This week has sort of sucked. My neck crunched in some weird nasty way on Tuesday, and ever since it’s hurt like hell. On Monday my supervisor told me that she has no more paid research work for me to do. Evidently I’ve been too fast compiling all those readings lists and have made myself redundant. No more cushy work from home, with paid library missions and a department-sponsored copycard. Hello market research, again (but hopefully not with the same company this time) until I land the dream casual job of working in a bookshop that is Not Borders. Plus, when someone in the department buttonholed me in the corridor to ask why I hadn’t submitted an abstract for the end-of-year postgrad symposium, I foolishly committed to giving a paper. And then realised the symposium is this coming Monday. Better write that paper.

On the upside, the Putput Machine went for a day of pampering at the car health retreat, and now drives like a little Putput Dream. That is to say, we no longer have to jumpstart it every time we want to go anywhere. It no longer coughs or backfires, and the accelerator pedal’s ‘flat spot’, wherre it would just stop accelerating, has magically disappeared. Sadly, the mechanic doesn’t think the Putput can get roadworthy and registered in Victoria without over a thousand dollars of work. Which is approximately double its street value. (Why isn’t it already roadworthy? Because I have a father whose idea of a birthday present was to give me the car he no longer drives, which happens to be old and battered.) So it’ll have to wear its South Australian plates and cop SA driver abuse until I save up enough hard cash to get a proper, roadworthy vehicle. Which may be some time.

All these practical matters have been messing with my head somewhat, so no intelligent reflections on assimilation and research and the poscolonial — sorry, Danny! In the meantime, I’ve been reading Sly Civilian a lot. I’ve also been watching these excellent Battlestar commentaries by cyborganize and her collection of erudite fluffy toys:

Get out your slash goggles.