Day 78- November 7, 2009

Let’s start with yesterday, which was really today. Confused? I hope you are. Then I can claim that the blog is postmodern (woo). It was Ben’s birthday so we all took the train to Ivanhoe and had dinner at Saffron, an Indian place. Last time I went there, I ordered a dish that came in “hot” “hotter” or “hottest”. Being me, I decided I was capable of eating the hottest one. The waitress had to convince me that it was probably a good idea to try the one below that. Even then, I went through about four dishes of yoghurt. I didn’t make that mistake again, and got something that was tolerably spicy. Ben got a lamb dish that looked a bit strange but tasted nice. And a gummy spider. Becuase it was his birthday. We also kept waving to this chef who never waved back…

Today’s photo is of the two Bens and Taliya doing the Speak/See/Hear No Evil thing while we were on the train to the city. We ended up at some bar called Spleen (how appetising). We celebrated (or rather, were forced to celebrate) by singing along with Grace to the TGI Friday birthday song. And of course, James Enjoyed His Life (with Guinness).

Later today (ie actually today), Maxim and I went on a quest for free slurpees, it being the seventh of the eleventh and thus 7-Eleven Day. Unfortunately, the machine was “broken” at the closest store, so we drove out to the next one, which was struck by the same mysterious condition. Gah! We ended up just going to a BP and paying for them so that Maxim could also Enjoy His Life. Unfortunately (again), Dad was somewhat annoyed because he was late for church, having let us take his car, believing that we were just going up the road (and not on a frozen drink-related roadtrip). Heh.

In the evening, I made improvised risotto (tomato, ham and goon). No photos, except for this one of butter in a pan. Then went to James’ place because his mum had people over for a Mediterranean-themed evening/party/shindig. I missed out on most of the Mediterranean (which is ok… I don’t eat olives), but arrived in time for icypoles (very European), which were enjoyed by all.

Day 77- November 6, 2009

Oh no! I didn’t manage to write today’s post yesterday, or yesterday’s post yesterday; or whatever post it was that I didn’t write on the day! I blame Meg, because she made us leave earlier than I thought and so I didn’t have time. But that’s for tomorrow’s post, which is later today. Alright, I’m confused now…

Today’s photo is from the Eastern Precinct carpark at Melbourne University. Because of delays on my train line, I decided instead to drive in, but got there earlier than I thought and had to stay in the car so I wouldn’t run out of parking later. After a while, I got bored of that (despite having Belle and Sebastian playing) and pulled out the camera. Today’s photo is actually a composite of nine photographs of varying exposures (amount of light in the photo) merged to form what’s called an HDR (high dynamic range) image. I’m going to have to play around with some more of those, having seen some interesting ones (and also some horrible ones!) on Flickr.

After going to the gym (and learning that one of the staff members has a doctorate in philosophy… so THAT’S where philosophy gets you!), I had a listening test for my music subject, Popular Music of the 20th Century. It’s a bit disappointing that they aren’t offering it next year, since I’ve already recommended it to everybody. I don’t know whether it’s because we had too much fun (a breach of university rules) or whether it went over budget (what with the lecturer and tutors always giving us chocolate).

Anyway, the test consisted of listening to fifteen songs and writing pretty much anything we wanted to about ten of them, with Kit-Kats given out at the start and at the halfway point. All exams should be like that. It was fairly easy, although I forgot the names of some of the songs (especially country music… did not pay attention that week… eugh!). And that was 20% of our semester mark. Nice.

If I had written this yesterday, this would be the point where I’d write “and I’m about to go out for Ben’s birthday…”, but I didn’t get to write then. So this is where I stop the story, because that’s for today’s/tomorrow’s (argh Time!) post and anyway, I haven’t uploaded the photos yet.

Day 76- November 5, 2009

Mmm. The fact that today’s photo is a long-exposure shot of me dancing around with a CD in front of a burning giraffe should tell you that it was quite uneventful.

It consisted of eating, studying for my Psychology exam, practising the piano, picking my subjects for next year (I had a spare subject, so I’m studying musical theatre!) and attending a rehearsal. How boring.

Now look at the shiny CD reflective burning giraffe photo. Trippy.

Day 75- November 4, 2009

After going to the gym (and eating remnants of Cup Day lunch from a Tupperwear bowl on a tram), I met up with Alex, who was/is busy preparing some sort of portfolio for his VCA (Victorian College of the Arts) application. He’s applying to study film or animation or something there (I forget… sorry!) and needs a reel of short clips. I agreed to help him by appearing in one of his short films (short as in one minute) which involves a man (me) who gets in a lift only to discover that the lift opens up to various wonderful locations (all of which were filmed in Melbourne today), such as a busy street, an alleyway and a park.

The first part of the film was to get all the shots involving the lift done, so we went to the Manchester Unity building (corner of Swanston and Collins Streets) as it had fairly cool lifts. Unfortunately, we found it was notoriously difficult to film things involving lift in a building in which people actually work and move around using the lifts. For some shots, we would have to wait ages for the lift to come, and when it did it would be full of people. And then people were always quite surprised, and sometimes looked a bit intimidated and refused to come into the lift when we were in it. In fact, I’m quite surprised security didn’t kick us out of the building, considering the nuisance we were making of ourselves, what with holding lift doors open (well, we had to do several takes!) and Alex making noises at people. There were security cameras, so I guess security were just amused.

Since his clip involved the lift door opening into different locations, we went to film in an alleyway, Caledonian Lane. Apart from getting the shot done, I took heaps of photos of graffiti, a passing motorbike and the back of what I believe to be an Indonesian restaurant. There’s heaps more photos, so check out the Flickr page. Speaking of graffiti, in looking up the name of the laneway, I read an article in a paper about an anti-graffiti campaigner who was pushing to stop legalised street art (as it supposedly encouraged illegal graffiti). Although a lot of graffiti is just ugly (tags and stuff not really involving much creativity), I really enjoy colourful graffiti, especially in the city’s laneways.

We then hopped onto a tram to the Carlton Gardens to shoot the last parts (the part where I get out of the lift and find myself in a park). This included a bit where Alex climbed up a tree to film me from above. I was then trying to take photos of falling leaves but found this to be incredibly difficult (waiting for them to fall and focus and movement and just generally taking photos of green things against more green things). So I had to get Alex to hold some and drop them to make it easier. This is the best shot I came out with.

I had planned to catch a certain train to Darebin for a band rehearsal (for the musical production) but ended managing to catch an earlier train (what a clever public transport user!), which didn’t actually stop at Darebin (not such a clever public transport user…). I then thought I’d be smart by taking the train in the opposite direction to avoid having to walk, but I read the timetable wrong (still don’t know how…) and ended up in Clifton Hill (super fail). So I had to run up and down ramps with a bag on my back, my camera on my neck and a banana hanging out of my mouth (I got hungry at some point) in order to catch a train back (again). Sigh.

Day 74- November 3, 2009

Melbourne Cup. The day that stops the nation. Well, people in Melbourne get a public holiday but everybody else has to go to work. It still seems slightly strange that we all get a holiday because of a horse race. And it seems slightly strange that all these people focus so much effort and money into a race that only lasts a few minutes. And some of the fashion is also pretty strange. Actually, there’s a lot thats a bit strange. But that’s ok, because we get the day off.

Well, I had the day off already (considering the semester has finished and I’m on study break), but it meant that all the people who actually have jobs were off and we were able to have a nice lunch (pictured). With lots of barbeque. And we got to our new outdoor set (summer, here we come!). The weather was really nice and there was heaps of food (epic photo link whorage). Also, Maxim got his hair cut for some reason. He didn’t look happy.

James came over a bit later, just in time for dessert (he caught up on mains in record time) and of course the Cup. Lena wrote out the names of all the horses and we picked them out of a bowl. I was a bit disappointed that out of the three I chose, the best odds were 10:1 (on Shocking), but he/she/it (what are racehorses?) ended up winning and scoring me $15! As you can see, it truly is the race that stops the nation. Or at least our living room. This all was, of course, followed by dessert, which included Pavlova as well as the white chocolate rumballs I made yesterday. I’m a lot more pleased with this photo than the one I took yesterday; I think they look better in natural light.

I also watched a Dylan Moran dvd (hilarious) and installed Adobe Creative Suite 4 (awesome). I’m not exactly sure what all the programs do, but I’ll work them out (looking forward to learning how to use Photoshop). At least I didn’t have to pay $5000 for it. I love the internet…

Day 73- November 2, 2009

Mmm… got to sleep in today. Wonderful feeling. After breakfast, I drove to the gym and had just put my money in the meter when I noticed that there was almost an hour on the empty spot next to me. Doh! I also (finally) submitted my form for the compulsory Psychology research experience, or rather three of them, since I kept forgetting it at home and had to write down three entries on three separate forms.

In fact, a lot of time today was spent on Psychology, revising zones of proximal development and what happens when you abandon Japanese babies and the such. But that’s not really that fascinating. In fact, probably the most interesting part of the day was the making of white chocolate rumballs for tomorrow’s Cup Day lunch. We’re not really into the racing or anything like that, but a public holiday is a public holiday and a great excuse/opportunity to have a big old family lunch. Dad insists he’ll be fine to eat barbeque despite having a tooth pulled today (Mum recommends that he stick to sausages, but he knows better).

Anyway, so they’re quite delicious and very simple to make– white chocolate, cream and rum. Melt it and mix it, put it in the fridge and then make balls of the mixture. Mmm melted chocolate. I also coated them in sprinkles, the Photo of the Day. I was going pick this photo, but for some reason I can’t seem to get the photo looking right– it just looks funny, but I can’t tell why. Any suggestions? Also, here’s me rolling the rumballs.

Also watched the Star Trek movie (the recent one). Can’t say I understood everything that was going on (time travel and not-paying-attention-to-the-movie aren’t a good mix), but it seemed pretty good. Good special effects and whatnot, anyhow. Time travel is always a bitch to understand, unless you’re watching something silly like Back to the Future. Might have to watch it again, and get somebody to explain the whole backstory to me…

Day 72- November 1, 2009

It’s the first of November today (pinch and a punch, yadda yadda), which also means the start of Movember! In case you haven’t heard of it, Movember is a charity that raises money for prostate cancer and depression research and awareness by encouraging men to grow ridiculous facial hair. Or in my case, it’s probably going to turn out to be a filthy scraggly little thing. Luckily, “it’s for a good cause” is a great umbrella excuse. Heh. This should be amusing. I’ve made a Facebook page for people to join so you can my face getting progressively more and more unsuitable for public viewing. You can donate online here or give me cash to pass on to the charity (standard tax deductible thingy applies).

Aside from that, it was a pretty ordinary Sunday afternoon (well, apart from the morning, which was clearly not afternoonish in any way) spent playing around in Lightroom, licking meringue mixture (Mum’s already preparing for Cup Day, even though our day will not in any way be associated with the race) and practising for my audition with Yamaha Music Education (eek! less than two weeks!), which involves playing piano and singing (including in solfage) and making up an accompaniment to Waltzing Matilda (which is to be played in five different keys). So yeah. Your typical Sunday afternoon. Oh, I also watched Curb Your Enthusiasm and didn’t “get” it. I’ll keep trying, James…

And because it’s not immediately obvious, today’s photo is of my upper lip clean shaven. Well, it’s my entire face, but the lip must be clean shaven on November 1. Also, it’s not really “clean” (I shaved in the morning), but I put off taking the photo until evening. Enjoy?

Day 71- October 31, 2009

Part of the application process to teach music with Yamaha is going to see some of their classes in action to get a feel for their method. Having driven over the hills and far away (well, it was about a 30 minute drive that did involve some hilly bits), I got all confused because they told me that their Malvern site was relocating to Carnegie. Naturally, I got to Carnegie and found out that they were still in Malvern. Luckily, the two are only a few minutes away. Still, gah confusion!

The first class I saw was their most junior one (3-4 years old), which didn’t involve too much playing piano, but a lot of singing and counting and stomping around like a stegosaurus. I think it would be absolutely hilarious to get this job, because I’d get to do all the silly stuff I normally do (like ridiculous dancing), and get paid for it. The other class was slightly older children (I think it was 6-8 or so), which was pretty interesting from the point of view of having done the Yamaha classes as a child and now seeing and thinking about how they teach music. And it also brought back memories, like having to stand around the teacher’s piano and sing songs, or getting stickers at the end of each class (God I loved the stickers!).

After going for my first “classical” piano lesson in about three years (to help prepare for the audition), I spent the afternoon doing nothing of any great consequence. I’ve been fiddling around with Adobe Lightroom, which is like Photoshop but specifically for photos. It doesn’t have all the paint-type tools, but it lets you deal with many photos at a time and gives you heaps of control over all the photo-editing. I’m still working it all out, but made some edits I was pleased with. Here’s one of Sarah that I was playing around with (compare with the original), and a black and white one of her brother Peter (in which he looks slightly evil).

James and Andrew came over in the afternoon. We christened the newly-acquired outdoor set by sitting in the backyard with a few beers (animal rights activists please note: the dog is not actually drinking in today’s photo), and James got to Enjoy His Life once again (lucky bastard). We also watched some nigh-on-incomprehensible French sci-fi film, Eden Log, about some strange underground power plant that killed people. Yeah. I didn’t understand it either.

Day 70- October 30, 2009

You know you’re going to have a good day when you have icecream for breakfast. Boo ya! To celebrate the end of the first year of uni (well, apart from exams…), Jackie and I went to Brunetti’s for gelato. The poor girl had never been to Brunetti’s before, which probably explains why she didn’t know how to eat the icecream to make sure it didn’t drip everywhere.

Last class of the year of my music tute, which was even better than usual, because it involved a game of Celebrity Heads and Kit Kats (win). Some people were infuriatingly good/lucky at it (“Am I a solo artist? Am I male? Do I play guitar? Harmonica? Am I Bob Dylan?”), but it took me a while to figure out I was “Soul Music” (the genre). Oh well, I got my Kit Kat in the end… We also had a heated discussion on the ethics of world music. Seriously? Lighten up. I don’ t think anybody believes that Desert Rose by Sting is meant to be a representation of Algerian music (or anything apart from a Jaguar ad, for that matter).

We decided to go out for drinks to celebrate the end of the year (pretending for a time that we don’t have exams coming up), and a curious incident occurred on the tram. An angry angry hobo (carrying plastic bags full of celery and Roma tomatoes) began abusing Alice. I took a photo (obviously), and the shutter sound caused him to whip around and yell directly into my face for about five minutes. After that, he got a little tired of that and went back to Alice, threatening to kick her in the head and lunging at her throat. He didn’t say a word to Steve… how rude!

So we were pretty glad to be off that tram. Interesting story though. Made all our days (does that sentence make sense?). We went to Rooftop Bar on the top of Curtin House, and after I thoroughly embarrassed myself by taking several minutes to figure out how to open up the deck chairs, we kicked back and like, full chilled and stuff (pictured). Afterwards, I discovered a really really amazingly cool bookshop. ARGH I HAVE TO GO THERE AGAIN! It had all the Postsecret books and a diary filled with Russian pictures and… *hyperventilates*

Ooh! And I got  a call back about the Yamaha job, meaning that I’ve got an audition in two weeks (in which I have to play music, sing and transpose Waltzing Matilda) and that tomorrow I’m off to Carnegie to watch three year olds learn to clap rhythms and stuff (class observation). I don’t really know how to end this… it’s too humid to think/write. Gah.

Day 69- October 29, 2009

Last psychology tute (for the semester/year) today (sniffle sniffle). We actually learned some useful things, such as that if you claim you got brain damage in a car accident, the TAC will give you lots of money, and about the kinds of tests they use to find out whether you’re faking (massive compensation payout, here I come…). We then celebrated by sitting under some shady trees (because the sun was searing hot and also there were lots of ants around that place) and eating pizza. I’m getting slightly better at picking the stale-ish pizza from the fresh-from-the-oven ones. Heh. No photos of pizza (I have too many photos of people Enjoying Their Lives), although I have Charlotte pulling a particularly queer face. I also went to my last Self and Other tute (THANK GOD IT’S ALMOST OVER), but didn’t stay very long.

The reason why I left early and why I was wearing a shirt and tie today (that’s a Jackson Pollock tie!) was that I had a interview with Yamaha. I applied a while ago for a job as a music teacher with their music school, and had a group interview. So I walked to Flemington Road, took a tram down through the west end of the CBD and ended up in a thoroughly confusing part of town with roads going everywhere (no photo). The interview (slash information session) was quite amusing, consisting of us having to do one of the dances from the music classes (step, step, hands to the sky… do the monkey dance!) and planning and acting out skits (ours was about a couple at a restaurant that got seated at a crummy table but ended up involving Lady Gaga and me as a homophobic French waiter). We also had to answer things like “if you had five wishes” or “five things you would do if the world was to end in seven days”. There were some laughably suck-up questions such as “I wish I could work with austistic children and help them!!”. Yeah, ok.

Took a few photos of the city on my way from there to the station on my way to another JCS rehearsal, including today’s photo, an angle of the city that I don’t normally see (and one that makes it look very different!), as well as this somewhat phallic one. Heh.