/karen/

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Monday, 11 February, 2008

Saturday 2/2/08

Ben went off to a meeting to plan his high school reunion. I slept in, then got up and did the laundry and caught up on blogging. In the evening, Ben went to see Lifetone but I didn't really feel like going. Indie music has ruined me; from what I heard on the internet in streaming audio, Lifetone sound too predictable.

Sunday 3/2/08

Writing morning with Bec and Guan. I raced out the door to catch the train and realised I'd probably arrive a bit late because of the train timetable. I met them near the bronze boar near the hospital, and we walked down to the State Library. None of us had ever been inside it before. (Well, I think I had stuck my head inside it once but hadn't been game to enter the library itself.) We got ourselves one of those free lockers (which weren't as cool as the ones in the State Library of Victoria), me with too much stuff and stressing about my wet umbrella, and then we went inside and found ourselves a table near the reference section to sit and write.

I tried working on my graphic novel but, to be honest, I have no idea where I'm up to. I ought to spend some time going through all my notes and laying it out properly. Maybe later when I have a bit more brain space to deal with creative things again—when life is not so stressful.

After about one and a half hours, we'd reached our limit, and Bec was pining for coffee. So we packed up, but before leaving, I asked if we could have a look downstairs where all the microfiches lived, so we went down the spiral steps and found another quiet area with little cubicles in rows next to a floor-to-ceiling glass wall that looked out onto a small rainforest.

Upstairs and through the gift shop we found a café (Cafe Trim). I had a chai latte, and we sat outside, watching the rain come down, talking and laughing. We didn't think we were being particularly loud but some guy a few tables over gave us the finger and the evil eye. We decided to leave then, and he gave us the finger once more as we walked past. I've never encountered such hostility in Sydney, and I wondered how much it had to do with the fact that we were three Asians. Anyway, it left us with a bad feeling

We walked across the city and had Japanese for lunch. Bec and Guan were sensible and ordered gyoza dumplings; I was silly and ordered udon noodles, which I tried to scoff down in record time because time was running out. Guan said goodbye at this point, but Bec and I went on to watch Sweeney Todd at Greater Union, George St. The queue was enormous but Bec noticed there was a guy selling tickets in the candy bar bit just around the corner, so we hopped out of the queue and bought them there.

The cinema must have been one of those GMax ones because it was huge, the seats were huge and there were little wooden side tables in between them. We got a good seat and didn't miss too many of the previews (I like previews!). Our viewing experience was spoiled a little by some idiotic teenagers who hadn't realised that it was a musical (such Philistines ...) and who laughed in completely inappropriate places. Bec and I laughed at all the right places in “A Little Priest”, and wondered why very few around us were laughing, but then Sondheim is known for being wordy. Anyway, I shan't talk about the movie again; I've already reviewed it once.

Afterwards, we caught the bus to Bec's place from Castlereagh St. We had just enough time for a cup of tea before church.

Almost as soon as I walked in the doors, I got the best church welcome ever from George who, upon seeing me, ran up and gave me a hug—one that lifted me up off my feet—and swung me around. It was nice to sit in someone else's church for once—to not feel the responsibility for set up and pack up—to sit under the word of God, taught faithfully from Luke 1 and Acts 1. And it was nice catching up with some people I hadn't seen in ages—like Lucinda, Kester and Catherine.

Bec dropped me home after that. Ben was at church. I have to say, I've become a fan of the 5pm time slot; when I got home, I still had the entire evening ahead of me. I spent it blogging about Sweeney Todd and talking to Elsie on the phone.

Monday 4/2/08

I left Ben the car so he could go do the grocery shopping for us, so that meant catching the train and bus to work. I got stuck into the Bible Brief as the last major article for the issue had not yet come in. Guan and Bec were in, so we all had lunch together.

I stayed back at work and Bec came to get me around 5 pm as she had gone home first. It was pouring with rain and I was glad I had worn my boots. We drove to Kings Cross and got a pretty decent park, then walked to the Griffin Theatre and queued for tickets to William Yang's China. It was Pay-What-You-Can Monday (where tickets are a minimum of $10, they're sold in the hour before the show and you can only get a maximum of two). Ben met us there not long after we'd finally obtained our tickets and his shirt was soaked through. Bec's mum also arrived, and the theatre filled up very fast. I was trying to dry my umbrella surreptitiously in the corner and Bec was laughing at me.

Finally we were allowed into the theatre which was a very small performance space with two screens on the back wall and two tiers worth of seats. William Yang came out in traditional Chinese dress, and showed us pictures and gave us a commentary on the various trips he'd made into China. Parts of it resonated me—his conflicted identity, his longing for belonging, his sadness at what happened in Tiananmen Square in 1989, his uneasiness with both being Chinese and being Australian (his grandparents came out to Australia during the gold rush), his dislike of kitsch tourism and his desire to discover the real China (perhaps why he wanted to climb all the sacred mountains). But other parts of me were more cynical about it—particularly about his romanticism of China and his spiritual “quest”. I guess I've never really felt “Chinese”; I don't even know what that means. I look the part but don't speak the language—I understand the customs but don't really practise them—and there is much about Chinese culture (particularly their way of thinking) which I intensely dislike.

Afterwards, Bec drove us home (which was, like, the fourth or fifth time she had driven me home in the past week!) and we had cream of chicken soup with noodles and corn for dinner, and went to bed.

Tuesday 5/2/08

Back at work, I beavered away at the last Briefing article while the rest of the material went to layout. I had lunch with Elsie at the Tea Inn, and did Briefing admin-y things in the afternoon. It was a bit hard to do other things as our server was being upgraded and we were all kicked off it. I left at four and felt rather sleepy, so told Ben I was going to have a sleep. But I didn't sleep much.

We left at around 6 and went to Cameron's place for summer fellowship. We all ate a very yummy dinner together and then talked about some of the proverbs we liked from the Book of Proverbs. Dessert was also very yummy. And I had a good chat to Bron which helped me think about things a bit better.

Wednesday 6/2/08

Day off. I had a very long sleep in which I think I needed, then spent the day messing around on the computer—doing the accounts and stuff. (I have come to the conclusion I really really suck at accounts; I do not know what happened to a chunk of money we ought to have had last year. If your income is x and your expenditure is y, and x-y=z, and you have no idea what's happened to z [where z > 0], what do you do??? Bookkeeper my cardigan!!!)

Ben went off to counselling in the afternoon, then came back and we drove to Shipwrights for Chinese New Year dinner with my dad, my stepmother, my brother and my stepmother's stepfather. It was bucketing down and we only had one umbrella. Most of Shipwright's is in a tent because it's right on the marina, but it wasn't too bad—no leakages anywhere—and the food was quite yummy. People kept asking if I wanted entree but I resisted because then I couldn't have fit in dessert (and dessert was very yummy: ice creams and sorbets).

Afterwards we drove home through the rain but it had let up a little so it was okay getting back inside the house.

Thursday 7/2/08

Ben needed the car because he was going to play piano at Malcolm's mother's funeral, so he dropped me in to work at 7:30. I recommenced work on Michael's You. We had staff meeting, and then I had a meeting with Jess and Ian about the future of e-news.

I caught the train and bus home at 4 and made risoni for dinner. Ben and I spent the evening watching taped NCIS.

Friday 8/2/08

Ben came in to work with me so we got in about 8. He decided to share the office with me for the day as Gordo wasn't in. That was nice because I was not feeling my best, and so I could go to him for hugs every time I needed one.

We ate lunch together. At 3 I left for counselling where I finally finished this shawl. Counselling was very helpful; all week I felt like I'd been trapped in the same spiral of thought, but my counsellor helped me get out of it. Unfortunately I was a bit late leaving, so traffic on the way back was insane. Not to worry; I put St Vincent on and patiently made my way through the Lane Cove Tunnel, Harbour Tunnel and Easter Distributor back to Kingsford where I filled up with petrol and bought some KitKats (the ones advertising the iTunes free song).

I picked up Ben, then Bec on our way down to Guan's parents' place. Guan and Mary made us a very yummy eggplant stir fry while I played his parents' gorgeous piano (it was in tune and all the keys work, unlike mine ...)

We spent the evening watching King Fu Hustle because Bec hadn't seen it (I thought I had seen with Ben but in actual fact I watched it on New Year's Eve 2006 with some friends) and then Whisper of the Heart because Guan hadn't seen it. And in between I showed them this clip from Season 2 of Extras:

Mary was tired and left halfway through the movie-watching, so we ended up dropping both Bec and Guan home before driving home ourselves.

Saturday 9/2/08

I woke late and realised I didn't have as much time I was hoping before I had to catch the train, so once again I was running to the station. I got out at Central and walked to Surry Hills. It was sprinkling with rain. I was early so I spent a bit of time walking up and down Crown St, then headed to the Book Kitchen and queued with the other Saturday diners. I managed to get a table soon enough, and so spent the remaining waiting time scribbling down a draft for the Valentine's Day piece I promised Bec I'd write for webSalt. Bec and Emma R arrived soon after.

It's a bit weird: I've known Emma since I was eight or nine. She lived a couple of streets away and went to the same primary school. Her older brother was in my year and her younger brother was in my brother's year. I don't know how we got to be close friends, but we played together all the time. We ended up going to different high schools and she moved to the eastern suburbs, but somehow we kept in touch. She used to give me mix tapes of stuff she liked listening to, and I'd end up liking them too (Alanis Morissette, Ben Folds Five, Fiona Apple, Jeff Buckley). We lost touch a few years after Ben and I got married, but then recently Bec and I realised that we both knew her. She was on Facebook and she suggested meeting for lunch because she was going to be moving cities soon.

The three of us ended up ordering the same thing (crispy duck salad with roast peaches, pink peppercorn, and a red wine vinaigrette).

It was every bit as delicious as it looked.

Afterwards we said goodbye, and Bec offered to drive me home. I spent the afternoon doing laundry and doing some web stuff while Ben cleaned the mould off the bathroom ceiling with bleach. I started making dinner at 6 (poached ginger chicken) but we stuffed the onions and garlic and had to re-do them (there's a point at which it starts to burn but you keep turning down the heat and eventually it's just right in crispiness). Anyway, my mum, Peter and Kenneth seemed to enjoy it when they turned up for Chinese New Year dinner. They came bearing nibblies, a Chinese vegetarian dish my mum makes (yummy!) and Otherwise Pandemonium—the Penguin 70 Nick Hornby paperback.

Kenneth had to go but my mum and Peter stuck around for a while and watched a bit of Extras Season 2 with us. (Unfortunately they didn't find Ian McKellen nearly as funny as Guan, Mary and Bec.) After they left, Ben and I cleaned up and stayed up talking.

Sunday 10/2/08

We slept in fairly late. Ben went to see his family while I spent the afternoon watching a week's worth of So You Think You Can Dance? Australia. The ethnic and socioeconomic diversity of the contestants impressed me: it isn't often you see so many different faces of the nation on television (Anglo/Asian/South American/African, etc.) (Well, maybe it's the same with Idol but I don't watch that.) Compared to Idol, the judges were also very helpful: they weren't deliberately rude in their assessments, they took the time to care for the person—even when the dancer was obviously not up to scratch—and they were constructive in their criticism, not playing to prescribed roles like the Good judge, the Rude judge and the judge Who Sits on the Fence. They also really seemed to know their stuff; I was impressed that Jason Coleman choreographed the opening and closing ceremonies for the Sydney Olympics in 2000, and I can't believe Matt Lee is only 27!

Ben was on band so I came to church later and it was good; Baz preached a very good sermon on the importance of Jesus being a teacher and what it means for us as Christians. It was nice to hang out and chat with people I hadn't seen in a couple of weeks, and though I did end up helping with pack up, it wasn't strenuous. Ben and I went home and I finished writing the two Valentine's Day pieces I'd promised Bec.

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