Broken kitchen light fixture.

Well broken stuff in general, but that's the one I want to fix first. That's not true, either. The light's the next thing I'll work on.

update:

Light works. New ballast ($30!!!), some 'lectric tape, good to go.

Migraine...bastard

Ouch:( honey poor you.

None of my clothes fit and I can't afford t buy new ones. The electricity people phoned me up last night to hassle me about what I owe them. How many times can you fit the sentence "no...look I can't pay anything tonight...no I can't pay £100 now...I haven't got any money, I can't pay anything straight away" into a single telephone conversation?

I am broke. On low income until next student check at end of January.

My house is a total dump and I can't seem to find the get-up-and-go to sort it out. I have three essays due in less than a month and can't seem to concentrate on the research. I am smoking too much. Everything is too much effort. All I want to do is sleep.

Oh fuck Dana, thats not good.

Thrift shop clothes? I love them for size changes, when you know you will be able to fit into your normal clothes again.

You need to do something fun.....can you go away for a cheap weekend? Let Sundae paint your nails or something

*chuckles* I wish! But unfortunately not possible at the moment:P

The thrift shop idea I might try though. I have a hatred of charity shops (dragged round too many by mum when I was younger) but I think I'll bite the bullet and try.

I'll be ok. I always am. Just pissing me off a little today.

*smiles*

Well, I vote you get at least one of your essays done this weekend, and I guarantee you (having been a mature age student myself) that you'll feel much better come monday. In fact, if you do it by Sunday lunch, you might even be able to talk yourself into taking yourself to the pub for a beer on sunday arvo to celebrate. ;)

*chuckles* good advice Ali...unfortunately I have a conference to attend on Saturday and the Legion's annual general meeting in the morning with a leaflet drop in the afternoon on Sunday.

Takes about three or four days of reading and probably a few hours in special collections examining primary sources to put an essay together (if it's gonna get decent marks anyway).

I'll spend some of today on the reading. Try and get some done in the evening as well. I am in uni tomorrow anyway so that might be a good time to go visit Specials Colls.

Have to know what the current and past scholarship is of the topic at hand to avoid accidental plagiarism. If you don't know what the main writers in any one field are saying you can come up with similar ideas and end up in trouble. Only way to avoid it is to know who's said the things you want to say and footnote them. Knowing where their analysis leaves off or where the gaps are allows you to make your own independant argument, spinning off from theirs.

basically I have to know what fifteen or twenty historians have said about each of the topics I am writing on.

But hey....maybe if I log off here and go do some fecking reading tht might help huh?:P

DanaC's words on how essays are done in the UK has me worried. In my undergrad education an essay was just bullshit with references. I think I'm fucked. . .

*laughs* depends on the subject. History is one of those subjects you *read*. Very little time spent in classes or lectures, mostly you get given a long list of books and authors, with some helpful pointers as to which are most relevant to which part of the module. They may even include the odd chapter reference (e.g such and such a book, esp. chapters 3 and 7). The idea is that you use that list as a starting point and branch off from there into your own independantly sourced material.

The amount of self directed study you are expected to do varies from university to university and faculty to faculty.

What are you planning to do your MA on? You really cannot do an MA without knowing current scholarship, else how can you ensure you are producing original material?

In terms of the undergraduate experience, the awareness of plagiarism has become very acute in recent years and systems have been set up in many unis to combat it. You could probably have got away with more flannel and less actual reading when your work wasn't going to be electronically scaned and compared to pretty much every known article available on the web in your field:P

Incidentally, how you finding the Geordie-speak?

I often find logging off the MB and doing some reading is helpful IF I HAVE A LOT OF FUCKING READING TO DO! lol kidding. ;)

I'm sure you'll get it all done and you'll do a great job Dana. Don't stress out though. That's not going to help get them done any sooner...although research suggests that all students have a certain stress point that they must reach before they'll actually start their assignments.

Mine personally was very low. I used to do mine as soon as I got them because I couldn't stand knowing I had work to do that I hadn't done. On the other hand, my cousin who is a mature age student with a part time job and three kids, always leaves hers till the last minute (sometimes litterally). I don't know how she does it.

I'm doing a Taught MSc in E-Business and Information Systems. It's consists mostly of businessy fluff, thus tons of content-less reading. The business modules are where the essays are assigned.

I have a lot of reading to do to catch up with where I need to be. But I'm cranking through it, even though most of it is "no shit, really?" stuff, especially in E-Business. There's a higher percentage of good stuff in the Understanding Organizations module.

If they're speaking full-on Geordie, I'm lost. Even when they try to speak more standard English, I have trouble.

My coworker just found an email from February (printed and left in an unsecured location) from the self-righteous, paranoid, bad joke telling, know-it-all bigot of an attorney I work for, to the firm's sole proprietor and lead attorney, detailing how I'm rude, incompetent, unmotivated, and act like a 'princess'.

Tell em' to suck your pussy.

Take your pick.

ok, i'll choose door number 2.

:D

Apparently you haven't been rude enough. Here is what you do: edit it of the apparent mistakes and fax it to his office from kinko's. At night...so you won't actually be out of the office while it is being sent. Who's to say it was you?

Maybe you can be the one to pick it up and act surprised? Tell him you have received a fax that you need to discuss?

*ucker.

I hate my boss

I hate my boss

I hate my bosssssss!!!!

I've finally employed the ignore feature but it doesn't block threads just posts... so it is kinda pointless as a sifting tool. Does anyone have what they consider a good method of sorting/reading the content here, when time is precious?

If I just want to look up stuff I've been involved in, I just look up my own posts and see who's responded.

Today I feel upset because I have a nasty nasty cold and I haven't had a good sleep in two nights now, so I'm very grumpy.

Oh, and if I'm one of the ones Griff has on ignore, can someone please tell him what I said? ;)

this guy was driving and on his cell phone when he didn’t see me and hit me. I saw him last second because he was speeding while turning the corner. He crashes into me and my bike flys with me falling off. He gets out looks at me and he watches his car for scratches. I was in so much pain, and he’s worried about his car. My hand had punched into his side glass and broke through, my hand bled a lot. Then he’s like fuck you and gets in and drives away. I was in so much pain that I actually had a hard time getting up to read his license plate to try and memorize it. Turns out when he crashed into me the handle bar went into my lungs. Not fully through but bruised it bad enough so I had a hard time breathing. Hit and run I wont forget it.

what an arsehole. Glad to see you're still alive though. Did you report it to the police anyway?

Give the ignore time to grow on you. You'll adapt to the extra spaces it inserts.
Do not make my mistake and let curiosity get the better of you and lift the curtain.

It's not worth it.

:sniff:
Drag! Sorry. Hope you get better soon. Sleeping at night? Ambien is my new best friend.:3_eyes:

aww ya me too, hope ya feel better

I took drugs to help me sleep last night, but it's more that I keep choking and waking up. :( You know when you can't breath through your nose so you sleep with your mouth open and then your tongue falls back or your throat fills wth saliva or something and you wake up gasping for breath...

Also, because husband had to go to work today and has some really important meetings on, I felt guilty about keeping him awake with my tossing and coughing etc, so I quasi-slept on the couch for a few hours. That didn't help too much either.

I'm pretty sure I'm going to live though, so that's the good part. ;)

I do the same thing, when I'm sick or restless. Rather than wake other people up, I get up and either sleep on the couch or find a quiet place to read until dawn. I agree it doesn't really do anything for your own health, though. :neutral:

Hope you feel better soon!

I hope you
(a) took your ass to hospital
(b) called the police.

I would, but I think I am on his list too

If that's the case, he's going to miss some good pictures in that other thread.

What? ;) No, you and ducks don't make me pull my hair out regretting lost minutes of life.

Not that I have misplaced priorities, but um... how's the bike?

This whole frakkin' board!

Well that's good to know Griff. I'd give a whoop of celebration except I'm vocally challenged today (which is bothering me). ;)

Wah Draxxie?

Well, some ya'll's ok, and I don't want to be an asshole, but sometimes ya'll push me to my limits.

You just take yourself n shit too seriously.

Lighten up and have fun.

Oh, btw, I prefer you as Drax too.

This is a very petty rant but I need to vent:

Pissing me off today is: one crazy school director.
I work at five different schools over the course of my week. Four are fine, but one school is just painful.
It's out in the boondocks so there is less oversight from head office. The school director seems to have no idea what lessons are like or how teaching works, or what company procedures are.
Thursdays usually start with a painfully slow double lesson with a student who the director promoted to a level well above her ability to get her to sign up. She did this by twisting the rules to allow the student to take a test she shouldn't have taken, then when the student dismally failed the test, letting her take a different (irrelevant) test four times in a week until she "passed".
However when I walked in today I saw on the schedule that I was also supposed to teach a trial lesson for a 5 year old kid who wanted to join. They're supposed to tell me in advance, so I had no prep time and didn't know what I was expected to do. Fortunately I managed to get the other teacher to cover for my first lesson (Thanks S!) and threw together a lesson plan, but then I noticed the director had double booked my lesson and the other teacher's kids' lesson in the same (only) kids' room. WTF? We figured that the other teacher could move his class out 15 mins early to play board games and we'd scrape through. We phoned the director (out of the office today) to confirm this was okay ... and she changed the plan ... telling me I was actually supposed to do a special placement test of which I had never heard, let alone been trained for.
I called head office and had a trainer pulled out of a meeting (bad in Japan!) to explain the deal to me. And so I muddled through and fortunately the kid is really sweet and nice, although not great level at English. (Imagine my day if she'd thrown a fruity!)
Meanwhile the director has taken on a different kid (both are "refugees" from NOVA, the biggest language school chain in Japan which recently collapsed with $400 million in debts and 300,000 students) who also won't fit into any existing classes, and so has been told to come whenever she has time and whichever teacher is available will put together a lesson for her!!
This is borderline insane. Kids' classes require semester-long planning and continuity, and considerable daily preparation. This kid will be flitting from teacher to teacher, different standards and techniques and topics all over the place, and it will drive the teachers nuts, turning up to work to learn they have to pull a kid's lesson out of their ear.

Dumb-ass bitch. And to cap it off, like many Japanese staff who deal with foreigners, she has taken an "English" nickname to make it "easy" for us (which actually makes it harder because everyone else uses the Japanese name so we have to learn two names. That I might forgive, but who the hell would deliberately name themselves after a Disney character? Idiot.

Ok I feel better now.

the break in my work that has allowed me to play in the cellar so much for a week has come to an end. :sniff:

say, has anybody been watching the markets?;)

Whoo hoo! I love it when I lose more money in my 401K in a week than I make in almost two months of working. It makes me feel so warm and fuzzy inside.

Not.

Thanks to the miracle of dollar cost averaging, you're not losing money, glatt. It's a *SALE*. You should double down your withholding today.

quick thoughts for you G:

The fact that you have enough invested that it can take that type of dive... :thumb2:

The fact that you aren't retiring in the next 5 years, means that a downturn is actually good for your portfolio if handled correctly. be defensive against a falling US economy, but don't get out of the market. going to cash rarely works in the long run. you might want to look at big american companies. all sizes of foreign companies. unless you've got the skill or big brass ones, avoid sector bets. look at areas that are being hit hard and decide if you think those companies are solid enough to survive and rebound after a recession ends. buy low sell high. and remember, the best returns are always in the two year period following a recession.

Are we officially in a recession (outside of Detroit, of course)?

I think ... not ..........yet.

Big housing slowdowns almost always end in recessions. Oil prices going through the roof often leads to recession. I'm betting on it.

Meanwhile, I've watched the value of the yen drop by about 20% in the last year, taking my salary and savings with it. :(
Your recession might be the thing that triggers a turnaround. I'll send you a food package if it does.

How long does raw fish stay fresh?

Thanks for the tips. Now is a good time to take a look at my allocations. Haven't looked at them in a year or two. Retirement is a long way off, so I'm not actually upset, but you nobody likes to see their balance go down.

impossible to tell. the definition of recession is two successive quarters of a shrinking economy, so you never know until you are at least 6 months in. our last recession only lasted 8 months, so technically, we were only aware of it for 2 months. or something like that. i still get people asking when the recession will end. they look shocked when i tell them that it ended 5.5 years ago.

glatt: if you choose to be a DIY guy there is a book i would suggest by a nationally famous planner. i don't agree with everything, but for a DIYer it is good. can't give you the name, but if you google "buckets of money" you'll find him.

****i have no connection whatsoever with him or his books****

NooooooOooOOOOo...say it isnt so.

So, lookout, if you reached in your pocket and realized that, in addition to a few spare condoms and some pocket lint, you have a spare $50,000, where would you put it?

In the post. To me. Thank you.

I'm upset because this is the first significant time I've had internet access for a couple of days and I'm TIRED. Bed-time for me before I fall asleep on the keyboard. AND I have 6 new library books to read as well!

Night night chickens x

Does this mean we are having sushi for lunch?

I don't think we want to wait for ZenGum's care package. But there is a sushi restaurant near my office - just across the parking lot from the hotel.

As long as it is a classy hotel.:blush:

If it is just $50K that i really don't need for a few years i would split it down the middle with half into a couple international funds and the other half into a couple of carefully researched companies that have had he crap kicked out of them the last 12 months... say some financials. but i'd be very very careful about trying to catch that falling knife.

It's dreary and cold, my throat's sore, I'm tense and cranky from too much caffeine, and some machinery outside my window is rattling and giving me a huge headache.

When does happy hour start on Saturday?

Time for Nyquil