Accents

Here's a little experiment for you:

1) find a Kiwi teenager who was born here and has lived here all their life.

2) ask them to read out "the first worker shirked in the third term"

3) drop your jaw as you hear them pronounce all the internal Rs in those words as if they were from Gore.

What's happening to our accent? I don't know all that many teenagers, so I first noticed it on the bus and I thought it might be restricted to the kids attending the local grammar schools (Auckland and Epsom Girls') but I spent some time with my friends' kids over the holidays, and they're doing it too!

Other than the rolled R their accents sound just like ours (yours and mine, I mean - regular thirtysomething Kiwis).

There doesn't seem to be anything about it in the blogosphere. Has anyone else noticed this?

Cabin Fever Day Four - I'm free! plus celebratory cake

Free, free at last! The ADHB called late this afternoon to tell me they'd finally got around to testing my throat swab, and gosh, I don't have swine flu.

And they cleared up the 72-hour thing too: once the test result is negative, the five-day quarantine turns into a three-day quarantine. The purpose of still having a three day quarantine after the first Tamiflu is to cater for the 0.001% of actual swine flu cases which return a negative test result. Quite frankly I wasn't listening too hard to the explanation by that point.

I'm free! My 72 hours ended today and I rushed out of the house... to the supermarket.

You see, earlier in the week my friend Karl had sent me a Five Minute Chocolate Cake In a Mug recipe which I've been dying to try. But it needed an egg, and I didn't have any. This evening I got an egg. I tried the recipe. Here's a photo. Note the Elvis Presley mug; I felt it was appropriate to the occasion.

Now before I tuck in, I should fill you in: I did Google the recipe before trying it, because it looked a bit odd to me (as a baker) - no baking powder, no baking soda, so what's making it rise? and seriously, a whole egg for a cake that small? Google first pointed me to a forum overflowing with complaints from people who'd tried it... but then pointed me to Not Quite Nigella, who has a very pretty website and who had modified the recipe a bit, making it look more likely to work. I used her recipe.

And now, live on the internet, I taste the cake ...

nom nom nom ...

... and find it quite okay! Not awesome, and it would definitely be improved by adding the prescribed chocolate chips, and possibly some cream and raspberries, but a perfectly acceptable little cakey treat.

The only problem is that Not-Nigella's modified recipe actually makes two little cakey treats. Oh, this could be dangerous.

That concludes my Cabin Fever series. I'll be back at the office tomorrow. Thank you for your attention.

Symptoms present: hacking cough, still.
Symptoms missing: swine flu!
Boredom level: not at all.
Days to go: none!

Cabin Fever, Day 2 (Tuesday)

I had been thinking about sneaking out to the shops in the early morning, to get some milk. But I'm glad I didn't - even though I am sure I don't have the flu, I don't fancy being arrested and fined. Besides, it was raining.

I was really busy today. I believe it's called displacement activity. All those little household chores.... I planted out some new herbs, which have been languishing in their little plastic pottles since I bought them over a week ago:


I defrosted the freezer, for the first time in years (I'm not a domestic goddess). It took ages:I studied for my exams:


And I did some paid work, although not as much as I should have. My workstation at home is not very ergonomic:


I miss proper coffee.

My friends are finding this quite entertaining. The lovely Catherine sent me some delicious pea and ham soup with bread and MILK, YAY!, and the New Bloke's workmates ginned up a very authentic-looking health warning containing our names (he's fine).

Symptoms present: cough, rusty voice
Symptoms not present: sniffles, aches, headache, fever, curly tail.
Boredom: actually lower than yesterday - I'm more alert and have lots to do
Days to go: two and a half

Cabin Fever, Day 1

As at 8 June, 56 people in the Auckland region are isolated with flu-like symptoms, awaiting the results of tests to confirm whether they've got it or not. One of them is me.

I'm pretty sure I haven't got it. In fact I don't think I've got flu at all; I think it's just a bad cold. But I've just come back from a fabulous Melbourne holiday with the New Bloke, and the doctor couldn't rule out swine flu, so here I am, stuck at home for the next five days, taking Tamiflu and waiting for my test results. (I'm not completely quarantined, just can't go to work or spend lots of time around people.)

Visual representation of my first day:


Finished the top book, read the middle one start to finish (but... it's a children's book, and a re-read), started the bottom book, and did the small amount of work on the scribbled pages. Pathetic.

In my defence, I am actually sick. I spent about half the day asleep, trying to escape the headache and cough, and my brain's pretty much non-operational. I've nearly lost my voice, but it's amazing how this isn't an issue when you're stuck at home alone.

After the bird flu scare, I'd made half-assed plans for what I'd do if I had to stay at home for a while. So I've got a whole lot of canned food and so on in a box, and that's about it. This will be a good test of my readiness for a real emergency.

If I feel better tomorrow I'm going to get better organised about this. How often do you get a chance to test your disaster plan AND get all those odd jobs done around the house?

Symptoms present: cough, sore throat, blocked nose, headache, tired, stupid.
Symptoms missing: fever, aches, oinking.
Boredom level: moderate. Too sick to be bored, really.
Days to go: four.

First signs of spring

The daffodils think Spring is near. They've started pushing up through the soil.

I like daffodils, they're so optimistic.

It's strange, so it must be art?

In the square below my apartment there's a closed, locked, shipping container. There's a fireworks display going off inside it. No, really. I am not making this up.

There is a small crowd of people watching it, in the square and on balconies in the building. What we can see is: smoke leaking from the edges of the container. A very few flashes of light and coloured sparks squeezing out below the doors. What we can hear is: bangs of various sizes and tenors.

It's finished now. Applause. We drift away. It's cold tonight.

Apparently this is art. I think I am a fogey. It doesn't make me think or feel anything in particular... and it's not beautiful. So is it art, just because an official artist made it?

Although, I guess, it did make me blog.

I went to the Sculpture on the Shore exhibition at the weekend with my mate Royden. I particularly liked this giant plane-crash. Royden particularly liked that it's a Zero, as all small Kiwi boys fantasised about attacking with their Spitfires and Mustangs. Apart from possibly the worst-designed catalogue in the known universe, the event was very well managed and over-staffed with friendly volunteers.

The whole thing was in aid of Women's Refuge, a worthy charity if you have a few dollars spare. Wouldn't it be nice if such refuges weren't necessary.

More strawberry amazement

Two lovely tasty strawberries. Ate them today: the first fruit of my garden!

Check this out for quick growth, too... 7:30 am this morning:


7:30pm this evening, a mere 12 hours later:


Long may this blessed strawberry-ripening sunshine continue.

I suggested at work today that we start a garden on our balcony to grow lunch-food. Let's see if we actually do....

New growth

Two things please me greatly today.

Thing one is the whole Obama-wins thing which is pleasing everybody sane.

Thing two is much smaller and more green (at least in the literal sense) and is pleasing only me:

Strawberries on 30 Oct


Strawberries on 2 Nov


Strawberries on 5 Nov


So quick! Look at the one on the bottom left!

A post that is not about Carbon Dioxide

I was blog-surfing this evening and stumbled upon that eternal question: why aren't there more women in IT? Brenda in Wellington lists some possible reasons, and the Wellingtonista blog had a few things to say (with some really good comments).

Hmmm.

You know what? I'm glad there are more men than women in my industry, for some horribly self-interested reasons:

- I like men. I like working with men, I like hanging out with men, I'm totally okay with being the only woman in the room.

- Male-dominated professions have higher pay and higher status (massive generalisation here but if you don't agree, prove me wrong)

- In an industry without clear performance indicators, you have to be both good at your job and visible to get ahead. Just by being a woman I've got the "visible" part nailed and can concentrate my energy on being good at my job.

There are some downsides but only one significant one, as far as my experience goes: the subtle taint of affirmative action, the lingering thought that I mightn't have got that promotion, that payrise, that role, if I'd been a man.