Search Results for: sleep – Page 7

There’s an interesting post over on Lifehacker about the cost of electricity in Australia and why it’s unlikely to fall any time soon. I’m linking to it because how electricity is priced tends to one of those mysterious things that people blame political parties for, without truly understanding how it works, and it’s useful to occasionally get people thinking about such things. Then again, my dream political party is the one who runs on a campaign of we’ll tax you so hard it fucking hurts, but we’ll spend it on public services and state-of-the-art infrastructure for the public good. I am destined to be disappointed every election, even if someone actually runs on such a platform. Also, I am reminded that I really should be checking in on The Conversation (where the original post was sourced) much more often than I am. For example, this article about the characteristics shared by “happy city” Instagram pics regardless of which city is being

It’s a bright, sunny Monday where I woke up early and got to work on writing projects first thing, getting a bunch of stuff done before I sit down to write this blog post. It’s cool enough that I notice when I walk around without socks on, but not so cold that I regret this decision within an hour of waking up. Over the weekend I realised that the last three weeks have been rough on my mental health. This shouldn’t be surprising – end-of-semester marking is one of those gigs is custom-built to trigger all my anxieties: high stakes, tight deadlines, and you only get one shot to put together feedback that will help, and you want it to be clear because there’s no chance to explain or expand on things the way you do when critiquing stories for friends. All of this comes together to create a very muddied vision of what “doing a good job” looks like,

The marking continues, moving into the final third, but things have now reached the Heart of Darkness stage. The cycle of the last week has been pretty consistent: I grade papers until my brain fries, then flake out in front of the TV watching bad movies until I fall asleep. There’s been no time for writing or research over the last week, and very few opportunities to leave the house. The system the university uses for submissions means I need to have an active internet connection in order to mark papers, and that means a lot of my usual change-of-scene haunts aren’t feasible. Net result: I’ve been getting a little stir crazy, and I’ve started ranting to my partner on a semi-regular basis (never a good sign). Fortunately, I was far enough ahead that I could afford to take today off and get out of the house. I headed for breakfast at the Low Road Cafe, went late-night shopping with my partner,

I woke late this morning, allowing myself a sleep in after binge watching teen movies with my partner overnight. It didn’t start that way. We’d kicked off with Gods of Egypt, Alex Proyas’ take on the sword-and-sandal epic fantasy, which felt an awful lot like someone’s Dungeons and Dragons game rendered on screen. The D&D player in me can usually take enjoyment from that even if the film isn’t good–God knows I have an affection for Peter Jackson’s Hobbit films for much the same reason–but things dragged as the film went on and effects budget took over from the narrative. I also think Proyas did himself a disservice with the casting. Not just in the whitewashing, but in actors like Brian Brown and Geoffrey Rush who felt out of place. Rush can do genre—I’m a fan of his turn in Pirates of the Caribbean—but he just feels off-kilter as Ra, and disappears beneath the effects. Brian Brown is so recognisably