Has it been that long?

Hi. Remember me? The entity and sometime blogger generally known as Cathy?

As is plainly evident, blogging has all but ground to a halt around here since I started work at the beginning of September. Now, I know I've whinged a few times since then on this subject, but this time I'm serious.

The lack of updates is due not to lack of life, but to too much of the stuff. Unfortunately, in a doubly damning twist, most of it's not even the interesting kind of surplus that's bloggable (or, at least, bloggable in an interesting way).

I'm struggling for updates, for time to set apart in order to blog, and blogging is becoming less enjoyable as it's feeling like more of a chore. I'm not doing too well even then - in the last three months I've blogged 24 times in total. 24 posts being, incidentally, the sort of figure I'd usually expect for one month. This is depressing, and time management really Isn't Happening, to the extent that the only free time I generally have is a few hours on Sundays (or all day if I'm lucky, but on those occasions I usually have a whole pile of things to get done).

I do realise that posting more than every three or four days isn't mandatory, that winding down my blog slightly doesn't necessarily compromise my integrity - *cough cough* - my, er, whatever, as a blogger, and that readers won't automatically get impatient and abandon me in droves. But, and I think this is the point I've been struggling to grasp, to me it feels second-rate, somehow. I've never been happy with putting out something that I don't feel is up to my standard, and with everything that's gone on I don't feel I've written anything interesting for months and months.

Hear ye, hear ye. Cathy can't cope with blogging.

I have to confess, deserting my weblog is starting to look more and more like a sensible option. I don't want to because I do enjoy it at times, I like having it there, and I'll certainly want to restart once I finish work next August. However, eight months is a hell of a long time in the blogosphere the, um, plural noun encompassing all weblogs and all those who blog (why hasn't someone come up with a better word yet?), and I'd feel like I was starting all over again for the first time. Not a hugely tempting prospect.

For those in need of proof that I'm still alive, though, the linklog's still going strong (still? it's only been a month).

Anyway, life. I'm sure there's been some since last I blogged. The maths course that I was complaining about has improved slightly with respect to the level of difficulty - there was no multiple choice for the last test I did, and it took almost fifteen minutes to complete the test as opposed to the ten for the previous topic test.

I'm being hugely and grossly unfair and employing needless sarcasm about this, aren't I? I'm sorry. It just irritates me when there's wasted potential anywhere, and I still don't feel that this maths course is doing much for me other than using up an hour or two each month. From what I've seen, revision topics are skimmed and new topics are barely covered either.

Okay, I have to admit that this opinion hasn't been researched very thoroughly seeing as I didn't read much of the last workbook (matrices, which are fun and easy as long as you remember which order to do things in) but it did look rather scant. Not to mention the fact that there was at least one question on the test, on eigenvalues, which wasn't covered at all by the workbook.

Sorry. I'll stop moaning. On to other things.

Kevin and I went to the Science Museum at the weekend, it being one of those things that neither of us has done for a very long time. There was intrigue (the workings of early steam engines were surprisingly interesting), discovery (I hadn't known how the Enterprise's Warp Drive actually works), excitement (there are lots of handles to turn and buttons to press which make things move and go whizzing round and round), disappointment (some of the aforementioned handles and buttons didn't work), and humiliation (we both eagerly tried to go into one of the interactive areas before at the last minute spotting the sign that said "Under-8s only").

Afterwards we went to find a cinema and had high hopes of seeing Master And Commander but our plan was unfortunately foiled by the fact that we'd just missed the start of the film by ten minutes in the Odeon cinema in Leicester Square. What they unaccountably failed to mention, however, was that the same film was starting in ten minutes' time in the Odeon cinema on the other side of Leicester Square, an omission which led to us buying tickets for Bright Young Things instead.

However, I thought it was superb, and possibly one of the best films I've ever seen in a cinema. (While impressive, this recommendation isn't quite as incredible as it may appear since I have a record of never seeing really good films at the cinema. Still, it was excellent.)

I've sold out

The evil empire has corrupted this blog.

Well. I joined the Amazon Associates 'programme', last week which means that all the ~200 Amazon links that were already present on bent back tulips - all the books I link to, from my books page and from my front page - now have an extra bit on the end of the URL. This means that, should a click-through result in a happy and delighted new Amazon customer, I'll get a small yet decent commission.

Now, I'm not too pressed for cash at the moment, so this was mainly prompted by my curiosity as to a) the click-through rate, and b) the click-through to ordered items ratio. If you're interested, thus far I've had just over 20 clicks in about five days. (No orders as yet.)

Anyway, just thought I'd inform you rather than sneaking them in surreptitiously. Here beginneth the experiment.

The night before

So it comes to Christmas Eve, and I've only just wrapped presents. Ahem. Now, to be fair (or rather, just to give myself an excuse) this isn't simply because of gross disorganisation but because I don't like wrapping presents too long before the 25th, and usually wait until the 22nd or 23rd, somewhere around then. However, I was out both yesterday and Monday, and so the presents had to wait.

Actually, while we're on the subject, I should confess that I did some last-minute shopping in Oxford Street on Monday - again, I'd like to claim that this wasn't my fault but was in fact due to my brother's scatterbrain since, despite copious attempts at nagging, he only told me what he wanted on Sunday night (I believe the threat: "Okay, tell me now what you want, or you're not getting anything," was involved somewhere).

(Was that a good enough excuse? Nah, didn't think so. Just put it down to disorganisation, then.)

See, we do this in our house. We are a Family of the Christmas Lists, which I think evolved from seeing various things throughout the year that we'd like, and being told that we could ask for them for Christmas, and mutated into, "You can't possibly expect me to buy you anything until I know what you want, can you?"

On the one hand, it definitely makes shopping easier, and generally guarantees that you'll get something that you particularly wanted. However, it is nice to get surprise presents, when they work. And we generally manage to sneak in one or two little surprise present in any case, so it does tend to work out well.

Just one thing - it'd be nice if, having instigated the whole thing, my parents could actually produce some kind of list (even with just one thing on it!) so that my brother and I didn't have to do the whole wandering-around-aimlessly-trying-to-let-inspiration-strike.

Another thing that's influenced by the Christmas lists is that it completely discourages rummaging around at the foot of the tree and trying to guess your presents - after all, if you're actually able to specifically identify a load of them it takes all the fun out, doesn't it?

Fish 'n' films

Kevin's already mentioned the shark attacks, but other memories of the London Aquarium... okay, picture the scene. It's a large tourist attraction, and it's school holidays so there are lots of kiddies. There are also, in a strange and bizarre twist, lots of fish around. I can't tell you the number of times we heard cries of "Where's Nemo? Is that Nemo?"

Quite apart from anything else, I feel these children hadn't paid close enough attention to the end of the film when you learn where Nemo ends up.

We stumbled out eventually, having spent rather too long admiring the cheap tat in the gift shop, and fell upon the nearest food substitute we could find, in the form of a meal from McDonald's. Since the place was housed in the same building as the Aquarium it was rather crowded and we decided to brave the weather and eat at the deserted tables outside (deserted since strangely, in the 0° conditions, we were the only ones to do so).

And yes, I imagine it was quite cold. I can't be sure because I was wearing my big, thick, heavy, oh-it's-really-really-winter-now coat. Given that I'm notorious for feeling the cold, and at any point during the winter I'm generally wearing two or three layers of clothing, you will appreciate the insulatory qualities of this coat when I mention that the only time during the freezing cold day when I had to do it up, even though we were outside a fair bit, was when it actually started snowing. And then I opened it again sixty seconds later when the snow stopped.

Yesterday - and be warned, in big flashing red letters if you can imagine them adequately, that there may be spoilers herein - I saw Return Of The King with Missiedith. Now, I know this is hugely unfair of me since it is actually a very, very good film, but I was slightly disappointed by it. Mostly because of all the hype it's had, and all the stunned and awed reviews it's had from people I know, but still.

Okay, I won't spoil too much (but yes, a little, so look away now if you've been strenuously avoiding all such things) but one of my main gripes is that I feel they totally trashed my favourite chapter in the whole thousand pages, just so they could pull a cheap "gotcha" moment entirely for the benefit of those who haven't read the book. Hmph. Exceptionally brief summary of the film? The battle scenes were amazing, there were too many flashbacks, and they could have cut at least an hour from the whole film by simply not using slow motion at all.

The Pile, and other melodrama

Christmas was fun... and almost a week ago, I know, but I'm still in shock at being back at work again, so forgive me.

Not unexpectedly, my reading pile has grown taller in the last week - both to-be-read, due to as yet unread presents, and currently-reading, since I've been dying to read Night Watch for months and couldn't resist starting as soon as I got it. In paperback, that is. Truth be told, I do own it in hardback as well but firstly, I don't enjoy reading hardbacks - they're far too big and awkward, let alone them not fitting in my bag so I can't take them on the train - and secondly, I've just had too much other reading material in the last year, so it's been hard to fit it in.

Ever since I acquired such a large to-be-read pile (which, incidentally, takes up a whole shelf stretching a wall's width in my room) I've unaccountably felt guilty about reading books which I've read before because that means I'm not making any progress on The Pile. Since Christmas, The Pile now consists of more than fifty books again. Will I ever get rid of them? Will they forever cling to my heels, dog my steps, and generally be a nuisance, glaring at me from their shelf above my head, sneering down and mocking me and my inabilty to reduce The Pile to nothingness?

Is is possible I dwell too much on these things?

This Christmas was the first in five years that I wasn't stuck sleeping on a mattress in the corner of my parents' room, so for that I'm grateful. I'm also grateful that I managed to keep a straight face at dinner during the sentence which began, in all seriousness, "I'm not necessarily saying we didn't land on the moon, but..."

I was ill on Sunday, which involved the worst dizzy spell I can remember having (as in, I felt dizzy, blinked a bit waiting for it to pass, then had to sit down quickly else I would have fallen over, and was fairly unsteady for the next few minutes). Now generally, this kind of thing Doesn't Happen to me, so I'm not quite sure what provoked it. The rest of the day mostly involved me trying not to fall asleep (along with general coughing, sore throat, etc.), but I went to work yesterday anyway on the double premise that a) I'd just had a week off, and there'd surely be lots of work for me to catch up with, and b) how likely was it that people would believe I was genuinely ill and not merely skiving between Christmas and New Year?

The office was deserted, predictably, which meant a few things: a) working on my own in a big, open, silent office (and I really regretted not having brought my iPod to work yesterday), b) the heating was off, which led to me sitting at my desk with three layers of clothes plus my coat on, and still being cold, and c) I learned that I have no idea how to work a combination safe (one of the old-fashioned ones with a dial on the front). Knowledge of the operation of such is fairly crucial in our office if you're the first person in, since all the laptops are stored there, so I had to go and ask someone to come and show me. And I still can't do it properly.