buoyancy problem — so my swimming instructor is really happy with my progress in freestyle… at the end of my lesson today i did four laps of the fifty metre pool with my fins on, but like, totally doing the arms & the breathing things, which i’ve never been able to do… & i can do about fifteen or twenty metres without my fins before i start to sink… so i’ve still got some work to do, but really, it’s pretty much just a matter of practice now… & i’m learning breaststroke & backstroke & lifesaving stroke as well… still haven’t got the hang of treading water yet, which is where my buoyancy problem is most noticeable, but yeah, i can pretty much swim, which is just fantastic…

donnie darko — keri & i went to see donnie darko after i got outta the pool, & yeah, i really liked it… it’s quite, uh, dark, but yeah, i, uh, really liked it… some really good performances in it & i thought the script & the direction were pretty good too… i dunno so much about the ending, which i didn’t think was quite complicated enough to do the film justice… not so much in terms of what happens, but in terms of how it was handled… but yeah, worth checking out… the website is also well worth a look, although it does contain spoilers, so if you worry about that kinda thing you might wanna see the film first…

i’m okay — thank you for the phone calls & emails. you know who you are.

The heart stops briefly when someone dies,
a quick pain as you hear the news, & someone passes
from your outside life to inside. Slowly the heart adjusts
to its new weight, & slowly everything continues, sanely.
— Ted Berrigan

it’s been a rough couple of days. Kristie took her own life. i met some of her family at her funeral today. it was good talking to them, they were nice people. so was she. it’s all just wrong.

i found out yesterday afternoon that a friend had died. she was twenty-six. we hadn’t known each other all that long, but somehow we’d just clicked. she was funny & clever & generous. i thought we had years. twenty-six. it’s unbelievable. her funeral is tomorrow.

anniversary — was it only twelve months ago i nervously held my lunch pail to my chest & hoped my long socks wouldn’t fall down as i shuffled up the hill to the main quad for my first day of work?

happy birthday christen — have a fantastic day…

freezin’/pleezin’ — buoyed (quite literally) by the success of friday’s swimming lesson, i went for a swim at coogee beach with keri yesterday… but wait, you say, wouldn’t the water be, like, totally cold? why yes, yes it was. totally cold. but you know, fun. in a weird, “ohmigod how cold is it?” kinda way…

lapdog/zzz — other weekend news? subsidised the operations of the laundromat just around the corner & now have clean clothes for the first time in about a fortnight… also put in some time on my bike, five laps of centennial park on saturday afternoon & a few more yesterday en route to & from keri’s place… & wow, also slept a lot… for example, crashed out last night around eight & slept through until seven-thirty this morning… weird… i feel good, just sleepy…

kings thrash pigs — the kings walloped the razorbacks yesterday… will townsville even bother to turn up on wednesday night?

snaps from fiona & dave’s wedding — with thanks (or possibly apologies) to alix, who generously provided prints of some of her photos…

spot the happy couple — the ceremony’s about to start…

graham, jean, dave & fiona — apres-ceremony photo-op in the courtyard…

hilarity ensues — fortunately no one managed to snap a picture of me shrieking hysterically as i fell off my chair (which only happened twice)… whoever gets to edit the video may notice a certain lack of gravitas associated with some of the attendees… (i’m looking at you, table seven…)

danger to shipping — my first swimming lesson this afternoon… (was supposed to be on wednesday, but hobart intervened…)

heated pool my arse — gosh. well that was invigorating…

all hail the mighty fin — swim fins are the greatest… although by the end of my half hour lesson i was actually able to generate a slight hint of go-forward while kicking without fins… a huge improvement on my usual thrash my legs about to no discernable effect while sinking towards the bottom technique… but yeah, it was fun, paddled about with a kickboard & fins for most of it, & have definitely made some progress already…

pho soup & shootin’ hoops — wandered down to chinatown after my swimming lesson & grabbed some chicken pho for dinner then settled back into a comfy seat at the entertainment centre to watch the kings beat the wollongong hawks 119-102… it wasn’t a great game, & despite the final score neither team really took control… the hawks jumped to a ten point lead in the first quarter, but the kings suddenly decided to play some defence & worked their way back into it… once they hit the front, they led by a handful of points for most of the rest of it, but the hawks stayed in touch until the final few minutes when the kings suddenly found the midas touch from three point land…

expectations carried over from previous seasons — mind you, i’m still fully expecting the kings to lead the league until xmas & then not win another match on their way to missing the playoffs… again… but yeah, wednesday night, kings vs crocodiles… townsville are going down…

tas/mania — hobart’s very blurry & much more boring in my pictures than it was in real life… had a fantastic trip, got a heap of useful work done at the conference & made some new friends… more wurds & pikchurs quite possibly appearing in the next day or so…

& i thought / if i took / the right lines — had a fantastic long weekend in canberra for fiona & dave’s wedding… drove out with rob on saturday morning & the wedding was fantastic, the ceremony was beautiful, dave & fiona just completely embodied total respect for each other, the reception featured great food & an insane amount of laughing & fun, & the rest of the weekend was spent catching up with the townsville diaspora… gave nola & polly a lift back to sydney on monday night, dropped the car back to keri then totally crashed out… photos coming to one or several weblogs near you in the near future… & yeah, just had the best time…

cruel for cats — via camworld…

dinner reaches new heights — met up with rob & michiko & hiroko, two of his friends who are travelling around australia at the moment, & had dinner in the revolving restaurant on the top of sydney tower last night… 300 metres above centrepoint in the middle of the city… wow. serious view. it was way cool, in a mildly absurd, retro-futuristic kinda way… (i mean, 300 metre tall revolving restaurant? i was half expecting harrison ford to leap out of the salad bar & start shouting that one of the waiters was a replicant…)

is that to have here or vertigo? i even sat right next to the floor to ceiling windows, & managed to eat & converse without feeling the need to keep both hands clamped to the table &/or bursting into tears, which are my usual reactions when confronted by any kinda of long view down to the ground… the mystical soothing power of glass… (so soothing, in fact, that you’d be forgiven for thinking i fell asleep in the middle of the photo opportunity…)

contra-indicated muffin

staggering under a gross of fileservers
halfway up the western tower stairs —
you thought this was gonna be a glamorous job?
a rolling administrator gathers kate moss?
apparently not — electrical storm
over the northern beaches, 300 metre flashback
the way lightning models your synapses firing
& all those apartments you can’t afford
reduce to a purely decorative function
as you join the ideological dots, a huge
magic bullet suspended over george street.
quality, freshness, service — that’s what you believe,
aspiring to the perfect sneakers &
restoring your aching lack across the network.
it’s your head you miss the most,
narita international on final approach —
your heart as the hindenburg /
all kinds of anchors tied to your arse.

personality typo — andrew reminded me that according to myers-briggs, “pretty much every software professional on the planet is an INTP.” the workshop presenter said as much, & also claimed that universities tend to be overflowing with INTPs… i guess that means on one level i’m in approximately the right place…

rob’s in town — & that can only mean one thing…

three little words (that mean so much) — EIGHT LEGGED FREAKS! the best big bug movie since starship troopers… which, i admit, isn’t saying a lot… but the spiders are pretty funny once they get going, & the handful of early spooky bits are spooky enough, & the dumb bits, well, what’s the name of this film again?

i called the big one bitey — so yeah, it was all a bit pointless really, but, you know, giant spiders & all… the giant tarantula was particularly funky, & the giant jumping spiders were kinda cool… of course, this would be an even better movie if you got beered-up beforehand & watched it with some friends…

that explains a lot (or maybe nothing) — spent the day at a management training course yesterday, which wasn’t as bad as it sounded… in fact, i thought it was pretty good (which i was pleased about, since the course runs every wednesday throughout october…) anyway, one of the things we did in the afternoon was take the myers-briggs type indicator test…

usually quiet & reserved — turns out i’m an INTP, which means i “prefer not to organise people or situations…” i couldn’t help wondering aloud if that might not be something of a drawback for someone in a management position… (as it turns out, i’m supposed to be good at providing leadership & vision… little inner voice: “woah, you were just, like, totally fobbed off there!”) sigh. i hope you know that this will go down on your permanent record…

hmmm — i dunno, it was really kinda interesting… of course, being true to type, i’m still processing it… not sure how to think about it yet, although the outcome in my case seems uncannily accurate… obviously some situations won’t allow me to act/behave in the way that i’d prefer…

but does that mean… i should avoid/remove myself from those situations wherever possible? or will having some understanding of why i might be having such a strong reaction help me to learn to deal with those situations better? i’m leaning towards the second approach… “paging mr furious, white courtesy telephone please…
”

Under great stress, INTPs may erupt outwardly in inappropriate displays of emotion. The resulting explosive anger or hurt tearfulness is quite unnerving to others & embarrassing to the usually calm & controlled INTP.

so just watch it… <grin>