2024 Session 2: TLQuest week 13

 I'm not sure how this happened, but this is the penultimate week of our summer TLQ session.  Out adventure might wrap up in the intersession week, but next week is time to check in on our summer goals.  After a couple of nice seasonally normal days the heat and humidity are ramping up again and my temper is shortening accordingly - not helped by another very depressing tranche of news about the Change Programme delivered on a Friday afternoon, and restricted to 45 minutes so we could all ASK questions, but only a few were dealt with - and several of THOSE were "that's complicated" or "that's down to Heads of School" (who are also in the at risk pool, so are themselves facing redundancy).  But that's my personal rant and this is where we try to keep things more general - as it's the second-last week of this session, let's talk about "back to school shopping" this week - can you suggest any work purchases which you enjoy making every summer for the new academic year, or something that turned out to be unexpectedly good at its job, or at just making  work life a little nicer?  I'm late to the game on this brand, but my sister introduced me to the Energel gel pen, and it plays SO nicely with my leuchturm1917 dot grid A5 notebooks - and comes with a lovely brown ink colour as well as the usual black and blue and that, so I have already bought a bag of refills for my pen and made sure I have a spare "work coloured leuchturm" on hand.  Oh, and a commercial sized box of the healthy snack/safe food fruit/nut bars which I always keep in my bag!

THIS WEEK'S GAMEPLAY

When none of you immediately say anything, the Ladies nod as one, and talk briefly to the Sprite who seems to be in charge, at least of talking to them.  They then say "let the words spoken be" in the common tongue, in their strange wood-sounds tones, and you can almost see those words drifting out into the air, spreading like bright pollen, not fading, just spreading thin and laying softly over the whole landscape.  The Sprite bows in midair, and the Ladies all turn and walk back into the trunks of the larger trees in a swirl of leaves of all colours from the soft yellow-green of early budding through high summer forest and crimson-gold fall to the dull brown of a wet winter.  With the ladies and the starling-coated cats gone, the woodland feels a little duller to your senses, a little more mundane.

The Sprite turns to you all and says "that was well, as these things go - we would lean on your patience a little more, your guides will be with you shortly.  But we strongly recommend you return to the camp outside the woods by nightfall, lest you get caught up in a wider story not your business."  It then calls orders to others of its kind in it's high tones, and they begin to move briskly, some to talk to and aid the small folk by the pond, some in pairs returning to patrol or watch duties.  You have a few minutes to talk, cautiously, aware of possible listeners, and for those who haven't yet met the Talking Cats to make their acquaintance; although they are a little distracted by grumpiness about the Lost Fish, they will accept some of the dried meat you have in your packs.  Scout and Cornelius probably talk about the technical aspects of what is basic dam fix will look like, whilst feeling slightly offended on behalf of their beloved black powder, which was nicely effective thank you.

After a few minutes you are all surprised to hear a polite throat clearing, and jump/turn around to see two short figures standing diffidently a few paces away, even though they somehow managed to sneak up on you.  One is a young looking gnome with a green cast to their hair and skin, wearing multiple layers of homespun robes and draperies, all topped with a rather incongruous white linen apron which a cheerful embroidered line of ducklings running along the bottom.  The other is a large, plump otter who is standing like a bipedal humanoid and wearing earrings and a necklace made of serrated fishy teeth, and starts the conversation by saying in a cheerful burble of rapid common tongue, clearly not coming naturally from an otter face, "hello, new friends! I won't bore you with the whole tarradiddle, but this form, whilst convenient in water and pleasingly athletic, is not my own, but a penance I am making the most of, there being little point in anything else once the Ladies have spoken.  Ramstein, that's my usename, at least, the usename of my true form, does get tired a little tired of fish dinners since Ramstein once knew the pleasures of bread and cheese and cake, but eh, one day penance will be paid, and then there will be a wholesale massacre of baked goods.  And this body thoroughly relishes the fishies.  Those of you who are going to work on raising the pond-lip, I'm here to assist, I do still have some abilities beyond swimmin' and filletin'."  He slaps his front paws together then bounces over to the tumbled rocks and starts to stick his whiskered nose curiously into gaps.  Left alone, the gnome whispers "umm, you seek Feyflax?  I can show you..."

Martha and Linnet will go with the gnome, Scout and Cornelius with Ramstein; Alice, what do you want to do?  Both your guides will turn out to be happy to talk - do you have any questions for them?

LAST WEEK'S GOALS:

DAISY

• Admin interviews and decisions
• Read and edit new thesis chapters
• Easy grant report
• Countless small but important admin things
• Real summer: 3-day trip

DAME ELEANOR HULL

- swim x3, weights x2, yoga x4
- finish Alms!
- finish syllabus for new class
- run some assignments for other class through one or more AI text generators to see whether I need to tinker with them
- Greek 1 unit
- defrack habitat as energy permits
- campus run (scanning, library, office sorting)
- take Mor to vet

HEU MIHI (carried over from last week due to BEACH)

1. Many, many tasks to get ready for the week at the beach (defrost freezer! set up cat sitting! clean the house! pack! shop! cook!)
2. Finish reading book and draft review
3. Draft prologue??
4. (Siiighhh) Help pack up retired colleague's office--it's not clear to me why this is my job, but there's no one else to do it, really, because the colleague (who retired about 3 years ago) has dementia and apparently our facilities people don't do this kind of work....
5. A couple of fun things with friends (lunch on Tuesday, a drink with my erstwhile Italian professor/colleague/hopefully new friend on Wednesday).

JANEB

1. self-care: 75%+ of regular chores list, additional intentional movement three days, practice rest as needed. electrical work, gardening tasks, reschedule hospital appointment again, get quote for cat fence
2. fun: play D&D, crochet or knit some, draw something, read something, do some paintgemming, find a corner to read the new Penric & Desdemona story (still no space for fun writing)
3. teaching and administration: do at least two blocks, check timetable, meet team for handover of final year project module, do homework and stupid training
4. research: spend an hour writing notes about what my project idea might look like for the grant application that opens in September, an hour on my "pre-grant documents chore list", and set up new version of Slowly Developing Paper. Two articles to referee.

JULIE –

1. Finish going through archival material.
2. Finish reading book.
3. Mark resit assignment for difficult student.
4. Chase even more difficult PhD student

5. Chase plumber for bathroom estimate.

6. Exercise

7. Eat healthily.

SUSAN

• Have fun on mini-break
• Start reading dissertation that may help with New Project
• Prepare to go to exhibit I’ve agreed to review. I’ve been but hav3 been sent a PDF of the catalog, so need to look at it.
• Send some things back home?

SUMMARY

TLQ: goals update and suggestions for back to school shopping list items for academics

TLQuest: are there things you want to ask your guides or to do whilst you're still in the woods?