between the rock and the cold, cold sea

I have photocopied. I have worked.

The status of the thesis:

That bloody thesis

2200 / 15000 words. 15% done!

Now I must go to the bookshop and spend my pennies on (text)books, and after that? Well, seeing as how I haven't run in nearly two weeks, I suspect I'd better go to the gym, don't you think?

So, the wall closed over the last few days to do maintenance and completely reset the routes. Today was the first day it was open again, and I hied me there after a half an hour in the gym, to see what was what.

The good news: I finally have definitive confirmation over what grade system the wall uses: it's French. The bad news: there is nothing, now, easier than a French 5.

Now, the fives aren't alphabetised, yet, so I don't know whether they're at the easy end or the hard end. (The sixes and sevens are alphabetised, but not the fives.) There're two on the slab wall, which I sent: one with a little bit of cheating at the very last move and one clean, with no dogging on the rope. I'm pretty proud of that: both of them required a good bit of thinky.

There're two other fives, both on overhangs, which I tried. One's a grey, and I think the only straightforward way up is to smear, dyno, and jump, which'll get you to the top of the overhang. I can get my fingers on the hold after the jump, but I don't have the strength to pull it off.

The second one's a black. I can see two ways of getting to the top of the overhang, and over it: one's a dyno, and I tried that several times on my first attempt. Again, I can get my fingers up, but I don't have the strength to capitalise on that. The other way involves clever footwork, and balance, and smearing: I tried that on my second attempt, and I can see how it should work, but I just couldn't make it go right.

Two more fives, a white and a blue, share a slightly overhung corner: really the most minor of overhangs. Now, the white, that one's almost easy until you get to the top. I got stuck on the third move from the finish, where the holds stop being even slightly juggy and there's a move - two moves - that require much fingertip grippy and balance while smearing. No can do.

The blue - I'm quite proud of my attempt at the blue: I got up over the crux of the overhang, and then you have to smear up and reach sideways, and I couldn't quite get my arms to do the right amount of heaving.

There's also a red five, but I think that's closer to a 5c than a 5a: I could barely get it started, certainly couldn't string together the first three moves.

I'm going to be made of ouch tomorrow, but I'm going to try and get in another attempt tomorrow evening, before the open mic poetry. Last chance to conquer before two weeks of slack: I'll probably have to spend a week or two playing catch-up before I can send anything after I get back.

Wow. Did I get lengthy, much, over climbing? Well, I love it, and there were a great bunch of lads down there this evening to trade belays with (and even a girl or four, after half seven), so it was really great craic. (I spent two and a half hours there. Definitely going to be ouch tomorrow.)

---

Achievements:

Some of the Ehrman book, some of Goodman's Rome and Jerusalem (much more enjoyable than the Ehrman). .5 hours Latin, .5 hours Greek.

Running: 29 minutes, for 2.3 miles. Intervals of 7.5mph, and man did my bad ankle complain. It'll complain even more when we do it again tomorrow.

Rowing: 5 minutes, for 1.1km.

Climbing: See above, re: 2.5 hours.

Writing: .2K, some cleaning-up work.

---

I got deep-fried chicken and chips on the way up the road, the supermarkets being closed and no fast, greasy carbohydrates in the house. Mmm, grease.

My hands, where I've ripped through callouses, hate me, I think. I've taken a paracetamol to make my shoulders stop screaming, and now, I need to make with the packing and throw some more shit into the case for the day after tomorrow.

All I really want to do is fall over. But necessity calls.

Today, for a miracle, there has been no rain.

On the contrary, it's been fabulously clear, and the sea as viewed from the train just at sunset was still and blue-white as a milky mirror, the same shade as the horizon. Unreal. Something very beautiful in that.

---

Achievements:

Reading, Goodman, The Roman World. Not far to go now. .5 hours Latin, .5 hours Greek.

Writing: .3K

Running: separated by four-minute rest intervals at 3mph: 7(6.5mph), 5(6.5mph), 6(6.5mph), 5(6.5mph), and a ten-minute cooldown period, for something over 3.5 miles in a total of 45 minutes.

This is definite improvement, but I have to recommend the Olympic gymnastic competition for distraction: it was on in the gym when I started on the treadmill, and I easily ran 7 minutes rather than 5 to start, because the pretty, graceful boys were so amazing I forgot to pay attention to the fact that I might be getting a little out of breath.

Rowing: 15 minutes for 3km.

Climbing: ~1.5 hours. Sent two routes, a 3 and a 4a, and got roughly twice as high (5 metres as opposed to 3) on my white 4c project wall than I've ever got before. Alas, O project walls, soon you will be gone.

The rest of the time was taken up with minor traverses and bouldering on the low overhang: I'm definitely improving upper body strength, although some of that is no doubt also down to paying attention to technique.

Having not-chalk helps, too. I got some yesterday, a non-marking chalk substitute called an EcoBall. It definitely works, although I suspect the nosebleed I had in the middle of the night might've been down to getting some of it up my nose. (I never get nosebleeds. At least it was only a minor annoying trickle, not a flood, but still, more than I'm used to.)

I now have two (2) broken blisters from climbing, and two (2) intact ones from rowing. And I'm stiff like whoa: I think tomorrow gets to be a day off from exercise. Maybe put in a little more time at the languages and try to get a more substantial wordcount, instead.

---

Hmm.

I seem to have a boring life, don't I?

Coming and going to and from town this afternoon, I missed delays due to flooding on the train line by about fifteen minutes each way. I guess today is a lucky day.

...Now, where do I go to get me some sandbags?

---

Achievements:

Reading, Breeze and Dobson. (Done.) About 80 pages of Martin Goodman, The Roman World 44BC-AD180. Greek. Latin.

Today I started translating some actual Latin sentences, albeit with one finger on the vocabulary guide and another finger on the grammatical paradigms. As an undertaking, it appears to be going reasonably well.

Climbing: Sent with much struggle a route that I could do with fair competence at the end of May. Project wall #1 (grey ~4b): fail x2. Project wall #2 (yellow ~4c): fail, but due to good advice, I can now see how it should be done, even if I can't quite do it. Project wall #3 (white ~4c): fail, but some small progress was made.

The wall's closing Fri-Wed for maintenance and to change the routes, so I guess that's the last time I see those particular routes. Alas.

Writing: .25K

---

Books 2008: 101, non-fiction

101. David J. Breeze and Brian Dobson, Hadrian's Wall (London, 2000, 4th edition).

I feel justified in stating that this is not a book for the general reader. This is the book you read if you want an introduction to Wall scholarship.

To quote from the Preface: This book... is not a guide to the Wall nor is it a description in detail of the actual physical remains. It is an attempt to review the evidence for the best-known and best-preserved of all Rome's artificial frontiers in an attempt to explain why it was built at a particular time on a particular line across Britain, and to follow its history till the end of Roman control in Britain.

That's pretty much what it does. It's divided into seven chapters, each dealing in substantial detail with topics such as the concept of a frontier in the Roman world and Roman thought, the building of the Wall, the Antonine Wall, the function of the two walls in the period where both were in use, the army of the wall and its life, and the changes which took place over the third and fourth centuries. The appendices detail the governors of Britain, the 'regiments' of the wall, an overview of the gods worshipped in the region of the Wall, the Roman names of the Wall forts, and the archaeological evidence.

It's fortunate that I'd read Wells and Cameron immediately prior to this, or references to the various emperors and the context of the wider empire would have been very confusing. I do feel in need of a general work on Roman Britain to clarify my picture of the wider context of Britain-as-a-whole, not just Britain-of-the-Wall, but you can't expect a book to deliver more than it promises, and this one certainly delivers a wealth of Wall information.

Now all I have to do is finish the Goodman, and I get to take a change of book!diet, with selected readings from Bart D. Ehrman's The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings. Which will be a change, at least.

( Schedule of books )

That's enough for going on with, especially with a two-week holiday scheduled for the end of next week. If I can find a decent (cheap) copy of a general intro to Roman Britain, that'll make the list, too, but for now, that'll have to do.

---

*You were hoping for the friendship of the girls, O sailors, but you do not obtain [it] [by request]. Yes, that's one of the sentences I translated today, and yes, I'm inordinantly proud of the fact that I'm on actual! sentences! after only a bit under two weeks. :P

Progress, Saturday 16 February, 2008

The duellist of Alusind

New words: 560
Total words: 10,700

Reasons for stopping: sleep
Darling du jour: I have been infected by academic prose. *stabs it*

Tyop du jour: warn for worn
Words Word doesn't know: N/A
Mean things: Possible Sinister Figure from the protag's Dark Past. (No, I can't ever take this seriously.)

That scene'll definitely need to be rewritten at some point. But next, at least, I get to write the barfight. That ought to be slightly more fun.

An hour's work today has given me a respectable -- somewhat -- damnable presentation.

(Scholars tend to agree that Isaiah 11:6-9 is probably a Deuteronomistic addition to the text. I have stated this is several different ways, and made stuff up about kingship, Ahaz and Isaiah, in the case that it is an Isaianic original oracle.)

I have also written.


Progress, Tuesday 15 January, 2008

The duellist of Alusind

New words: 560
Total words: 6,020

Reasons for stopping: college
Darling du jour: Not today.

Tyop du jour: N/A
Words Word doesn't know: N/A
Mean things: uncomfortable witnesses, interfering politicians.


I'm not entirely sure the scene I wrote today justifies its existence in the narrative. But perhaps thirty or fifty or eighty thousand words down the line hindsight will surprise and reward me.

Or, you know, I'll take it out in the second draft.


I was thinking about my process today. I get maybe three hundred words down in an hour when I concentrate, less if I'm being fussy. That's not slow, though I'd like, you know, to be a faster (and better) writer. I don't usually have more than an hour to devote to writing, so those three hundred need to be the right words, or at least not the wrong ones. I can't say, It's a first draft: fix it later. Because I don't want to waste what little time I have.

I look forward to seeing how this works out when I finish this and go back to revise it.

---

Climbed. Sent one route -- the easiest one, of course -- and fell off two more. My upper arms do not like me right now.

But I wandered up to the outdoorsy shop up off Grafton St., and asked a very nice lad to set aside a harness, carabiner, and belay device for me, so I'll pick that up tomorrow. Then I won't have to pay for equipment rental anymore, and possibly I'll get to do some more climbing. (Twice or three times a week, maybe. If I can find someone to climb with regularly.)

Tomorrow, at least, I have no physical exercise -- beyond running for the train -- scheduled. So I need to do some printing, and get a good start on this next essay, and write up that review I owe the SR. And get the application form for Schols. And figure out a budget, and maybe have myself an evening of curled-up introvertedness. (But probably not, since I have quite a bit to get done.)

Expect to see less of me until March. Much less of me. (I'm typing this on the train, since by the time I get home, I'll have the energy to post this, eat, conduct the most necessary of necessary emailings, and then fall over. Thud. Like that.) There is so much in my life that is just not getting done lately.

(I should see how much more of my society responsibilities I can push off onto the rest of the committee. Because stress, it does not agree with me. And I refuse to repeat 2006. Ever. Again.)

Tired now.

I have a damnable presentation due Thursday. Isaiah 11:6-9, social and historical location thereof. Tomorrow, I have a date with the library in all its glory, and I'm not coming home until it's all-but-done.

Damnit.


Progress, Monday 14 January, 2008

The duellist of Alusind

New words: 730
Total words: 5, 460

Reasons for stopping: college work
Darling du jour: He swallowed, pride like thorns in his throat.

Tyop du jour: N/A
Words Word doesn't know: N/A
Mean things: noon, interfering politicians.

---

Gymmed this morning. Barely a twelve-minute mile, bah. On the other hand, not bad for someone who, in the end, achieved perhaps three complete hours of sleep last night.

Good things: government gave me monies (earlier than expected, woo!). Still not dead. Family worries slowly subsiding.

Undone things: plane tickets need alterations. Doctors' appointments, arranging thereof. Accomodation for Calgary. Reading stuff for people.

...Must get climbing kit with nice monies. That would save money in the long run.

Going to fall over now.

The stars did not smile on my gymming today. And oversleeping means I caught the busy train, and so had to sit on a baggage rack all the way to town.

Though I suppose I should be grateful the baggage rack meant I didn't have to stand. :P

---

Progress, Wednesday 9 January, 2008

The duellist of Alusind

New words: 440
Total words: 4, 730

Reasons for stopping: tired now
Darling du jour: nothing worth the name

Tyop du jour: N/A
Words Word doesn't know: sweatily, beringed
Mean things: out doing investigative work in the hottest part of the day

Words since last Wednesday: 2,730.
I am two whole days' worth of words ahead of my weekly quota.

And in the list of good things that occasionally happen to undeserving people, I got my hands on really reasonable complete collections of the Jeremy Brett Sherlock Holmes, and "Sapphire and Steel". Pity I won't be able to have a marathon anytime soon, no? :P

---

College work today: not so much. Lectures, some Greek. Early start tomorrow. I should go pack now.

eeee! Shadow Unit is live! Eeee!

Um. Not that you didn't already know that, right?

---

Progress, Tuesday 8 January, 2008

The duellist of Alusind

New words: 260
Total words: 4, 290

Reasons for stopping: college.
Darling du jour: The courier pouch itched like an accusation inside her shirt, and she shifted against the urge to scratch.

Not great, but it'll do.

Tyop du jour: N/A
Mean things: secrets


An average of 300 words/day is 2.1 K words/week. Which works out to 54K words by end of June.

Looks like I'm still on track for my 2008 goals.

---

I completed the damn essay. Yes. It is done. (Next, please.) And we hates it, precious, yes we does. ladyasilran, you still want to torture yourself by reading it?

And then I celebrated by falling off three perfectly good walls. Catching myself a walloping bruise on my back by my lower rib in the process. I remain astonished at how swiftly and completely my upper body strength has deserted me. This does Not Bode Well.

(Although I met lovely people. Including two very handsome boys. A lot of the boy climbers seem to be both pretty and built. I don't think that's really fair, do you?)

---

Tomorrow, if I go in eeeeearly to gym (again), I can reward myself by coming home early. Which at the moment is looking pretty damn attractive, so I might just haul myself in before dawn, gym, do a tap of work, and flee before four in the afternoon.

Essaying will recommence Thursday.

( Things to do by February 7: )

( Later things to do (dates unconfirmed) )

Enough to be going on with, I think.

I was humming the first couple lines of Andrew Bird's "Measuring Cups" all day.

Get out your measuring cups and we'll play a new game,
Come to front of the class and we'll measure your brain;
We'll give you a complex and we'll give it a name

Progress, Monday 7 January, 2008

The duellist of Alusind

New words: 350
Total words: 4,030

Reasons for stopping: college.
Darling du jour: Dusty afternoon sunlight shaded her copper-toned skin to speckled bronze, pooling in the hollows above her collarbone, bringing out the red threads in her earth-brown linen shirt.

I am trying to be mindful of specifics. Sometimes it works. In this case, I'm hopeful.

Tyop du jour: N/A
Mean things: complicated-not-exactly-unrequited love.

---

Today I gym'd, did Greek, achieved a drafty-lacking-a-concluding-paragraph 2.5K-word essay, and went to lectures. I can do an eleven-minute (just) mile in the morning, it appears, though I think I should talk to someone about exercises to strengthen my knees and ankles. I also totally forgot to re-register, so I'll have to remember that tomorrow.

Also tomorrow, the essay's concluding paragraph, and hopefully a draft of the next essay. And climbing. Not missing that for the world.

Then Wednesday, I can start the essay after that.

So far, so good.

---

Put your backpack on your shoulder, be the good little soldier
It's no different when you're older, we're all predisposed
That's all for questions now, case is closed.