Decisions...
Am trying to decide whether to go to a certain conference in December. Good for networking of course, could be fun, and might get to catch up with some friends, but might also encounter other people I'd rather not. Do I really want to give myself a deadline when I should be focusing on an unrelated deadline? And I also worry that the likely research I'll be presenting won't be particularly interesting - its main originality is solely in the site application, the fundamental science is old hat. Also, are colleagues here expecting me to go? I guess I could ask, but may then be viewed as not-a-go-getter for not just asking straight off whether I can go. Maybe I should have a web-poll?
11:02:00 PM

 
-sigh-
Thank dog for weekend.
Was up till 2am doing last minute presentation last night for this morning. Done. Phew. Went okay. Missed hippy meeting because of it, and I was quite looking forward to it :( And am missing a big hippy meeting this Sunday cos we're interviewing potential housemates. We're losing Hippy (the HM) cos of the rent increase, small tho it be, and cos her lab just moved from around the corner from us to far away. Was also supposed to go to the zoo with E, who got me a bilby sponsorship as an Easter present :( But going on a big winery tour tomorrow, and girlie is coming too, so should be great fun. And tonight am catching up with Hird, who's visiting from the west, and could try for tomorrow night too.
-sigh-
work to do...
10:00:00 PM

 
Had also forgotten that I'd agreed weeks ago to go ten-pin bowling on Monday night. So after catch-up hot chocolate with girlie, I went to my local Bar'n'Bowl and met up with E&M an Barmy. I managed a few strikes, and then managed to win our second (and last) game by an embarrassing margin. Am pretty sure I haven't played much more than the others - but I guess the flukiness of the game is partly what makes it enjoyable to people who aren't particularly into it.
5:12:00 PM

 
Girlie rang me at work on Monday to arrange to meetup Monday night. Got home and realized I'd left my diary with the address where she was staying at work. Although I remembered the street she was on, I couldn't remember the number - 15? 12? 4?. Decided I better check. Discovered I didn't have her mobile phone number in my address book (it's meant to duplicate ALL the contact details I have in my diary, but somehow it missed that one). It had her parent's phone number in the west, so I gave that a ring, but I got some office instead! So I tried Scoobicat's mobile (closest name in the address book), and she wasn't answering, so I tried Machiato, who also wasn't answering! tried her housemate (my ex-officemate) who didn't have her number at work. Finally tried Calla who'd *moved house*! But the nice people there gave me her new number, and I tried it and reached her, and she had girlie's mobile and I got in touch and got the number of the street and it wasn't anywhere near 15, 12, or 4. So I'm glad I checked.
4:59:00 PM

 
Why has it taken me till Wednesday to report on the weekend? I really don't know. I think it might be something to do with it being somehow unsatisfying. I had a really good time - baked bread, played scrabble with Loud (two games! and she actually thrashed me in one!), did some shopping, drew logos, went to Revolver for the first time in primetime (weekend and night, rather than weekday and evening), bumped into an old friend on the door and got in free, met lots of new people, danced for 12 hours (ok - with a fair bit of lounging on couches too). And yet I was not content.
4:50:00 PM

 
News:

Landlord halved our rent increase, which is pretty good;

Will prob go on lease;

Spent a few hours Tuesday night stuffing envelopes to send a WTO booklet to every Oz MP (600 of them?) - was quite satisfying;

Stupidly said today I'd help out the boss with some data fitting - have so no idea what I'm doing, and have been trying all day :P

But is the weekend now.

2:21:00 AM

 
Have to decide whether I want to be on the new lease (to be signed in a month). Haven't even met the landlord yet - he sounds like a rather stubborn, annoying, capricious guy. But I quite like our house.
11:28:00 PM

 
Am pretty sure the strikingness of these scenes was not a result of a 5am-waking sleep-deprived neural imbalance.
8:41:00 PM

 
The three scapes I saw were:
1. The sunrise, which was positively Sistine. The sublime shapeliness of the clouds, and their perfect distribution against and around the sun. The rimming of light around them, the shadows and the yellows and oranges and rays of sunlight radiating from the cool-warm fiery globe hanging just over the horizon.
2. There was also a line of conifers right next to the road, but elevated and set back somewhat, silhouetted against the sun, with beams of sunlight streaming through onto the lawn in front. The natural shapes contrasted Mediterraneanly (and I'm sure I saw the exact same line of trees in Rome) against the terracotta and pink washed weathered buildings around them.
3. Multiple horizons of trees, dark silhouettes separated by the pale fog between them. Like two dimensional layers shading from the top dark edge to a white fog below, contrasted starkly with the next dark edge of treetops.
8:40:00 PM

 
And re: stlkrgrls comment on brainchip-enabled-blogging. I also await general bio-integrated personal recording devices. This morning on my drive from the airport to work, there were at least three separate breathtakingly picturesque moments which I wished I could record. Of course a camera (I had one in my backpack) with a non-dead battery would also have worked.

8:31:00 PM

 
D'OH! I said I'd take a stack of WTO booklets in to the head library office today so they could distribute to their branches! Hope it's okay if I do it tomorrow. Sorry Branch Manager, you sounded so nice on the phone, I hope you're not mad at me.
2:43:00 AM

 
(it was in a thermos)
(I'm out of instant)
(the local Oxfam has dumb hours so I haven't bought more)

nb. how do my shoelaces come undone when all I'm doing is sitting here at my desk working?
10:59:00 PM

 
mmMMMmm... three day old rewarmed coffee...
7:12:00 PM

 
Argh.
Will be here tomorrow too.
1:38:00 AM

 
Trivia

I like the Body Shop hemp lip conditioner, but $13! that's ridiculous. Just got a normal chap stick for $4 (there are like *none* without octyl methoxycinnamate - must check hemp one, maybe that's why it's three times the price), but didn't realize it was flavoured... ick - vanilla.

Am in working on a Sat :P instead of at hippy meeting up north. Tried to help make up a logo this morning though. Anyone have any "sustainability" logo ideas? Is hard to be interesting but not too obscure, and recognisable without being cliche.

Had healthyish roast veg salad for lunch, but just then accidentally went to the vending machine and got all the change out of my Astroboy wallet which added up to $1.50 exactly and put it in the machine and pressed C1 and got a packet of doritos from the slot at the bottom and inhaled them. I hate it when that happens.

Chaos by James Gleick was excellent (another of those books I meant to read when it came out like FIFTEEN YEARS ago!), will look for more by him. Jinian Dervish Daughter and Jinian Stareye by Tepper were much better than her recent efforts. The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy was peopled by unengaging characters, had a dull plot and uninteresting setting, featured pedestrian dialogue, and just... finished. Don't *think* I was as bored by Tess.... The five red herrings by Sayers was ok - I may be getting over her, but only a couple more of her novels left I think, so may manage to be thorough.

10:54:00 PM

 
Other stuff

Head of department over West (Wicked What of the West?) called me Tuesday night. He was supposed to call Monday. And then on Tuesday he called half an hour late. We had a lovely chat. Think I managed to preempt everything he was going to say in my initial monologue :-). I wonder if everyone is getting such personal treatment?

Am finally back to instant messaging after a many many month hiatus - is good;

Field trip on Wed, started really early, but finished quite early too. Was quite a rainy day, but most of it was driving and we managed to only have to get out of the car during the non-down-poury periods;

Because we managed to finish fieldwork early, I managed to make it to a Tradewatch meeting last night. We didn't get much done in terms of planning future action, etc., but we had a great chat about the US-Aust Free Trade Agreement;

And after that I met up with Loud and friends and went to a "Battle of the Bands" heat and saw some friends play. They ended up playing last though, so was out too late. They were *so* much better than the other bands though - seriously, the first band I caught had a song with the lyrics: "Die die die, die die die, die die die". They better be through to the next heat.

9:00:00 PM

 
The later stuff blog

WTO Booklet: Out now, read it (should be out at all uni's soon, else I can send a pdf file);

Jam Films: Japanese short films shown at MIFF, freaky;

Party: Sat night at our place - Germans, Scandinavians, Israelis, Italians, beer;

Hangover: drank too much at party to get around to rehydrating before going to bed, very bad move;

Laundry: owner of the washing machine came and reclaimed it a couple of weeks ago, really had to do laundry, went to laundromat on Sunday, exciting;

Starbucks: had a mocha frap while doing laundry, possibly wasn't as good as I remember (they didn't have cookie cream);

Yum cha: at E&M's Sunday evening, M made a variety of dumplings and won-ton-ish things, variously steamed and fried, plus spring rolls, yum.

8:53:00 PM

 
Stuff to blog about later... WTO booklet, freako Japanese Jam Films shorts, party (stack of slabs literally up to my eyeballs), hangover, laundromat, Starbucks, yum cha...
6:26:00 PM

 
dammit.
didn't do any work.
don't bother acting surprised, i know you didn't believe me in the first place.
5:16:00 PM

 
Weekend now. Will really really try to do some work.
12:36:00 AM

 
Blargh - didn't go out last night (new pub-club night organized by friend of Loud), partly cos it was a school night and I wanted to get sleep and be productive today, but I stayed up till 4:30 am reading anyway! sheesh.
5:21:00 PM

 
Friday night I went to a going away dinner and karaoke night for Hillier, an exchange student doing some work in my department. Met some of his friends, etc. They were almost all pretty up for the karaoke. Had to leave earlyish though to catch the last train home.

Saturday I got up early and was picked up by a Nimbus of hippies. We headed for Bendigo and to a meeting to start trying to organize a conference here next year. The big fest is called Students of Sustainability, and has been an annual greenie event, moving around the country for the last dozen or so years. Lots of smart, creative, energetic, idealistic types want to be involved. Hopefully I can maintain some level of involvement. It's generally run by a network of universities across the nation, but it isn't restricted to students. We had a massive eight hour meeting and tried to hammer out a basic framework by which we could start to organize speakers and venues and transport and promotions and a gazillion other things. The main frustration for most people was probably the attempt to decide how to structure the group and subgroups so it's acceptably non-hierarchical. We finally managed to accept that we'd have to use "collectives" where consensus has to be reached by everyone, usually through extensive and wearing discussion, (and which is the typical organizational structure of these greenie groups). This way of working is still pretty novel to me, and an interesting variant on the usual democratic processes, but there was some attempt to be more creative and come up with some other structure we could run under. Met some lovely people. Hope I see more of them.

Sunday I cleaned the kitchen and bathroom. They really needed it. I baked a fruit loaf and a cheesey olive loaf. Chilled.

Monday I got a new deadline sprung on me for two weeks time :P Which, yes, they've known about for a couple of months.

Tuesday I got up at 5:30 in order to pick up four people before a 2.5 hour drive into the country for a workshop/presentation on assorted current research in one of the catchments I've started work on. Fortunately I wasn't presenting, although they'd initially said I might give a short spiel, and didn't really clarify that I wouldn't have to until last Friday (and even then, not in an entirely certain manner). Turns out there were like 150 people or something, including landowners and community groups as well as govt people and scientists, etc. Was a long long day. Got home just past 7.

Wednesday I went to another Tradewatch meeting in the evening. There's a launch of a new booklet on the World Trade Organization and it's impact on Australia and it's economy and businesses and environment and society on Friday. The booklets are being sent out to campuses across the nation, so keep an eye out for them and learn about it and what we can try and do.

Tonight I have *another* meeting :P for SoS, we're brainstorming logo's and media stuff.

Tomorrow night after the book launch I'm going to go and help hand out the booklets after the Michael Franti concert in the city.

Feel like I need more sleep. It might just be psychosomatic from hanging out with all these overly energetic and fired up people.
7:05:00 PM