I do apologise, I've been seriously slack about updating. So you'll get a really big update now, and my promises to try to be better next time! ;)
For now, a quick summary of August!
I did quite a few things in August.
I met up with my brother Andrew and his friend Andrew in Paris. We had a fantastic time, I think I pretty much saw most of the things you might want to see in Paris! We went to some beautiful churches and cathedrals, to the Louvre, the Moulin Rouge, the Tour d'Eiffel, the Arc du Triomphe, l'Opera and some other interesting places as well. I loved the Opera House and the Louvre particularly, but I think some of my most beautiful pictures were from Saint-Chappelle, which has to be seen to be believed.
Saint-Chappelle was built in medieval times as a reliquary to hold the Crown of Thorns and parts of the Cross (well... apparently they were so!). After the king at the time spent a hell of a lot of money on the reliquary, he then paid more for the relics themselves, which makes me think there was a particularly pleased con-man somewhere around those times! Anyway, the place is just gorgeous, especially when the light is kind:
Andy and I also went to the Luxembourg gardens, where Andy fulfilled his dream to be a yacht captain:
After the gardens, we found a delicious ice cream place which served some of the best icecream I've ever tasted, served up with different flavours in a "flower" shape. It was just what we needed after a really hot day!
Of course no trip to Paris is complete without seeing the Louvre -- I was amazed at how much stuff they have there, and it's not just the contents that are amazing but the rooms themselves are incredible -- the ceilings extravagantly sculpted and painted, and the Napoleonic apartments showing just how lavish the extravagance was. I did a fairly whirlwind tour through, and would like to go back to look at some things in detail. The Babylonian lions were definitely a highlight!
Andrew of course made his presence known to the local scary people by accidentally kicking over some guy's touristy display of crappy souvenirs (which he'd put in a very silly place) -- even though Andy put them back the man tried to run him down to extract some money from him (though I'm sure he didn't damage anything to be honest) but we managed to get away. Don't go back to Paris Andy, that guy knows who you are!!
What else did I do in August...? Ah yes! I had some visitors! Adam came to visit me first, and used his amazing shop senses to find me not only a tea shop but also a yarn shop right here in Namur! Fantastic! We went for a wander about Namur which culminated in a lovely trip up to the top of the Citadelle. We also found a weird market at its base with a vendor of delicious Belgian chocolatey goods -- I bought some nutella-like yumminess named "Choco-Nads". Teehee.
Then Björn came to visit as well, and we went in to Brussels to see what all the fuss was about. It turns out not much -- Brussels is a huge sprawling city with not a lot in easy walking distance of each other -- apart from La Grand Place and the plethora of bizarre touristy restaurants in maze-like alleyways and the Mannekin Pis there isn't really much to it. And the Mannekin Pis wasn't really even worth photographing, to be honest. He's tiny. And really underwhelming. I honestly don't know what the fuss was about. However! One thing that was very awesome to see was the Atomium. It was a stupidly long metro ride out there (take a book) but highly worth it.
The Atomium is a seriously imposing figure (an iron atom!) that was built for the Brussels Expo approximately 50 years ago but never got around to being torn down as originally expected (just like the Tour d'Eiffel!). People were riding flying foxes from it, which looked awesome, but there was also a huge queue to get up the top so we just observed from below.
You can get some pretty cool reflections going on with those massive balls, too.
You can see more photos of our trip to Brussels here, with special weird cars (they must have been having some sort of gathering).
Then the end of August rolled around, and I had a lovely birthday -- going out for a picnic with my new couchsurfing friends, and going bowling with my boss and his family. And of course on the day, lots of phone calls from Australia! It was really a lovely birthday! Thank you all very much! <3
And so here we are, September. I'm still loving my market shopping each Saturday: this week I picked up some super amazing strawberries, a tart, a quiche, bread, vegies, fresh figs, and more! Work is going well too, busy busy busy! I'm spinning and knitting a lot -- went to a Ravelry meetup on Saturday in Brussels again, where we sat in a park and became a tourist attraction with all of our gear spinning and knitting! Met some lovely people too, hope to be able to keep contact with them! Shame none of them live in Namur.
This weekend I'm heading off to Lille for a workshop, then the week after to Tampere in Finland for another workshop! So it's workshops all round. I'm partly dreading and partly looking forward to trying a real Finnish sauna, hopefully I won't wuss out. At the beginning of October, I'm whooshing back to Paris to meet up with my parents and recover some giant suitcases of Things that they are bringing. Most of it is wool, haha. I'm a tragic :D
My French is coming along well, I'm learning verbs as necessary but I'm honestly picking up a lot of stuff just by listening to conversations and extracting context stuff. I can have fairly complicated conversations with people in French as long as they're the ones doing the complicated conversing and I just get to say simple sentences. Today, for example, at the station, I worked out why the guy couldn't find my booking reference (I'd stupidly written an X instead of a Y) and explained it to him in French, the other day I gave someone who mistook me for a local directions to the newspaper office up the road, and I managed to do about 80% of the conversation I needed to have with the administration in French. Speaking of administration, a lovely, polite and friendly police officer showed up yesterday to fill out a form for my residency. So finally -- 2 months and lots of phone calls later! He spoke great English too, and seemed happy to be able to practise it with me :)
I'm also doing a French course -- a conversation course at the university on Fridays which is so far very cool - one of the PhD students told us all about his motorbike trip around Europe over the holidays. Made me want to learn how to ride a motorbike! :) Or perhaps just hire a car. At the end of September I will be doing a proper French course (not just conversation) with a test that will determine my ability etc. so that will be very good for me. I'm currently quite good at understanding, but ask me to write or say things and I'm pretty awful. I'm still doing fairly novice errors like getting the which/when/what/who/whys mixed up and mispronouncing things terribly. But yeah, it's slowly worming its way into my head which is great. :)
I've been doing some entertaining things recently too -- rewatched season 1 of The Wire, watched True Blood (up until the current episode), spun some things and knitted some things too! What would an update from me be without a picture of some spinning:
This is one of my favourites -- it's some of Mandie's merino/seacell, but it's plied with some vintage 1910s silk thread that I bought in an antique shop in Montmartre in Paris. It was still on its bobbin -- I couldn't resist! :)
So there's my update! I will be better next time I promise!
I've been taking a few photos around Namur as I've wandered around -- the sunny summer days have allowed me to take some nice snapshots of the town, which I'll share with you now.
Some highlights of Namur are the weekly Saturday market, which happens in the University quarter (which is where I live). The streets are blocked off until around 2ish and there are hundreds of stalls, selling everything from fresh food to the latest kitchen gizmo, perfumes, clothes, jewellery, electronics, toiletries, all sorts of things. This week's haul of goodies included some delicious fresh fruit and vegies (a whole punnet of fresh fat raspberries and some tree-ripened apricots), a rotisserie chicken, some fresh baked 'artisanale' bread, a quiche, some mixed spices from the specialty spice stall and some other bits and pieces. Most of the vegetables went into a huge pot of chilli which I made tonight (quite tasty, though not as spicy hot as I'd like).
There are also some lovely buildings around Namur, dating back to medieval times (the citadelle) through to the more recent times in the city when it was built up by the Spanish (amongst others). The citadelle is the most impressive: this photo was taken not far from where I live (around the corner in fact).
There are some churches as well, this big church is my alarm clock in the morning, and keeps time throughout the day by way of a special series of rings. The main song plays at a quarter to the hour, then a simple 4 note melody is played and the count for the hour on the hour. It also rings at other times, such as 8.25 every single morning. This ringing is more a frantic ding-aling-aling than a song though, so I guess it's the alarm clock feature. I haven't worked out where the snooze button is though :(
There's another smaller church that sits on a very old plaza called "Marche aux Legumes" (Legumes is "vegetables", which makes it an odd name for a plaza.).
There are some old cafes (pubs) there, including Au Ratin Tot from 1616.
There are some other interesting buildings such as this part of an original fortified wall:
And some other lovely older buildings:
And don't forget some shops to remind me of home:
Then of course there's my place, which isn't nearly as interesting as any of these :(
I'd just like to say that you, Miss Emily K, are an awesome person among awesome people.
I received a box in the mail today and it was full of seriously awesome things!
First instance of awesome: awesome postcards! With an awesome letter on the back!
Second instance of awesome: awesome snacks and lollies! Though I am mildly loling at the "Hostess Ho Ho" cakes, teehee. I've always wanted to try animal crackers! Yummmm! (*eats a lion*)
OK now we're on to the seriously awesome stuff. Socks with US flags *in* stars! Brilliant!
A cool bouncy ball thing that lights up when it bounces! Also it's made of cool geometric shapes. I just dig the disco effect I get if I turn all the lights out and try to catch it (impossible) :D
And a book with FUN FLAPS! of the US States. Now I'll never have to forget Missouri. I always forget Missouri. I'm just sad that they weren't coloured red and blue. That's more EK style! ;D
Check out these FUN FLAPS!
Anyway, EK you completely made my day. What an awesome and unexpected surprise! You seriously rock. :D :D Thank you so much!!
Yesterday I went with the Goujons to the festival on the top of the hill at the Citadelle de Namur. It was really awesome actually, lots of very interesting and talented people showing all sorts of things that they make and do. Also, music and dance and finally a "spectacle" with a huge cast re-enacting a siege of a castle by the papal army to flush out a witch wanted for heresy. Some of the cooler things I saw was the blacksmith showing how to put twists in the metal, the making of leather engraving, and some beautiful silverwork and illumination artistry. There were also monkeys, ponies, and snakes (for some reason!). The music was pretty awesome too -- I saw a lady playing a hurdygurdy which was bizarre :D Makes a weird sort of sproingy squeaking noise. There were stiltwalkers and crazy jesters who would play with the artisans and the watchers -- we were being showed how medieval houses were built and one came over and was given a big handful of clay as a present, and told it was for eating. So of course he went around and offered it to everyone because he "liked to share". It was pretty funny :)
Here are some images from my gallery, you can see the others if you go to the gallery page.
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Apart from the festival, the citadelle offers some gorgeous architecture and views of its own. It's an ancient medieval fortress that has been rebuilt several times. It's famous for its rabbitwarren of tunnels that criscross the entire mountain.
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All in all a lovely time!
I'm off to Delft in the Netherlands tomorrow for a flying visit -- up at 6am to catch the train, bler. Come back Tuesday! Hopefully then I will be able to move into my flat :)
I've been in Milan the last couple of days, attending the EGAIS workshop at the Universita Cattolica. We stayed in the university hotel, which was somewhat like being in monks' cells, except more modern and with a bidet.
The first night Philippe and I went to the Duomo (cathedral) in the centre of Milan. Next to it is the famous Galleria shopping centre, which is purported to be the oldest in the world! It's just beautiful. Unfortunately at 7pm on a Sunday night the Duomo was closed so we couldn't go into it. But the outside was just stunning!
Inside the Galleria are all the brand name shops: Prada, Louis Vuitton, etc. The architecture is just amazing, with beautiful murals inside, elaborate tiled murals along the floor, etc. The bars near by are set up so that the people drinking can sit and watch the people walk by, as if to watch a parade or a show. And it's a perfect place for people-watching! On Sunday there was a brilliant pianist entertaining everyone with the piano music echoing throughout the halls.
Afterwards we ate seriously the best pizza I've ever had. It was delicious, cooked by real Italians in a woodfired pizza oven. Considering it was about 35 degrees in and outside before the oven came into play, you can imagine how hot it was inside. Still, we braved it because we were hungry and there were lots of people there so we figured it must have been good.
Milan is amazing because of the little streets and architecture, and the tiny bars and restaurants around every corner. Not a lot is open before about 7.30; most Milanese don't eat til 8.30-9pm at least in summer! (Which is when it starts to get dark.)
That said, it must suck to drive around in Milan. All the streets are one way once you get off the main roads, and people park all over the place. Also there's a high likelihood of running into a scooter or a pedestrian because those things are just everywhere.
I'd love to detail all the things I saw but I really only had a flying tour. Some of the things that really stuck out for me apart from the above is the ambiance of the place -- it was really old and modern at the same time! Tiny narrow streets like the above would open into a plaza full of parked cars, or suddenly reveal an ancient church, or ancient ruins (like these of the Imperial Palace, circa 300-400AD):
The richness of the history of the place was just overwhelming. From the crumbling architecture
to the immense grandioseness of the castle
you really felt like you were walking in history.
Also the beer was good, and they gave you heaps of free food (ranging from potato chips to elaborate sandwiches) when you ordered alcohol.
Oh yeah, and my talk went extremely well, which is both very relieving and very pleasing! The workshop was excellent too, lots of interesting and intelligent people sharing ideas and enjoying talking about the research we're doing. Yay us!
I arrived in Brussels on a warm Thursday morning after 24 hours in transit. The flights were uneventful, a bit of turbulence but nothing terrible; I let the bouncing of the plane rock me to sleep in a vaguely comforting manner. Abu Dhabi airport is a glazed green and blue tile extravaganza: everywhere men in white robes and headdresses, women in burkhas and chadors. Sitting in the main waiting area near a car up for raffle I saw small boys climb over the Mercedes and half-hearted security guards chase them away. It was hot, but the air conditioners blared full blast, yet somehow even the persistent cool air seemed to be a last-ditch battle of man against nature; blasting hot nature in this case.
The next flight was also uneventful, an older Belgian (Flemish) man sitting next to me tut-tutted about things but was generally quiet for the 7.5 hour flight. I watched cut-for-air travel movies, I suspect A Quantum of Solace was actually much improved, but Watchmen was just full of blurred giant blue wangs and (thankfully) a much less awkward sex scene.
I arrived in Brussels exhausted, my boss and his son Virgilio met me and took my bags and we navigated our way through the airport to the train station and then through the main train station for a trip that lasted 40 mins to Namur. I didn't see much of Brussels but that's probably a good thing, since I was very tired. When we arrived in Namur my boss's wife met us and we drove around to see the university, where I met various important people but cannot remember their names for the life of me. Afterwards we went back to their house (in a village 25km away) where I had a much-longed-for shower and some delicious food, and tried not to fall asleep. A walk around the village showed a large number of geese in a house along the main road, I was a little sad to hear later that they were being fattened up for foie gras.
The area is just gorgeous though -- rolling green hills, fields of oats and wheat, gardens full of roses and lavender and other flowers, buildings flush against the main road with only a half metre of footpath between... I slept in the afternoon for a while but then went to bed around 10pm and woke up at 4.30 with a headache, a combination of bad sleeping practices on the plane and the weird European pillow I was given! I've since discovered it's best to fold it in half to achieve less neck pain, heh.
Yesterday we went into town to register at the municipality. I won't bore you with the details but drama erupted surrounding my visa and whether a single line on it meant I could leave Belgium and travel within Schengen states before my residency was processed. Of course this meant for a frantic amount of ringing around by my boss and his wife before coming to the conclusion that Belgian authorities have no idea what each other is doing, and 50% of the high level officials think that it would be okay and 50% adamantly stating no. We're going to chance it, since the Australian embassy also said it would be okay and we now have a lot of phone numbers to people in high places who will hopefully back us up. Knowing my luck however, the passport agent won't even see it and just process me as a general tourist, which would save everyone a lot of very silly headaches. Residency will appear in a few weeks and after that these problems will no longer be problematic :)
After that we went to the university and did some preparation for Milan; Nahui (the daughter) playing with her DS and colouring in pictures of horses (and then drawing me a lovely drawing of the koala I gave her along with other things) and being generally cute. Home later and a late lunch then we went to Virgilio's school prize-giving ceremony which was a casual affair in a tiny gymnasium in Andenne. No 3 hours of bands and choirs and speeches, just a guy with a microphone and the teachers giving out their own awards. Virgilio won a prize for best in his year which he wasn't so fussed about, he was more interested in the newest sort of potato gun attachment or something he could get for his many potato guns.
It was interesting at this affair, I was introduced to some of the teachers but not many of them spoke English so I ended up playing hand-clapping games and teaching basic English to Narhui, which was actually really fun. On the way back to the car we did colours and "The car is red!" (but how she says it, "le carrr ees rrrrrrrrhed!" -- so cute!). She is more than happy to chatter away in French to me as well, we've got a bit of a system of hand gestures and repetition to work out what each other says now which is great.
I'm learning a lot of contextual French and am picking up more and more in my understanding of general conversations. It's surprising how quickly it's happening, actually. I'm far from having long conversations (especially since I still dont' know how to do past tense, lol) but I'm learning lots of words and it's surprising how much things like "je suis malade" accompanied by an agonised look and clutching at my head manages to get the message across that I'd like something for my headache. It's very tiring to listen to French, unlike English where very softly-spoken words or rushed sentences can be sort of post-processed by the brain, I have to concentrate on each word and try to work out what it means or what the sentence generally means. So at the school function I was more than happy just to switch off trying to understand and do simple fun games with a 10 year old :)
Last night we watched "The Day the World Stood Still" in French with English subtitles which was nice :) Not a bad movie either really, though Keanu sounds surprisingly similar in French. Think I have my body clock back to normal now though, went to sleep about 11.30 and woke up just now at about 8.30, good times!
Today it's work work work on the talk I'll be giving in Milan on Tuesday. I also have to fix up my boss's talk because his English is rather French and some concepts don't translate so well. I get my flat soon too which is great -- a brand new flat too! It'll be ready to move into by the time I get home from Milan. As much as it's lovely to stay with the family (they're really great), it'll be nice to have a place of my own so I can go and explore a lot more!
I find these guys so hilarious. I have a couple myself, but every time I go back to Techno City there are more of them! How could a simple plush rectangular cushion thing be so insanely cute? add some eyes and other facial characteristics, arms and legs, call it とふ and you have a winner!
These guys are in little tofu boxes like you might buy from the supermarket!
More tofu...
And more...
All of these are separate claw machines...
And finally, this one was awesome because it's a tshirt thingy with a super angry looking tofu.
Bonus extra: I think this guy is supposed to be Natto, which is a fermented soy food that is kinda stinky.
Nicholas and I went to Manly Oceanworld today, fulfilling yet another of the "things I want to do before moving to Belgium". There are more photos in my photo gallery, and I'm pretty pleased with my new little Canon Ixus 90IS and its "aquarium" mode!
One of the best things was this awesome little rock fish which was decorating its area of the tank. It would go and pick up a mouthful of rocks, then come back and spit them into its little den. I managed to capture it on film, but it wouldn't do its normal thing and instead did some crazy rock manoeuvres. Hrmpf.
If you look at the other videos there you'll find a hilarious one with a cuttlefish banging into the wall >_> I'm not sure if cuttlefish can skulk exactly but that's sort of what it appears to do.
Anyway I had a lovely time and although the Manly aquarium isn't as big and impressive as Sydney aquarium it does have the major benefit of being easy to get to and not filled with millions of tourists. :D
This is a list of books I have recently added to my Kindle. To view my full Goodreads profile, and read reviews I've made of books, please see my Goodreads page. Please feel free to recommend books, I'm always on the lookout for something new to read!
Today was a good day! As you can see in the photo not only did I end up with a delicious box of cupcakes, but I have my brand new Kindle 2 which I am totally digging. Oh yeah and I got my hair cut as well. A bit shorter than before but I quite like it! (thanks Nicholas for the photo!)
The cupcakes from the "Cupcakes on Pitt" on York are really delicious. Tonight Nicholas and I shared a peppermint, a raspberry, and a green tea cake, and tomorrow we will probably plough through the blueberry, carrot, and tiramisu ones.
Today I also had my last French lesson. 4 weeks of intensive French at the Alliance Française was really quite awesome. I had a fabulous time with my fellow students (including the wonderfully talented Holly Throsby) and our intrepid professeuse Aurélie who really made the whole course for me! She was so bouncy and enthusiastic and obviously loved teaching, and was good at it to boot. I really feel like I've learned some basic language skills which is great :D I'll need to study past tense though since we didn't quite get to that stage in our course :( Anyway, AF French courses come highly recommended!
The next big highlight of the day was getting my Kindle! I had to trundle to the post office to pick it up and it was dutifully waiting for me to unwrap it and play! I managed to get some ebooks onto it and found it's most excellent for reading while knitting, since you don't have to hold the book down to keep your place (or ruin the spines). I might write a full Kindle review later, but since it's about to be superceded by the DX it might not be worthwhile. Suffice to say, though, it feels excellent in my hands, is a joy to read from, the e-ink really is quite impressive, and I can see it becoming an essential part of my academic and non-academic work. I love the dictionary lookups, I love the annotations, the footnotes could use a bit of work but all in all it's a very nice package. Only things I'm a bit meh about are lack of Whispernet outside the US, and lack of some sort of protective cover included with it. I'm currently knitting myself a kindlecosie but I suspect the one I'm making is too hairy >< (alpaca/angora so super fluffy) so I might have to make it something else instead, or give it a lining. Two thumbs up to the Kindle!
Also, I got my hair cut. I got it done by the same girl who did my hair for my sister's wedding, and I quite like it -- a bit shorter than last time but that just means that there's more growth room til I can find a new hairdresser in Belgium! lol.
Anyway that's what's been up with me today. I had a good meeting with my new boss too, found out it gets to -25degC and snows in winter in Namur. Haha. I'll need some new clothes when it gets to that point but I somehow doubt I'll be able to find good clothes for general subzero wear here. :)
So if you have any good recommendations for books to get for my Kindle, please let me know!
Fear and Loathing: Gender reassignment and informed consent
I was reading the SMH when I encountered this article: a sort of "human interest" article about gender reassignment surgery and how it's "ruined peoples' lives". I will state up front that I don't know anyone who's had gender reassignment surgery but I know a couple of people who are wanting it. It certainly doesn't seem like a walk in the park, and they've already gone on heavy hormone regimes to feel more complete within themselves, but the surgery is outside their budgets for now. Anyway, with that disclaimer, I introduce the article:
Firstly, in this article there's a lot of generalising going on. For one, these cases should be dealt with as any other malpractice case -- in the first case, the patient stated that they didn't want the operation to proceed, and the surgeons continued anyway; in the second case, the woman should have had more and better assessment before prescription of drugs & surgery.
"She acknowledges she gave consent for the procedure, but believes it was not informed consent. She feels she was mentally ill, and childhood abuse played a part in her gender confusion."
These two cases seem pretty clear cut to me. In the first there was a definite request to halt the surgery. In the second, there is a tragic case of abuse and mental illness which the clinic's doctors ignored. But this is not something restricted to gender reassignment surgery.
Secondly, it bothers me greatly that an article that tries to champion ethical values ends up casting a greater shadow of fear and uncertainty over those who legitimately and dearly wish to have gender reassignment surgery. Horror stories like those addressed by the article need to be discussed in the public sphere for sure, but they need to be treated sensitively. Although I have not experienced it myself, and can never fully understand what it is like to wish to be of the opposite gender, I can only imagine it must be a terribly difficult thing to come to terms with. This newspaper article cannot do much for those with gender dysmorphia who are also dealing with needing to explain complicated and sensitive issues with their families and friends.
What the article should have done was also look at some success stories, instead of simply going for, and ending with, the immediate drawing factor of the poor people unlucky enough to have to deal with a terrible clinic. Informed consent is an empowering device, and in these cases the clinic was terribly out of line in their poor informing practices. This does not mean, however, that all clinics are the same, and that gender reassignment surgery is a priori bad in all cases, just that, like many surgical procedures (especially cosmetic ones), they need to be treated with a lot of sensitivity and care.
I forgot to write about the pinball expo that we went to last weekend! Here are some photos:
It was pretty fun, but they blew a fuse or something toward the end of our visit which meant everything shut down. But I got to play some baseball pinball game and Nicholas played something else as well. And we watched some guy play a really old game as part of a competition (one with an analogue counter instead of a digital one!). He was rather large and made amusing noises every time he hit the paddle button thing, and did a little dance when he did well!
This weekend we went into the city on Saturday and used up some tickets we had to the Powerhouse Museum. It was pouring with rain as we walked from Town Hall over to the Powerhouse by way of the Pyrmont bridge, we got rather wet and ended up going via the shopping centre and convention centres instead of up the road. In there we found there's a laser tag game, and briefly considered abandoning our earlier plans until we realised that the large group of tiny children around 8-10 years old or so were going to be particularly difficult adversaries considering a) their height, b) their general fitness levels, and c) the fact that 8-10 year old boys playing laser tag are undoubtedly going to be super hardcore players of laser tag. So we continued on our quest for Powerhouse Museum-ness.
When we arrived, unfortunately the Star Wars exhibit had closed, but that meant everything was pretty quiet, so we looked at design across the ages and played in the experimentation area. We also went in the "zero gravity" simulator in the space exhibit, which was basically a tunnel you walked into which had a rotating cylinder around it which, well, rotated. And worked extremely well. I felt really ill very quickly and so escaped out of the tunnel (and afterwards, when I went into confined spaces it felt as though everything was still spinning!) and generally think the whole thing very squicky. After that we wandered back to the city via Chinatown and Emperor Golden Puffs house (which is celebrating 30 years of puff making and giving 10% off everything in their bakery and restaurant) for some delicious hot puffs before venturing to George St to catch a bus to Circular Quay in order to walk over to the Wharf theatre to catch part of the Sydney Writers Festival.
At the Festival we saw a panel discussion on David Foster Wallace, an author who died far too young (committed suicide recently), and wrote many pieces including journalistic articles and fictional short stories and novels. Nicholas had just finished reading Infinite Jest, and I was half way through "A Supposedly Fun Thing I Will Never Do Again" (excruciatingly funny), so we decided it might be interesting to go to, and it was a really nice night out. A little wanky, sure, but what I thought would be a boring sort of lecture about really specific literary criticism turned into an interesting discussion about some of the things he used in his writing and the intricacies of running a major fan website for such an author. I'm sure there'll be a movie available soon -- the ABC was filming it so I'm sure we'll see it some time. It's worth a look if you're at all interested in his work.
Another bus ride up to Pitt St and we went to Mother Chu's Vegetarian Restaurant, which is always a delight. Mother Chu sits in the corner with a huge pile of books and writing paper and gazes over her empire with a matronly look, which is always inspiring because you get the distinct feeling that the people actually running things are extremely concerned about falling foul of this gaze and thus do their best to make sure you are always enjoying yourself as much as possible. Indeed, the food was excellent and the service similarly so. A brisk walk (and jog) back to Wynyard and the bus home and I was exhausted!
Today I wrote some of my book chapter. And procrastinated. And did some French. And fiddled with some things. And I'm going to watch the F1. Go Webber!
[caption id="attachment_473" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Handspun Swaledale top from Ewe Give Me The Knits!"][/caption]
This was some extremely rough Swaledale top from Ewe Give Me The Knits which is just gorgeous, if extremely hairy. You can see just how hairy it is in the photo! I think I might make a bag from it, possibly felt it or something, but I'm not sure as yet. I chose the name because the colours remind me of those beautiful kingfisher greens and blues, also because it was spun as part of the EGMTK Ravelry group's May spin challenge which had the prompt "Birds" or something like that. :)
Anyway I'm particularly pleased with the result, despite the roughness. I'm currently spinning some Polwarth which is super soft (I honestly was surprised at how soft the Polwarth is!) and finishing knitting another of those beautiful shawls I finished a while back for my grandma -- this one is for my other grandmother!
Belgian adventure is currently still underway, waiting for the Wallonie region to issue me with a work permit so I can apply for the visa here at the embassy. I'm not a criminal which is great, and now have a certificate to prove it! Thanks Aussie Federal Police!
In other news, Nicholas and I went to Bundanoon on the weekend and went geocaching for the first time. We went to the same cache that (I believe) Nathan et al. went to on their way back to Canberra after the last trip, in Belanglo State Forest. Any Aussie knows well what lurks within that forest... it's the scene where one of our most notorious serial killers killed and buried 7 bodies of his victims. Suffice to say it's a creepy place, and after driving through some pretty pine plantations we came upon some creepy creepy ghost gums, all twisted and bent like skeletons or ghosts... then we bushbashed our way to the cache where Nicholas took a picture of me looking a little nervous...
[caption id="attachment_476" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Pine plantations at Belanglo State Forest"][/caption]
[caption id="attachment_475" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Geocache, Belanglo State Forest"][/caption]
Anyway, the "Forest of Fear" cache overcome, we did some 4 wheel driving in my 2 wheel drive car and managed to make it back out of the forest alive. This time!
The rest of the weekend was also awesome, lots of relaxing and preparation for my new job (lots of reading about governance etc!).
French is going well too, learning lots of things but am still pretty poor overall. Gotta practise a lot! But our teacher is super enthusiastic and bouncy and fun so makes the 2 hour classes go very quickly! Lots of fun :D
Hope you're all having a lovely time too. I've been pretty busy recently so I apologise if I haven't been commenting or writing as much as I usually do!
I've been super busy, what with my impending move to Belgium! I've been writing up the 2ish papers required for my CSU writeup award (taken from my thesis, so it's not too bad, but still requires a lot of tweaking -- it's tough trying to condense 15k words into around 6k!), getting the documentation ready for my Visa application (being poked & prodded & xrayed for a medical certificate, getting the police to say I'm not a scary person, etc.), and taking advantage of Medicare before I bugger off.
I'm trying to work out if I can get another pair of glasses out of Medibank before I go too. I got one around Novemberish, and I think they said 1 pair per year, but I'm not sure. I'm basically wanting to make sure I get something out of them before I go because they sure as hell have made a lot out of me, what with me only using their free dental & optical options!
Anyway just thought I'd update you all on where I am! I'm pretty pleased with my new website, I finally found a theme that makes me happy. I took the photo of the koi at the Gosford Japanese Gardens, which I'm off to again this weekend for Mother's Day (don't forget!).
Hi guys, I've finally got my main site how I want it, but I want to make sure that I can still post livejournal friends only posts through the "password protected" feature of wordpress. So we'll see how it goes, won't we? Thanks for your patience :)
I'm currently playing around with wordpress on this site since my paid account on LJ lapsed and I don't really feel like coughing up for it again :) I need one of those construction signs!
No spoilers really, but if you would rather not read anything about Star Trek, move along!
Star Trek's world premiere was held at the Sydney Opera House tonight with a bunch of people in attendance including Abrams the director, Pike, Quinto, Bana, and a bunch of other people I didn't know. Leonard Nimoy unfortunately wasn't there :( I got to walk up the red carpet, which made me feel pretty spesh. Photos to come, but iPhoto has decided to crap out on me so I can't get my photos from my camera atm :(
Anyway it was really quite good. I haven't seen much in the way of Star Trek before, and it really made me quite interested in the history of it, to see where it had come from, etc. etc.
I don't want to spoil it for anyone outside spoiler tags, but although there were some cheesy parts, some obvious fan-services, etc., there wasn't anything face-palmingly bad, and the actors were all pretty good. I had a few problems with some of the plot points, but since the whole movie didn't really take it too seriously I am vaguely willing to let those go because they sort of addressed the ludicrousness of some of them in a light-hearted manner. I was actually pretty surprised at how much I enjoyed it, though, I was expecting either a totally awful movie with lots of terrible cheesy moments, or a badly acted, badly put together, poor story sort of movie. It wasn't either of these, and I really thoroughly enjoyed it. I happily gave the cast & crew a standing ovation with the rest of the opera house at the end!
Quinto as Spock definitely stole the show. He played Spock with a real charm and character, and I lol'd quietly when he had a quick Sylar-quirk of the eyebrow at one point!
Also I got within about 3 rows of him which was pretty ^^/ for me, since I'm a bit of a fan. Anyway. Although I found the Kirk character to be a bit annoying, he was supported by a great cast with all the "familiar faces".
Overall I enjoyed the movie, and I think anyone who is not a totally rabid "OMG BUT THEY MISSED THAT TINY LITTLE CANON FACT IN SOME OBSCURE BOOK" fan will probably enjoy it. It will at least reboot the franchise a little and possibly excite people to go back and look at the old stuff again :D It's certainly worthy of a movie ticket!
Today Matt and I went to a thai vego cooking course, Matt taking Nicholas' place since he's overseas!
Pics after the cut:
All the yummy ingredients up front:
We cooked:
fresh spring rolls (bau bia sod) (sorry no pics, they were eaten up too quickly!)
yum thow hu samoon priy (herb and fried tofu salad)
pad thai
gang khua curry paste, and with that a fruit curry (quite interesting! but no pics cos it was sort of like a big red soup)
pad makheua yaow (stir fried eggplant in bean paste)
Here's our group with our feast!
OM NOM NOM. I liked the pad thai, followed by the spring rolls, followed by the eggplant, then fruit curry and i didn't much like the salad ... too many weird pickled things going on there.
Anyway it was fun and good to see all the fresh ingredients and learn how to use them! Will definitely try these recipes again (especially the pad thai and spring rolls!).
Well yesterday I submitted my PhD. I've already raved about it on twitter and facebook, but I thought I'd let you guys here know too! :D
Anyway I'm having a lovely mini-break before getting stuck into squeezing some papers out of it and applying for jobs! It's been really nice not having it hanging over me any more, and knowing it's now sitting on someone else's desk and well out of my control.
Just wanted to say thanks to everyone who helped me out, you were all wonderful! I'll be having a party soon (because hopefully I will get a job and not be here when I actually graduate), so you are all preemptively invited! Yay!
If anyone is curious about it, you can view the print master here: http://liedra.net/misc/print-marking-copy-020409.pdf
This is before it's been marked, and I expect I will be required to make changes, but I'm pretty proud of it!
Once again, thanks everyone! I couldn't have done it without you!
