If you catch me at the border, I got visas in my name

proofreading rates advice?

sybness — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 13:26:42 GMT

Hey all--I have been asked if I want to proofread four journal articles (7,000 - 8,000 words each). The job is straightforward: no fact-checking or formatting (beyond ensuring the text adheres to the Chicago style), just checking for writing errors (spelling, typos, etc.) The last time I did this kind of work on other people's stuff I was paid €600 for 4 long chapters from a PhD thesis; I'm thinking considerably less for this job, obviously.

Any thoughts or sites I can check regarding standard rates? Many thanks, in advance...

Happy belated birthdays to raisin and melograna!!!

sybness — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 10:36:11 GMT

Hope you both celebrated thoroughly!!

TGIF

sybness — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 19:49:02 GMT

I have decamped to my dad's place (he's away at a conference) to chill out away from life-with-a-teenager and to get some thesis writing/editing done. I have just submitted a decent abstract to a conference and lecturing is going well. I seem to be getting good feedback from my students and have even gotten them to ask questions during lectures. I am now settled with a glass of wine and an evening of uncensored TV to come. Life is good.

Happy weekend everyone!

please sir, can I have some more?

sybness — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 17:50:45 GMT

Apparently today is World Mental Health Day.

Does this mean we all get an extra dollop of mental heath? 'Cause I could do with some.

procrastination, continued

sybness — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 18:58:45 GMT

Type your cut contents here.

These are the top 106 books most often marked as "unread" by LibraryThing's users (as of today, 30 September 2007).

bold = read

* = more than once

italicise = started but couldn't finish

strike through = you couldn't stand

Underline = on your to-read list.

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Anna Karenina
Crime and Punishment
Catch-22
One Hundred Years of Solitude*
Wuthering Heights
The Silmarillion
Life of Pi : a novel
The Name of the Rose
Don Quixote
Moby Dick
Ulysses
Madame Bovary
The Odyssey
Pride and Prejudice*
Jane Eyre*
A Tale of Two Cities
The Brothers Karamazov
Guns, Germs, and Steel: the Fates of Human Societies
War and Peace
Vanity Fair
The Time Traveler's Wife
The Iliad
Emma*
The Blind Assassin
The Kite Runner
Mrs. Dalloway
Great Expectations
American Gods
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
Atlas Shrugged
Reading Lolita in Tehran : a memoir in books
Memoirs of a Geisha
Middlesex
Quicksilver
Wicked : the life and times of the wicked witch of the
West
The Canterbury Tales
The Historian : a novel
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Love in the Time of Cholera
Brave New World
~~The Fountainhead~~
Foucault's Pendulum
Middlemarch
Frankenstein*
The Count of Monte Cristo
Dracula
A Clockwork Orange
Anansi Boys
The Once and Future King
The Grapes of Wrath
The Poisonwood Bible : a novel*
1984
Angels & Demons
The Inferno
The Satanic Verses
Sense and Sensibility
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Mansfield Park
One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest
To the Lighthouse
Tess of the D'Urbervilles*
Oliver Twist
Gulliver's Travels
Les Misérables
The Corrections*
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time
Dune
The Prince
The Sound and the Fury
Angela's Ashes : a memoir
The God of Small Things
A People's History of the United States : 1492-present
Cryptonomicon
Neverwhere
A Confederacy of Dunces
A Short History of Nearly Everything
Dubliners*
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Beloved*
Slaughterhouse-five
The Scarlet Letter
Eats, Shoots & Leaves
The Mists of Avalon *
Oryx and Crake : a novel
Collapse : How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed
Cloud Atlas
The Confusion
Lolita
Persuasion*
Northanger Abbey
The Catcher in the Rye*
On the Road
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Freakonomics : a Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden
Side of Everything
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance : an Inquiry
into Values
The Aeneid
Watership Down
Gravity's Rainbow
The Hobbit
In Cold Blood : A True Account of a Multiple Murder and
Its Consequences
White Teeth
Treasure Island
David Copperfield
The Three Musketeers</div>
It is a truth universally denied that most people in Ireland haven't read Ulysses.

Moving sucks

sybness — Mon, 06 Aug 2007 15:59:04 GMT

'Nuff said. Who knew I had so many random sample size cosmetics?

delayed reaction

sybness — Fri, 25 May 2007 10:39:49 GMT

William Gibson has described jet lag as the delay between your body's arrival and the arrival of your soul--a time lapse presumably caused by the unnatural speed of air travel.

His definition never resonated with me before so I dismissed it. However, this week it rings true for me somehow. I have felt deeply spacy and not altogether 'here' since we got back.

Regressing

sybness — Wed, 23 May 2007 16:33:22 GMT

I'm not usually a fan of Sesame Street nostalgia, but something made me take this test. My results are nerdy in the extreme.

Your Score: Bert

You scored 77% Organization, 61% abstract, and 45% extroverted!

This test measured 3 variables.

First, this test measured how organized you are. Some muppets like Cookie Monster make big messes, while others like Bert are quite anal about things being clean.

Second, this test measured if you prefer a concrete or an abstract viewpoint. For the purposes of this test, concrete people are considered to gravitate more to mathematical and logical approaches, whereas abstract people are more the dreamers and artistic type.

Third, this test measured if you are more of an introvert or an extrovert. By definition, an introvert concentrates more on herself and an extrovert focuses more on others. In this test an introvert was somebody that either tends to spend more time alone or thinks more about herself.

You are very organized, both concrete and abstract, and both introverted and extroverted.

Here is why are you Bert.

You are both very organized. You almost always know where your belongings are and you prefer things neat. You may even enjoy cleaning and find it therapeutic. Bert is a big neat freak and gets quite annoyed when Ernie makes a big mess.

You both are sometimes concrete and sometimes abstract thinkers. Bert is probably a bit more concrete in his bottlecap collecting addiction and his love of the weather. He does show his abstract side when he sings and performs his "Doin' The Pidgeon" song. You have a good balance in your life. You know when to be logical at times, but you also aren't afraid to explore your dreams and desires... within limits of course.

You are both somewhat introverted. Bert is probably more introverted, because he spends most of his time either with Ernie or alone. Still he has no problem being around other people in his role as chairman of "The National Association of 'W' Lovers." Like Bert, you probably like to have some time to yourself, but you do appreciate spending time with your friends, and you aren't scared of social situations.

The other possible characters are

Oscar the Grouch

Big Bird

Snuffleupagus

Ernie

Elmo

Kermit the Frog

Grover

Cookie Monster

Guy Smiley

The Count

If you enjoyed this test, I would love the feedback! Also if you want to tell me your favorite Sesame Street character, I can total them up and post them here. Perhaps your choice will win!

Link: The Your SESAME STREET Persona Test written by greencowsgomoo on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the The Dating Persona Test

I'm so not a Republican... not even the Irish kind

sybness — Tue, 01 May 2007 13:15:38 GMT

I am:
-9%
Republican.

"You're a damn Commie! Where's Tailgunner Joe when we need him?"

Are You A Republican?

sybness — Mon, 23 Apr 2007 12:37:46 GMT

Can anyone recommend some seriously effective earplugs that I can use both on a plane and when I'm sleeping? Availability in the UK is kind of crucial. Thanks!

I'd say this is fairly accurate

sybness — Wed, 14 Mar 2007 18:01:06 GMT

I kind of guessed that saying no to 'Tobacco and alcohol should be expensive' ruled out scandinavia...

You scored as Italian.

</td>

Italian

63%

Spanish

50%

Russian

38%

French

38%

Polish

38%

Dutch

25%

Turkish

25%

British

25%

Danish

25%

Molvanian

25%

Irish

13%

Belgian

13%

Swiss

German

Which European nationality should you have
created with QuizFarm.

perspective

sybness — Thu, 17 Aug 2006 11:16:02 GMT

To my shame, I have been watching Love Island almost from the beginning. What initially drew me in was the 'Daily Decider' game in which each Z-lister had to identify a country on a world map. Despite living in LA, Lady V thought the US was actually in Canada. Playboy bunny Colleen thought South Africa was in Malaysia and someone else thought France was Spain. No-one had any idea where Fiji was, even though they had all been living there for a week. Did they not look up an atlas or something before jetting off to the south pacific? Did the (probable) transfer through Australia or NZ not tip them off?

Fast forward several weeks and I continue to watch, appalled yet fascinated. This is car crash TV and I can't look away. There are 9 of them now and they squabble over tiny, tiny slights and perceived insults, all the while smoking like chimneys and ignoring the STUNNING PARADISE that surrounds them. It's like a morality play on the end result of entitlement culture. They exchange meaningless platitudes as if chosen from a shelf at random, wantonly flinging around cliches hoping they'll stick. The only thing they all seem to share at this point is excessive horniness which is coincidentally the only thing they can genuinely express, albeit a little crassly.

It's not about feeling superior. It's *so* not about who actually 'wins'. It's about seeing what happens next even though I know it will be a masterclass in banality. Or maybe I'm hoping for a Lord of the Flies-style bloodbath one morning...

Questionable taste

sybness — Thu, 03 Aug 2006 19:10:48 GMT

Is it bad that I really like the theme tune from the new Miami Vice?

Colin Farrell's hair still looks manky though.

material musings

sybness — Fri, 21 Jul 2006 14:43:34 GMT

Aha, I see how this works. Instead of allowing random thoughts to pass in one ear and out the other, I can now stop and blurt them out into the ether for posterity. Or something.

Last night we had friends around and the conversation took a fairly familiar turn. Lately conversations with my friends turn to the ongoing 'should I have children' discussion (usually restricted to women-only soirees) or serious reflection on What Are We Doing With Our Lives. Last night it was the latter. It's a laugh riot round our place.

What inevitably emerges for me during these existential chats is how little I seem to value security, where security = financial security. I don't own a house and probably won't for years. The mister does but rents it out so it doesn't impact much on me. I certainly don't have savings, although I currently have very little debt. I have been able to make a living that allows me to travel and to buy decent food and the odd pair of shoes, but not to actually buy property anywhere outside of Hungary. After the Ph.D I will be in a position to earn more (albeit in a competitive environment) but I'll never be rich.

This doesn't seem to bother me. I don't seem to fear being destitute, possibly because I've always worked at *something*. However, as the somethings I worked at have generally been freelance pieces, academic gigs or research gigs they've never been especially well paid. Yet I am sanguine. I don't know why. Writing this will probably jinx me and I will end up in a bedsit with my boyfriend eating baked beans when I am sixty.

*Freshens resolve to write an excellent Ph.D thesis*

Is this thing on?

sybness — Thu, 20 Jul 2006 12:11:59 GMT

Hello disco citizens. I have resisted posting my own LJ entries since I joined, mostly because I have been convinced I had nothing of particular interest to say. I am currently in full time pursuit of a Ph.D so there's not much to report from that front that wouldn't bore everyone silly, research being such a solitary activity.

Additionally it has occurred to me lately that I'm about as happy with my life now as I've ever been. Not to say everything's perfect, but there's enough good stuff going on that I've been sunny and content for a while now. Add this to that fact that basically I read books all day and the result is a tension and drama-free LJ. Which is nice for me but possibly dull to read.

However, lately ideas for journal posts have randomly occurred to me, things I might write about once I get used to posting, suggesting that perhaps there's something to the space provided here beyond me nosing around other people's lives and LJs. So here I go with my inaugural post. I just hope this doesn't become a procrastination tool; I have enough of those already!