Out of My Hands

Oh, the nightmares that are funding applications. Having to do two of them at once for very different things is not a good idea either!

The PhD funding application is in, however. There are two others, but thankfully their deadlines are not until 2011 and that just sounds so far away. I have calculated my odds of getting it as 50/50. This is really a glass is half full/empty sort of situation and I have never been great with those. I usually fall to the later side of things.

After more than a year and a half of researching for this thing, though, I will be something akin to heartbroken beyond repair if I can't secure at least some funding. I am willing to put myself in dept to do this PhD, but there is a limit to how much dept I can reasonably carry, knowing how much money I will not be making ever after I graduate. I need some help and now I really really really want that help!

I hope this doesn't turn out like St. Andrews did.

One Third of the Way

Or What I'm Supposed to Be At.

In reality, I'm nearly 5000 words behind right now. Of course, I had two days without a computer AT ALL and therefore lost 4000 words right there. Yesterday was also much more exhausting than expected and I lost another 1000. Of course, this time last year I was into day 2 of 8 without a computer. In theory, I'm ahead. And I managed it before, I will do so again. Today's project is to catch up to where I should be (which is 33.33% done).

The novel started the way I expected, but then dropped in the interest department for a few thousand words. To restart the thing I invented a hunting trip that I hope will be important later (much later). This annoys me, as last year I had nothing planned out and yet each invention made sense. This one was just to glorify the word count. I'll need to make the trip integral to the end of the story (or probably the middle) to justify it and that screws with my plan a bit.

On the positive aspect, my characters are more or less listening to me. As a whim I invented a character without meaning to, and though only important to the first third of the story, I sort of love him to pieces. He emulates my favourite characters from a lot of books and is so blantantly important it's almost ridiculous.

The naming thing is getting easier. At least where people names are concerned. I still have this problem with place names always sounding like I stole them from another book. Last year was easier because all of the names were English and all of the places actually existed. But Nano is supposed to be a challenge, right?

Wake me when it's December.

It is November.

That is all.

Tempus Fugit

In the most literal sense of the Latin.

Five weeks ago I had time which I now do not have. It is October 25th and NaNo starts in less than a week, my proposal is due in two, Christmas is just around the corner, and that funding bid is getting down the the wire. Funny, how life just loves to sit back and laugh at you when you make statements like 'there's plenty of time left'.

On the topic of the proposal, everything is written/filled out/compiled except for one reference letter which belongs to a prof I have not heard from in two weeks despite repeated emails. I knew that one was too good to be true and I swear if I miss out on this because of him I may commit murder, because that will be the second time he's screwed me over. On the other hand, if he does not get back to me before the deadline, I may be down to Leicester as my only option anyways (due to money) and the cosmic irony is more than I can handle. I was starting to get attached to Newcastle.

On the topic of NaNo. I sat down yesterday and figured out a plan. It's not a good plan, but it wasn't last year either, so I have faith. I must simply force myself to write everyday and then the novel will appear. I am certain of this. Of course, there is also the oil painting. I'm trying not to think about that one.

As for the funding bid? Well, the positive part is that it's not mine to worry about. Although if we miss the deadline for that then I definitely don't get paid.

And Christmas is just around the corner, as the Xmas trees in the store keep scream ing at me. It's going to be a long two months, in all the wrong ways.

I also need to find a job, eventually, because as of New Years I will be unemployed. At least until May.

To PhD or Not To PhD

Yeah, that pun isn't getting any better than the first time I heard it. My apologies for the use.

Well, in the last month I have made progress. By progress I mean that I might have a workable PhD topic - though the workability percentage is still being discussed - that I am mostly interested in. I will count this as my first win. Small, baby steps.

I am all moved back to the city. There was a bit of a busy weekend in there with three trips between the city and the cottage, but it all got sorted out. I am as yet amazed at how quickly I fell back into the old routine. I promised myself I wouldn't, but when there is nothing else to do... It's comfortable and easy and I still hate it as much as I did in May.

But enough rambling about that. This blog was ostensibly for NaNo purposes, so let's get back to that! I am firmly planning on still doing NaNo this year, as I still have the workings of a YA fantasy novel lying around my harddrive. There is still the matter of a few background details and, of course, the climax to figure out, but I have more than a month left and I feel that if I get back into it things should pick up again. I still *think* it's a good idea, so we'll go with that. It can't be any worse than the flying by the seat of my trousers that I did last year! I am bound and determined to do it in a month, start to finish, and none of this faffing about on the conclusion until February. 50,000 words. 30 days. Starting in the afternoon on the 1st, because I will be in Toronto that morning. I think it's doable. Of course, there is also the oil painting, work, museum stuff, a funding bid (really?) and a proposal. But there are 5 weeks left before the midnight hour. I am going to make good use of them. Turning over a new leaf, as it were.

Starting...right...now.

Back to School, Take Two

It's passed the middle of August, at which time I am used to undergoing an emotional turmoil wherein I can't decide whether going back to school is a yay or a nay.

This year I don't have this conflicting emotion, because I'm not going back. I noticed it less last year (my first September where I was not in school), because the Returned to Canada rollercoaster kept me busy enough. So, this year feels a bit strange. Mostly, I feel like I'm floundering in the big ocean of Real Life, barely hanging on to the life preserver that is a part time job, and still trying to find the nearest bit of land that may be proper work. So far, nothing has appeared in sight in the last 11 months. I'm not hopeful.

I could, of course, have returned to school next month. I could have found something to do another degree in or a diploma. But when it comes right down to it, what's the point? I'd just be unemployed in another field and I'd be less interested in pursuing it till it kills me. All of which politely suggests to my brain that I'd better do something about this in the next 12 months, because going through this again isn't exactly agreeable.

I am, of course, currently taking another project management course; a subject of which I have about as much interest as, say, the biology of amphibians. But it means that, two days a week, I have something to focus on beyond going stir crazy. It is also temporary, and will be over long before NaNo rears it's head again. A fact for which I am grateful. I am hoping that November will at least be a distraction from everything else, and perhaps the achievement of writing 50,000 words again will at least carry me over into Christmas. Provided I finish this novel this year, rather than dragging it into February of another year. As my non-recent updates might suggest, the novel idea is going about as well as the job hunt.

I think it's partly that I'm a bit bored again. I get this way after a few months of doing the same thing. I bore easily, I know. I am still happier than I was after three months of retail, don't get me wrong! And much happier than I'd be if I was, say, unemployed. There still feels as if I am in a holding pattern waiting for my life to begin. At 27 I'm starting to wonder... I've met 21 year olds who have it more together.

It's been a bit of a comfort to be around the family this summer. So far, I am the only university student among the grandchildren that didn't change their major after First Year. I stuck with it, for 6 years. Nor did I give up on my original dream when I started university. I feel that I can count that as an accomplishment, since this is the family that is Awesome At Everything and Never Fails at Anything. I like to think they can take pride in the fact that at least I haven't given up. It make take years, but I'm not walking away from this, at least permanently. In the interim, probably yes, because one has to make a living somehow and job applications do not constitute paying rent.

[Not that I do. Though I'd like to.]

Right now, though, the contemplation of a PhD is more a stop gap. Please don't get me wrong, I want a PhD. I just imagined it would be something for another time in my life (hopefully another decade older). Now it seems as if it's becoming my only option because it is my only option. I don't know how feeling forced is going to help matters. And the positive of being the first grandchild (maybe the only one) to have Dr. in front of my name is probably not enough to carry me through even Year One. But it's enough to make me try. I am banking on the fact that I don't quit on things to carry me through.

We'll see. Step One: Stop faffing about and email Leicester.

Life, The Universe and Everything

It never ceases to surprise me how even the best of intentions are forgotten when life becomes hectic. In the last two months I have found and started a new (though temporary) job, undergone three different certifications, taken a university online course, moved to a different city 200km away and done what feels like a million other things. Neadless to say, a blog has been left by the wayside in all the mess.

But enough about me. I am going to diverge for a post, and I hope you'll forgive me for it. But this land I see from outside my office window is too great a thing not to write about. And indeed, I have been writing! (An aside: very little of it has to do with this place, but it's still counts!)

Muskoka is a land time once forgot. For nearly a century very little seemed to change up here. At least at a glance. Oh, many things did change, in actuality, but change came so slowly that no one ever really noticed. There were practical changes like paved roads, electricity, electrical stoves, power boats, etc. But they were just things added up for a hundred years. They didn't change this place.

In the last decade change has come like a sledgehammer beating against your head everywhere you look in every second of your day. Now there is a TV and DVD and satellite where once only a black and white screen with an antenna stood. Now the wireless carries down to the dock for lazy afternoons, instead of a book. Now the cell phone is as easy as the landline. Now when the power goes off the generator kicks in and nothing really changes. Life has become easier, I suppose, but not in a good way.

I remember this land before the people came. I say that like it is some grand declaration a century in the making. It's not. I was born in 1983, but I remember this land before the city arrived. When I was a little girl the cottage was almost no different from what it had been when my mother was little (a 35 year generation difference). In fact, very little had changed since my grandmother had been a child. It was still a place to come in the summer to escape the noise and heat of Toronto, to relax and unwined, to see the family and make new friends. It was the cottage. I remember it, before the people came.

By people I mean the yuppies from the city who, instead of 'coming' just packed up Toronto in the SUV and brought it north with them. With their loud boats and fast cars and drinking parties. They never got that the point of this place was to be different. They wanted everything. And now they have it. Toronto in Muskoka. With the high end grocery stores and the NYC shops and the race to see who can build a bigger boathouse. This place was once the summer retreat for the blessed.

You know what it is now? Disneyland for the rich.