Allanah

@allanah

An optimist on a good day. 💚 Science and impact comms, whanau, running, food, dance, books. She/her. Tangata tiriti. 🇳🇿 www.sharedscience.nz

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Allanah@allanah· 16d

Good morning Jack, how lovely to see you. Lincoln, -3°.

A blue sky, blurred by frost flowers on a skylight. Is the photo of the sky or the frost? The frost.

Allanah@allanah· 25d

Here, have a tent in the snow (note, this is not my tent in the snow, because I'm not an adventurous 16yo). Temple Basin, Aotearoa New Zealand last week.

A small tent nestled (a word which implies more comfort than the situation involves) into a depression dug into a snow bank. The sun is rising over the mountains silhoutted in the background, casting orange light over the foreground snow the sky fades from orange to a in promising blue.

Allanah@allanah· Jul 15

Sweetness overload warning. My excessively tidy partner has been uncharacteristically leaving his kiwifruit skin out each morning. I haven't commented; I'm trying to eat more fruit and it's a useful reminder. This morning I come down to this and only now realise he's been doing it on purpose.

A small chopping board with a kiwifruit skin, dirty teaspoon, some orange peel. And half a perfect orange.

Allanah@allanah· Jul 9

Also

Snip of RNZ news headline: One-in-100-year coastal floods now happening twice a year in Wellington -study"

Allanah@allanah· Jul 9

Some news. No traction. No action.

Snip of news headline from RNZ. 'A storm every eight days - country's biggest insurer calls for systematic response' by Kate Newton

Allanah@allanah· May 27

Penric!!!! All of them. At the beginning Penric is a kind young man whose life changes irrevocably on a roadside, and he spends the next 15 books (mostly novellas) with Desdemona (who is a dozen or so demon lives) helping people. With decency and magic. Like Murderbot, only not at all. 📚🧵

More castles, this one by a lake. Sigh. Really just don't judge the book by it's cover. Audiobook narrator is Grrrrover Garrrrdner, who is too old for the character but gets all the intonation right for me.

Allanah@allanah· May 27

Is anyone still with me?Division Bells by Iona Datt Sharma. Maybe a bit old for an 18yo? I just needed good people doing their best and also people in power doing something about climate change. A love story, novella so won't disturb the study too much. No one seems to have read this? Go read it! 📚🧵

There is so much going on here. 8 pictures. They are some macarons, a park bench, stacks of papers, I think some street scenes, a close up of a violin, a glass of red wine and a bunch of pink tulips

Allanah@allanah· May 27

We're down to three. The world needs more kindness. Justice. Good people winning. The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison is more SFF, about what happens when someone is thrust into a position no one, least of all themselves, thinks they're suitable for. And prevails with goodness and competence.📚🧵

It's another castle, this time as the crown atop the head of a point eared goblin who is facing forward, but eyes left. There is an airship in the background.

Allanah@allanah· May 27

A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine. I almost skipped this one, but I think she'll like the thinkiness and it's a good thought exercise re colonialism, being complicit, generational memory...📚🧵

Shades of black and pale gold. There is a throne room. The throne has a massive spiky sunburst. Think threatening, not friendly. At least I think that's what it is. I read it ages maybe I'm wrong. Not really a visual person.

Allanah@allanah· May 27

Holy mother of God what possessed me to start this thread. Right: some grittier thinkier things. Children of Time, Adrian Tchaikovsky. Epic. Intelligent. Humans are idiots. Spiders are terrifying. Come argue with me over the ending when you're done. 📚🧵

It's a sci fi cover. There is space. There is a space ship. There is a looming planet casting a terrifying white light. Is it a tractor beam? Who knows. You cannot see the giant fucking spiders at this scale.

Allanah@allanah· May 27

Are we there yet? Small Joys by Alvin James Mensah Another one on the 'kid in college theme' but this one on finding your path, parental relationships, kindness, and birdwatching. Very British. Audiobook narrator is great. 📚🧵

A drawing of five birds on telegraph wires, which are doubling as music notation lines. In the lower third are some clouds and treetops, but otherwise it's a bluesky with a perfect yellow sun. A really great cover.

Allanah@allanah· May 27

Samit Basu, Chosen Spirits. Near future dystopia. Intelligent, kinda disturbing. On my recce list but not my reread list. 📚🧵

An orange world on fire cover of hands holding screens in a crowd covering their faces, while two characters in muted blue are running fearfully through the aisle in the middle.

Allanah@allanah· May 27

Clockwork Boys, T. Kingfisher. No idea how to describe it. Alt, steampunk, adventure, quest, unlikely teams, honestly I could have added any of T. Kingfisher but you have to start somewhere. 📚🧵

Cogs, wheels, are those flowers or blood? Silhouttes of four people, you can tell already they have attitude.

Allanah@allanah· May 27

Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell because it's lovely and real and appropriate for someone in their first year of uni. Twins go to college and learn to go their own ways, but each faces different challenges.📚🧵

Cartoon style, boy meets girl cover. Girl is looking at her laptop, boy is looking at her.

Allanah@allanah· May 27

On the YA theme, The Captive Prince CS Pacat. I found this when it was a serialised online release. Told only in one mc pov, it's brilliantly plotted over three books, and is basically a story of manipulation and gaslighting. Way more than it seems. 📚🧵

I went with the understated cover here. All white, exactly the title, right aligned in black and red, and a stylised lion underneath. Lovely.

Allanah@allanah· May 27

No 5. 1/3 of the way there. The excellent characters and adventures of The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater. Angst, dreaminess, ley lines, fate and Blue in the house of witches. A good time. Also YA because why not. 📚🧵

There a raven. On a white background. It's dramatic and fine.

Allanah@allanah· May 27

The Year We Fell Down by Sarina Bowen. Not my fave of hers, but the best for the recommendee I think. New adult college romance, defying all the candyfloss expectations that assumes. Don't underestimate the emotional punch of NA/YA books. 📚🧵

Basic cover. Drawing of sad looking, square jawed, broad shouldered dark haired young man. With a crutch.

Allanah@allanah· May 27

Speaking of strong daughters, Daughter of the Forest, Juliet Marrilier (bonus points for the AoNZ author?). I loved the myth as a child, the book as an adult, the gentle storytelling (and book 2 even more but I'm not telling her to start there because I'm not a heathen). 📚🧵

Well that's better. A dark haired figure looks over a lake with swans. Shades of melancholy blue and grey. Ancient Celtic borders.

Allanah@allanah· May 27

Daughter of the Empire, Janny Wurts and Raymond Feist. Because every 18yo needs to read about strong women. OS, is it even still in print? Yay for libraries and ebooks. 📚🧵.

Typical 90s fantasy cover with vague greenery and a forest glade. Heroine in the foreground is inappropriately blonde, did the artist even read the book? Why is there a castle? Ffs.

Allanah@allanah· May 27

Cotillion, Georgette Heyer Ridiculous, witty, fun, perfect exam week study break. 📚🧵

Book cover of Cotillion by Georgette Heyer. A drawing in strawberries and cream colours of three smiling young ladies wearing period appropriate hair and gowns

Allanah@allanah· May 27

Also, for a good yarn on what happens to the spoons/forks, this is both fun and a good example of researc being well reported. www.stuff.co.nz/business/913...

Allanah@allanah· May 27

Ahead of tomorrow's AoNZ budget announcements, and the inevitable 'what's in it for you' media coverage. From a conversation on game theory and not stealing the office teaspoons, After the Flood by @quicunquevult.bsky.social

Highlighted passage from a book says:
You take a spoon for yourself because you know there’s never any spoons. But then you only have to think for a second about everybody else, and you put it right back.”

Allanah@allanah· May 23

No you're not, you're playing five-a side (because they are talking football). And this really isn't important, except it's weird the things that throw you out of the story.

Allanah@allanah· May 17

I take that back. I need a lie down.

Allanah@allanah· May 17

But wait! Woman v super glue. Woman wins. 💪 That's my triumph for the day.

Allanah@allanah· May 17

I suspect I will regret trying any further to twist the lid off.

Allanah@allanah· May 6

Untitled document(29). And FINAL FINAL copy. Kids who will never understand the pain of overwriting a file with an 8 character file name. (Tell me how old you are without saying how old you are).

FB post saying
The one thing I love about grading essays that were uploaded to a dropbox rather than submitted by hand on paper? Reading the file names.

‘FINAL FINAL COPY' is always a crowd-pleaser but someone just elevated the game to a whole new level with 'Untitled Document (29)'.

Allanah@allanah· Apr 18

In today's edition of Tell Me What Kind of Books You Read, I didn't know this was also an art technique. You learn something new every day.

Screenshot of the stuff quiz
What term is given to an artwork, usually watercolour, applied directly to a wall or ceiling. The choices are fresco, frottage (the eyebrowc raising one), mosaic and sgafritto

Allanah@allanah· Mar 29

I think that's what they did here already (poor cropping on my part, or we are talking at cross purposes, either way algd!).

Allanah@allanah· Mar 29

Also...a tall CEO. As a short person I get the temptation, and understand the optics, but it's still funny as hell.