Still on the move

Housesitting for Lara a couple of weeks ago, I saw this view from her balcony.

Around the same time, Beck moved house so we dug up some of her plants.

Last week I was in Rushworth with lots of little girls. One night the whole sky turned pink. We ran out as fast as we could, but it disappeared so fast.

On shelter

I met Meg bright and early this morning to go take a look at the Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) Refugee Camp at Treasury Gardens. It was excellent! Anyone with a free half hour before 5pm this Sunday should head down and take a look. They’ve set up shelter, toilets, a food supply tent, water storage, medical clinics – it was such an effective way to convey the impressive and logistically nightmarish work that MSF does. Even though Meg and I like to think we’re total pros in the world of international aid (ha!) we were asking a million questions a minute to the women who got trapped taking us on a tour. You and your kids and your grandma and your dog will find it interesting.

My camera was battery-flat this morning so I didn’t get any photos and the MSF website’s photos of the exhibit don’t do it justice, so you’ll just have to head down there yourself.

A bit later I met Ro and Greg for lunch. On the way to Big Mama for the world’s best agedashi tofu we stopped in at the RMIT Gallery to peak at Shelter: On Kindness. You may recall my dream of one day having my very own teahouse. This exhibition filled my teahouse-longing soul with glee! The various kinds of shelter have been constructed inside the gallery – one of them is even cut out of the wall. You can climb into some (and possibly others if no one is looking). Again, no camera, not many photos to steal from the website (just the one below) – go see it for yourself.

Both events are free and no one asks you for money (not even at the MSF Refugee Camp but you’ll probably want to give them loads of it once you’ve seen what they do).

Zoo day

I spent sunny Sunday at the zoo celebrating Ryan’s 2nd birthday. The conversation might have led bystanders to believe that we were actually a gathering of the local Poo Appreciation Society – except that every other kid in the place was talking about poo too. Miles suggested that the giraffe was due for a nappy change.

Sorry, I have no idea what kind of bird this is

An echidna

Birthday cake

Birthday presents

Worms!

From the seriously overpopulated worm farm. I dug some out and put them in the regular compost heap – secretly expecting our one-winged magpie to take advantage of the easy meal. Have I mentioned the one-winged magpie yet?

I’m back in Melbourne this week. Reporting notes:

1. This weekend, 100% of my social activities included Guitar Hero. Yes, that included the new Beatles game, and yes it was AWESOME! WAIT, hold the phones, I was just hunting for Guitar Hero links and discovered that the Beatles game is actually, Beatles: Rock Band. Phew, that was close. Anyway, if that doesn’t reflect something about the zeitgeist then I don’t know what does.
2. Saw A Day in Pompeii at the Museum today. Two of the sections were particularly brilliant – the 3D reenactment of the eruption of Mt Vesuvius in 79AD, and the plaster casts of bodies found preserved under the lava. That last one sounds gross but it was actually stunning.
3. It’s SPRING! Sometimes that means that when you think it’s warm and sunny outside, it’s actually not quite, but sometimes it also means it’s 29 degrees! You all want to say it, hooray for global warming! Does that remind you of Postal Service?

“Again last night I had that strange dream where everything was exactly how it seemed concerns about the world getting warmer people thought that they were just being rewarded for treating others as they’d like to be treated for obeying stop signs and curing diseases for mailing letters with the address of the sender. Now we can swim any day in November.” – Postal Service, Sleeping In

Melbourne, Rushworth, the Backyard, the Alderman

Had a quick weekend in Melbourne and now I’m back in Rushworth ready to get things done.

My regular workload is increasing and I’m technically in the midst of an internship, enrolled in an online course and I’ve just blocked about one and a half months out of my calendar before the end of the year with travel. I also plan on landscaping the backyard. For those of you who know the backyard you will realise how implausible this is. It’s a bloody big yard. So I’m going to use every hour wisely. Not necessarily busily, but wisely. E.g. On the train back to Rushworth today I did boring and time consuming design work on my laptop.

I could become one of those efficiency experts that rule the internet (and who I read often), but I won’t because there is something vaguely circular and banal about what they do that makes me feel a bit queasy.

Did I mention my new book club? I went to my first meeting a bit over a week ago. We meet at the Alderman which means that no matter what we read it’s made cool by association. We read As I Lay Dying last time which didn’t need any help from the Alderman to make it cool. But for example, if we decide to read The Wedding by Danielle Steel our presence at the Alderman will make it clear that we are employing irony when selecting books, or perhaps reading popular fiction for insight into mainstream America circa 2000. See?!

We’re reading The Crying of Lot 49 next, which is making me wonder if we’re actually out-hipstering the Alderman. Actually, I think the Danielle Steel for irony approach is probably the only way to out-hipster the Alderman.

Drupadi and Kantata Takwa

On Tuesday I met with members of the Banda Aceh-Melbourne Ladies Auxilery (BAMLA) to attend the Indonesian Film Festival.

We saw two films and they were both greeeeeaaaat!

Drupadi

Drupadi, an adaptation of part of the ancient Sanksrit epic Mahabrata, was about Drupadi, the wife of five brothers known as Pandawa. Drupadi was “born of fire” and the most beautiful woman in the world. One night, Pandawa was invited to a dice game against Kurawa Brothers. The eldest of the Pandawa, Yuhistiram, lost…a lot. First all his wealth, then his kingdom, then his brothers, himelf, and finally Drupadi. Drupadi made the excellent point that Yuhistiram couldn’t have gambled her away because he’d already gambled his own power away! But sadly, justice did not win the race that day, and Drupadi spent 12 years being “beaten and shamed” until, I think the brothers eventually fought back. Some very beautiful scenes relying on symbolism told the end of the story, so I’m reluctant to assume that my interpretation of those symbols was correct, but there was blood splattered and the final scene shows Drupadi and her five husbands standing by her side – so I think it was a happy ending.

Kantata Takwa

The second film was Kantata Takwa, which I was dying to see after hearing a bit of it on Radio National. This film was 19 years in the making, originally filmed in 1991, during the repressive Suharto New Order regime, but only completed in 2008. It centres around a concert held in Senayan Stadium in Jakarta in 1991 in which the band, Kantata Takwa, made up of popular and politically vocal artists, played the first of what was set to be a series of concerts, but they were banned after the second show in Surabaya. The film showed some footage of the concert, but to make it more “suitable for an audio-visual medium” as they put it, they shot melodramatic scenes of poverty and violence using masked actors and scenes of these ‘badies’ in gas masks hunting down villagers in the jungle. The soundtrack for the film is the music from the Jakarta concert and poetry by W.S. Rendra. Rendra died about two weeks ago so while this film is screening I’ve heard poeple recounting times they saw him at a recital or reflecting on their favourite pieces. I didn’t know of Rendra before I heard about this film, but I am certainly a fan of his poetry now, especially one piece from the film that I thought especially moving. Sadly, I’m having trouble find translations online. Instead, I offer a clip from the film and the audio of a review from the radio that includes the poem (skip to 1:56 of the audio file if you don’t want to hear the review)

Follow this link to download the audio: Brisbane International Film Festival report on Kantata Takwa

Working from “home”

I’m in my first week of “working from home.” It should have been my second week, but week one was so wildly unsuccessful that for the few moments that I was actually at home I barely turned on my computer.

In addition to struggling with the “working” component of the “working from home” concept, I haven’t really figured out the “home” component either, as I don’t actually have one. I have a nice spare room in Beck’s house where I sleep and keep my clothes, and I perch my laptop on the kitchen bench and call it an office. Once I have more permanent digs I’ll set myself up with a desk and maybe even an ergonomic chair.

For someone who has never worked from home, and didn’t necessarily covet it as my dream work situation (I quite like having an office and people to have lunch with), I know an awful lot about the challenges one may face. See, the organisational/lifehack blogging community, of which I am a dedicated follower, tends also to be a work-from-home/freelance/entrepreneuring community too.

So when I woke up yesterday and decided to delay getting dressed (until…ummm…5pm), I considered the debate about getting dressed before starting work to clearly dileaniate the beginning of a work day. When I kept working until 9pm the other night because I’d faffed around during the day, that rang a bell too.

But in amongst all of these grey areas, I know one thing for sure about working from home – It’s AWESOME! I mean, I already mentioned the perk about not having to get dressed, but did you know that if I do choose to get dressed, I can wear tracksuit pants and sneakers! And when it’s time for lunch I have the whole fridge to choose from and….helloooo daytime TV!

I’ll probably be ready to get back into a more, ummm, dynamic work environment eventually, but for now I couldn’t imagine a better way to get paid.

The last of the Photikans

So I did a rubbish job of reporting on my last trip to Australia. I didn’t take many photos while I was at home (I was too busy sleeping), and because my “reports” of travel are just strings of photos with captions I don’t have much to work with.

So just to make it feel like I’ve met the minimum reporting requirements here are a few random photos from my trip and we will just call it even, OK?

The Night of Jess and Beck’s Double-birthday Extravaganza

Lara at the European after Jess and Beck's birthday

I would add some photos from the party but it’s hard to pick my favourite one out of 500 photos of 17 drunk people trying to squeeze into one shot. I might just create a hall of fame. That reminds me, did I mention the party? In case I didn’t…Jess turned 30 and Beck turned 40 and it was a ridiculously funny party. There were even chocolate cupcakes with pink icing…so we smashed them in each other’s faces. Obvs.

Museum Day

I took heaps of photos the day Meaghan, Clare, Ryan, Miles and I went to the museum.

Skeletosaurus

Ryan in the museum playground

Fountain in Carlton Gardens

Ryan resting by the fountain

Miles exploring the garden

Clare and Meaghan walking through the gardens to the tram

Ollie and Liam turn 1!

The other time I took my camera out was another lovely Melbourne day out. Ollie and Liam’s first birthday at the Children’s Farm and Convent.

Sarah tries to get a smile out of Ollie...Ollie is not impressed

Chloe and Rueben (this is one photo out of a very funny series)

Nanna, Liam and Ollie

Done! that’s a load off my shoulders…

Melbourne and blogging hiatuses for the soul

Carlton Gardens in perfect Autumn conditions

I’m back in Bangkok and back to blogging after THE MOST relaxing week in Melbourne. I have so many things to post and renewed energy after averaging 10 hours sleep per night for seven days IN A ROW! So expect a Where Is Sarah? blogging explosion!

I even wrote a post on the plane back to Bangkok (composed on the latest addition to the Where is Sarah? team which will be formally introduced later), but I left it at home.

I am a big fan of Bangkok weather, and I feel like I say this every time the weather changes, but seriously, the weather here at the moment is GLORIOUS! If you really really hate humidity then stay away, but for those who don’t mind it, come and enjoy the heavy atmosphere and slightly cool “it just rained but there’s still plenty more where that came from” breeze -  which is a scientific meteorological category in case you didn’t know.

But for now I am editing a document that is headed for the printer in the way too near future, so I will stop myself from going on and on and blog again later.

fare thee well and feed me delicious food

I’ve been in Bangkok for over a month so I think it’s time I posted some pictures of my farewells in Melbourne.

As usually happens, on  my last night in town the fam got together for dinner. As usually happens Jess made cupcakes, which is probably my favourite Fortuna family tradition (apart from everyone getting together in the first place).

Early in the evening I asked the girls to come outside so I get some photos of them before it got dark and these were the poses the girls thought apt.

They’re ridiculous. I didn’t prompt them in the slightest, it was more like “Oh I know! Let’s lie on the grass and look like we’re selling socks in a target catalog!”

There was also some inexplicable tree hugging going on. When I asked why they thought it was a good pose, Em was too exasperated to even explain. “It just looks good OK!”

Chloe wasn’t so fussed about posing, but she did need to point out that her pajamas were boys jarmies. (“Today I’m wearing buzz lightyear for armani. I feel fabulous!”)

The excellent thing about have a big immediate family who have a million kids is that getting everyone together for a simple dinner turns into the event of the century. There is no shortage of ceremony denoting my departure when 15 turn up and crowd around a table.

The night before my farewell, I had a special girls only no boys allowed farewell at the European. I’d been hoping for a visit to the European for a while and it really knocked my socks off. Eating rice and chicken off plastic plates while perched on the side of a broken footpath doesn’t really compare to the fancpantsness of our meal that night. The lemon is wrapped in organza. Need I say more.

I’d been harping on about oysters so Lara made it happen. A photo of Lara with Parliament looking a bit special in the background, and oysters in the foreground. Gah, I want to climb into the photo right now and eat every single oyster…and say hi Lara while I’m there, of course.

Clare joined us a little later and the food consumption tipped the scales of delicious as Paul, our man on the ground, kept bringing us tastiness after tastiness. You know what…they had schnitzel! Oysters and schnitzel in one night!? I can’t handle that kind of perfection.

Yes indeed, that is apple crumble soufle you’re looking at. Yes indeed, it was a sweet and delicious morsel, thank you for asking.

I had another farewell party too (greedy no?) Although this one was a “hello, goodbye” party for a few people I hadn’t caught up with in the 18 minutes I was back home. Amanda hosted and cooked her lasagne, which she knows warms the hearts of all, especially Sarah. She called this get together “the Fortch look-in party”.

All the old Fortch classics where there. Bryant even graced us with his self-important presence for a minute or two (I simply must get back to thesis. It’s very important you know).

The guy in the far back of this photo (I don’t remember his name) told the funniest story about the pirated DVD trade in Melbourne. Lemon gelato nearly came out of my nose. I’m still laughing. Other people have built comedic careers on the foundation of a single joke…I think this guy should too.

And we reminisced about Amanda’s and my genius forsight to spend some of the zero dollars we had as students to buy that hand printed White Stripes poster from when they toured sometime in 2002 or 2003. One day we’ll be rich!

Thank you for the fun and yummy farewells guys. I can only imagine the welcome home celebrations will be just as tasty.