In a recent survey*

of current and past students, it was found that 80% of respondents felt like quitting their courses at this stage of the game.

20% of respondents said they felt like doing much worse but would refuse to elucidate...

(*Completely unscientific and consisting of only 5 people)

Crap.

At class tonight we were informed that our final works for The Big Very Important (Scary) Final Brief weren't going to be hanging where we were originally told they were. So all my plotting and planningover the past few months is wasted. And I have to come up with ideas for display in a very boring and square room...

After I get back from Wellington, I think. There's still a month to go until assessment, after all!

And then...

I woke up at 3am and couldn't get back to sleep.

Until 5am. And I woke up at 8:15am. Only a couple of hours later than I'd expected.

It was OK. Except I'd planned to spend this morning finishing off my Designers in their Context assignment for class tomorrow night.

Then I missed my bus. By seconds.

Not to worry, there are always plenty of buses if I walk across to Northbourne Ave.

Except this morning there wasn't.

And the one that (finally) showed up ate my ten trip ticket: with 7 rides still on it.

The bus driver told me there was nothing he could do and policy was that they don't return tickets that get eaten by their machines.

I didn't believe him and, as I had to walk past the Action buses office on the way to Craft ACT, I popped in. To discover that what the driver should have done was give me a card with his name, driver number and route number which I could use to get my ticket (or equivalent) back. But he hadn't so I was given a two trip ticket. Better than nothing I suppose...

The rest of the day was rather good: I sold lots of lovely things in the Craft ACT shop, met lots of nice people and watched Jas and Pete install the Art Quilt Australia 09 exhibition across the hallway.

At lunchtime I booked in for a series of printmaking workshops being held next door in November.

Then I spent the afternoon working on stuff for my next exhibition before heading home. Started cooking dinner and my microwave died on me. Not too unexpected really: it is 17 years old, but I'm wondering when exactly I'm going to find the time to take it into the repair place...

Oh: I nearly forgot. Today I've been an Australian citizen for 9 years. A scary thought.

I took it as a sign

I thought I had yesterday under control. Really I did.

Well, apart from the fact it took me 12 minutes to get from my place to Northbourne Ave instead of the usual 2 minutes it takes. Which made me late for work. But that was OK.

I managed to snaffle two pairs of jeans for $40 at lunchtime. Less a $5 gift card I had banging round in my wallet from an online survey I did a couple of months ago. New jeans for $17.50 a pair? Makes me a little less inclined to lurk in the jeans racks at the op shops (guilty as I feel to say so)

Left work early, as is usual on Mondays and Wednesdays, so I could make the 5:15pm start for class. Traffic was light. I made good time and arrived bang on the dot of quarter past.

Life was good. Or so I thought. Until I went to chuck 30 cents in the parking ticket machine to take me through to 5:30pm. And the display said I'd paid until 4:30pm.

"4:30pm? Surely they'd updated the parking machines for daylight saving by now?" I thought. And looked at my watch. Which also said 4:30pm.

It took a couple of minutes for my poor brain to work out that I'd swanned out of work and driven to class A WHOLE HOUR EARLY. And hadn't noticed.

I rang my boss. And grovelled. (Luckily she laughed)

I assessed my options. I could hang round in the cafe for an hour until class started. But I decided, since I've never done anything like this in my life, that the safest place for me was home. In bed.

That time of the year again...

I just did the accounts for one of the most expensive times of my year. I paid my electricity and gas bills for the winter quarter ($260.63), my monthly interest free bed payment ($48) and both my Smith Family (Australian) and Plan International (Indian) sponsored kids ($840) while contemplating my upcoming rego bill ($701.80) and Canberra Theatre 2010 subscription season tickets (as yet unknown).

Was it painful? No, due to having thrown a corresponding amount into my bill paying account each pay during the past year the money was sitting there waiting for me. I love not panicking about bills when they arrive...

And then I woke up....

to this: A teetering pile of unread library books, magazines and books from my own collection...

Sunday: day of rest?

There are many many things I should be doing today. But instead I'm loading my new iPod. And thinking about an afternoon nap...

Have you been following the story of Small-bot and Cat-bot?

If not you need to skedaddle over to Ric-Rac immediately!
(There's knitting...)

Mow back lawn. Work. Intern at Re-Loved 2. Wash shirt. Bed.

No photos of Re-Loved 2: but I've been told I can swipe both the official Craft ACT ones by Simon and Nina Ribena's front row shots when they're loaded...

*** UPDATED TO ADD ***

Canberra's got Style's coverage here.

Calling any Japanese speakers/ dwellers!

Working on my presentation on Terence Conran reminded me that I've been meaning to track down a Satoria ashtray:It's been discontinued in the UK but I stumbled across this page on the Conran Japan site. I can't understand a word of it (and Google won't translate it for me).

Can you help at all?

Work. Class. Wash shirt. Bed.

The blog post you have when you're not having a blog post

I could tell you about my day: how it started with a blood nose. How I cobbled together the first rough outline of my report on Terence Conran for class before breakfast. How I packed and posted some eBay stuff before work. How I got to ride a bendy 39 bus to Craft ACT (which was rather odd). How I spent the day envelope stuffing and Face booking. How I then went to work at the Library for the evening.

But I won't because that's pretty boring.

Instead I'll remind you about this:

Tired, over it and very tempted to quit*

That's all for today.

I'm off to bed. If you want pretty pictures, check out Jeannie Baker's website.

(* But of course I won't)

Testing, testing

(All very rough, incomplete and Photoshoppy)

A new thought...

Which came to me at 11:30pm the other night. A children's book based on my grandmother's poem. Collaged with textures. Like bark. And stuff.

Sounds like a big job. Maybe I'll change my mind tomorrow...

Give me a day off and I'll take 1448 miles...

In an unexpected twist of fate I was told that I wasn't going to be working on Friday October 30th.

Which is the day before what could be a very long weekend in Canberra (if you happen to take the Monday before Family and Community Day off the following week).

Somehow I found myself on the Qantas website. You know, to just check what the situation was for frequent flier fares around that time. And before I knew what had happened I'd booked flights to Wellington.

Flights, insurance and 4 nights accommodation for $184.94? I think it's cheaper than staying at home. Besides, I'm well overdue for a visit to the dentist...

More excitement

In which I meet my first snake in the thirteen years I've lived in Australia (finally!)

... stand my ground(realise I've failed miserably)and, well, I'll let you imagine the rest...

Friday wasn't all bad. I bought new shoes. The parameter was they had to feel like slippers, stand up to 7 hours a day on my feet, and meet the uniform guidelines. Oh, and be able to kick ass. Happily, they passed!

Final excitement was the moment when I finally became a (second hand) iPod owner... Just before I saw Quantum Leap for the second time this year. They had (very) little people! I was particularly entranced...

(Did I say final? Silly me! The final excitement is that I seem to have 2 days off in a row for the first time since 25th July...)

Oh happy day!

What makes me excited?

A visit from The Collectors?

Meh... (meant in the nicest possible way, of course!)

An email from Converse.com announcing the long hoped-for return of the Converse One Star?

And the realisation that they (finally) are shipping to Australia?

Hold the front page!My troubles are over. I can restock the top cupboard...

***** Edited to add *****

Feeling slightly deflated now: I checked out the shipping charges: $87.95 US to post one pair of shoes to Australia? Ekk!

if I were to buy four pairs at once the postage is still $42.25 a pair...

Our creative space (because I just realised it's Thursday)

The only way I think I can deal with the photos from today is just put them in chronological order and add captions. Settle yourself in, as this'll be a long (and image heavy) post...

Nasty Collectors people lept on me first thing in the morning with the interview questions. So no photos of that and I really do wish I could have a do over. Never mind, I'm sure they'll make me sound coherent (and, hopefully, a little mad)

Then it was time to move onto the closeups. Here's Justin plotting how to approach my Reac chair display (while muttering how Adrian would kill for them)and Greg shooting them:

Justin and Greg discuss a scene they've shot earlier (I think the conversation went something along the lines of "We could have her walk in this side, stop about here and say something. What do you think?"):Back in The Room of Temporary Non-Shame, Greg sets up the lighting for a scene we did shooting me through the window of the Triangand tests it out from my side of the shot:

Me, overact? NEVER!(But TV isn't as glamorous and exciting as you might think...)Greg shoots the other Triang as Justin and I act as stage hands, opening the fronts just so. Several times:

During the filming of The Mickey flat (one of my earliest miniature creations), Justin gets sidetracked, asking if I actually knitted thiswhich opens the way for me to show him some real miniature treasures: Over in the other corner of the room you might notice there's a party happening (and the puking man has moved houses)

At 2pm, while eveyone's concentrating on work I'm concentrating on the growling of my empty stomachand, since TV people appear not to need to eat, I grab my standard go to snack du jour: cold rice pudding eaten from the can (Because, you know, TV is so glamorous...)

While I'm munching the team works on. Greg tries to create a flickering TV effect upstairs as the party rages on below

(he's hoping to add me into the right hand side of this shot due to the magic of the blue screen*)
(Oddly, the team seem to be a little obsessed with shooting footage of rooms with TVs in them)

Finally, very late in the afternoon, they get to the Kaleidoscope House, which is lit up like a giant boiled sweet:Then, after Miss Daisy vomits her hidden contents onto my kitchen floor, we head up the road to the ABC studio. Miss Daisy seems to think that if she parks here she might become a TV Crew car. I didn't want to dash her hopes...Inside, the crew ponder how they're going to approach the challenge of getting me into my dolls housesbefore Justin and I check the authenticity of the ABC's reception's Swan chairs(Big thumbs up for the ABC then!)(Have I mentioned that working in TV is glamorous?)

By this stage of the day my brain is starting to hurt as I go through the "So I start with the chair pointing in this direction, say these works to the camera, smile (in a natural way) before swinging around to face that miniature TV screen that I can't actually see on the green cloth?"But, finally, around 5pm, we're done. It's a wrap (or whatever the official phrasing is...)Now I have to wait patiently to see the end result...

(*Which ended up being the green screen because I was wearing jeans and they didn't want me to to be legless)

My next career move?

Maybe not: they kept telling me today not to overact. They didn't realise that's how I usually am...

More photos to follow: it was a long day (they arrived at 9:30am and I left the ABC studio at 5pm). Then I had red bubbles and fush und chups with friends to celebrate.

And now I have 158 photos* to sort out.

(*They said it was odd being on the receiving end for a change)

I asked The Collectors

if they could do something like this for me. Fingers crossed...

What I forgot to ask: "When are you arriving tomorrow?"

Oops...

Things I hope don't happen around here in the next 36 hours

(In no particular order)

1. Cod id da dose

2. Gastro/ food poisoning

3. Uncontrollable blood nose

4. Migraine

5. Earthquake

6. Power cut

7. Burglary

Language nest

or Kōhanga reo

(and yes, the floors are clean...)

Off to fill the bucket and find the mop now. Promise!

A bit backwards

I believe it is usual, when you have an assignment due, to suddenly have the urge to clean.

So why, when I need to wash the kitchen and bathroom floors before Thursday, do I suddenly have the overwhelming urge to play with The Big Very Important (Scary) Final Brief?

(Probably for the same reason that coffee puts me to sleep...)