Numerical Update

611 days ago I left Brisbane and just 4 days ago I returned.
3 of those 4 days were spent with a fever averaging 38˚C. Yesterday I drank 1.25L of water and 1.15L of flavoured still mineral water. I also slept for 12 hours. I'm feeling much better and the fever is almost gone :)

It took me 1.75 bus rides to work out how to get the bus to stop without actually having to call out to the bus driver (or in the case of my first bus ride, continuing for an extra three stops). Apparently I managed to get the really old buses twice on my first day. All other buses have had the red stop button I'm used to.

I've only been working at the Brisbane Festival for 3 days and today marks 100 days till the festival opens.

While I've been up here I have read one book, gotten lost once and been to the doctor once. I've made an appointment to go back to get my third and final (yay!) Gardasil vaccination.

Since arriving in Brisbane I have received 22 text messages from people I know, one text message from someone I don't know, 12 messages via facebook and many emails of which 2 were personally addressed to me.

I have to be back in the office in 10.5 hours and given that I need at least 45 minutes to wake up, 10-15 minutes to get to the bus stop (which is not that far away but the traffic lights, and the traffic, are a little kooky) and another 20 minutes to get to work, I should probably go to bed now.

For those interested it took me 34 minutes to write all this because I kept getting distracted by a Skype conversation regarding donuts.

Back in Town

After a relaxing few days in Sydney and a delayed flight I'm back in Melbourne counting down the hours until the cool change sweeps through the state.

Overall I did well, returning with just one addition to my library, Across the Nightingale Floor by Lian Hearn. While the cover and Japanese themes have always grabbed my attention, I'm fascinated by the concept of a nightingale floor. Perhaps I should add that to the list of random things that might be cool to have in a house (I've been watching Grand Designs again).

Having enjoyed a few days off (it only counts as a holiday if I'm elsewhere... while I'm down in Melbourne not working it's more like unemployment or being lazy) I'm ready to tackle the grand task of sorting out my life. I'm currently considering treating that as a job in itself. It's the control freak in me really.

Anyhow, tomorrow I'm going to start my lists afresh. Set new deadlines for various bits of paperwork and generally spring clean my life and get rid of as much clutter as possible. We'll see how long the enthusiasm holds... hopefully long enough to spark the next challenge!

It's good to be back at work though, even if it's not the challenge I'm seeking, at least there's some structure to my day to keep me from languishing in the comfort zone that is Melbourne.

Late Night Packing

I'm leaving for Sydney in less than 5 hours, so I figured it was about time to pack. I keep telling myself on the bright side, I started to consider my packing list at the start of the week...

With nothing left to pack but my laptop I really should just bundle it into the bag and get some shut eye. Instead I'm sitting here tapping away. It's largely because I've actually gotten out of the house a bit in the last couple of days.

A trip with some friends to a rather cool beach for a brisk swim, via a winery with a dog named Bingo, capped off with an evening at Moonlight Cinema yesterday added to what has already been a fairly pleasant start to the year. Couple that with falling asleep before 02:00 yesterday and I'm doing rather better than I expected.

Today was good for other reasons. Another load of laundry done means I'm 70% on the way to a tidy room, with the remaining 30% more to do with finding storage (or even better getting rid of stuff). I've also got a few more days work lined up for early February which is great. Still many emails to write but at least there's something to look forward to!

Anyhow, I really must close my eyes as I'm exhausted. A day of domesticity combined with the Grand Designs marathon have rather taken it out of me...

Today's post is brought to you by the numbers 0.75, 1, 1.5, 2

0.75 is the number of hours sleep I've had in the last 32 hours. I sense my nocturnal habits may be at an end.

1 is the number of days I've worked this week. It's good to be working again, even if it's just an orientation.

1.5 is the number of cards I ended up writing yesterday before being distracted by the arrival of the Schoeller & Stahl Zermatt yarn that Dad bought Mum & I for Christmas. I am now knitting a sweater despite the summery weather in the vague hope I'll finish it in time for Autumn/Winter 2008.

2 is the number of chapters I've read of The Ghost's Child. Since my last post I've discovered that The Pleasure of my Company doesn't actually have chapters. As a result I'm having a lot of trouble not finishing it in one deliciously indulgent reading. I'm trying to pace myself.

Midnight Cakes

Not only am I nocturnal, I'm beginning to make a habit of baking cakes at midnight. This is of course totally in line with Dad's nocturnal habits but I'm sure it's not good for us!

Tonight's cake was a simple pound cake made with a recipe that I've altered a bit and am still tweaking. Perhaps a little less egg but otherwise a delicious cake that will be perfect with my morning (ha!) coffee.

Speaking of coffee I don't think I've mentioned how in love I am with our new espresso machine, which in all honesty isn't that new any more as we've had it for almost a month... Purchased the day after the dishwasher caught fire which I also seem to have failed to mention. I guess that's what happens when I write while I should be asleep.

I have had a fairly productive day today despite only making it out of bed at 13:00. I've achieved 80% of what I wanted to do.

Tomorrow I'm aiming to:
- do at least one load of washing
- clean the bathroom
- head to the post office and post my international mail
- head to the supermarket to pick up some supplies for further baking adventures
- have a cup of coffee with a slice of tonight's cake
- read another chapter of The Pleasure of my Company and one of The Ghost's Child (apparently children's fiction and literature have captured my attention from the stack of sci-fi/fantasy that's sitting by my bed
- write a few more cards
- finish the entrelac scarf that I've been making out of Noro's Silk Garden yarn.

We'll see how I go... first I need to get out of bed before noon! Excellent practice for Tuesday when I have to be at work at 09:00. Wish me luck!

Post-Festival Update

Tonight I had dinner with my family for the first time in a month. It's strange to think that we're all living under the same roof and our only interactions have been in passing as I waltz out the door (or stumble depending on what time I made it home from work the previous night).

The (Age 2007) Melbourne Fringe Festival was great fun as I expected. I had some fabulous shows which some of my fabulous friends came to see. It was great to see them at the festival as it was the first time I'd seen some of them in months. Plus it meant that there were people out and seeing theatre. The Festival Club was our place to unwind and you could generally find us tucked around the lighting & sound desks or jumping up to follow spot random patrons and staff as the night traveled on and we burnt up the dance floor.

As is always the case, I blinked and the festival was over and I was moving onto my next gig. It's funny being back at uni but not as a student. I'm still amused by the idea but am taking great pleasure at watching the cast working. We open in two weeks time and I think the show is going to be great. Besides, with the Spiegeltent in walking distance, I'm sure that opening night drinks will last into the wee hours.

Mum's doing well and if I'm not mistaken has one more chemo treatment for this course and then gets at least one week off (which she's looking forward to). The doctors seem pleased with her progress which is great!

I kept meaning to write during the Fringe but I could barely string a sentence together let alone a thought. You should have seen me ordering coffee...

Well, I should stop procrastinating and get back to sorting boxes of stuff. I'm gradually packing and weeding through things that I clearly don't need anymore as they've been sitting in boxes for over a year now. It's a painful boring process but I'm sure it'll feel great once I'm done.

I'm feeling a tad guilty about how little packing I've achieved as I spent most of the day browsing YouTube on the AppleTV and teaching myself Fur Elise on the piano. Yep it's been a productive day.

Nothing Compares

Nothing in my 24 years of life could have prepared me for the news that my Mum's cancer is incurable. Not even my GP telling me that treatment was more likely to prolong her life than cure the cancer. Still to her credit she's still remaining positive and is ready to step up to the challenges that the treatment will set for her. To say that Mum is a strong woman would be an understatement beyond compare.

When I called Dad and he told me the news I was standing in my new bedroom watching a gecko scampering across the wall. I nodded and asked the questions that I wanted to ask and then he had to go. One minute later it hit me. A sudden feeling of being completely lost in the world. Not knowing what to do, who to call or how to breathe. It lasted for a brief moment before I realized that there is nothing I could do except to be there for Mum. The hardest thing for me (being the control freak that I am), is knowing there is nothing that I can do to fix this.

Luckily I remembered how to breathe and with that all-important knowledge remembered who to call. I deliberated calling home again as I didn’t want to disturb her rest. After all the phone was bound to be running hot tonight in the wake of the latest news. I called anyway figuring that I had special dispensation (being her daughter) for interrupting rest. I’m glad that I did because she seems to be having one of her better nights where she’s not feeling exhausted or dizzy. Just hearing her voice and hearing her describe her first thoughts (what am I going to do with all my wool and beads?) after mishearing the oncologist and thinking that she only had 18 months to live (as opposed to finding out the results of the treatment in 18 months which I believe is what he said).

Hearing her voice and hearing her talk was wonderful. For just a moment I was just on the phone having a chat with my Mum like I always do when I’m away. For ten minutes life seemed normal again.

Right now I’m sitting on my bed trying to remember what I was originally going to write. After all I’ve been in Darwin for 33 hours now and it’s a wonderful place.

The house I’m staying in is just amazing. The gardens are large and beautiful with a fabulous array of lizards of varying sizes. There are plenty of windows in each room letting the sunlight and fresh air circulate through the house. I’m staying in a quiet street that’s a mere 1.5 km from the city centre and it takes me just fifteen minutes to walk to work at a comfortable pace.

I had my first day at work today which is always exciting. It started with a staff meeting which is always a great way to start. It means you get to meet everyone and get an idea of what’s going on and where you’re at even if none of it makes much sense yet. It always feels a little slow settling in but I had a good time reading through the documents from last year and getting a feel for the information that I’ll need to gather in the coming weeks.
We ate our lunch in the Botanic Gardens where I managed to find my favourite tree from Singapore. (I’d just like to clarify that I don’t actually know where the tree originates from but Singapore is the first place that I encountered the tree). It’s a big leafy tree that has red seeds about the size of a pea. I used to go to St Andrew’s Cathedral in Singapore and collect the seeds with my Mum and she’d make them into tiny bean bags (about the size of the small high bouncing rubber balls you used to get in news agencies). Then we’d play five-stone (jacks) with them until it was time to come back to Australia where we couldn’t bring them.

So all in all there are plenty of things about my first day and night in Darwin that have been really wonderful and my brief experience of Darwin has been really positive. I think it’s a great place and will rave about it as much as I planned another day.

Tonight, I’m just not in the right frame of mind for it. I’m just going to have a quiet night so that I’m well rested for tomorrow.

I’m also going to continue to curse the fact that I forgot that I didn’t have a modem and as such have no internet access at home so this will have to wait until tomorrow to be posted.

This is a much longer post than I’d planned to write. If you’ve made it this far, thank you for reading. It’s been really good to get these thoughts onto a page (and a half).

Many thanks!

Failing to Pack

While I should be packing for my trip to Darwin, I am instead updating information on the plethora of profiles for online communities that I've joined this week. It would seem that it's the week for it... after all I've joined three groups (Facebook which I much prefer to MySpace, Friendster, and Linked In). With the amount of time I've spent playing about with the profiles I can't help but think that I should have organised drinks with friends instead... Oh well!

Friday was my last day of temping for at least the next four months and I'm grateful for that. The day dragged on as there was very little for me to do. Still it was nice to be asked to stay on by so many people. Even nicer to know that I couldn't because I'll be in Darwin on Monday in a job I'm actually excited about!

So packing you say? Well, tonight wasn't really the night for it as I headed out for drinks to celebrate Dave's birthday. Besides, anyone who's traveled/lived with me knows that I'm a last minute packer. The world would implode if I wasn't up to the wee hours of the morning throwing things into my bags/boxes...

Fever and Excitement

Yesterday I woke up feeling far more fatigued than I had the previous couple of days. I thought it was just lack of sleep but then I realised that I was feeling more than a little feverish too. I was grateful for the 24 hour contact line that my temp agency has and called in to let them know I'd be late because I needed to go and see a doctor. The call took much longer than it needed to because my teeth were chattering throughout which made me a little hard to understand.

Against Mum's advice I drove myself to the doctor (didn't want to wake Dad up and I'd already woken Gene up at silly o'clock to confirm my fever). After he noted my visibly swollen lymph node but otherwise healthy self he decided it would be best to rule me out for a strep infection and thus I'm on erythromycin. I must admit the anti-biotics are knocking me around about as much as the fever was but hey it's only been two days of the course and my lymph node is looking much better. More to the point it's feeling better because I can't see it sticking out from my neck anymore.

So two days of bed rest has me ready to head back to work. Mainly so I can finish up my temp contract and runaway to my next job which is with the Darwin Festival. Yay! I leave in just over a week and I can't wait!

Unexpected

First day back behind a desk today and it was a little different to what I expected. My brief involved helping to catch up on a backlog of typing and answering overflow phone calls. Today I ended up being the receptionist which involved a lot more switchboard operation (woo hoo new skill!) and very little typing.

Still it was probably just as well because I was a little sleepy having stayed up far too late last night.

I'm working on Bridge Road conveniently within walking distance of the Ishka warehouse. Mmmmm pretty clothes!

Anyhow I've promised myself an early night's sleep and as it's already 23:51 I'd better get to bed before I turn into a pumpkin.

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!

A Longer Post for a Shorter Day

First day back in a theatre today and it was a good feeling. Bump ins are good fun, almost as fun as bumping out...

It was a slow starting day beginning with a hot shower that I'm grateful for as Dad didn't have hot water due to a black out. I was less awake than I thought I was as I managed to stick my right index finger partway into the toaster in an attempt to retrieve my toast. Unsurprisingly this resulted in a small burn on the right side of my finger. Sadly despite my first aid training the first thing I did was swear and blow on it before thinking (quite literally) what the hell are you doing you idiot, run it under cold water! Which I did. It didn't help. Stupid burn. The chilled water made it a bit better but eh... give it a few days.

After work I headed to Knox to get a pressie for my cousin Nadia who's birthday is on Sunday and to pick up a couple of headbands for Mum. I also picked out my birthday books using the voucher from my family in Canberra. I ended up with A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian by Marina Lewycka, A Spot of Bother by Mark Haddon and another book who's title escapes me but has something to do with time lords from memory (not Dr Who).

Armed with a bagful of books I headed to the hospital to visit Mum. She was in fine spirits and was sure to let everyone know that she was feeling much better and was ready to go home. We're still waiting for the blood test results to come back but the specialist/surgeon seems fairly confident that she can come home tomorrow. In true Mum fashion she's already packed and ready to leave. Ever the organised one in our house!

Tomorrow is a long day of spending QT with Mum and trying to catch up on sleep, bookended by a job interview in the morning and a bump out late that night. It's good to be busy again. If only for a day!

Here comes the rain again

The last week or so has been wonderfully busy. Finally back to work (until Tuesday I think) working on Festival FINA we opened last night.

For the last week we've been getting Birrarung Marr ready for the festival (attaching sculptures to a hill, building roads, chasing flags, etc). So when we got the much needed rain last night we were still a little sad that the night was rained out. In the end only the performances at BMW Edge (known during the festival as "The Deep End") with it's free cabaret and the amazing Group F and Mechanic Vivante performed.

I do have pictures but the cable's upstairs and I'm lazy. They'll have to wait until tomorrow.

Everyone should come down and check out the festival for many reasons. Firstly there are some amazing acts from around the world. There's circus, live music, a dinosaur petting zoo... just to name a few things. Secondly it's all free. Yep. All of it. Bargain any day I say! Finally (before I get ready to sprint for the train) if people continue to go to these free cultural events, maybe if we start to have more cultural events...

Yesterday as we were battening the hatches and catching falling flags in the heavy rain I couldn't help but be reminded of Doha and every other outdoor event that I've done... it has to rain at least once and rather heavily. It's tradition :)

It's meant to rain again tonight but I think we'll be fine. We still got a great crowd for the river shows despite the rain

falling on my head like a memory

Breakfast Post

I've been meaning to post something again for the last few days but to be honest I haven't had much to say because I haven't really done much! If only they had a patch for blogging... or procrastination.

Anyhoo... since rehearsal last week I've been to two dance lessons, one blues and one swing, gotten a quarter of the way through the pair of socks that I started a while ago and had a job interview. (Incidentally, I'm still about four rows off finishing Gene's Norwegian scarf... *sigh* Figured I'll hold out until closer to Winter because it's too warm for him to wear now)

It would seem that we've caught the swing bug again. Last Tuesday I went to my first swing class in about eight months with Naomi which was an open class (combined levels) and it was a fabulous way to get back into it. So having been totally hooked after one class back we decided to try some blues dancing as there was going to be a class on Sunday.

Blues dancing was awesome. I think if I keep it up my following might even get better. My inner(?) control freak gets in the way of my dancing if I'm not careful but because I had no idea what was happening I was more likely to just do as I was led. Great music and it seems more free too.

Still last night's intro to lindy hop was really good. We'd done a bit of lindy hop and it's a bit like learning to ride a bicycle. The rhythm stays with you and the more we seem to learn of the basic steps the more we have to learn. I did find that the harder I thought about what my feet were doing (they get a bit sneaky) the harder it got. I think I needed to relax more.

After we got home and dined on a fine dinner of greasy chicken (so much for the healthy eating kick), Gene and I watched an episode of CSI with Mum, the first episode of season 1 Love My Way then the first episode of season 3 of Deadwood. I think we did well with the pacing of the actual shows but lost in our timing as it was fairly late when we stopped. Not a problem today when we don't have much planned except for swing again tonight.

Tomorrow however we need to be out in Tullamarine for work by 09:00. Oh yeah bring on that early morning rush hour traffic. It'll be good to be back at work though. Miss work. So I'm up "early" today. Woke up at 05:30 and lay in bed watching the sun creep over the Dandenongs until about 06:30. I do like watching the sun rise and set.

Breakfast calls (well my stomach does).

Flying Friday

I'm really not sure where to start this post. So much has happened since I last posted on the 9th August.

Thursday I sent off my resume, Friday I had a phone interview and today I received the exciting news that I might be flying to Doha this Friday. It's all happening really.

I'm really excited. So much so that I've moved past girly squealing stage and gone straight to shock. Tomorrow's going to be the start of a big day of planning. I've got paperwork to do, friends to catch up with and dancing to try and fit in too. Not to mention getting some QT with Gene.

Today I got my copy of the Lonely Planet's Guide to the Arabian Peninsula. It's full of useful information on Qatar and most importantly the culture. The Middle East is not really a place that I want to offend people. Not that I go places aiming to offend! I just want to get the most out of my experience there!

Looking forward to the food although it will be interesting to be in a culture where I can't go out without a male to escort me.

I'm so excited and shocked at how quickly this is happening that I can't even find the words to explain it. I've never flown this far away to a non-Asian country. It's also my first solo international travel adventure and I can't wait for it to start. I know I'm going to miss my friends and family. The great thing about this happening so quickly is that I don't have the time to think too hard about how much I'm going to miss everyone and the sights of Melbourne. I have a feeling that will make the farewell at the airport harder but I'm not going to let that get in the way of a great adventure! I'm also lucky because I'll know some of the people when I get over there.

Gene may also be coming to Doha which is wonderful for many reasons, mainly because I'd get to share an awesome experience with him!

So to all my friends that I haven't caught up with yet, give me a call in the next couple of days if you're free. If not I'll see you some time next year!

I may post in the next few days or I'll just sit at my laptop having lost the ability to post like I have since I first received word that Doha was a possibility.

Ahhhh!!

Winding Down

It feels odd not having posted for a few days. I kept logging on to the site but not being able to type anything despite having a few things that I wanted to note.

First and most excitingly I have started to sleep through the night again. Well for more than an hour or two at a time. I managed an average of five hours before waking up for the last three nights! Very exciting after several weeks of interrupted sleep. I think it helps that Gene's home and my hours are settling down a bit.

This is however a short term thing. I start work on Comedy Festival at Trades Hall next Monday. I'm sad because Gene won't be there working with me and it's the first festival of this size that I'll be working on without him there (at the venue) but I'm really looking forward to it. There look like there will be some great shows and I'm exicted about getting back into some technical stage management again. Happily I'll only be working about 36 hours a week for that so it should be good. There's only a couple of days overlap with the Games wrap up so as long as I can make it through next week, life should be just peachy.

Still seeing the osteo and gradually getting myself back into shape. He worked on my lower back again (silly hip tried to slip into old habits again) and my neck & shoulders. I'm really looking forward to my neck being in good alignment again. He thinks that I'll get less painful migraines then. He successfully realigned the left side of my neck (mmm crack, crack, crack, pop!) but there's a point in my right side that was just a little ball of pain the whole time. It's apparently just my neck muscles not wanting to let go of the joint that's out of line. Can't wait to get that one back in shape. I'm back at the osteo's again today. Hopefully we can get that fixed and I'll be less sore after the massage. Was having some difficulty moving a couple of days after the last one. Bad habits are hard to break I guess!

I can't get to my files at work as they're playing with our data so it's making for a very long day. I've been here a mere hour and a half and I'm ready to bail at any second. Still waiting for a phone call to confirm a ETA on our data.

My phone's just died on me... it's crashed and refusing to do anything *sigh* so I'm going to head home tonight and dig up the receipt and take it in for servicing. Stupid phones.

Anyway, I should probably try and find something to do.

Bzzzzz

It feels like years since I've been online and posted and I love it. Not the lack of posting - that's just slackness on my part I'm sure - but I love how busy I've been lately. I'm thinking that I can only get busier.

I've started my new job and I'm still at the Fringe for one more week (hint hint to all who said they'd come and didn't). So sleep is a luxury being facilitated by my taking public transport to work again and hitching a lift home with other techs.

We went pretty hard last week. I can't even remember what I posted last. Just felt like giving a bit of a wave to the few people who read this because I miss them. So I guess the update will have to wait until Sunday when we're all Fringe partied out and recovering from an enormous Saturday.

Mainly Palms

Amazing how a couple of shifts at work can totally take over your life...

I've been working at my old-new job for a week now and the people are really wonderful there. They've all been showing me the ropes as the majority of the staff work part-time. Apparently I'm in the minority in this workplace as most of the staff members are mums and I think that's amazing. I can barely get my head around working and studying... these ladies are working and bringing up kids!

I spent the weekend trying to decide if I was going to make the marathon effort to study and work full time or go to part time study and full time work. Either way the work was going to be full time. So I've decided to be sensible and go to part time study. That way I can try to get good marks in one subject as opposed to just scraping through two subjects. It means I'd also get a little time to see my friends and family which is even better :)

Gene and I went down to Geelong on Sunday (after not making it to the house moving ) and visited his parents who are house-sitting his aunt's house. I love visiting different Aldis and Kmarts. It's amazing how different stocks can be between stores. We ended up buying miscellaneous things in Aldi - ranging from half a kilogram of wool (purple and bright red) to secure digital and memory stick reader/writers. Kmart saw us leaving with the Tawny Man trilogy by Robin Hobb and some lipstick.

I've been getting into lipstick again lately. I particularly like the long-lasting lipstick that virtually tattoos itself to your lips for many hours. I'm a terrible lip chewer when I have lipstick on. I tend to just eat it off apparently. With these "new" lipsticks I don't have to worry about it. I'm also finding that it makes me look slightly healthier after my latest trip to the hair dressers where I had the blue re-touched, a fringe cut and the rest of my hair dyed a jet black. Without a little colour I tend to look a little washed out. :)

Can't remember if I mentioned that Gene got a Palm too recently... but I have now. He got the PalmOne E2 and it's pretty cool. A newer model than mine but it's a little confusing for me because the buttons are in different places to mine. We've spent most of our spare time together playing with them to try and synchronise the two lots of information on our calendars - the whole point in both of us having Palms - and it's been harder than we expected. Definitely a niche market for programmers the whole "syncing two pdas for two people to share information on their diaries". I spent four hours trying to find a program to do it but we eventually just renamed the categories in Datebk5 and everything seems to have worked itself out. At least our icons and categories are right now. There's still the conflict thing to solve. Apparently if we can get the HotSync to sync off a shared database that would solve it but I'd need to edit the HotSync software and I'm not game to try that with my limited knowledge of programs.

Sorry for that rather boring last paragraph... I'm going to go and watch some Farscape with Gene and finish my dinner. We're having curry tonight. Then I think it's off to bed!

When you wish upon a star...

Today I got my dream job. I get to work on the Commonwealth Games next year and I couldn't be happier. My start date is to be confirmed as I've got some prior commitments like the Fringe Festival and my work at some community centres out east but I got the call today and I've only just stopped shaking.

Suddenly I'm feeling a little tired - it's amazing how 2.75 hours worth of the shakes can make you - and I'm still grinning like a cheshire cat.

Mum and Dad are thrilled and so is Gene. Nic was the first to hear the news because he messaged me just as I was about to call Gene.

Definitely no more wallowing now!