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*slumps* It's really hard to get back into the swing of working after two years absence. I'm starting to get the hang of it, I think? I've got mornings down, now, and I'm getting better at pacing myself during the day (my shoulder decided to remind me last week that it's fairly weak and doesn't like prolonged periods of activity - like scrubbing twelve loads of washing up and lugging tables around the place for hours on end). Maybe it's just that I'm pathetically out of shape, but working in a kitchen seems to involve a lot more upper-body strength than I had anticipated -_-;
And yeah, I'm mostly working in the kitchen at the minute - any spare body working in a centre that hosts a restaurant will inevitably end up doing the washing up, I think. *smiles crookedly* There's a particular kind of triumph, sometimes. I was really proud on Monday that I managed to salvage two burnt pots, although that could be mostly because I was the only one willing to go at it with wire wool. Heh.
In other news, we're doing research reports in the class section of the programme. Nothing strenuous, considering five years of college. I only remembered once I'd started that 700 words of a report is basically no length at all and barely fits a summary and a sketched overview on any in-depth topic -_-; Most of my time was spent trying to rejig sentances once I went over the wordcount, and even pared down it's 730 words long. Honestly. 700 words is not a report, it's a summary.
The topic was fascinating, though. Basically writers choice of research topic, so I picked historical female pirates, because someone was discussing Chinese pirates recently and made mention to Ching Shih. 700 words was nowhere near enough, but I managed to get a fascinating overview of some famous pirate queens. Some of the high notes:
And yeah, I'm mostly working in the kitchen at the minute - any spare body working in a centre that hosts a restaurant will inevitably end up doing the washing up, I think. *smiles crookedly* There's a particular kind of triumph, sometimes. I was really proud on Monday that I managed to salvage two burnt pots, although that could be mostly because I was the only one willing to go at it with wire wool. Heh.
In other news, we're doing research reports in the class section of the programme. Nothing strenuous, considering five years of college. I only remembered once I'd started that 700 words of a report is basically no length at all and barely fits a summary and a sketched overview on any in-depth topic -_-; Most of my time was spent trying to rejig sentances once I went over the wordcount, and even pared down it's 730 words long. Honestly. 700 words is not a report, it's a summary.
The topic was fascinating, though. Basically writers choice of research topic, so I picked historical female pirates, because someone was discussing Chinese pirates recently and made mention to Ching Shih. 700 words was nowhere near enough, but I managed to get a fascinating overview of some famous pirate queens. Some of the high notes:
Pre-16th Century: Queen Teuta of Illyria (3rd C BC, kicked off the Illyrian Wars with Rome by supporting Illyrian piracy on Roman trade routes with Greece) and Jeanne de Clisson (14th C, called the 'Lioness of Brittany', when her husband was executed on suspicion of treason she took three ships and terrorised French shipping in the English Channel for 13 years in revenge).
16th Century: the century of pirate queens, two of the most famous and awesome ladies being Granuaile (Irish 'Sea Queen of Connacht' who met Queen Elisabeth) and Sayyida al Hurra (a Moroccan queen who took up piracy in revenge for her family having been driven out of Granada during the Reconquista, a woman who at the height of her power controlled piracy over the entire Western Mediterranean while her ally Barbarossa of Algiers held the Eastern, and who made a king come to her city to marry her, the first time a Moroccan King married outside the capital - I had never heard of this woman but she is awesome).
17th & 18th Centuries: aside from Anne Bonney and Mary Read, there was also a lady named Ingela Gathenhielm operating in the Baltic, who I'd never heard of either. Her husband was a Swedish privateer and rumoured pirate, and when he died in 1718 she took over both his legit privateering business and his alleged pirate empire and successfully expanded it and ran it until various Treaties put a stop to Baltic privateering in the early 1720s. She earned the name Shipping Queen, and sounds pretty damn awesome as well.
19th Century: Ching Shih. Lady was badass. A Cantonese prostitute in the late 18thC, she was taken by pirates and married their leader, Zheng Yi, in 1801. For the next 7 years, while Zheng Yi was busy uniting Cantonese pirates into the Red Flag Fleet, she was right alongside him helping, and when he died in 1807, Ching Shih immediately consolidated power in his wake and took over. The Red Flag Fleet, by this point, had somewhere between 300 and 1800 ships and 40,000 to 80,000 men, depending on time/report. It could not be defeated, though the Chinese, British and Portugese navies all tried, and eventually was disbanded in 1810 when the Chinese government gave up and offered them amnesty instead. Ching Shih accepted, kept her loot, and retired to run a gambling house. She died in 1844, aged 69.
... You know, I read a comment somewhere that there were no female pirates? Um. There were several women between 232 BC up to modern times who'd like to disagree. And I really, really wouldn't argue with some of them. *grins faintly*
I need to do some more research on some of them, I think. Jeanne de Clisson, yes, Sayyida al Hurra, Ingela Gathenhielm and Ching Shih in particular. *nods*
16th Century: the century of pirate queens, two of the most famous and awesome ladies being Granuaile (Irish 'Sea Queen of Connacht' who met Queen Elisabeth) and Sayyida al Hurra (a Moroccan queen who took up piracy in revenge for her family having been driven out of Granada during the Reconquista, a woman who at the height of her power controlled piracy over the entire Western Mediterranean while her ally Barbarossa of Algiers held the Eastern, and who made a king come to her city to marry her, the first time a Moroccan King married outside the capital - I had never heard of this woman but she is awesome).
17th & 18th Centuries: aside from Anne Bonney and Mary Read, there was also a lady named Ingela Gathenhielm operating in the Baltic, who I'd never heard of either. Her husband was a Swedish privateer and rumoured pirate, and when he died in 1718 she took over both his legit privateering business and his alleged pirate empire and successfully expanded it and ran it until various Treaties put a stop to Baltic privateering in the early 1720s. She earned the name Shipping Queen, and sounds pretty damn awesome as well.
19th Century: Ching Shih. Lady was badass. A Cantonese prostitute in the late 18thC, she was taken by pirates and married their leader, Zheng Yi, in 1801. For the next 7 years, while Zheng Yi was busy uniting Cantonese pirates into the Red Flag Fleet, she was right alongside him helping, and when he died in 1807, Ching Shih immediately consolidated power in his wake and took over. The Red Flag Fleet, by this point, had somewhere between 300 and 1800 ships and 40,000 to 80,000 men, depending on time/report. It could not be defeated, though the Chinese, British and Portugese navies all tried, and eventually was disbanded in 1810 when the Chinese government gave up and offered them amnesty instead. Ching Shih accepted, kept her loot, and retired to run a gambling house. She died in 1844, aged 69.
... You know, I read a comment somewhere that there were no female pirates? Um. There were several women between 232 BC up to modern times who'd like to disagree. And I really, really wouldn't argue with some of them. *grins faintly*
I need to do some more research on some of them, I think. Jeanne de Clisson, yes, Sayyida al Hurra, Ingela Gathenhielm and Ching Shih in particular. *nods*