Lucubration
Lucubration loo'ku-bray'shun, n (Latin lucubrare, from lux light) study or composition lasting late into the night; a meditative composition.
One of my favourite words.
I only learned the definition of this word a few years ago, but I know exactly when I first encountered it: in 1985, when I got my first and last copy of the AD&D 1st edition Players' Handbook, and found the spell, "Mordenkainen's Lucubration". Retarded spell with a great name, really. I think for a long time I must have thought it was "Mordenkainen's Lubrication", or at least naughtily thought of it that way. Such great words came to me from the game, like 'dweomer', which isn't even a word, but through gaming, may someday become a real word, just like Pinocchio.
Can't find my 1e PHB & DMG. My list of things that I've loaned to people says Louis-Philippe has it. Oh well; guess I'm not getting those back from the dark pit of Albino Red. When the hell did I loan those to him anyway? Must ask him at con this weekend. Hope I wrote my name in them. Have another task for the weekend - harassing a certain someone. Must ask BB to make sure he be down wit dat. Oddly more interested in that task than actually going to con, though the fact that I'll have more time to play in games than ever before will make up for that. I'm only running one game this year, and it's one I'm pulling out of the vault (Keeper of the Winds), since I have neither the time nor the inclination to write a new one. I'm a semi-retired GM, remember? Sigh ... I wonder what will be offered at con, and how many people will come. It will suck that Julia won't be there for most of it, since she has to work. Our paths almost never cross at con anyway, except at the Saturday night LARPs. Too busy, really. This will be the first year that Julia and I have absolutely nothing to do with con administration. Strange how something that we were so involved in for so many years just disappeared from the list of priorities. Meh.
Right now, I should be finishing up the paper that I absolutely promised Bruce I'd hand to him tomorrow. I have one paragraph left to write (plus editing, which isn't crucial since he's going to read it over anyway, and is almost as anal as I am). But I'm not. I'm lucubrating. For now. I will finish it when I'm done, and then I will finish the dissertation. Well, not tonight, obviously. The damn thing keeps growing and growing. It's well over 200,000 words now, which is insane, but nobody is even close to complaining or stopping me. I think back to my projections regarding its scope, when I was naive and didn't know enough about my subject to realize how immense it was. But they approved it, and now I have to keep going until it's done. What I can't believe is that there are plenty of people who came in to the program at the same time as me but who still aren't done, and their theses will be half the length of mine or less. Plus, I'm an incredible slacker and spent several years being paid (on fellowship) to run games, in effect. What gives?
All right. Enough of this. Back to work.
One of my favourite words.
I only learned the definition of this word a few years ago, but I know exactly when I first encountered it: in 1985, when I got my first and last copy of the AD&D 1st edition Players' Handbook, and found the spell, "Mordenkainen's Lucubration". Retarded spell with a great name, really. I think for a long time I must have thought it was "Mordenkainen's Lubrication", or at least naughtily thought of it that way. Such great words came to me from the game, like 'dweomer', which isn't even a word, but through gaming, may someday become a real word, just like Pinocchio.
Can't find my 1e PHB & DMG. My list of things that I've loaned to people says Louis-Philippe has it. Oh well; guess I'm not getting those back from the dark pit of Albino Red. When the hell did I loan those to him anyway? Must ask him at con this weekend. Hope I wrote my name in them. Have another task for the weekend - harassing a certain someone. Must ask BB to make sure he be down wit dat. Oddly more interested in that task than actually going to con, though the fact that I'll have more time to play in games than ever before will make up for that. I'm only running one game this year, and it's one I'm pulling out of the vault (Keeper of the Winds), since I have neither the time nor the inclination to write a new one. I'm a semi-retired GM, remember? Sigh ... I wonder what will be offered at con, and how many people will come. It will suck that Julia won't be there for most of it, since she has to work. Our paths almost never cross at con anyway, except at the Saturday night LARPs. Too busy, really. This will be the first year that Julia and I have absolutely nothing to do with con administration. Strange how something that we were so involved in for so many years just disappeared from the list of priorities. Meh.
Right now, I should be finishing up the paper that I absolutely promised Bruce I'd hand to him tomorrow. I have one paragraph left to write (plus editing, which isn't crucial since he's going to read it over anyway, and is almost as anal as I am). But I'm not. I'm lucubrating. For now. I will finish it when I'm done, and then I will finish the dissertation. Well, not tonight, obviously. The damn thing keeps growing and growing. It's well over 200,000 words now, which is insane, but nobody is even close to complaining or stopping me. I think back to my projections regarding its scope, when I was naive and didn't know enough about my subject to realize how immense it was. But they approved it, and now I have to keep going until it's done. What I can't believe is that there are plenty of people who came in to the program at the same time as me but who still aren't done, and their theses will be half the length of mine or less. Plus, I'm an incredible slacker and spent several years being paid (on fellowship) to run games, in effect. What gives?
All right. Enough of this. Back to work.