Where've I been?

So, I've been a bit busy lately, and haven't had a chance to post, so here's an update:

1. I attended the This is Not Art Zine Fair. I picked up some great zines on a whole bunch of random topics, and also bought a greeting card that's a print of a painting of one of my lovely friends, Bronwyn, made by her sister Rob, who's also on the card.

It now has pride of place on my bookshelf. We didn't get to check anything else out during the festival though due to the revolting weather. No wait! I lie - I forced my tired and over-it friends to head back out into the cold and go to the pub to see a spelling bee hosted by Lawrence Leung, just because I heart him so.

2. On Saturday night, Bec, Wade, Mikey and I travelled down to the Central Coast and joined the Hunter Paranormal Society on a ghost hunt! We went to a cemetery and a local beach (Jenny Dickson Beach), and used a bunch of high tech equipment to see if any ghosties were about. Here's Bec checking out a lone grave:

Here's a terrible photo, but the only one I have, of one of the heat sensors that were used:

And here's a shot of one of the K2s, which sense ectoplasm or something, a voice translator thing, and Mikey's hot gold shoes.

After all that, I didn't get to see any ghosts, and there was NOTHING going on at the beach (at least at the cemetery there were some readings on some of the equipment), but all in all, it was a fabulous night. I highly recommend it. Best thing about it? The fact that a Hunter Paranormal Society even exists! Win!

3. To continue the spookiness (not really), I've finally begun reading The Sandman graphic novels by Neil Gaiman:

Mikey leant me this series months and months (and months) ago, and they've just been sitting on my bookshelf gathering dust. I mean, they were sitting on my bookshelf being lovingly taken care of and in much better condition than when they first arrived. (Phew - covered that one up!) That is until Bec decided to start reading them and forced them upon me, and now I'm hooked! Sure, I'm 20-odd years too late to the table, but I run on Filo time.

4. I spent Sunday morning with the boys at the Darby St Fair.

It was actually a lovely day, considering how gross the days leading up to it were. Darby St was packed, and it was difficult to navigate through the foot traffic, but there were some lovely stalls, and what looked like some awesome food.

Anyway, I'm going to leave this post here because I have to get through these before I leave for Melbourne on the weekend:

Oh yes! I'm off to Melbourne. More on that later xx

The Happiest Reader

So today I decided to skip uni and stayed in bed. No, this wasn't a repeat of my month in bed at the end of last year. Instead, I was in bed doing something that I haven't done in a very long time. (I should end this post here and let imaginations run free.)

I was reading. No, not just reading; I was engrossed in a book. I was laughing, I was crying, I was constantly quoting bits to my friends. The book?

Yes, I know that I'm late to the table, but in my defense, where does one even buy books any more? Instead, I borrowed this from the library. Did you know there's this place that exists that lets you borrow books, then return them a few weeks later - FOR FREE!! I know, it blew my mind hole. (Which reminds me - it's due back tomorrow. To a library in Sydney. Woops!)

So this book is about Anh's family and their journey from Vietnam to Australia as refugees, and how they adapted to life here. His parents sacrificed so much so their children could have the life they never had. I guess it struck a chord with me, because I've had an oposite experience with my parents, but I can see my grandmother's steadfastness and selflessness in Anh's mother, and how hard she worked so that her children could thrive. It makes me very glad to have such a wonderful woman in my life.

The book also reinforces the importance of a good teacher. And how horrendous a bad teacher is. I cannot wait until I can finally start teaching. I think I'm growing quite impatient.

So for everyone reading this post: STOP!! Go and buy/borrow (for free!) this book and devour it, and feel your heart become a little lighter. I haven't wanted to talk about a book so much since The Book Thief. Oh, and if you haven't read that one, WHY DO YOU HATE YOURSELF?? Go and get it right now!

Project: Complete!!

So, a month or two ago I bought a new bookshelf as my old one had run out of room for new books, even with books stacked on top of each other. I was also afraid there'd be a Flat Stanley moment when I woke up with it on top of me one day, seeing as it was a cheapie and was tilting at a very precarious angle.

So off to Ikea I trotted to buy a different type of cheap bookshelf, one that I thought would be able to hold a lot more books. As it turns out, it only just fits all of my books (probably shouldn't have bought a heap of books the day I bought the shelf).

There was a slight hitch in the assembly process, as one of the pieces was damaged when I got it out of the flatpack cardboard, but the Ikea people were lovely and arranged to send me a replacement piece.

When I finally put it together, with all the books it looked like this:

Before

Books everywhere, no co-ordination. I'd been meaning to do something with it, but really couldn't be bothered.

That is, until last night.

Insomnia's a terrible thing, but every now and then, sometimes it makes me incredibly productive. I decided to finally organise my preciouses.

During

Above you can see the piles of books being sorted. So much effort. I almost wanted to give up then, but I persevered, and in a lot less time than I thought it would take, I ended up with this:

Ta-daaaaah!

Colour co-ordinated books!!

Now, I know many people would hate the idea of separating books from the one series, but I'm not too bothered by that. The bottom two right cubes of the shelf are just textbooks that I didn't want to incorporate into the colour scheme. The books are ridiculously heavy and I wanted to keep them on the lower shelf, lest this cheapie end up on a scary tilt like my last one.

Now, looking at my books like this, I realise I need to be branching out in my literary pursuits: less white and yellow, more blue and purple.

Sorry about the blurriness of the photos. I must learn how to actually use that silly camera.

But I do love the effect. I'm just worried though because the shelves are completely full, and I know there's a bunch of books I own floating about amongst my friends, and a bunch on their way from Book Depository.