JamesX

In case you’re wondering why it’s been so quiet around here, it’s because I’ve been on holiday! As I mentioned in my previous post, I headed up to Bright (with 12 or so of my closest friends!) for eight days of skiing and fresh country air. It was a great trip and everyone had an awesome time. The snow was really good, which was made better by the fact that last year was so terrible. The best skiing was down the Blue Ribbon chair, and most of us spent a lot of time there. It was also the closest to The General (that’s the pub) which was where we spent most of our time when we weren’t carving up the slopes! Thanks to Richie for the house (again), even though he was otherwise detained by RMIT for the majority of the trip and Penelope for letting me drive her tank (that’s the Prado for those who don’t know). And of course, thanks to everyone else for coming up and making it such a memorable trip - that’s Stuart C, Stuart M, Chris, Owen, Scotty, Brenton, Candice, Liv, Amy. It’s almost a shame to be back - I was enjoying it so much! I took a few photos so I’ll put them up in the gallery shortly.

Naturally, while you’re away for a week, life goes on, and there’s a few things to report. Firstly, last Monday my final uni results were in and, perhaps unexpectedly, they were very good. I got a High Distinction for the Capstone Project and a Distinction for Flash animation. The Flash one was especially surprising though, I was expecting to only Pass that one. And so the degree finally over and I don’t have to worry about late night treks to and from the city anymore. I still don’t officially graduate until the end of the year. I haven’t worked out if I actually want to attend the ceremony - I might sleep on it for a while.

Also during the week, my brother went for his driving test. I’m excited to report that he passed with flying colours and is now free to drive solo on the roads. All he needs now is a car - ‘cos he isn’t driving mine anytime soon!

Yesterday, after the drive back from Bright, I headed out to work for “Chris’ 30th Birthday Party.” I say that with inverted commas because it turns out that Chris and Mel had a little surprise in store. It turns out that during the day yesterday they snuck off to the city to get married and so the party took on a dual meaning. Congratulations to you both and Happy Birthday Chris - at least you’ll never forget your wedding anniversary (well at least I hope not)! I also discovered a whole new segment of my blog audience so I should say hello to you all, and apologise in advance to Mel’s mum for the slowness of the page. :) All in all, it was a great night for everyone involved.

And so that’s where I’m at for now. I enjoyed a very long sleep in this morning after such a big week (you have to wake up early every morning when you want to hit the mountain!) and I’m begrudgingly looking forward to being back at work on Monday morning.

I’ve been neglecting the blog a little lately and it’s mainly because I haven’t been around to make a post. One of the good things about finishing uni is that I actually have time again to get out and catch up with everyone. Combine that with school holidays, and there’s plenty of time to do… well…. less. :)

Since I wont have to talk about uni so much now, I might as well recap what happened last week. The final capstone presentation went really well - in fact, one of the lecturers said we were one of the best groups. It was good to finish on such a positive, and even though I wont have results for another couple of weeks, I’m confident that I should get a pretty good score. We all went out for dinner after class and ended up in Chinatown. Luck would have it that about ten minutes after a conversation about John So, he walked into the restaurant and sat at the table next to us! That’s the second time we’ve randomly crossed paths as the result of a rather eerie coincidence.

The other exciting event coming up is the long awaited Bright trip. The cold weather and rain have produced excellent snowfalls with 27cm falling at Hotham in the last 24 hours. It’s going to be a great trip with 13 people coming along to join in the fun (at last count!). It’ll be good to have a break from work and get away from it all for a while. I’m quietly hoping that The Orchard will be open this year and if the snow keeps up, it’s looking like a chance - it’s easily the best part of the mountain, but since the season was so bad last year it didn’t open at all.

All we need now is for water restrictions to go away!

Yay! I only have 30 days left on my degree. I will finally get my life back… hehe. What a strange day at work today. I suppose the fact I had a headache for about three hours didn’t help, but knowing that I have the next two days off makes it all better. It’s a pity I have so much uni work to do that I wont be able to enjoy the time off by relaxing! Speaking of work, Chris came up with this little gem. It really sums up what we have to deal with on a daily basis, and it made me laugh - so you should go read it. He almost convinced Lee to get his own blog today, but alas it was not so. :(

I’ve finally broken the 5 tip barrier, tipping 7 last round! It’s about time I get a decent score, although it was an easy round and there were a few who got 8 this week. It brings me to a total of 39, which is around 30th in both the work and OHA comps - so a little way to go yet!

In other news - I’m so over uni. Do I mention that often enough? I mean really, it never seems to end. Maybe it’s just because I work full time and have to squeeze the most ridiculously huge subject around that that it just wears me out. Of course, it doesn’t help that I seem to spend even more time at work nowadays. I’m back and forth all the time setting up for this and that… I really need to start sleeping at work… only kidding! :) The excitement of finishing uni is comparable only to that of finishing Year 12. It’s weird because when you think about how far away it is, time seems to go really slowly, but really so much happens in a week that the days just fly by without you noticing. I suppose it’s all about perspective really, because obviously time is constant - it’s fun how the mind works.

Also today, and even more exciting than uni, is that it STARTED SNOWING! All the cold weather and rain is making for perfect conditions for the snow to start to fall. I’ve already planned the first trip up to Hotham and hopefully, after such a terrible season last year, the cover will be really good this time round. At the end of the day, any skiing is good, but it’s the really good days that you remember, so here’s hoping that there’s a lot of those this year. I’m still in two minds about the season pass - I might wait and see how good the snowfalls are before committing to that one. I’ll have to keep an even closer watch on the weather now.

It’s been an interesting week. I dare say not all that much of significance has happened but there’s been plenty to keep me busy. I can’t really think of any one thing to write about, but it scares me that it’s been so long since my last post that the inevitable blog anxiety sets in. After all, you have to keep the people stalkers happy!

Following up from last time, the curtain went back up today. I think I cut the knot tying by about half of what it was to take the curtain down, and it was a lot easier going up than down (surprisingly). I didn’t take the same precautions as far as ease of untying as the original knot tie-ers but I figured, it took 20 years for it to come down this time, so in 20 years time, they can just cut the damn thing off!

The rest of my work, I really can’t talk about. And the other stuff I’m working on out of work, I really can’t talk about. So that doesn’t leave me with much. But in other news, I caught up with Marc (and Liv, Soph and Jimmy) last night. It was the first time I’d actually had a chance to see his new place (by new I mean February - yes I am that busy) and I have to say I was quite impressed. It’s certainly a step up from the previous place (not that that was a challenge) and I’m sure I’ll be back there again soon. Although that wasn’t the real reason for my visit. Marc bought a car, as I found out on Monday, and I had to go see it. He still hasn’t got his licence so I’m still struggling with the logic, but perhaps it will be incentive to actually do something about that now.

The only other thing that happened this week that could be classed as vaguely interesting was my latest uni presentation. It went well, all 25 minutes of it, and it’s another thing off the seemingly long list to the end of the tertiary road. Only 37 days to go now - it’s becoming very exciting.

Anyway, it’s late and I’m starting to lose it, which means what I’ve written may not even make sense at all. Take it how you will…

Every day my venue role has exciting problems to solve and today was no different. It seems that last night someone managed to tear a hole (which was about a metre across and 3 metres down!) in one of the curtains on stage. It beats me how you could do it and not actually notice (or hear) what you were doing but I have my suspicions on who it was. Anyway it was a problem that needed solving nonetheless and it was up to Richie and I to take the thing down. It looks like a simple task but when you consider what a 15m curtain weighs and then you have to untie it bit by bit and then take the weight off the bits you are untying so that the weight doesn’t tear down the next section, it’s acutally quite difficult.

As you can see, the knots were not friendly either. Each was tied about four times which took ages to undo when you’re 10m off the ground trying to support 100kg of woollen fabric in one hand while untying with the other. We devised a system of ropes from the ceiling to take the weight at various stages of the curtain which made the job easier but it still took about two hours to get it all down. It’s off to the suppliers tomorrow to be repaired and should be back in about a week. I have no idea how I’m going to get it back up again, but that would make my life far too easy…