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Aeolienne

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Everything posted by Aeolienne

  1. All? Presumably only one from now on...
  2. No, I'm over 30 and finished full-time study in the 1990s. Unless the Open University module I'm doing at the moment counts. It was somewhere to escape during mid-morning break and lunchtime, when I felt excluded by the typical teenage girls' conversations about what X said to Y when P saw Q snog A at B's party. I studied maths at university (and am doing a module in oceanography now), and all my full-time jobs have been science-related: building services consultancy, Met Office, environmental consulting. I suspect the conference aspect is the underlying resentment that I never got to have the kind of Met Office career which involved going to conferences, feeling part of a bigger picture and being able to network with other people who could understand the work I did (as opposed to fatuous remarks from people down the pub about whether I've been on telly). Issues - where do I begin ... I was fired from the Met Office in May 2009 and have had only one other job since then (which also ended in dismissal). How could I not feel inferior to my ex-boss? I remember her parting shot to me was "Do keep in touch - I'd love to hear what you do next".
  3. The other night I dreamt I was in a building - identical in appearance to my high school - looking for the library. There was some kind of science conference going on in Room 112 or 113, because everywhere I went I saw signs about it. Just as I came up the main staircase I saw ahead of me some of the conference participants milling around having coffee in the lobby outside the staff room. One of them was my last boss but one (she who'd got me fired from the Met Office), so I quickly turned tail and tried to find another way into the library from the other end of the building.
  4. Alan Rawsthorne (1905-71), String Quartet no. 2
  5. What happened to Zeroes Two to Six? I'm currently listening to Respighi's Le fontane di Roma.
  6. Anatol Lyadov (1855-1914), The Enchanted Lake
  7. Office Space is an underrated cult classic!! Mmkay, did you get that memo about the TPS reports?
  8. I once attended a fascinating lecture on 'The science of soap bubbles' at the University of Kent at Canterbury, given by their then physics lecturer Dr Cyril Isenberg. A name worth looking out for on the popular science lecture circuit!
  9. Salads based on grains (burghul, couscous, quinoa or barley) or pulses are good because you can make them the day before and they don't taste the worse for a night in the fridge. If you have access to a microwave at work, you can cook a jacket potato in under 10 minutes. Great way of using up a small amount of leftover curry, casserole etc.
  10. André Campra, Petits motets, performed by Le Concert Baroque (dir. Dominique Serve) feat. Noémi Rime (soprano) and François Bazola (baritone)
  11. Does that Pink Floyd song include the voice of Stephen Hawking?
  12. Sounds like Althea - who remembers her helpful guides to the diseases and pitfalls of childhood? Link
  13. In what way is a "user guide to adolescence" relevant to adults?
  14. Someone who purported to know the right people at Jessica Kingsley publishers suggested to me that I should write my autobiography. I wasn't too keen - seems like a surefire way to alienate everyone I've ever known.
  15. Make sure she gets work experience during her vacations - don't assume she can walk straight into a decent job afterwards solely on the strength of her degree result.
  16. I'm not sure if I understand what romance is. So many of the things that are said to be romantic strike me as silly, insincere or selfish.
  17. So unlike my 21st. That fell during a leave of absence from uni following my dropping out of a disastrous Erasmus exchange.
  18. In fact it's French, being the feminine form of the adjective for wind energy (energie aeolienne, parc aeolien), which in turn comes from the name of the Greek god of the winds Aeolus! Not nearly as vowel-rich as some other languages. Apparently Finnish has a word jäääärn which is the record for the longest string of vowels in the Roman script, or something like that.
  19. What's queal? What if you don't have any like-minded people to be with, let alone friends?
  20. It's also by Walt Whitman, although in a very different style to the former.
  21. What's so hilarious? I prefer 'When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd' myself but it's too long to quote here. Praise for the fathomless universe...
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