there's this new toy I'd like

..but I can't justify it.

The smart pen. I don't take enough notes to need one. You buy this fat notebook and pen (replacement notebooks abt $20) and you write your notes with the pen. When you go back over your notes and wonder what they all actually meant, you can tap on a line of notes and the pen plays back audio of what the lecturer was saying when you were writing the illegible scribble that is in the book. As a novelty, you can also draw a keyboard in the book and play notes by tapping it with the pen. My cousin bought one for when she's marking verbal work for her prep/grade 1 students.


Here's an instructional video

On another note, its pouring here again.

cough cough cough

My cold continues on schedule. I have a standard order of
1. sore throat (if I have betadeine I can nip it in the bud here - I didn't have any on Sunday night :( )
2. slight cough and slight runny nose, plus fever & fatigue
3. Heavier runny nose and sneezing, fever is fading
4. heavy runny nose, blocked sinuses, coughing again but chesty this time
5. sinuses clear, runny nose mainly dries up, cough turns dry and hacking
6. recovery

I'm usually feeling at my worst at 2 and 3.
I'm now at 4...should be right for getting online tonight - but I'll sound awful

Shooting myself in the foot

I've said for some time now, that there's no point in me doing longer days and working weekends. All that happens is my brain switches off and I make mistakes or I get sick. If I try to do the longer hours, I pay for it in just as many hours lost later to inefficiency, mistakes and illness. So, I have these really short deadlines for papers/grants/lecture writing & end up spending all weekend working on the paper. Sunday night I get a sore throat and I've lost 2 days of work with brain capacity falling to about 5% of normal, a desperate desire to sleep and feeling generally like crap. I actually feel a bit better today and the woman in the office across from me says I look terrible and wan. My eyes are very bleary. I really should learn and stop paying attention to people who say I should work the weekend/after hours if something has to be done.

spam spam spam spam

I was thinking monty python while I wrote that. I just got my first spam comment. All about power levelling in RPGs. I must remember to write more boring things that don't attract them.

Gah again

So there I was, using my creative time (till 1pm) sorting through data in papers for the purposes of writing a streamlined introduction that supports me doing the work I've already done and am writing the paper for. Suddenly, an email pops up telling em I have until 4:30 to mark the supplementary exams and and have them at examinations. These are the papers I was given 2 days ago, for a subject I didn't teach last year but am going to take over next semester, without a deadline given to me. So of course I put them aside because I knew they'd require much thought to figure out what was actually taught & what should be included in a complete answer. I have now used up the last of my creative energy for today for exam marking. So much for getting my paper written. I need a nap.

GAH!!!!!

Hate writing papers, hate writing papers, hate, hate, hate writing papers.

I feel the more I have to work at them, the more they churn unto mud....and the less the point I was tryign to make gets put across.