Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays

Merry Christmas to anyone who checked in. I haven't been at the blog writing as I've had other things going on. Mostly finishing exams, and then going home for the holidays to cheerfully spread my somewhat cranky attitude among the relatives. It helps remind them why they decided to send me to another continent. 

Anyway. 

Hope you all have a wonderful holiday!!

Happy Halloween from Oz!

I was going to write this in Orange, but there isn't a nice shade of orange in the options tab. All well. Anyway.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!!!

It's already Halloween here in Aus, so I thought I'd dig through my pictures and unearth a jack-o-lantern I (or possibly Mom) carved a few years back. There IS a party going on tonight for Halloween, which I won't be going to because it's in a pub... 

I don't drink. 

I'm not fond of being around drunk people.

Therefore, I'm not going.

BUT

I will be watching a couple of scary movies while I write out my Japanese homework.

Hope you have a fun and safe Halloween

... if you celebrate it that is.

The Three Little Minions

They do so love to play Totem.

Thought I'd just put this in for the nieces and nephews, as they sent these to me a long time ago, and I took pictures and I never managed to get them up on the blog. I call them, the three little minions. Normally they sit in an array on the window cell, but sometimes I need a place to lay out socks that the dryer has failed to dry (do no get my started on dryer failure) and I stack them to one side. For reasons unknown to me, this time when i stacked them, it sort of told a story. 

It appears the Hen can see everything, and Cow and Pig can't due to them having bellies in their eyes. Then I realized that it is in fact only Pig that can't see anything at all, because Cow, has a smiley face on the end of his nose. LOL! Yes, I'm easily amused, especially when I'm tired. 

Anyway, these guys were sent to keep me and another plushie company. I can him the Proboscis and he is supposed to the leader of the three little minions. However, he hasn't been over to check them out of late. I did tell him he had three minions and his response?

We are still unsure if the Proboscis is an exceedingly rotund mouse with a long nose, or an exceedingly small pudgy elephant.

Yes, Yes! This pleases the Proboscis!

Doesn't he look excited? I have absolutely no idea what he's planning, but we'll see.

... it's supposed to be spring....

Cherry (Plum???) Blossoms

It's supposed to be spring here, but I haven't seen any evidence of it yet. Well, not quite true. About 3 weeks ago, the cherry (possibly plum) trees on campus bloomed in a weeks period of time. This picture was taken on the only day that week with clear blue skies. That night, it rained, with high winds and thunder and lightening. It was fun sitting in my little cubby hole listening to howling wind, and feeling the room sway gently in the breeze. 

Please note that I'm on the 5th floor, and there are two floors above me. 

The result was that all the blossoms were gone the next day. All the leaves are gone from the Jacaranda tree outside my window. And it has continued to storm like crazy for nearly 3 weeks straight. Even the days where its not pouring down rain, it's overcast with gusts of wind that send the large rolling bins on a merry stroll down the sidewalk. They're on wheels, so I suppose it's not that surprising, unless like me, you were just about to turn the corner and get mowed down by an errant bin. 

Yet another rainbow

So, the skies look like this. LOTS of rainbows lately. Like 10 a day because of all the moisture in the air. I've lost interest in oooing and aaahing over them now. Although, it makes it easy to tell who is new on campus, because they stop and gawk, point, take pictures like crazy and then talk about it non-stop for about 15 minutes. It takes a while for them to realize that rainbows happen here if you sneeze in just the right direction. Ah, how indelicate of me. Apologies, but I've reached the stage in the semester where I've ceased to care how I do on tests, essays and people's general opinions. I call it the Apathy stage.

So this is what the skies looked like today for about 10 seconds, before a gale came up, blew all these clouds away and proceeded to dump half a gallon per minute, while the wind sent it sideways.

10 seconds of Sunset

The birds are soggy, yet still trying to impress members of the opposite sex. The girls so far have been unimpressed with the whole soggy affair.

Soggy Red Wattle Bird... Girlfriend was unimpressed

The storms themselves have had winds ranging from 75 to 90 mph at night, between the hours of 2 and 5 a.m., at which time it happily throws large metal object into the air, breaking all kinds of things in the process. Why? Because obviously it doesn't want anyone to have a good night's sleep. As a result, I look like this:

Original obtained from redpepperwallpapers

Hopefully the rest of you out there have been getting enough sleep, and aren't having to write essays that you've spent so much time researching: that you've lost interest in them and just want the whole thing to go away.

Smirkles 

Mummies and a Picasso

During my six weeks off from Uni (which I really really needed) I managed to leave my little apartment to go see things at the local museums and at the art gallery. There were two exhibits that I wanted to see, one was called Secrets of the Afterlife, and the other one was about paintings from .. well basically the masters. Van Gogh, Matisse, Klimt (hopefully I'm spelling these right) etc. Both exhibits are at different museums, but within easy walking distance of one another. 

I have fond memories of visiting the Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum when I was little. The deal was, that every summer I'd visit a set of grandparents for a week. During that week my grandmother would go to the salon to get her hair done and nails touched up. Neither my grandfather or I wanted to sit there for several hours and wait for her, so we would always go to the museum and wander around in there for a while. When we went it was fairly dark inside, with spotlit exhibits, so that it felt like you were going into a tomb. I have no idea if it's still like that today, since I haven't been back in years and years, but I still loved it. My grandfather used to try to explain things to me, but for reasons that are totally beyond me I could never understand a word he said. Believe me, it still annoys me. After touring the museum we'd go for ice cream at a place called Farrells... I think. Like I said, it was a long time ago, so the memories are sort of hazy. In the end, I've got a soft spot for Egyptian exhibits.

So, finding that one of the local museums had a Egyptian exhibit (which I think originally started touring multiple museums around the world... because most of the materials said British Museum on them) I definitely was going to go. The first time I went, I didn't end up seeing it because it required separate tickets, it was crowded, and I was technically there to take photos for my Photo Work class. Truthfully though, it tends to be the amount of people that decides me on things, and there were too many people. Too many people for me... means breathing problems, a vicious mouth, and above all else, a huge need to run away. So I did, but came back a few weeks later when exams were over and I had time to putter and I went at lunch time. This means that everyone is eating lunch, and only a few neglected staffers are manning the exhibit. Given that there were few others there, I got to monopolize the volunteers who aren't technically museum staff, but DO possess a wealth of knowledge concerning the exhibit topic... which was all about the afterlife. 

The Goddess Sekhmet

I won't try explaining it, because I can't remember everything that was said about every figure, scroll, tablet, tool, sculpture, sarcophagus, mummy, canopic jars, and everything else, but I'll show the pictures I took of some of it. Picture taking was allowed as long as you didn't use flash, which is fairly standard practice. No worries with me though. I hate using the flash.

The museum was selling a book about the exhibit which I now wish I had purchased. At the time I was thinking, "My room is tiny, and I don't want to fill it with stuff that's just going to gather dust." If I had the book, I'd be able to tell you about all this stuff, and make this post a lot less boring than it already is. Sorry, but I'll just have to muddle through it. From what I remember the statue of Sekhmet was found inside an undisturbed tomb, and she's also the only statue in the entire exhibit that size that retained her nose. Her arms however didn't fair so well, and were apparently gone when the tomb was opened. 

Amenhotep (can't remember which one) Shabti

Anyone who has seen the movie the Mummy will probably remember the name Amenhotep? Perhaps not... Anyway, there have been several Amenhoteps and I can't remember which one this is, but I think it's Amenhotep II. This isn't actually him, but it's made to be him in every way that would've counted for a high class personage like himself. This is his Shabti. The ancient Egyptians believed that the next world was one where work was still needing to be done. Which meant, fields needed tending, writing still needed doing, etc. But, gee, you just got done with a life of work if you were lower caste, and for high class individuals, the thought of having to do actual labor in the next life was NOT appealing. That's where our little shabti friend comes in. He's made to look like you, and is inscribed with instructions that tell you how you get him to do all the afterlife work for you, so you can kick back and take it easy. Personally, I consider this cheating, but hey, every culture has it's own moral system. I have to wonder though.... What happened if the Gods figured out you were just screwing around in the afterlife while your clone was running around doing all the work. I've asked this question before, and apparently it's never actually come up in research/studies. Perhaps they ancient Egyptians never had that thought occur to them. Usually I get blank stares when I ask museum know it alls about it.

Wood tablet with instructions for the Afterlife

I love this tablet for it's colors and because it's made of wood. Wood. 4,000 year old wood. It boggles my mind. How the hell did they make paints that remain vibrant that long, and what kind of sealant did they use to keep the wood from crumbling to ash over the years. I know part of it has to do with it being in a sealed undisturbed tomb, but ... wow. This tablet was in beautiful condition. Only a few crumbling parts to be seen. 

The guy who was one of the fonts of knowledge they had wandering the exhibit basically tried to pour a cement truck sized load of information into my ear, which was great... but at the time my brain was fried from exams, so I could only take in so much. So, here is what I DO remember of what he said about this tablet, and this may be totally wrong, as he was sort of verbally wandering in his descriptions. When someone was entombed, instructions were left from the Book of the Dead on what to do to get into the afterlife. I think this is one of the instructions, as the person is offering food and other goodies to Horus, who is on the left with the sun on his head. If you didn't make a good impression, you didn't get to move on. Basically, you didn't get to move on to see Anubis, Thoth and Ammit ... well actually if you got to see Ammit it was generally very fast from the outside, and then a long span of time seeing Ammit's insides, because if you saw her, it meant that you were a very wicked person, and your soul wasn't lighter than a feather. And she got to eat you. *slurp*

This exhibit was fun because it was interactive. At the entrance you are asked to randomly draw a card from a jug/pot/bowl which has a picture of an ornament representing an ancient Egyptians spirit/heart. On the way out you find the real item, and say the person's name aloud to help guide them to the afterlife. Its a little cheesy, but so many places just have things you stare at instead of actively working with it. At the end of the exhibit you have to balance the scales to leave. I liked it, and so did a lot of the kids who were just catching up as I was leaving. 

"Violin and Grapes" Picasso

The second museum, I will have to go back to, because it was something of an odd day. I was with a friend and we were talking a lot, so I didn't get a chance to really look at all the artwork and instead was concentrating on what my friend was saying. She also walks faster than me. When I go to look at an exhibit, I tend to spend hours looking at things. I also didn't have my camera with me. It was supposed to be doing a torrential downpour that day... and it never did. So I left my camera home for no good reason. I did however have my iPhone on me, and I frequently forget that it's got a camera in it and it's the only reason I have this single picture of a Picasso still life. Normally, Picasso is not my favorite, because I find his work somehow broken and disconnected and somewhere on a deeper level unsettling. But "Violin and Grapes" doesn't strike me that way. It's warm somehow and has a depth to it that isn't in most of his other work. Maybe it's all the shadow play, or the wood that provides a comfort to the usual shards and edges, but I think this lowly still life is my favorite of his works. It's alive somehow...  Actually that's sort of an amusing statement, because somewhat opposite this painting was a modern work also involving a violin. It was called the self playing violin, and indeed as it perched atop it's little pedestal the sound of a violin flowed from it's insides without the use of a human or a bow. 

Okay. I really have to do some homework now. 

I think I've procrastinated enough. ;)

After Several Weeks of Rest....

... i'm still exhausted. 

I suspect it's because during the semester I run on adrenaline and very little else. Nerves are incredible things are they not? I'm not sure how things are for other people, but when I've got a job, a project, school work, assignments.. etc, I'm generally a wreck worrying if I got things right, or if I spent enough time on something. Did I put enough information into this paper, or that project... 

Basically, I'm a ball of anxiety 24/7. And no, being on winter break doesn't do anything to alleviate the condition.

Have I ever not felt that way? 

hmmmmm...

Yes. For a full 5 minutes 6 years ago on Frasier Island off the coast of Queensland. They have different coloured fresh water lakes there, and at one of them that I visited, for whatever reason, all my cares and worries were gone for 5 minutes. It was a typical small blue lake, with long green reeds growing to one side that were bent nearly horizontal by the breeze. No one was there, and it felt lonely. According to the people I was with I sat down almost as soon as I was on the beech, but I don't remember doing it. I just wanted to stay there. The peace ended rather abruptly after 5 minutes when two of my traveling companions got into an argument over something I considered petty. I'd put up a picture of the place, but I don't have those photos with me. 

Last week I felt at peace for about 10 seconds when I took a string of photos of a sunset over the student housing where I live.

Sunset in July, WA, Australia

And I'm always fairly relaxed when I'm taking pictures of birds for fun. The photo class I took wasn't all that fun, because I wasn't able to take pictures of things that I like. Instead I took photos to make the teacher happy, which paid off in a way I guess. Stressed me out because I was having to read minds, but that's done now, and I passed with good marks. Yay!!

Gallah in Western Australia, ... camping out on a flood light.

Thankfully there are no shortage of different birds to get pictures of, whether they be bright pink and out during the daytime or generally seen during the night hunting insects and small mammals. My little owl friend is my favorite though and is always willing to hold still for me to take pictures. The owl always makes me smile.

The Campus Boobook Owl. Ridiculously cute.

Of course there is also the Moon. I take way too many pictures of the Moon here, but I can't really help it. It's just so close, and the colour variations tend to be spectacular. So a lot of my photo library is filled with night pictures of it. I guess this sort of compliments the owl. And the rest is filled with birds... and if I've been to an Aquarium, fish. I went to the Aquarium at Hillary's the other day and forgot to take my camera with me. I'll have to go back if I have time. It's a neat aquarium, and there's a little shopping place to go to afterwards. :)

An Orange Moon. Very frequent colour here.

And the things that really keep my from becoming a complete mess are the British Mysteries I like to watch, and of course Anime. Calms me right down most of the time when I've been freaking out over something for too long. I'm happy to say that I've just been watching those for fun of late, instead of as a pacifier. Got my results late last night, and I passed everything, which is all I wanted really. :) So, I'm good for right now. I'll have to see if I can post again before I go back to classes on the 29th. I didn't just spend all my time sleeping and staring at TV shows during the winter break. There were actual outings to museums and .. well, already told you about Hillary's. No pictures, so... 

Anyway, I'm good for now. Passed my classes and I'm happy about that.

Must remember to post about museum adventures.

... and possibly anime...

Post exam exhaustion

Okay. I'm alive and I think I managed to survive all my classes. Maybe. 

Japanese is going to be iffy, because we had a LOT thrown at us last minute and frankly its such a mishmash in my head I'm not sure what I know anymore. 

And I know for a fact I didn't do well on my Aural or Oral testing for Japanese. I was okay for the first few words and then it went totally out of control. Like someone sending one of those old fashion wooden fruit carts down a flight of stairs. It starts out slow, with a few bumps, and then it gains momentum... and by the end, there's fruit laying everywhere, smashed, broken, bruised, with one bent cartwheel spinning without much energy above the entire mess, as if trying to figure out what had just happened.

Yes, that was basically how the Aural exam (listening test) went for me... and we will not speak of the Oral exam in which I participated in a skit with my group, and then supposedly answered questions one on one with the teacher. I say supposedly because I can't remember anything after the skit.

At all. 

Nothing. 

My mind is apparently like a dry erase board. 

If the brain can't handle it, then it gets swept from my memory. Either that or it's being harbored in one of the many cupboards of my mind until I can handle looking at it, which I seriously doubt because that hasn't happened yet. It's just gone.

In the meantime.... 

from the ever popular meme cheezeburger site; seemed fitting.

I will be sleeping lots, because I have been running on no sleep for a LONG time now, and my diet has  been... awful so to speak. There was an entire week were I ate nothing but carrots because I was too busy studying. It was also because I hadn't had time to get to the store in the last 4 weeks. Yesterday I managed to go and get food. Actual food. As in food groups that involved more than fruit and veggies, which is good for the most part, but it does odd things to my insides after a while. 

So, I shall be eating correctly starting this week, and sleeping whenever I feel like I need a nap, because honestly I'd like to stop feeling like the walking dead. My friends here just tell me to drink coffee...

My response?

Also courtesy of cheezeburger meme. Also appropriate.

Yeah.. that's about the long and the short of it.

I am beyond tired and I think I broke my brain. It really does hurt to think, so I'm giving it time to recover, before I reintroduce it to the first 4 chapters of my Japanese text book. I will be damned if I go back into my classes next semester feeling like a total moron. Okay, so there exist materials that could prove that I do have aspects of moron-ness within my personality, but I'd really like to curb that particular tendency.

Shockingly, I had 3 other classes this semester, which for some reason, don't seem as important at the moment. But they are, especially if I didn't pass one of them. The one that was giving me fits for most of the semester was Photography. This was not the simple digital thing, this was the manual, load the film, set the ISO, set the aperture, set the shutter speed... and hope the blasted little green light for the internal light meter lights up green. I got to develop my own film. I got to print my own film. I got to spent appalling amounts of time doing prints... It's insanely time consuming. 

And I like doing it all.  

I would've loved doing this class alone, by itself, without any other distractions. But I need a full course load, so.. it was taken as an elective and it turned into a monster, because it's like two units rolled into one. Never doing that again. But sometime in the future when I have time, I would love to come back to it. By the end I was doing really well in it. And the teacher was not happy when I said I wasn't doing the next course in photography. I just can't. I don't have that much free time on my hands. 

My other two classes were fine. One was a history class on criminal underworlds and the other was a humanities class about being more... open minded towards the rest of the world. Basically the entire course was on Cosmopolitanism. Which is nice, but ... somewhat boring after a while.

I think I did alright in both of these classes and I'm not too worried.

Photography I already know my grade it, so I'm not worried about that one at all.

Japanese... *sighs* I really love learning this language, but I don't think I did well at all this time around.

Aw well. If I failed it, I just go home. 

.... i hate giving up though.