/karen/

Story: 29/9/08-5/10/08

Tuesday, 21 October, 2008

Monday 29/9/08

I woke at 6:15, ate breakfast, read my Bible and prayed, then was in at work by 7:30. I worked on Sola Panel things (including comment moderation as Gordon was away). I dealt with my email and then tried to get stuck into the November Briefing. I started with the Epilogue and quickly got stuck because I wasn't sure how to cut out 200 words. So I went to Tony for help, and his solution was a brand new Epilogue.

Over lunch, we all watched Black Books again (episode #2). After lunch, I continued with November editing. I got the go-ahead on the Pastor's brief, so I sent off the Epilogue and started working on the Pastor's brief. I was nervous about the how the issue was going because so much of it was in other people's hands this time.

Around 3, I met with Tony, and we talked about The Briefing, Sola Panel and other bits and pieces. I left a little early to get petrol and then drove home. I played with Wii Fit, had a shower, did some computer things and then we caught the train to Town Hall. We went to Sakura for dinner and ate soft shell crab rolls, sashimi (sooo good!) and miso soup (and I had green tea). We sat there until 8, then went to the Metro.

Once inside, we found that all the seats had been taken (all 12 of them!). There were lots of people there. We sat up the back on the cushioned benches and waited. I liked being able to hang out with Ben for an extended period of time; I felt like I hadn't been able to see him much. The support act did their thing but we couldn't see them, and all the music sounded the same to me. Then Ladytron took the stage and the crowd roared. We stood up behind the people on the chairs and got quite a good view for the entire show (though the entire band was mostly backlit—something which angered one of the fans who yelled at the guys on the sound and lighting desk because he wanted to see the two girls who were the lead singers. One wore a little black dress; the other wore a cape.).

Ladytron aren't my kind of music (I was only there because no one else wanted to come with Ben, and he had been given free tickets courtesy of Luke who couldn't make it and was hugely disappointed about it); they are dance electronica and rather repetitive (very loud and same-ish, in my amateur opinion). But I was impressed by the number of teenage boys and twenty-something young men who were really into it—dancing and moshing throughout the entire set. Ladytron came back on for an encore and then it was over.

We caught the train home and then went to bed around midnight.

Tuesday 30/9/08

I slept in until 9:30. I wanted to get up at 8 but I couldn't. I ate breakfast, read my Bible and prayed, and started the laundry. I did computer things—more Sola Panel editing and comment moderation, dealing with emails and Bookface—and then found I was having trouble concentrating because the problem of infringing copyright in selling things in Bec's Etsy store cropped up and I got distracted by reading up on copyright and trying to sort out the mess.

I took a break for lunch and watched some television (which ended up being a fair bit of television because I could not motivate myself to move: NCIS [only I missed an episode of the new season], 90210 [which had the last five minutes cut off—nooooo!], etc.). Ben went to the movies by himself to see In Bruges. At 5, I played with Wii Fit, then had a shower. Ben went to Bible study because it was a farewell dinner for Bron; I had to try and make myself do some work so I stayed home.

I worked on the Pastor's brief, got it done and chopped it to the right length. I sent it off, then had dinner at 9 pm. I watched NCIS, then went to bed.

Wednesday 1/10/08

Ben didn't come in until 4 am (he stayed up talking to friends). I was up at 6:15, I ate breakfast, read my Bible and prayed, and I was in work by 7:30. I dealt with Sola Panel and email, I edited the Bookshelf piece and cut it to size, then rearranged the issue layout and updated the table of contents. I also subedited Up front once Paul was done with it.

Over lunch, I chatted to Paul and Jess, and then left for counselling. I went to Target in Macquarie Centre and it took ages to get through the checkout. I also went to MBF to get more cheap movie tickets, then bought myself a cotton nightgown.

Counselling was okay but it made me feel sad. We talked about recognising people for what they are, and the sad fact that some people out there will always be jerks who mistreat you, and you can't expect any different.

I drove back to work, getting in at 4:45. I started editing the Bible brief and it was slow-going. I quit around 6:30 and did a bit of blogging, then went to Bible study. We spent the evening discussing Generation Y and how to reach them with the gospel which was very interesting but it meant we didn't look at the Bible at all. I drove home and managed to get stopped by every single red light in the area. At home, I had a shower, then planned my next knitting project, and went to bed.

Thursday 2/10/08

I was up at 6:30, I left home and drove to work and ate breakfast there. I worked on the Bible brief. I really didn't feel like working, but I pushed on and got it done. Then I started editing the main feature article.

Neither Bec nor Guan were around for lunch. In the afternoon, I kept going on the main feature article and tidied up a bunch of other stuff (including all the mess on my desk). I did some Sola Panel comment moderation, then left at 3:45 so I could go to the shops for fruit, vegetables, Chinese peanuts and stuff for a pasta salad for church dinner on Sunday. I also went to Officeworks to get some DVD-Rs and then got confused at the number of brands on offer and the number of different kinds of DVD-Rs.

At home, Ben was not feeling very well and wanted to stay home. I took in the laundry and got my stuff together, and then went to a housing inspection for some very nice two bedroom flats in a converted abbey. Their asking price was way out of our league ($800,000) but I was glad I went because it helped me to have a bit more of an idea of what you get for your money.

I still had some time to kill, so I went home home again and double-checked session times. The Greater Union website was stuffing up and I was a bit nervous about whether I'd told Toby and Sarah the right time. I SMS-ed them to let them know we might have to forego our movie, and then caught the train to Town Hall. I went to Tapestry Craft to find some yarn. There was a knitting class in full swing there. I found some lovely Anny Blatt wool/mohair and bought five balls of the stuff (51% pure wool; 49% kid mohair, 255m/50g ball):

The guy who served me at the counter was the owner (but, curiously, not a knitter). He took great pride in the fact that he ordered all the yarns to enable all the knitters who came in, and I thanked him and told him I appreciated it.

I walked up to Greater Union George St and was relieved to find that the session times were what I thought they were. I queued and got tickets, then met Sarah just outside the candy bar. Toby joined us a bit later, and we got popcorn and went in. Our seats were allocated for the very back row in the middle (I need to communicate better with the box office staff; I don't normally like that far back). But it was fine. I loved the Pixar short about the magician and the rabbit, and Wall-E was fabulous: beautiful, whimsical, amazing how they can portray so much with so little. I loved how Eve says “Wall-E!” with so much metallic exasperation. I thought it somewhat ironic that the movie was a critique of modern consumer culture, and yet it contributes to it. And I wondered how many other people would have picked up on the fact that we were seeing ourselves on screen—lounging in those floating oversized chairs, eating junk food and sucking on soda pop, getting carried away by the latest trend and not looking beyond the screens in front of our eyes.

Afterwards, we decided to grab some dinner but we weren't sure where. Sarah suggested World Square and I had a brainwave and suggested Din Tai Fung (I've wanted to go there ever since Bec emailed around a review in The Sydney Morning Herald. Plus we're all slightly crazy about dumplings.) Toby and Sarah were amenable to that idea, and we queued at the door behind some other people. We were one of the last to be seated and we didn't have to wait long. We even got the table near the windows overlooking the kitchens where they make the dumplings:

We ordered dumplings (of course!—these were pork), mince and beans, and crispy pork strips with noodle soup. Oh, and Chinese tea. They were all delicious:

Toby and Sarah were amused at me taking photos of everything but graciously put up with it.

There was even a cartoon strip on our table on how to eat the dumplings. They were very yummy dumplings, but pricey: only six of them for $8.80.

Because it was late, the kitchen and the restaurant started packing up around us, and the waitress asked for last orders. Because they'd never had it before, I made Toby and Sarah get black sesame ice cream (Ben: “It's for girls!”). I'm pleased to report they liked it.

The cooks stacked all the bamboo steamers up against the window which made a lovely sculpture:

All up, for the three of us (three dishes plus dessert plus tea), it cost us $51 for dinner which isn't bad. We headed out as the restaurant was closing and parted ways at Town Hall.

When I arrived home, Ben was watching TV, and I tried to work out how to burn programs to DVD on the HD recorder. I ran into the same problem as before: the HD recorder wanted me to format the disk. Consulting the manual proved fruitless (worse written manual ever!) But then I worked it out.

Stupidly the thing needed to burn the recording in real time, so we left it and went to bed.

Friday 3/10/08

I was up at 8. I ate breakfast, read my Bible and prayed, and we were in at work by 9:30. I saw Bec and gave her the salad stuff for Sunday, and then she came up with me because I'd forgotten to give her the DVD.

I worked with Ben on the Matthias Media website, working out what could be kept, what could be archived and what could be deleted outright. It took quite a while. Tony was in for the morning and then went, so I did a quick tidy and clean of the last feature article, the Pastor's brief and the “In this issue”. I also updated the layout.

I completely forgot I was meeting with Elsie over lunch to read the Bible and pray. Her exciting news was that she and her flatmate had found a new place, and would be moving shortly. I half-jokingly tried to get her to join Wild Street because she wouldn't be living far away.

In the afternoon, I started doing the October Briefing stuff (better late than never, and anyway we're changing things so that I do this part of my job later because the first of the month always coincides with Briefing editing). I picked two articles and put them online (including my article on children of divorce).

Ben came to pick me up around 6. At home, I made myself noodles for dinner and settled down in front of the TV. Ben went to a dinner for college people in Newtown (I was exhausted and didn't want to go). I watched the Emmys on fastforward, then Cars, then The Simpsons. Ben came home around midnight, and then we went to bed.

Saturday 4/10/08

This being the long weekend, I decided to make it as much of a free weekend as possible because I was feeling rundown and cranky. I meant to wake up earlier but I didn't. I ate breakfast, read my Bible and prayed, then turned on the computer and got through stuff I wanted to do—for example, catch the end of that episode of 90210 (Channel Ten streams them online); catch up on blog reading and email; reading three weeks' worth of Salon.com, The Sydney Morning Herald and Breakpoint; and three month's worth of The New York Times. Now, when I saw “read”, of course, I wasn't reading the whole thing; these publications send me emails every day, and I was reading through them and clicking on the articles I found interesting. Sometimes I won't read the whole thing (particularly when it comes to the SMH), but sometimes I will. And sometimes I'll email the article to friends and/or bookmark it on del.icio.us (once again I apologise that the full posts and del.icio.us feed isn't working; I just can't master cron jobs).

I made grilled dory on bok choy for lunch (the cheating way) and then made a Neil Gaiman playlist of free audio downloaded off the web so I could burn CDs for Bec and Guan. In the evening, Ben went to a fairy party (with my wings) and I stayed a home continuing with New York Times reading. I got through almost two months and they eyes started hurting. I ate dinner at around 8 or 9 pm, then watched Law & Order: Criminal Intent and went to bed.

Sunday 5/10/08

I woke up when Ben got home from the party at around 6 am. I got up at 8:30 and played with Wii Fit. We thought the Customs House Library opened at 10 but it was actually 11. I had a shower and was out the door at 10:30. Ben was preparing for music rehearsal: he had Nancy and Rosey over for breakfast so they could practise for Bron's wedding. I caught the train to the city, and joined Bec and Guan for another City Writing Day (I snuck up behind them as they exited Circular Quay).

In the foyer, we got sidetracked by an exhibition of Alexia Sinclair's “Regal Twelve” series of famous women. (Bec and I saw this at the Australian Centre for Photography back in June. You can view the series on her website under “Portfolio” and then “Fine Art”. After collecting postcards and brochures, we went up to the reading room and worked for about an hour and a half. I worked on the four-page comic I'd been thinking about—I had a go at drawing it myself, planning the layout and compositions, and so on. It was hard going and my drawings didn't venture beyond stick figures, but it was a very interesting exercise.

We finished up, then went to Wagamama for lunch and had (among other things) duck gyoza.

I had chicken ramen. And then we all had black sesame ice cream for dessert.

We walked up to Pitt Street Mall where Guan was going to meet Mary. I noticed that the Angus & Robertson had suddenly become a Borders discount store. Bec and I said goodbye to Guan and went in. There wasn't much that was good, but I did find a basic book on sewing for $10.

Then we realised we were running out of time. After stopping in Priceline for supplies, we caught the bus to Bec's place, getting out and walking the rest of the way when the bus would bring us no closer. There wasn't time for her to nap or me to make salad, unfortunately, so we grabbed everything and went to church. Bec was on band practice, and I went to make salad in the hall—chop things, make the pasta, etc. I finished just before church began.

Kurt was back and he preached on 1 John 4. It was good stuff and especially pertinent for me. Sammi gave her testimony and got baptised. Afterwards, I introduced Ben to Tom and Jenny, and we went to dinner. Everyone enjoyed my pasta salad and ate it all up. We ended up sitting near George in the other room where the footy fans were setting up the data projector and screen so they could watch the game. Given that we were nowhere near as interested as they, we quickly finished eating and left.

I was feeling very tired so Ben and I drove home. We hung out a bit together, and then he went out to have coffee with people from PEC. I watched taped Simpsons until he came home, and then we went to bed.

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