notes from a tuesday-that-really-really-really-feels-like-a-monday.why is it that all deadlines -- no matter how far in advance you knew about them or how well prepared you really are -- hit like bricks? is this some cosmic rule of which i was not informed? if so, i would like to call a foul. or at least an inconvenient. the latest brick to hit are the end-of-term thesis deadlines. argh. two weeks. argh. i realise that i had to be finished editing it and coddling it at some point, but does it have to be so soon? *sniff* (and did it really have to be when i had editing to do on another paper and a paper not included post to write and...and...and...? and the answer to all that is "yes," 'cause that's how life works.) i'm trying very hard to see all these scary deadlines and not-having-a-full-time-job-yet-ness as being opportunities to learn to deal with the universe on a different level -- challenges being handed out by a good teacher, so to speak, to make you stretch a bit -- but minus a good night of sleep in several weeks and plus stress, it's hard. not impossible, but hard.
i'm still determined to keep up my every-other-day posting routine here; i don't really know why since it's a totally arbitrary schedule i thought up more or less at random, but it's something that isn't school- or work-related and i figure it's important to have a couple of those type of things floating around.
i don't have any neat short book reviews for today, but i do have some unconnected thoughts i was hoping to work into something more major later. i picked up hilary mantel's wolf hall from the library the other day and so far it's slightly bizarre but very good. i don't normally care for historical fiction very much -- not for a.s. byatt's self-serving and whiny reasons ("they don't do it good like me!") -- but because i get too caught up in my own speculation about what happened and whether i like how the writer is writing the person and whether i happen to know that an actual historical detail is being elided for the sake of a good story. (okay, maybe that is kind of like what byatt says but, damn, that woman annoys me.) i don't necessarily object if this happens, but it does tend to bump the book further down the "must read now!" list.
i have read and enjoyed more "historical" mystery series than anything else: laurie king's mary russell novels; elizabeth peters' amelia peabody series (colorfully described by my mother as "bonking all over upper egypt"); and c.j. sansom's matthew shardlake books, of which there are only four at the minute, though i hope for more!
i also have eoin colfer's and another thing..., but i haven't been able to bring myself to crack the covers yet. i wouldn't say that i hold the original guide trilogy (in five books) particularly sacred, but i really do love them and i disliked the idea of a "ghostwritten" sequel as soon as i heard about it. nothing i've heard about it since has made me feel any better about it and i just don't have the energy to read one of my treasured pre-adolescent literary memories being done badly.
and now off to write part 2 of my pni post about the internet archive and the wonders of the bookserver project. i won't put any links so you'll all have to head over to pni and increase our traffic!
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