down time

so it's 4.30 and i am sitting in a syndicate room waiting for my group to show up. how many groups can a facilitator facilitate if the facilitator has no groups for facilitation? I ask you!

today has ended up going well, though i may love to regret words spoken in haste. this is the first i have sat down since lunch, which is only the second time today. this morning, horror of horrors, i realised that neither shayne nor bob had brought down the most up to date versions of the slide set they needed. following which was a confusing phone call to IT getting them to email our stuff across, which still wasn't the right set. but i had a copy in my inbox, which technically i should have deleted, from sending the files across to the print room.

so crisis averted.

then we started talking about facilitating the sessions and how we were going to do it, and only then did i realise that we were going to need to move 4 of the laptops we have hired into the syndicate rooms, after getting them connected to the MBS network as opposed to the Hire Intelligence network (which makes the IT guys here stroppy for some unknown reason, they don't seem to trust me with the authentication key for the network, which is mighty irritating, because what am i going to do with it other than exactly what i say!? ring all my student friends in melbourne and patch them illegally into the network? i mean, come on!).

also, we needed printers, which i had not been told either. so there will need to be either 4 printers, one for each room, or one on each floor (cos we're across 2 levels in this building at the moment), or something. argh. but i am not thinking about it at least until later tonight.

but since we started the beer game... actually since after lunch things have basically gone quite well. i am very tired, but the day hasn't turned out to be the wreck i had anticipated.

i think when i get back and have a couple of months to think about how to smooth out this whole process, nessa and i will be able to figure out some good process documentation, and contingency plans for if anything facilities related relly fucks up.

meantime, i am loving the weather (oddly good for melbourne), and the building, and the food. haven't set foot outside today at all, but pyncheon st was really nice to look at last night, lots of waiters basially hawking their food and trying to usher you in to sit at one of their tables. dan said he basically felt like he was walking through the red light food district, which seems fairly appropriate.

i finished devil wears prada last night. not as good an ending as i was hoping for. fiona p warned me that i probably won't like the movie a whole lot better, and apparently they smooshed two characters together and made them into one hideous frankensteinian character. but anyway.

peeps here. more later!

swans vs. crows, apparently

well, here in melbourne business school, things are going swimmingly. at least, my vision is after however many drinks i hav had this fine evening. which i think is three, but may be four. anyway.

so we're here to run the second pilot program through with iag, which is exciting, and which in a few months i may well be running myself, since shayne and bob won't have the time to spend 60+ days teaching on the ALL program, and do all the XP teaching and academic stuff they're meant to do, let alone fly to melbourne all the time. i myself, on the other hand, would quite enjoy it.

has been an interesting day though. dan was slightly late (which freaked me out), and when he did show up, was driving his own car, which i was completely taken aback by. the plan was that they would book a cab for 8.20 and come by my place and get me, but dan and ang decided instead to come in their own car and park in the long stay carpark at the airport. which turns out to be $63 for four days, which is incredibly ripoffish, but what can you do. although, as i pointed out to dan, mac bank who own sydney airport are one of our IPs, so we should ask for some in-kind payment. anyway.

so nice drive there, tho i admit to thinking that dan was on autopilot some of the time and vaguely heading towards the uni instead of the airport (which i think he was, but anyway). then a misjudgement of where the long-stay carpark was (near the airport!? pah! in another postcode to the airport, more like!!), then the long stay carpark itself. which i have to say is one of the more soul-destroying places i have ever been. a giant, flat field of concrete and asphalt and painted ywllow lines, filled with cars that look like mechanical corpses, all lined up for burial in one mass grave. all under lights. with the fairly hellish view of the airport behind, but mostly the landscape was pure awful.

anyway, the 'every fifteen minute' bus arrived 10 mins late, and took a grand tour of the Purgatory Carpark before taking us on to Terminal Three.

we walked in the door (having been dropped off at arrivals, as clearly all people WHO HAVE JUST PARKED THEIR CARS IN THE CARPARK ARE ARRIVING, NOT DEPARTING AT ALL) and up the escalators, to discover the kind of milling confusion normally only found in student union protests and cattle auctions. listening eagerly for any kind of instruction, and joining a queue in the hopes that the people at the front would have our best interests at heart, we waited. turns out, the airport was experiencing a power failure.

one word was on everybody's minds.

that's right. and i said it.

the t-word.

terrorists.

clearly they had a vested interest in creating the kind of low-level, attritive unhappiness in the large group of 10am till 11am flight catchers that only airport lounges are capable of inspiring.

eventually we got through. i swapped seats with ang (who had booked separately) so she could sit with dan, and sat next to Len, the Most Boring Man in the Cosmos, for the hour and a half flight. he started giving me relationship advice as though i were a jaded and lovelorn 50 something, as opposed to a married and spunky 20something, which i found disconcerting to say the least.

anyway, over soon enough, but not before i
a) didnt take the fruit and biscuits on offer because i thought they would ask me for gelt, so used am i to only budget travel, but thoughtfully did drink two cups of tea, only to discover that
b) i couldn't figure out which cupboard housed the toilet facilities, and only figured it out through careful observation of my fellow passengers. i assure you this observation was highly discreet, and in no way involved me swivelling round 180 degrees in my chair to view was what happening behind me, while casually leaning my book on the back of my chair with feigned nonchalance.

after all, i am far more worldly and knowing than that.

as always takeoff and landing where the highlights, along with the occasional burst of stomach-lifting turbulence.

then we got here. meetings, setting up of computers, some tetchiness, far too many coffees, some prescription medication, an italian dinner-plus-booze later, and i am reclining on my single (!) bed in the melbourne business school, thinking dreamily of a shower and my lovely husband back in sydney, and thinking this just wont do at all.

on the upside, tomorrow night i WILL be able to watch house, which is wonderful, since they have tvs in the rooms here.

the MBS is lovely, far nicer than the AGSM, and the city is within walking distance. i am totally going to put my hand up to be chief facilitator on the melbourne courses. it's gorgeous.

anyway. more of my adventures anon.

ciao bella bellissima! *airkisses to all*

so, been a while since i have written anything up on here. not much happening, yet in that insanely busy kind of way. arts revue was great (adam of course stole the show, along with benny), and after party was even better... work is going well though HR and the FCE integration are causing us a bit of a headache in getting nessa hired which is tiresome. going to melbourne next week which will be interesting, at least on this residential i will have company! especially in the form of vicky, who is fabulous.

nadin and vicky and i are going to the brett whiteley studio, probably with nessa and possibly with jade if she's up for it. who has moved in with ben, and is now working on the north shore as well, happy as larry :) which is awesome, though i miss her and need to catch up with her.

let's see, a list of people i would like to have coffee with... and who should come drinking on thursday night at kuletos if they are free:
- nessa and adam and joe, of course
- jade, ben maybe
- ben, alex, mark, benny, simon, hugh, faustine, dave, viv, sarah and trent...
- tim, billie, jared
- lutfi, though he's driving, of course :)
- maybe dan and ange
- vicky, other vicki, pete, willow

i'm sure there are many others. and i really should invite penny and emfin and andrew and victoria as well, been ages since i have seen any of them.

what else should i do?

paint more.
write more.
take more photos.
do a stencil graffiti run :D
get my thesis published.

oh, all sorts of things!!!

*hugs y'all.

~sayfin