carnigordevoggled to death

[freckles_and_doubt]

OMG it's February. On the upside, this means that the horrors of January are over; the worst of orientation was actually Wednesday. Orientation is like a giant, juggernaut mechanism that is at its most stressful in the preparation stages. You have to check it very carefully as you assemble it, because from the moment you press "Go" and it lurches into inexorable action, it's bloody impossible to either turn or stop. We count ourselves lucky if only a few bits fall off and no-one gets crushed.

If anyone gets crushed, it's usually me. When not being a giant inexorable juggernaut, the orientation/registration period is a volcano god, into whose smoking crater I am routinely and sacrificially flung on an annual basis. I have, however, changed my religion: this will be my last orientation. I have lined up in my corner a happy conglomeration of Deputy Deans and Faculty Managers and what have you, who are unanimous in their support of my waving flag which says "THIS DOESN'T WORK!" in giant, flaming capitals. Next year I will hopefully only be running registration advice, which is quite demanding enough on its own, thank you, and giving the odd orientation talk, which means that I can actually do the reg advice thing properly. The most stressful aspect of the whole juggernaut beast is that I'm an ineradicable control freak, and not being able to perfect the mechanism makes me mad. In both senses.

The whim has come upon me to instigate a monthly blog feature, namely a quick round-up of the sources for my subject lines. This has been inspired by pumeza's confession that she never recognises any of them, which is sad, because their context and source is often worked quite carefully into the theme of the post. (Involuted subject lines are a personal vice. You'll just have to deal.) Also, I'm an academic, and should attribute sources. January's subject lines are easy, because, after starting strongly with Firefly (still haven't forgiven Joss for Wash) and the ubiquitous David Bowie ("It's no game"), I segued off into unrelieved Goats, with one lateral foray into Buffy on the post I friends-locked in the interests of slightly sensitive orientation subjects, and another into Roger Whittaker for no adequately defined reason. Hmmm. Repetitive Joss there. Warning: I don't think I yet have Goats out of my system.

Comments

[vesta-aurelia.livejournal.com]

Bujold needs to appear in some subject lines.
Just for the obliqueness of the referents.

[extemporanea.livejournal.com]

I think she may have, actually. If not in the subject lines, certainly in a post. Probably the line about spaceships and combat drop misssions being expensive, and flowers not :>. Also, I love your icon while also being faintly re-heartbroken about it.