An Academic of sorts.

academic_typo @ 2007-09-09T11:00:00

2007-09-09T10:03:08Z

Which Pre~Raphaelite Painting Are You?

Oh, you merry frolicsome thing! I love you. Really I do.You truly revel in life, and take all the joy and pleasures out of it that you can. Carpe Diem!And again, in case I wasn't clear.....I love you!!!You are The Progress of Spring by Ward.
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academic_typo @ 2007-05-23T09:44:00

2007-05-23T08:45:03Z

Sorry about the drama. What seems to be happening is - I miss the friend who stayed here for a week now that she has gone back to US, but that has "opened the door" to all the other things that I miss.

It was complicated because there were the thefts, etc. immediately before I went on holiday. Then, on the first day, I got two phone calls - one that a very old friend had died; her funeral is tomorrow. The other was bad news about my attempt to sort out my medical records (and I would have thought that the woman who phoned me should have more sensitivity than to do it then.) There was nothing I could do about any of it and I just tried to put it out of my mind and enjoy the holiday.

I was hit by more as soon as I "got back", this time concerning whether I can walk or should be able to walk. I'm going to have to think this through very carefully because it has long-term implications. Basically, I walked during the holiday.

At the moment I am in dangerously unsuitable housing. A flat came up that might have suited me and I tried to apply, two days ago. I then learned that I am am on the housing list for wheelchair accomodation only. I am not permitted to go anywhere else and I might risk eviction if I go to a wheelchair flat and am then ever seen to walk. Further, people in the wheelchair one category are only permitted to live where the OTs decide, and there are very few full-wheelchair flats. I may have to wait years, take some filthy slum, etc.

However, I have diabetes. This flat does not have a usable kitchen. Basically, the "kitchen" is a small cupboard with running water, no room to sit, no room for a cooker, etc. My former doctor was ~~a lying~~incompetant and it was only on reading medical and hospital records, after leaving him, and on talking to my present doctor that I discovered that the uncontrolled diabetes is putting me at major risk. I can't control the diabetes in this flat.

From what I saw, my completely fit friend couldn't manage in that kitchen, either.

academic_typo @ 2007-04-11T18:37:00

2007-04-11T17:38:04Z

Not for the nervous! http://www.secretsites.de/joblog/?p=281

academic_typo @ 2007-03-11T22:56:00

2007-03-11T23:06:51Z

Little Story.

"When they came for the gypsies nobody around here objected. Gypsies are a dirty, thieving lot and our lives would be better without them. (Most of us cheered.)

When they came for the foriegners nobody local bothered all that much. It was necessary for national security (and there will be more jobs and housing for the rest of us. Some of us cheered.)

When They came for the drug dealers some of us cheered openly. We thought it would be just those yobs selling drugs to the kids on street corners - and maybe the high society dealers, if They were willing to take that on. We hadn't realised that anyone who used drugs would deal them, not until They told us (and some of those picked up surprised us. But They had the medical records, They would know.)

When They came for the prostitutes there was a muted note to the cheering, and a kind of murmur in it. Some of us had doubts. I suppose it was because they investigated every woman over thirty - I think I for heard that was because those women would have gone through the Permissive Society. Some people said that those had been the Womans' Libbers. There were jokes about it.

When They came for the disabled there were a few sounds of applause. After all, what can people like that contribute? They need to get proper treatment, and to be with their own kind, and those who can't be cured should be allowed death with dignity. It's the same with the very old who don't have families, as They pointed out.

When They came for the graduates it didn't seem to affect most of us (and weren't most of our Leaders graduates themselves? We's always assumed that they were.) It's a pity, though, because They took the woman who used to write the complicated letters and forms for the rest of us, when we needed them. She was quite old and she wasn't married, so maybe it was under some other section of the regulations or legislation, or whatever it is. Someone said that she'd written too many letters for her neighbours when They took the autistic kids.

I don't know why They came for me. They don't tell us anything, in here.

I woke up...

2007-03-11T12:19:41Z

I woke up this morning thinking about scutwork, housework, the basic "clean it up before it gives everyone plague" stuff of day to day living. Just at the moment I'm trying to do a major springclean, and I find that I'm missing the kitchen and storage space in a tower-block flat where I used to live. The kitchen was a seperate room and it had built-in wooden kitchen units and ample storage cabinets. There was room for a decent-sized table and a couple of chairs. It was a well-appointed "engine-room for family life-support."

In my family we split the work. IMMS my uncle had cooking (and washing up - all of it, pans as well) and decorating, (with my increasingly helping with the decorating as he aged.) He also changed plugs and fuses, did the lifting, etc. My mother had dusting and washing. I suspect that I'm ignoring things that were "magically being done by who knows whom." I had ironing, sewing, knitting, etc. - I also did small electrical repairs. by the time we were in the tower block I was starting to do the vetinary work and things like negotiating with the tax people.

We all also did paid work and I was taking an Open University course (and we might, perhaps, have been perceived as having walked away from Omelas without ever realising that the town had cellars.)

It was not heaven, not by any stretch of the imagination. The wiring was defective and quite dangerous and the Council was charging a fortune for gas and electricity. (50p, then the price of two large loaves of bread, to boil the kettle and roast the dinner.)We had a fridge and a gas cooker and that was it. I bought a vacuum cleaner but I don't think any of us bothered with it. Mobile phones were unheard of and the block had been built without phone lines (what were they thinking? and it was 8 floors up. The lifts rarely worked.
.......................................................................................................

I took over some extra parts of the spring-cleaning after my uncle died. My kind of spring-cleaning went from the ceiling down. Remove curtains and lampshade, paint ceiling. Replace lightbulb, (possibly with new one). Remove last-year's wallpaper (the area of exposed wall was not large) give the cabinets a fast and furious rubdown with roughish sandpaper. Repaint (inside and out) while Mum washed up the things that had been in the cabinets. Suggest disposing of suplus. Lose argument. Wait until paint bone dry. Hang splash-proof wallpaper, hang the curtains that I had made earlier and the matching lampshade. Result - operating theatre cleanliness - elapsed working time perhaps 20 hours, most of it fun - plus time spent waiting for paint to dry.

academic_typo @ 2006-07-29T13:39:00

2006-07-29T12:40:35Z

View Poll: what are the most interesting communities in livejournal?

a useful link to have

2006-07-29T12:31:43Z

http://visualiptrace.visualware.com/reports/report-20060727-2053-82.166.55.56.html

academic_typo @ 2006-07-29T13:20:00

2006-07-29T12:20:58Z

I have just started here, more later.

How does one find friends, I wonder?