Time Perception, Blog, Losing Members, Beard Competition

I forgot to say that the reason I named this blog "Katima-Gryphon" is because of Katimavik's habit of stapling "Katima-" on to the beginning of everything. You've got your Katima-house, Katima-van, Katima-life, Katima-style etc. So I did it, too.

The time is passing really fast here. On my other blog, I spoke about time perception, and how it's memory-based. "Eventlessness has no posts to drape duration on. From nothing to nothing is no time at all" (John Steinbeck, East of Eden). You've also got sayings like "Time flies when you're having a good time", but memory is still based on events. Tedium may feel like a long time in the present, but looking back on it, it will still be only one event, and if there's nothing really to go over, in the future, it will feel like a short time.

But here, once you get into the swing of things, find out how to do all your chores and get into the swing of your work placement, you're not really experiencing new things anymore. On the other hand, there's always so much to do, you're never bored. Without standout points for memory, and without the singular event of tedium which prolongs the present, it feels like time is moving very fast.

I don't think I'll be getting my own official blog. I brought it up with my Project Leader, and she said that there's a lot of harsh rules and regulations, and difficulties in getting one set-up if you want to attach yourself to the official Katimavik website. She offered that we could start a group blog, separate from the website. I did bring that up during a KCC, but if I'm being honest, most of the reason was because I wanted the prestige of thinking myself a public figure, published on the Katimavik website. This could still be pretty cool, though. I'd be "spearheading" it, so it would be nice to feel I was contributing to the team, and it would be a good way of collecting pictures for harvest.

We're losing a member of our group, and it looks like we may be losing a second. I asked if this is usual and it turns out that yes, it is. 50% of Katimavik participants drop out before the end of the program. We may be getting replacements, but we may not. I'm not going to drop out!

On May 3rd, I'm entering a beard-growing competition. I'll try to make pics available. The reason it's at that date is because nobody wants to be growing a beard too near the beginning of a job-placement, or near enough to the end that we'd be starting with a partially-grown beard.