One of the newest visitors

(A new Flappy has started visiting too. I'm pretty sure it isn't one of the original Flappy and Flappy duo, though, since he was a bit nervous this morning, and it took me most of the day to coax him to eat out of my hand. He's very bitey too, so far, and is right this second being punished by having to watch me write blog posts instead of getting more seed. He looks very disgruntled. With extra gruntle.)

Choosing my executioners examiners

I've been having examiner issues. The Australian system is different from the USA, and our university is slightly different again from other Australian places, so I should give a little background. There is usually no defense for PhD students. (We are defenseless; don't hurt us!). But the dissertation itself is examined by two or three external examiners. They are officially selected by a student's committee, but in practise, students themselves provide a shortlist, and the committee usually uses people from that.

There are a lot of considerations when it comes to choosing examiners. For one thing, they can't be dead.

You might scoff, but that rules out a large number of people in my bibliography.

They should be senior. And powerful. And preferably someone you might come in contact with on the job market, since that way they'll be familiar with your work. They can't be anyone you have been in contact with while writing the dissertation.

Legend has it that Americans make the cushiest examiners, because they are used to a PhD thesis being only a part of grad school, rather than the be-all-and-end-all of it, and our dissertations, which are, after all, all we have been doing for the entire time, usually compare favourably in terms of thoroughness, and in the size of the question(s) addressed.

It is also said that the more elderly the examiner, the more allowances they make for us poor ignorant younglings. It's the just-tenured you have to watch out for, as they see themselves as gatekeepers of the field. And anyone who hasn't examined a thesis before apparently feels pressure to do an exceptionally "thorough" job. And we doesn't like thoroughness, does we, my precious?

Then there's the consideration that, the more they know about your topic, the pickier they will be; but on the other hand, the better the final document will be after you incorporate their suggested revisions. Ideally you want someone who is generous enough that they won't fail you, but fussy enough to force you to revise to the best of your ability.

Finally, a financial consideration. While it is expected that at least one examiner should be from outside Australia, having three overseas examiners is frowned upon, since any one of them is allowed to request an oral defense, and then the university has to foot the bill to fly them halfway across the world. (This happens more rarely than you might think, given that all they have to do is tick a box and they get an all-expenses-paid trip to Australia.)

Anyway, I've finally picked out four names of non-threatening yet relatively famous non-dead (undead?) people—one in Australia, two in the USA, and one in Europe—and my committee gets to narrow it down to two of them.

Now to go back to the places in the dissertation where I have discussed their work, and make sure it's free of unnecessary snark...

My cocaine costs twice what yours does

But if I had stayed in New Zealand, it would have been three times more than that again!


(Courtesy of the Economist online.)

I think my first hypothesis was right

Parrots don't worship technology; they eat it.

I just observed a flock of king parrots systematically removing all the rubber trim from a car in the university carpark. They were having a good go at the tyres too. Unfortunately I didn't have my camera on me.

I think they must have been taking lessons from kea.

Impending attack or primitive technology worship?

(Spotted on my way to university this morning.)

Styleygeek assists with a crime!

(The solving of it, not the committing.)

Our resident phonetician often gets called on by the police for forensic consulting work. I've always wondered about what secret-squirrel techniques he applies to the recordings they give him, and today I found out.

He gets people like me to listen to a tape of someone yelling, "Open the fucking cash register, mate!" ninety eight times, and asks, "Does that sound like a New Zealander to you?"

To which I was able to reply with a definitive, "No! Uh, that is... No? Actually, maybe just a little bit. Could be... No, I don't really think so, but I wouldn't rule it out."

Just call me Veronica Mars.

Still alive

(Just in case you were concerned.)

If I don't post tomorrow, you'll know why

Can you develop a nut allergy when you're all growed up already?

I've always had a slight sensitivity to hazelnuts (though not any other nut). They make my throat itch. Last week I ate a whole bowl of them, had a wicked sore throat and itchy mouth all afternoon, and by the evening, was wheezing and coughing like I used to when I had asthma as a kid. (Apart from this, I haven't had problems with asthma for about 15 years, though).

Tonight I had some peanut butter, and now my mouth and throat feel swollen and itchy. And there's some coughing. But no whistley sounds as yet.

In the greatest blogging tradition, I eschew qualified health professionals and instead turn to you, my loyal readers, to provide speculative medical advice.

I should probably just stop eating nuts, right?

Not already.

I had my first teaching anxiety dream last night, and there's still two and a half weeks to go before classes start. Maybe I should just give up sleeping between now and then. (Actually, that might tie in well with my goal to get the dissertation finished).

In last night's dream, a senior member of our department had come along to observe my first class, and he kept butting in and trying to take over teaching the class every time I paused for breath. Then he arrested four of my students for disorganised thinking. (Did you know that was a crime?)

Two sad things and a happy one

1. Flappy and Flappy haven't come to visit for more than two weeks now. Maybe they are dead.
2. There are only three rosellas on my balcony right now. That means one of them doesn't have a mate. And the other pair is being mean to it, even though it is trying desperately to make friends. That makes it a loser outcast under-parrot, and I feel bad for it.
   
3. Sightings on the balcony in the last few days have included king parrots, and today a (slightly confused-looking) galah! This has doubled the number of parrot species that I can watch while eating breakfast in the mornings.

The dangers of a research-only job

As Geekman leaves the house:

"I have to meet with my new undergraduate today and talk to him about his project. I don't know how to interact with undergraduates. Is it enough to talk slowly, or do I have to shout?"

Help! We have been overrun!

(Poor wee things. It's raining on their heads.)

The muffin-based economy

Because I'm sure you've always wondered, here's a sample of the sort of conversation that goes on after lights out in the Geek household:

"Are you still awake?"

"No. Maybe. Why?"

"I was thinking... You know that whole specialisation of labour shit? Well, don't you think that would work really well for day-to-day household chores? I mean, we like making muffins and I'm good at feeding parrots, so we could just do that, and someone who's really good at vacuuming could come over and clean our floors, and we could give them muffins and feed their parrots."

"But what if everyone started making muffins? We'd have rampant muffin inflation and they'd end up being worthless."

"No, that would be okay, because not everyone would be as good at making muffins as we are. And anyway, if they all did try and make the best muffins, that would lead to a muffin arms race, and someone somewhere would create the ideal muffin."

"That might be good for muffinkind, but not so much for our economy."

"But we'd still have the perfect muffin. And not just muffins, because then we'd move onto the next baked good. And the next. And we'd gradually evolve not only the perfect muffin, but the perfect cupcake, and the perfect chocolate fudge, and... and... everything! It would all be perfect! And we would eat it! Or the cleaning lady would."

"Oooh! Oooh! I have the best idea! Let's create little computers that can bake things and put them into a simulated muffin-based economy and let them evolve the perfect baked goods for us!"

(Then we slept and dreamed happy dreams of muffins and parrots and fudge.)

Eight random things about me(me)

I got tagged and all. I'd sound even more excited if I wasn't hungover. But I'm excited deep down; you just can't tell over the half-closed eyes and gravelly monotone.

Rules

• I have to post these rules before I give you the facts.
• Each player starts with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
• People who are tagged need to write their own post about their eight things and post these rules.
• At the end of your post, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.
• Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

Random Facts (aka random bullets of narcissim)

1. I hosted my first ever successful party last night. You know, one where everyone on the invite list doesn't call thirty minutes beforehand to say they can't make it after all. One where people stay until 2 am, mingle with each other, and generally have so much fun that they just crash on the floor afterwards because they couldn't bring themselves to leave. This ends a string of embarrassing failures dating back to my 13th birthday party, where everyone RSVPed and then secretly arranged to not turn up and instead go party somewhere else without me.
2. My incurable optimism means I have repeated these unsuccessful party attempts every year or so ever since then, believing that this time, surely things would be different. And then all of a sudden they were. So there.
3. Everyone in my extended family is either a priest (two grandfathers, three uncles, my father) or a teacher (two aunts, a cousin and my mother). I always vowed never to be either. And now teaching is my favourite part of the whole academic whatsamacallit*.
   
4. The universe likes to make jokes at my expense.
   
5. I have embarrassingly bad taste in music. I think this is mostly because I've never really made an effort to listen to lots of random stuff and find out what I like.** I'm sure I'd enjoy music more if I was less ignorant.
6. That goes for plants, too. I can't tell a whatsit from a thingummy-jig. I wouldn't know where to start when it comes to gardening, and following other people around their gardens while they point at random greenery is not something I find especially compelling. (But I feel like I should.)
7. I'm going to be a bridesmaid for the first time in January. And I get to wear BLACK. (But I haven't bought my tickets for the wedding yet, because I secretly wouldn't put money on the "happy" couple's relationship lasting another six months.)
8. Am I up to eight yet?
9. Does that count as a random? Does this?
10. Sometimes I am indecisive.

I'm not sure who hasn't been tagged already. But if you haven't, I tag: Badaunt, Jana, Lucy (when she gets home), Twirly, Miss M, Queen of West Procrastination, Shrinkykitten, and Wolfangel.

Only if you want to, of course.

Bonus random thing about me: I am undemanding.

______________

*I'm hungover, I tell you. About 90% of my vocabulary seems to have eloped with the rest of my brain.
** Last FM is gradually helping me overcome this deficiency.

Screw believing six impossible things...

... I restructured a chapter before breakfast.

(Okay, so breakfast is after 9 o'clock, but I still feel a sense of accomplishment.)

They're stalking me

The rosellas are clearly no longer content to wait out the front of the house by the balcony for their morning feedings. Instead, they have decided if they sit around the back in the tree by my bedroom window, they can persuade me to get up and feed them by sheer power of their cuteness.



(Excuse photo quality. The bedroom window has a mesh screen I can't remove.)

Shrinky was right

Shrinkykitten has been telling everyone to watch these guys, and I finally got around to watching the first episode of their new show on HBO. I loved it, but the absolute best part was this, the killer robot song.



Updated to replace it with a much better version (longer, with bonus binary solo) that actually fits in the centre column here without overlapping the sidebar.

Advertising the 80s

A while ago I mentioned that I bought some Swedish Reader's Digest magazines from 1980 at the big second-hand book fair. So I've been reading these lately, and the most awesomest thing in them ever has got to be the advertising.

Even the car ads are cool. Do you remember when cars used to be all square and chunky?


We had one of these when I was a kid:


And I want this one. Or maybe I just want the boy in the funky singlet with the bowl haircut.


Which leads me on to people. Did you know that people looked different in 1980?

For this one, we can blame her moisturizer. It makes her keep touching herself.


These ones have no excuse.


And this family has intestinal parasites, so they are excused. (They do! Read the small print!)


This woman is very lucky, because she has a big muscley cartoon man to help her clean the kitchen. But that doesn't explain why her waistband is up round her armpits.



And then there's the sad state of random technology.

Given modern hindsight, this ad is so unfortunate that I have to translate it for you.


["When the Sony Betamax SL-C7 was introduced a few months ago, all other TV-recorders suddenly found themselves to be old-fashioned. Sony's new Betamax quickly became THE TV-recorder that all others came to be measured against. It is simply a yardstick that shows how far the development of video for home use has come."]

The television below is extra funny because of the wording underneath: "Behind this beautiful facade hide the world's best components."


But this one has both colour TV and a data-screen! How can you compare with that?


This radio alarm clock is so cool it gets three exclamation marks!!! And it's only 495 kr, which, according to various websites, is the equivalent of about USD $180 in today's money.


And finally, how could you forget the good old microwave? It's a new, quick way to cook, but with "feeling" and "imagination". I see a lot of feeling and imagination on that plate of meat and three veg.


But it gets better! Microwaving can also be "one of many expressions of the new consciousness". Did you know about this new consciousness? It's also a fact that the quick cooking and the "special way it happens" means the ingredients keep more nutritional value than they do when you cook them traditionally.

So please excuse me. I'm off to indulge my new consciousness in that special way it happens. Meanwhile, please treat your intestinal parasites. I recommend Vanquin.

Random bullets of post office

It's not yet Wednesday, but I'm starting early with the whining.

Whine: I put off posting my mother's spare key* back to her for over a week, dreading the confrontation with the post office service people of doom, certain it would be difficult and complicated. Finally today I convinced myself I was being silly, put it in an envelope, and went to the post office.

• Total queuing time: 1 hour 10 minutes.
• Number of times the people at the counter sent me off to repack my key differently (and then join the back of the queue again): two.
• Number of lectures I got on the importance of postal regulations and properly packed items: three.
  

Antiwhine: I guess that makes me prescient.

Bonus antiwhine: I got off lighter than the person in front of me who was trying to mail an envelope full of of potato chips to Israel.

_________

* I accidentally brought it back to Australia with me.

Looky looky

Look at Jesse's latest painting! I'll feel like a big wanky wannabe art snob if I try and detail all the reasons why I like it so much, but I just do.

So there.