Last post

I've decided to stop updating this blog. There's a whole bunch of reasons why. In no particular order:

1. I feel like this was a record of my time as a grad student, and that period in my life has been over for a while now.

2. I actually have a job that it looks like I might quite enjoy. And, you know, maybe even want to keep. If I post rude things about the other project members on the internet behind their backs, maybe I won't get to keep it after all. And without posting rude things about my colleagues, maybe I won't have enough blogging material (see point 4).

3. In the last couple of weeks, I've become aware that a few colleagues, both at my university, and people I know in a professional setting from other universities, have started reading here. This feels really weird to me.*

For those of you who've been hanging around since forever, you may remember that a couple of years ago a post here was featured on Lifehacker, and I got 7000 hits by lunchtime. My writing muscles were completely paralysed for the next few days, mainly because I had no real sense of who my audience was. This feels a bit like that, except maybe from the opposite direction. I do have a clear sense of who my audience is, and it's become a bit too diverse for comfort. Up until recently, I think most of my readers were other pseudonymous bloggers with whom I had a sort of reciprocal reading arrangement. Now I think maybe close to half my daily hits are people from my real life. And that just feels odd. I'm thinking I might try, you know, TALKING to people instead of blogging.

4. I've run out of parrots. I've posted over 100 photos of parrots, and that's pretty much all there is. Yes, in the whole of Australia.

5. I've heard there's this thing called the Real World. I'm thinking about spending some time in it. Well, either that or on Facebook.

I think I had some more reasons, but I've been putting off writing this post for so long that I've forgotten them all. (Reason #6: I keep on putting off writing here, which is maybe a clue that I don't actually WANT to keep writing here. And I'm totally over doing jobs that I don't want to do for no money. (Thanks, Academia.))

I'm going to keep the blog up here, for a year or so, or until I figure out how to back it up in a form I'm happy with. And you never know, I might find I don't get the hang of this Real World thing, and am back here again this time tomorrow.

We'll see.

Thanks to all you wonderful readers for the past few years of loyalty, hilarity, community and other things that end in -ity. Seriously, though, you've been some of the best things (and people—I'm pretty sure you aren't all inanimate objects) in my life in the past few years. The only reason I've been hesitating to shut this blog down for the past few months is because of you. (And you. And you.) I'm even a little bit grateful to the trolls: it's nice to think I've had my own little pet trolls from time to time. (I wonder if that's an achievement I could list on my CV?)

PS: I'm leaving comments open, because I'd love you to say goodbye if you want to do so, but please don't think I'm fishing for people to ask me not to stop blogging, because if you do that you'll just make me feel guilty and that's no fun for either of us.

_____________

* Shannon, this is not about you. Nor is it about you, Joanna! If I haven't mentioned your name in this footnote, then yes, it probably IS about YOU.

I always harbour fond hopes he might decide to go inside and do my filing

Afternoon office visitors

"Hi! Mind if I invite over some friends?"



"This is Flappy. He and I go way back."



"I saved his life this one time, when—oops, there he goes again. Grab hold, Flappy!"



"It's okay now. Everything's under control. Hope you weren't too worried."



"Now, about that birdseed... Whenever you're ready. We'll just be waiting here."

There haven't been enough parrot photos lately

So I thought I'd show you the collection of things I keep on my office windowsill: some dying cacti, a blue sparkly thing on a string, and... a greedy cockatoo.


He's pretty good about waiting his turn until the rosellas have finished their meal.


But then it's all, "DUDE! It's ME! Look! I'm here!"


...and, "Do you think maybe some more of that birdseed could find its way to the OUTSIDE of the window? Kthx bai."

A bird in the mail is worth two in the window

This awesome blogger sent me a present!

It arrived yesterday, was thoroughly inspected, and pronounced acceptable.



(They are salt and pepper shakers, in case you can't tell.)

Thank you, ITPF!

This is teh awesome

This haiku generator gave me some great haikus created from my blog. Apparently my blog is all about:

Trivial mundanities:

if you really
like me better than those guys
i'll show you a bag

reasons to mention
it it might be easier to
have an iron

i need to buy a
thicker whiteboard marker
i requested one

The realities of academia:

supervisor is
also expected to do
research and service

Shameless self-promotion

pretty in pink look
at me i'm prettier than they
are too expensive

Parrots:

a gang gang made a
noise like a squeaky door why
are you doing this

to rustle there was
a swooping and a squawking
and a chattering

How I'm not from around here:

hour before bedtime
it's my accent isn't
it i just found out

new zealand news is
just weird turns out they are they're
just boring and grey

And finally, a general summary of what my blog's about:

serious weirdness
potential and it might save
her from eating her

(Seen at The Hussy's).

If anyone got strange emails from me today...

...blame the rosella. I came back from class to find he had let himself in through the window, opened the birdseed container and exhausted its supplies, and was chilling at—ahem—on my computer keyboard.

Who knows what messages he sent in my absence.

While we're on that subject

Aren't these king parrots cute? They were happily munching their lunch in a university courtyard today, and I wasn't the only one taking photos.

I can be inside birdie?

One of our profs saw how my rosellas had migrated into the office today, and suggested we solve our part-time teaching budget crisis by teaching them to talk and employing them as tutors.

I'm back, and unpixelated

Because really, why bother?

I had an, um, interesting Christmas. It had its moments. Presents were on the weird side, although the two I got from Geekman (lava lamp and laptop bag) were awesome. My mother and father did not win any points. The former gave me a book on how to pray properly, and gave Geekman one sock. (She hasn't finished knitting the other one yet.) My father gave me some hand lotion. Both forgot(?) to give my brother anything. To his credit, he didn't seem bothered. Maybe he would rather not have one sock or a book on prayer.

In more exciting news, I got to catch up with a friend's housemate. Meet Keiko, who seemed convinced my hair needed a little work...


...and then demanded a bite of my sandwich as a reward.

Cuteness

Well, I guess it's been too long for this to be the result of this peckfest, but we do indeed have a new young rosellalet. (S)he is rather cute, all small and green, and constantly makes weird noises that I can only interpret as, "Watch me! watch me!" directed at his/her parents. Unfortunately (s)he is also extra nervous and every time I even move towards the balcony, let alone pull out my camera, baby's parents banish him/her to a distant tree.

I'll try to get a picture if they come back tomorrow or Saturday, but after that we will be away for Christmas, and we have decided not to feed the parrots any more on our return, in the hope that they might un-tame themselves before we are replaced with more dangerous bipeds (i.e. the teenage boys who are moving in here after us).

I can't get over how cool this is

This rosella has suddenly become totally fearless (or maybe his addiction has conquered all fear). He even climbed up my sleeve to my shoulder yesterday, just to explore.

Addiction is a bad thing

Wild thing, you make my heart sing

Groovy.

Parrot on a stick

Rosella school: the version with pictures

Learning about glass, and how it makes eating difficult when it stands between you and your birdseed.



Learning about "up". And how it puts the birdseed slightly out of reach. (Hint: you're a bird. Use those wings.)



Tired and pensive after all this hard learning stuff.

What I do now I'm officially unemployed

Have begun a rigorous training program to teach my favourite rosella critical thinking. So far it has passed two tests with flying (ha!) colours, and we are working on a third.

The War on Birdseed

Now that the rosellas have stopped being scared of the wood pigeons, these scenes are pretty much representative of the on-going defensive action.



(And yes, I am using my Macbook powers for good.)

Never fails to make me happy

I finally managed the necessary contortions to lean out the window with my camera in one hand and birdseed in the other. Which meant I got (along with crampy arms and shoulders) at least 30 photos of a windowsill where a parrot had just stepped out of the picture.

I just realised this is my 1000th blog post. Kind of fitting, really.

Everything okay?