Last post coming live from Coburgistan

It’s 11.20pm on the 30th of November and I’m posting my 30th post for the month! Suck it NaBloPoMo – you thought you’d win, but I triumphed over your pointless evil.

Unfortunately posting on this blog is only one thing on a fairly extensive list of things I need to do before flying tomorrow but I think we’ve all fully grasped the abject failure of my organisational skills over the past week or so, so no need to go on and on and on. Oh no, too late.

Reporting back on the holiday reading plans, I’ve decided to take one book which I may or may not complete. I’ve settled on the delightful red edition of Pride and Prejudice I picked up in Bangkok but haven’t yet opened. (if you followed the link to the red edition of P&P you’ll see Days of Reading by Proust that drove me round the bend for a week of bus rides in Bangkok)

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I just read back a couple of posts and picked out about five typos without much effort, so sorry about those. My favourite was the time when I called my camera a phone. The fact that many people’s phones are cameras probably made it less stupid to the reader, but that doesn’t get away from the fact that I thought ‘camera’ and wrote ‘phone’.

Farewell from Coburgistan. My next post will come from a place with about as many Italians as Coburg, but many more tourists.

Your weekends are numbered

29/30

What a powerhouse of a weekend. I’m so tired that I can’t even write sentences. So I offer you my weekend in a numbered list.

1. Friday morning bus ride to Melbourne. Bus driver yelled at me for not buying by ticket earlier – I mounted high-horse, pointed out that I was a customer and referred to his ‘tone of voice’. Uncharacteristic but extremely gratifying behaviour
2. Arrived in Melbourne, put all worldly possessions into locker at State Library, went to library to prepare for phone interview for job
3. Had phone interview – think it went well
4. Met friends for Friday night drinks – drinks very well enjoyed
5. Realised has been enjoying drinks too much – worldly possessions locked inside State Library, unable to be retrieved until Saturday 10am which doesn’t help me because I have to leave the city to attend a wedding at 8.30am. Outfit for wedding, makeup, toothbrush inside locker.
6. Way too early Saturday morning – go to Lara’s to borrow clothes, Greg drives us to Glenburn to fight off burglars at Elisa’s farm
7. Fought off burglars and made salads, played with Sook the cute old dog
8. Celebrate Elisa’s wedding in a ger
9. Drove back to Melbourne listening to Gold 104 Party Rock Hits – Queen, ELO, Elvis Costello, Warrant, etc.
10. Caught up with Robyn before she flew off to Perth much too soon
11. Slept
12. Sunday morning – waited for a break in rain to go to State Library to retrieve possessions
13. Went back to Lara’s relished opportunity to shower and change out of three-day-old clothes
14. Made bee-line for nearest purveyor of dirty chinese food suitable for hangover
15. Went back to Lara’s, read the last 50 pages of John Banville’s The Sea
16. Relocated to Rowan’s new house, pretended to help unpack
17. Cooked dinner
18. Slept

Bill Withers for Friday morning

28/30

Missed the train

Post 27/30.

I missed the train this morning. The 20 minute drive to the train station is usually fraught as imagine the train chugging out of the station before we get there, but it never actually happens. This time, the train was pulling out as we arrived.

So the chase was on to the next station about 20kms away. Turns out the train has a more direct route to the next town and doesn’t get stuck behind road works vehicles.

The consolation coffee on Lake Nagambie was nice though.

Train photo from Weekly Times

Lake photo from Centretown Motel Nagambie

Darwin + fireworks

This is post 26 out of 30 to meet my own slightly altered NaBloPoMo challenge. Only four more to go before the end of the month.

So, I was in Darwin with the girls and we went to Mindel markets and it was the last market before the wet season so they had fireworks. I was all, ‘fireworks are endlessly entertaining, but seriously, why bother taking photos? Just enjoy the moooooment man…’ and then I noticed this fireworks setting on  my phone and realised, photos of fireworks are actually the best thing ever.

I forgot to post today

I forgot to post today.

But now, instead of posting, I need to

• pack for Europe
• pack for a few days in Melbourne before going to Europe, days that involve a wedding (i.e. complicated attire arrangements)
• do some dumb student number thing for MJ that I can’t explain any better than that

All before catching the train at 7.30 tomorrow morning.

You know, come to think of it, I don’t think I’ll have the chance to post much over the next few days. It looks like I stared NaBloPoMo in the face…and forfeited a couple of metres before the finish line.

Wait! I can’t just roll over! I may not post every day, but I will post 30 posts before the end of November! I don’t know how. I don’t know when. But what choice do I have? How can expect to look my young fans in the face and say, ‘kids, do your best but don’t be surprised when it’s not good enough.’

I won’t stare any young fan in the face and say that. I’ll say, ‘kids, to be awesome you should copy me as much as possible because I am awesome.’

Yeah.

What’s your favourite podcast?

It’s been an iTunes-y kind of day today. This morning I had a surprise delivery of a $50 dollar iTunes voucher just for switching over something about my superannuation. Too easy suckers! And now I’m trawling iTunes for podcasts to load up the pod before I go away.

I’m a bit of a podcast obsessive, but today I’ve been struggling to find new podcasts that I can imagine actually listening to. So after the great success that was asking for help to decide on holiday reading, I am asking again for any suggestions of good podcasts.

Here’s what I’m after:

1. Good podcasts

This request is obviously contingent on your interests, but I’d appreciate any suggestions of podcasts you consistently listen to and enjoy.

My favourites include:

• This American Life
• The New Yorker Fiction podcast
• The Moth podcast
• The Economist (for the crisp English accents – makes you feel more efficient)
• KCRW’s Morning Becomes Eclectic
• Late Night Live
• StoryCorps
• This I Believe

There are other great podcasts around, but if something is too date-specific it’s often out of date by the time I listen to it (it would be a problem for the Economist too if it weren’t for those accents)

Wow, I just realised that if my favourite podcasts are an indicator of my interests and I heed the advice that I follow my interests to find a career then whoah, I AM IN THE WRONG CAREER. Eek. In defence of myself and poor career choices I mostly listen to podcasts late at night, when I want to be hearing soft voices instead of barking debate.

That little insight into the inner world of Sarah is yours for free.

Here’s the other thing I want.

1. A place that finds and recommends good podcasts

These things exist by the dozen, but pretty much all of them tell me that I want to listen to CNN and geeks talking about gadgets. Wrong. Any suggestions of a site or someone who recommends a good podcast from time to time?

Holiday Reading

My European sojourn is fast approaching, and while I haven’t planned as much as I hoped there is one facet of my trip I intend on plotting carefully.

Holiday reading.

I’ve decided to embrace that kind of embarrassing image of a tourist reading a cliché on paper – For example, reading “The Year of Living Dangerously” in Indonesia, or “Istanbul” by Orhan Pamuk in Istanbul.

So I need three books for my three primary destinations. After a minute or so of thought I’ve got some early contenders, but I’m open to suggestions.

Italy – The Name of the Rose, Umberto Eco

France – (open to suggestions)

Germany – Stasiland, Anna Funder

My selections are weighted heavily towards what’s been on my ‘to read’ list for a while and what’s already on the book shelf.

Recommendations?

Down at the Brighton Croquet Club

Elisa is getting married next weekend. She’s getting off  the shelf. She’s becoming Ross’s fork and knife.

So we celebrated with croquet and Pims….

David takes the glory...even though he lost the game

Clearly breaking with World Croquet Association dress code - croquet whites only please

It's a game for ladies

The happy couple. Anna and Ingrid getting into the conjugal vibe. Anna has a ring, Ingrid has a 'bride to be' sash. The young people these days break all the rules.

Come to Brighton - where the beach meets rigid social conservatism

The dashing gentlemen

These balls are for Sunday only

Feeling a little playful...Oh the naughtiness

 

Resume writing breakthrough

I just submitted my application for the perfect job. Fortunately, this morning I had a resume-writing breakthrough!

My breakthrough has made writing about how perfect I am for the perfect job SO MUCH EASIER!

Q. What’s one of the hardest aspects of writing a good resume?

A. For me, it’s definitely writing about how awesome I am. (If you don’t find it hard to do this you’re probably an egomaniac and almost certainly not Australian).

One of the reasons I hate writing about my stellar achievements at my past jobs is the niggling feeling that someone I know, maybe my old boss, would read it. They would think, ‘phfff, she makes it sound like the best job ever when in actual fact it was just an ordinary job’.

But here’s the thing, that’s not true! That’s not what your old boss or anyone else would think. Here’s why:

1. Your resume will probably override any lasting memory of you, so when you say that you achieved a whole lot of cool stuff, the reader will be inclined to say, ‘That sounds impressive and, come to think of it, it’s true! Wow, she’s impressive!’
2. Everyone wants to be on the winning team, so unless the reader is your arch nemesis, they’ll be happy to be associated with that awesomeness – this would be especially true for colleagues/bosses. They’ll probably be happy to steal your best lines.

There is two exceptions to this theory I can think of:

1. Some people will think that your awesomeness somehow detracts from their awesomeness so they might be inclined to cut you down to size. They’re dumb.
2. If you blatantly lie on your resume people are going to see through it (maybe not your new employer, but they’ll figure it out sooner or later)

I know that plenty of people think you need to lie on your CV because everyone else is doing it, but I’m of the Penelope Trunk school of thought that there is a fine art of almost-lying-but-not-lying on a resume. Which is essentially just good marketing.

This might be a good litmus test -

• If you can’t show your resume to your old boss, you’re probably lying too much
• If you won’t show it to your nonjudgmental best friend, you’re probably lying too much
• If you’re embarrassed or bashful about showing your resume to your old boss, you’ve probably done a good job of selling yourself
• If your best friend beams with pride when they read your resume, you’ve probably done a good job of selling yourself
• If you feel completely comfortable about showing your old boss your resume you probably need to rewrite it
• If your best friend says, ‘that’s great’ but there are no beams of pride, you definitely need to rewrite it

Maybe you should send your up-to-date resume to your current boss so they can look at it and think, ‘hey, this person’s excellent! They make our project/office/organisation sound amazing!’

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Inspiration for the resume breakthrough

Posts by Penelope Trunk

• 6 most violated resume writing rules

• How to edit your resume like a professional resume writer

Rowan’s resume – thanks Ro.