I can tell which staff member or post doc is coming down the corridor without looking up from my desk simply by the way it sounds when the walk.
Martin and Natalia are always fast, short strides (neither are the tallest of people). Martin's is purposeful, always in a hurry, somewhere to be, research grants to look for, ambassadors to schmooze - he seems to lead with his head (hard to explain, but it fits), his body following obediently behind.
Natalia's stride is petite but confident, shoulders at once square, back straight... and yet a simultaneous apologetic shuffle. Faux innocence, perhaps? (She's not fooling anyone.) Often muffled by a long winter coat with the current weather, her entrance is many times followed by a quiet "bon apetit" as she walks in and finds me devouring whatever Cafe 101 has offered up that day (again).
Malakai, a big Tongan researcher, wanders in slowly. Not ponderous, his gait is definitely lost in a world of it's own much of the time. A world that revolves around a (self-described) "Pacific Five Minutes", but which still allows a friendly smile and a hello as he passes.
Milenko, a gruff Serbian recently reborn a Kiwi, seems to always be late or hassled or in a hurry or something. Even when he's walking slow his comb-over seems to flap in the rushing air. He likes his coffee strong, is quick to laugh or anger, and lodly declares that if anything's going to be the EU's downfall, it'll be the endless, bottomless, mountainous bureaucracy. Which I think everyone agrees is fair comment.
Matthew, the new kid on the block, with a freshly minted PhD on New Zealand Political Party Manifestos from about 1432 till the present day, slopes along the corridor, neither fast or slow. He's the kind of guy who seems to be led by his feet - they reach out too far and his body has to bob up and down in a dramatic fashion to accomodate their eagerness to make it to the office, where he spends his days sifting through the EU-NZ trade figures from about 1432 till the present day.
I need to get out more.
First off, thanks for all the comments and suggestions (and amusing arguments back and forth) about my camera dilemma. In the end I offered the owner half ($400) and he said he'd pretty much come to the same conclusion and was happy with that. So. Yay.
Of course, he's still down a camera, and we're both $400 out of pocket, but it could be worse.
As an interesting aside, that post produced fully 18% of all comments ever recevied on this blog. Crazy. And I'll probably come back to this forum when next I need advice, as it was actually pretty darn useful - I highly recommend it.
In other news, Shaun of the Dead is a very funny movie. Apparently it's even funnier if you've seen the original Dawn of the Dead movies, but even without that in-joke advantage, there were enough moments of pure comic genius it a damn good movie. I think it's on again this Saturday...
Right. Off down pub.
Right, people.
So, I'm standing around at the end of a show, the Assistant Director comes over and gives me his brand spanking new digital camera to take photos with cos he has to run to Scriptless. I dutifully take said photos, then put camera down (tucked away, like) on the Stage Manager's table. When I come back, camera is gone. Bugger.
So, what do I do? Doing nothing is not an option, (a) due to my personal sense of honour (cough), and (b) cos the guy is an ace at any number of Martial Arts (including Capoera (sp) for all us Eddie fans out there).
Oh, and the camera wasn't insured. And we're talking about an $800 camera.
The best option I've come up with is to offer to pay some money towards a new camera (say half, or perhaps a little more) as I feel it's largely my responsibility (I did put it down), but not entirely my responsibility (it was stolen, after all).
What say the masses?
...it's been so long between blogs that the old one has disappeared off the screen. Oh well. And it's not like I didn't have anything to blog about either, I'm just very, very crap at updating.
So, what has happened lately?
The show was actually rather good in the end. The two reviews I read (The Press and Canta) were both glowing, and Si, Mog and Raewyn appeared to enjoy it (although they may have just been holding off from the slagging until out of earshot of myself and the writer/director, who was standing behind us). Also, the general consensus of the cast (and possibly crew) was that it was one of the best shows anyone had been invovled with. So yay for Corey - the mere fact he managed to (a) write a musical, (b) convince someone to run with it, and (c) turn an original, university musical into a profitable enterprise, is highly impressive. A good time was had by all, and continues to be had, with Tween parties still happening and 'Project R' safely tucked alongside many a cast and crew stereo.
"'Project R'?" you ask? Well, as Ben will testify, there is now living proof that when I say I'll produce a CD with some music on it and distribute said CD to a group of people, it can happen. That's not to say it will happen, at least not until Christmas, but, you know, it could...
Not only was the show good, I've been asked back to Stage Manage the next Threesome, and perhaps a show after that. Nice to feel wanted and all!
Other areas of life are also going well. At work, the preliminary budget is finally out of the way and the impending conference is now only a month away (gulp). And I've just been in to have the "Oh yeah, by the way, I might be quitting in a month or so" conversation with my boss. Which went surprisingly well, and included offers of a great reference and perhaps the option to match the new pay rate if the job I'm about to apply for falls through. Swee, says I. The new job description actually sounds rather scary, reading through it, even though I've had a big conversation with Joanna as to what it would really involve and it really does sound like something I could do well. Especially in regards to the Environmental Requirements listed: "Must be capable of working at a desk and in a library." Sounds good to me...
In other news:
Doom 3 is cool, and doesn't require pixel shading. Woot! Which means I'm guessing Ben is about to move into our spare room in t-minus 2 days...
Guitar and music stuff and things are possibly about to become even cooler - watch this space...
Musoc may or may not have worked its dramasoc kinda magic...
It's less than a month until I vacate this place know as Vertigo, and make my move to Holly Road. Which means you all have less than a month's worth of Adam and Heidi lovin' before they disappear into deepest, darkest Africa for ten whole weeks. Ooo.
There's more, but I can never think of any of it when I sit down in front of a computer screen. Which is just one of the reasons why I blog so infrequently. That and slackness.
Move along, nothing to read here.