Coming along

Sorry things have been a bit hectic with work, projects and socialising. Got a few more things for the house, it’s all shaping nicely.

I’m doing pretty well in terms of keeping myself fed. The fridge is surprisingly better stocked than I had projected at the start. I have bacon, ham, salami and lots of leaves and carrots. I just discovered that I don’t just like carrots, I FUCKING love them. There’s something captivating about the texture, colour and they’re just so damn crunchy. I might be addicted. That’s pretty much what I’ve been bringing to the design job. They’ve got an awesome kitchen that has state of the art EVERYTHING. So it’s a pleasure to “make” lunch there. Everyone’s commented on how “healthy” my lunches have been. I’ve been eating a lot of lettuce, carrots, tuna, slices of cheese and have that with tea. Sometimes I’ll chuck in some leftover snags or pieces of beef burger from the night before. It’s all pretty filling. I guess it is healthy, but it’s all I fucking know how to make for now haha. Tomorrow I’m going to change things up a bit and will attempt to make myself a croque monsieur. Hopefully I don’t burn anything down. I’ve already spilled tea on my desk, mouse and keyboard there so far. Thank god for quick thinking colleagues.

At home, I haven’t exactly come away unscathed either. I nearly burned my face off the other night when I got overzealous with the cooking spray. And earlier I nearly sliced my thumb off while slicing up my carrots. I need a better knife so I’m not struggling so hard to chop stuff. Stupid cheap knife with a silly serrated edge. But it’s IKEA! I was in the middle of cooking up a storm and the wound didn’t seem too bad so I kept going. Then the blood started to come out. I tried to apply pressure with a tea towel in between turning over my bacon and cooking my rice and preparing my lunch for tomorrow, so I was dropping blood on my bacon in the pan, it was on my egg and I was getting my salad bloody. What a mess haha.

Hi hi July

So. Just a quick run through for now:

1. Need to get photos of the new place done.

2. Need to sort out gas connection (or I’ll leave it till we get the bill)

3. Need to get more stuff done around the house.

4. Need to get on to schoolwork.

5. Need to get visa requirements done.

6. Need to be more invisible to certain people. This warrants a long discussion. I have already had a chat with some friends and it’s been good advice. Ms B’s one has been particularly helpful and appeals to my “too-understanding-too-nice=doormat” personality. Basically she says, “as soon as you feel the slightest bit uncomfortable, take your cue from that, leave and go home. Explain on the phone if you must.” I absolutely love the genius of this suggestion, it never occurred to me to just simply leave. I always think it’ll be rude. But the challenge is to do it nicely and courteously. It’s a tall order but I’m certainly up to it! In my head I get up mid-sentence! Ahh to be able to do that. Comical. It should probably be more like “talking talking he’s holding my hand, maybe he’ll stop, no now he’s touching my shoulder, keep talking and don’t move maybe he’ll get the point and see you’re indifferent, uh oh he’s moved onto rubbing my back – hey what’s this? I think I feel uncomfortable and now it’s awkward– Ok well it’s been great catching up, see ya later”. It’s gold!

7. Need to start a new series in this blog. Inject a bit of life into it. With pictures, of course. I reckon I have a lot of stories to tell about living in Richmond. I’ve already had a few interesting encounters. So that and cooking, photomagraphing and going out to see the nightlife in this neighbourhood. Hello, Richmond. I am your valentine for the next 12 months.

Ok gotta get to sleep now, I’ll get onto outlining for the series tomorrow. I will make time for my little side projects.

Brave new world

So today was a bit of a disaster. I forgot to validate my ticket on the tram this morning and literally 2 stops after I got on, two inspectors came on and asked everyone to show them their tickets. Now in the 15 months that I have been here, I have been checked several times and I have never been given a warning, or even a fine. Well, I always had a valid ticket on me. The guy didn’t care that I have been under a lot of stress for the past week, finishing up a semester, finding a new job, moving house, setting up the new home, getting used to a new neighbourhood. I think it’s safe to say I was somewhat preoccupied. I had a ticket but for some reason, I sat down without validating it. I usually have it ready by the time I’m on, so it’s really curious and out of character for me. Anyway, I’ll have to wait for the infringement notice letter before I can write to contest the fine. I should be able to get out of it. Otherwise that’s at least a $150 penalty, and I don’t want to have to pay that.

That incident kind of set a catastrophic tone to the entire day and it was all pretty blah from there.

I got more house-moving stress sometime during the day when I heard from my housemates that the gas company sent a notice that our meter hadn’t been read and asked us to call them to sort it out. I was at work and could not attend to it, the other girl was already at the airport for a couple of weeks’ visit back home and the other girl was insistent on finding the meter on her own. I’m almost certain that calling the gas company would have been better because they’d know where the meter is and perhaps may have even allowed her to take a reading herself and read it out to them. But tomorrow she’s also going out of town for three weeks, leaving me with a partly furnished home and stuff to sort out. I’ve already tried ringing the gas people twice but no luck. What’s going to happen is that they’ll send us an estimated bill which will probably be a lot higher than it would have been with a proper read in place. We’ll sort it out eventually.

I’m not totally put out by the girls’ lack of help around the house but it is kind of disappointing that they’re not as on board on making it a home as I had initially thought. There was a lot of talk about it while we were househunting though and I was convinced that we were on the same wavelength.

There isn’t anything I can do to make them contribute more and be more helpful, but I can make it an amazing new chapter in my life. That’s really all I have control over and I’m determined to make the most out of this experience. I’ve already decided I’m going to try to learn to make a dish every week, perhaps more if I have time but once a week learncooking is already a good goal. Especially for someone who sets smoke detectors off and burns everything she touches. I’ve never found cooking interesting before. It’s all very exciting to me now. I am particularly keen on learning how to make eggs benedict with hollandaise sauce, pepper steak, bruschetta, cauliflower and ricotta cheese and a few yummy desserts!

Oh and I bought a TV antenna for the secondhand TV I got a few days ago. One of the aerials snapped off within 5 minutes of me trying to get the best possible reception. A bit stressful cos I intend to host a mini housewarming / Argentina-Germany game on Saturday night. I fixed it by hooking it up to the Foxtel connection one of my housemates arranged to have installed here. Only no one else but her wants to pay for it (personally I want it but can’t afford to commit to another fixed monthly expense), so she’ll have to get it cancelled eventually. I imagine she’ll get around to it upon her return, so I have 2 weeks of lovely cable TV.

I made myself dinner and will probably crash early tonight as tomorrow is my first day at that new job! I got the design job I mentioned a few posts ago. It’s PAID work experience AND actual work. It’s possible they’ll keep me on for at least 12 months. So that’s worked out very well for me. And I still have that water job to keep me afloat. I’ve got a nice little apartment to turn into a home and I’m on break from grueling schoolwork (well, sort of).

I suppose facing a potential ticket fine isn’t TOO bad.

I haven’t had the chance to take any photos of the new place yet, plus the weather’s been atrocious lately. So while waiting, here’s a photo from when I was in Byron Bay last April. Ahhh, warm days.

Kickin’ it Sunday

So I’m surviving my week on my own, better than I’d expected actually. I’ve been keeping myself fed most of the time, can’t complain. I had a big brunch of pancakes with oozing honey, brown sugar, cheese and a dab of lemon. And a side of bacon. All washed down with a tall mug of Dilmah with milk and honey. Sounds a bit full on, you say? You betcha. It was delicious and the pancakes were golden brown beautiful. I’ve even started flipping them successfully. I think cooking’s going to be the next challenge in the coming months. I CANNOT wait.

So yeah. I saw all of Day 2’s matches, granted I had to watch the Eng v USA one on replay earlier this morning. I was already struggling by the end of the Arg v Nig match but I’m glad I tough it out. I really want to watch the Socceroos take on Germany at half past 4 tomorrow but I have work at 8… I may just sleep early and set an alarm. Not sure what to do. And I’ve run out of beer.

As far as tidying is concerned, the lounge room’s been vacuumed, clean laundry folded, the kitchen floor’s been mopped, the pots and pans washed, the stove cleaned of grease, bins emptied and my room’s back to a manageable state. I even changed the sheets. Yeh boi, I’m on top of things.

I’m down to batch 3 of laundry but have had to put that on hold since we’ve run out of detergent. And I even noted it on the Grocery List. Eggs and milk too.

So now I got Nat Geo on mute at the moment cos I’m working on adding sounds to my 2nd animation and will be studying for my marketing exam a bit later on. Just listening to some subtle dubstep and am just generally kickin’ it at home. Will try to get on to a bit of packing for next weekend’s move later on.

This is Sunday awesome Sunday.

Hey June

It’s 1:50 at the moment and I’m in bed, definitely one of my earlier nights. I got a bit of work done. Not bad, considering I went for drinks with BP, Kippah and HBC after marketing class. Not bad at all. Not doing too badly this week actually. Going through the list of things to do fairly steadily. Well, if you don’t count studying for the marketing exam next week.

On school: I don’t want to jinx myself, but I have to say I’ve done pretty well staying on top of everything. The 2 HTML/CSS websites are getting there, one is pretty much done, the other has 2 more sections that needs to be populated. A few more quiet hours this weekend should sort that out just fine. I’m making a lot of progress on the animations. The third one may have to be done over the holidays and the lecturer already said she doesn’t mind. But I’ll still try to nail that before the break, but there’s a lot less pressure on that now. I’ve started the Flash website, which is good, because there is so much left to be done on that. I started working on a slideshow and that took about 3 hours because I was still trying to get my head around it. By the end of it, it wasn’t even done properly. It’s the learning that’s so time-consuming.

On home: We got an offer yesterday and today we signed the lease! 12 months! We move in next Saturday! I’ll probably move in bit by bit, I need to get projects out of the way first. But yeah I should start packing! I need a bed! I need a TV! Some World Cup evenings are muchly needed! OMG!

We’ll be living in Richmond (where the A is), 1 train stop to Flinders, less than 15 mins on the tram, close to MCG, to shops, to bars, to EVERYTHING, how good is that?? IKEA is a few metres away on our street. We could buy stuff and WALK home. Life is over.

A massive housewarming is in the works.

Ok I had wanted to go on about a few other things in this post but I’m falling asleep. I do have an early start tomorrow so I probably shouldn’t loiter on here too long.

Oh yeah! This is my second night alone in this house! Sister, brother and baby are away on holiday for a week. It’s a bit creepy with all the creaky sounds at night but all in all, I’m doing alright. I’ve been keeping myself fed and happy. Tonight I made myself a cheese and mushroom omelette, which I had with the toast I left on the table this morning. I reheated it in the oven and it was alright hehe. Last night I had leftover yummy chicken, some corn and carrots, a few pieces of eggplant and a couple of celebratory beers to formalise the end of the dreadful househunt. That’s right bitches, I stocked up. Oh and I made my first aioli sauce to go with the chicken. It was GOOD.

So yeah it’s been alright, not lonely at all as I’d feared. I do some tidying up and listen to music at high volume, drink tea, work on my projects while listening to the news, walk around naked but not for too long because it’s so cold these days. Good good.

Though I did notice that I’m very paranoid about leaving my keys at home when I head out. I tend to do that. Imagine coming home and finding myself locked out and having nowhere to go! The weather drops to unspeakable lows at night. And it rains. And the wind picks up. Terrible terrible thing. I just need to make sure I DON’T EVER FORGET.

So yeah it’s been pretty awesome. Now I just need to hear from that company I went to interview for last week (kinda steeling myself for disappointment though, cos if they were convinced that I’m the right person for the role, they wouldn’t take this long to decide but fingers still crossed) and I’ll be sorted!

I’m missing all the sports!

Rafa took his 5th French Open title yesterday, very happy he’s back in top form. Poor guy’s been plagued with injuries since last year. At 24, it’s pretty shocking. As a top tennis player, I guess it’s not that shocking and that’s the price of amazingness.

Was a bit worried Soderling would muscle through with his aces. Anyway, that’s done. Wish I had seen the match but also relieved otherwise I’d have gotten nothing done.  I forgot to stock up on beer anyway. I’ll have to do that sometime this week BECAUSE THE KICKOFF IS IN 4 DAYS I’M SO EXCITED!

Some design talk, so I don’t feel too guilty about not doing work:

From a design (and personal, really) standpoint, these two images should really be the same height but I can’t be bothered to resize. But yeah design-wise, the logo for the World Cup 2006 looks heaps better. Looks more cohesive. The guy on the left in the SA logo doesn’t seem to have any purpose as to why he is shaped that way. Unless his torso is meant to be a laughing face because he’s so happy. There’s certainly a lot of elements to work with which would be hell (maybe I’ll try my hand at it and see just how hard it is!!) but the previous logo just works it all a bit better. In this year’s logo, I don’t like how the type is busy and quirky and the image is busy and quirky too. I’m guessing that whoever designed this isn’t South African, s/he might be a football fan but it looks and feels too much like what MIGHT represent the spirit of South Africa, which I doubt is accurate. OR s/he is South African but isn’t a designer. It’s got to be one or the other. I also dunno why the word Africa is in red. It’s unfortunate that the national flag has way too many colours going on, but I understand that they had to go on the design. Thinking about it now, it’s really not a problem that’s impossible to solve, definitely challenging but not impossible. It seems they get free reign on using the mandatory elements anyway so it’s a workable design problem. Plus they had time to work on it, there’s no excuse. I dunno. The concept may have been brilliant but it just got lost in the execution. But everyone’s a critic. Meanwhile my poster design still needs its 3 concepts huhu. Presentation tomorrow!! I have 2 now but they’re not solid yet and I haven’t scanned my thumbnails in. Because I have no thumbnails yet. ACK! I’ll do it on the train over, where I surprisingly get a LOT of conceptual work done. Must be the motion. Guess I’m skipping lunch tomorrow boo. This really should go on the design blog.

Obviously I won’t be able to catch much of the first 2 weeks of matches (yeah right) because I’ve still got 3 weeks of projects left to do and I’ve got to be sensible (yeah right). But it’s good to be ready anyway. I have a lot of all-nighters ahead of me and it would be nice to have an army of strapping fit men running themselves sweaty and keeping me company. But of course it’s about the ball skillz man! GO ARGENTINA GO SOCCEROOS GO FRANCE (but this last one just quietly cos I have Irish friends who HATE the French team because of Henry’s hand of god goal in the qualifiers; I’m thinking hey that’s the way the ball bounces).

I’m so going to die this month. Can’t wait!

Baby’s day out

My sister, the baby and I went to the city on Sunday afternoon. We drove to the station and took the train into town. It was Ethan’s first time on the train; he was quiet the entire ride but his eyes were wide as saucers, just trying to process his surroundings. Adorable.

There were a few things going on in the city as per usual and we spent a nice leisurely afternoon. It was a beautifully crisp and sunny day too so it was an excellent Sunday, despite me not doing any schoolwork. I felt slightly guilty but also relieved. I didn’t realise how badly in need I was of a break. I did do a bit of work when I got home though so it wasn’t too bad. But mostly I played with the new photos I took earlier. Naughty naughty. I brought the camera so at least it made me feel like I was learning something new. I have issues, I know.

The following two photos were taken from a café inside the GPO building. This is one of the cafés that make coffees I like. I had a yummy salmon sandwich with my coffee.

This one is of the café’s tables on the street. I just swiveled in my seat to take it. That guy gulping his coffee down behind the steel pole is kind of ruining this shot.

This next one of an alley is Hosier Lane taken from across Fed’s Square. I’ve tried to eat at Movida twice before (on separate occasions) but both times they were packed, my friends and I couldn’t even sit at the bar cos people had decided to dine there. Ugh. Then I went to Movida Next Door another time and I still couldn’t get a table. Misty is right next to it, it’s a bar I used to frequent back when I had a social life.

That building on the right hand side is the Forum Theatre, where I hollered and waved at Quentin Tarantino when he was here to promote Inglourious Basterds. I like to think that he saw me.

We walked to Fed Square because my sister wanted to check out the Emerging Writers’ Festival. Small event, just lots of tables with books of newly published authors (pics to follow). Nearly bought a cute graphic novel cos it was only $5 and I felt duty-bound to support the arts but I wasn’t feeling it. In retrospect, I’m thinking maybe I should have bought it.

Oh yeah, we went to the library to check a few books and cds out before heading on to the writers’ thing. It was the baby’s first time in the library as well and my sister thought he should have a photo to remember it by. So silly. Photo came out a bit better than expected so I played with it a bit.

The original’s on the left. I tweaked the photograph on the right sorta-kinda HDR-style. Hehe it’s a lot of fun….and I know I should be working on my projects but my obsessive nature is getting the better of me.

This should be enough for now till I actually have the time to post stuff. 4 weeks to go before the break… and to get on facebook. I shiver in anticipation. It’s been so long. In the meantime, the zombie life continues.

Colours of Autumn

Took a few photos on my way to work this afternoon. It’s a good 15-minute walk from the train station and it was nice to break it up for a change, and in delightful mini photo excursions. I have a long way to go before I develop my own style so might as well start practicing now. That’s what I bought the camera for!

So I don’t know what that chair is doing there, well actually I do. People just put unwanted stuff in front of their houses and other people who do want the stuff take them home. In any case, it wasn’t there when I went to work on Thursday. I’d have taken it home if I didn’t have to catch the train, looks like it’d be perfect as a poker chair. Hehe.

Playing with depth-of-field. I like it.

May Day!

So I’ve got just under an hour left to go at work. There were a few shifts available this weekend and as painful as my school timetable is at the moment, I figured I could squeeze in afternoon work. Why not? I’m pretty much a zombie anyway, might as well get paid for a few hours. I stayed up till 3 last night to knock off 1 of the things due next Tuesday.

I know this post is earlier than usual but I’m way ahead of schedule with the work here and I don’t actually have to do any more of it. Anyway there’s no one around to make me do more work. Who comes into the office on a Saturday anyway? Actually it feels a little creepy being here all alone, clacking away at my desk. Aaaanyway.

So this month is going by at lightning speed, in fact, I hardly remember May starting!

I have nothing interesting to report because I haven’t done anything BUT schoolwork for the past…oh I dunno, two months now?? I don’t even think I have any more friends now. And facebook’s being annoying sending me emails to log on because people are waiting to interact with me. Weirdo. But having said that, I do miss my thread commentary activities. I actually sat next to my sister while she was on her account, because I wanted to know what was going on with the community there.

Ugh I just realised that I’m a loser.

I spend night after night, either researching, sketching, working on layouts, choosing the right PMS colour or making sense of divs. That’s my life right now. The embarrassing thing is that I enjoy all of it. I mean, sure, I miss having a beer and socialising and just chatting and laughing and going to festivals.. but this is just as fun, if not more. I spend hours working on my computer at night, toiling away on what needs to get done. I got told off by Manu (yeah for some reason he messaged me on Skype when I was online about a week ago) and he said, and not without a large dose of condescension, “I realise Chris that one will always be busy in life… You have to reassess what’s important to you and you need to make time to enjoy life..otherwise it will just pass you by.” What a douche. He’s just confused by my lack of interest in anything he does. I should have said, well I don’t enjoy talking to you, get out of my life. I don’t know why I feel like I have to be nice. I always think people have issues and I should try to be a friend to everyone. I have to learn that sometimes, no matter how deep you dig, the good person that I always think is in people is just not there.

So yeah, night after night I sit in the living room with the heater off in 6c weather and I don’t even notice how close to frostbite I am until I get up to go to bed. I realise I can’t move my muscles because they’re frozen. I always think my fingers are just tired when I flex them and they feel stiff and numb.

Good news is that I got 1 of the major projects (they’re all major projects apparently) out of the way a few days ago. That Roller Skating site I’ve been whinging about. I’m putting that bitch to sleep! I started out with a decent enough design on it, nothing mindblowing.. but as time went by, I had to make sure the site was functional.. so the quality of the design degraded over time and now.. well it’s just functional. Haha.

Oh and I am slowly working on populating this blog with more photos than words… I’ve been good at clicking away at stuff, I just need to get on resizing them and uploading them on here.

Ok I suppose that’s enough faffing for now. I’ll be out of here soon!

5 and a half weeks till sleep

Here’s some bananas to chew on while you’re waiting.