More Quick Takes

Seven Quick Takes is hosted at Conversion Diary.

1.

This week was vac week. I am very grateful for weeks off: I've been stressing myself silly, but now I'm back to believing that I can get through the semester, maintain my Calculus mark, and maybe even do okay in my design course, despite the group work. It's a wonderful feeling.

2.

It's not that I have anything against group work per se, but trying to simultaneously handle two different projects that we are supposed to get time in class for, but don't seem to because of the time lost in the strike gets complicated. And that's just one subject. I'm sure it's very good for me when I'm not freaking out.

3.

Since it was holidays, I read the whole of Sir Terry Pratchett's Unseen Academicals and really enjoyed it. Partly, I haven't read anything that's not at least one of academic and written centuries ago for ages. Partly, all my reading recently has been the between-lectures or waiting-in-the-carpark sort. Partly, it's just a really good book. One of the most fun parts of Discworld is that the more you read, the more references you pick up. The books seem to be getting deeper all the time, even though you (I) know than you're (I'm) actually just finally in a place to appreciate them a little more thoroughly. I know I completely miss plenty too, but the story's good enough that it didn't matter. So reading Unseen Academicals was very happy-fying and holiday-ish.

4.

I know that writing advice books often warn wannabe writers about overusing italics, em dashes, ellipses and exclamation marks. On rereading the above paragraph, I think I might need to add hyphens onto my list. (Ignore the wailing about how much fun hyphens are. That certainly wouldn't be me.)

5.

I've been thinking about making some fairly major changes to what I'm studying. I'm pretty sure I know I'd enjoy the change, and it'd simplify a bunch of life decisions in the next few years. But something (like maybe my pride) keeps telling me that it's a foolish decision and a step backward and that I need to toughen up . . . I guess it'll straighten out as I keep on praying and finding more people to talk to back at varsity.

6.

The ellipsis in #5 is totally justified, #4 notwithstanding. That's because, um, I will write badly on my blog if I want to and if it bothers you you can take it as a sign of my deep seated anxiety about changing my study plan.

7.

I am loving my twitter account lately. It gives me the chance to be a bit more than a consumer of new media, without taking up the (relatively) huge amounts of time writing blog posts does. One day I'll master writing quick-but-meaningful posts. Until then, I'll keep practising on twitter.