Bookses!

We (at work) got notification today that the book that our paper will be in will be out soon.

It's one of those catchy, easy to remember titles...

The Geospatial Web: How Geo-Browsers, Social Software and the Web 2,0 are Shaping the Network Society

The book has an accompanying home page here . My contribution is the paper / chapter titled "Fire alerts for the Geospatial Web".

Moved

We are all moved out of our old house, and gradually settling into our new house. My daughter has been quite unsettled - understandably, as we have just upped and shifted her away from the only home she probably consciously remembers. I have got the water switched on, but Eskom can't find the property on their computer system. Also, two of our electricity meters have identical serial numbers - deeply dodgy.

I think it's completely unfair that I am at work in the week leading up to Christmas. I have a kid. I reckon primary care givers should have compulsory leave during school holidays. I shouldn't be sneaking in blog time at the office! I should be taking Zeb to see "Faver Kismas" at the increasingly bun-fight emulating shopping centers. I should be making decorations with her and decorating the cake - and swimming, and playing, and running naked through the sprinklers.

It's just not Christmas if the Mommy is at work. It's just wrong. It would have been wrong when I was little, and it feels wrong now. I don't think I'm cut out for this working-away-from-home stuff.

I think I may try to get work as a nursery school teacher. No real extra-murals to deal with, and school holidays off. Plus - the added bonus that one gets to work with kids, who, in general, don't irritate me, as opposed to office colleagues, who, in general, do!

Going for it

Today in our strategy session at work, about how to work as a team from shared values, the facilitator stressed how one has to commit to one's goals - how only by committing to them can one set in motion all sorts of synchronous events and energies that can help you achieve your goals.

He had a very cool quote about it, too, but I can't remember who from. Anyway, I've decided to actively pursue a new job. I really don't handle the commuting at all well. And while the strategy and planning sessions are encouraging, I don't hold out a hell of a lot of faith in our research group leader actually being able to usefully implement any of our grand ideas.

So, today I've emailed my updated CV to the Midrand branch of my old Cape Town employer, and I'm taking a copy to my doctor tomorrow. His son-in-law runs some high-tech company in Jo'burg, and my doctor (who is a really really nice man) has told him to look at my CV. Hey, who knows...?

I've also decided to do something about the dreaded "orange-peel thigh"syndrome. Recently, while watching a home video of myself swimming with my kid, I noticed that the thighs left a bit to be desired. So ....... ta-dah!..... I've bought a swimming skirt! It's fantastic - a virulent pink nylon skirt that is so hideously garish to behold that no-one will want to look at it for long enough to notice that I even have thighs under there - let alone what shape they are.

Roll on chocolate brownies.....