Uncyclopedia, baby birds and long lost friends

I do like uncyclopedia. It's funny.

But that's not really what I wanted to talk about. On Monday I had one of those sequences of crazy coincidences, starting with a lost miner hatchling and ending with a long lost friend I haven't seen in over eight years.

Walking home from the bus stop on Monday afternoon, reading a book (I know, but I always stop while crossing a road, and the new Robert Jordan novel had just come out) and I came across a girl standing in the middle of the footpath. So I stop, and I realise she's looking at something beside the footpath. A little grey and brown ball of fluff, trying to fly but only managing to get an inch or so off the ground.

So I call WIRES, but it's after hours, so I have to wait an hour for them to get back to me. I don't want to move this bird, it seems to have family flying around, so I go home, get some stuff, come back. Bird has moved, family is still around, so I withdraw to a discreet distance to watch. I get dinner personally delivered (falafel roll, yum) while watching the bird, it get's dark, family disappears, and Clifford (who has now been christened by B2 - I'm B1, he's B2) is alone, making attemps at playing chicken on the nearby road, and generally getting himself into trouble. Still no news from WIRES, so we catch Clifford in an old tea towel, put him in a box and take him home. Where we finally get a call from WIRES.

We go through the details with how to look after Clifford till an expert on birds can get back to us, and at the end of the phone call, the operator says "Are you the Briony Doyle who used to..." etc etc, and as it turns out, yes I AM that Briony Doyle - there aren't many of us, though I know of at least one other in Australia (lives in Melbourne, runs tours of some kind, google it). And it's an old friend I haven't seen since not long after we finished high school. So there you go. It IS a small world after all.

So I found a friend, it turns out that Clifford will be just fine... we took him back to his family the next morning bright and early - note to others: little birds that are at the fluttering stage, have family around and don't look injured can probably be left alone. But I'm glad we got interested in Clifford, 'cause otherwise I never would have had my life's little coincidences moment.

Awww, I love a happy ending.

Uniforms

I avoided it for over 12 months, but I've finally been caught. I'm in uniform. I work for St John Ambulance Australia NSW as a first aid trainer, and they have a corporate uniform. I have no objections to the uniform, it's quite spiffy really, except that my favourite wind/rain/cold jacket doesn't go with it. At all. In fact, it's purple (jacaranda colour, love it) and the uniform is red. Firetruck red. Need I say more?

But someone finally noticed last week, and I've been issued with a uniform. So I guess I'll just have to start using an umbrella like everyone else does. Oh well.

I'm also a volunteer for St John, and the uniform for that is black-and-white. Of course, I can't wear my favourite jacket with that either, because although it makes me fairly easy to see on the football field, it does not make me recognisable as a St John Ambulance Officer. Rather the opposite in fact. But at least when I'm heading home from supporting an event, wearing my jacket over the top of my uniform just makes me look off-duty, rather than making me look like I have incredibly bad colour sense.

Oh well. I'll just have to cough up to get a proper uniform jacket which will hopefully match both the corporate and the volunteer uniform. Unfortunately I suspect that it will just clash horribly with both. Still, at least I'll look professional :).

Amusement value

I do like my Terry Pratchett. I've recently been trying to achieve something that any true Pratchett fan would tell you is meaningless - trying to read the Discworld books in order.

The thing about Pratchett is he doesn't have an order as such - different books often take place in different parts of the discworld, with different sets of characters. Only in the last 10 or so books (there's over 30) have any of these sets of characters met. Plus there's 3 children's books he's written, set on Discworld, that don't strictly fit in anywhere. And one adult picture-book (The last hero - very pretty pictures, I particularly liked the interpretation of Michelangelo's The creation of man, titled Hand of God). So my point is, the order isn't really linear. But I read them in order anyway - mostly by the order they were written in, except where I thought that order really needed to get mixed up.

Anyway, what I really wanted to talk about was how much I enjoy laughing while being challenged about important philosophical concepts. Which is pretty much the greatness of Terry Pratchett. You laugh your way through but still somehow manage to absorb some interest ideas about the nature of humanity. Brilliant.

So that's why I read so much Pratchett. Of course, I like Robert Jordan too, who is very rarely funny. So I turn to my high fantasy (in the form of RJ or sometimes the great JRR Tolkien) when I'm getting tired of laughing so much - and vice-versa. It works pretty well really, except when I get tired of both and turn to children's literature (Roald Dahl or J.K. Rowling) or sci-fi (so many authors, maybe I'll write a post on who I think are good sci-fi authors sometime).

The inspiration

The name for my blog came from a cartoon from PhD - that's Piled Higher and Deeper - comics, a brilliant resource for PhD students and their wives.

Specifically, this one. There's a series of about 5 cartoons that go with it. I'd recommend the entire series to any PhD students, or anyone who spends a lot of time around them.

Well, not really...

Maybe not an actual widow, as such...I've been married for just over a year now, and his PhD is currently due to be finished middle of next year. I'm actually beginning to think this time that deadline may actually be met.

Still, I get lots of time at home to myself, and what more could any wife want? I've been doing lots of reading (mainly Terry Pratchett and Robert Jordan) but I thought I might jump on the bandwagon and write a blog for something else to do.

I haven't written anything more creative than a technical report or conference paper for a long, long time (still, I suppose they can get quite creative sometimes), so don't expect anything too much from me as yet, but I'm hoping to work up steam. No idea how often I'll contribute to it yet, but we'll see.