Stephanie Booth's online ramblings since summer 2000
They are five. Five strangers who discover they are all born of frozen ova donated by one woman. She carried a mutation that will change the face of humanity.
They learn to join their minds, and discover others like them.
They multiply.
She tracks down her children to kill them.
This is a 50-word short story. Read more by me on CTTS or by others too on Facebook.
“I’ve got it,” said Paul.
The look on his face turned from triumph to horror as he watched the weapon he had retrieved from the abandoned craft weld itself to his hand and start shooting towards us.
“I can’t make it stop! Help!”
We ran for cover and killed Paul.
This is a 50-word short story. Read more by me on CTTS or by others too on Facebook.
The growth on his shoulder was becoming ugly. It was also starting to talk with him, which he found unsettling.
The doctor refused to remove it as it had sufficient sentience.
Three months later the growth had developed prehensile appendages.
A year later, it strangled him after a nasty fight.
This is a 50-word short story. Read more by me on CTTS or by others too on Facebook.
Tom’s marriage had turned into a nightmare. Janet and he fought all the time and the children had got completely out of hand. He became addicted to full-simulation dramas, and fell in love with an actress. He sought her out and discovered the ugly truth behind the profitable sim industry.
This is a 50-word short story. Read more by me on CTTS or by others too on Facebook.
One hundred and fifty remaining passengers are stuck on a ship drifting through the stars far from home, propulsion and guidance hopelessly wrecked by saboteurs still amongst them. There is no salvation for them, just death when life-support systems will fail. They end up deciding to blow up the ship.
This is a 50-word short story. Read more by me on CTTS or by others too on Facebook.
[fr] Quand on est tellement stressé et occupé qu’on ne peut pas se permettre de prendre une pause ou des vacances… c’est là qu’il faut vraiment le faire. Apprenez à reconnaître ce signal d’alarme et à l’écouter!
…that’s when you really need to take one.
I’ve seen this time and time again, in me and others. The clearest warning sign that one is doing “too much” and needs to take a break, a day off, or even a vacation is this feeling that one has no time to do so.
The few times in my life when I’ve come near to breaking down from too much work and stress, there was the common feeling: “I really could do with a break, but there is no way I can take one now.”
To help gain some perspective, imagine that you fall so ill you can’t work, or get in an accident that lands you at hospital for 3 weeks (my experience is also that when you really need a break, there is a risk you might find a creative way to give yourself one).
So, next time you feel you’re so swamped you really can’t afford to take a break… listen to that warning signal, cancel some commitments, renegotiate that deadline, and take that break!
The passengers awoke many centuries later than planned, and struggled to come to terms with a universe which was not ruled or dominated by humans. Heroes of their time, they were now no more than disposable pawns of a slave-race. They led the revolution of humanity against their alien oppressors.
This is a 50-word short story. Read more by me on CTTS or by others too on Facebook.
[fr] Pour “réseauter”, la meilleure méthode reste encore d’oublier le réseautage, et de s’intéresser aux personnes.
Without really trying to, I’ve ended up with a rather large and powerful network. Often, I’m asked how I did it. “How do you network?”
A lot of it comes naturally to me, and I honestly don’t really know what advice to give apart from the following:
All you really need to do is be interested in people. Forget about “networking”.
[fr] J’ai souvent du mal à savoir si je travaille trop ou pas assez. Mon entourage me donne les deux retours.
I’m very bad at evaluating how much I work. Not in the sense that I don’t know how many hours I’ve spent in the office or on a given project (I know how to look at the clock and add up, even if I don’t usually bill for my time) — but more as in I don’t really know if I’m slacking or “working hard”.
There are days where I feel that I have been working hard for weeks or months. But then there are others where I look at my lifestyle and find it pretty relaxed, overall.
People around me also have differing opinions: sometimes I get the feedback that I should take my work more seriously (“work harder!”) and sometimes — more often, I have to admit — I get amazement or admiration for the amount of things I’m doing.
I guess this ambivalence in my auto-evaluation reflects an ambivalence in my attitude towards work. Part of me has a heavy workaholic streak (I can get “lost” in work easily, and tend to be a little obsessive and perfectionist, which results in difficulty stopping once I get started) but another part of me strongly resists working a lot and wants to have free time and a leisurely pace of life (that was already the case when I was in school: good enough grades, but never really liked studying too hard).
And in the end, what is working “enough”? I think there are cultural standards here, and that “working hard” in the US (for example) is not exactly the same thing as “working hard” here in Europe.
Thoughts?
Je salue brièvement au passage la page 3 du Lausanne-Cités d’aujourd’hui, qui via l’interview du médecin et éthicien Martin Winkler, s’élève contre la paranoïa ambiante au sujet de la grippe A.
Extraits choisis:
Au 6 août 2009, l’OMS recensait 1500 morts sur la planète… Chaque année, la grippe classique (A H3N2) fait entre 250 000 et 500 000 morts…
Dans le canton de Vaud, le médecin cantonal – en charge des mesures sanitaires – a laissé entendre qu’il convenait, dès à présent, d’éviter de se serrer la main et de s’embrasser. Qu’en pensez-vous?
Que ça me fait penser à ce qu’on disait au moment où le SIDA faisait peur à tout le monde, qu’il ne fallait pas toucher une personne séropositive. Cette recommandation est anti-scientifique. Ca accentue la panique et l’inquiétude dans une société qui n’a pas besoin de plus de méfiance sociale qu’elle n’en a déjà. C’est la grippe, bon dieu, ce n’est pas la peste, le choléra ou la variole! Ne pas s’embrasser ou se serrer la main? Personnellement, je rejette ce genre de recommandation. Médicalement et éthiquement parlant, c’est inacceptable!
[L]’angoisse actuelle est majorée par la situation économique. Objectivement, personne n’a envie que les grands pays industrialisés soient paralysés par une épidémie, parce que ça ne serait pas bon pour les entreprises… donc, pour les actionnaires. Il y a là une indécence insupportable. Ce n’est pas la santé des populations qui inquiète nos dirigeants, c’est celle de l’économie.
Merci de faire votre contribution à la lutte contre la paranoïa auprès de votre entourage!