very exciting.
new bankcard online and working.
i have cash again!
i am a consumer waiting to validate my existence!
12:49:00 AM

 
watched way too much tv last night.

and then I stayed up late reading _Fresco_ (Tepper). v. didactic. and somewhat clumsily so. although it could have been deliberate. still enjoyed it. but I have low standards.
11:25:00 PM

 
Mitochondrial Eve

Neanderthal interbreeding?
No!

(unrelated)
E boom
1:18:00 AM

 
so. yeah, stopped blogging while that was going on. um, 10 days to update then:

Wed, July 17 (last post was July 19, but I knew blogger not updating properly so heart not in it) - had dinner with me Mum at a newish Vietnamese cafe thingy down the road. It was the first time I'd seen her in at least two months. Plus, I hadn't returned a phonecall from her in the week before my defence, so a bit of guilt to assauge (not much, she's very good at nonguilting!). We discussed my new found fame (my godparents spotted me and then rang and told my parents). Plus sundry other family, travel, etc. things. Was quite nice.

Thursday, July 18 - supported community theatre. was a very amateur production. gave me a warm glow - possibly from the feeling of doing penance? damn my catholic upbringing-and-its-attendant-contrary-mental-abberations. the main excitement was when one of the very large backdrop frames broke. no really, had a good time. really!

um Friday, July 19 - On spur of the moment in the morning, as Commonwealth has started charging ridiculous monthly bank fees, I closed that account, and opened a Unicredit account instead. Fees there are much more reasonable, and you can use almost ANY ATM without charge. And they're just generally more competitive, and I've known this for ages, and really should've exercised my consumer power many moons ago. Unfortunately, this spur of the moment decision didn't take into account that it'd take two weeks for me to get my new card, etc., so I don't really have access to my money (could go to the actual bank and get some out, but that's no fun).

In the evening, we went to the Indian Palace Restaurant for BJ's birthday. We gave him a tagine which the housemate had found while down south. [aside: was interested to discover one of the housemate's main recreational activities while down south is going shopping with her mum. like i kind of knew they have lots of crafty type places down there, but it's just so not something i associate with holidays down south] I had the buffet. Ate too much. And then we had a vote on where to go next, but people stuffed the ballot. Where did we end up? I'm having trouble remembering...

Sat, Jul 20. In morning, got new tyres on auto (finally!). Sat night, Fima had her Annual Winter Party. Theme: "Soft and Squishy". I bought her a belated birthday prez of an inflatable Red Back Spider, like maybe 60 cm long, from Australian Geographic. Once blown up, it looked lovely and solidly exoskeletal, but was actually quite soft and squishy. Want one (or several) of my own. I wore my ski pants and puffa jacket, and tied a childhood friend (Big Ted) to my front. Fima was wearing bubble wrap. Beth was also in quilted puffy ski gear. Simon's girlfriend, Lisa? had constructed out of flesh-coloured foam, a single humongous breast for him to wear. It was very soft and squishy. Lots of people brought stuffed toys. Had a nice time. Should have mingled more with the new housemate's friends.

Sun, Jul 21. Hm. A blank. Can't remember what I got up to. Oh? Cleaned house I think.

[did a bit of work, yada yada yada...]

Thurs, Jul 25. Met my Canberra friend Sabinne at the Queens for drinks. She was in town for a day, before heading out to the country and her family's farm for the rest of the week. Was too short a catchup, but she'll be back after Christmas I think. i think i may have waxed about her worrying apparent insecurity and low self-esteem previously. Despite now being MANAGER of the entire design firm she works at, she STILL seems to think me and some of our mutual friends are somehow "ahead" of her!!! "But it's just a small firm" she says - and it really seems genuine. sheesh. Don't know what to do with her!

Fri, Jul 26 - hectic day trying to finish stuff off, and in the evening I made dinner for Veronica (which we gave her a voucher for on her birthday a couple of weeks ago, as a certain housemate was totally broke, and then certain housemate ended up having to stay for work drinks till past 7:30, leaving me holding the saucepans, etc!!! was mildly annoyed, as there was a potential present I wanted to go for in the first place, but got over it before the housemate made it home, and fortunately, Sinaed didn't make it till 10 mins after that). I kept it pretty simple: pumpkin soup garnished with greek yoghurt and a crusty baguette for starters; onion, mushroom, tomato and red capsicum quiche, plus rigatoni with broccoli and sundried tomatoes with thyme for mains. The birthday girl herself volunteered to bring apple pie, although my dad had left us a weird rum and raisin chocolate mud cake which we also could have gone with. Food supplies also cleaned out my cash reserve to the lowest it's possibly EVER been. I currently have $3.05. Hopefully my new bankcard will come tomorrow.

Sat, Jul 27. Went to the gym for the first time in a week :P had a good work out though. Circuit plus some lifting. Then two loads of laundry, library, picked up a couple of interesting looking books (including a new one by S.S. Tepper, who I usually enjoy: _Fresco_). Then went and picked up A, and went to a very pleasant housewarming. We were come of the first people there, and wish I'd had a chance to talk more to everyone who arrived later, but went instead to a Games Party. I've previously gone to one held by Tan, and had a good time (shooting projectiles at little people, plus at big people, plus pictionary, operation, etc.). A good one again, more projectile weapons, but guns this time! More Operation, plus Connect Four, Jenga (my first time, and I didn't lose! yay!), and then Dirty Scrabble! With letters from two games! And racks of ten letters for each team! (three teams of 4) Tan's team set the tone with 'erextun', which was followed by 'dikblaster'. I don't think anyone actually managed a correctly spelled word. Our team was particularly proud of 'diqnvibratr', on two triple word scores. And then me and the housemate were off to Sinaed's going away (off to Norway, etc.), which was nicely mellow. A busy evening, but I think we were home by 1am.

Sun, July 28. Baked a lemon meringue pie. I think I'm getting the hang of shortcrust pastry (after also making some for the quiche on Friday, although I'll probably lose it again by the time I next try to make it), but I'm still not happy with the meringue. I'd really quite like some crispy meringue crust, although this may not be possible on a pie wth a moist filling. May have to make the meringue separately. This unusual effort was of course in aid of A's High Tea. A sugary sensation! An oral overload! An excessive extravanganza even! Apart from the obligatory (and popular) cucumber sandwiches, there were cappucino cupcakes (with fluffy white froth frosting and choc powder sprinkled on top!) AND cupcakes with tiny little dinosaurs on them! Crispy savoury vol au vents (both shroom and corn ones), tangily tantalising poppy seed and citrus biscakes, Crunchy coconut drop cookies, chompable chocolate cake, an alluring apricot nut loaf AND our hostess with the mostess gave us chocolate croissants to take home!

The conversation skipped fluidly from politics and patriotism and butterfly ballots to education and socioeconomic contexts for reform success to law and DNA evidence and plagiarism to mitochondrial Eve and neanderthal extinction to bestiality to cute little chimps in shorts on roller skates and smoking cigars. I can only think the arguments for sugar as a drug have gained credibility.
11:39:00 PM

 
ok. blogger not updating blog for a while there. apparently some template server glitch. bored of old template anyway.
11:25:00 PM

 
other silly thing today.
didn't ask for receipt after depositing wad of cash in new account. am possibly over-trusting. oh well. hope i see it again.

the lead up to that little contretemps was: this morning i closed my evilbank account, and opened a credit union account. fees lower and interest higher. go consumer power! was slightly spur of the moment however, and i didn't consider that i now have to make sure various autodeposit arrangements get changed, and that i don't spend up before my new card comes through in a couple of weeks.
1:07:00 AM

 
hrm. i really should fix the brakes on my bike. am feeling quite good toward humanity, since they didn't even honk!
1:01:00 AM

 
my darn hermitage over the last couple of months has really gotten me out of the blogging habit...

ANYWAY.
mmm... swiss chocolate - yum. hooray for friends who travel!

so what's been happening? well since the haircut. um. not much. On saturday I was all ready to have a nap, but got a call that there were going away drinks for a friend (the one who got married) and is now off to Chicago for a couple of months, and then Mexico! Ah change... My supervisor (off to his new job in Middle Earth tomorrow!) implied that I might well be somewhere else in a new job also in three months time when he comes back to visit - I just can't think things'll move that fast. I'd hope that they could, but am too familiar with his relentless optimism.

After drinks, I went to check out and have a dance at a retro-rave called _Step Back in Time_, yes! Old Skool! Wish Fleur had been here to go with me, but she's headed back across the continent. The girl on the door was Kylie who's going out with Gary who I kind of know through raving, and he was there too, so we had a big catch-up chat. They were both off in Europe for a couple of months, which is always nice to talk about. Went in, and it was a bit empty, I think there was the World DJ Championships or something also on, and which'd probably be competing for the same crowd, but some friendly faces, although I didn't actually know any of them (apart from Gary and Tracy). They were also playing bloody drum'n'bass, listenable stuff, but SO not Old Skool :P They finally got onto some real rave moozik though, and I had a really good boogie from about 2 till 3:30, when they sadly and annoyingly closed up - pah! it was billed "till late", but i guess it was understandable with the rather sparse turnout (only ~ 40-50 people). I was really ready for an all nighter though :(

Well, went home and to bed and slept in till midday. Made leek and broccoli soup. Turned out quite nice. Got some fiction from the library. Read _Being Invisible_ by some supposedly witty mainstream American author (Thomas Berger). It was painfully unamusing. And the main character was stupid and annoying - is this a tendency of mainstream fiction employed to try and make the stories more interesting? No no, I know that's an unfair genre-lization. I will persevere with the trying mainstream fiction now-and-then. But stupid protagonists will not be tolerated!

I'm also trying mysteries! Have a book of shorts by Dorothy L Sayers, and am finding it quite readable (have only read three so far).

Don't know quite why I'm saving the Egan (_Schild's Ladder_) for later, but I am. Darn, and it just occurred to me that a birthday boy on Friday who's also a big fan of Egan would probably appreciate it as a prez, so I should try and read it before then maybe :P even though we already have a present for him (a tagine).

Time for the gym...
2:34:00 AM

 
Just got a haircut, while there, I noticed a magazine called _Shelving_, I was amusedly pleased for all the interior design fetishist-obsessives out there that there was an entire magazine dedicated to shelves. Although the cover was like this woman's back standing facing a pool, and one of the sub-heads was "Aqua Dreaming", which I didn't quite understand in relation to shelving. And then I noticed the 'i' between the 'l' and the 'v'. And the first three letters were a slightly darker shade than the last six. Still don't understand the subhead though.
12:42:00 AM

 
Like the old Berlin-space was very nice, but was afraid it was meant to be the Hip-Hop room, fortunately they switched at the last min and made it the Tek room. Thomas Schumacher was pretty good, and had a good dance to him, although it was generally pretty packed. Will-e-Tell was boring minimal though. No one particularly exciting in Metros, but more dancing space, and I think Fleur quite enjoyed. Ran into Kelly, an instructor at my gym, and she remembered my name, so that was nice. Didn't really meet anyone new though. Think we left about 5ish, which was probably good, so we could get a few hours sleep before brunch.

Brunch was at King St Cafe. Had salmon in hollandaise, was ok, not spectacular. Then went shopping with Lauren, saving B from having to go with her. She got work shoes, I got hair bleach (for Fleur, but I may use it sometime too) plus a book with the last of my bookshop vouchers from ages ago. _Schild's Ladder_ by Greg Egan whom I admire greatly and am looking forward to reading. It's very new though and only available in trade, so it cost like $30, and i only had $25 in vouchers. Spent way too much this weekend. At least I didn't buy any clothes, which while i wast stressed out I was thinking I'd go out and splurge on after the stress was over. The urge has passed though, and I don't need any new clothes. And then home to bleach Fleurs hair - we were going to pink it too (yuk) but she decided to leave it just blonde for a while first. And then went and visited Leila and Misha, I got a 6pack of Coopers Dark Ale and some chocolate, and we went and talked and drank and played uno. Then they convinced us to try an Indian Restaurant down the street from them where they know people, so we went there, and one of the waiters (Leila's friend) gave us a free bottle of wine (Mad Fish Cab Merlot 2000) and we all ordered Thallies (sp?) which were plates with a selection of three different curries plus dhal plus rice plus popadom plus paratha plus yoghurt plus this rice dessert, and was very very good value and very yummy and we all ate too much. Was very nice.

OK, so from Friday arvo:
beer $3, makings of salad $8, birthday cards $5, dinner $10, drinks at party $15, drinks at MoS $5, brunch $12.50, bleach $30, book $5 (with voucher), 6pack+choc $15, indian $11=too much ($119.50).
11:41:00 PM

 
ok. have 10 mins before a seminar to start back into weekend blog updates, now that post-D-Day I have weekends again. I haven't even written about after The Actual Event. Got back to my office and had two calls from two best friends asking how it went, which was really nice, since I'd hardly talked to them in weeks (despite my living with one of them). And then it was to the pub with my supervisor, who bought me two pints. Plus a boss guy from the govt group we have a contract with, and which my stuff is related too, and who had just sat through my seminar (and who is really nice, but still, disconcerting because of his influence on the attitude of people who have power over me). Anyway, had a nice time with them and some friends from the dept, and then a couple more friends arrived...

[...]
d'oh. ran out of time.

but yes, drank lots. back to mine. On D-Day the housemate ran into the parents of a friend of ours. She mentioned that I'd been invisible for a while due to The Stressful Event, and they decided that I deserved a couple of bottles of wine! So we drank those :)

Thursday and Friday I had to run up a poster for a conference this week, which the Supervisor booked me for a while ago. Managed to get it done like a quarter to 5 on Friday arvo.

Friday evening, managed to make it to the pub for like half an hour, but then had to go for dinner. Everyone my supervisor is supervising was putting on a dinner for him as he's leaving next week. Food was nice. The event was interesting, 7 young kids along with the 16 or so of us grownups (haha! I'm a grownup! hee. relatively.), but uneventful.

Fleur is over from Nineveh at the mo', and was staying with us for the weekend, and on Sat morning we all got up early (like 8am) as the housemate had organized a photo shoot out in Bohemian-land with her and her 4 best friends as a present to herself for her last birthday. So we all met at our place at 9am, and drove down there together, and waited for the housemates professional photographer friend, and spent the next couple of hours climbing distressed old facades, standing on walls facing the ocean, sitting on steps, rolling around on lawns, acting rather self-consciously in the middle of masses of people at the weekend markets, and drinking at the pub - all in the name of art. After a threateningly overcast morning, it was quite lovely weather. And then Fleur off to a wedding, and rest of us went shopping. Home for a nap (still have to catchup on 6 weeks worth of not-quite-full night sleeps) - but then realized I'd left my sneakers at uni, and I'd need them to go dancing in later, and decided since I was going out in that direction anyway, II may as well do a load of laundry too, and then I got home and it was time for a birthday dinner. Then birthday party, talked to a couple of people I've only really met very briefly before (names and details to come when I think up some aliases). Then a good old boogie at - haha - Ministry of Sound Club Nation Tour, to which both I and Buttercup had won a ticket to in the previous week, and which Buttercup graciously bequeathed to me. Crowded :P Music generally pretty ok, nothing too overdone. Crowd okay. Vibe okay. Nothing special. Good to have a dance.

OOps - late for body pump... more tomorrow...



2:42:00 AM

 
So. What can I say? It's D(one) Day plus one! Over with. still need to get a letter from the department or something. But don't *think* they're going to ask me for an intimate little tete a tete first. Anyway. Drank too much last night. Have rearranged some of the piles on my desk. Was so looking forward to really cleaning it up, but somehow seem to have lost steam.

Oh yeah, main motivation for entry was to record this morning. Woke up at 5:30 am. Lay in bed for an hour. Then somehow I was back defending my thesis again, but this time, my presentation was being projected onto the right side of the auditorium instead of the left. Also, it was being projected by the slide projector rather than the LCD projector. My presentation was projected all weirdly mutated and distorted, as if through weird lenses, with edges of refractive colour. There were all these academics in the audience who I'd never seen before and had no idea what area's of research they were in. I wasn't stressed at all, but was a little disconcerted by one unknown academic making motions with his hands that my presntation needed to be cut short, or condensed. Then my projected presentation morphed into a newsreader broadcasting from a public toilet in Baltimore.
10:50:00 PM

 
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6:34:00 AM

 
might go home early today.
8:22:00 AM

 
*shudder*

for a second there, couldn't remember what day it was.
feared it were tuesday night and 40 mins till D(ODO) DAY.
8:21:00 AM