Thursday, June 23, 2016

It's all things Game of Thrones in our house

WE are even doing a podcast. I will let you know when it's up on youtube. We are having loads of fun doing it. This season is great, I'm really enjoying it, but some characters, eg Tyrion, have stalled. It's like Mereen is the place for stalled characters.

Here is a guy we found Ozzy Man who does great catch ups:

Recent one for S6 Ep 9.

I'm also reading the following recaps:

Raven (hosted at Gothic Cheeseburger) does I think the best recaps, or the most consistently good

Mel Campbell does a recap for Junkee

I also sometimes read these two at LA Review, though I don't agree usually with everything they say

This was also a good article, interesting about how the fight sequence was planned and shot. The same guy who directed Episode 9 is directing next week's (which runs for 69 minutes. Is that an extra nine minutes? I am so excited.)

And finally, the guy who played Rickon apparently tweeted, saying #shouldhavezigzagged


game-of-thrones.jpg

Tuesday, April 05, 2016

Well hello hello

Just had a minor freak out because I couldn't seem to find my dashboard to create a new post. I thought everything had changed and been locked down. But here we are. Turns out I hadn't signed in properly.

I swear, sometimes it all seems a little too hard.

I'm feeling the pressure of not keeping up with the blogs I want to, and I KNOW I owe Alex reading and comments.

SIGH

Things are otherwise good, apart from this online stuff. I look at facebook too often, and twitter as well. Things have changed a lot in terms of those compulsions and I'm not sure what to think about that, or what to do about that, if anything.

SIGH

Just came back from dinner with a good buddy but the poor thing, I feel whenever we are together I just dump a whole lot of negative shit on to her. Much like I'm doing here.

SIGH

The seasons have turned here in Melbourne. The weather is still gorgeous but once daylight savings ends there an instant change in vibe.

SIGH

I've decided to try to go to Russia and elsewhere north of the world in 2017, probably December, January, February, maybe March if I can swing it workwise (teaching that is). I want to hunker down somewhere cheap (!!) for a couple of months and write in there, as well as seeing northern lights, snow stuff and all things Russian. Whether this happens or not, we shall see.

SIGH

I'm feeling very sigh'y tonight. I think perhaps it's best I go to bed and read. That always makes things good, not that they aren't goo. They're just sigh'y.

SIGH

Oh but Game of Thrones is coming this month. Also the new GIRLS has started, and I love it. And I'm [trying] to read more Indian literature and non-fiction this year and it started badly because Salman Rushdie almost killed me with his masterpiece Midnight's Children. It's amazing but boy is it hard.

I think that's it for now. I really want to try and get on here a little more often, but clearly I am off to a shithouse start with that.

Am heading to Alex's now, to check in... Still want to read her Hilary post.



Wednesday, January 20, 2016

Happy New Year

I have had a very quiet slow start to 2016 in terms of not teaching, and being socially in my cave. But my writing is going great guns. I'm getting my next thing ready to go to the publisher, as well as starting a brand new thing, which actually has been rattling around my brain (parts thereof, and characters) for about thirty years.

We didn't go away, but we've been doing driving lessons (P is 19 now and has just cracked 20 hours. We are pathetic.) We've been walking, an hour or more, at a fast pace, and this is good. Except the weather has been too hot recently to do anything but night walks and by the time the sun goes down I'm usually too tired, or not in the zone, to walk.

Clokes is back at work - he had two weeks off - the kids are in and out of the house. P's book shop job seems to have faltered. She went away and he said to get in touch when she got back and she did, and he said it's the quiet time but that he'll get in touch if he needs her. Sounds like a fob off to me. She said he was a difficult boss, was hyper critical and she's not used to feeling incompetent, and that his scrutiny and picking up tiny little things, while not seeing the larger successes she achieved, started to make her second-guess everything she was doing, and not enjoy it. It's interesting. I said that she will come across people who aren't smooth - for whatever reason - in life. I told her I was glad the difficulty with him was of this type, rather than him being an outright bully (but it did sound to me it could have devolved to that) or a sexual harasser. She was learning processes and it was a steep learning curve, she felt he didn't see the good and only saw the bad, of which there was little. Any mistakes she made were either small, or rectified, and were not numerous. This is life.

She's also gone off in a bit of a tangent regarding her uni studies. Started talking about wanting to do medicine towards the end of last year. Because of the challenge, but also because she would be interested in the work. Medicine! This is the first time she's EVER talked about it, so I was wary but didn't appear to be so. Was encouraging, but pragmatic. So she's decided - after trying to see whether she can get the subjects needed (ie prerequisites to apply for medicine) within her Arts course (crazy) and she could have if she'd realised this last year, but now she's going into second year, it's not possible, without serious overloading and serious cost, that isn't covered by HECS. So yesterday she decided to do a chemistry subject and see how it feels/goes. It will be out of her comfort zone for sure. (She did biology and maths last year, in her IB course, but hasn't done chemistry since probably early secondary school, and never as a subject on its own but just as a part of Science.) So. Interesting. I told her that if she finishes Arts and then finds she still is thinking about Medicine, then to consider having a break, working somewhere, then if she still wants to, do a Science degree. But I do really think she will just stick to the Arts. Who knows... I remember also not knowing at that age.

Haven't played chess for quite a while. We have watched some stuff on television, including The Quest (loved it! Yes, it's cheesy, and a weird kind of format but once you get used to it, the payoff in the last episode is magnificent!)

Just had a phone call from Channel Nine about a documentary on sex ed later in the year. We had a preliminary chat and I said YES to the suggestion we appear on the program. She emphasised it's not a crappy Today Tonight program, which was going to be one of my questions. LOL. So that would be great exposure.

I think that's it. Have to get onto some sex ed work now... we are writing an article for an education magazine and I've been putting off looking at what my partner has drafted. Also we are developing our programs for a new school this year that will run sessions from Prep to Year 6 (Not sure if I've mentioned this.) So I have to put my primary school teacher hat on, and think of activities for little ones. Will be fun. Pin the vulva on the donkey? Hahaha. Oh. That's given me an idea for how to use the outlines you did for us Alex. Awesome.

Bye for now. What's your news? What are you reading? Suze, you did ask about my book but I don't have your email. If you want to email me at worldoysterstage@gmail.com and I'll give you the info!