A (mad) man of my word

So my dissertation is gone.
But still I can't sleep.
No idea why.
However, I using all this extra awake time to do something useful - well one burst of extra awake time, the rest is for reading Harry Potter.
I was lying awake staring at the ceiling, then the wall, then the other wall - not really one for lying still when i can't sleep - and i start coming up with limericks to amuse my still active brain.

I suggested a while ago that my dissertation's acknowledgements may take limerick form (in the end they didn't because i was too busy writing sensible words to be lyrical) but i managed to find some words that rhymed well, so some people got a limerick. (The actual acknowledgements thank people properly, this is just limeicky nonsense)

The first three are from late night, November 27th, the other three i just put together now - under the influence of a head injury that i sustained this afternoon.

The rhyme on the last ones a little tricky, so best of luck reading them.

Acknowledgements

Acknowledgements of my dissertation
- a source of continued frustration,
With these peoples persistence,
Proof reads and assistance,
It’s finally reached publication.

There was an old fellow called Jim,
Who needed to learn how to swim,
Coz his greatest of wishes,
Was studying fishes;
No water-logged corpse’s for him.

A message is hidden herein,
For our Canadian Cutey Shirin,
Her accents are hazy,
But we missed her like crazy,
In our post-presentation drinkin’

Joana, who de-serves a mention,
Proof reading with best of intention,
I take criticism poorly,
And reacted quite sorely,
(I weren’t really paying attention.)

To Alex who proof read most quickly,
His notes I responded to thickly,
Those words irritate me,
Tho’ they seek to placate me,
Once calmed, I was editing slickly.

Chris, whose proof read was quite thorough,
Whose grammar caused many brow furrow,
His battery ran out,
“You’ll do fine without”
Only the four then, from Market Har-bourgh.

Last Legs

I'm feeling a little spookified at the moment.
Turns out I've been having an unintentional David Duchovny day.
Loads of Californication. Watching him be a heavy drinking, womanising, writer; it really gives me something to aspire to, you know?
I had a bunch of episodes stored up and as I had little else to do today, (more on that later probably), I decided to watch my way through them.
Then after tea, an episode of the X-Files comes on. This is what spooked me. It's this village full of people eating brains of people that don't fit in.
Now I'm left on my own in the house with a pair of dogs that shake like crazy (because they do) and they are keeping an eye on the door because obviously something between the living room and the edge of their hearing somewhere down the road is making some noises. It's this uncertainty that gives me the willies. When the dogs keep (and i mean keep because they were doing it a second ago) keep looking for something I can't see, I'm fairly sure that they are getting ready for the axe wielding, big mask wearing, brain eater to jump out.
Cleverly I have a plan. The coffee table has a glass top, or there's a bottle on the bookcase that's almost empty. Granted the bottle's still got a little of some pretty expensive stuff in and is quite light - I'm sure I'd get loads more power behind a 1m by 50cm sheet of glass, even if it would be harder to wield.
Still I'll see what instinct does to me, I could have the power of some kind of man-tiger in me just waiting to be called upon.

As anyone who has read more than one of these knows, my dissertation is due pretty soon. Good news is that I have indeed written more than the 7500 word minimum, but less than the 10,000 word maximum. So I've handed my crazy mutant baby over to my charming proof readers, who all of course have real lives and so are very kind to do this. The difficulty with the shape that I have at the moment is that it's not like every other project. I ain't researching anything. It's a making project. So, it would be alot easier to follow if I wrote it completely chronologically, but then again, maybe the issue is because I'm not quite smart enough to do anything the way I'm told. I'm not saying it's a bad 50-something pages, just that it reads a bit like one of those stories that they do from multiple perspectives. First off, Method-Doug tells you how to follow him. He's very much a backward looking guy, dwells on the past and the way things were. Results-Doug is a bit more useful, he can tell you what everyone else is saying, he knows his stuff (but as his stuff is creating this specific set of teaching materials, it's still not that useful). Finally you get Discussion-Doug. It's up to him to show off how smart he is, so he's quoting everyone, blaming other people, and in a brilliant move, pointing out how slight failure is actually better than a win as it really teaches you something useful.
But now it's getting proof read. As most people who have proof read to my face will know, I don't take this well. I got a list of notes from a friend who took his time to read it for me and the first few ones, I went though, "Nope, Wrong, You don't know as much as me about this topic, don't be daft." It was around this point I realised that if I'm getting people to proof read, deciding that I know best and ignoring anything they isn't going to help. Here I did manage to take some of what was being said in and make some improvements. Hooray! Tiny amount of personal growth!
And speaking of tiny, there really is a limit to the number of times you can hear "That's not long enough", or "Try making this a little longer", before you start questioning your masculinity.

So I was watching Strictly Come Dancing and John Barrowman is on singing Everything she does is magic, and it turns out he has an album out for Christmas! Yay!

I need to balance that one out with some overt heterosexuality. Smokey and the Bandit! Barbecued meat! Real Ale! Jessica Albas bottom!

Hooray! Balance is restored to the universe and I can stop writing.


Except to say that I just saw the word Horspitial, which I really hope is a real word for horse vets.