Well, what am I up to lately? Work has taken a turn and I am now working full-time which has been quite nice. One of the fundraising strategies they have in place here is via "merchandise boxes". They have little boxes full of Heart Foundation swag that they pawn off to stores, organizations, offices, and people to sell. It is now my job to reconcile all of the boxes, money, and leftover merchandise that doesn't get sold--for all of Australia. It is a logic problem, to be sure, but I welcome the challenge and am happy to have something new and different to keep me occupied.
Other than that, I spent most of last week at the movies. The Sydney Film Festival was on and I wanted to make sure that I got out to see a few, and the first I went to was called "We Live in Public" (or something like that) and it was a documentary about this guy who predicted the mass success and future socialization through the internet. He claimed that our entire lives would be surrounded by computers, on film, etc. To test a little theory of his, this multi-millionaire created this underground bunker in NYC, complete with "pods" (rows and rows of cubby-hole-like bunkbeds) for each person to sleep. He required that everyone wear a uniform and conform to the rules of the bunker. The main rule was that everything was videotaped--sleeping, eating, showering, going to the bathroom (where there were no stall doors)--and the footage was his to do with what he liked. This would be a month-long experiment. The group was mostly self-professed artists wanting to take part in this very "cutting edge" (crazy) social art project. Lots of sex, drugs and alcohol--imagine a party hostel times ten and you get the idea. After that, he and his girlfriend became the first people to videotape their lives and stream it live online. Exhibitionist and attention-seeking tendencies? Absolutely. He's obviously this very smart man who's got some psychological issues. He and the director showed up to do Q&A after the show, which was interesting. Sometimes it amazes me how ignorant Americans could be. I cringed when he asked the audience if they knew who Oprah was. Anyway, it was an interesting film about someone I never knew existed. :)
Wednesday I went to see The Proposal (not Film Festival related) with my movie buddy Maria, and Friday another Film Festival movie by Steven Soderbergh called The Girlfriend Experience. It was about a sort of upper-class escort in NYC and what her life was like. It was filmed documentary-style, but it was fictional with actors and mostly improvised. They interviewed a few real-life escorts and most of the scenarios from the movie were from those women's experiences. The girl in the movie actually had a boyfriend, and it was interesting to see what that kind of relationship was portrayed (and eventually ended, as we all imagined it would). Sometimes it played on Pretty Woman themes, but ended in a suitable way for a film festival movie to end. Not unbelievably and predictably happy, but real, full of human flaws and realities. The actress (who is apparently some kind of porn star) did some Q&A afterwards. I didn't think she was much of an actress and expected her to be some kind of silly bimbo, but she was actually well-spoken and although I disagreed with her on many things, including her version of feminism (which she claims herself and all women to be), I left with some respect for the girl.
As for this week, Marcus is mostly out of town so I'm back to some of my living alone habits--reading for ages before falling asleep, watching Grey's by myself and getting swept up in the emotion, eating the most simple of simple dinner meals (but with vegetables instead of pasta), simultaneously watching TV, playing on the internet, and baking, and just generally being on my own time for the entire day. It's not actually all that different from what I do when we're together, but it feels a bit different. I've also been lucky enough to have most nights to myself without the roommates home which makes it even better! I would have gone for some runs, but it's been raining all week and I don't particularly feel like running in the rain. I think that I need to come up with another new hobby or something to keep my brain working in the off-time. Maybe I should try picking up crosswords...though those things are really hard! It doesn't help that my word recollection fails me at the best of times. :) Anyhew...
That's it for boring little me. I'm headed up to the North side (a nice little trip over the Harbour Bridge) tomorrow to spend the night at Maria's and to do some gluten-free baking/experimenting. I'm so intrigued by people's food restrictions, and I love the challenge of baking things to accomodate special diets. I need a new oven so I can do my market stall...
Other than that, I spent most of last week at the movies. The Sydney Film Festival was on and I wanted to make sure that I got out to see a few, and the first I went to was called "We Live in Public" (or something like that) and it was a documentary about this guy who predicted the mass success and future socialization through the internet. He claimed that our entire lives would be surrounded by computers, on film, etc. To test a little theory of his, this multi-millionaire created this underground bunker in NYC, complete with "pods" (rows and rows of cubby-hole-like bunkbeds) for each person to sleep. He required that everyone wear a uniform and conform to the rules of the bunker. The main rule was that everything was videotaped--sleeping, eating, showering, going to the bathroom (where there were no stall doors)--and the footage was his to do with what he liked. This would be a month-long experiment. The group was mostly self-professed artists wanting to take part in this very "cutting edge" (crazy) social art project. Lots of sex, drugs and alcohol--imagine a party hostel times ten and you get the idea. After that, he and his girlfriend became the first people to videotape their lives and stream it live online. Exhibitionist and attention-seeking tendencies? Absolutely. He's obviously this very smart man who's got some psychological issues. He and the director showed up to do Q&A after the show, which was interesting. Sometimes it amazes me how ignorant Americans could be. I cringed when he asked the audience if they knew who Oprah was. Anyway, it was an interesting film about someone I never knew existed. :)
Wednesday I went to see The Proposal (not Film Festival related) with my movie buddy Maria, and Friday another Film Festival movie by Steven Soderbergh called The Girlfriend Experience. It was about a sort of upper-class escort in NYC and what her life was like. It was filmed documentary-style, but it was fictional with actors and mostly improvised. They interviewed a few real-life escorts and most of the scenarios from the movie were from those women's experiences. The girl in the movie actually had a boyfriend, and it was interesting to see what that kind of relationship was portrayed (and eventually ended, as we all imagined it would). Sometimes it played on Pretty Woman themes, but ended in a suitable way for a film festival movie to end. Not unbelievably and predictably happy, but real, full of human flaws and realities. The actress (who is apparently some kind of porn star) did some Q&A afterwards. I didn't think she was much of an actress and expected her to be some kind of silly bimbo, but she was actually well-spoken and although I disagreed with her on many things, including her version of feminism (which she claims herself and all women to be), I left with some respect for the girl.
As for this week, Marcus is mostly out of town so I'm back to some of my living alone habits--reading for ages before falling asleep, watching Grey's by myself and getting swept up in the emotion, eating the most simple of simple dinner meals (but with vegetables instead of pasta), simultaneously watching TV, playing on the internet, and baking, and just generally being on my own time for the entire day. It's not actually all that different from what I do when we're together, but it feels a bit different. I've also been lucky enough to have most nights to myself without the roommates home which makes it even better! I would have gone for some runs, but it's been raining all week and I don't particularly feel like running in the rain. I think that I need to come up with another new hobby or something to keep my brain working in the off-time. Maybe I should try picking up crosswords...though those things are really hard! It doesn't help that my word recollection fails me at the best of times. :) Anyhew...
That's it for boring little me. I'm headed up to the North side (a nice little trip over the Harbour Bridge) tomorrow to spend the night at Maria's and to do some gluten-free baking/experimenting. I'm so intrigued by people's food restrictions, and I love the challenge of baking things to accomodate special diets. I need a new oven so I can do my market stall...
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