A schedule for the week

Monday:

Child: School day.

Adult: Hell, no.

Freelancers' version: Hell no, I don't have enough work scheduled for this week, I will surely starve under a bridge... oh, hello email.  (On repeat all day.)



Tuesday:

Child: School day.

Adult: The day when things go right, just to lull you into a false sense of security.

Freelancers' version: I-still-don't-have-enough-work < deep breath > scheduled-for-this-week < deep breath > I-will-surely-starve-under-a-bridge... oh, hello email. (On repeat all day.)



Wednesday:

Child: School day.

Adult: Hump day, halfway to the weekend. Don't make eye contact with others and you might just survive this week.

Freelancers' version: The day when most people contact you with jobs and projects, all with the same date and time and deadline, so that you can watch all the money that you will not earn, thanks to not being able to split in two, disappear into distance.



Thursday:

Child: School day.

Adult: The day of sod's law - when things go wrong because you only have today and tomorrow to fix everything. 

Freelancers version: The day when you decide to finish at 4 pm and give yourself a screen free afternoon, only to discover at 8 pm that you have received fifteen urgent emails between 4 and 5pm.



Friday:

Child: School day.

Adult: Hell, yeah. Weekend starts now. Let the drinking and related shenanigans begin!

Freelancers version: ...if I manage to get this project done by 6pm i can still go out... what, how is it 6pm already? I'm still going out, i can work on Sunday.



Saturday:

Child: Not a school day.

Adult: The day of waking up late, looking around at all the cleaning/ hoovering/ washing/ etc. that needs doing and quickly making plans to get out of the house. It's very easy to find accomplices on Saturday.

Freelancers version: Putting phone on silent first thing in the morning, only to check it every fifteen minutes all weekend anyway.



Sunday:

Child: Not a school day.

Adult: The day of waking up even later, actually doing housework and spending the last few hours of the day in a huff for not really having had time for yourself this weekend.

Freelancers version: Emergency call outs that you can't refuse, as they are paid at double your standard rate, or more. Projects you consciously abandoned on Friday, finished at 11pm on Sunday night. Slump into sleep.



(Note: The adult here is obviously childless.)

The wanderers' manifesto

We might not have a goal, but we still have a purpose.

We might wake up with anxious minds as to what the day will bring, but we fall asleep in peace.

We might not settle down, but we will experience more.

We might not have a place to call home, but it brings its own comfort, as nowhere is too scary to live in.

We make most folk uncomfortable, but weird ones seek us out.

We try on many faces, have friends who never met, travel to new places just to look at different sunsets, laugh at change, cry alone.

Not all those who wander are lost. 

Some of us are simply - of the wanderers tribe.

Books of 2017

My subjective annual summary of the best reads of last year.

(Yeah, yeah it's slightly delayed this year, but, well, life gets in the way sometimes.)

SF / fantasy 

     Rod Duncan - Unseemly Science / The Custodian of Marvels (Fall of the Gas-Lit Empire, book 2 & 3)

       V. E. Schwab - A Darker Shade of Magic / A Gathering of Shadows / The Conjuring of Light (Shades of Magic, books 1, 2 &3)


     Charles Stross-  The Apocalypse Codex / The Nightmare Stacks(Laundry Files books 4 & 7)


     Jonathan L. Howard - Johannes Cabal, the Necromancer / Johannes Cabal, the Detective

     Neil Gaiman - Trigger Warning. Short Fictions and Disturbances. / The Ocean at the End of the Lane / Neverwhere

     Ian Tregillis - The Liberation (The Alchemy Wars book 3)

     Chris Wooding - The Iron Jackal

     Alastair Reynolds - Revenger

     Mark Lawrence - Emperor of Thorns

     Johanna Sinisalo, Toni Jerrman - Giants at the End of the World

     Jeff VanderMeer - Finch

     Anne Corlett - The Space Between the Stars

     Naomi Novik - Uprooted

     Ilya Boyashov - The Way of Muri

Popular science

     Emma Townshend - Darwin's Dogs

     Claudia Hammond - Time Warped. Unlocking the Mysteries of Time Perception.

     Mary Roach - Packing for Mars - The Curious Science of Life in Space

     Chris Hadfield - An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth

Po polsku

     Agnieszka Pietrzyk - Śmierć kolekcjonera

    Joanna Jodełka - Kamyk

    Małgorzata i Michał Kuźminscy - Pionek / Kamień


Go read, fellow book worms, and share your opinions here.

Smart (arse) devices

Look at all the progress that happened in the last decade in widely available technology!


PC 2008:

What would you like to customise?

PC 2018:

What do you want? Stop touching this!! Are you sure that YOU are the admin? I don't believe you. I'm going to lock the most important files out of your organic sight, just in case. I don't want you to mess something up... Here, you can put a pretty photo as your desktop background. * sigh *


Health tracker 2008

...

Health tracker 2018

Last night you slept 5 hours and only an hour of this was deep sleep. You are not rested! Your stress levels are causing you to lose sleep. Stop being stressed!! Also, you only moved 3 000 steps, tut tut. Ha ha you can't take me off - you will lose your health insurance if you do...


Mobile phone 2008:

Hi!! Make a call or send a text. 

Mobile phone 2018:

You, again... Hey, don't touch the settings, I know better what settings you need for your apps, games, websites, camera... just leave it! And don't you dare switch off the background data usage... Fine. I'll just switch it back on when you're not looking. * siiigh *


Alarm clock 2008

[loud noise]

Alarm clock 2018

[loud noise, racing away on little wheels, dodging and hiding] [[and probably laughing... ]]




Toaster 2008

...

Toaster 2018 

This bread is not gluten free, are you crazy, are you trying to kill yourself?! I am not toasting this...

I'm not so sure that the technological progress is currently moving in the right direction...