Friday afternoon fun

This makes Friday afternoon fun. Apologies for the double up facebookers. I just love how much fun Jack Black is having.

Smile!

Sprinkling fairy dust here, there and everywhere

As I have just tweeted and facebook status updated, this afternoon is my last in the office for a month. Fear not, this does not mean a month of holidays. For next week tis northward ho to Rockhampton, city of beef, for our annual Retreat. For those of you who may be thinking, "Well Wendy that sounds delightfully relaxing, full of sessions on stress management, meditation and sprinkling fairy dust here, there and everywhere" you are actually quite wrong. It's work. Fascinating sessions about quality assurance, revisions to our program and courses, something mysterious called "embedding graduate attributes" as well as discussing research and many other things. There is also an expectation of collegiality. Good luck with that I say. Expect some slightly cynical and ironic tweeting before the week is over.

However, after next week is over I do have two weeks in Tasmania to look foward to, and then a week at home, napping, reading, musicking and just generally doing nothing at all. The blog may be a little quiet, although perhaps I will be able to do something with my trusty iPhone. Expect photos, photos and more photos.

Of Tasmania, not Rockhampton. Although if you're really lucky I might take a picture of the giant bull that greets visitors to that fair city. Only if you are all good though.

just life really

I've been uninspired to write any posts this week. Nothing much of consequence has been happening. It's all just the usual stuff. Choir on Monday night followed by watching The Big Bang Theory (which was not the strongest episode I have to say). Then Tuesday night Curb Your Enthusiasm. I will watch Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld do just about anything, but again not the most fascinating of episodes. Wednesday sucked the life out of me somewhat with a day filled with interviewing prospective students for next year. I then collapsed on the lounge (after recording my version of Charlie Chaplin's Smile) and teaching some piano, and then watched Spicks and Specks. It wasn't that exciting either.

This brings us to Thursday - more student interviews, and afternoon working at home, a piano lesson, Glee....and then suddenly in the midst of all this....I am notified that one of our students, who has just completed the program a few weeks ago, has passed away.

Life never ceases to....well...just be life really.

Watch, Listen and Singalong: Part 29: Throw your arms around me

Just because it's Sunday.....

the ugliest hand painted craft market vase in the world is no more

Dear Harrison

Notice the formality of my greeting to you. The reason for this is the seriousness of this letter. I hope one day you will learn to use your little grey paws to open Firefox and navigate your way to this blog, in order that you understand the full ramifications of your behaviour.

Here are two things I would ask that you cease:

1. Attacking any and all flowers that make their way into this house. This includes both real and fake flowers, flowers that have been given to me, flowers from the garden, single stemmed roses, huge thank you mixed bunches. The only reason you got any dinner this evening was that in eating the rose that I thought I had cleverly hidden in my bedroom all week, you managed to break the ugliest hand-painted craft market vase in the world.

2. Eating lizards and then throwing up on the floor. This is just plain gross and if I had discovered it before the breaking of the ugly vase there would have been a lot more crankiness.

If any of this behaviour continues, we may have to renegotiate our shared living arrangements. This could well involve less time for you to loll about on the lounge, much less playing in the wooden venetians and no climbing up the screen doors in search of elusive geckoes.

Regards
your faithful servant

Wendy

Watch, Listen and Singalong: Part 28: On the Street Where you Live

Just because it's Saturday afternoon.

As we bogans who don't live in metropolitan areas like to say....

I'm sitting here reflecting on wacky, weird and wonderful week.

1. Tuesday and Thursday off work doing nothing except reading, listening to music, playing music. Oh and I did also manage to vacuum the house.

2. A new obsession was born thanks to Youtube. I can now bore my facebook and twitter friends to pieces with neverending iPhone videos of myself playing the piano and sometimes singing. Apparently, I am the 63rd most subscribed to channel in Australia this week. (That required six subscribers by the way). I wonder who was 62nd?

3. Out of the clear blue sky a journalist from Crikey rang me on Monday for a quote. That never happens.

4. Then on Wednesday the producer from the ABC Unleashed site contacted me about writing about John Safran (see post below). It appears there are quite a lot of John Safran fans out there going by the responses to my article. It's very interesting. The only one that annoyed me a little bit was the person who made a slightly derogatory remark about my location in "Central Queensland"...Surprising as it may be to some there is life outside the capital cities. And I liked John Safran's Music Jamboree. Just saying....

5.I arrived home today to find my 1930s songbook had arrived in the post. It's "yuge" as we bogans, who don't live in metropolitan areas, like to say.

Me...Unleashed...on John Safran

I'm very excited because I have had an opinion piece published online at the ABC Unleashed website today. I have been keeping very quiet about it because they contacted me Wednesday afternoon and I wrote it that night. Having had a slight debacle the only other time I tried to write an op ed (with a national newspaper publication that shall remain nameless) I didn't want to talk about it too much in case I jinxed the whole thing. But look, it's real and it's on the net. I won't republish it here but will send you to the site with this link.

Friday just became a whole lot better!

TV Tuesday

It appears that Channel Nine is showing Curb Your Enthusiasm The Seinfeld Reunion at 9pm. Colour me a little bit excited. If they stuff around with it, or it's the not the real thing, or anything else they can expect to incur my wrath. Well, I'll be quietly cranky at least.

Wendy's on the tube

I did a strange thing yesterday and created myself a Youtube channel. It's me, playing the piano. I have never thought of Youtube as anything else but a site to look up old music videos (and don't worry I'll continue doing that).

Lately, however, I have felt the urge to play the piano, for fun. I had lost my love of doing that throughout the process of the PhD, as well as having the love of playing sucked out of me by doing too many accompaniment jobs up at the theatre and other places. It wasn't until bookclub the other week when I remembered how much I used to enjoy sitting and just playing that I started doing so again. Three things are responsible for this mainly - Gershwin, Leonard Cohen and Daniel Johns. I am currently obsessed with rediscovering the Gershwin catalogue, singing and playing Hallelujah, and joy of joys, singing and playing After All These Years.

Anyway, now I have my very own DYI piano project. I don't claim to be a brilliant pianist (anymore...lol) but I love melody so I think that will dictate the videos I post. It's all very lo-fi...just my iPhone and me. The wonders of modern technology never cease to amaze me and I now adore my iPhone just a little bit more.