Home Soon

I'm struggling to comprehend the notion that this time next week I'll be in Sydney! We've got three nights left at the Star Shell before it all gets packed away for another year.

The last week or what I think is the last week (days and nights are melding into one) has been quieter on the going out front. However it's SoCo's second last night tonight so I think there will have to be a bit more effort on our parts to get out and enjoy the containers one last time for this festival season.

My laptop is fixed! It's probably the biggest news for me today... it's been out of action for the last couple of weeks as I've been busy running about doing Festival stuff I didn't manage to get it serviced until yesterday and they managed to fix it today! Very excited. So much so I'm going to drop by home and pick up my camera to take all the site photos that I've been meaning to take but didn't because I figured I couldn't get them off my laptop anyhow.

I've had a change of plans for my return to Melbourne. I've decided to cut my Sydney visit shorter so that I can be home to hassle my Mum earlier. So for anyone who cares to catch up with me in the coming weeks...

I'll be in Sydney between 1st and 3rd September and I'll be back in Melbourne on the morning of the 4th September. There are many drinks to be had!

The Star Shell is calling... I'll try and write again soon (no excuse now that the laptop's working!)

Launched!

We're officially launched! Darwin Festival 2007, check out our program even if you can't make it up here. It's looking to be a http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifgreat festival.

Our program launch was very well received last night and a good night had by all. It was good to see everything come together.

It's been a busy week and as a result it's passed in the blink of an eye. I'm not really sure where it went but I have a vague suspicion that I'll be cleaning out the cupboards one day and stumble upon a pile of lost time huddled in the corner... I can dream!

Not much else to report other than a second crochet bag is almost complete and my attempt to memorise The Sneetches seems to have stalled but I'm getting back to that now that the launch is over.

Darwin is still a buzz with the filming of Australia. Nicole's made the front page of the paper for the past couple of days. No star sightings for me but I haven't really had the time to head down to the wharf for a sticky beak.

Not long till the Festival opens so erratic blog post season is back!

Thinking of all back at home who are freezing in the Melbourne winter (two days ago there was an article in the paper "South to blame for our recent cold snap" after a few 15˚C nights)

Environmentally Friendlyish

We've had some delightfully "cool" days up here with the maximum temperature varying between 25˚C and 29˚C which made work feel much more pleasant. No air-conditioning required, just open up the doors! We even made it to a low of 15˚C some nights. Rumour has it the camping store has sold out of thermals.

I've made quite a few trips to the supermarket in the short time I've been here. It seems to be my hang out of choice when away from home (Woolies is no match for Carrefour in terms of random items that you don't need). However the green bags just never seem to be in stock... so while browsing the aisles I found a few balls of mercerised cotton yarn and hey presto, an environmentally friendly bag was born.



So now I'm taking my bag, book, hook and left over yarn, off to find myself a patch of park to make my own for the afternoon while I wait for the sun to do it's work and heat up the solar panels for the hot water system. Tonight is looking good for the first hot shower in three days!

It's not Thursday

It's always reassuring when you get a call from the hospital asking to speak to your Mum when she's actually admitted to the hospital... Anyhow, I guess they don't really talk interdepartmentally much! We should be picking her up from the hospital soon though so all's well.

Now all that remains is more me to convince myself that it's Wednesday and not Thursday. My siesta yesterday after the job interview was enough to convince my brain that it was Wednesday last night... Silly rabbit!

Temp Extraordinaire

I never sleep well when I'm worried I won't wake up in time for an appointment the next day. As a result I was up and in the car to the train station four hours after I fell asleep. Not quite the state of zen I was aiming for in today's interview but it went well regardless.

I may well be the only customer service/data entry/secretarial/admin/teller temp with a fork lift license at the agency...

All was well and by the end of the day I've got my first assignment starting next week. (The one starting tomorrow fell through). Bring on the typing and phones! I want to get my typing speed back up to the 80wpm (words per minute) I used to be at. Down at 68wpm at the moment.

It's good to have something to do again. Something to keep me busy till I find more exciting things or August comes around for Fringe... which ever happens first!

Mum's in hospital for one more night as she's having a biopsy tomorrow there. It seemed easier that way. She's definitely home tomorrow after meeting with her dietitian. No results on her blood tests just yet but I think she's just happy to be coming home again.

Eep! Got to run. Almost time to go to work again!

Spunky Medical Staff

I spent most of the day at the hospital with Mum today. The remainder of my day was spent rushing around the house failing to find various items that Mum was after as well as the car keys. Happily the car keys were located (down the side of the couch where most lost things go). The crochet hook is still M.I.A.

She's much happier today and I think a fair bit of that has to do with her having had her first meal in four days. Mum's also been moved to the bed by the window which is a little nicer. We're considering holding the dogs up to the window to say hi to her :)

Many thanks to all who have called, visited etc. It's all greatly appreciated and Mum's in good spirits.

The specialist came to see her today (spunky dresser) and is organising another biopsy tomorrow as the second lot of tests on the tumour have come back as inconclusive. So it's back to CT-scan-land tomorrow.

Must say it was cute medical staff night tonight... rather cute nurse attending to the room opposite Mum's. Anyhoo... must go and do something productive like watch the Gilmore Girls episode that Gene taped for me.

Happy Beanie Smart Cookie

Yesterday was Gene's birthday. I was not as prepared for celebrations as I'd planned to be as it's been a big week at home. (I keep saying that but the weeks seem growing exponentially).

I started and have already failed my attempt for 1 photo per day. No matter it's the quality over quantity thing I say! I will share two photos though.

The view from my window:


Dad's first finger-knitting experience:


Dad learnt how to finger knit earlier this week and what you're seeing in the picture is a headband he made for Mum.

Further finger-knitting explorations have been put on hold as Mum went into hospital on Friday. Turns out she has a lesion or tumour on the head of her pancreas (might not be diabetic after all). So she went in for surgery on Friday where they removed her gall bladder (neither of my parents have gall bladders now) and bypassed the ducts that had been blocked by the growth. Sadly they couldn't remove it as there were too many surrounding blood vessels. So they took a biopsy and we'll know the results today or tomorrow. It's looking like she'll go for radiotherapy when she's better. Mum's still in hospital, probably till the end of the week but she's recovering well with her sense of humour well in tact.

While I'm sure other things happened this week I can't recall them. Priorities and all!

So it was Gene's birthday yesterday and I was unprepared. The space invader socks have proven far more time-consuming than I had bargained for and I had to start again with finer wool and less time. The short-row knitted beanie that I'd started for him was gigantic. It was looking a bit disastrous. I had to resort to plan B - making it up as I went along. In the end there was a large cookie cake (think two cake sized cookies with chocolate-cream-cheese icing) and a crocheted beanie. Why the cookie-cake? When I was at uni in Ballarat in one of my end of semester assessment interviews the topic of Gene came up and one of my lecturers said that Gene was a smart cookie (I was a good fish apparently). As for the beanie it was crocheted quickly in Gene colours as he said he'd lost his Barcelona beanie.

Happy Beanie Smart Cookie! I hope you still had fun even though you had to work last night!

Family Changes

Having just attended a beautiful wedding on Sunday of two gorgeous friends, I can't help but notice how we're all growing up. Last night one of my friends told me that she has just gotten engaged. It seems that weddings are the new 21st birthdays to attend!

I still remember being a little freaked out when all my cousins got married, within the space of about two years we attended four weddings. It made me think that we'd all grown up a bit and really put into perspective how long ago the days of backyard cricket and commando rolling while playing Terminator 2 really were. Now that my friends are slowly starting to get married, I'm feeling really happy for my friends, because so many of them have found someone who they can share their life with and travel through new adventures together. This is getting a little soppy I know, but apparently I cry at weddings now so leave me alone. :)

We used to live from day to day, making sure that we could make rent, buy food, get the next show on and hopefully still have enough left over to throw a huge afterparty. Oh we also had to do our homework but that did end up a bit of an afterthought some days. We still do kind of live day to day, but now there are people to share that with.

Even at our parties, and they are often now more dinner party style than raucous affairs, we all seem to have settled down. Take dinner at Flick & Dale's reception. We all sat down to dinner in our pretty dresses with our boys in their suits (we know they're men but they are boys at heart) and who'd a thunk it but we all scrubbed up well! Aesthetics aside, we then proceeded to compromise on who got to eat which dish as the different choices were alternated according to seating. What can I say? I think we're all growing up.

More and more I hear my friends saying that if they don't do something now, or try something now, that it will never happen. I've even said the same myself. When just a couple of years ago we thought the world was ours, suddenly it seems that we're feeling the pressure of time.

It's hard to gain perspective of how far you've travelled in life while you're living it. Every birthday feels the same until you look back and remember that at your 12th birthday party you were playing hide-and-seek, while at your 21st you wore your first silk dress. Even looking back less far to my 19th birthday, an ungraceful affair on my part with my dislike of birthday celebrations in general, where we all got dressed up and headed to Crown (oh the class) for a buffet dinner, girls & boys dressed up for the outing. Some of us were in couples back then too, but the intervening four years have changed us all. We are settling down a bit. That's scary but that's okay too.

Over the last few years, I feel like I've found another family. I'm not related to them in any way other than our friendship but I'd still do almost anything to help them if they needed me. We are not family in the traditional sense, but I think we are an association of people who share common beliefs or activities, and that makes us family. The saying goes that you can't choose your family but I guess that's what makes this family of friends special. We did get to choose.

Not Monday

Apparently I don't mind Mondays. I've spent much of the day believing it was Monday, only to discover that it is in fact Sunday. This is not helped by the fact that I feel like I've had two days today - one was quite pleasant and the other I have chosen to block out for now. It's probably largely to do with having had yesterday off. Then again, I've also been staunchly under the impression that the Closing Ceremony's on Saturday when in actual fact it's on Sunday. You'd think I was in some kind of hurry or something!

I've had the most wonderful weekend though. Finishing early on Friday and then having the luxury of Saturday off, all topped off with a stroll in the gardens tonight with Nick, Matt & Anneke. Lovely!

The city had such a marvellous atmosphere tonight. It'll be sad to see the Festival go next week. It'll be sad when the Ceremony's over too.

Time's just flown by, I still vividly remember the 100 days to go celebration. I still remember going into the office and seeing the countdown in it's 300 days to go and yet in a weeks time it will all be over. Crazy.

To be honest I am looking forward to a holiday. After that I'm looking forward to getting myself into as good a shape as possible for apply for more of this kind of work, both physically and skill-wise.

2006 is shaping up to be a better year for all so far!

18.5 hours = 12182

You know it's been a long day when you come home and upon waking your computer up immediately check to see if the date/time settings are correct because it simply can't be sunday already. Well, apparently it can.

Apparently walked 6.091km. Not very far really but it sure has been a long day.

Stayed the night at my parent's house last night. Had the tables turned on me as I waited for Dad to finish rehearsal for the first time ever. Usually he's the one wondering how to pass a couple of hours! As it was an impromptu visit and I had to be at work the next day, he kindly took me to the 24 hour Kmart to get some clothes to change into before we headed back to the house. The dogs were a little confused but Clio took it in her stride while Zeus proceeded to be slightly stressed until he found Dad in the kitchen. He's a somewhat anxious dog. I apparently should never be allowed to pick male pets. They've all got a history of being insecure/anxious. Not sure what that says about me but it probably doesn't say much at all really.

Had trouble sleeping, largely because it was one of those warm/cool nights and I was acutely aware of the late hour (02:00) and the time I had to be up (07:45 at the latest).

Arrived at work at 09:00 on the dot and discovered that the new reports that I'd been waiting for had arrived at my desk. My reaction was mixed. I was excited because it was looking like making life easier but at the same time I was not excited as I had been looking forward to a day on the field instead of underground at my desk. Happily I got some time on the field sweeping our rather large stage (read either the Herald Sun or the Age for actual size). Somewhere in between reports and going batty at my desk looking at figures I decided it would be a good idea to get everyone some juice/smoothies from one of the local fruit juice bars. You wouldn't think it would take that long to get 27 juices... but apparently it does. A couple of hours passed without any notice and before I knew it it was dark again. 13 A3 pages of tiny figures later and I looked at my watch and giggled immediately. Most people would have noticed that it was 01:00... Happily my boss isn't most people and we happily caught up on our day before someone pointed out that we should all go home. Rightfully so!

Shared a cab with the Technical Director and now I'm tucked up in bed wondering why I'm still awake.

If they're offering vitamin B12 shots again tomorrow I may very well take them up on the offer. Could do with a bit of a boost! Not a fan of injections though...

Okay. Definitely time for bed. The park, picnic and friends await me tomorrow afternoon. So much to do!