Get us home
Wednesday, 05 December, 2007
Wednesday 28/11/07
I really shouldn't blog about a day when I'm only halfway through it. I was supposed to be writing my talk for women's fellowship but I was blogging instead. Ben made dinner and then we walked down to the Design Centre at Enmore to see Kaleidoscope, the Design and Illustration students' graduating exhibition. Fish met us there and we had a bit of a wander. The quality of the work was excellent and I was impressed by many of the things I saw. I also finally got to meet Paul, who is a friend of Slavetti's and who met Ben at a screening of Serenity a couple of years ago. He's keen to collaborate with me, but at the moment I have nothing for him to work on.
After wandering around the campus for a while (Fish and I went and checked out some of the work of the set design people, and Slavetti turned up at one point to say hi), Judith came to pick us all up. She dropped me home so I could keep working on my talk, and then she, Fish and Ben went off to have some dinner.
I didn't finish the talk that evening.
Thursday 29/11/07
Ben came to work with me and we arrived at around 9:30. The dregs of the dregs of the rest of the Briefing editing were waiting for me. Plus Guan was about to submit his short story so I subbed it during my lunch break. We had staff meeting (Bible and prayer) and then Briefing meeting in the afternoon, during which Ben ran some HTML training. (He's so much better at explaining stuff than I am.) We left at four because I need to get to work on my talk. I worked all evening and finished it about 2 in the morning.
Friday 30/11/07
It's not a good idea to drive when you've only had four hours of sleep. So I slept in and got in to work by 9:30. This week I only made it to work by 7:30 once. Good thing I had some surplus hours built up.
The day was spent doing stuff for the latest Briefing—putting it in the store, updating the site, compiling and sending out enews (which features my happy smiling face because I wrote the “In this issue” text). It was supposed to be Friday Thai Day but the AFES staff were all in Canberra for the student expo and National Training Event. But Jess wanted to get Thai anyway so a whole bunch of us ended up having lunch together in the kitchen area.
I left at three and drove to counselling. It started raining heavily while I was there but it was okay on the way home. I was only at home for about 15 minutes before going out again to Lara's house for church women's fellowship. Everyone looked very tired and also said they were very tired. It had been a big week for many people for all sorts of reasons. We started proceedings off a little late but that was okay.
The first activity was to make cookies for each member of your family. I stole this idea from Liz R: all the Wollongong ECU staff did it together one staff meeting. (As Ben and I only had to make each other, Ben had moved on to other prominent personalities—like John and Yoko.) Everyone got really into it—even the Blair girls. Here's what I made (photo courtesy of Bron and posted with her permission):
This is the photo I took with my phone (and I remember now why I don't take photos with my phone):
Instead of interviewing me, I thought it would be nice if they learned a bit about my family. So I made a PowerPoint slideshow about my family, and told them a bit of the history behind my family. I think they found it interesting, though it was odd to see their expressions of surprise and shock at some of the stuff I told them (like how one of my mother's sisters was given away because her family was too poor to keep her, or how my paternal grandparents got married the day World War II broke out and had to flee to China the night of their wedding). It reinforced for me how different my family is from other people's families—not just because we're Chinese but because we've lived through such extraordinary experiences.
I gave a talk for about 15-20 minutes on the theology of family, and then I got them to break up into four groups and look at the verses on parents and children (hmm, I only blogged about half of them). We came back together to talk about what we had found, and then I finished off the evening by talking a little about my research on children of divorce (based mostly on my reading of Surviving the Breakup, Second Chances, The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce and The Good Marriage by Judith Wallerstein et al).
Everyone hung around for a while afterwards. We talked about who each of our cookie people were (and it was interesting that, when people had started eating theirs, they started with the fathers). Then one by one we said goodbye and headed home.
Saturday 1/12/07
Two talks down; one to go. I woke up about 8:30, showered and tried to get to work. Of course I couldn't really concentrate and spent most of the day stuffing around. Ben made me noodles for lunch and dinner in the evening. He went off to the Trappel's party but I was still going so sent my apologies (feel so bad; they always invite me to stuff and I never go). I was also getting nervous about my Canberra trip and so started packing while writing my talk.
The talk was only supposed to be a third of the length of my women's fellowship talk, but nevertheless, I didn't finish it until midnight. And then it took another hour to print and fold outlines (I did 20 copies) so I didn't get to bed until 1.
This Ben eating his cookie self:
Sunday 2/12/07
I had planned to wake up earlier but it just didn't happen. As I've said earlier, it's not good to drive when you're tired. I had a shower, ate breakfast, read my Bible and prayed, then said goodbye to Ben, packed the car and set off with my Canberra playlist going on the MP3 player. Traffic wasn't too bad on the M5 and it certainly cleared up once I'd passed Campbelltown. The drive down was uneventful (cruise control is a marvellous thing!) I made good time and even though I had to stop for petrol just past Lake George (which is still looking very un-lake-ish), I made it to the Australian National University by 12:15. I thought I was late but I was actually early as lunch wasn't until 1. I parked near Burton & Garran Hall and went to find Bec. She got me sorted with a conference bag (so impressive!), booklet, pen and mug (and the mugs are the same shape as those Sydney.Anglicans.net HQ mugs which I love!) We went and had lunch together in Bruce Hall before the rush started. She also got me my room key (I was in Bruce Hall), and I went and moved my car and dumped my stuff before we headed out together.
I think Bec was keen to get out of the place for a while; it's hard to stay sane while you're helping to organise a conference for 1,200 students! And they'd had a number of glitches already which would be enough to make the most organised of people run screaming and flailing into Lake Burley Griffin. We took her car and listened to Andrew Bird's Armchair Apocrypha on the way. I was glad that Bec knew where she was going because I had no idea. We passed a collection of vintage cars and people milling around for something called Terribly British Day and then parked at the National Gallery. They were featuring an exhibition called Black robe, white mist which featured the work of an eighteenth-century Japanese Buddhist nun named Otagaki Rengetsu (Rengetsu means “Lotus Moon”). She wrote Japanese poetry (waka) and she would inscribe her poems on her pottery. Her work became so popular that she had to work with other craftsmen to keep up with the demand.
It never would have occurred to me to put poetry on my cups or teapots. But the idea appeals to me—bringing poetry into the realm of the everyday. It might make a nice wedding present—to write a poem about the bride and groom to celebrate the occasion of their marriage, and then have it inscribed on a platter or a set of mugs.
After wandering around for a while, we headed over to the gift shop. I found a postcard of a painting by Charles Blackman called “Silence” which captured a mood I recognized. I also bought a present for my mum, something to celebrate Sam the Pirate month, and a box of Mudlark cards because I always need cards and never have any (and I'm no good at making them. Or can't be bothered).
Bec said there's a Koko Black in Canberra and my eyes lit up. Of course, we had to go! We ended up splitting a Belgian special. (Photos posted with permission. And you can see more on Bec's blog.)
Feeling extremely full and sugared up, we headed back to the colleges. Bec had to spend the afternoon working because she hadn't quite finished her talk. I got a call from Haoran wanting to know if I wanted to come out for coffee with him and some of his friends, but I'd just been out and Elsie was looking for me. So I took a raincheck, went back to Bruce Hall and called Elsie. She was busy but said she'd be finished soon, so I got myself settled in my room. The Bruce Hall rooms are rather nice, though rather Spartan. Here's the view from my window:
My bed with my cushion from home:
The desk (already messy with all my stuff):
And—what luxury!—the sink in the cupboard:
(I wish my room at International House had had a sink in the room!)
I settled down to read Saving Francesca (Melina Marchetta—same lady who wrote Looking for Alibrandi which is one of my favourite comfort reads). I had managed to mooch it off someone and it was an edition I really liked. Elsie took longer than expected and soon enough it was time for dinner. She had to eat at Bruce Hall anyway because Burton & Garran doesn't have a dining room. So she met me in the foyer and we dined together—outdoors (the flies were so annoying!) We were joined by Kamal, the guy for whom Ben P of MTS did the “Sydney to Christchurch Paddle” (see “Putting the FUN back in fundraising” in Briefing #349). Then she came to see my room (she thought it was nicer than hers at Burton & Garran). We walked over to her room to compare. The sky was threatening rain, but we decided to walk anyway (though I had to go back to my room again to get my umbrella). The walk to the National Convention Centre took about half an hour and we kept getting bothered by flies (good thing I brought some Off!) but then it started raining. I don't know what the Canberrans thought of this long line of young people snaking their way along the streets, all carrying identical black NTE canvas bags; we certainly got a few stares.
We made it in time for the evening session at the National Convention Centre. Here's Elsie in front of the sign (photo posted with permission):
I had forgotten what it was like to be among so many Uni students; the atmosphere was electric. And it was just amazing to see 1,200 people packed into that auditorium. The band were fantastic and the music was played very well (though it was all that sort of feel-good upbeat almost anthemic rock that seems to dominate most Christian music these days for some reason; I started wishing that there was such thing as good Christian indie [aside from Sufjan Stevens], but the problem is, if you label anything “Christian music”, people automatically assume it's bad.)
Like most NTEs, the main meetings were run like a very tight ship. Because we were so far away, images were projected onto the three screens above the stage:
A couple of Wollongong girls came up with creative ways to do the announcements (apparently they'd been doing that the entire conference) but I was disappointed that they didn't mention our writing seminar when they talked about network time. Peter Adam, who I'd never heard before, gave an excellent sermon which hammered home the same point—that God's word was written for his people—by tackling it from different angles (he also made some of the worst Dad jokes I've ever heard. No wonder Ben likes him). I found it stimulating stuff, and it dovetailed very nicely with my talk for the writing seminar.
Afterwards I said a brief hello to people like Mary, Stu and even Hannah who I almost didn't recognise because she'd lost 20 kg. Then we got a lift back to the colleges with Snowy in his van. Elsie was pretty tired so she went off to bed. I messaged Bec to see if she wanted to get together to watch Whisper of the Heart (my favourite Studio Ghibli movie) but she had been roped in to going to a mission thing. So I called Ben to say goodnight and stayed up reading the rest of Saving Francesca.
There were things that really annoyed me about the writing (some of the bits seemed rather disjointed, and she would have these little snippets of scenes which ended with dramatic one-liners, and they would be constructed in such a way that they would build up to those one-liners). But I still loved it. I loved the characters (Marchetta does characters very well). I loved how she depicted the relationships Francesca has with her friends and family. The book is written from Francesca's point of view: she's 16 and she's starting a new school—St. Sebastian's—because her old school (St. Stellal's) only had grades up to Year 10. But St. Sebastian's has been a boys' school which has only recently started accepting girls. Plus the only girls who came with her from St. Stella's are people she wouldn't be caught dead around. But the book isn't just about Francesca negotiating change and adolescence, and finding her identity (themes which cropped up in Looking for Alibrandi; it's also about her family living with depression. Marchetta gets it spot-on: depression is not drama of epic proportions with quick resolution; it's ongoing and dreary and painful, and it affects everyone around you. I thought she depicted her subject matter very realistically and sympathetically.
The truth? I haven't said the truth out loud yet, and I don't know how to go about doing this. I'm in Year Eleven. I'm sixteen years old. I don't want to call up my mother's boss and tell her she's not coming in for the rest of the term. I don't want to use any of the terminology out loud. I'll say it one thousand times to myself, but I can't say it out loud, because if I do, it means it's real. Nervous breakdown. Depression. Nervous breakdown. Depression. Such overused words until it actually happens. How many times has Mia said, “I'm having a nervous breakdown, kids”? How many times have I said I'm depressed? Too many times to count. Nothing close to the reality of it all.
The depression belongs to all of us. I think of the family down the road whose mother was having a baby and they went around the neighborhood saying, “We're pregnant.” I want to go around the neighborhood saying, “We're depressed.” If my mum can't get out of bed in the morning, all of us feel the same. Her silence has become ours, and it's eating us alive.
Melina Marchetta, Saving Francesca, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 2003, p. 73.
One thing more: I wondered a little about her almost total lack of description for she tends to just name places (Annandale, Leichhardt, Bondi, the Anzac Brige) so it would probably be rather odd for a non-Sydneysider to read it. But I loved it because I knew what she was talking about—Stanmore, Petersham, riding the bus to the inner west, Japanese tourists posing in front of that fountain. I just wonder if she could have made the cityscape of Sydney a little more accessible for others. I also loved that she mentioned things I knew—Counting Crows, Radiohead, Jeff Buckley, The Last of the Mohicans—but also things so peculiarly Australian: The Whitlams' Eternal Nightcap, You Am I and the Obernewtyn Chronicles (the final installment of which, I see from the website, will not be available before Christmas. I used to read them in high school and Isobelle Carmody's still not finished!)
I tried to sleep after that but it was hard because I'm sensitive to light and noise, and the light around my door looked like something out of a horror movie. I drifted off to my Afghan Whigs/Twilight Singers/Greg Dulli playlight for a couple of hours, but then woke up again when someone said something in the hall.
Monday 3/12/07
My alarm went off at 7:15 am and I felt terrible. But I dressed and went in for breakfast, and sat with some of the New Zealand staffworkers who were experiencing their first NTE. I rang Hannah after breakfast and arranged to meet her in front of Ursula College. We walked over to the National Convention Centre together. It was good catching up with her because I hadn't seen her in two years and the only way we really catch up is via Yahoo! Messenger.
The talk this morning was by Greg Lee on Hebrews 7-10. I had forgotten my Bible but I could follow what he was saying and I'd heard much of it before when Cameron preached through Hebrews last year. It wasn't anything earth-shattering for me, but for Haoran who doesn't get much good Bible teaching up his way, it was good solid food. He caught up with us as we were walking back to Bruce Hall, so I got to chat with him as well. We stopped for coffee/chai latte at a café called Sizzle (which also sold green tea smoothies).
And then as we were heading back to Bruce Hall, Sandra J tapped me on the shoulder so I got to meet her face to face for the first time (hi Sandra!) Hannah had to go off to strand group but I had some free time. I was going to have a sleep (to make up for my lack of sleep the night before) but ended up having too many ideas in my head so in the end I gave up and got up—took my journal, my knitting and my MP3 player and headed into the dining room where I found Bec who was blogging and working on her talk. We ended up having lunch together, but then she had to go do some admin-y things. I was left by myself so I plugged in my MP3 player and started scribbling my Big Idea for the Month (more about that later in a separate blog post). Then Cheryl came and sat down next to me to eat lunch, so I stopped and talked to her (which was good as I've never talked one-to-one with Cheryl before). She had to go but then some University of Melbourne girls joined me so I chatted to them for a while.
Soon I was feeling rather people-ed out so headed back to my room. I was starting to get a bit anxious about the drive back, and I packed, and then housekeeping came around to take my sheets away, so I thought perhaps I should return the key to reception and move my car closer to John XXIII which was where our writing seminar was going to be held. I ran into some Wollongong people but most of them dispersed to go spend their free time doing something or other. Irwan hung out with me, though, and we ended up playing pool in the Burton & Garran games room with a block of wood because there were no pool cues (it's very challenging!) Some of the other people who were running stuff during the network times also showed up at this stage—like Richard from Out of the Pit and Ian Keast from Christians in Teaching. Mark B also needed to borrow Irwan to set up chairs so I ended up spending some time practising my talk. Then it was time to head over so I said goodbye to Iwran (who very generously prayed for me and the drive back because I was anxious about it) and headed over to John XXIII.
Bec was waiting for me. Our location had shifted from what was in the book because we thought we might get a lot of people (since ours had a broader appeal than some of the other ones). We weren't sure how many to expect so we set it up with a couple of chairs on this raised dais for me and Bec, and other chairs fanned out around us (it looked a bit like an American talk show set). It was a bit of a difficult room because there was a TV in one corner (so we had to ask the people who were watching it to leave) and a ping pong table, plus other people doing stuff. And the air conditioning was set to arctic. I had to borrow a mug off Lewis because I had forgotten my water bottle and was very parched.
In the end, we only got 12 people (which was apparently better than FEVA who only got five!) Haoran came, and so did Mike whose face, despite me having met him the week before, I had completely forgotten (sorry, Mike! Third time's the charm). The writing exercise went okay, my talk went okay (I didn't talk too fast or stumble over my words too much) and Bec's talk was great. We then tried to get everyone interested in doing another writing exercise but they weren't too keen and people started to drift out of the room, while others came up to us and asked us questions. (Bec also blogged about it.) In the end, we thought it had gone as well as could be expected. Bec walked me out to my car and thanked me for coming down, and then I drove away into the sunset—well, out of Canberra, at any rate.
I do worry about driving long distances alone; it's always better when someone else is there to take over the driving from you, and to hand you things when you need them. I was concerned about this particular drive back because I was still feeling rather tired, it was going to get dark soon and the rain was coming. But in the end, I hardly got any rain—certainly not enough to slow the traffic down to a crawl. I stopped at Bundanoon (though Judith says it's Sutton Forest) and had dinner at McDonald's (McNugget meal ... I love McNuggets). And then I continued on, listening to my Afghan Whigs/Twilight Singers/Greg Dulli playlist. I didn't even finish She Loves You and I was back in Sydney, finding it rather odd to go from 110 km/h down to 60 on the main roads once again.
Ben wasn't there when I arrived; he was having dinner with Fish and Judith (pizza; so very naughty!) He had some flowers waiting for me on the dining room table—gerberas and yellow oriental lilies and carnations. But soon he came home and I was able to give him his Koko Black chocolate heart (though he says he can't tell the difference between Koko Black and other types of chocolate). I was pretty stuffed so we went to bed soon after that, and I slept for a long time.
Tuesday 4/12/07
Unfortunately life goes on. I didn't get up in time to make it to work by 7:30; I deliberately set my alarm for 8 and got in by 9:30. I had only two things on my To Do list that day: edit a week's worth of CHNs and edit a third of The Daily Reading Bible (Volume 14). But I didn't get to any of those things because I ended up spending half of my day trying to figure out the best way to put this video online (Quicktime vs. YouTube vs. Google Video: it exasperates me how much more I need to know about web in order to do web stuff!) plus our internet connection was being extremely slow. At the end of the day, I ended up being one of the last to leave.
I went straight to church where we had dinner and then went out for coffee at Judith's favourite café, Cinque. I had a bowl of chai. We sat around talking for ages and didn't get home until around 11.
Wednesday 5/12/07 (today)
Today was my day off but I ended up sleeping most of it away. I didn't really get up until 2 and then found that the water had been shut off because there was a burst water main in our street. This meant I couldn't shower, do the laundry or cook. I was extremely grumpy about that and about wasting most of my day, so was rather unbearable all afternoon. Ben and I ended up walking to Enmore in the afternoon to eat breakfast/lunch. We ate at Scrambled where some really annoying house music was being played (not a caf&ecuate; I could write in, I don't think!). Ben enjoyed a chicken burger and wedges with hot apple juice, and I spoiled myself with an Aussie breakfast (very bad for me) and chai tea. Then we walked back, and Ben drove to Hurstville and came back with a MacBook (oh no! He's moved over to the dark and fruity side!!!) while I got on the computer and wrestled with my mobile phone software (I was trying to get the photos off the phone) and then with my FTP software.
In the afternoon, I needed to use the loo but of course ours was out of the question. So we went to pay Judith a visit at Stanmore Baptist where she was painting. Ben showed her the MacBook, but he couldn't do much with it yet so we headed home again.
Now it's 10:35. The water's back on but it's cloudy so I'm not sure if I should be washing in it. And I am still cranky.
Current:
Bible: Isaiah (ESV) 28/09/2010
seen: Tropic Thunder 26/09/2010
seen: The Life of Mammals 24/09/2010
seen: What a Girl Wants 19/09/2010
seen: Jerry Maguire 19/09/2010
seen: The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 06/09/2010
seen: Tomorrow Never Dies 05/09/2010
seen: Nanny McPhee 28/08/2010
read: Mercury (Hope Larson) 27/08/2010
read: Spellcheckers Vol 1 (Jamie S Rich, Nicolas Hitori de, Joelle Jones) 16/08/2010
read: Solipsistic Pop Vol 2 (Solipsistic Pop) 16/08/2010
read: Chiggers (Hope Larson) 15/08/2010
seen: Josie and the Pussycats 14/08/2010
seen: Mr & Mrs Smith 14/08/2010
seen: Step Up 2 13/08/2010
Blinks:
How to recalibrate the home button on your iPhone.
Unsolicited manuscripts accepted by Pan Macmillan with certain conditions.
Thought Balloon is a group blog in which the writers tackle a new theme every week? month? with one-page scripts. This URL is for their Phonogram ones.
How to sew a zipper on a knitted garment.
Issues organised by tale.
Online magazine that publishes fairy tales that are not reworkings of old tales.
Journal that publishes fairy tale writing.
|
|
Disqus comments
Other comments
what a mega week. your talk at NTE was great and I was so happy you could come down. you ended up being quite busy!
(not sure whether you’re a sharing photos type person, but if you are, I’d love copies of our Koko Black experience…and happy to reciprocate in kind
)
Hey Karen
You do so much stuff! I don’t know how you manage it.
I’m waiting for the Obernewtyn release too - although I read an extract from ch 1 and I can’t remember what happened in the last book it’s been so long and all my comfort books are in Australia. I might have to see if I can ship any over to England.
The only good thing about the February release is that I’ll be in Sydney for a couple of weeks in February - visiting (and almost becoming a tourist in my own country! very weird!) family and stuff - and I can hopefully get it for the long flight home (?) back to England (?).
If you have any spare time, we’ll have to catch up but I’ll email you properly or facebook you or something.
Thanks for praying for me. I’m praying for you too.
Love Erin x
Hey Erin,
I don’t know how I do it either. Or whether I should be doing it! Would love to catch up while you’re out here. Let me know.
“wedges with hot apple juice” sounds funny
The one good thing about PC is that you can do your tax return on it. I keep on trying to convince Ali to switch to Mac but she refuses. Which is a good thing cos it means I can do my tax return on her PC