The Western Lands
Oct. 3rd, 2017 12:29 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tcpipWilliam S. Burroughs once wrote a challenging book of this title, referring to the Egyptian book of the Dead, and it is something which has always felt close to my own opinion of Western Australia. In this particular visit it has come to be more visceral and literal than metaphorical. Unlike many other journeys I have made over here in recent years, I have not graced friends with dinners or drinks out, with the single exception of catching up with my old mentor Bruce T., in recognition of his birthday. Instead I have dealt entirely with the various family matters and tasks following the demise of ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
caseopaya's mother. There is of course, a lifetime's worth of personal chattels to deal with in the Medina house and as many will testify I'm pretty thorough and expeditious when it comes to cleaning and packing home belongings. Yet in these circumstances one is occassionally struck with a tinge of guilt as a ruthless assessment is made of whether an item is going to be disposed of, passed on to charity, or friends, or kept - that all of these embody the memories of the deceased.
Whilst most evenings have been spent with dinners with family and friends of the family, I have been no less harsh on my own timetable. Studiously attentive of work requirements as we're making a major upgrade to our management and login nodes, I've tracked my hours spent on these tasks and the PRACE supercomputer course with great attentiveness. The latter is generating some annoyance; it is far too high level, and the tests make too much use of unstructured Cloze tests - which is only as good as the unknown correct answers, and when they make mistakes between plurals and possessive clauses it is not exactly helpful. As a result of appropriate time pressures I have spent a lot less time on tasks like Papers & Paychecks and RPG Review, although both are at the final stages of completion. I put out an Isocracy newsletter today; the most important item, in my opinion, being the LabourStart campaign to free jailed union leaders in Egypt.
caseopaya's mother. There is of course, a lifetime's worth of personal chattels to deal with in the Medina house and as many will testify I'm pretty thorough and expeditious when it comes to cleaning and packing home belongings. Yet in these circumstances one is occassionally struck with a tinge of guilt as a ruthless assessment is made of whether an item is going to be disposed of, passed on to charity, or friends, or kept - that all of these embody the memories of the deceased.Whilst most evenings have been spent with dinners with family and friends of the family, I have been no less harsh on my own timetable. Studiously attentive of work requirements as we're making a major upgrade to our management and login nodes, I've tracked my hours spent on these tasks and the PRACE supercomputer course with great attentiveness. The latter is generating some annoyance; it is far too high level, and the tests make too much use of unstructured Cloze tests - which is only as good as the unknown correct answers, and when they make mistakes between plurals and possessive clauses it is not exactly helpful. As a result of appropriate time pressures I have spent a lot less time on tasks like Papers & Paychecks and RPG Review, although both are at the final stages of completion. I put out an Isocracy newsletter today; the most important item, in my opinion, being the LabourStart campaign to free jailed union leaders in Egypt.
