one fell/foul/fowl swoop

It's been my favourite kind of Saturday and the kind of Saturday that I haven't had in a long long time. I slept in until 8. Got up just before 9 and managed to be showered and dressed in time for my dear mum to pick me up at 9:15. We nipped downtown for a morning coffee. I had a toasted sandwich for breakfast (cheese, tomato and avocado). We did a little bit of people watching and enjoyed the comfy lounge seats at the cafe. Then I came home via Officeworks where I picked up some archive boxes. With a great sense of satisfaction in one fell/foul/fowl swoop I plonked all of Term One's bits and pieces from study in a box and neatly stored it in the hall cupboard. Then it was time to start the washing (an ongoing project as I write), have a bowl of cereal for lunch and watch the end of The Lake House which I recorded last night. Yes I know it's a crap film. Yes, I've seen it before. Yes, I still can't understand the whole time difference between Keanu and Sandra or why the mailbox is magical but that didn't stop me recording the last half and watching it over my Just Right and muesli. I think I have a problem.

Then, and only then, it was nana nap time. Two and half hours later I woke up on the lounge to the sound of a very bad 1950s musical starring Janet Leigh and some other long forgotten Hollywood stars.  It certainly wasn't any Gene Kelly, Fred Astaire number but they did sing Manhattan which is one of my favourite tunes. And incidentally it is the name of Woody Allen film on ABC2 tonight after the second half of the doco of his life. Here it is in a very early version. Old Rodgers and Hart could certainly put together a tune.


Anyway, after that music interlude Saturday continued with some soup for a late snack. Now I am enjoying a green tea and posting this final #blogjune. I'm looking forward to a quiet night, perhaps with some @TunnFM for @KyliePC 's birthday playlist and a little bit more Haigh's dark chocolate. That my dear friends, is Saturday.

something profound tomorrow

That's it my friends. No sooner did it begin than the mid-year break is over. Five weeks between the end of Term 1 and the start of Term 2 sped by in a flurry of finalising grades, marking, preparing for a Moodle upgrade, recovering from a Moodle upgrade, finishing my own assignments, preparing for a conference and trip to Adelaide, going to Adelaide and a conference, getting back with three days to get ready for teaching this term. Luckily I have had the #blogjune challenge to keep me motivated or I fear there would have been precious little posting here at The Spiralling Shape. Many days it has been a scramble to post something. I had grand visions of one substantial post after another but it has not turned out that way. I shall try for something profound tomorrow.

Lucky for you and your nine lives

Dear Harrison

I know I went away and left you alone in the house for a week. I'm very sorry. I would remind you that I did organise for a very nice lady to come in and feed you and fill up your water every day. She even told me that you sat with her on the lounge while she did some reading and kept you company. With all that in mind, I do not see why you chose to throw up on my lounge at some point today while I was at work as some kind of weird punishment for perceived neglectfulness on my part. Lucky for you and your nine lives I have a throw over aforementioned lounge. I am now washing it and I would appreciate it if such behaviour could cease and desist immediately. So I went away for a while. Build a bridge young man. Build a bridge.

Sincerely
Wendy
(your "owner")

holiday snaps

Things I ate today that I probably shouldn't have

Banana bread on the plane
Cheese and crackers on the plane
Pie and mash
the rest of my sister's nachos
two so called "healthy muesli bars"
two pieces of pizza

Achievement unlocked

I haven't done a conference presentation for quite a number of years. I don't really count in house seminars at work although I do a couple of them each year. Sure, they mean getting up and talking in front of people, but usually the people are colleagues from various disciplines so they don't ask tricky questions. Today was different as I co-presented a paper here in Adelaide at the RAILS8 conference on GLAM, cultural policy and Australian cultural heritage. I was very relieved to have an excellent partner in crime as it were in Katherine Howard. I was also very relieved to be presenting in a friendly sized room ar UniSA. I had spent the evening prior with visions of giant, cold lecture theaters dancing through my head. Fortunately this did not come to pass. I thought about all the times I had blithely encouraged students in public speaking, or piano students in performances. How could have possibly been so uncaring? Anyway, apparently it's good for us to do something that scares us every day. Achievement unlocked for me today.

"P" is for Personal Learning Network

Saturday saw me do one of my very favourite things. Yes that's right. I met an imaginary twitter friend IRL. it's always exciting and @K1Howard turned out to be just as fabulous as she is on twitter and other online, virtual places. We drank coffee, chit chatted, laughed (a lot) and generally had a lovely time. That's what puts the "P" in Personal Learning Network my friends.

We even saw a rainbow

It was another cold and rainy start to the day here in Adelaide. Still we powered on and ventured out of the city to Hahndorf. The car thermometer said it was around 4-5degrees...and this was at midday. We were glad of our brollies because the rain continued the whole time we were there (except for when were inside eating lunch when we thought we saw the sun!). I'm pretty sure Hahndorf would be beautiful on a sunny day. We were desperate to get warm so the car seemed the best option. A leisurely drive to Victor Harbor was broken up with a couple of stops at a cheesery and wineries. We exclaimed rather enthusiastically when the sun emerged as we got closer to the coast. We even saw a rainbow. But by the time we hit the city in peak hour the bleakness had returned. Home to the heating, bed socks and a nice warm cup of tea.

Thursday in Adelaide

Got up late, showered, soup, tea, rain, went to Glenelg, ambled up and down the main street, stopped for a chai latte and a rather gigantic piece of carrot cake, bought an excellent pair of green leather ankle boots, back through town, marveled at the many umbrellas, hoped it might stop raining tomorrow, home for tea, pasta and plans for Friday.

Wednesday's post is full of travel

Wednesday was a day of travel. We left Bundaberg at 6.30 in the morning and it was a shivery 6 degrees. One pit stop at sexie coffee just outside of maryborough was our only break before Brisbane airport where we made it in nice time catch the 1pm flight to Adelaide. It was bright sunshine all the way until we were 10 minutes out from our destination. The clouds looked like the end of the world approaching over the plane. It was rainy and grey by the time we landed and has been ever since. We found our cottage, walked to the nearest grocery shop, stocked the fridge, watched a bit of Telly and fell into bed. Thank goodness for beautiful snuggly doonas. They kept us all warm all night!

Bound for South Australia

It's my last day of work for nearly a week. Yes that's right. At what has turned out to be the most hectic time of year I am going away on holidays and to a conference. In some ways it will be a relief to set my out of office messages and lock the door behind me this afternoon. All the nuttiness of new course profile and Learning Management Systems will be behind me. On the other hand, it will mean I land back here next Tuesday evening with a day full of Orientation on Wednesday, and three or so days to get ready to teach the new term. Swings and roundabouts.

In the meantime, I am deciding what to pack to take to Adelaide. I have been reliably informed that to fit in I should call it "Radelaide"? I hope that's correct. I mean I wouldn't want to look like an idiot.

 I am very bad at packing. I am filled with angst that I will pack the wrong things, not enough things, too many things, etc etc. You get the picture. I'm also not really a fan of travelling. Well, that's not strictly true. I like seeing new places. It's the boredom of the planes, trains and automobiles that I really don't like. I like to get where I'm going as quickly as possible. Then, and only then, can I feel like I'm actually on holiday.

And that is the disadvantage of living in regional Queensland. To fly to Brisbane to connect to any other capital cities is Expensive with a capital E. Here in Bundaberg we only have the choice (ahem!) of Qantaslink to get to Brisvegas (as the "cool" kids call it). Unless you book months in advance and catch a sale price, you are looking at a minimum of around 300-500 dollars ONE WAY. That's right, a 40 minute plane journey where the cabin crew throw a plastic pack of prepackaged food at you and then land miles away from the terminal in Brisbane is ridiculously overpriced. This means that to fly out of Brisbane at 1pm to get to Adelaide tomorrow requires getting up at 6am to drive the 4 and a half hours to the airport. Imagine my joy and delight at this prospect if you will.

So providing my iPad keeps working the next edition of The Spiralling Shape will be coming to you from South Australia.

Was it opposite day?

I feel very lucky that I was not one of the Moodle horror stories today. Some poor course coordinators had spent all weekend on their courses to find that when the new version went "live" everything disappeared. I knew I was smart not to work all weekend on my course. Although, that did mean today was all about the Moodling. That's okay. I mean I taught myself lots of new things. It was a matter of having to really, seeing as there were no help features to be seen. That's where youtube came in very handy with some nice "how to" videos explaining how to set up groupings and all that kind of stuff. And I also managed to solve the problem of the disappearing discussion forums all by myself. The conversation between me and the young man at the help desk was sort of me suggesting possible solutions and him saying "yes you could try that and see if it works". Was it Opposite Day? It seemed so. Anyway, finally this afternoon I pressed the go live button. (It wasn't really button, more of a changed setting). I have checked it now I am home and while as usual the formatting has gone all bizarre in places, it's basically stable....in the world of Moodle that is.

See Harrison

See Harrison. See Harrison sitting on the laundry basket. See Harrison sitting on the laundry basket getting his crazy eyes on. See Harrison sitting on the laundry basket getting his crazy eyes on ready to spring like a tiger at the idiot calling his name to take his photo.

piano reductions

This *is* the post for Saturday June 16 despite what the date on the post says. Last night's concert went smoothly. I survived the horrid accompaniment for the Beethoven Hallelujah from the Mount of Olives. Piano reductions of orchestral scores are not the friendliest things at the best of times but this one is particularly awful. I've always thought that accompanying is often about knowing which notes to leave out. I left out quite a few in that I have to say. Who's going to know? I followed Beethoven's endless V and I chords so hopefully he isn't rolling over in his grave. We do it all again this afternoon at 2pm. Then that's one more thing ticked off my list of things to do before going away on Wednesday.

view of an accompanist

Have I overshared?

You think by now I would be able to recognise PMS for what it is. I mean it's been happening every month for quite some time. But every month I spend a day wondering why I feel extra stress and emotional. Then I spend a couple of days wondering why I want to scoff all the bread and cakes I can manage. Then I spend a day wondering why I have an absolutely splitting headache. Then I can spend up to two weeks wondering why my breasts are really really sore. Then I wonder why I feel all bloated for a few days. And then the pains arrive and it usually takes me half an hour to work out what this somewhat familiar feeling is. Then I have a lightbulb moment, swear quietly under my breath and try and get on with the day. Since the grand ovarian cyst debacle and surgery of late 2010 (and I refer you to some posts from July, August, September of that year if you are new to The Spiralling Shape) these symptoms have become quite ad hoc, a little bit random and often arrive at surprising moments (early, late, in their own good time). Today is one of those ad hoc days.

Have I overshared?

Bestest colleagues

I have had a beautiful working day with two of my bestest colleagues. Then we went out for dinner and wine. There should be more days like these.

big scary spreadsheets

The Monday you get when you're having a Tuesday seemed like too, too many things this morning before I got to work. Imagine my delight to arrive at work and find more distance essays in my pigeon hole when I had thought I was done with them last Friday. Still, I ploughed on through them, two other later internal ones and then very kindly took three from my distance marker. His wife had a baby last Wednesday. He had been up since three am this morning. He looked a bit tired. Anyway, I am much more confident by the end of today that I will get the big, scary spreadsheet done by Friday. I was not at all confident about this when I arrived this morning.

So now it is forward ho into Moodle 2. After briefly playing in my migrated site this afternoon I have discovered that I can't find the help feature, I can't find the discussion forums, the assessment block doesn't yet seem to be "editable", and the groupings I had set up don't seem to have migrated over. Tomorrow I shall be calling the helpdesk. And yes, before they ask, I did attend the training but given that was back in the middle of April, forgive me if I haven't committed it to memory in time for June.

That was all  a bit whiney wasn't it?
I'll be happier tomorrow because my two bestest ever colleagues are coming to the campus for two days of excellence!

At least I'm not standing in sewage

It's not having to answer the front door in my pyjamas that I mind so much. It's the crazy bed-hair that goes with wearing my pyjamas that goes with it. This morning was the third time in about a month that I've had to answer the front door in my afore-mentioned PJs. It's ok. They're quite respectable. What I don't understand is why two out of the three times have been on a public holiday when you would THINK that people would realise that public holidays are for sleeping in, staying in one's pyjamas until whenever they want and not answering doors to any of the following:
1. Police following up a complaint from neighbours that someone had been "meddling" with their boat. This is the same boat that I hate because they park it right on the fence where I once had a clear view out of my dining room windows. Never fear, my strategically placed trees will soon be higher than it. Also, it was not me that "meddled" with it.
2. Council workers following up a complaint from someone the next street over apparently having trouble with the main sewerage line that runs between my house and my other next door neighbours. In answer to the question "Have you noticed any problems with this?" I said "No". What I should have said was, "Well no, apart from the time five years ago when it rained like buggery and your feeble attempts to keep the drain/pipes situation properly maintained resulted in both my neighbours and I having to vacate our house for a week because the sewerage backed up right through both our houses". At the time, the council came and did some work on the line and installed a sort of non-return flap/valve thing so that would never happen again. I got some nice insurance and the floorings of my house completely recovered, as did my neighbours. I also got a new saying to console myself when things are turning out a bit rubbish "At least I'm not standing in sewage". This event is also known as "The Great Poo Flood of 2008".
3. Music students wanting to pay me for accompanying services rendered at the music eisteddfod over 6 weeks ago. This is perhaps the most welcome of the early morning visitor because she gave me money and didn't say "Oh, have I got you out of bed". Perhaps she just wanted to get away from my scary bed hair.

I didn't know you played the violin

Random people on a number of occasions in the last few days: "I didn't know you played the violin" Me on the same occasions: "yes I do" Clearly, I've been hiding that light under a bushel for the last few years.