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I've been meaning to post for ages, but now I find myself turned to bubbling incoherence. This is due to two reasons.
The first is a bad reason:
Today I went in to uni to collect my sister's Art History assessment. (She's in New York at the moment and apparently the Art History department will destroy any uncollected essays after 14 days.) This should have been simple...BUT...I was 20 minutes away from home when I realised I had left the piece of paper which had the course code written down at home. Rather than turn back, I had the brilliant plan of checking the course code online at Ultimo library (I know my sister's login). When I got there, all three (that's right, *three*) computers were taken, so I sat down to wait. They had an hour-long limit on the computers, and, you guessed, it, I waited for an hour while one guy checked the bidding on eBay, one woman sent lots of Chinese documents from one email address to another and another guy spent 40 minutes composing an email. And then, you guessed it, they all RE-LOGGED ON after their hour had finished. I was so angry I stormed out of the library, trying to restrain the urge to hit something. Then I got to Sydney Uni, went into the library, realised I didn't need a library card to use the library computers and got the course code in 30 seconds. Then, after 10 minutes wandering around in the rabbit-warren that is the Mills Building (I prefer my own former rabbit-warren, Woolley), I got Mim's essays. They didn't even ask to see ID, and the most frustrating thing was that hers was the only second- and third-year subject, *and* the essays were stored on shelves in alphabetical order, with students able to get their own stuff. I'd been all paranoid and expecting something similar to the dragon-guarded fortress that is the English department office, where you have to actually ask for your essays back from scary people who suspiciously ask you your student number before handing your stuff back.
The second reason is somewhat happier:
One of the books I've just reviewed is Ironside by Holly Black. And WOW it is fantastic. There aren't any reviews of it up online just yet, but I'll put the reviews of its prequel, Tithe here so you can see what sort of brilliance I'm talking about. Charles de Lint himself thinks it's amazing, and I must say I agree. Urban fantasy that gives back the dark glamour (in the original sense of magic/illusion, and which, incidentally, was the same word as 'grammar' - yep, I'm still a lingusitics nerd) to the Otherworld in a way that Cecilia Dart-Thornton's Bitterbynde series, lovely though it is, can only dream of achieving. Go out, everyone, and read these books. They are awesome in the sense of inspiring awe, brilliant in the sense of blinding, wonderful in the sense of inspiring wonder. A true trip to the Otherworld, in other words.
The first is a bad reason:
Today I went in to uni to collect my sister's Art History assessment. (She's in New York at the moment and apparently the Art History department will destroy any uncollected essays after 14 days.) This should have been simple...BUT...I was 20 minutes away from home when I realised I had left the piece of paper which had the course code written down at home. Rather than turn back, I had the brilliant plan of checking the course code online at Ultimo library (I know my sister's login). When I got there, all three (that's right, *three*) computers were taken, so I sat down to wait. They had an hour-long limit on the computers, and, you guessed, it, I waited for an hour while one guy checked the bidding on eBay, one woman sent lots of Chinese documents from one email address to another and another guy spent 40 minutes composing an email. And then, you guessed it, they all RE-LOGGED ON after their hour had finished. I was so angry I stormed out of the library, trying to restrain the urge to hit something. Then I got to Sydney Uni, went into the library, realised I didn't need a library card to use the library computers and got the course code in 30 seconds. Then, after 10 minutes wandering around in the rabbit-warren that is the Mills Building (I prefer my own former rabbit-warren, Woolley), I got Mim's essays. They didn't even ask to see ID, and the most frustrating thing was that hers was the only second- and third-year subject, *and* the essays were stored on shelves in alphabetical order, with students able to get their own stuff. I'd been all paranoid and expecting something similar to the dragon-guarded fortress that is the English department office, where you have to actually ask for your essays back from scary people who suspiciously ask you your student number before handing your stuff back.
The second reason is somewhat happier:
One of the books I've just reviewed is Ironside by Holly Black. And WOW it is fantastic. There aren't any reviews of it up online just yet, but I'll put the reviews of its prequel, Tithe here so you can see what sort of brilliance I'm talking about. Charles de Lint himself thinks it's amazing, and I must say I agree. Urban fantasy that gives back the dark glamour (in the original sense of magic/illusion, and which, incidentally, was the same word as 'grammar' - yep, I'm still a lingusitics nerd) to the Otherworld in a way that Cecilia Dart-Thornton's Bitterbynde series, lovely though it is, can only dream of achieving. Go out, everyone, and read these books. They are awesome in the sense of inspiring awe, brilliant in the sense of blinding, wonderful in the sense of inspiring wonder. A true trip to the Otherworld, in other words.
