As usual, I will be at Matt’s place listening to the Hottest 100, dipping in the pool, helping out with the chopping cos the bbq is usually men’s business, and enjoying a sunny, 33C day! Hope yours is a good one too!

Glow poi with Kuri (made by Kuri) on Henley Beach. Taken by Martine Cotton.

2009 is over, we are already halfway through the first month of the year and I haven’t had time to reflect or think about what I want this year to be about. I guess I should do that now…
What stands out for me in 2009 was a new field of study, a new relationship and a new hobby. These three things were simultaneously the most difficult and pleasurable things in my life.

Study was the most difficult of these three. I went into the subject with no background knowledge and have learnt so much. I started out interested in indigenous archaeology and ended up interested in historic archaeology as well. The course emphasised and explained both the processes employed in doing archaeology and the interaction with legislation, but the fieldwork excursion was the most work, the most fun and a fantastic opportunity to link head knowing and hand knowing. Archaeologists are an amazing bunch, I met some very wonderful people. There is more of it in store this year.

The new relationship was also difficult. I haven’t been in a relationship that worked as well as this one, and the difficult part was mostly learning to relax into it, and as always, to be balanced. I think the two of us have done a pretty good job so far of avoiding drama, spotting assumptions, dodging misunderstandings and maintaining realistic expectations, or at least revising expectations in the face of reality. We have maintained independence, privacy and respect for each other’s boundaries, whilst hanging out every day. Its all pretty new to me, I have to admit, but it feels so so so good, and there will be more of if this year.

The new hobby is hooping of course. There is pleasure in moving and learning to focus, in quieting the mind with repetitive activity. There is also pleasure seeing an action, desiring to do that action, practicing for a short time and acquiring competency and then moving on to excellence in such a short timeframe. And I dont think I need to explain how incredibly pleasurable it is to dance around in the living room to your favourite music - I’m sure you know that pleasure as well as I do! But I am surprised to find that being inside a hoop makes it totally ok (with me at least - you may or may not enjoy the spectacle) for me to dance around outside in public. Hooping is basically dancing with massage, and there will be a lot more of it this year.

This year holds more photos, more blogging, a new job, a car with air-con (i know a few people who would sign that petition), a lot more travel, a lot more money (of course), more study, new friends and family, more hooping (monday nights, south-east parklands - hoops available for loan or purchase!), more crafting, more live music, more love and more peace, and I have been advised to thank the universe in advance so I would like to take that opportunity now. Thanks!

Ah, its been ages! Christmas was never-ending and New Year was marred somewhat by two good friends having a major fallout, but in the end there was fabulous food, lots of nice time spent with family, at the beach and watching fireworks over the holiday season. I’m back at work again now, but of for an extended long weekend for my brother’s wedding this weekend. The crew arrived yesterday at lunchtime and we went straight to the markets pretty much. Kuri and Tod cooked a yummy pasta dinner for me at their hotel room, and late in the evening we went and picked up Ms. Frangipani, who is in the shower as I type, getting ready to go out for a day of shopping, poolside-lounging, wedding prep and general fun. We will do our best with the heat, but everyone seems to be coping pretty well so far.

Photos and updates soon!

I really thought that I would have started to slow down by this stage, but clearly it was not to be. Uni is finished - well, almost finished. There is a little tidying up to do on one piece of work and then it really is all finished. Then there was a bit of accounting stuff to do, and well, that took longer than expected. I got it completely wrong the first time round and had to do it again, so that was two solid weekend’s worth of sitting at the computer doing data entry and banging my head against the screen trying to figure out not just an entirely new program but also an entirely new field - accounting. But that seems to be ok (as in the accountant didn’t explode when I submitted the figures this time), so that’s done now too. For a few moments I kinda had it in my mind that this weekend was free - I couldn’t think of anything I had on for the weekend except for a Skunkhour gig at the Gov on Sat night… but then reality came flooding back and I remembered that this entire weekend, starting tonight and finishing late on Monday night, is taken up by the Australian Archaeological Association Conference at Flinders Uni, and I will be volunteering there, so that’s why I have nothing else booked this weekend.

So Christmas shopping, house cleaning, catching up with friends, garage-sailing, dinner with Mum, a day at Gawler with the grandparents - all of that is going to have to wait til later. The conference should be interesting tho!

Sudden gusts of wind bring bursts of heavy rain, but the sun is only minutes away from shining again

I have finished another year of study and I feel like a weight is off my shoulders! My last presentation was on Thursday night and whilst there is a still a small amount of rewriting to do, its all finished. Woohoo! So this week, instead of studying, I worked. I have an extra day at the office as of this week, bringing me up to three, and a couple of days a week as the VNM’s bookkeeper and general Man Friday. Or rather Woman Friday, Saturday and Monday. Doing the accounts is a totally new area for me and I have never been particularly good at numbers, but the older I get the more I love learning anything new, particularly if its useful, so I am already knee deep in it. Actually I should get back to it.

Good weather for staying inside and working. At least I’m not regretting I’m not at the beach!

It has been 39C for a few days now, and the people at the weather bureau are suggesting it will be a hot summer. Im certainly feeling a bit cooked, tho I’m managing to stay inside mostly and keep my place dark and cool in the day, and then we turn the aircon on and sleep next to it on the lounge at night. I’m starting to get a bit scratchy about the fact that I haven’t been to the beach yet, I suspect that might have to happen soon… I hope a good dousing in salt water will help calm my hayfever down, cos tablets have only half worked.

I am soooo close to finished and I would be more excited about it if my internal body temperature was a couple of degrees lower. I took Thursday off and did 7 loads of washing, the majority of which was dry by the time I came to hang out the next load, but on Friday I had to give a presentation on the Park survey I did for the industry partner. Today I am making a poster about the project and a promotional brochure for the Park, both of which are due on Monday. I have revisions to make to the draft, and another presentation to go, and then it really is finished. And I feel finished too; everyone is in party mode already and each evening has been spent in typically Aussie fashion, where everyone knocks off early because of the heat and goes and grabs a beer with a friend, sits around outside and talking about plans for the rest of the summer.

But for a moment I would like to go back to last week and show you a couple of pics from last weekend’s wedding between Aaron and Jocelyn, which was fun and lighthearted and a lovely day, despite the heat and the fact that I had to work on school stuff in between wedding sessions.

Unveliling

Married!

Tomorrow is a friend’s birthday, and so the day will be spent at the pub having lunch on the balcony followed by a bit of a surprise thing back at his place. I will get another chance to capture sunset from the balcony.

I have one day left of a big assignment, and then a morning to tidy it up if necessary. The first big one was all done on Thursday, and thankfully this one is going just a little bit faster, like the language is flowing better. Yay, I’m actually learning how to do this! I’m learning to write to a particular style required by the field, to formulate ideas and frame them in the accepted way. It is such a pleasure to feel that I"m not only getting the assignments knocked off, I’m actually improving in both quality (hopefully) and speed (surely). There are a couple of Japanese guys sitting at computers near me, and i cant help but eavesdrop. They are discussing whether to stay in Australia after their degrees are finished, what they think of South Australia. It’s quite distracting. I cant hear a Japanese person talking without wanting to join in.

I had breakfast with the VNM this morning which was nice, because apart from sleeping next to each other, we have hardly had any time together lately. He has been usurped by a computer screen. Tomorrow we are going to a wedding, and I will have another chance to take wedding pics. I’m looking forward to it - I learnt a lot from the last wedding and I’m eager to try again. I have a take home exam to do in the morning before the wedding, so that I can hand that up on Monday as well.

The next thing will be a big batch of paid accounting work. I am eager to get stuck into it, but at the same time, next week is going to be quite hot, mostly in the high 30’s, and I am really really really hoping that there will be a bit of beach time in there at some point. And true to form, I am feeling the flow of the creative juices, with a million sewing ideas popping into my brain, a strong desire to take my camera with me wherever I go, feeling like blogging again… all of that now that summer is here, the “holidays” are approaching and I have so little free time in sight. Not that im complaining about the prospect of lots of paid work, no, not complaining at all.

Ok, enough procrastinating, better get back to the essay!

That’s just about the colour of my age-worn, tobacco-stained walls. What a great name for the average colour of the universe!

Part of the view from Jason’s balcony.

Last night the VNM and I went to a friend’s place for a Halloween dinner party. Our friend lives perched on the edge of a hill with a great view of the city, and I have spent quite a few evenings sitting on his balcony watching the sun set, the light change and the planes roll in over the city. We sat outside under the bright, close to full moon and ate an amazing bbq dinner with some new and familiar people. I like the mix of new and familiar at dinner parties, it always adds to the spice. It was the first time in ages that I have celebrated Halloween, and it was fun telling stories of spooky and weird experiences and freaking the kids out with scary tales. Another thing we did at dinner that was really fun was “Best and Worst”, where everyone had a chance to say what the best and worst thing was about their day. With seven adults and five kids it pretty much took up the whole meal, but I really liked the way that everyone got a chance to talk to the whole table.

Sitting outside of an evening is something that has happened a couple of times so far this season, but the season really only changed to Summer this week. Last week it was getting up to the low 20’s for five minutes mid-afternoon before plummeting back down to the low teens again, and I was still sleeping with my feather quilt. Suddenly this week it is full blown Summer with temperatures in the low to mid 30’s! Yay for Summer at last! I thought it would never come.

Another change, a much smaller one this time, is that as of midnight last night, I graduated onto my full licence, which means that I can FINALLY have a glass of wine or beer with dinner AND legally drive home. It only took about 3 years…

I am almost finished with study. I have one huge assignment due tomorrow, and another one due kinda Monday week. I say kinda because I had a chat with my lecturer a few days ago and she suggested that perhaps she might want to extend the due date so that she could fit everything in as well as make sure that the industry partners were happy with our outputs. This was of course welcome news - she’s offering an extension! - but at the same time, work expands to fill the time allotted and I have so much work work (ie income generating) waiting for me when I finish studying that I really don’t want to drag this out any longer than necessary. There are still a bunch of little but important pieces due Friday week. I want it to be over and then I can earn some money and have some time off. I especially need some time lying on the beach under my fabulous beach tent, snoozing or splashing around in the water and doing very little.

I have decided not to study again next semester, but to go back again part-time in the middle of next year, and take it a bit easier. This year has been pretty full on, and my motivation is running low. This year has been fantastic, I have learnt an incredible amount and really enjoyed working with all the people I have come into contact with, but if I want to work as an anthropologist then there is no getting away from another one year (or 1.5years part time) of study.

But that is next year. Right now, I have a whole bunch of work to do to finish of a very interesting project, and then another whole bunch to do to finish off another very interesting project, and since I have made the effort to come to the library I should be doing that instead of writing blog entries. Its just that last night the VNM heard an interesting piece of news, had a very interesting idea, and we talked about it this morning, and I am now totally intrigued and distracted by this new project (due Dec 1st) which I can’t start until I finish this Uni stuff!!! I would love to talk more about the interesting idea, but that might have to wait until it has either been approved or denied sometime early next year. If it is approved then there will be lots to talk about for quite a while, and if it is denied then there will be no harm in saying what we attempted.

Bah! Time to get to work!!!

Family Gargoyles

Last Friday was the 10th anniversary of my step-brother and his fiance getting together, and so they decided to celebrate by getting married. The wedding was at the registry office, then I had the great honour of being the wedding photographer for an hour at the Botanic Gardens, and then back to Dad and Naomi’s for a fabulous reception lunch. It was all very simple and easy.

I have never had the opportunity to do wedding photos before, and it was an excellent learning opportunity. It was also a bit nerve-wracking, knowing that I only had the once change to get it right. Ha - once chance to get it right? I took over 500 photos!!! Fortunately tho, some of the pics turned out just wonderfully, and it was a great privilege to photograph this normally very shy and reserved couple kissing and canoodling all over the park. It was incredibly romantic.

I’d love to put some of the pics up cos I’m just so pleased with myself, but it only seems right that the newlyweds should see them first (and that I should get their permission - they are pretty shy!), so instead, here is a photo of my step-sister’s kids. I promised them the chance to do ‘Nice’ photos as well as ‘Funny’ photos, and I really like the funny ones, especially the frown of concentration on the little girl!