Author | Lightnews

Mardek @3dfriederike.bsky.social · 23d

Telephonium is an element?

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Mardek @3dfriederike.bsky.social · 24d

So, we have farriers and plumbers - are there any other "elemental" jobs?

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Mardek @3dfriederike.bsky.social · 26d

All done now! In typical auntly fashion, she moved a package of cleaning cloths (at least 25 years old judging by the price tag) to hand me a quarter of a t-shirt, neatly ironed, to wipe my hands on.

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Mardek @3dfriederike.bsky.social · 26d

Her friend phoned. "Yes, we're painting the shed. Well, I'm painting but she's helping with the high bits. The young people need to learn to maintain a house for if they ever buy one."

I'm 41. And was a lecturer in building conservation.

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Mardek @3dfriederike.bsky.social · 26d

How to tell she's tired of painting: she dumped her tin and mine together to "consolidate them for storage", then decided there's not much she can do at the moment to help with no paint. Now she is deciding which plants I need to bring indoors for winter.

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Mardek @3dfriederike.bsky.social · 26d

I simply sanded the doors first and set them up at comfortable working height "to paint later", and she walked right into my trap.

A woman in a blue sweater standing over a wooden shed door laid out on trestles in a garden, painting it the same blue as her sweater.

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Mardek @3dfriederike.bsky.social · 26d

Heh. I'm helping my aunt paint her garden shed today - she's 84 and no longer safe on ladders.

But she is so impatient to finally get paint on something, she's sitting there stirring it while I insist on doing boring prep work like removing the moss, spiders, and flaking old paint. 😆

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Mardek @3dfriederike.bsky.social · Sep 23

And funded through the taxpayer, too!

Mardek @3dfriederike.bsky.social · Sep 23

Probably shorthand for "Essential criteria: must be the mayor's future son-in-law".

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Mardek @3dfriederike.bsky.social · Sep 23

How to tell that they already decided who's getting the post before they advertised it:

An ad for a job in the humanities that lists, in the desirable criteria, "being an active member of the volunteer fire department of [city]".

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Mardek @3dfriederike.bsky.social · Aug 30

This timeline is frustrating. I have a bachelor's, a master's and a PhD (in different fields), 20 years of work experience in & outside academia, speak four languages and am willing to move cities or even countries and still haven't been able to get a job in any field in six months of searching.

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Mardek @3dfriederike.bsky.social · Aug 25

Well done him for realising what's happening, getting out, and communicating about it!

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Mardek @3dfriederike.bsky.social · Aug 16

Warum sind derzeit eigentlich so viele Stellenangebote im öffentlichen Dienst so niedrig eingruppiert? Direktor einer Einrichtung mit Budget-, Personal- und Gesamtverantwortung, Promotion erwünscht für E10? 🤔

Ich dachte immer, für den #TvöD gibt es Bewertungskriterien, an die man sich halten muss?

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Mardek @3dfriederike.bsky.social · Aug 16

Postillon, the German satire "newspaper", ran with the headline "immigration officers fail: felon with international warrant easily enters US".

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Mardek @3dfriederike.bsky.social · Aug 11

Much appreciated! Our time will come again.

Mardek @3dfriederike.bsky.social · Aug 11

We live in a land of such food security that nobody had harvested the mirabelles, and even asked what in the world I was doing as I was picking the last few left in the tree that hadn't just rotted on the ground.

Combined with some slightly shriveled peaches, I turned them into 8 jars of jam.

A close-up of the last mirabelles (small yellow plums) of the summer hiding in the drooping branches of a tree.

A photograph of eight recycled jars of different sizes, set on their lids on a wooden countertop. They contain fresh reddish-orange jam. A small porcelain bowl holds the last few spoonfuls to be eaten fresh.

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Mardek @3dfriederike.bsky.social · Aug 10

My PhD is in methods for documenting knowledge provenance, authenticity and reproducibility in historical research.

I feel like Cassandra shouting into the void here.

Especially when people tell me I can work faster with the lying & making shit up machine.

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Mardek @3dfriederike.bsky.social · Aug 7

I find their relationship super creepy. In many ways, he's grooming her. She may be physically an adult but starts out with the naiveté of a child and he exploits that. He puts her in the skintight catsuit, keeps commenting on her body and crosses so many professional boundaries...

Mardek @3dfriederike.bsky.social · Aug 3

I usually make myself a breakfast concoction of coffee, cocoa and cinnamon.

Yesterday I had to take the spice rack down to pull out the fridge, and thought I put everything back properly.

In short, I don't recommend coffee with paprika.

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Mardek @3dfriederike.bsky.social · Jul 28

I wasn't born yet, but just reaching the stage where I may have been hearing the news on the radio...

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Mardek @3dfriederike.bsky.social · Jul 21

Echo is just waking up from a nap so epic she's still trying to remember what species she is. She seems quite pleased to discover she's a cat.

A sleepy-looking tortoiseshell cat slowly emerging from a nest in a tan and white fluffy blanket.

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Mardek @3dfriederike.bsky.social · Jul 21

I have weird duck feet where I need the front width in men's shoes but then I slide around in the heel because it's too wide. But women's shoes tend to squish my toes.

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Mardek @3dfriederike.bsky.social · Jul 21

Manchmal fragt man sich, in welchem Jahrhundert wir eigentlich leben.

Eine abfotografierte Zeitungsanzeige mit dem Text "Vorzeige-Unternehmer ohne Erben sich Geschäftsfrau für feste Beziehung (mit gutem Sohn wäre schön)."

Mardek @3dfriederike.bsky.social · Jul 17

My sister says my toddler niece is very disappointed that the neighbour's cat never waves back to her.

So, since I try to be a good auntie and I'm doing clicker training anyway with my small cat, we are now adding "wave" to our bag of tricks!

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Mardek @3dfriederike.bsky.social · Jul 16

And extra heavy duty thread!

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