cairns, alice springs, melbourne and sydney next

Time's almost up: we're leaving tomorrow, how sad and yet exciting. Tomorrow at 6.30 pm we'll be on our way to Cairns. We're travelling with the tilt-train. Which is supposed to be really fast, yet the 1600 km take 24 hours to travel (67 km/h). We plan to go snorkling (I love) of course and horseback-riding (I hope). As we couldn't decide where not to go, we decided to go everywhere. From Cairns we fly to Alice Springs - the compulsory day-trip to Uluru. And from Alice Springs we fly to Melboure - three days of shopping (christmas-gifts mostly...), and then finally the train from Melbourne to Sydney where we'll spend our last two days in Australia.

I've kind of finished a first-draft of an article where I analyse user-perceptions of creative practices. Now I'm confused and a little bewildered. I must be excited because I can't seem to concentrate on my work.

personally mediated expressions seen from three angles

Yesterday I was fortunate to get a chance to present some of my work for people at QUT (thanks Axel for organizing the seminar). I'm beginning to realise that my overall project can be seen as an effort to understand individual mediated practices from three angles: as expressions of subjectivity, as a way of being social, and as creative acts. These aspects are clearly strongly interconnected, and yesterday I tried to focus on these interconnections.

Thanks to people for showing up and for asking me really interesting questions!

Lasse and I only have 9 days left in Brisbane, but we're definitely going to Jean's final seminar (12-2 on the 8th of Dec) and Jaz' confirmation seminar (2.30-4.30 on the 8th of Dec) before we leave. I'm really looking forward to both!

Noosa weekend

Noosa was wonderful, and I now kind of know how to surf (more in theory than practice). Noosa is pretty much a tourist's paradise. Sunscreen 30+ recommended (add hat and shades of course).

fast and furious

I didn't notice, working at my desk in the graduate student bunker, but there was a rather furious storm in Brisbane yesterday. A tree fell into our empty pool, we lost our power and it wasn't back until 10 pm, but worse - roofs flew of a couple of buildings in Red Hill. On my way to work I noticed my favourite church being one of those buildings. I love it's pale blue colour, and I like the weekly messages on the board outisde. This week it's "Welcome to the perfect church for those of us who aren't". And if I remember the previous ones correctly:
"Don't just stand there, prey something"
"There is no such thing as an ugly smile" (kind of cliché, right?)
"Live simply so that others may simply live" (my favourite of course)

work and play

After a pretty good week of some translation, some reviewing and most importantly progressing on my own PhD-article, I'm off to Noosa this morning for an extended weekend of play! Nina arrived on Tuesday morning, and Lasse has been her wonderful Brisbane-guide for the last three days while I've been working. Now we're definitely looking forward to beach and surf-classes!