cycling around melbourne

I'm planning to take a little break in melbourne later this year to visit a few friends and soak up the goodness of a city with actual, grassroots culture.

And this little find has just made me 200 times more excited about my plans... an awesome little business called The Humble Vintage that supplies visitors with vintage bikes and accompanying hand-drawn map and city guide for $30 a day! I like it.

read more via the awesome Design Files

j'taime

via all the mountains

A little update on life and things

So Dad's now also got a torn ligament in his knee, which they did surgery on this morning. This is on top of the torn hamstring and other stuff... but he's doing well and glad to have a few answers.

Meanwhile, I've seen the sun. This is big. I'm being trained up as a sub editor. It's so nice to be in the newsroom with other people, with actual work to do. Amazing. Especially after my mopey boredom rant the other day. The only downside is the tiredness that hits just when you want to hang out with people and see the world. I have one more subbing shift tomorrow, and then I'm back on overnights for the next few weeks.

Subbing is a whole new skill - editing other people's stories and putting the bulletins together. I think I have pretty shonky news sense, so it's going to take a while to learn how to order bulletins. There seem to be as many ways of ordering a bulletin as there are sub-editors in the world, so we'll see if I ever resolve that one.

Also, last night was the orientation meet and greet thing for my masters course. It was so over the top - Sydney Uni style. Wine, fancy nibblies and a bunch of pretentious speeches including the line "You're a republic of letters, a community of scholars!" hmmm I think I just identified the source of Sydney uni's superiority complex...

I start classes on Monday, with an American literature subject, and on Tuesday's my fist poetry workshop. Looking forward to it.

shadows on parade

This photo taken by my brother's girlfriend on the weekend reminds me of Laura Gibson's delicate song, Shadows on Parade (you can listen to it via the link)

I have carried beasts of many Seasons

their bullied bodies burdening my spine

But when your eyes came rushing up to greet them

I cast them off to keep them in my sight

I would watch their shadows on parade

I've been chasing clouds of many colors,

their blurry bodies I have claimed my own

carried by the wind that took our fathers

captive to their cautionary words

I could see their shadows on parade

I will hold my days in moving pictures

and carry their impressions in my eyes

In all that was escaping us, and all that we could hold in place

I saw you shining brighter than before

update

Thanks for your prayers/thoughts/love. I'm going to visit dad this afternoon.

The doctors believe he's torn his hamstring, which while not great, is better than secondary cancer. So we're pretty relieved.

How he tore his hamstring, we're not too sure! But it's going to be a long recovery, and at this point he still can't really walk. So you can keep praying he'll recover well. x

the ethics of boredom

There is something almost magical about an abandoned newsroom - it's like a giant reminder the world goes on without us prodding it this way and that. But there is also something haunting about tv screens flickering away, silently behind empty desks; a portrait of the hollow, skittering world of a 24-hour news cycle and its cousin, the modern appetite for constant consumption of information.

What am I bringing this up for? Well the general gets personal.

As I sit here in an empty newsroom with nothing to do, I start to feel guilty. There is no news around, and so I am reduced to filling my time with non-work related activities.

Some nights, things are insanely busy and I haven't time to do anything except write/edit stories, call the emergency services and monitor the news. But other nights, like tonight, I've written one story in 4 hours and I'm completely bored.

During these quiet times I struggle to stay awake and stimulated, and feel extremely lazy. But there's nothing I can do - the news is the news, and I can't make it up. In fact, if I ever do that, you have permission to shoot me.

Usually I end up reading blogs, news sites, reading a book, writing on here, writing poems, listening to a podcast, making coffee and wasting time on facebook. It's inspiring stuff...

So I'm wondering, what are the ethics of being paid to do nothing, and how can I use my time more wisely?

The best nights are when there's just enough to keep you busy, but not overwhelmed. Unfortunately, those nights are rare. Sometimes, it makes me wish I was a manual labourer with a much more obvious path, and a more rewarding one (see: post on washing up). But I doubt I'd survive out there in the real world!

So, people, tell me: what can I do in the downtimes that is worthwhile and good, or, alternatively, how should I think about these times when there is nothing to do?

in hospital

For those of you that pray, you can pray for my Dad - he's in hospital again, with a semi-paralysed hip/leg thing.

We're not really sure what's up, they're doing tests today (monday). Don't think it's broken or malignant, so that's good, but still not great. I have to remember he's not a young folk anymore.