Working Vacation
Jun. 23rd, 2006 01:27 pmI've been taking a few days off this week in order to try to restore myself from all the energy drained out of me by dealing with the students and end of year decisions and appeals. Unfortunately, it cannot be a true vacation as I am preparing to administer the Qualifying exams on M and T. However, I have been doing some relaxing things. I started it off by getting a massage at Massageworks (thanks to ![[profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
jenn_girl and puzzld1 for the recommend. Not surprisingly, I had a whole lot of tension in my back and it was mostly beaten into submission. I was sore the next day, but it felt great! I made an apppointment to return next month and it definitely fits into my overall plan to be kinder to myself and to be on better terms with my body.
I've been watching trash TV and catching up on the yard work and some reading. I'm currently reading an SF series by Karen Traviss, the first of which is called City of Pearl. We discussed it in my SF bookclub and it got mixed responses that averaged to a B+. It's her first novel, and it suffers a bit from some common first novel problems like too many coincidences and too many ideas. But the characters were fresh, well drawn, and emotionally real. It's about a mission to a lost human religious colony that turns into all kinds of first contact with aliens and political intrigue. The main aliens turn out to be ecology preservationists and so the novel talks a lot about environment, vegetarianism, biotechnology, and religious philosophy. I liked it enough to buy the two sequels and am reading them now. The second novel seems to be a bit more streamlined and picks up where the other left off.
jenn_girl and puzzld1 for the recommend. Not surprisingly, I had a whole lot of tension in my back and it was mostly beaten into submission. I was sore the next day, but it felt great! I made an apppointment to return next month and it definitely fits into my overall plan to be kinder to myself and to be on better terms with my body. I've been watching trash TV and catching up on the yard work and some reading. I'm currently reading an SF series by Karen Traviss, the first of which is called City of Pearl. We discussed it in my SF bookclub and it got mixed responses that averaged to a B+. It's her first novel, and it suffers a bit from some common first novel problems like too many coincidences and too many ideas. But the characters were fresh, well drawn, and emotionally real. It's about a mission to a lost human religious colony that turns into all kinds of first contact with aliens and political intrigue. The main aliens turn out to be ecology preservationists and so the novel talks a lot about environment, vegetarianism, biotechnology, and religious philosophy. I liked it enough to buy the two sequels and am reading them now. The second novel seems to be a bit more streamlined and picks up where the other left off.
