Annnnnd..... Merry Christmas everyone!

Read this and it was like reliving my academic career all over again.

There are days when I wonder about my life. Then there are the days when I wonder about the Internet.

Inspired by sqbr and mandragora's recent trip down memory lane, I've been doing some research on the Internet as to one of my fellow alumni. If you've haven't been following their livejournals, they just went to their ten year high school reunion (their respective takes on it are here and here). I was curious as to what the Dux of their year, winner of many (many!) awards for scholarship, had been up to in this last decade. sqbr pointed out to me that I could simply google her and, as far as I can tell, the first few pages are mostly links to her papers which cover a multi-disciplinary breadth that I wouldn't have suspected. I might even have found her husband (if she got married last year).

Heartened by the success of my search I then went on to google, in order, the equivalent student in my year, sqbr, mandragora, enforced equanimity and myself. Judging from the results, I have to conclude that it's actually remarkably easy to conceal your identity on the Internet unless you insist on being academically outstanding. They won't let you publish your papers under assumed names, you see.

sqbr topped the list at several pages of scary math links, followed by my fellow alumni and then EE (a few mentions for awards he's won - no papers yet!). By contrast, mandragora appears only once in the minutes of a meeting and I am, apparently, camouflaged by an extremely active civil libertarian at Brown university who shares my name.

As far as I can tell, I don't appear on the Internet at all under my real name and that's just how I like it. Fear, surprise & anonymity, right? Oh, and nice red uniforms.

I opened my inbox today to find a review of a story I'd written over a year ago.

Somehow I'd never figured on it being read so long after I'd written it. It seemed almost like a form of time travel – the words being read were long past for me but fresh for the person reading it, miraculously preserved by the medium of the Internet. How strange and wonderful.

Every cloud has a silver lining. For every closed door there's an open window.

What they don't tell you is that outside the window there's usually someone waiting to give you a swift kick in the pants.

I was waiting at the bus stop when two men walked past holding hands.

They were so absorbed in their conversation I doubt they even saw me, but it made me happy nonetheless.

Is it just me or is Alan Shore incredibly seductive?

Maybe it's just me.

wandering.girl was absolutely right -- it is review season.

That makes it sound a little like shooting season, an association which I guess isn't totally inaccurate. Maybe duck hunting crossed with Christmas. It's the end of the financial year and all the little boys and girls get to find out if the big boss thinks you've been a naughty or nice. Only, instead of coal in your stocking, you get fired instead. As least you don't get fired upon. Unless, of course, you work with Dick Cheney, in which case all bets are off.

Had my review with my immediate supervisor and the head of department last Friday. It went reasonably well as they appear to be quite happy with my work. I have to say that, unlike wandering.girl, I don't have any problem accepting praise at all. *smirk*

I'd like to think that's because I am a sensible, healthy well-adjusted individual who is capable of viewing herself clearly. However, it's more than likely that it's because I have a sense of self-preservation and see no reason to bring up my faults in front of my boss. Don't get me wrong – I see as many things I've done wrong as I've done right, but if they don't see them, why should I say anything? Certainly I'll mention areas which I need to work on but can you fault me if they're areas in which I've already shown improvement? I freely admit to enlightened self-interest.

The upshot of it all is that I'm being recommended for a pay rise. However, as the last pay rise we got was oh, $20AUD every two weeks, I'm not holding my breath.

Actually, looking at my pay check it was because they stopped taking out quite as much for tax. Hmm. Does this mean I should turn them in for tax evasion?

Went shopping yesterday and had the Most Surreal Bathroom Experience EVER.

One word: Exeloo!

Last night I decided to browse my last few blog entries for errors while knitting and waiting for dinner but ended up reading almost all the way back to its inception. Reading all the entries I wrote when I was working for Cobra made me deeply uncomfortable, I suspect because I only blogged when I was either anxious or had something to celebrate and was thus hopeful.

In many ways I don't think my attitude towards the job itself has changed all that much, but I think my assessment of my own abilities and temperament is now quite different from when I started working there. I guess I can take comfort in the fact that I didn't quit because I realised it was a scam or that the job was bad, I simply ceased to enjoy it, except when I was emotionally manipulating somebody into buying something, a character trait I'm not particularly proud of. I honestly think that one of the major reasons I stopped doing sales is that I didn't like what it was doing to my personality. Here's hoping I never have to go back to doing it again.