h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

"GDZ - glad the interview went well. Is the next step that they present you with a number of roles that you might be interested in applying for?"

That is indeed the next step, Kelli.

Had parent/teacher conferences last night. My daughter's report card was about what I expected, in other words, it was Great! Son's on the other hand...

Lil: Is there a word for having trouble distinguishing left from right?

KA: Female


As in:

Him - Right, that's it, I'm leaving.

Her - Er... so you've left, right?

Him - Right. I've left. Er... would you mind doing my washing for me this weekend?


No, KA. Seems to me that it's the blokes who have problems getting the leaving thing right.



B

>B

Oddly enough I took to chinese really well, and never got the characters confused, though I only had the time to do it for one year.

Z (having batteled my way home through some annoying grey Birmingham rain)

Nah, blokes have trouble getting the *taking* things right, as in, 'I'm leaving but I'm not taking all this rubbish, and will be calling round on a regular basis when ever I want any of it'.

Hmmm. I think I am going to back off this conversation before I become any more offensive.

I am feeling a bit better at the moment, which is un-nerving. More as if my brain is actually inside my skull somewhere, instead of in another dimension in a parallell universe, which is how it has felt for the last 48 hours.

Just after I have spent two hours cancelling my commitments over the weekend, too...

B

Murphy's Law in action.
And I *like* offensive. Some of the most fun things I've ever done are supposedly offensive

I have spent the day indoors staring at the rain and feeling very very very glum indeed. I did do an hour on the trainer, but very gently and in two sessions so as not to burst anything. And I did the ironing and some more laundry. And then I sat about and felt highly depressed and fed up. I am having Christmas blues already. What can I say? I've got no real reasons to be unhappy. I have a few savings left so I'm not utterly penniless, S is being lovely, life is very comfortable. I am so dreading Christmas. We are going to S's family, and they have recently been bereaved twice over and so I am expecting Christmas to be quite rightly highly emotional and sad. And then we are going to my mother (whole secondary rant about the Mother of the Bride taking over the wedding - it seems it may be my marriage but it's definitely HER wedding. S always thought my Mum was so reasonable and nice a lady. I think she's gone barking mad. Now she wants to spend £2000 on my wedding dress and won't take no for an answer. I can't bear being the centre of so much attention). And then we are going to see my Dad, I hope, for his 60th, and though I WANT to celebrate his 60th he is very very difficult ('I'm an old man! No one loves me!' when surrounded by adoring relatives) and being deeply weird about the fact I'm getting married despite the fact he has known and liked S for years. I think he's terrified I might ask him for money. And I feel fat. I'd normally sooner poke my own eye out than give in to the whole 'I'm so fat! I hate it!' thing. I am determined to love myself whatever shape I am and not give into the body fascism of the age. But when your mother starts talking about corsets so you 'look your best' on your wedding day and every single female relative you have is lithe and slender you do feel like a great cuckoo-like adipose freak. On the other hand, I'm the only one in the family with a decent cleavage. Must concentrate on that.

Sorry to take up so much space whining. I'm hoping that by getting it off my chest I'll cheer up and be able to face the next two months with equanimity. Then I can rightfully be said to be having wedding nerves for the two months after that and can burst into tears as much as I like.

signed Agapanthus - not so much a lily as a tuber, just at present.

Do you know, Ag, I wouldn't give up my cleavage for ANYTHING...

ach, dammit

B

But tatties are so much more fun and use than weeds.

Looks like I might get on with KA very well in here

Just come back from a driving lesson. Went very well, only stalled three times (looking like an average now). Drove over half the bloody city, it felt like. Stopping is getting better, had a nasty bit stalling on a roundabout because (I think) I pulled out too slow and tried to welly it a bit too much...I dunno. Those pedals become so subconscious it's getting hard to remember why I stalled but it's all good. Hopefully it'll all become confident driving and then someday, *someday*, I can go to all those gigs I've been missing

Ah, but everyone knows that underneath my tough, grumpy exterior there's a... well, a grumpy interior that wants to know when it can go to the pub, actually, but the thought's there.

[GDZ]

Left and right...I was one of those pitiful kids who had "L" and "R" written in magic marker on the tips of her sneakers. To this day, sometimes I have to make a a "L" with the thumb and index finger of my left hand to get directions right.

*climbs onto the sofa carefully*

I've been offered supply work at the school from Hell until Christmas and I've taken it, subject to them agreeing the pay rate I want and to them actually paying the rate we agreed for this week, which might be in doubt.

It was snowing when I left the school today and one of the deputy heads was just leaving so I asked her for a lift to the bus stop. She asked me where I live and would you believe it? She lives just half a mile from me. And no one bothered to tell me. Not even the Head who had said he'd look into who lived out that way.

So at least I don't have to do the long bus journey but, on the other claw, I will have to fit in with someone else's travel plans and I will have to walk a lot further in the morning.

*hug* for Amy

B

Ok, I have got the left-to-right, right-to-left writing thing sorted in my brain now.

Apparently - and I have not checked this - writing systems which spell out all vowels and sylables such as English, Latin, Greek, Russian, etc all, without exception, are written left to right. Conversely, writing systems which require you to fill in vowels such as Hebrew were / are all written right to left. (Any arabic readers here, or Hindi readers, able to confirm this for us?) Equally interestingly, writing systems such as chinese which are ideogrammatic, rather than phonetic, are all written top down. The suggestion being that most brains use different skills better when the eyes are moving in a specific direction.

As I said, I have not checked this, so it may be a myth rather than a truth.

B

I know my right and left OK, but I tend to transpose some letters when writing (and not just when typing (I've my own theories on why I use teh instead of the all the time)). I often get my B's D's and F's backwards for some reason, but I can read just fine. In fact, I am one of the stronger readers I know...


Speaking of reading, I just started American Gods again. I really like that book for some reason. It's the only thing by Gaiman alone that I have read.

Dysgraphia is sort of like dyslexia, but instead of the letters jumbling when one reads, they jumble when one writes. It makes for atrocious handwriting. Although D can spell orally quite well, if you ask her to write the same word, she can't do it. Apparently, typing doesn't have this same effect, because the section of the brain required to type is the same as reading, rather than writing.

Ben, I agree that D has been through some emotional upheavals, and that this may be part of the problem. But in addition, she's got some real focus issues, and that's where the drugs are going to help, I think. And Z, thanks for the link, but you have to actually be in the UK to access it. That sucks, since there's no comparative site in the US.

And Ag, dearest, remember that while your mum is focusing on the wedding day, you and S are focusing on the rest of your lives together. That might help you keep it in perspective, eh?

MR that does suck, I think it's because the BMJ charges the USAians for access, to it but becuase the NHS has paid for access for all it's staff it easiest just to allow UK Ip address.

I'll cut and paste you the relevent bits and e mail them to you. It will be a rather long e mail.

Z, that would be lovely. Thank you ever so much. I know you have your own stuff to do, so no hurries, okay?