Camera Obscura | Whiskey and Water

Right now: Camera Obscura and whiskey and water from a Crown Lynn Colourware teacup.

So, would you believe it, mere hours after Saturdays chirrupy little post, I was smote with a ghastly dose of food poisoning/gastroenteritis which put me completely out of action for Sheryll's party and for the rest of my time in Melbourne. Even the thought of food was horrifying beyond belief for the rest of the weekend, and drinking alcohol was completely out of the question. I'm sure you can imagine that the trip back on Monday was no fun at all -- I swear the woman sitting next to me on the plane could hear the tortured gurglings of my stomach.

I decluttered the RSS feeds in my reader and purged a bunch of feeds that I never read anymore or have been skimming impatiently for months. I love decluttering so much that I get disproportionately excited whenever I get the opportunity to declutter another aspect of my life. Soon I plan to take on Shannon's wardrobe [evil laugh] as I feel there is a great deal for me to work with in his room. So much to get rid of.

Finally, just wanted to show you a website I made in class and that actually (mostly) works! Depending on time constraints and my relative success in making usability changes to the backend, I think that I might actually migrate my blog there in the future. How exciting would THAT be, to run a blog that I had built myself from the ground up! Making stuff is fun.

The prototype blog is here.

The next assignment that I'm due to start on (and in fact, should probably do now) is something I'm pretty excited about - a mobile database of the thrifting, antique and second hand shopping opportunities in Wellington. I've seen one New Zealand op shop directory site (it looks like it's based in Auckland) but I know that I could make a better one. I'll let you know how it pans out!

I'm in Melbourne, and still examining my navel

I'm writing this perched in the computer/kitchen room at Shannon's mum Sheryll's house in the suburbs of Melbourne. The house is all nestled in the Australian bush and there is something very nice about all the gumtrees and parrots - living in a house nestled in the New Zealand bush would be rather more damp, and there would be infinitely less parrots, light and warmth. Warmth is so hott right now.

So far, my little weekend away has been wonderful - no school work, a surfeit of self-improvement blogging-style light reading (I'm reading Gretchen Rubin's The Happiness Project), and amazing food. Also, Sheryll and her partner Daryl have a super lovely big dog called Mia and there is nothing quite like having a temporary dog about the place - all the petting and loving with none of the bills. Tonight we're going to get down with our bad selves at Sheryll's fiftieth birthday party which should be quite quite fun, I feel.

Since I've been well away from computers, my urge to blog and to write has become much more pronounced. Back into it, for reals, I think. Thanks for sticking around if you've still dropped in every now and then! The Web Development course has made my whole relationship with the internet change ...  I love seeing what people can do, structure wise, but I don't see being online as a hobby or a fun leisure time activity anymore. I guess that my attitude will evolve in the future. I still like writing and reading the posts that other people are making, even though my input is a lot smaller. I think perhaps I'm going to have to create time for blogging in the evenings and weekends, instead of waiting for the urge to hit me like a thunderbolt. A camera would help me out a lot too! Anybody selling a snap and go camera at a derisive price? Want to barter for a skill that I have? I could knit you something or bake something ... cater a dinner party? Build you a site? Just putting it out there, people. Let me know via the usual channels.

New Zealand

• All the coins have changed and are now smaller and shinier. There are no more five cent pieces and the ten cent pieces are a sort of bronze colour. I'm not sure how I feel about all this as, to be honest, I quite liked the old fifty cent pieces. They felt nice in my hand.
• The Mayor of Auckland is trying to change a permit that was granted while he was overseas to the organisers of the Erotica expo, allowing a parade of topless porn stars to ride through the city on motorbikes.
• The trains are at their absolute worse - consistently late and consistently delayed and still ludicrously expensive.
• Whitby is still too far away from all the places I want to be.
• Um, I hate to be a whinger (and disloyal at that) but - the coffee isn't as good as I remembered. It's still good though, very good. Maybe its more the case that the coffee in Melbourne was a lot better than I gave it credit for.

Last night...

I went to a dinner at Anita's house. When I arrived she wasn't there and I managed to make at least three faux pas before she even turned up (she was rescuing David, lost deep in the heart of Collingwood).

How many things do you think would be the Wrong Thing to Say to a room full of Trotskyist Vegans? I must have said them all... my desire for a full time job, a comment of the faddish nature of the rise of dietary needs (tongue in cheek - given my dairy free nature), a comment about my 2010 wedding. A story about a friend's flatmate's horrible pet rats killing a mouse that lived in their house. Sometimes my life is like an episode of Seinfeld.

I'm loving working on my Masters project, I have a person who is willing to supervise my work and it feels like everytime I start working on it I have new and more fantastic ideas - its growing out of control! Like some kind of mutant mushroom putting out more and more finger- like tendrils, feeling their way into the moist, warm loam and growing, GROWING!

There's a big weird mushroom thing in a bakery on Brunswick Street.

Last night I saw someone's bedroom act

So, I went out for the first time since we've been in Melbourne and had a rather pleasant time. Ostensibly we'd gone to see Batrider, the band of a girlfriend of a friend of Andy's so that Andy could stalk his friend, get his phone number and hopefully harass him into letting us sleep on his couch (that part failed miserably...) The first act of the evening was this small, skinny white boy who sang along to his iPod. It was as though he'd catalogued every single song that he'd ever made up, made backing tracks and created an interpretive dance for each one. He really FELT the music... you could see him feeling it. His hair was kind of floppy. It was a little like watching a funky noodle. As with all performance art, at the beginning of this fit I felt incredibly uncomfortable - clearly this whole thing was a massive joke, but I felt kind of rude laughing. Like, it was an in-joke, but if I laughed it would be AT the guy, rather than WITH him. Although he would be laughing too. But differently. Batrider was dirge.* I liked it (sorry Bex). And, if the 90s are the new 80s, dirge is the way of the future. I'm considering investing in some flannelette shirts now. And some tee-shirts with Kurt Cobain on the front of them. And some Doc Martin boots (actually, I'm totally serious about the boots. I always wanted 10-ups). Also: Kate and Kena, I have made contact with Vee and am having a coffee with her today. Hooray for having friends! It's fun. *Andy gave me this html and I've just looked at the site. It's a little like reading my adolescent diaries. Hm.

Have I mentioned lately that I'm living in a mixed dorm?

I have fifteen minutes to blog. So, this week, Andy has got a job, I haven''t. I'm supposed to be looking for a place to live for both of us and it is hard because NOBODY wants to live with a couple. Or, if they do, they don't want to live with a couple until the 1st of March, by which time my brain will be completely cooked from living with noisy people in a dorm for so long. The times I haven't been looking for a flat, I have been ready Jilly Cooper novels or crying and wishing I was back in New Zealand. Where people like me. And I could live at my mummy's house until somebody took pity on me and told me about some kind of room coming up. Why does nobody want to live with us? WHY? *see me wallow in self-pity* I think I must be having somekind of early/mid twenties life crisis. Clearly I'm just SO white and middle class that all I can think about is the spectre of my own FAILURE (ie: lack of house in the suburbs and spectacular career) hanging over me... so caught up in my own life that I can't see the woods for the navel gazing. Andy just made me a nice cup of tea. Yesterday we went to look at flats, both of which we had been informed were "probably too small for a couple, but have a look anyway" - read: "we'd really like to waste your time and crush your soul by showing you a perfectly suitable room and then refusing to take you on". The girl I had dealt with on the second place had most recently sent me a text message that read (I quote): Hello Sarah-got a look at the house today. really dont think it's big enough for 4 people. It's 148 blahblah* st :-) if you still want2come around 7.20. Ciao, Mil* I accepted, but arrived on the doorstop and didn't even bother having a look. Instead, I told her that she didn't really want to live with a couple. She agreed. We left. But, we reflected later that we probably could have bullied her into letting us live there, since we'd got so far with bullying her already. Please email me if you're looking for a couple to live with you on the city side of the river in Melbourne... We're really nice. Really. *Names may have been changed to protect the ANNOYING.

Melbourne

We're back in Melbourne, and fractionally less bad stuff has happened to us than what happened the first time we were here. However, we are sleeping in a dorm in an effort to conserve money. I'm not very good at conserving money, really. On the plane there was an enormous woman sitting on the aisle seat. She had just won a gold medal in weightlifting in the Master's games and fell asleep during the flight so I couldn't go to the bathroom. Every five seconds the stewards brought us more liquids, and I thought I was going to EXPLODE. But I made it ok. Don't really feel like being here.

Home, home, home, home....

I'm at home! I've almost lost my voice singing eighties songs on my little brother's Christmas present, and have just had my social life organised by Bex over the phone. Looking forward to seeing Fran and Mon and Liz and am presently rating hot blooded revenge above cold blooded revenge. Life is good with half a bottle of red wine inside you... I was going to post photos of our holiday on this blog but my camera was stolen in Melbourne at the Arts Centre. A thousand curses on you, stealer of my camera. May quendas eat your face in the night and the face of your first-born son. May you catch many trains between Perth and Adelaide. May you be trapped in Adelaide indefinately with no hope of possible escape. Hex hex hex.

Don't Catch the Train

If only I had such words of advice before I boarded the Hell That Was the Indian Pacific. It's like the Hotel California of the rails. There was no escape. The food was awful, overcooked and congealing, grey watery flavourless overpriced. Worst of all, the seats were uncomfortable beyond comprehension, and we were expected to sleep in them for two nights. As a result, nobody slept for the two nights but rather spent thirty eight hours fitfully dozing, firstly chilled to the bone by the artificial air and then sweltering stickily in the Nullarbor glare as it heated up the metal carriage and cooked us through the windows. Andy and I theorised that it was all part of a sort of conspiracy to keep us sedated; constantly lethargic and lacking in energy from the ghastly food we were unable to complain about the fact we were treated like cattle. As a result, arriving in Adelaide was incredible and the twenty four hours we stayed made me have a whole new level of respect for the place. We ate fantastically well, drank awesome coffee. Slept. Today we drove nine hours to Melbourne and we fly back to New Zealand tomorrow evening. There is a German couple behind me giggling and its making me rather paranoid. Its 10.30 but it feels as though it should be a lot earlier. I've crossed three time zones in four days and my body clock is a little confused.

Here we all are in Perth, then.

I'm in Perth.

This morning we left Cervantes backpackers extra early so that we could see the Pinnacles (Rocks) in an interesting light, as recommended by the Lonely Planet.*

Later, we had a debate about which set of interesting rocks were the more interesting: the Pinnacles, or the Famous Remarkable Rocks of Kangaroo Island. A difficult decision indeed.

Helena used to take a lot of photographs of rocks and had a whole set of photos starring the Pinnacles and her car, Elvis. Maybe she posted some on her blog... To be honest I haven't checked. I could though.

I bought an hour of internet time and this place has a very high speed connection, so excitement given the connections I have been using are so freaking slow. How geek am I.

I bought a pretty dress. I feel like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman in it. Does Richard Gere drive a Porsche or a Ferrari when he picks Julia up at her place of work in that film? Andy and I talked about it and he was pretty sure that it was a Porsche but I thought that a Ferrari would have been much more fitting.

My dress is like something that Julia would have worn after the Makeover scene, to clarify this comment and in case you thought that I was wearing a sparkly blue minidress. Although, if I found a dress like that I might have to buy it too. Even if it was just for a wall hanging.

Tomorrow we rock on up to Andy's cousin's place where we plan to bunk down on their floor for a few nights before we have to catch the train to Adelaide on the 8th. We fly out of Melbourne on the 12th of January and then we're home for a month. HOORAY! I miss you little Wellitown.

*This is the first time the Lonely Planet has been correct, almost the whole time we've been on this trip. Because of one of its foolish mistakes, we ended up wasting three hours trying to get out of Adelaide and to Mt Remarkable National Park. In case you are naive enough to rely on that book, please take note of this correction: the entrance for the camping ground at Mt Remarkable is on the west side of the Park and not the east. That means that it will be faster to go up the A1 and not drive through rush hour in Salisbury and Elizabeth on a friday afternoon.