shining armour and a new religion

My boss is awesome. Not the boss boss but my immediate superior. She went into bat for me today and told off officious office administrator and the silver fox i.e. the boss boss about the whole thing yesterday. Not to pull rank but the p.a had no right to 'offer' me advice and call me naive and all that carry on. She went on to get a garrulous and gossiped about the p.a lady as Palmengrad's first botox victim. Hmmm Oh well got that sorted out, now I jut gotta fix my pesky clients! I have however decided on a new strategy for dealing with my institution and that is to pretend that I too have the status of an institution. That beyond my immediate colleagues who I enjoy working with, I will be as inflexible and unhelpful as the umbrella institution. I shall abandon my vow of collegiality and not volunteer to do anything. I shall become a naysayer and a doomspreader. That should go down a treat.

and apparently

Apparently this is all my fault!  The administrator for out section told me that she thought I was naive to assume the institution would treat me with any decency or fairness! Then she had the gaul to be disbelieving about something that the big boss said to me. Why would I lie to her!
I am going to the pub! 

here is the rock and here is the hard place

and now insert yourself here!
My institutions and my *clients* are ganging up on me. I am tired of being at the mercy of these two opposing forces. It does not seem fair that they are both able to make such demands on the staff and not give a toss about workloads or research ambitions. My institution seems to think that it has the right to not only take huge chunks of outside money but also tell me how to spend the rest they oh so graciously allow for my project. They also give my students covert oppotunity to make descriminatory remarks which I am expected to take lying down. How long can this last?

that's different

So everyone seems to  have enjoyed the presentation. One of the old guys who is retired but still keeps an office here. Said -different, as always. That's what I enjoy about your research. I don't know about elsewhere but 'different' has a lot of social meaning here. If you are the type of person that says ' gee that's different' you are indexing a deep conservatism that runs like a deep vein thrombosis in this county. N kinda didn't mean it that way. It was a complement but in our variety of English that so easily segues into a dismissal. 
Nothing else to report.

thanks for coming

So... gave a seminar to my colleagues today. they looked interested and seemed to enjoy it. Except for the bossman whose question at the end seemed to imply that the topic was one that is outside my area, which was a bit rich since he knows nothing about my area. Then my colleague stood up and gave his seminar, adn the bossman sked exactlyt he same thing. To me, the interpretation of the question that we had to surpress was 'so what?'. Since he is not involved in our area of research and didn't really engage with the content of the our seminars, what right has he tell us what is appropriate or not! Thanks for coming....

A little confession

I am supposed to busy writing my research representation and hell it's only twenty minutes andi have more than enough material to fill that space. So what if it is an amorphous rushed mass of information, okay opinion disguised as information, and a few pretty diagrams and a photo of a superhero doll all thrown onto a powerpoint show. It's only twenty minutes of my life.  Instead I have been dreaming of being back in the islands laying on that incredibly uncomfortable bed reading a Harlequin romance. Yes I read a Harlequin romance, well two actually they were published together. I had never done such a thing before. It was fascinating. One was a gothic horror romance updated to contemporary Missouri with the glaring heathcliff type who hides a tragic secret and the love of a good and determined woman to save him. The other was apparently inspired by the author witnessing a civil war re-enactment and imagining what a real conferred would make of this war surrounded by coke stall and concession stands.
 
And what rollicking good reads they were too. Prose as crappy as this, but the most interesting and determined insistence on particular gender traits. He - tight buns, hard chest, emotion laden eyes on an expressionless face. If only he would smile and reveal that masculine beauty behind the mask... She long flowing hair, lacy bras and sweatpants ( what the... ) and astonishing blue/green/violet/whatever coloured as long as they are astonishable.
 
 Now I myself like a manly man, but god a bit of quirk, a bit of mocking irony, a bit less steely determination and clenched jaws thanks lady writers of romance.  yes true love wins in the end, and the female protagonist is the agent of the deliverance of the male hel i.e. mistaken belief he killed a child while in a catatonic fugue, or the confusion of accidental time travel and the need to rally the troops. But god upholding ht egender order like this, shame on you

flat broke

Another weekend sleeping with the television on. Its not like I don't have anything to do, I just can't be bothered. I don't dare touch any machines as they are all turning on me at the moment my very own I, Robot... Last night I made some soup starring beetroot. When I loaded up the moulinex for the meltdown. I walked 2ft away to retrieve the salt, by the time I turned again to face it there was a purple lake all over hte bench dripping down the white (of course) cupboards and onto the newly mopped floor.... hmm
I have a presentation this week and I thought about having an animated slide show, but that's just flirting with disaster....
I have no money to do anything for weeks while I wait for the reimbursement for the conference trip. Though I am only going to get half of it back due to shifty Viktor and his refusal to write a receipt.... Otherwise I would have headed down to the city this weekend.... and had some fun, though it would have been full of rugby heads due to the ABs Roos test....
Oh well more kitchen fun, my sister is coming up to the airforce base and will be dropping by....
Life is... well it doesn't thrill me...

Read between the lines damn you - a little vent

I never said I was an organiser. In fact I have always said to the contrary so don't ask me to organise things. Also if you cannot read betweeen the lines of the text I sent you, why the hell do you call yourself a linguist?

The sparkle that shines

Got me some fine new glasses today, and I may not eat till next payday, but the world has been washed clean. And I have to say there are some fine looking people in it. Spent all day answering emails that banked up like leaves over rip van winkle while I was away. People seem to get irate that you don't answer their emails in twenty seconds flat these days. All the modern things seem to have had the unintended consequence of increasing our capacity for impatience!

I am alas an exemplar of this trend, as probably is every single citizen of this town, today I coulda gone ballistic at the library, but of course like most of nationality am too polite to even write a complaint.

So I had some books overdue. I wanted to return them and pay off the fine. Like a good citizen. And so I could then get out some more books. But you cannot do the two actions simultaneously. You must first return said books, and then wait for them to be processed. The next day the fine will come up on you record and then you can pay. I would have thought that having to pay a fine, and indeed I was quite willing to do, would be the punishment, but no, here in Absurdistan, where the bus to work takes exactly the same amount of time as walking there, what would not be right.

Oh well, I'll put me new specs on, not wait for a bus and walk out into the night to look at the newly beautified people. If only they knew how appreciative I have become they would have paid for the glasses for me.

back in the NZSR

I guess I was lying about the socialist republic part in the title, but hey what coulda been, eh.
So I am cold and in some ways glad to be back, but today has really pissed me off. Viktor slipped out of writing me a receipt which means I have to pay for my accommodation, and I lost my phone somewhere on the way to the airport... between the airport and the plane... had it taken out of my bags by cusotm controllers at Vila, honestly I zipped it in in Vila and when I got here it was gone. Damn now I have to shell out for a new one and pay off my glasses and blah blah blah...
back to work tomorrow oh hurrah for that. Bring back the dogs baying at the moon, which woke up the roosters who woke up the non-moonstruck dogs which woke up the other roosters. Vila! all is forgiven.
Still it was nice to see my little house with the postbox jammed with pizza flyers. Speaking of which....

Island styles II

Still in Vila and am sorta glad to say that the conference is over. The conference dinner was a bit awkward as I ended up getting the faith healing conversation from someone that I have to work closely with. But It was great to hang out and made a few lingy-type friends, especially David who was a really nice guy. I don't know what having MM as a supervisor would be like. Tho perhaps creepiness was an overall perrsonality type inthe more enior linguist population. So I have that to look forward to.
Anwyawy that's all over and I am back home tomorrow. today a cruise ship has arrived and god it could be sydeny around here. There are a few dazed looking linguists habnign around before htey are off to do more field work but it suddenly seems that people are afraid theyu will be mistaken for tourists....
Oh well so long Vila see you in september

Island styles

Well hey there from Vanuatu, okay more properly halo, yu orait?
After all that stressing about the stress of coming here, it has been remarkably unstressful. I guess i got all the stressing out of the way. I found a place to stay and haven't run out of money and I have to a a relatively high degree (for me) mingled with the other conference goers.

The conference has been pretty excellent except that I can't ready any of the ohps, but my glasses will be ready when I get back. Some really interesting stuff about genre in Kilivila but as per usual the historical issues seem to overshadow everything, and boy is historical phonology not my strong point.

Ah well, today is the conference halfday and I had a meeting with Helen about Aulua and getting the community more behind the project. I had better get a wriggle on with my end of the bargain....

I thought I would look into buying some more mats but they seem to have disappeared off the tourist menu here... This is costing a fair few vatu so...I'm gonna split. A full report when I get back