Idle Media

Where do blogs go when the author stops posting? Is there a blog heaven? How long does the blog have to wait before it can escape? What happens if it's rediscovered and ripped out of death?

This is what happens when life is too routine. I don't blog about politics; that's asking for trouble. I don't want to write just to bitch. That's not very nice to read. And this isn't the place to discuss my work: I have RuneSketch for that, though, truth be told, I haven't been posting frequently there either.

I have assignments, I do them. I take care of the domestic jobs, walk to bus stops, feed my lovely lizard (who is much better at blogging regularly than me: check out Lizards Deserve Pancakes Too and you'll see what I mean), and generally live like a hermit. Why be social when I have Facebook? Then I can be social in my holey flannel pyjamas.

Without conflict or strange occurances (I suppose actually posting could be considered a strange occurance), what is there to write about? Hence contemplating Blog Heaven.

So is there a Blog Hell too, or is that reserved for a greater evil? Idle Twitter accounts, maybe. Perhaps even active ones...

I've been struck by the idea of attempting to write a short story in 140 characters. That's the Twitter rule, right? Or there's the Othar Trygvassen method (check out Girl Genius Online for that one; good webcomic, honest) of telling a story in first person via what the narrator/protagonist would tweet. Worth giving a go, I reckon.

Except, of course, for the fact that I'd post three tweets and promptly forget about it.

I have a rolled-up newspaper and I'm not afraid to use it!

I want to save the Doctor.

Not in a plotty sense; that wouldn't be at all interesting now, would it? Just the character. And the rest of the writing. Are Australians allowed to go to British broadcasting networks and demand to replace the writers?

Yes, the story writing has improved. But they're ruining the characters. He doesn't stay for Christmas! Ever! He was supposed to sneak off while she wasn't looking, dammit! That's the beauty of the Doctor. He'll change a little as he goes along, granted, but he's a dude you can count on to know what's happening, save the day, and avoid domesticity. He doesn't come in for a bloody coffee, he goes off on a new adventure! Or the Tardis breaks down. Or somebody needs rescuing. Or something!

And let's face it, somebody needs to be smacked for making the angels move. The weeping angels were brilliant the first time. I still can't look away from a statue. But if you're going to follow up on something that good, it has to be consistent and perfect. If you ruin it, it doesn't matter how good the second story is; it's automatically bad because you've gone and screwed with something amazing.

Surely at least one of the writers will be ready to move on to other things by the time I graduate and get my butt over to Wales. Watch out for my name in the credits, okay?

Running Away from Lethargy

So I've started running with my housemate in the evenings. The weather has cooled from the smothering summer heat, but hasn't yet frozen into dread winter (alright, so Brisbane doesn't see snow). We get rained on occasionally, but we're usually soaked anyway.

I shouldn't talk about the bouncing. It isn't really appropriate. I bought garments to make it stop though. You haven't experienced weird until you get the ache due to bouncing while running.

Instead I'll talk about energy. I've heard that you start feeling more energetic after you've been exercising for a while. I almost died running up the hill near our house the first time, walked the second time, and successfully ran up the third time. The fourth time, I almost died again. I don't get it. I wasn't expecting to make it that third time, and figured that if I'd done it once recently, surely I'd be able to do it again.

Not so.

Even more oddly, my legs have been fine. My arms ache instead. Bizarre, yes? I haven't been carrying weights or anything. Am I tense while running? Does exercise and being outside stress me out that badly?

Hiking around campus with a laptop and my textbooks on my back is easy, and campus is hardly flat or small. Have you been to St Lucia recently? You have to travel twice as far to get from one side of the university to the other as you used to just to get around all of the construction work going on at the moment. And yet, my shoulders and legs take that as par for the course. While carrying nothing on my evening run makes my arms feel like lead.

Science fail.

I'll see how it goes tonight.

There Must Be Another Way

Disclaimer: My linguistics lecturer is enthusiastic about her work, and goes to a lot of trouble to explain new concepts and help her students. That's wonderfully refreshing in a teacher.

But we're a lecture behind, and all of our marks come from worksheets based on the lecture notes published on the internet which aren't necessarily followed in the lectures themselves anyway.

The tutorials are spent going over the worksheets that we tried to fill in the previous week. That's all.

Does this sound as disorganised to everyone else as it does to me? We're basically trying to teach ourselves the material from internet sources before each class, and just spend the classes telling each other our answers. It's working so far, but that's mostly because we're still working through what nouns, adjectives, and verbs are.

The tutor today told me that my analysis was too advanced for the current work, and that I should stick to the basic rules for now. Why give me a poem to analyse if you don't want me to analyse it as a poem? The structure is clearly different from regular prose. Will I have to relearn this later?

I know I wasn't going to use this blog to whine, but surely there's a better way to run this course. Am I being ridiculous? Are my expectations not what they should have been?

Happy Fish

The world is a slightly dimmer place this week. Not just because of the rain.

For a few short, wonderful months, I had a fighter fish friend named Sparky. I have never met a happier, braver, or more resilient critter. He danced every day when he thought he should be fed, and was always excited when someone came into the room. Considering he lived on the kitchen bench, that means he was pretty much perpetually excited.

He'd follow you around the room against the glass of his bowl, and investigate anything that rested nearby, be it inanimate object or finger. And he knew the difference between fingers, faces, and objects.

He survived more than 7 months of disease, from lumps to infections to fin rot and finally liver failure, and still kept swimming. He earned the name Toyota for his sheer strength against the odds.

He taught me that you can be happy just to be alive, and lifted my spirits every day when I came home. Our lizard friend Mikey fascinated him, and they kept each other company with staring contests through the glass.

He rests now beneath a brilliant yellow hibiscus in my mother's garden; it's the happiest plant I could find. I think he'll like being a pretty flower. A painting of him in his prime hangs above Mikey's tank.

We love our Sparky Toyota, and we'll miss him terribly. We're glad he isn't sick anymore.

He has finally found peace, and he'll never be forgotten.

Just Like That, I Forget

This blog didn't go at all to plan, but I guess that's the point, isn't it? I learned quite a bit from the few posts I made, particularly when I looked back at them.

Then as soon as I realised the direction it was taking and tried to turn it around, I promptly stopped posting. That doesn't mean I have nothing to say; just that it's so much easier to write negatively.

I did learn something today: I'm trying to set up wireless internet in my new house, and I've discovered that the initial providers deal in long contracts with unnecessarily large data blocks for my university and webcomic-viewing usage, while the plans I might actually like are offered by the rebundlers my dad warned me off. I could post about that, but it's not the most pleasant topic, is it? And I'm certain everyone else has already figured it out, so why unload my frustration onto all of them?

I've honestly had a lovely day. I slept in, finished my homework, ate chocolate, and praised my other half for doing the dishes without prompting. I suppose I could post about some of that. Who doesn't like sleeping in? Homework is a near-universal thorn, while chocolate makes many people's day. And the stereotype causes my man's spontaneous decision to wash dishes cause for celebration.

But I don't feel like it. I have a writing blog now, but it's for my benefit more than anyone else, so you'll have to stumble across it without my directions.

Posts in Driftwood will have to float in whenever the tide turns that way. See you when I see you. :)

Making a Stand on Perspective

Blogs everywhere are just angry rants at the world, including the beginning of this one. I dislike that.

I imagine it happens because of schadenfraude; someone's misfortune is another's humour. So, to entertain others, we take a negative view of life. I've been a victim of comic half-empty, and I've decided that will stop.

Driftwood is now officially a more thoughtful place. I want to post instead about what I learn and the things I see, and hopefully share an interesting point of view.

I plan to make more use of the notepad application on my phone and take note of what I learn in a day.

Wish me luck.