From the category archives:

in Aotearoa

Narrow and Winding Channel[s]

20 March, 2010

in commentatrix, in Aotearoa, writing & research

Dissolved in memoryThe enrolment requirements for doctoral students have tightened all over the country since I was such a one.  My more-than-four years spent spelunking in various imaginative destinations productive and less so was made possible by generous funding, an indulgent supervisor and a postgraduate office that would not, in my experience, scrutinise what students were doing too closely unless their supervisor(s) abandoned their support.  (The vulnerabilities of students working within a system are not the subject of this post).  This left me free, in the time-honoured fashion of the humanities, to follow research hunches until such a time as I had an argument that hung together.  Not everyone I worked alongside was so fortunate; some did the former without achieving the latter.

[click to continue…]

{ 4 comments }

Since you asked

7 March, 2010

in commentatrix, in Aotearoa, we are family

Over at The Hand Mirror, Julie raises the question of what a citizen’s to do when encountering personal questions about one’s fertility, pregnancy, and family plans more generally, and the general social judginess and boundary-crossing such queries often evoke.

At five months pregnant, I am somewhat in the thick of such experiences myself; hence using my own webpages rather than posting a comment on-site to consider the matter.  My impression has been that conversations around fertility and natality fall into two broad general groups.

[click to continue…]

{ 8 comments }

A Short History of Stuff: DIY Edition

6 March, 2010

in at home, dogs, in Aotearoa, we are family

The hard work that produced this state of affairs on TwitpicDespite being New Zealand-born and having lived in this house for nearly eight years, I have done little in the way of renovation and redecoration.  There has been some moving of beds, some purchasing of couches, and some routine maintenance, but not a lot else.  I tend to caution, renovations-wise, I think, since in the back of my mind there’s always a worry that I’ll run out of money, time or taste.  I haven’t minded living in a house that’s in effect a period-piece, since most fixtures have stayed in reasonable order, save some harrying by the dogs.

[click to continue…]

{ 10 comments }

Anniversary Labours

17 February, 2010

in O internet, at home, commentatrix, dogs, in Aotearoa, we are family

Adventures with Average Baby

This spring-and-summer pregnancy is already twice the length of its winter predecessor, and as different, thereby, as two things of the same kind can be.  Not least among these differences was the way in which we passed the first eleven weeks in a kind hopeful lockdown, wary to put too much pressure on the future to carry hope that might yet be redundant again.

The brain, the spine, the beating heart that was our gift before Christmas opened the door to a different kind of experience, territory as unknown as the very notion of being pregnant was the first time around.  The tremendous good fortune whereby my morning sickness (a most inadequate moniker) receded by New Year has given me back my old ability to think about anything other than how terrible I feel (and the accompanying certainty that nobody understands or cares sufficiently) and something of a hopeful forward-gaze.

[click to continue…]

{ 11 comments }

Like the Spanish City, to me

14 February, 2010

in dogs, in Aotearoa, the social round, traveller's fragments, we are family

A word to the wise, said a colleague of mine a fortnight or so ago, the mother of two very lively young boys.  Take as many weekend breaks as you can before the baby’s born, because after that comes a period in which you are more or less housebound.  By this collegial advice was the decision that the señor and I should spend Waitangi weekend in North Otago further strengthened.  As the pregnancy fog, which I understand is said by most researched accounts not to exist, continues to envelope my mind, it felt also like an opportunity to do something involving fine-motor skills — such as driving — before my previous accomplishments of coordination and logical sequences of thought desert me completely.

[click to continue…]

{ 5 comments }

Birthday Honours

3 February, 2010

in O internet, in Aotearoa, the social round

By curious coincidence, Miss Megan Wegan and I share not only the same name but also the same birthday, which a quick perusal of the archives here will reveal is soon.  Readers of the other Megan will be aware that she has not been having the best time of late, but also that her zest for life incorporates a keen sense of fashion.

As one who has previously been dressed by proxy at Megan’s blog, I thought it timely that I attempt to return the favour.  

[click to continue…]

{ 2 comments }

My own land; she makes things

19 January, 2010

in O internet, at home, commentatrix, in Aotearoa, we are family

As someone who does neither gardening nor baking, it surprises me the extent to which I enjoy reading online about the gardening and baking of others, particularly since in the past I would have berated myself for my lack of competence and enthusiasm, respectively, in both areas.  (I put this down to something like the general settling of life that has come out of being married, with our mown-lawn harmony and store-bought treats.)

[click to continue…]

{ 5 comments }

Come play our game, we’ll test you

6 January, 2010

in at home, dogs, in Aotearoa

Feena, Eddie and Fern 11 March 2007As it was three years ago, so this has been a summer for mating Norwich Terriers.  This is never without drama, and the heat doesn’t help anyone.  There is a week or so to go before expert hands will palpate the abdomens of Evie and Fern to see if anything lies within.  I have given up any pretense of soothsaying via participant observation and will have to wait and see.

High summer is also the time when Norwich Terrier upper airways get irritated, for a whole raft of reasons.  There is some interesting science going on in this regard, of which you can read a layperson’s summary here (an article with both pathos and data by my breeder friend Magda).

[click to continue…]

{ 1 comment }

Memento Memori

31 December, 2009

in commentatrix, dogs, in Aotearoa, the social round, we are family

The (contestable) fact of a decade passing has been slow to come to my attention, and it was only really the appearance of the obligatory lists (particularly by writers whom I admire) that alerted me.  I have nothing in particular to rank — and what would you gain, gentle reader, if I told you that 2007 was better than 2002, for example? — but have been trying mentally to compile some chronologies that might sum up my experiences of the last ten years.

Normally I ignore the contention, both reasonable and logical, that a better measure of a decade is one that begins with 1 and continues through to (1)0, but on this occasion, this would be a more meaningful division for me.  I handed in my PhD in mid-2001, a fortnight or so after I started working in tertiary preparatory programmes, and defended it in either November or December of that year (I forget which).  This was the end of a period of continuous study that had various markers of “beginning” in the compulsory and non-compulsory sectors.  Since the ‘01, therefore, it’s been a different game I’ve been playing.

[click to continue…]

{ 4 comments }

Why My Voice Sounds All Chunky

22 November, 2009

in in Aotearoa

With a little help from Achewood.

This week has been filled with unexpected drama.  Around a fortnight ago, I took some routine blood tests without inquiring whether fasting was required.  It was; I hadn’t; my post-breakfast glucose came back high.  A phone call from the GP’s nurse sent me into a spin, despite the knowledge that I hadn’t done the test properly.  The phone call struck me as the equivalent of this.

Wednesday morning I spent doing the dreaded Glucose Tolerance Test, where fasting bloods are taken, then one drinks a bottle of soft drink containing 75 milligrams of glucose (an eight-year-old’s dream breakfast, as I said to the phlebotomist) then two more bloods are taken at hourly intervals.  Mopey and lethargic, my concentration was shot, and I was dismayed to peruse the freakish-illnesses sections of several major women’s magazines while I waited.  With twenty-twenty-twenty-four hours to go to wait for the test results, I walked about with my own sword of Damocles.

You can imagine the rest — and my office-mates and union colleagues correctly predicted the results — when the data came back the next day.  I don’t have diabetes; I don’t have insulin resistance.  I am fine glucose-wise.  But damn if I won’t be checking exactly what I have to do for any future blood-tests, routine or not.  Life is perilous enough as it is without having to rehearse a long decline unnecessarily.

{ 2 comments }

← Previous Entries