Aliette de Bodard (alternate history, Paris and magic), which isn't out till August.

So, dear flist, anything in terms of SFF you think I ought to add?

Thanks, Calvin and Muad'Dib for getting that particular earworm stuck in my brain, helped by a vid for Almost Human I was watching the other day...

And so, we are heading inexorably toward the end of February and all sorts of stuff is going on. Well, maybe. Probably not as much stuff as all that, to be perfectly honest, but some.

First off, so far this year I've been trying to widen my repertoire in terms of what I cook. I remember reading something somewhere that said most people basically cook a handful of different things over and over, but I decided I wanted to add to my list of possible recipes. This has been assisted by an Android app called ChefTap which lets me take recipes from blogs etc. and strips them of the extraneous texty-bits then sends them to my tablet. I've not had any absolute disasters so far, but there have been a few things I won't be trying again and a few I will, though probably with more garlic and spices in some cases.

I also just, courtesy of Pic for 1000 posted the first fic I've written in a year, in fact since the last challenge they did. So, I can still write, I just haven't. No particular reason, except that the WiPs I left behind are looming over me, I guess and I suck. No news to anyone.

In work news, it's all looking pretty positive - my boss keeps saying nice things about and to me, which is all very lovely. I've got a month left till the end of term, as none of my students are doing exams till later in the year, and I'd like to say I'm ahead of the game in terms of planning but that would be A Big Lie. In real terms, I'm roughly a week ahead in lesson plans at any one time, which is a bit crap but can't be helped as it takes me much longer to do anything since it's all new. Because I inherited this class from someone else, partway through the year, I'm also playing Make Sure You've Covered Everything so that we'll have a whole term left to go over things again as needed before the actual exams happen.

In the longer term, the local college does a full teaching qualification over 2 years of evening classes, which is also cheaper than doing the thing full-time, and I may well be doing that from September one night a week. Which means shifting my current class (apparently now All Mine for the foreseeable future as I haven't crashed and burned) but April is the time for talking about next academic year's plans. I will also be asking about getting more hours because I really (financially) need to be doing at least 5-6 more hours teaching per week than I am currently signed up for.

Full teaching qualification also = more money per hour than I'm getting now, so it'll pay for itself in a relatively short space of time once I've got it. More options in the longer term too, a real case of delayed gratification though... *sigh*

I'm still trying to read as much potential Hugo stuff as possible and was pleased to see at least one thing I've nominated there pop up on the Nebula list. I'm not sure if that just means I like the things a lot of other people like or that it's objectively good or whatever. Anyway, if you're interested in what kind of thing I'm reading, check out here where things keep cropping up. Likewise, if anyone wants to follow me on Goodreads, drop me a line in the comments with your user name and I will add you.

Since we're almost at the end of the year, I thought I'd post a number of my top 5 lists of things for 2014:

Top 5 books:

1. Ancillary Justice and Ancillary Sword by Ann Leckie - I can have these two as one, can't I? Cracking space opera, first book very rightly won All The Awards, can't wait for book 3.

2. Gemsigns by Stephanie Saulter - a great WorldCon find, again the first of a trilogy, this one about genetic manipulation. Highly recommended.

3. Three Parts Dead and Two Serpents Rise by Max Gladstone. IMHO, Max should have won the John W Campbell award this year, as I loved both these books, which are set in a universe where accountancy and magic are very closely related. Again, highly recommended, need to get my hands on book 3 (Full Fathom Five), with book 4 (Last First Snow) also due out soon.

4. Holy Bones, Holy Dust by Charles Freeman - after all that science fiction and fantasy, how about a little non-fiction for the last 2? First off there's this, an absolutely fascinating look at the business of relics.

5. To the Edge of the World by Christian Wolmar - this was my other non-fiction highlight of 2014, a history of the building of the Trans-Siberian railway. As with any endeavour of this sort, it's a wonder it ever got built at all, but I hadn't realised that its very building had played such a pivotal part in Russian history.

E.T.A: Honourable mentions to Broken Homes by Ben Aaronovitch, Seraphina by Rachel Hartman and Nice Dragons Finish Last by Rachel Aaron, among others...


Top 5 graphic novels:

1. Saga volumes 1 & 2 - I'd heard a lot of good things about this series, all of which were true. Clever and funny, with some great characters, it's also stunningly drawn.

2. Hawkeye volumes 1 & 2 - how can anyone not love a series where a storyline is written from the perspective of the hero's dog? Rightly or wrongly, I don't think I can ever divorce this version of Hawkeye from my head-canon regarding that character.

3. The Wicked and the Divine volume 1 - again with the stunning artwork, can't wait to see where this goes next.

4. Rat Queens volume 1 - after all those superhero storylines, here's something a little different, described by the publishers as 'sass-and-sorcery'.

5. Sex Criminals volume 1 - again, something different, this time someone who discovers that when she has sex, time stops. When she meets someone else with the same ability, they decide to use it to rob a bank; naturally, hijinks ensue!

Honourable mentions to The Fuse volume 1, Captain Marvel volume 1 and Pretty Deadly volume 1, as well as a bunch of stuff I haven't got around to yet (Ms Marvel and Black Widow being primary among them).

Yep, still alive... ;)

1. Graphic designers who think that using the Cyrillic alphabet wrongly to 'Russianise' something is cool beans. A case in point recently - there were a couple of really nice faux Soviet propaganda posters up on Tumblr, one for Winter Soldier and one for Black Widow. Good use of design and restricted colours but the graphics! *flails*

Russian has letters English doesn't have. Also the Cyrillic alphabet (the block version at least) has letters that are shaped differently to the Roman alphabet. So, anyone 'ironically' using the Cyrillic backwards-R (which actually represents 'ya') or the Cyrillic capital D (which kind of looks like a squashed capital A) is actually making a real dog's dinner of things to anyone who can read even a little Russian.

See also: use of other non-Roman alphabets to exoticise text, as I've also seen the same thing done with Hindi.

2. Door to door salesmen who are apparently unable to read the sign on my door which basically tells them to bugger off (politely). I don't want to buy stuff on the doorstep, if I need a quote for something I am able to organise that myself and I definitely am not going to give you my bank details. Not even for the starving children.

3. Speaking of the starving children, there's the plague that is charity collection bags. I don't know if they do this outside the UK, but I regularly get 2-3 a month, sometimes more, begging me to put out stuff (usually clothes) for a variety of charities. There surely has to be a law of diminishing returns for these, that the more we get the less like that particular charity is to get anything at all? And yet still they come...

4. Ridiculousness on the internet - some days you just need something dumb/entertaining, hence my now following WorstCats on Tumblr, as well as Orkney Library (@OrkneyLibrary) and My Sad Cat (@MYSADCAT) on Twitter. All 3 are recommended!

5. Rampant creativity all around me. I might be about as creative as a bag of pondwater at the moment (at least that's how it feels) but that doesn't stop all sorts of things going on around me, both in fandom and in the wider SF community. Whether it's Patrick Rothfuss planning to kiss a llama for charity or singing chickens, action figure theatre with Star Lord and a velociraptor or lots of really good fic (pro and otherwise), all human life is there, on the interwebs. ;)

Five of my favourite foods, in no particular order:

1. Cheese - I'm a vegetarian, but could never be a vegan and the reason for that is cheese. I usually have at least 3 or 4 kinds of cheese in the fridge at any one time and my current total is 7. I don't really have a favourite, more like lots of favourites depending on what I'm making, the only exception being that I'm not a big fan of the blue stuff.

2. Beer - if beer doesn't count as a food, it really ought to. Like many teenagers, I started drinking at an early age and for a while I drank cider - I was only really introduced to beer (and by 'beer', I mean real ale) a few years later. I was lucky I grew up near a good brewery, then had the chance to try more things at university, and finally have had the good fortune to have settled in what is currently considered to be England's real ale capital. My current pint of choice? Derby Brewing Company's Business as Usual.

3. Eggs Benedict - I rarely have this, because I'm usually too lazy to make Hollandaise sauce, but it's a favourite of mine. I've also had the kind with guacamole, which is always going to be good because I love avocados and chilli.

4. Pasta - again, a major love for me, also a staple of vegetarian life. My particular favourite is a wholemeal one of the shape called mafalda corta, which the supermarket does good deals on every so often at which point I end up buying 5 or 6 bags of it.

5. Pretty much any kind of curry, as long as it's vegetarian. Once, this used to be mixed veg in curry sauce (meh) but now it can be all sorts of things. Personally, I eat a lot of dhal, but am also likely to throw whatever I have into a basic curry or alternatively buy something particular (like pumpkin, which makes a great dry curry).


This reminds me a bit of a conversation I had with someone who's a chef but who had only been in the UK for about 10 years - I was telling her about how food used to be back in the 1970's and 1980's (and into the 1990's in some places!). About how my first experience of pasta was tinned ravioli and tinned spaghetti, how I used to only be able to get particular spices in one shop and that when people first started cooking with olive oil they had to buy it from the chemist's rather than the supermarket.

Hard to believe how much things have changed now, isn't it?

Here's what I've read since last time (mid-September):

1. Gemsigns by Stephanie Saulter - the one bad thing about WorldCon is that I came home with not only a pile of books to read, but a recs list at least twice as long, mostly of folks I'd not heard of, Stephanie Saulter being one of them. ( Read more... )In short, it's really great, highly recommended!

2. Summer of the Big Bachi by Naomi Hirahara - I'd had this sitting on my bookshelf for a while, as it's the first of a series that sounded interesting. Our protagonist is a survivor of the Hiroshima bomb, now living in the US and working as a landscape gardener, whose past comes back to haunt him. I wanted to enjoy it more than I did, but it's first person (which I am so done with, after many many urban fantasies) and I struggled to empathise with the main character. So, another promising series I don't need to buy! ;)

3. Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor - another one where I'm working through my TBR bookcase (yes, it's not a pile, it's an entire bookcase). Enjoyed this very much, didn't see the twist coming until it hit, though the requisite romantic sub-plot made me toy with the idea of skipping some pages but the author managed to pull it back into manageable levels.

4. Ancillary Sword by Ann Leckie - I have been waiting for this book since I read Ancillary Justice over the summer and it did not disappoint me. Not quite as good as the first one, but there was definitely plenty going on there that I didn't see coming in advance. My only minor qualm was that ( spoilers ) Really looking forward to seeing where the third book goes, but I have no idea when that might be... :(

5. And I'm currently reading Who Fears Death by Nnedi Okorafor, which is excellent so far but definitely comes into the category of 'books I am glad I've read but will never want to re-read'.