Definition of Work-Life Balance: when life kicks you in the teeth, there's always work to fall back on. (And far too much of it, as usual. I am all excited about upcoming research project on gender medicine and ethics, but have some other things I must do first...)

foxe is currently experiencing Total Motivation Fail.

Last week: don't even remember any more except it was busy! Research Away Day for work on the weekend; got back on Sunday and went straight to Bristol for workshop Monday.

This week: in Bristol Monday, got back 10pm and went out for friend's b'day drinks; work then CAOS then work dinner on Tuesday; Wednesday went to work then from office to airport, thence to Belgrade. Thursday gave paper; pulled it off with reasonable amount of flair (I think) despite not being 60-year-old silver-haired professor. Friday - conference; Saturday - conference. Today (Sunday): woke up at insane o'clock this morning (4:30am Belgrade time = to come back in time for CAOS Fresher Day. Conducted; went to pub; went to other pub for much-needed food. Now trying to work on teaching materials for next week and not getting very far! But must do at some point because...

... Tomorrow: must re-pack suitcase, take to work and then straight to airport to go to Geneva for another conference.

and at the start of this month I didn't think I had anywhere to go! how has October turned into this, again??!

Situations Vacant:

Still-Young-At-Heart female, apparently needs would quite like to have someone to watch over her, especially with respect to:

1) Bills paid and filed. Must be willing and able to check mail on a regular basis without running away whimpering in fear with hands over eyes. Must also be able to deal with bills, etc, before Very Scary (TM) Stage (ie, of bailiffs coming and knocking on door and threatening to impound property should said bill not be paid) is reached. Desirable: should be able to file bills in a way that can remember what has been paid and what hasn't, hence saving unnecessary energy expended on panic when could have been expended on something useful, viz. work or similar.

2) Proper nutrition. Must either be able to cook, finance acquisition of more healthy take-aways than Pizza Co, or at least shove vegetables in microwave -- or even provide said vegetables, having been to supermarket during opening hours. Must not succumb to fallacy that academics do not need to eat and that a glass of wine constitutes one of your five-a-day.

3) Listening to her whinging about work and keeping bed warm at night. These last not necessarily "better than a dog, anyhow" but would be advantageous qualities in potential applicants.

And now, in the spirit of this post, as well as it being 1:30am (and me not having yet done very much work on the paper I am supposed to be writing), ( a meme! )

I was supposed to be going to a party tonight, but then I was still at work at 11pm, which wouldn't necessarily have precluded me from going but then things got difficult and stressful and it was all too hard (because I would have had to worry about packing and taking all my dive gear with me as well as where I need my bike to be in two days time and whether I have the right clothes and if I need anything else from work) plus I'm not entirely sure whether I was invited anyway (if you are not specifically invited but you are planning to go with someone who is invited and then they tell you not to bother, that probably means you shouldn't go). So instead I am at home applying generous quantities of alcohol (a well-known anxiolytic substance) and preparing to do some more work.

Why is life so difficult? :(

Going diving tomorrow (and currently planning to sit out the second dive so I can work instead, gah) but even that thought doesn't seem to improve my mood at the moment. All I can think about is how much easier life would be (temporarily) if I weren't going: more time to work, wouldn't have had to worry about packing dive gear or getting up early hence would probably have been less stressed about going out tonight, would have leisurely day tomorrow instead of going out first thing in morning and then coming straight back to work meetings in evening...

gah. gah. Cheer up, self. It will be fun. After all, I've never been on a dive that I didn't enjoy, even if I was stressing out about other things right up to the point of getting in the water.

Maybe diving is like singing/playing music...?

Ad Solem have changed their rehearsals to Tuesday nights, it seems. gah! why?? >:(

I guess at least I don't have to worry about auditioning this year. And, let's face it, I was being driven semi-bonkers last term by trying to juggle them and CAOS and Burli Singers and occasional groups like Innovaris and quartet, and work, and diving. But it would have been really hard to decide voluntarily to give something up. Now the choice is no longer mine, it feels strangely a relief. Burli Singers can go back to its usual Wednesday slot... I won't have to worry about whether I can get from the CAOS dress rehearsal in the Cathedral on 1 Dec to the Ad Solem concert the same night... I can go to the conferences in Oct and Nov that I'm planning to go to without fretting over missing rehearsal. And I might actually have time to breathe, this term!

Still, it will be a shame not to do it any more. I did enjoy it last year; and they're doing Britten's St Cecilia this term. (Mind you, we're also planning to do it with Burli Singers, so I'm not really missing out!)

Hmmm... maybe I should go back to Philip Neri Singers on Monday nights, or find yet another choir to join... ;)

I am ( less pure than I used to be... )

What I want to do:
* edit my dive photos
* blog about Scapa Flow
* chat to people on YD

What I should be doing
* finish course materials for next week
* write notes for teaching next week
* work on paper due next Weds

What I am doing
* musing over old LJ entries
* drinking wine
* reading swashbuckling romance on my iPhone

I was in Zurich on the weekend. It was good, apart from the "running halfway across town Monday morning 5am in high heeled boots with my suitcase and catching what seems to be a chill" part. I think being up at BST 3am (which is GMT 2am, eep) to catch the plane and then being in work until nearly 11pm the same night (and not getting home til nearly midnight because Freshers' Week tied up the buses) has taken a slight toll on my energy levels this week.

It's nearly 9pm, I haven't finished the teaching material I was supposed to get done today, let alone started research for the paper I need to write by Tuesday, and I'm going on a three-day long weekend diving trip tomorrow. (During which I will, assuming I get all the research material gathered in time to take it with me, be either underwater or madly writing. Agh.)

The solution? Is clearly LJ. :D

(but also =:-@)

Oh, and the Principle of Waste Avoidance tells me it is acceptable to eat the pack of flavoured tuna I found in my filing cabinet. First time I've had tuna in... months, I don't know; can't remember the last time. The problem is, now I've remembered how much I actually like it... :-/

Two items for thought, both inspired by recent Australian health/medical law developments:

1) On the home-birthing issue: I support the existence of women's rights to make choices about where and how to give birth. Whether we construe this as a positive right (compelling a duty of assistance to fulfil the choice) or a negative one (requiring non-interference with the exercise of this choice), however, has a bearing on what the State ought to do in this case. It strikes me as interesting that although some are framing the debate in terms of a woman's right to refuse a hospital birth, in fact the issue is not whether they have a right to refuse. Legally (as well as ethically, in my view) any competent adult can refuse, yadayada (although NB also the general approach of courts to determining capacity in cases involving pregnant women -- not entirely coherent with the recognition in practical terms of a pregnant/birthing woman as a fully competent individual!); however the controversy in this case stems from whether, having refused the medical treatment offered, they then have the right to demand access to alternative treatment, ie homebirth attendance. And on this I think the position is less clear: doctors have a prima facie duty to provide care to their patients in line with those patients' best interests, and the State has a p.f. duty to provide health care for its citizens; but this does not necessarily extend to a right of the patient to compel health care practitioners and/or the State to provide them with any type of treatment they demand under the circumstances of their choice.

Now, I think there are plenty of good reasons why women should be able to access homebirth midwifery, including arguments from justice, public health benefits, consistency and feminist perspectives. I did, however, want to point out that the way in which various "rights" are being asserted and in some instances thrown around, with respect to this issue, is not quite so clear-cut as it might first appear.

2) On the recent WA court decision to allow FTM-transgendered individuals to be called "men" while still retaining female anatomy: This article was drawn to my attention by mavisgrizltits, via Facebook, where she commented on the dubious use of "continuing infertility" as a criterion for deeming it suitable to refer to these people as "men". While I agree that making fertility/infertility an essential part of determining someone's social gender as female/male is highly controversial for a number of reasons, reading the article did suggest an intriguing legal loophole. In the UK, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act (1990, amended 2008) makes it illegal to implant certain types of embryo (cloned, genetically modified, chimeric, human-animal mixed) into a woman. It says nothing about implanting them into a man. If you can be legally a man and still possess the capacity as well as the appropriate anatomy to carry a child, what possibilities might this create??

Just for reference, today's To-Do List says: Write the JME Concise Argument. Finish course Unit 2. Write Wednesday's lecture on Science, Society and Ethics. It says nothing about "Produce random musings on the right to medical treatment and the possibilities of pre-surgery FTM 'men' as parents for cloned children..." :D

When you see this, post a random quote from Carmina Burana on your Facebook status.

Then post this meme in your journal for others to enjoy :D

(*Alternatively: Post a random quote from Carmina Burana on your Facebook status just because you feel like it. Then turn it into a new LJ meme!)

... without providing any sort of actual textual analysis or supporting evidence, hence why it is a rant rather than anything useful :)

This started off as a reply to conradin's post (locked so I won't link to it here) about F/SF series with strong women protagonists. conradin mentioned two that came to mind, being the Empire series and Polgara in David Eddings; and then I somehow went off on a long ramble which seems to have become a post of my own. (Apologies for inconsistencies of style -- I wrote part of this as a comment and for some reason my writing style for comments seems to be different from my posting style...)

Oh, and Obv.Disclaimer 1: I've read the Belgariad and the other one, what's it called, the Malloreon, and the first Diamond Throne series; but not Polgara the Sorceress or any others that may have come later. I kind of left David Eddings behind with my teens. So this isn't based on the full information. Told you it was a rant...

Obv.Disclaimer 2: I know there are people on my f-list who a) actually study these issues in a formal sense (maybe not women in DE specifically but representations of women in literature etc) and/or b) have analysed them at much greater length. If I say anything Stupid(TM) or Offensive(TM) in relation to this discourse -- well, I do have attacks of Teh Dumb on occasion but I definitely don't mean to offend anyone, so apologies in advance if I accidentally do so. And of course I am very interested in anything you might want to contribute to the discussion, by way of correction, contradiction, expansion, explanation, etc.

Now to the post!

( Wow, this got long. Cut for your viewing pleasure. Or something )

How has all of this affected me? Whereas (if I understand correctly) some women feel that this has constrained their understanding of "self" into the "female" gender box, for me I feel perhaps it has led to a separation in my mind of self and gender. If women are generally portrayed as weak and dependent (a stereotyping of stereotypes, I know, but bear with me), I can still be strong and independent, but when I'm doing so I'm just being me. When I'm playing at being sexy!intelligent!liberated(but only enough to participate in orgies) HeinleinWoman, or when I'm playing at being wilful!charming!empty-headed(enough to still be in this novel) EddingsWoman (think Ce'Nedra) or wise!womanly!nurturing! EddingsWoman (Polgara etc), then I'm Being Female. When I'm sitting at my desk thinking about philosophy, or playing the cello, or going diving, or doing any of the other things that make up my life, then I'm Being Me.

Um. This post had a point. But I eated it.

today's words:

1230 / 1000 words. 123% done!

but the aim today is to finish as much as possible, so not really 123% done...

total words:

2306 / 5000 words. 46% done!

I was sensible and brought my laptop today, so at last the internet, my paper and my laptop are all in the one place... now I can put the paper onto my laptop and not need the internet, hence be able to work at home. Which is where I am about to go, RSN... (just as soon as I finish posting to LJ about it!)

today's words:

54 / 1000 words. 5% done!

That's not very many, but I have been busy thinking thoughts...

total words:

1130 / 5000 words. 23% done!

I wonder if I can realistically get this finished today?

But really this post is to add to my random thought store (I'll get round to doing something with these one day...)

Today's subject: status quo bias, perceptions of relative harm/benefit and the precautionary principle. Imagine we develop some new, currently pointless Technology X -- pointless as in, nobody can foresee any useful applications that will produce benefits or any concrete risks that might lead to harms. Nevertheless as with any new technology there is some chance of unexpected consequences. Should we do it or not?

I think many would say no, because why develop something useless and risk the possible adverse side-effects for no gain? Various versions of the precautionary principle would recommend against it; my intuitions are against it; but I'm not sure this is justified. If there's equally unknown chance of risk or benefit, why is the risk of possible harm worse than the chance of possible benefit?

About the best I can come up with is that for something that is risk-benefit neutral (or unknown) we can almost always think of something that is benefit-positive that we ought to be doing instead, ie why develop useless technologies when we could be saving lives or similar? But I suspect that this is not the justification that underlies our intuitions about such situations. Eg imagine a scientist on a desert island who doesn't have the research equipment to do anything else, so the choice is do this or twiddle thumbs. Do we think in this case it is ok to work on Tech X?

I wonder if our risk-averse tendencies in such situations are actually a form of status quo bias / "if it ain't broke" reasoning, in that we have a stronger preference to be not-harmed by x-amount (relative to our present condition) than we do to be benefited by x-amount. Is this a rational preference?

Words: 1,076/1,000

(where has Zokutou gone when I need it?)

Realised it was an impossibility to get this paper finished tonight and decided I would at least aim for my 1000-word quota before giving up and going home *yawn* This lack of internet at home is proving decidedly inconvenient :( Anyway, that was harder than it should have been, but several ideas have fallen into place and my brain is in the right gear now so fingers crossed for a (much) more productive day tomorrow...

Plan for today:

* tidy kitchen after last night's frolics
* bus to work
* work
* lunch, fix bike
* work
* ride bike to Asda
* shopping
* cooking
* dinner, music and games.

Progress so far:

* kitchen tidied and floor mopped
* walk to work as no change for bus
* at work by 10am
* email
* LJ
* very little actual work yet
* lunch in one hour.

We shall see how the plan continues...

me: *Step 1: scooping cold cooked rice from rice cooker into bowl in preparation for Steps 2 (spoon yesterday's vegie chilli over the top), 3 (heat in microwave) and 5 (dinner!)*

rice: *refuses to be easily scooped*

me: *tilts rice cooker pot to facilitate scooping*

entire rice-cookerful of rice: *splot*

me: oops

if anyone wants to know what Step 4 was, I can only reply "????" and refer them to the Underpants Gnomes for further information, or lack thereof

Hello everyone! This is just to let anyone who might be interested know that I should be at Monash around 6pm this evening for pre-rehearsal dinner... hope to see some of you there!

omg I leave for Melbourne tomorrow and I am SOOOO unprepared! *flail, wibble, I haven't even thought about packing, I have so much work to do, argh, etc*

But, I am looking forward to seeing as many of you as I can fit in between my limited time and everyone else going to LXIV. So, here is my timetable... event me!

Mon 29 Jun 7am: arrive in Melb and get picked up (hopefully!) by family

Tue 30 Jun: I will be going to MonUCS and pub/coffee/whatever; also *looks hopeful* available for dinner beforehand if anyone is around?

Wed 1 Jul: I expect I will probably go to MUCS and pub etc; ditto on the dinner thing.

Thu 2 Jul: Nothing yet! Anyone around for lunch/coffee/dinner/general meeting-up??

Fri 3 Jul: I think I have a date with sjl possibly to borrow tanks and, even if not, for a quick catch-up -- yes? Also possibly going diving with Lauren if various conditions hold.

Sat 4 Jul - Tue 7 Jul: NYCA! I think I shall see a few of you there; if you're not going to IV and not singing in NYCA, do consider coming to our concert on the Tuesday! I don't know where it is yet but will post details soon...

Wed 8 Jul - Sat 11 Jul: I think I am in Sydney; busy with family Wed evening, and then hoping to have a chance to catch up with any Sydneyites that might be around over the next couple of days. Back Sat evening probably...

Sun 12 Jul: I leave at 6pm.

So, if you are free at the times I am free and would like to see me then please suggest away! (as I am far too disorganised at the moment to suggest anything...)

A question for all the musos on my f-list: how do you go about programming repertoire for your choir (or other ensemble) and/or how do you think repertoire should be chosen? (Please indicate also whether you are answering from the perspective of a conductor/musical director, committee member, chorister/player or any combination thereof. Oh, and even if you're not a muso, or not an ensemble musician, feel free to answer!)

I am interested in the method of programme selection – where on the scale between “conductor decides and tells committee” and “committee decides and tells conductor” do you think the balance lies, or is there some other method entirely? – but also and in particular, what factors you take (or think should be taken) into consideration in selecting a programme.

I will explain my reasons for asking, as well as the story behind this poll, in a separate post; but I’d like people to answer this first, so that my explanations don’t bias the results one way or another.

... anyone on my f-list who wants to come diving with me while I'm back in Melbourne? (Or is everyone going to be at IV?)

I arrive at 7am on Monday 29 June; I am doing NYCA (combined alumni season) from 4-7 July and leaving at 6pm on Sunday 12 July, so Sat 11 July might be a possibility; or a weekday before 4 July, if anyone is free for either of those possibilities? I have transport or can pay petrol and am happy to go anywhere there's water!

Currently in my wallet I have:

* English pounds
* Australian dollars
* US dollars
* (one) Chinese yuan/RMB
* Hong Kong dollars
* Indonesian rupiah
* Croatian kune
* Singapore dollars
* Euros

* and a lone Filipino 25 sentimo coin, which I have no idea how I acquired!

I also have a lot of expired bank cards, loyalty cards and membership cards; and more bus and train tickets than you would think it was possible to keep in one wallet simultaneously. It is amazing how much of this stuff I don't need, and how little I actuallly do!

Luckily I now have a nice new wallet to put the things I do need into :) Thank you, Not-So-Mysterious Benefactor!