hello my friends,
I finished studying my degree at the end of Feb and I am still giddy with relief at never having to do that ever again.
You may be asking “what??? what degree?” as I have not seen most people I know for a long time, due to the studying but also due to my various mental illnesses and also working my day jobs eight days a bloody week, and also the having no money thing. I was studying a graduate diploma in library and information science, which means I can now work as a librarian. I do currently work customer service in a public library (which i love) and I am glad to have found myself on this career path. (It is also devastating to have a successful career already (writer) and to need to get another career to earn money. but there are worse things.)
Anyway. I am trying to just get a newsletter out so that the next one becomes less scary.
I am excited about Trans Book Festival (transbookfestival.org) and I will definitely be attending some of it!! I have not decided yet but it all looks very good. Keen for some workshops! It’s extremely soon - 17th to the 19th of April.
Here are some books I have read recently and enjoyed:
The Belly of a Wolf - Julianne Negri
Thunderhead by Sophie Beer
Dark as Last Night by Tony Birch
The Pyramid of Needs by Ernest Price
The Rot by Evelyn Araluen
I am trying not to shop at Coles or Woolies. I find the fact that when I go to Coles my movements are used to help train Palantir is abhorrent (Palantir is used by the US military), it’s truly evil.
I’m also trying to figure out how much money and personal data I can withhold from big companies, because of the evil. Here are my alternatives so far:
Microsoft Suite → Libre Office (completely free!) (I really only use Writer, but it has all the same functions as Word)
Google search → DuckDuckGo
Gmail → Proton Mail (hard to transfer an email I’ve been using for ten + years, but slowly slowly)
Microsoft OS → Linux (still figuring this out. i imagine I’ll be using both for a long time)
Internet browsing → I have always used Firefox but it’s worth a mention here
Music services → op shop CDs, radio and occasionally buying stuff on bandcamp
I don’t really watch a lot of stuff, if I do it’s mainly Irish-language media (tg4.ie) but free alternatives to Netflix etc: DVDs at the library, Kanopy (also thru libraries), ABC iView, SBS on Demand, Brollie.
Ok bye!
