Singular Scene

So Singular in Each Particular

USYD – Take Two

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Ok. My brain is fried on things like, Network Governance, Digital Publishing, Interactive Media and Remix Culture. I feel neglectful of the blog.. but, you really wanna hear about that stuff??

Yeah, thought so.

Here’s some pictures instead…

This first slideshow is taken at SCA, Rozelle, I have one class here each week learning Flash, the place is amazing, totally should be a set for some gothic horror novel… The college has repurposed buildings at the old (no longer in use) Rozelle Hospital, a mental health unit, and seriously, you can feel the Cuckoo’s Nest vibes when you walk around the place… (oh, and these pics really look better on flickr… click through to see them proper like…)

This next slideshow is of pix taken at the Camperdown campus, the University of Sydney’s original campus. It’s one of those universities that make you feel like you’re in Inspector Morse… (but nobody dies [thankfully]).  That is of course, until you walk past the Fisher Library which is right out of Life on Mars… or the new Law Faculty buildings which are a la whatever passes for noughties architecture… (it’s midnight, I’m knackered… cut a girl some slack).

 

Uno on Uni

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I know, you’re all just gagging to know how my first week at university went.  I can categorically state I am totally going to LOVE being a student.

However, the glorious photos of the place and proper breakdown of events got put on hold by another one of those “this was not how it was supposed to go” moments which left me very fragile and upset for the latter part of the week, totally taking the shine off the whole experience.

I’m feeling more objective a couple of days on, and there are good things on the horizon.  Better still, I have a faith that isn’t just on paper and which has kept me out of the dungeons of despair.  I live in hope… not fear.  So… be patient with me just a little longer… I’ll get my mojo back and with it will be photos that are taken with much better care and precision than those churned out by my dodgy mobile phone.

In the meantime, I was an idiot and put my hand up to do an assignment in my first week. 

I KNOW…I’m one of those students…

Home Office

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office.jpg
It’s been quite some time since I arranged myself a corner of the flat into a office space, one that was suitable for both work and study.  I deemed it necessary because a) it makes a percentage of my home expenses tax deductible and b) because when I’m working on stuff it really is a lot easier to get into the right head-space if I’m actually ‘at work’ even if it is only 3 steps from the sofa.  It’s a bit of a weird psychological thing but I find myself a lot less easily distracted when I’m looking the to do list on the white board and am working with a keyboard and mouse than when I’m sitting on the sofa with a cat and the laptop on my lap and am also easily distracted onto sites like facebook… It also makes a difference when I actually get dressed for ‘work’ rather than hanging about in my pajamas… (oh, wait… I don’t… er… this is awkward.)

So, there it is above, my little office!!!  No, it doesn’t really have natural light, but in reality, neither does the flat as a whole, which is a bonus in this heatwave.  The flat’s always about 10degC cooler than the outdoors.  The table is actually my dining table around which there used to be 4 chairs… Now I have to dismantle the office when I want to have anyone over to dinner… bummer that, in fact, most of the time we end up eating off our plates on our knees…  (Ed. God, this is boring… haven’t you got anything else?) so now you know how to picture me when I’m blogging, as I’m now (Ed. except for the pajamas part, you don’t want them picturing that… Me. True enough… er, as you were everyone.)

I twittered during the week about having 2 Macs on the go and whether or not I was in heaven or the other place.  I think, after a whole lot of toing and froing to my serviceman (whom I <3 with all my Mac loving little heart) I can finally say I’m a happy Mac camper again… it was touch and go for a while there…  The new love pictured above is an older version of the old love which was given to me by ‘real job’ in lieu of certain other entitlements I had been pinning a bit of hope on.  I accepted it, probably slightly less than graciously because the offer was made after I’d spent half an hour talking over the merits of a brand spanking new MacBook Pro with my sales agent and getting all excited about the prospect of this fancy new machine.  So to take on the older one, while clearly saving me going into debt or onto a lease for a new machine was a bit of a downgrade…

In a rather ironic turn of events the new mac (which is an older mac) had been in possession of another staff member who’d just upgraded and actually, its hard-drive DIED the day before she went overseas… so I have been holding onto my old mac (which is a newer mac) until such a time as I could transistion to the other machine.  Well that was the heaven/hell episode last week, I got the new one and it gave me all manner of grief as I tried to get it into some kind of functional order… bah humbug.

Finally, I took it back to my lovely service man and bless his little cotton socks if he didn’t actually replace both sticks of RAM in the machine for no cost… zero. <3 <3 <3.  So finally I bought it home and was able to get it into a place where it is barely any different than the old machine (which is newer… you get the idea now, right?!).  So, I’m finally feeling the blessing of the machine.  It still looks good, it works fine with one lingering exception I’m waiting for an answer on from my fabulous service man as to why it’s such a noisy beastie and when that is resolved I shall be in fine shape to get my game on for the epic that shall be called ‘study09’. 

So, I am blessed. I was given a MacBook Pro and my leaving gift from the office will be some rather expensive software that I’ll be needing this year and when all of that is in order the ‘real job’ era will be completely over.  I cannot tell you, even after the shaky end to it all, how fabulous it feels to be in a whole new chapter of my story! 

So, here’s to a new year! Hopefully one that will include more blogging, even if it is tedious drivel like the above…

Resignation

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It is with a mixture of expectation and regret that on what is
almost my 7th anniversary of coming on staff that I tender this formal
advice of my decision to resign from the paid team at _________________
effective January 9th 2009.

I feel the regret because a huge part of me is very tied to this
church, the ministry of ___________________ and to the rest of the team
here.  It has been a formative experience, and while I’ll still be
around the traps lecturing in college and taking pictures I will sorely
miss being a so immediate a part of the team.

Expectation however, because after 7 years here and having learned
so much, developed both professionally and personally in ways I could
never have done elsewhere, I am going on to further my skills by
embarking on a Masters Degree at Sydney University.

I wish to extend my grateful thanks to _________________
and the team for their faith in me and their incredible support through
the whole 7 years, it’s been amazing.  The Post-grad program in Arts at
Sydney Uni, to which I’m going, is one of the top 20 arts programs in
the world.  It’s a testimony to the extraordinary step SCA took to
offer a degree program that I’m even able to consider this next move.

I’m so very grateful.