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February 5th, 2010
12:33 pm
I'm volunteering at the Sydney University Art Gallery and I'm so bored. *weeps* I could easily keep posting to facebook, but while I know little about facebook etiquette, I suspect multiple posts are bad ton. I want to go buy a new phone. I want to go to Ultimo Library and borrow Ruth Manning Sanders books. I want to go home and listen to A Fountain FIlled With Blood by Julia Spencer Fleming, (which I had to leave at a really interesting moment. The Episcopalian priest heroine had just gotten drunk, searched a drug dealer's room, climbed out a window and gotten picked up by the police chief hero, who is telling her off. I am so in love with this series, even though I have to listen rather than read.) I want to go and buy chocolate for Disney (7pm, darlings) and maybe walk home to I can add to my Grevillea fund.
Current Mood: ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/niaha/kitty/anksadg.gif) bored
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February 3rd, 2010
11:16 pm
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) blindmouse's office romance Disney fic has prompted me to download Disney's Tarzan and The Princess and the Frog. I'd never been interested in watching the former. Despite knowing that Disney doesn't do torture, graphic violence or unhappy ending, I still remember the trauma of reading the book when I was nine. I'd never even heard of The Princess and the Frog.
So... anybody interested in a Disney night? I'm doing mature grown up stuff on Saturday and Sunday that involves pubs and drinking and staying out late, so I'll watch Disney Friday or maybe next week.
btw, I left my phone charger in Canberra, so don't call/sms my mobile.
Current Mood: ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/niaha/kitty/anktiredg.gif) tired
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January 22nd, 2010
12:17 pm
I decided that it's a good time to order from Amazon. You know, before America recovers from the financial crisis and the Australian dollar goes down. I've just found that a lot of people are selling their second hand Ruth Manning Sanders for exorbitant prices. A Book of Mermaids, one I was particularly interested in, starts at $120. Grrr...
ETA: At Amazon UK it's 150 pounds. :( Still, there are a bunch of affordable RMS books, and she wrote a LOT. Anyone heard me tell 'Prince Lindworm', 'Lassy My Boy' or 'The Lost Prince'? I got them from RMS's wonderful folk tale collections.
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January 18th, 2010
10:06 am
For the last two days I haven't been able to access any google pages, including gmail. I thought it might be the network - the same thing happened with Sydney Morning Herald a week or so ago - but my housemate has access, though it's slow. Computery housemate is at IV, as is icansinghigher, so we won't be seeing fengwah.
Advice, anyone?
Current Mood: ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/niaha/kitty/ankangryg.gif) grumpy
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January 13th, 2010
04:59 pm
I'm cursing geographical restrictions on ebooks and audiobooks every which way at the moment. This may be a naive question, but if I made up an American address, do you think the download would work? I have a feelling that would be way too easy. *cries* My hand is not good enough to read atm (and yes, I shouldn't be writing this) and I really, really want the second in Julia Spencer-Fleming's trilogy, available as a downloadable audiobook on Amazon... to residents on the US only. It's not available at any of the libraries I'm a member of in Sydney.
Current Mood: frustrated
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January 9th, 2010
05:31 pm - down to the ocean to play
I'm back - tired, happy, and with a new store of beautiful memories to last me for the year: tiny fish leaping from the water to avoid the pursuing cormorants, the pattern of light when you swim underwater towards the setting sun, the view from Tomaree Hill, the image of my almost one year old nephew pulling himself down the steep beach towards the sea like a fresh hatched turtle and many more. Unfortunately I was too lazy to take photographs this year.
I would have loved some more time. It takes three days to properly relax, another one to stop showering (two swims a day takes care of cleanliness, surely) and it's usually only then that I can let go of the future and the past and live in the present. Still, a week is better than nothing, which is what I had when I worked at UNSW. No wonder I was so messed up then.
There are too many pages of flist posts for me to bother reading, at least right now. You'll have to tell me if something important has happened to you in the past week. ;)
Current Mood: ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/niaha/kitty/ankhappyg.gif) relaxed
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January 1st, 2010
11:02 pm
I'll be out of town for the next week and probably not checking the internet. This is my annual time out from whatever life is throwing at me. A week filled with nothing but swimming, snorkeling, walking and long, lazy days with the 26 other family members who are also heading up. Actually, considering how many children there are, my days might not be quite as lazy as of yore.
Current Mood: happy
Current Music: Jigzag - feel like a child
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December 11th, 2009
12:03 pm
You know that Walk Against Warming rally I posted about last week? Well, it's tomorrow. Yes, really. Check the website if you don't believe me. 1pm Martin Place, for Sydnysiders. I would really appreciate company. It's an international event, timed to send a message to the folk in Copenhagen.
Current Mood: bored
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December 7th, 2009
09:01 am
For the benefit of the Isobelle Carmody fans who are not on Obernet (everyone else can ignore this), The Sending is no longer coming out in March next year. Best guess is late 2010 or 2011. :( I suppose if I've been waiting sixteen years I can wait a few more.
Current Mood: disappointed
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November 23rd, 2009
11:29 am
I've decided - on the promptings of another masseur - to keep a pain diary. For real, this time. It might show something I've never noticed before.
Also, there are ants in my room. ANTS. I only left one apple core and they have converged.
Current Mood: frustrated
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November 15th, 2009
01:58 pm
My last assignment is due tomorrow, which is awesome. Freedom so close. It's going ok - I'm only 100 words off the limit - but I continually disgusted by my inability to stay focused.
I want to include at least one picture of a dead wolf or wolves in my images and the whole process of searching for one I could conceivably use is distressing. There's this horrible, horrible video on youtube I accidentally watched part of, with many pictures of hunters posing with the wolves they've killed, all to a limp bizkit soundtrack. Real classy. I'm starting to wonder if I should rethink the dead wolf image, but one of things I'm trying to do with this exhibition is show that, contrary to the myth, wolves are victims of humans, not the predators. Nothing says victim like images of aerial hunting or a wolf lying on bloody snow.
There are happy posts I've been wanting to make, about my new house and the river, but they'll have to wait a few days.
Current Mood: disturbed
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November 5th, 2009
09:08 pm
Six hours ago my computer crashed, due to faulty video software. Or something. fengwah just finished fixing it (bless him). My 3000 word essay is due tomorrow and oh god, there's so, so much to do. I usually don't write at night because I can't produce anything good, but I don't really have an option this time.
At least I have chocolate.
Current Mood: ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/niaha/kitty/ankawakeg.gif) stressed
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October 29th, 2009
12:48 pm
This is a short video that sums up 350 and what happened on the 24th. It's very cool - all the different languages and the various ways people chose to get the message out.
Current Mood: delighted
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October 27th, 2009
06:47 pm - Another excellent, yet strange dream
I know I shouldn't have wasted time/strength typing this, but I couldn't resist.
I was living in a society as a slave. We weren’t treated particularly badly – I don’t think we were beaten and we had good clothes and enough to eat – but we were still slaves. I was a slave for members of my family – an aunt, uncle and cousins, I believe. They also had a steady stream of slaves who would be here for a few days, and then be sold on, so I never really had a chance to know them properly. One night we were in the huge, massive hall for dinner. It must have been a party or something, for there were at least 50 people there. The slaves were on a raised alcove, like a big stage. It was me and three others – a boy and two girls – who had just come in and already knew one another. In the middle of the feast they walked to the middle of the stage and started singing. It was a powerful, beautiful, heart breaking song about slavery, high and loud and piercing. Everyone stopped eating and listened in silence. The whole roomful of people were so moved by this song that they watched the three slaves walk slowly through the hall in single file and out past the guards without doing anything. I walked after them and escaped too. I stayed away for a day and night, and then went back. My reasons seemed myriad, and confused. Part of it was that this was my family and I felt a warped sense of obligation, but I had also decided to stay and fight slavery from the inside rather than escape to another land and leave my country with these unjust laws. It would be trite as a book, but as a dream it was awesome.
The previous night I had a Desert Adventure dream, which involved daring human chain rescues over treacherous sand, and walking on thin ledges far about the ground. I really hope tonight gives me something awesome too.
Current Mood: grumpy
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01:22 pm
If I were a poet I would write an ode to Tiger Balm, waxing lyrical about its icy embrace and heavenly scent. I'm thinking something in the style of Keats' 'Ode to Melancholy'. Not being a poet, I will instead give you a limerick on the fascinating creation of Tiger Balm for a rheumatic Emperor of China.
Said the Emperor 'Cure my pain
Or my lapdogs will feast on your brain!'
Doctors jumped in alarm
And produced Tiger Balm
Bringing peace to the Emperor's reign.
Back to assignments.
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October 25th, 2009
01:21 pm
I just went for a walk in the rain. I realised that since I've lived Sydney, rain has gradually become an adversary. I'm happy it rains, but I hurry to be out of it and gripe when I get wet.
In Albury we were in drought most of the time. The rare winters when we had serious rain - where the river and creeks flooded and the hills turned green - were tremendously exciting. It was normal for us to go for walks in the rain. Sometimes we would go up into the bush, where the banks of clay would turn a vivid, unbelievable red, lush and slick, and the thin trunks of the young wattles would look purple in the wet. Other times we'd take shorter walks around the streets, but even then it would be beautiful - all colours more vivid - and we'd breathe in that wonderful smell.
The first rainfall of Summer would usually come in about February, after months of dry, baking heat. puppydogtail and I would go out and dance in it, shrieking and jumping, teenage dignity forgotten. The hard, crunchy brown grass would turn soft and soggy under feet toughened by running barefoot all Summer. Rain on dry grass had its own unique smell; a bit like baking bread.
I didn't walk far today - just the few blocks to Enmore Park - but I got completely, thoroughly, satisfyingly soaked. I waded through gutters (there was no other way to cross the road) and spun in circles in the empty park. A sister would have been nice, butI was happy with my own company. Now I'm sitting in my bathrobe with a cup of cocoa. The only downer is that I have to turn back to my essay. :(
Current Mood: exhilarated
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09:54 am - 350
The photographs from 350 yesterday are amazing. Some made me smile, others are really poignant, like the one in a logged forest in Victoria. And the baby box turtle! So cute! They're still being added - every cycle there are more. I'm glad I made it, even for a little while.
Current Mood: hopeful
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October 22nd, 2009
02:35 pm - no one's gonna save you from the beast about to strike...
I just watched Michael Jackson's 'Thriller' music video for the first time. Yes, I know. Where have I been for the last 26 years? It's hilarious! I can see why it terrified poor little six year old puppydogtail , though.
This wolf/werewolf research is much more fun that starting my tutorial presentation on the Holocaust Museum, but I should probably drop it now. *sigh*
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12:26 pm
I need the help of people less retarded than me when it comes to popular culture - namesly, my beloved Flist.
I'm making a list of films and television series that have wolves and werewolves in them, preferably in a terrifying way. So far I have:
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Werewolf of London
An American Werewolf in London/Paris Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban A Company of Wolves Van Helsing The Neverending Story
Can anyone suggest some more?
ETA: oh, and picture books would be good, like Gaiman's Woves in the Wall. The scarier the better. I'm after imaginary, villainous wolves.
Current Mood: morose
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