*dusts things vaguely and looks sheepish*
Jul. 19th, 2010 02:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bliumchikI did that thing again. The thing where I don't post for ridiculous lengths of time because a post about some big event is just a-sittin' there in my draft box, steadily receding into the past. I know, we're all shocked.
So I really did spend most of that month procrastinating. I didn't even get much further in Portal, because I was hit by that curious mental tic whereby doing anything substantial is Admitting I Am Not Doing Work. Unlike, say... compulsively refreshing twitter and playing solitaire.
Yup.
But I finally handed everything in, not too late if you don't count extensions, and only slightly under all the given word-counts. Probably a lot of it was a bit shit, but oh well. I got at least one decent poem out of the Culture & Poetics final, a decent novel opening that I can hammer into better shape later (and the realisation that HOLY SHIT YOU GUYS NOVELS ARE LONG), and I had fun writing about tiny communists for Utopias. The stress was probably good for me! Or something.
My final extension ran out oh... a couple of hours before my volunteering gig at Supanova began. So that was good timing! I even managed to get my hair properly bleached for the first time on the way (which: holy burning sensation, Batman!) and which was handy for my Corinthian costume, seen here albeit not in sufficient detail to see the awesomeness of the facepaint on my eyelids. It was generally agreed to be a great outfit! Also, the sunglasses made me feel extremely badass standing next to queues with my arms folded and telling people when they can go forward and when they are in danger of turning into a snarling mob. That was handy because on Saturday morning I got commandeered for that particular duty at the Supanova Store just after doing my make-up but before getting a) my badge and official shift-times and b) breakfast. This is because a shitload more people showed up than expected and allllll of them wanted Lou Ferrigno autographs. Well, no, all the scruffy middle-aged men wanted Lou Ferrigno autographs, everybody else wanted Eliza Dushku autographs. We were so swamped that the coordinators couldn't find anyone to relieve me for another ~three hours (by which time McDonalds were no longer serving breakfast). I felt very put-out about this until I discovered that Jenn, Mish and Nat were about three times as swamped at the photobooth, because everyone and their mum wanted a photo with Eliza or Summer Glau.
Sydney Supanova is held in a big dome thing out in Olympic Park. I camped out at Al's place because a) he actually lives on a train line which significantly reduced my travel time and b) the man is some sort of crazy morning person and was pretty much certain to ensure I was going to be awake by seven. (The whole relationship thing is going well, by the way!) Somehow I still managed to be late on Saturday morning though (hence the lack of breakfast). That is because trains and me? We are not friends. We are not even frenemies, we are more like a rickety wooden bridge over a canyon, and a semi-trailer. I should probably put the rest of this story behind a cut, huh? Ahhh, the return of my epically long posts :D
So yeah, trains. I never had to catch one by myself or with any regularity until age 15 or so - they are a strange and unfamiliar beast! The train journey to Olympic Park, where Supanova was held, involves changing at Lidcome, so when I saw on the arrivals board that a train for Lidcome was due to depart NOW NOW NOW RUN YOU FOOL I assumed it was mine and naturally legged it for the only train actually standing at a platform without checking into it further. The doors were already closing, but luckily! A dude had held one of them open and I fell into the carriage just as the train started up.
Who was this mysterious and helpful stranger? ...a slightly bedraggled older guy with a mildly skeezy aura, who proceeded to engage me in conversation about my destination, which he misunderstood as a science convention, and then randomly pulled out a stack of fifties and started counting them.
"Um... why do you have all that cash?" says I, perhaps unwisely.
"Oh, you know, just in case a pretty lady decides to run off with me," says he.
"Ri-ight," says I.
"Oh shit!" says he. "We just passed Erskineville! That's in the wrong direction! This train isn't going to Lidcome at all!"
"Uh, I think it is," says I. "Because look, here's this line on the map, and it splits off over here, and some of the trains go to Lidcome and some of them go to Liverpool. So... probably this is the right train."
"No, no, we have to go back and get another one!" he proclaims, and dashes out the doors at the next station."
I politely decline to accompany him, but now he's made me paranoid. I spend the next few stops dashing on and off the train in search of one of those computerised displays that tells you where the train at this platform is stopping. Eventually I reassure myself that it is, in fact, going to Lidcome, but discover in the process that it is also going to, uh, EVERY SINGLE PLACE BETWEEN LIDCOME AND HERE. Oops.
The carriage I ended up in contained a scraggly woman in ug boots curled up on a seat and somehow sleeping through her watch's alarm periodically informing her of the time. The train did not move. I learned from a random passerby that a man had wandered onto the tracks and we were waiting for security to escort him off them. The train did not move. The scraggly woman's watch said "It is now seven, fifty two, am. It is now seven, fifty two, am." I banged my head lightly against the wall.
The next day I caught a goddamn express and ate a goddamn bacon and egg macmuffin.
Anyway, I had a fun hectic weekend, got to feel competent and a bit smug, see many excellent cosplays and hang out with many excellent nerds. Mish came as Doctor Horrible and Nat was spectacular as Old Gregg from the Mighty Boosh, which at the time I had seen none of, but it was a hilarious costume regardless. My post at the Store queue was right next to the cosplay contest arena, so I got to watch Batman hanging out with Disney Princesses as they waited to go on. At one point he paused his conversation with Snow White to chat with a tiny tiny Hit Girl who wanted a hug and it just about made my day. Hit Girl was with, I think, a large family group of which the dad was Two Face, the gangly teenage boy was Nightwing and the slightly younger girl was Robin. Awwwwwwwww. Also I bought some things, like a FUUUU badge and a comic about zombies in ancient rome (it is called Rombies. NO REALLY) andsharpest_rose's book!
At the end of the weekend we went to Ashfield and ate delicious chinese dumplings with a random volunteer we adopted. Then I returned to Alex, who was feeling slightly neglected what with my sleeping in his bed and failing to spend any time with him all weekend. Then I went home and dyed my hair blue! Then I spent a month or two biting my nails and failing to accomplish anything useful and not blogging. I did tweet and tumbl a lot? And go out quite a bit? Sorry?
More posts to come, I think, with disorderly stories and photos and junk. Hallooooooo!
So I really did spend most of that month procrastinating. I didn't even get much further in Portal, because I was hit by that curious mental tic whereby doing anything substantial is Admitting I Am Not Doing Work. Unlike, say... compulsively refreshing twitter and playing solitaire.
Yup.
But I finally handed everything in, not too late if you don't count extensions, and only slightly under all the given word-counts. Probably a lot of it was a bit shit, but oh well. I got at least one decent poem out of the Culture & Poetics final, a decent novel opening that I can hammer into better shape later (and the realisation that HOLY SHIT YOU GUYS NOVELS ARE LONG), and I had fun writing about tiny communists for Utopias. The stress was probably good for me! Or something.
My final extension ran out oh... a couple of hours before my volunteering gig at Supanova began. So that was good timing! I even managed to get my hair properly bleached for the first time on the way (which: holy burning sensation, Batman!) and which was handy for my Corinthian costume, seen here albeit not in sufficient detail to see the awesomeness of the facepaint on my eyelids. It was generally agreed to be a great outfit! Also, the sunglasses made me feel extremely badass standing next to queues with my arms folded and telling people when they can go forward and when they are in danger of turning into a snarling mob. That was handy because on Saturday morning I got commandeered for that particular duty at the Supanova Store just after doing my make-up but before getting a) my badge and official shift-times and b) breakfast. This is because a shitload more people showed up than expected and allllll of them wanted Lou Ferrigno autographs. Well, no, all the scruffy middle-aged men wanted Lou Ferrigno autographs, everybody else wanted Eliza Dushku autographs. We were so swamped that the coordinators couldn't find anyone to relieve me for another ~three hours (by which time McDonalds were no longer serving breakfast). I felt very put-out about this until I discovered that Jenn, Mish and Nat were about three times as swamped at the photobooth, because everyone and their mum wanted a photo with Eliza or Summer Glau.
Sydney Supanova is held in a big dome thing out in Olympic Park. I camped out at Al's place because a) he actually lives on a train line which significantly reduced my travel time and b) the man is some sort of crazy morning person and was pretty much certain to ensure I was going to be awake by seven. (The whole relationship thing is going well, by the way!) Somehow I still managed to be late on Saturday morning though (hence the lack of breakfast). That is because trains and me? We are not friends. We are not even frenemies, we are more like a rickety wooden bridge over a canyon, and a semi-trailer. I should probably put the rest of this story behind a cut, huh? Ahhh, the return of my epically long posts :D
So yeah, trains. I never had to catch one by myself or with any regularity until age 15 or so - they are a strange and unfamiliar beast! The train journey to Olympic Park, where Supanova was held, involves changing at Lidcome, so when I saw on the arrivals board that a train for Lidcome was due to depart NOW NOW NOW RUN YOU FOOL I assumed it was mine and naturally legged it for the only train actually standing at a platform without checking into it further. The doors were already closing, but luckily! A dude had held one of them open and I fell into the carriage just as the train started up.
Who was this mysterious and helpful stranger? ...a slightly bedraggled older guy with a mildly skeezy aura, who proceeded to engage me in conversation about my destination, which he misunderstood as a science convention, and then randomly pulled out a stack of fifties and started counting them.
"Um... why do you have all that cash?" says I, perhaps unwisely.
"Oh, you know, just in case a pretty lady decides to run off with me," says he.
"Ri-ight," says I.
"Oh shit!" says he. "We just passed Erskineville! That's in the wrong direction! This train isn't going to Lidcome at all!"
"Uh, I think it is," says I. "Because look, here's this line on the map, and it splits off over here, and some of the trains go to Lidcome and some of them go to Liverpool. So... probably this is the right train."
"No, no, we have to go back and get another one!" he proclaims, and dashes out the doors at the next station."
I politely decline to accompany him, but now he's made me paranoid. I spend the next few stops dashing on and off the train in search of one of those computerised displays that tells you where the train at this platform is stopping. Eventually I reassure myself that it is, in fact, going to Lidcome, but discover in the process that it is also going to, uh, EVERY SINGLE PLACE BETWEEN LIDCOME AND HERE. Oops.
The carriage I ended up in contained a scraggly woman in ug boots curled up on a seat and somehow sleeping through her watch's alarm periodically informing her of the time. The train did not move. I learned from a random passerby that a man had wandered onto the tracks and we were waiting for security to escort him off them. The train did not move. The scraggly woman's watch said "It is now seven, fifty two, am. It is now seven, fifty two, am." I banged my head lightly against the wall.
The next day I caught a goddamn express and ate a goddamn bacon and egg macmuffin.
Anyway, I had a fun hectic weekend, got to feel competent and a bit smug, see many excellent cosplays and hang out with many excellent nerds. Mish came as Doctor Horrible and Nat was spectacular as Old Gregg from the Mighty Boosh, which at the time I had seen none of, but it was a hilarious costume regardless. My post at the Store queue was right next to the cosplay contest arena, so I got to watch Batman hanging out with Disney Princesses as they waited to go on. At one point he paused his conversation with Snow White to chat with a tiny tiny Hit Girl who wanted a hug and it just about made my day. Hit Girl was with, I think, a large family group of which the dad was Two Face, the gangly teenage boy was Nightwing and the slightly younger girl was Robin. Awwwwwwwww. Also I bought some things, like a FUUUU badge and a comic about zombies in ancient rome (it is called Rombies. NO REALLY) and
sharpest_rose's book!At the end of the weekend we went to Ashfield and ate delicious chinese dumplings with a random volunteer we adopted. Then I returned to Alex, who was feeling slightly neglected what with my sleeping in his bed and failing to spend any time with him all weekend. Then I went home and dyed my hair blue! Then I spent a month or two biting my nails and failing to accomplish anything useful and not blogging. I did tweet and tumbl a lot? And go out quite a bit? Sorry?
More posts to come, I think, with disorderly stories and photos and junk. Hallooooooo!
