Monday-inanity
Sunday, 23 March, 2008
Monday 3/3/08
Despite having gotten home at around 12 or 12:30 the night before, I was still up and in at work by 7:30. I tackled CHN for the week, plus my email and Interchange (i.e. Letters to the Editor) and watched taped So You Think You Can Dance? over lunch. In the afternoon, I started work on e-news, then went home and kept wrestling with it. I made risoni for dinner, we watched an episode or two of Veronica Mars and then I got back to it. I finally quit working at 11 pm having had no luck in finishing enews. So frustrating, after all that coding! I contacted tech support, then treated my bruised ego to a shower and went to bed.
Tuesday 4/3/08
I went into work late (because I went to bed late) and continued to struggle on with e-news. I met with Ian K at 11 and we talked technology-related stuff. Then Elsie and I met to do Cash Values over lunch (partnership and generosity is great!). And I pushed on with e-news and stupid tech support who kept saying, “We don't troubleshoot custom code” while I kept saying to them, “The code is fine; it's your system that's the problem!”
We had a Briefing meeting in the afternoon and I took minutes. I tried unsuccessfully to finish e-news but gave up and left at 5. I got stuck in Gardener's Road in very bad traffic, then did a U-turn and took the back way through Newtown. It still took me an hour. Remind me once again never to drive during rush hour.
I cooked dinner and Ben and I watched an episode of Veronica Mars together. He left for Bible Study and I spent the evening watching the rest of So You Think You Can Dance?. I have to say the dancing is not as good as the American series. I haven't seen that much which has made me go “Wow!” or compelled me to go online to watch the dance again. But I like the judges and I like that Jason Coleman says some very sensible things.
Wednesday 5/3/08
Day off. I slept in and then did e-news for about three hours, still battling with tech support who said, “We looked at your code as a courtesy and there's something wrong with your code, not our system.” (Grr ...) Then I was on the phone with the tax office for a while (remind me never to talk to the tax office when I'm already frustrated). I watched Buffy Season 6 over lunch.
In the afternoon, Ben and I went for a walk around the bay—the same walk that we had tried to do with Fish that day when it rained cats and dogs. It was a very pleasant walk and it didn't rain. We did it in around an hour and 15. Then we came home, I made stir fry for dinner and we watched Veronica Mars.
Thursday 6/3/08
Back at work. I came in at 9:30 and I was cranky and sad. I spent the day working on Briefing things—reading articles and doing assessing. We had prayer meeting (I was cranky). I left right on four and did the grocery shopping. We had leftovers for dinner.
Friday 7/3/08
7:30 start. A better day than the day before. I did more Briefing stuff and got loads done. It was Friday Thai Day so we all got together and had Thai for lunch.
In the afternoon, I touched base with Tony about Briefing-related stuff, then left at 2:30 to go home and get Ben. We went to counselling together and it was sad for both of us. Back at home, we cleaned the house and I cooked—quiche (one with ham, corn and mushroom; one with sweet potato and mushroom) and pasta salad). Simon, Naomi, Fish and Duncan F came around for dinner (Christie couldn't make it because she was sick). Despite my total paranoia and anxiety about entertaining, it went very well and I got complimented on the food. I helped Naomi look up places to have high tea (never knew there was so many ... And this review from Grab Your Fork made me want to go have high tea at the Swissotel). And Fish and I looked up stuff on the Watchmen movie. Everyone left at around midnight, then Ben and I cleaned up and went to bed.
Saturday 8/3/08
We slept in and got up late. Ben gave me a crash course in Expression Engine: how to export Movable Type entries and import them into EE; how to create templates; what the different tags were, etc. We worked on it until the site stopped loading, then took a break to watch taped Numb3rs and Law & Order: SVU. We had leftovers for dinner, then Ben went to a tupperware party and I stayed home and watched House and Buffy (because I was feeling antisocial and tupperware does not excite me). We ended up going to bed late.
Sunday 9/3/08
Once again, we slept in. I spent the day working with Expression Engine and getting rather frustrated that I couldn't do stuff. Ben went to the Portuguese Festival in Petersham with Duncan F. I watched Buffy over lunch, then kept struggling on. Ben roped me in for band practice at church, and then somehow I got roped into doing the Bible reading too. They didn't tell me they were going to switch off the lights so they could show this PowerPoint presentation with the Bible reading so I squinted and did my best.
Unfortunately I didn't get any supper afterwards because I spent so long talking to Rosey, so I whined and Ben made me dinner. We watched Veronica Mars, then I did more work on EE and went to bed.
Monday 10/3/08
My goodness, the start of another week! Ben came into work with me and we shared an office, listening to his iPod all day. I tackled my email and the week's CHNs. Because I'd been having so much trouble with our bulk email provider, we decided to change, so I spent the day testing Campaign Monitor and found it quite agreeable. It's like bulk email for web designers, instead of bulk email for dummies.
After a very silly IM conversation about dumplings, Ben, Guan, Bec and I headed out to the dumpling house for lunch. We let Guan and Ben order because we were so braindead, and the dumplings were delicious! In the afternoon, I meant to listen to a talk by Kirsten Birkett but didn't quite get to it. We left at 4 pm, drove home and then went for a short walk to Marrickville Park and back (half an hour). I made dinner, then listened to Kirsty's talk in the evening.
Tuesday 11/3/08
Back at work, I was trying to import 6,000 email addresses into Campaign Monitor so we could start using it. Unfortunately I wasn't having much luck. I emailed tech support, and even though the girl who answered my query clearly thought I was an idiot, she did reformat the file for me to make it easier. (It helps that they're a Sydney-based company whereas the other tech support people I talked to the week before were in America so it would take ages to get a reply.) I can't remember what else I did that day but I'm sure it was productive.
In the evening Ben went off to Bible study and I watched taped So You Think You Can Dance?
Wednesday 12/3/08
Housework day. I did the laundry, changed the sheets, did the ironing, dealt with my email and then ran out of steam so spent the afternoon watching Buffy. We got dressed and then caught the train into the city and went to the GPO where I had found a pizza place. Ben's family had been thinking of going to City Extra at Circular Quay and then walking up, but I thought there must be somewhere better and closer. The internet gave me GPO Wood Fired Pizza and Menulog booking did the rest (nice service too!) The only thing is I didn't realise it was a food court, not a restaurant. It was a classy food court but it was a food court nonetheless.
This caused a bit of confusion when it came to ordering the food. At first, I started writing down what people wanted (which was difficult and stressful because I had about four or five people talking to me at once, and organising food for people is never easy anyway; remind me not to do it again). But then I realised that would muck things up payment-wise, and that we should all order separately. So we did: we went to the counter, placed our order, paid, got given this black pager thing which went off when the pizza was ready, and then collected our food. And it was very nice pizza too.
Ben went early to get robed for graduation, but we headed over to City Recital Hall in Angel Place at around 7. The reserve tickets went to Ben's parents, me and my mum, whereas Tim, Ros and Lizz had to sit with the masses. We got good seats on the left hand side of the hall about six rows from the front, and then I started to feel a little calmer. And then the ceremony began with singing, the graduands came down the aisle and filled up the seats with the lecturers and bishops following them (no archbishop, unfortunately; he was away). I had forgotten (once again) that other people I knew would be there, and so I saw Little (because Seamus was graduating), Emma T, Ali, Denise and countless others. Anyway, here are some happy snaps of Ben graduating with his BTh:
Ben easily had the best blurb about what he was doing this year—something like “This year, Ben Beilharz is working freelance in web design and plans to tour Petersham with his band Butterfly Sausage Pyramid.”
I'm so proud of my husband. A BTh isn't easy—it's certainly way harder than an Arts degree—and, even with everything Ben had to struggle with, he still managed to do it with Merit.
Afterwards, I tried to round up the family to take photos but Tim, Ros and Lizz were missing so I went to find them. Unfortunately I got sidetracked by people, and it turned out they were all downstairs by the time I got back to the foyer. So we took some photos, then family and godparents alike said goodbye and we headed back inside to return the robes.
We saw Fell, Crystal and Roger who invited us out for something to eat/something to drink (as they hadn't had dinner). Simon C, Mike and Ness joined us. Unfortunately GPO was closed up so we headed across the street to some bar. They had no food but we were able to have a drink (and Fell ducked down the street with Ben to have Maccas), and Crystal and I talked So You Think You Can Dance?. We parted ways at around 11:30, and Ben and I caught the train home.
Blinks:
A way of funding writing in the future: pitch and idea and get people to support it.
Place where you can hire play equipment for parties, etc.
How to recalibrate the home button on your iPhone.
Unsolicited manuscripts accepted by Pan Macmillan with certain conditions.
Thought Balloon is a group blog in which the writers tackle a new theme every week? month? with one-page scripts. This URL is for their Phonogram ones.
How to sew a zipper on a knitted garment.
Issues organised by tale.
|
|
Disqus comments
Other comments