Mixed feelings

Well, VIS14:A2 is done - hooray - and I have started LST210:A4, but I have mixed feelings thus far. I think I have gone well to get as much done as I have got done, but then again, I havn't got as much done as I would have hoped. I am really happy with some of the pictures for VIS14:A2, especially Floating drapery, but then, I am not so happy with others. I think LST210:A4 should be relatively easy, but then I think there will be a bit to it as well.

Maybe I am just in a mid-assignment batch lull, I don't know. Maybe I am just tired. Maybe I am just over-wrought by how much is on my plate. However, I feel as flat as the proverbial tack, so to speak.

I have sent off a V. submission, and while I am happy to have got it done, there are mixed feelings about it as well. What if it is not well received? What if it is well received, but the rest isn't? What if it is well received, but I just can't get any more together? What if...

Now is the time for the grit I mentioned previously; I've just got to keep going. no-one ever got anywhere by going nowhere. So for better or worse, VIS14:A2 has been done, and LST210:A4 just has to be done, and then POI21:A1 also has to be just done. Likewise, C3 of V. just has to keep going. Furthermore, the other house has to be ready on Monday for sanding.

This is how life is.

In the shadow of the climb ahead

How do you eat an elephant? One spoonful at a time.

This is a typical and abstractedly useless saying that I have heard in regards to having to complete a huge task. I mean, how rediculous is it, one spoonfull at a time. It makes an elephant sound like a huge construction made of ice-cream. I mean, consider the tendons; what is a spoon going to do to them? And then there are the bones. I even doubt whether a spoon would get through the skin of an elephant, let alone be able to scoop it into easy mouthfuls. No, this supposedly inspiring and encouraging statement should be ammended to be more realistic.

How do you eat an elephant? With the help of specialised tools (like a very big over, a large selection of large knives, hammers, etc), a huge blender, endless supplies of herbs and spices, and a very very very strong stomach! A spoon, while helpful in the later stages, is optional.

How do you complete two assignments in a day? One spoonful at a time - HAH. One spoonful at a time is how assignments drag from one day to another. So how do you complete two assignments in a day? With:

• grit - you have to push yourself in the extremis.
• resolve - you have to let them go when the time is up.
• plenty of spicy chicken soup to keep you awake!

But right now, the task ahead looms over me like a mountain, dark, cold, and obviously impassable. There are dangers there, wild creatures, obscure questions, unknown concepts lurking to trip one up. And there is that fear, that even though the mountain is without a doubt insurmountable, it must be climbed.

It is cold in the shodow of the climb ahead, a coldness that sends shivers from deep within the heart. It is cold and lonely - you stand in the shadow alone. It is the cold grip of fear, of failure sending its questing tendrils into your soul. But no matter how long you stand, cold, alone, and fearful, the mountain remains, growing slightly every moment, bloated from digesting the passing minutes that could be used in scaling it.

So this is my mountain; VIS14:A2 and LST210:A4. And tomorrow, POI21:A1. Then the next day, and the next, and the next, the last days before the sander is hired during which so much must be done at the other house. A range of mountains, high, cold, and aloof, one after the other. Truly, it is not the mountain we must conquer, but ourselves.

Time flies when you are having fun (?!?)

Well, so they say...

Where has the time gone? The answer is simple - to the other house. I have been plastering and sanding and nail-punching and putting up architrave, picture rail and skirting boards, hour after hour, day after day. This is for several reasons.

• Firstly, in a bit over a week I will be sanding the floors, so the nail punching and puttying and plastering - amongst other things - needs to be done before then. We also wnat the first coat of painting to have been done by then too,
• Secondly, in a bit over half a month, the new kitchen will be installed, so the floors need to be sealed and the walls completely painted by then.
• Thirdly, in a little over five or six weeks, I want it on the market, so that means the interior needs to be finished, the outside painted, and the garden tidied.
• Fourthly, by Chrsitmas, I want the place sold!

So work is progressing there at an all-consumiong rate, hence my being home today rather than on campus completing VIS15: A6.

I have also printed out the submission, and M. has taken it to post it. On the side ( and it has slowed down dramatically this week) I am red-inking chapter three of V., which is good (it is now an amalgum of what was chapters three and four). I want to cut out a fair bit from this chapter (8000 words?). So plenty is happening. I also got a first draft done of the third chapter of SU:MC1, which is good, although Catherine savaged it! (I can see her points though, but then again it was a very quick first draft!). I need to rework it. So much to do, by golly. However...

You've just got to do what you've got to do.

So time is flying, by gum, just look at it go. So I guess it is up to me to make sure that I have fun while it speeds by! Anyway, time is flying, what fun, so I better get and do what I've got to do.

Only a week or so!!!

It seems like a month or more has passed since I last posted to this journal; unbelievable. All I can say is that it has been on the busy side of hectic for the last week or so, by gum! However, there has been some (although not enough!) real progress here in the bunker.

I have really been getting somewhere in the other house. I have pulled out a wall and a kitchen, and put in a bathroom and a laundry. Likewaise, for V. I have finished C1 and have moved into C2, which seems to be travelling quite acceptably. On campus studies are going quite alright at the moment (although I have a book review coming up for a book that I haven't read as yet). The class web-zine is coming along - at last - , as is Cat's.

It is only uni that isn't getting anywhere, although I plan to get into the next LST210 assignment in the nest couple of days. it will be hard because I am so tired, but that is how it goes.

Any, last week seems like several years ago, so I will take that as an indication that my life is full, and choose to believe that it is full of good things.