Where Does The Time Go?

I've had a busy few days! I wish I could say that it had wholly been in the service of achieving more of my 101 goals, but alas, life steps in. Not that that's a bad thing in itself, as some of these things have been good too (and things in life can be good even though they are not part of 101/1001 of course).

Anyway...

I've read another book, Wuthering Heights, which was... different. It wasn't the great romance that I had understood it to be, although it was a romance; I enjoyed it, but not as much as Jane Eyre.

I started my replay of Resident Evil 4; it's a game I really love, and I'm glad that 101/1001 gives me a reason to replay it through to completion. The style of storytelling in the game reminds me of 24 - with constant twists and turns - though the story itself probably could not be further from 24... Mind, with the ever escalating "world in peril" storylines of 24, is it too much to think that Jack Bauer will end up protecting LA from parasite-infected crazies or zombies? Resident Evil 4's heady mix of gunplay, puzzle solving, monsters and eerie atmosphere makes it a winner in my book!

I've still not finished a piece of flash fiction to my satisfaction, but I've been working on them; I have three pieces that are at various stages of completion, and a few more that I'm just thinking about at the moment. I'd read the definition of flash fiction before I settled on writing 101 pieces as one of my challenges, but it had completely slipped my mind just how few words one must tell a story in. I think that this is going to be quite a difficult challenge in some respects, but it's one that I'm looking forward to achieving and I think I'll have a lot of fun whilst I do it.

Last week while I was invigilating I was able to start work on some of the maths challenges; I won't go in to that right now, as it's a bit fiddly. It's not difficult (yes, I have in mind that I'm going to teach you all some maths before the 1001 days are out) but would require a bit of explanation that I won't go into at this point.

I was hoping that I might book myself a little holiday in Stratford-upon-Avon to see a production of Hamlet by the Royal Shakespeare Company at some point this summer, but it seems that every performance of the whole run is sold out! There's still plenty of time to go and see a Shakespeare play, but I really did want to see David Tennant as Hamlet...

In other news, I've finished invigilating exams now, which is good as it leaves me more time to prepare for my viva (yay...) and apply for jobs (yaaaay...). Am working on two applications to hand in for university teaching jobs, and these have to be in by Friday. Hoping to get them sorted out tomorrow, as then I can take the afternoon off on Thursday to go and see Indiana Jones and the Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull!

And some time this coming weekend, which is a long bank holiday weekend, I need to sit down and write a letter to a friend. I might do some postcards at the same time...

...and then let me tell you about the Spider...

Buses and Bingos

You wait for ages and then two or three come along at once...And this one scores higher than the one from last week too, so that suits me fine...

I'll have to write more in a few days on books and things. At the end of last week and over the weekend I re-read Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep? and on Saturday I started reading A Clockwork Orange, both good starts to challenges 69 and 68 respectively.

I also want to find time to respond to my friend Matt, who commented and asked me about challenges 58 and 59, related to finding plait presentations for 11-crossing knots. I imagine that the around 99% of people who read this will say, "What's a plait presentation?" Don't worry, it is nothing magical or incredibly difficult to get your head around, and I will say something about that soon I hope.

Less than a week in and I'm already making excuses as to why I'm not writing! It's a busy time, with family stuff, job applications I'm filling in and so on. I am still committed to seeing this through though; thanks to all who have commented so far, I hope I make it an interesting read as I get on with these things. By the end of the week I will have tweaked the template a little further, and will add a link at the side to the entry with the list in, and will edit that as and when I complete things, OK?

One change to the list though: I decided that 1001 haiku really was far too many, and so have scaled that back to 101.

Take care, more soon.