Not much happening..

Bored at work, suffering prospective Cabin Fever for the weekend. I know we need the rain, but I'm sick of being indoors!

Shoshe: Righty-o then

So apparently the reason that my geomorphology prof is so into plate tectonics is that he invented it (pdf).

It's an awesome class, by the way. I've missed it a few times 'cause it's at 9am and I'm not taking it for credit, but the lectures are great. He make excellent use of PowerPoint, which I find really impressive, especially for a guy who's about to retire!

Anna : Desk, Sweet Desk

Taken a few more steps this week to make my temporary desk my actual desk. Printed out a copy of this to stare at and brought in my Andy Warhol / Marilyn Monroe cup to hold my pencils. Oooh and a fork, ICT seems to have lost all of its forks.

Becstarr : Hula hula dreams dreams

Big event of the day was the opening for Hula Dreams II out at Clovelly, which J has two works in (Sheik Uke Al-Hilaly and Martin Uke, which sold on the night). The opening went well and my mum met J's mum and Jess met Zoe- not that anyone really got a chance to talk; too much ukelele playing going on!

Had a small family dinner with Jess, Mum and Dad after. 4 is actually a very civilised number for a dinner - everyone can be in on the same conversation easily. :)

YL - red hair at last!

Lousy week until I settled into what turned into a long hair appointment at Bedrock, Newtown. 1-6pm. Yikes. Trimmed, cut, bleached and coloured. There's nothing like 5hrs of sitting still, drinking tea and doing nothing to lift one's moods.

I now have deep cherry red/brown hair with streaks of bright engine red & 1 gorgeous bit of deep fushia pink. All cleverly able to be hidden when swept into a neat bun/pony tail. Hah! The hairdresser Katerina was listening when I tried to explain I had to look professional/conservative while really not being that tight laced! (except when talking about corsets - Fashion has moved on. Time to get new ones from Gallery Serpentine & House of Fetish in the near future.)

Evolution baby yeah. It's a steep learning curve.

Now to see the look on my parents & grandma's face when I pick them up later tonight. lol.

Shoshe: It's snowing!

It's just a flurry, and you have to go outside to see it (you can't really see it through the window), but it's snowing!

It's 38 degrees out, and tonight it's going down to 25. Fahrenheit. I think we're just not going to translate that into real units 'cause it'd be too scary.

Now you can see it out the window! It's not sticking to the ground yet though.

We need to buy snowboots.

falsedan - mo' money mo' problems

Successful budgeting has left me with lots of food I didn't eat, so this week's food budget is now a £15 fun fund. I am resisting blowing it all at the chippie.

YL - rain, blood and babies

Today started out poorly with me venturing out into the sudden outpouring of rain with no umbrella. Realising I had no mobile phone (which I needed in case my real estate agent called me), I got off the bus at Fisher Library and proceeded to get even more wet while trying to get back home.

Needless to say, no action on the apt sale front that I know of. Sigh. Auction is on Sat though.

After feeling out of place on the labour ward, we did end up delivering 2 babies by caesarean between 4-10pm. That was kind of sweet in a sad broken way. In those few moments, women who had loving partners and who were having babies. Captured moment of bliss. Sure there may be many other problems beyond that moment. But I suddenly felt like it was a moment I'd never experience - loving partners & having babies. Deeper sigh. Now that makes me cry.

Anna : Getting better at getting off the floor

New gym program with "Extra Pushup Action" is totally working. First set of pushups no longer feels like death. Just don't ask me about the following sets.

EC - The blood - oh my god, the blood

So was walking home through Vic park late last night because I figured I'd have less distractions to finish essays in the office and I get approached by two kids waving a Coke bottle around telling me to give them my laptop. I obviously told them to go to to hell - especially when one of them didn't look older than 12. Anyway they told me to look behind me twice with nothing there before two more came around trying to intimidate me with numbers - again age no older than 15 in the four of them.

I try scaring them off myself with a few empty kicks since I really didn't see these guys as a threat and they were just kids beforeI find myself grounded from a Coke bottle thrown to my head. I was obviously bleeding but I got up and told them to bring it on. I have to wonder what I looked like getting up from what must have been a nastily split lip and a bleeding nose and still telling them to come again. Anyway they threw the bottle again and missed. I went to pick it up and walked away. Shouting was done and I went home.

I was bleeding something savage but figured - well a split lip - nothing to worry about. Come home and Kim freaks and I look in the mirror and see yeah, I should probably get that seen to. A taxi later am in the RPA waiting room... waiting. 5 hours later I'm stitched up and home again.

And the worse thing? The 5 hours in the waiting room I was forced to watch old sitcom after old sitcom interspersed with the Shopping Channel trying to convince me Air Supply was good.

falsedan - boom bang bang bang bang crack bang

Everyone is letting off fireworks as soon as it gets dark and it gets dark pretty early around here. It sounds like a war zone (except for the magnesium sprays *pppffzztssstzszssssscchchchchchch*)

Becstarr : Belatedly houseproud

First day of LMS not as bad as I thought it would be!
Walked home to Newtown to clean the place up prior to its first inspection as it goes back on the market (Wed pm if you're interested). Once it was clean, I belatedly fell in love with it again. It's been a wonderful little place.... I'm sure I'm going to miss the privilege of having such privacy and independence. No ties has its pluses.

inner city urbanite

Busy day. Had a nice dinner at newtown thai 2, before heading to the australian surf movie festival at manning. Haven't been to manning for donkey's years! The films were a bit of a letdown, with shaky home footage of 80s surf comps. The footage of surfing near port arthur was more interesting, with the guy being towed out by jetski, and taking a bit of a tumble at one point falling down the wave.

Becstarr : Nuh-uh!

Spent a large part of the day trying to finish project work and hitting stupid obstacles (Audacity losing LameLib, etc). Resolved once again not to let a project get to the "I should definitely work on this on Sunday" stage. I thought that ended once I finished uni and essays!

Dan: battling hordes of midgets

We had all the nieces and nephews around today, so there was running and squealing and playstation. Battled the ants that have decided that it's nicer inside than outside in the rain. Changed the TV input arrangement for the first time in years, promoting the computer to AV1 in recognition of its sterling service (everything else shares AV2).

falsedan - witness protection program

Went to Michael's & Megan's on the 1st; drank all their expensive champagne, missed the last train so spent the night on the couch they found on the street the other day. It's a very comfortable couch. Also I was asked (and accepted) to be the witness at their wedding next month.

By the time we woke up on Friday there was an O.C. marathon showing—Latvia doesn't get The O.C. so we stuck around all afternoon while I revealed that you could tell which season an episode was from by the presentation of Peter Gallagher's eyebrows.

Woke up on Saturday to cook teriyaki tofu and watch Thunderball. Went to the dodgiest cleanest bar on Goldhawk Road and drank Amaretto.

Yesterday was the 50 year anniversary of Laika's last day on Earth :sad face:

Becstarr : Endings and newthings

Last day of projects. Brain MIA. J off to sign papers with Cath at lunchtime. Yen Li brought a friend to the D&S. Went to see the lovely Clare Bowditch and the Feeding Set at the Seymour in the evening. Big day.

David - Halloween Shenanigans R Us

Took some time out of the political bunfight that I am in the midst of right now and wandered around NY on Halloween night. There is a massive parade through the Village with a bunch of people dressed up to the nines. Kinda like a straight version of the Mardi Gras. Seeing thousands upon thousands of New Yorkers wearing their freak on the outside is a hell of an experience. Some highlights;
- chap in a flasher costume - what is a flasher costume you say? A man wearing a full body stocking with an enormous fake nob! (titter)
- a six foot two black man with a beard wearing a Wonder Woman outfit (double take and then some)
- more Darth Vader and Stormtoopers than you can poke a lightsaber at
- and a personal highlight - enough sailors to swab the deck of an aircraft carrier

Becstarr : yAY ErkoBeserko~

Went to check out Erko Beserko, the Erskineville PS fair. There was plenty of music and small children bopping unselfconsciously, and the general enjoyable chaos of a big jumble of people. We drank homemade cumquat cordial for $1 a large cup (bamboo recyclable, if you please!) and ate homemade vietnamese rice-paper rolls in the Devonshire tea area. Ran into ex-flattie and brother-in-sin Luke, back from London and hanging out with his Dad. Bought parsley, pansies and beautiful native violets that the kids had made pots for. Wandered home past a moving sale, where we scored a big truck with horse carrier for Elroy (J's nephew)'s Xmas present.

YL - pub, beer, communist porn

Interesting week. So this is what it's like to have a normal social life. Evolution & progression is interesting and positive. Or as Bec would say ... it's "positive progression propagatational proposals".

And while we contemplate the magnitude of "Red&Blue Productions", I offer you Porn=Communism as fodder for our Communist Porn production plans. Eg. Naked girls climbing over giant missiles in another parade extravaganza for Kim Jong-il. "He didn't come, he didn't come!" (Quote from documentary on North Korea.)

Dan - weekly update

Did too much work this week; Wednesday went and saw 30 days and 30 nights and Daywatch with Dave & Nick & Paul & Brian (from Jens work) and Brian's friend. Got home late and spent the rest of the week tired. Gave a presentation at the eResearch Forum. Gave out PDAs for PDA project friday. Got to sleep in today, which was absolutely delightful. Now it's a day of hanging round with kids who will get progressively crankier about being stuck inside (Atty is currently systematically squashing his sister, Elora has mastered crawling and is working hard on cruising, and Dante is trying to break the world record for TV watched in a single day.

Evelyn - Damn German Germs

I forgot to mention - when Christina and Peter left, they left behind some kind of nasty German cold. Second day off work - still feeling miserable!

Anna : Beach experiment ... failed

The "Beach Before Work" plan this morning was a bit of a bust ... weather poor, water still too cold to swim, hangover smoothie seemed to suck my will to live and the bus trip back took 30 minutes longer than expected so I was late to work. That plus a heavy week at the gym makes a convincing argument to spend tomorrow in bed.

Becstarr : Wrapping

Finishing touches on cases. Avoiding looking at the wrap-up for my other project (maybe tomorrow?). LMS planning meeting, more calendaring (I take over on Monday). Only just made it to 5, to be picked up by Dave and whisked off to the magical land of Haberfield babysitting and Henrietta the Great Go-Getter, then Vietnamese dinner and planning moving.

falsedan - happy birthday

Woken up by cake and tickets to see Amon Tobin on the 15th and a jar of crunchy peanut butter… winning combination!

Anna : Good Work

Big gym week, trying out new program (with a focus on working the backs of my shoulders to try and stop the clicks that have started happening over the last few weeks), 2 hard sessions at boxing and some yoga. Taking the evening off to go home, do some cleaning, lounge about the house and do some reading. Blog worthy? Eh :P

Gone bush

Am in Wagga for work. Nice town. Long drive down this way (took the inland road through Cowra and Young), and it hasn't rained since I was last here in May. Everything is very dry, crispy and brown. Patterson's Curse is flourishing. My meeting went well.

Becstarr : A spring in my step

Went to a workshop / focus group to help the City of Sydney council and UNSW's Faculty of the Built Environment plan their next Watershed workshop series, and build an education tool for other local councils. It was a great evening! Brainstorming and discussing with a bunch of other people with similar questions and priorities was an unexpected amount of fun.

Anna : Dress Stress

Have worn my new dress to work today and already have "dress stress". Taking deep breaths and trying to chill ...



In other news, finished Anne of Green Gables last night. What a fantastic book! I highly recommend the Librivox audio recording, I think it was this one.

Evelyn - visitors :)

Christina and Peter are visiting! And despite Peter's awful cold, he's keeping up tourist-wise admirably.

Shoshe: Still here

I went to Spirit and Opportunity's second (Mars year) birthday party! :) It was very cool. We had carrot cake, cider and champagne, and the folks at JPL had cake and organic milk (apparently they weren't allowed to have alcohol). The rovers didn't get anything special for their birthdays as far as I know, but one of the models in the MER conference room had an "I am 2" badge, which was very cute.

Our friend Owen from Sydney visited us this weekend, which was awesome. My parents were up to, for my mom's art opening in a "nearby" town (2 hours away). On Saturday we went to my classmate's pumpkin carving party, and Owen carved his first pumpkin. B's becoming a pumpkin carving pro :) I finished grading my students' papers over the weekend, but didn't get any other work done :(

And on Friday night, we watched Stephen Colbert perform live.

Anna : Working Through An Energy Crash

Having trouble getting stuff done at work today. Sending off mail but no one replies. Going to have to work on getting over my phone fear and start ringing people I think.

Procrastination of course is it's own reward. Flickr account back up and running and now hosting some great stills from the shoot on the weekend.

Big news of the day of course is that the beach water temp has hit 20 degrees! Sounds like it's time to reinstate pre-work swims!

Today I remembered about this blog and finally caught up on some (but not all) pressing internet-work.

Shannon: Halloween weekend fun

Dancing on Friday at Sanctuary was awesome. Then 3:00am bacon and eggs followed by a nice sleep in. Unfortunately our friends' two year old daughter's birthday party, followed by exhaustion and rain combined to make us pike on the Parade of Lost Souls this year, so we stayed home and learnt how to play Halo 3 online. Sunday was a good "catching up on shit day". Built a bookcase, wrote some cards and emails, made my first beef bourguinone and tidied up a bit.

Kit: Saddle Weary

Went up to Barrington River over the weekend for white water kayaking. 0.45m water level, grade 1-2 rapids. 17km in 7 hours on the first day - as a result of many beachings on top of rocks, and feeble struggles to get off them. 7km in 4 hours on the 2nd day. I have 'saddle sores' from sitting down for so long. Cannot believe how tired I was on Saturday night (I haven't been so in the past) - is 8.45 pm an acceptable time to go to bed?

Anna : aannnnddd action!

A weekend of filming! First film since "Hamlet : The Game Show" in 2003, "Hide & Seek" is the tale of a girl playing hide and seek with herself starring Nicole as "The Girl" (I think I may call her "Maya" in the credits). The whole weekend went really well, a few mini emergencies, a late start compounded by the start of daylight savings and lots of watching the sky for rain that never came. The footage is looking awesome and I'm feeling re-enthused about film making!

falsedan - watch your step

Went to the Tate Modern last night to look at the crack, watched Meshes of the Afternoon again, then stayed in the shop until closing time. Spent all of Aija's money on beer at riverside pubs—one of the places has Cooper's Green!

YL - interesting weeks

Well some weeks are more or less the daily grind towards a far flung goal. Other weeks are puntuated by interesting events that cause you to think and evolve as a person.

The last 2 weeks have been interesting. I was pleased to turn 30. It was wonderful to be able to share that time in your life when you feel that things are going well and that you are finally yourself again with friends. I havent seen the actual present yet guys, but how can it not be awesome? It's bunnies!

Conversation at the pub on Fri with SJ and Bec always enlightening. =) There is just so much life experience in this group that we have here!

Becstarr : Blobbers

Inspired by Jen's post a while ago, tried to make potato stamps of jellyfish. They were LAME! I might have to get Atticus to show me how it's done.

Also big family brunch out at Epping to farewell Rach, who by now must be in Africa!

Jaime - Partying down

Went out last night to Halloween at Sanctuary last night. Danced for 4 hours. Apparently "Smells like Teen Spirit" was the song of this generation in Vancouver as the whole place exploded with furious dancing and moshing. I'll post pics and video on flickr and daily motion later on (full blog to follow).

Dan: Thundering Gherkins

Not much to report - work, eat, sleep. Kids are doing well, though they had a cranky day. We went to Rozelle Markets with my mum. Shops in Rozelle close to early. Busy work-week - lots of meetings and planning; did some hiring; pondering applying for this.

Becstarr : Felled over

Ordered a Greek salad for breakfast (?) and then almost cried because I couldn't eat it. Realised I had the sookiness that comes with being sick. Cried off attending the Mountains trip (good move!) and stayed home pirating J's broadband. Surfed lots and had a lovely chat to flatmate Sarah in the evening. Highlight of the day: Zoe's moving into the Redfern house asap to escape dodgy coneheads. Less house-hunting is a good thing. Hurrah!

Becstarr: Fullmoonfulldayfullnight

Building, building, building cases all day - apart from when getting video-Skype to work on our new lappies with Ross. A must when siblings are off OS as of Sunday!

After work with SJ and Yen Li, we found the D&S was awash with the cries of "down, down, down!" and crowded full of end-of-year-ing ugrads (I couldn't place where from though; maybe Architecture?). Walked with SJ up to Newtown to find Joel entertaining Matt of Ulladulla (up for tomorrow's regatta) at a tree-shadowed table in the Courtie front yard. Doy Tao for dinner and a full-moon walk home to Redfern.

Becstarr : One house comes, one house goes

New MacBookPro powerpack blew and disk started failing.
Put project hours in, with much grunting (they were very heavy).
Confirmed move date with Dave and Karinne, and gave notice on my flat!
Went to see Zoe's club night on Oxford St and ran into Joel's ex Cath, who I met for the first time. Always a little unnerving, but it went OK.

All up, a very big day.

falsedan - the heat is on

After two weeks of winter pyjamas, London has turned on its central heating so I am thinking of switching back to summer PJs.

dun nuh nah nuh nuh, dah nuh nuh nah nuh

It's just like tv ..

You know that scene from Black Books where Bernard and Manny drink the bottle of very expensive wine, and the value in amount poured scrolls up on the screen?

Becstarr : The fear of hours

Project manager returned from overseas and my hours (project "timesheets") are due and alas, alack, I am sorely behind, and duly castigated.

After worked, cooked pikelets with grated apple (from the current "2+5" campaign) and thought about entirely different things! Also taught J about Creative Commons searching on Flickr.

Becstarr : Setup

Meeting with Nutrition folks-- rolling along at a good speed now. Spent some time moving gigs of data over so my new laptop is now my primary work computer. I have 30GB left out of 150GB, so I may have to start some serious archiving soon!

Swam some laps with J after work, then dinner at Correlli's with Jess and Rach. Rach is fully vaccinated and packing pens and pencils for her 3 weeks in the African orphanage / school. Hard to believe!!

3 x Duck & Disappointing Play

I've had duck in a meal for three days in a row by accident. YL's party with peking duck in pancakes, sang choy bow and the duck noodles on Saturday night. A sampled wholemeal duck pancake from the Dank St Festival on Sunday, and Duck Pizza from the Australian Hotel. Dinner tonight? Not duck!

Went to see Riflemind". Sold out season, only standing room tickets available on the night. Hugo Weaving as the lead character; Jeremy Sims & Susie Porter also. I couldn't put it any better than the little old lady sitting next to me, when I heard her say during intermission:"If I were on my own, I'd go home. It's rubbish theatre." I found the characters intensely annoying and disagreeable, and only saw that there could be a human side to "John" (Hugo Weaving) at two points in the piece.

Anna : Work, gym, sleep, gym ...

Good day at work then off to boxing. After two very hard sessions last week we had a more managable session last night ( Joe looked like death at the end of it so he may disagree ). Finished the session off with some crouching, working on undoing years of rowing induced shortening of the hamstrings and perfecting my sq'wahtting technique so that I can fully enjoy the drugs that Bec assures me are located in the thighs! Yoga this morning with more hamstring stretching and more sq'waht, working moving the tension from my knees back into my butt where it should be.

Who wants short shorts? I WANT short shorts!

Becstarr : Catching up

Outpatient cases finally coming together (diabetes, coeliac, hypercholesterolaemia, cardiac). Next up: inpatients, starting with an ICU tube feed!

Overall, a quiet day, but with lots of small catchups and calendarings with people. Starting firming up a move date, and checking out tickets, visas and vaccinations for Central America.

Anna : Back at work

Two days feeling like I had been run over followed by two days of solid napping and I feel human enough to make it to work. Hooray?

Becstarr : Sunny Sunday slowdown

Hung out in the garden with all the star jasmine out. Walked to the Danks St Festival (nice food, g*d-awful jazz fusion music, excellent kids' activities). Went swimming. Ate banana pancakes from the local Vietnamese fruit store for dessert.

The week's highlights;

1) I was informed by a student that Kate used to have a penis.

2) A student asked me where chickens come from, but not in the chicken and egg sense. She had no idea what evolution was. I don't think she really got what I was explaining, but when I also explained Creationism she thought that was complete rubbish.

Moving & Celebrations

I was late for the removalists, and my poor flatmate had to interrupt his Saturday morning sleep-in to let them get started. Moved. Then got all dressed up to celebrate Yen-li's 29+ birthday. Happy birthday 'Big Sis'! Note to Hive: Iggy Pop's "Wild Child" is a good karaoke song to start with, because no singing is actually involved.

Jen - Yummy dinner

Grandma came over for lunch and the afternoon, to the boys' delight and the girl's trepidation. Bec came later to babysit and Dan and I went to Yen Li's dinner. Delicious! Thanks, YL, for a lovely evening.

Also, Elora finally worked out crawling forwards, and we discovered two more teeth up the top!

Becstarr : The wheel of feasting

Yen Li's birthday feast was on in style at a laaaaarge table at the Marigold, with a giant lazy susan, two Peking ducks, and many dishes. Squid, jellies, fish, piggies, beef, steamed chicken in lotus leaves, shitaake mushrooms, bamboo membranes... you name it! The other hit of the night was Elora, who was very charming and put up with being dandled / flown / etc around the entire table.

Karaoke after helped tamp it all down, though I couldn't manage to join the King St drinking procession that was being planned. Looking forward to hearing how it went! Thanks YL for a lovely evening. :)

falsedan - it's sunny here

Back in the lands of the living; no longer pale as a ghast, sweating & falling asleep when I sit down. Ate a proper fry-up for lunch, watched some of Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid (confusing since I started in the middle), went to the pub—still on antibiotic so enjoyed some refreshing whiskey and lemonades.

Jen - Visiting next door

Spent most of the day next door - my mother had a visitor so we hung around, too (eating the yummy lemon syrup cake she made). Elora turned 8 months today.

Evelyn - cat sitting

We're minding two lovely cats while our friend gets her apartment sorted - one is a huge fluffy ragdoll who loves having his belly rubbed; the other is a tiny bengal cat who loves hiding under the sofa or on top of the cupboard - and walking on you in the middle of the night.

Dan - all work and no play

Worky worky week is wearing me out after the previous fortnight's relaxation. Played with iChat (so I can be present at a fortnightly meeting from my desk rather than in person); we got a 4 way chat going. Did the "write down all the things I need to do today and only work on those" thing, and actually got through a lot of urgent work. Quite surprised.

Happy 29++, Yen Li.

Becstarr : Solid work

Big meeting all morning to calendar 2008 for the 18 people of my workgroup, but managed solid work work work afternoon (cholesterol and diabetes cases) and evening (time-coding bioethics seminar recordings). Drinking lots of chamomile tea. Working on staying calm and focused.

Jen - The week just disappeared

Where did the week go? Thought I'd only missed a day or two but turns out it's almost a week. Having trouble remembering the earlier part of the week.

Saturday: Made potato stamps and the kids did some painting. Had a picnic lunch in the backyard.

Sunday: Taught Dante how to wash the car. Roast pork for dinner.

Monday: First day back at school and work for the D's. Hung around with Atti and Elora. Picked up Dante and co. from school and took them to gymnastics.

Tuesday: Hot, hot, hot. Hid out from the sun's rays and cursed the upstairs of my house yet again (until the southerly came through).

Wednesday: Took Atti and Elora to the paediatrician. (All's well.) Went to Ikea and a cool fabric shop in the arvo with my mother (didn't buy anything!). Took D to piano, picked up A - Dan went out for a movie after work. Happy birthday Jaime!

Thursday: Babysat my nieces this morning. Went grocery shopping this afternoon. Bought $100 worth of nappies. (Half of it for my brother!!) Happy birthday Yen Li!

falsedan - inventory

> INVENTORY

You have:
no job
no house
a screaming case of tonsillitis
antibiotics

> USE ANITBIOTICS ON SCREAMING CASE OF TONSILLITIS

OK

> SLEEP

Sweet dreams!

Shannon - Sooo tired

I was so tired yesterday and managed to wind up over an hour late for work. Even though it was a hard slog during the day, I still somehow made my pilates class. Thank goodness class is literally on the way from my office to the bus-stop, as the dark, cold, rainy days have set in and staying home near the proverbial hearth is the smart thing to do.

Becstarr : Yoga or swimming or something

Burst into tears at work at one point today. Think I may need some extra yoga or swimming or something. Babysat Aidan (2) and Alana (almost 5) with Dave in the evening out at Haberfield. Had a lot of fun with storytime, and got to debrief with Dave as well as have a read of Alana's last Christmas present from D: "Henrietta - there's no-one better". I definitely need a copy!

Anna : Arms Like Uncooked Spaghetti

Soreness from Monday punch-fest has kicked in and my arms won't move. Talked to Nicole last night and she's up for being in my film so I'm on track for filming at the end of October. Oh yeah, and I accidentally joined Facebook. Most people seem to be going for a profile picture that captures that ingenue / it girl look, so I decided to go for something different.

Becstarr : The crunch is telling

Feeling increasingly stressed about getting projects done on time. Talked to Ross about the LMS handover in about 10 days. Team meeting where we got told our working group reports would be considered after the planning meetings. Up-side (I think) of the day: our new computers were released, and I now have a half-set-up MacBookPro.

Saw Electroma, I highly recommend it - very roboty.

Becstarr : Tablecloth-sized bread

Spent what felt like far too much time editing a dodgy doctor's name out of a recording from a very interesting session from the bioethics seminar. It will be a great resource, if we get permission to put it up, but man, sound editing is teh suxx0r! Stupid defamation laws. I think people (and corporations) have way too much protection.

After work: Combat, then tablecloth-sized Leb bread & tabbouli wraps, and some Bro'town. I can't believe I like it so much when a few weeks ago I could barely understand what they were saying!

Kit: Definitely no geek here, no sir-ree

Got a new laptop with a digital tv tuner. wondered why I couldn't pick up any tv signals even when I scanned twice. Then realised I had plugged the aerial cord into the power supply input.

Ben - Back again

Holidays over. Did very little - stayed with family, came home, did a little swimming, tidied up around the garden. Those of you with kids, don't get divorced; it'll really ruin your kids' holiday plans to have to visit both of you.

Anyway, back at Uni and planning for second prac. Should be fun.

Anna : Busy Weekend

Friday : Kate's "Toy Box" Party in the Blue Mountains. Guy went as "Blind Pew" the Pirate with two eye patches, I went as a very dready troll doll. Lot's of dancing in the kitchen to freestylin' guitar and talking to "Kate's Party" Stephen who I only see once a year. Highlight of the evening? Random B.M person drunkenly gushing about how beautiful Guy and I were.

Saturday : First hangover in months, they are just as bad as I remember them, and Belgium Waffles for breakfast. Then back to the city to pull ourselves together and put in an appearance at Leon's 1920s party. MORE dancing, this time to supermergatroid swing beats. Highlight of the evening? Leon's tux, complete with gorgeous white stripey waistcoat, care of the David Jones Formal Wear department.

Sunday : Half hearted cleaning, film organisation and Playstation. Free vegan indian treats from Claudette downstairs as thanks for letting her store stuff in our fridge the night before and lots of searching the web for classy dames for FD's SB buddies. Highlight of the evening? Apparently one of the SB buddies had never encounted Louise Brooks and now he's in love. Silent Film Brunettes REPRESENT!

Becstarr : Maple muesli and roo burgers

Left J in peace to cartoon and wandered home to toast muesli with maple syrup. Roo burgers and strawberry icecream for dinner, along with the new ABC show The Abbey-- good stuff!

Yen Li - Rome, ObGyn, On Sale Now!

Rome - was the awesome. Was just amazing. Grandma in wheelchair = no need to queue for the Vatican at from 7am to get in at 10am. Completely by accident. She had a blast. Mahjong and chinese dinner every night. Being pushed around by loving granddaughter & up steep hills. And museum folk very accomodating and extra helpful letting us through special doors and up lifts. Viva Roma! However, traffic = insane & unsafe. Look 4 ways before crossing.

ObGyn - 8 weeks to go. Looks interesting. 7.30am starts not interesting. But grateful they are at RPA and not (for example) out at Westmead. Happy that it is 8 weeks to go! Almost almost ALMOST done with medicine degree. The Grind Part 1 is almost over. Realisation that my first full time job is at age 30. Eeeeep! And I have to be responsible, ethical, upright, moral, effecient and polite. Crap. But ok I get money for it. =) lol.

On Sale! - If you know anyone interested in a 3BR 2.5Bathroom 2 Car space apartment, let me know! I will send you the property link. Lol. After weeks of deprived sleep and packing & sorting & lifting, new carpets, fixed windows, praying for gorgeous weather, painted walls and display furniture ... viola! a gorgeous apartment is now ready for sale. Today was the first day of pre-liminary viewings (with only mailing list advertising) and we got 2 groups who were interested & could afford! Prospects are looking good at this early stage. Hope for more good buyers next week. For Auction.

Evelyn - Cycling

We cycled out to Tancred's work and back - about five hours in total. Stopping for Ice-cream, and wild blackberry picking.

Becstarr : Househunting in a feral market

OK, I'm being overly dramatic. It's not quite a feral market for househunting, it's just that (a) it's now painfully expensive and (b) I've always, always hated househunting. Looked at 3 places, confirmed that taking over Dave's Newtown lease is waaaay the best option. Hoping to move around late November, and already making cooking plans (green mangoes!) with Lady K, flatmate-to-be.

falsedan - ill communication

Still sick—I have a weird lump on the back of my head which is causing me concern. Aija is smuggling me care packages from work: pies, cans of Solo, Violet Crumbles.

Jen - Last day of the holidays

(Not including the weekend). Cooked french toast for breakfast to use up the loaf which Atti squashed earlier in the week. Crashed out on the couch and then went for a nap in bed. Had a lovely visit from Auntie Bec in the afternoon. The boys adore her but Elora was terrified. I think she's going through that "stranger danger" phase. Stir-fry and chicken & sweet corn soup for dinner. Now trying to get Elora to sleep. Perhaps she's still a bit frazzled from earlier??

Becstarr : A slow girding

No boxing or pub in the end-- instead, went home and started learning (South American) Spanish! Señorita Cyn has lent me a CD to this end. While I don't think I'm likely to ask to go windsurfing any time soon, it does provide for lots of helpful rrrrepetition.... especially of the lovely rrrolling r's.

Big Day Out is GO!

So after missing out on tickets to Rage Against the Machine and predicting the quickness Big Day Out Sydney sold out on, Kim and I resolved to go down to Melbourne for this year's show.

Discussed this with Nick and similarly he was planning on going to the Gold Coast show. His experience was a bit past 12 and he had some problems logging onto the site but not too many.

As such I waited until Friday officially ticked over and logged on. No problems whatsoever and was still considering picking up my full ticket allotment of 4 though I only needed 2. Decided against it in the end since it really wasn't the ethical thing to do.

Anyway, got my confirmation at 3 this morning so am good to go (barring plane tickets). Just looked and even the Melbourne show's sold out already so yeah for staying up past my bedtime!

falsedan - fully sick

Went to a farewell last night for a couple of the girls who live at the hostel. My first time in a Walkabout! My beard got lots of attention (from drunken Australian males)—I explained to Aija that girls in AU don't overly care for beards.

Saw Control: Ian Curtis was a doofus >:|

Jen - Peaceful Thursday

Atti at child care, Dante out with his cousins, Elora slept for three hours in the middle of the day. Bliss! Then, managed to get all the kids to bed before 9pm. Hopefully we're getting back to our old routine.

Becstarr : Pennywort salad

A day of minor but accumulating frustrations and hold-ups. Luckily, after work things picked up, with goat curry and pennywort salad at the monthly family dinner, this time at Burmese restaurant Bagan (Strathfield).

Anna : Thank you for not killing me Mr. Lion

Good day at work today I think, starting to get the right tone in the weekly meeting with the boss, got to report on lots of completed projects and may be able to jump into something and help Library IT get a thorn pulled out of their paw. There was a project manager involved in that fable right?

Becstarr : Team play takes coordination

Spent most of today re-orienting myself in a site which I'd handed over to someone else to work on at the end of last semester. Realised that sometimes (often) handing tasks over, when I'm going to need to take it over again later, doesn't really save me work. Probably this would be less the case if I was working in a system less obfuscating than WebCT-- it's like working blind most of the time.

Jen - No Atti today

Sent Atti to childcare. Spent way too much money at Ikea but did get a wodge of groovy fabric. Also, put the finishing touches on the cardigan. It's completely done and ready to wear! Yippee!

Dan - rampant consumerism

Slept in, got Atty to school late. Went to Ikea, bought too much stuff (frames, hand puppets, shelves, giant bugs, kitchen stuff, etc.) Dropped off Dante for a sleepover with his cousins. Played with test 3G phone.

Anna : Zing!

Feeling (literally) whacked today after a pump session yesterday afternoon and had to give back keyboard and mouse so they could go back with lease equipment and left using the keyboard and track pad on laptop which seems to have reduced productivity by *cough* percent.

Solution? My first coffee in over a month.
Result? The caffeine is hitting me hard, like a hammer wielded by a humming bird. Concentration, slightly increased, focus, spread thin as I jump from unfinished tought to unfinished email to unfinished ITSM job and back again. And I have a feeling I'm going to crash just before my meeting with the boss ... meep! WHAT HAVE I DONE!

Shoo Blowfly Shoo

Went for a walk around the paddock at lunchtime on a warmish spring day. Discovered that blowflys would land on white shirts, and dark blue shirts; but did not like red shirts.

falsedan

Feel sick with maybe some kind of flu, washed my hair for the first time in 4 months (barring the two times I had haircuts).

Shannon - The Long Weekend Draws to a Close

So this Thanksgiving weekend not only served up a delicious roast chicken dinner (followed by pavlova) but a chance to get some serious sleeping-in done, our discovering that Old Navy is awesome, and us finally catching up on some movies - Eastern Promises is great if you can sit through the brutality, and 3:10 to Yuma is officially my favourite film of the year; See it!!!

Becstarr : Ashtang-ouch-ya

Dave's on evening yoga classes while in school holidays, so I was invited to come along to "the best yoga in the world". Having heard a lot about these classes over the last year or so, I tagged along to the Dobroyd Hall, overlooking the water. It was seriously upper-body challenging-- I was at one stage invited to cross my legs and flip them through my arms. Saw some poses I'd never seen before, and realised once again that I seriously need to work on abdominal strength. Ouch! Great class though. Yoga tourism-- recommended!

Jen -Sewing and crying

Sunday: Tennis in the morning. Made a pin cushion for my sister-in-law in the afternoon. Started making some more pin cushions but got too tired so just watched some telly in the evening.

Monday: Got to sleep in a little! Entertained two nieces for a little while (wasn't hard - they just played with the boys). Played some new Singstar. Sewed together the pin cushions that I started last night.

Tuesday: Dan had to work for most of today so I didn't do much except look after the kids. Stuffed and finished the pin cushions/pyramids. Yelled at Dante too much.

Becstarr : They seek clarity

Week 11, coming up to the end of classes, and (for me) of project period (~26 Oct). Starting to pull the Bioethics stuff together, with a fair bit of student feedback coming in, which is very helpful-- it's always good to have hard data to remind people that students care first and foremost about having a clearly communicated calendar, getting to their readings easily and lecturer feedback on their tasks, well before any of the fancier stuff like pretty colours, phone voting or Flash animations.

Anna : Big Weekly Cook

Sunday was cooking day, made "Left Over Pie"*, "Chicken and Mushroom Risotto with Barley" and experimental "Prune and Seed Cake" which I then ate too much of. Anyway, Hotel Yorga now well sorted for a week of eating at home.

* A true "Left Over Pie" this week, used the last of the eggplant, last two satchels of pesto and pizza sauce, last of the lasagne sheets and the celery and capsicum that didn't get eaten at Euge's housewarming.

Becstarr : Sisters and swimming

Beat morning heavy-headedness at Cafe Julia. Revelled in the ongoing glory of my pansies in the Redfern backyard. Met up with the sisters for yet another coffee in Newtown to plan the last family dinner before Rache heads off on the 28th, first to Africa then to the UK for a year. Swam laps at NM with Joel, then cooked a korma for dinner and dreamed of making beautiful, beautiful quilts like they have on the internets.

Kit: back to old stamping grounds

Markety, market market. Went to the smh/good living growers markets on Saturday. Pretty much the same stall holders as when I last was there ~ about a year ago. Stocked up on fruit bread, venison mince, willowbrae chevre, darling mills olives. Pretty crowded and busy. Gillie's garlic had sold out by 9am. Heard one woman exclaiming on her phone "These are the best markets I've ever been to!". Um, yeah... if you haven't travelled much.

Shannon

First Saturday morning sleep-in in our new home - divine! Gonna make crepes with maple syrup for breakfast and then tackle some more unpacking.

Dan - a day at ease

Didn't do much, since I'm in vacation mode. I've been enjoying my deck chairs, and the Spring weather - warm and indecisive. Danced with Atticus and Elora, played Uno with Dante, got some Civ goin' on, and watched about a cubic metre of TV this evening.