When they give the spiel on the evils of RSI, they never tell you the following: that getting RSI and the subsequent nerve damage can lead to uncontrollable small tremors in your hands.

We’re not talking full on Parkinson’s scale tremors here, just teeny shakes barely noticeable to the eye, and certainly in no way impairing to day to day activities.

Unless, that is, you want to use liquid eyeliner.

Then you’re on your own and heading into Clown’s-Ville.

*grumble*

*reaches for the make-up remover for the tenth time*

Sometimes I wonder why I even bother.

A little while ago I had a mini-rant about 500 word essays. I promised I would explain/elaborate at a later date. I just didn’t plan on the date being this much later! Ah well, at least I remembered eventually – that’s got to count for something?

I have a problem. I have to write an essay. The essay isn’t the problem – an essay is just an argument in words after all and I like arguing and I like words – it is the length of this essay that is getting to me.

It’s only meant to be 500 words.

Yup. I haven’t written 500 words since, well, last time I did A-Levels (or GCSE’s for that matter). The last piece of work was my thesis where my introduction alone was nearly 2000 words! Now my introduction needs to be two sentences.

Which means concise.

Which means I am screwed as I have never been concise in my life. My blog posts are frequently over the 1000 word mark. It’s not uncommon for them to be 2000 words. I think the longest clocked in at just over 3000 words – though I admit that was stretching to the breaking point and beyond what you want to read on a blog.

If you’re counting, this makes approximately 155 words.

So yup, I am, as previously mentioned, screwed. Up a malodorous backwater without any means of propulsion. Shafted. And all other pleasant types of things (Oh, 180).

So what wondrous subject have I got to condense into 500 words (which approximates 2 handwritten – handwritten! I can’t read my own bloody writing half the time! – sides)?

It boils down to gender discourse in one of Angela Carter’s short stories – “The Snow Child”. A topic which, if you set your mind to it, it is easy to write 5 thousand words on. I’m not stressing the assignment. In fact I was enthused about it before I knew how little I had to say.

We even did a mock essay plan! It’s at these points the differences between me (two degrees, 24, writes for a past time) and the majority of the class (18/19, just done A-Levels, still to even experience Uni) become startlingly clear. In Uni you write essays constantly. Long, complex essays. A-level essays are smaller but at the same time more important – you write just two before your coursework. You are quite expressly NOT permitted to voice your opinion as that is considered arrogant, as we were told tonight. Work from the text, don’t use the text to support you. At most the reverse of MSc where opinions are liked and even necessary.

So the essay plan was “P.E.A.R” (point, example, analyze, refer) or “Intro, point 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, conclusion” and I had to struggle not to laugh out loud. 500 words just keeps ringing in my head. Five points plus intro and conclusion.
Say 450 words for points, 50 for the rest.
That gives me 90 words to make my points.
And don’t forget I have to quote things, so say two quotes for each point, fifteen words each.
That leaves 60 words for each analysis.

On fuck I am so monumentally screwed! If you are counting along with me now by the way, we are approaching the 475 word mark. Time for the conclusion?

Why did I write this post? To illustrate how little 500 words is to me now. It’s two and a half pages of my tatty handwriting. It’s taken me thirty minutes to scrawl. It’s just about enough to express my disgust at a 500 word limit but no way enough to do justice to “In what ways does Carter use language to present male and female in The Snow Child?”

Yes, I will also post my essay (when it’s written and marked) for the edification and amusement of you all ^*

Now I’ve got to go to bed and ask myself why I find it so hard to be concise. When did being verbose and being able to write 5000 word essays become a good thing? Surely brevity is also a virtue? Wasn’t the Gettyesburg Address also child-sized? To be able to quickly sketch your argument and clearly illustrate it… Now that’s a good skill to have, surely?

And the final word count of this post? Six hundred and eighty glorious words, give or take a handful.

^* If I get a good mark that is. If I get a bad mark I shall crawl under my desk and die in shame. No really, I will.

Quick question for you –

Do you prune all the pictures of the ex from your Flickr account or, like the good little masochist that you are, do you keep them in there as a grim reminder of what you no longer have?

I’m not saying either way is the right way, and I expect it would have a lot to do with how the break up went, but, well, I’m curious.

This muse is in no way prompted by my evil Flickr badge randomly showing three pictures in a row. Each time I refreshed the page.

No way at all.

Originally uploaded by Hellblazer!.

You are looking at the blank space where the latest installment of Salt and Pepper Chess should be.

Why are you reading this words on the screen instead of hearing my dulcet tones spin you the most recent episode of the hapless Colin’s existence?

Because my dulcet tones, so much beloved by Josh, are currently missing. I sound, quite frankly, like a frog who’s smoked ten packs of fags a day for the past two decades. Or Keith Moon. I don’t mean Keith Moon but I’m a little high on Lemsip and can’t think of the singer I do mean. Someone with a suitably gravelly/croaky voice anyway.

Sexy in the movies; comical (and rather painful) in real life.

Luckily I made it through today’s launch event by the skin of my teeth and by dint of looking frantic and busy whenever someone tried to talk to me (not hard to do as I actually was frantic and busy) but I then got sent home at half four because I sounded “too pathetic and funny to be taken seriously”.

Which I thought was rather mean 🙁

I might have my voice back shortly, but going on past experience I’m likely to be playing host to the sandpaper-throat-gremlins for a good week or so, in which case don’t be holding your breath for Tristan’s efforts.

If anyone feels they have a voice that can do justice to the story, and of course Bright Meadow, do let me know and we might come to some arrangement. Minionhood of course. Undying love and devotion. Er… Immunity from the Ninja Penguins.

Nice things like that.

Oh, and the chance to have all the readers of Bright Meadow make fun of your accent, whatever it may be. Let’s not forget that 😉

Come on, 50p bet ya!

… Blame Neko.

Turns out, the Godhead reads the blog. And it’s all her fault ^*

Whether he knows he’s called the Godhead is debatable, but he’s a clever chap. Chances are he’ll work it out ^**

Quite why the thought of my ex-supervisor reading my blog freaks me out more than the knowledge that both my father and brother read my blog, I’m not sure, but freak the crap out of me it does.

Just thought I’d write this post so you know who to go pelt with rotten eggs when I don’t post for ever more because I’m all intimidated 😛

^* Well, I’m pretty sure I never gave him the URL, so yes, I shall blame her. In a friendly way 😀
^** Especially after this post!

Keeping with a long and cherished blog tradition, I’ve been out to play, so now I have to write my drunken blog post.

Well, not exactly drunken. More “feet hurt, eyes sore from the smoke, all jazzed up and buzzing from the music and dancing” blog post. Same effect, less liver damage.

I hadn’t been out in a fair while (at least a month) due to my insanely busy October, but this weekend was reserved a long time ago by illyna to get me out to play – once the sophisticated dinner party with the Divine M fell through ( 🙁 – but only postponed till next week – 😀 ) the way was clear for her to kidnap me. Rarely has there been a more willing kidnap victim.

There’s really not alot else to say really. The company was good. The dancing was fun. Sadly the music wasn’t at it’s best (we’re working on the hypothesis that it was the relief DJ). But it was still… fun. It’s always good to let my hair down, especially as I don’t get to do it enough 🙁

I was trying to describe the Dungeon to my work colleagues (as if the fact the place is called the Dungeon isn’t clue enough) and why I like going there so much. It’s not just that I like the music – in fact I rarely listen to the heavy rock/metal/goth/who-knows-what that is played there, apart from when I’m there. Whilst I do enjoy what they play, it’s more the atmosphere. Some people find the idea of the place intimidating. Instead you can be guaranteed that no matter what you are wearing and how you dance, someone will be dressed weirder/worse and be dancing far worse. More to the point, no one cares. I had a lovely conversation with someone in the ladies this evening, all because I leant her my eyeliner (if ever there was a group of people that kept Rimmel in business with black eyeliner it’s the clientele of the Dungeon). I even got a random compliment on my sparkly top.

As I said, friendly. It may be a bit of a seedy dive, but I will always have a place in my heart for the Dungeon. And on that note, I’m off to sleep the sleep of the tired 🙂

I apologize for another breast-related post, but what is the fascination that popcorn has with my cleavage?

So it’s not just popcorn that ends up down my top with monotonous regularity – since the time Damien through a pen lid down from twenty paces in the library at college, things have had a tendency to find their way where they weren’t meant to be – but popcorn is the worst offender.

Popcorn and little teeny flaky bits of chocolate you don’t notice till later on after an important meeting with the boss.

*grumble*