Monthly Archives: January 2011

Feeling organised…

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This morning I’ve been busy organising. I’ve planned out a rather large project across 2011, breaking it down into smaller sections, which will be much easier to manage — and will hopefully mean I actually get started on them.

I think having those eyes peering at me over the computer monitor is a good thing… I feel like I’m being supervised. (Supervised by myself incidentally — the picture is a portrait a friend of mine drew for me many years ago in high school. I keep it there to remind myself of me at that age, and all the possibilities that lay ahead of me then.)

On the weekend I cleaned up my desk, organised all my files and stored stuff away under my bed. I have to move house soon, so I’m trying to get rid of anything that I don’t really need, to avoid simply moving it to another location where it will get under my feet.

I think 2011 might be the year of being organised. Last year certainly wasn’t! I’m hoping I can strike a balance between last year’s extreme go-with-the-flow attitude and the more rigidly organised person (otherwise known as a control freak) I’ve been in past years. Fingers crossed.

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Today is my brother’s 22nd birthday. Happy birthday Tomarse!

A Strange Picture

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This, believe it or not, is a picture of me. I’ve got cat ears on, but I’ve no idea how I managed to get my face looking so animal-like as well.

Occasionally I go back through all the photos on my phone, camera and computer, and I usually manage to find at least one strange one. Especially if I’ve spent time with my brothers — the younger of the two likes to borrow a camera and take macro shots of… well, anything really. I have to take credit for this one though.

I seem to have gone through a stage of looking back over old art journals, photos and writing journals lately. It’s sort of a strange concept, looking back through yourself for inspiration. And it’s funny just how much of your own brain-stuff you forget. Memory is an intriguing thing.

Two spaces after a period: Why you should never, ever do it. – By Farhad Manjoo – Slate Magazine

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Two spaces after a period: Why you should never, ever do it. – By Farhad Manjoo – Slate Magazine.

Interesting… I’ve never been one to put two spaces after a full stop, but I know people who do. It’s always seemed like a generational thing to me, and I guess, given the typewriter origins of the double-space, that makes sense.

I know quite a a few people who have old school typewriters they use occasionally, but I’ve never noticed if they use a single or double space. I’ll have to take note next time I get something from a typewriter.

 


Yoga and Resolutions | om gam yoga

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Sydney yoga is interesting in January: classes are busier; summer deals at various yoga schools allow students to try out classes they might not otherwise or attend more classes than they usually would; yoga rooms are steamy with the sticky Sydney summer weather and extra bodies. There’s a sense of expectation in many Sydney yoga classes – and no doubt in other classes that involve moving your body around.

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To read the rest of this post, pop over to my yoga blog here: Yoga and Resolutions | om gam yoga | Sydney yoga, Yoga Sydney, Yoga class Sydney.

The Monday Project returns

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As you may or may not remember, over the last couple of years I’ve been involved in running The Monday Project. My lovely friend, Kate, and I would set a theme for a project on the first Monday of every month, with responses to that theme due the first Monday of the following month. The aim of the game was to provide a little bit of inspiration to get something started, and a deadline for a little bit of a kick up the bum (because we agreed that we certainly needed both those things).

Things went a bit awry sometime last year, and Kate and I sadly lost the motivation to continue setting the themes each month. I guess we both got caught up in other things we were doing and never got back to it…

But! With some nagging gentle encouragement from another good friend, Mr Sketchy, we’re set to make a return in February. Mr Sketchy will be helping us out, and we’ve moved to new digs here on wordpress.

We’ve had some serious fun responding to these themes, and met some wonderful people through the projects. I’m sure it will continue in much the same manner! So if you’ve got any desire to do something creative, even if it’s just a tiny one, I’d encourage you to keep your eye on this space. We’ll also be sending out an email at the re-launch, and with each subsequent project. Send us an email here if you’d like to be notified that way.

I’m so excited to be restarting this! Hope to see a few new names pop up (and some old favourites too!).

Planning

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I’ve spent most of today planning out teaching schedules for the year. It’s been a little frustrating, but now that it’s done my life will be so much easier.

When I finished the overall plan, I realised that I should probably do the same with my various writing and yoga teaching projects — the bigger ones in particular. So tomorrow that’s probably what I’ll do.

Just now I’ve looked up yearly planners, and come across this one, which I really want. Because I work on so many different things at once, it’ll be good to be able use the whiteboard to plan one project, then put that plan in the documents I’ve made up elsewhere, wipe the whiteboard clean and start on the next project. Then when I’m done with everything I can put all the major projects up there together in brief. Woo.

Yeah. I’m a nerd.

Manly Wharf

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As I sat in Hugo’s, having a beer with my parents, these kids jumped off the wharf, swam to shore and came back to jump off again and again. Their jumping was accompanied by lots of shrieking and laughing. The weather in Sydney has been so fickle of late, and that afternoon, with a cold beer in hand, looking at these kids getting in and out of the water, it really felt like summer. What a great way to spend a Saturday afternoon.

Looking at this picture again, I was reminded of some others I’d taken while I was waiting for someone at St Kilda beach on my last visit to Melbourne. There’s just something about a large body of water that’s so awe-inspiring.

It seems appropriate, in a post about water, to mention the disasterous flooding that many communities in Queensland are experiencing right now. I’m sure it doesn’t seem like summer to them. There are lots of different avenues for putting a donation towards rescue, sheltering those who’ve evacuated, and rebuilding when the water subsides. But this is a good place to start.

Holiday Yoga | om gam yoga

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I’ve been meaning to cross-post this for a few days now. I’ve started to write a little more regularly about yoga on my yoga website’s blog. This is my most recent post.
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In the last few days before Christmas, while I was still at home in Sydney, yoga had started to disappear much further down the To Do List than it might normally be. (Of course, with all the last minute organising, yoga is probably exactly what I needed to keep my mind reasonably sane.) While I stood over pots of onion and chilli jam, despaired at failed shortbread (something I’ve never managed to fail at before!), and rushed out to the shops for panicked additions to presents, I realised that my usual yoga practice just wasn’t going to happen – at the yoga studio or at home. I needed to start thinking about what kind of practice I might be able to foster while I was rushing around all over the place.

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Continue reading here:

Holiday Yoga | om gam yoga | Sydney yoga, Yoga Sydney, Yoga class Sydney.

New Year’s Resolutions

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Like many people, I’m not a huge fan of New Year’s Eve. I don’t like the pressure to do something really fun and amazing, but nevertheless feel I should be doing something. This year, I spent the night in Canberra at a BBQ with some of my wonderful friends. It was low-key, which I’m beginning to realise is exactly how I like most things in my life to be. And because there was no pressure, I really did have fun.

For the first time in a long time (maybe ever) I actually had several options for New Year’s celebrations. Maybe as a result of agonising over which I would choose, I thought a lot about what the celebration at this time of year really is for me. I don’t think I’ve ever really thought about why we celebrate the beginning of a new year quite as much as we do. But when I eventually came up with an answer, it helped me feel comfortable about the things I was saying no to.

New Year, for me, is simple really: it’s a chance to reflect on what has been and to look forward to what might be.

All of the events I was invited to would have allowed me to do that, but some of them would have come with the added pressure of getting somewhere and spending money that I just don’t have. So I chose the simplest of the otherwise equally appealing options.

My Mum said to me the other day, as I thumbed through the year 12 art diary we’d just found in a box in the garage, that I’ve always been a dreamer. I guess she’s right. I dream, I plan. I’m pro-active about lots of things — I’m no stranger to jumping into the deep end, hoping it will all work out — but there are so many more things I’ve dreamt up that never make it into reality.

In 2010, some of those dreamer-plans actually started to happen. And it was great.

And hard.

And great.

Looking through my old art diary, I felt an affinity with my seventeen-year-old self that I’ve not felt in a long time. She was in equal parts excited and confused by all the possibilities that were coming her way (and she wrote terrible poetry). I feel like that now.

That afternoon I sat down to write out some resolutions, something I’m not sure I’ve done before. None of them are particularly wacky or difficult to achieve. But it is a list I think I’ll need to come back to more than once throughout the year, because much of what’s on there is stuff that slips through the cracks: keeping in touch with friends (which I’m terrible at), writing regularly, getting to the arts events I want to.

I know I’m not going to do everything on this list. It’s not unusual for me to expect far too much of myself. But if I can do just half, this time next year I’ll be very pleased with myself.

Happy New Year!

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PS. Upon re-reading this post, I’m conscious of several claims about my character that seem contradictory. This is something that’s been pointed out to me by a friend once before. My theory is that most of us are walking contradictions. Unless it’s just me.