Word of the week: dtà-lòk - funny
In my life: Last week was grey and dreary and rainy and I got almost nothing done. I also fell asleep on Sunday night before writing the notes. When I went to write the notes the next day, I realized that the week held nothing of note other than a false fire alarm in the apartment (I hadn't even taken a single photograph) so decided to skip last week's notes.
This week the weather has been better and as a result I've been out of the house a bit more. It was a very busy week at work - April 1st and the following days are when many of our new products/pricelists go live so we were busy making sure that none of our processes failed. We also had some calls with another team helping them with a production incident and our own essential feature is in test which has meant we needed close collaboration with two other teams to solve any niggles. All this meant I was on go-go-go mode all week and was really glad to have the Friday off to spend with family.
On Thursday my cousin and her husband came down from Brisbane to attend the Andrea Boccelli concert. It's been a few months since I've seen her - November in India for the wedding - and I was looking forward to just enjoying some down time with them. After some confusion about how best to get there, we made it to the concert just in time and honestly it was amazing. Andrea and all his guests were simply incredible in their performances, and I have simply no words to describe his ending performance of Nessun Dorma. After the show I asked Sathya if he'd accompany me to the opera now and surprisingly, he said yes, so now I need to find something that I think he might enjoy watching.
Some of my cousin's friends had come down to watch the show from Brisbane so after the concert we went to Surry Hills, went to a pub and grabbed a drink while chatting a bit. It was good to catch up with Pree - someone who I've known since childhood.
We had a lazy Friday morning at home. Ke, my BIL, is a musician, and we'd shared some of our guitar class videos with him. We spent a bit of the morning talking about guitar, he explained some basic chords progression and then helped me with the tutorial for Redo that I've been practicing on my own. He's a great teacher and it was a lot of fun just playing simple music with him.
Afterwards, we went to Saravanaa Bhavan for lunch as we all wanted some Indian food, after which my cousin and I went to a nearby op-shop to browse for a bit. She found a skirt and dress she liked for herself and found a nice wool coat for me. With all the focus on health and the accompanying weight loss a lot of my clothes are now loose on me, so this was a good find which fit me well.
Then they left for the evening with plans to visit a few pubs and crash at a hotel in the CBD. We decided to skip that as I had a planned early start with a PT session, and we also had guitar class after that. Unfortunately, PT was cancelled as my trainer wasn't feeling well so I decided to ask Sathya to accompany me on a morning walk to Crow's Nest instead. We grabbed some coffee on the way back (not great, Sathya's is better) before we came home, changed and went to guitar class. I was a bit nervous as it was just two of us for this session, but it went okay. Luis, our teacher also explained why he had decided to leave Australia for a while. Next week will be our last session and I'm sad that we won't have Saturday guitar classes to look forward to. Saturdays just won't be the same without it.
It was market weekend, so we grabbed some necessities - meat, fruits and flowers are always very nice at the market - and then dropped off our stuff before heading to one of our local cafes for brunch. I had a Kale & Falafel salad which was delicious and some peppermint tea. Sathya went home to play Path of Exile, and I popped into the Lifeline Art Show at the council hall. Lifeline does good work related to crisis support and suicide prevention in Australia, and the money being raised is going to a new North Sydney center so I wanted to do what little I could to show my support.
By then my cousin messaged me that she was back in North Sydney and at the Rag & Famish for beers, so I went there to spend some more time with her. We grabbed some Malay food for everyone from Popo Gourmet and came back home and caught a documentary that Pree recommended and before I knew it, it was time for my cousin and Ke to leave. The visit felt too short, so I hope I get to visit her and her new place soon.
Sunday marked the end of daylight savings, and we got an extra hour of sleep in the morning. We spent yet another lazy Sunday morning at home, caught up on our shows and then went to the Rag & Famish for lunch. Since we moved here, I've wanted to try the Sunday roasts at one of the pubs, so I got that while Sathya got the Chicken Parmi. I tried a bit of both meals, and the chips dipped in gravy tasted so good that I polished it all off.
Came home and took a nap and then watched the Japanese Grand Prix for a bit. I checked my phone after that and saw that my request to join the afternoon CBD photo walk had actually been approved in the morning, but I'd missed the notification and hence the walk. I was feeling pretty bummed, so I took my camera gear and took the bus to Kirribilli Lookout and spent some time there catching the sunset. Luna Park was also lit up after dark so got some nice pictures there.
I took some videos and timelapses - I had spent some time last week trying to learn how to color grade/color correct videos and felt this would be a good opportunity to get some more videos for that. I've posted some here that I took from my phone but will likely post the ones from the camera next week after processing it. I realized last week that after starting the weekly notes I've only been posting pictures here and not updating my photo blog/Instagram with the same so will need to go fix that. That's about all the life stuff for this week, I think.
On my screens:
- That Sugar Film (2014, Documentary, Netflix): Watched this as a recommendation from Pree. I was surprised at how much sugar there is in so called healthy foods, and it reinforced our decision to cut out sugar from our diets as much as possible.
- Wheel of Time (S3, Prime, Ongoing): After one very exciting episode on the trials of Rhuidean, it has slowed down again. It continues to be good though and the last scene where Rand tries to breathe life back into Alsera was both terrifying and heartbreaking to watch.
- My Golden Blood (Thai, Queer, Supernatural, Ongoing): I wish this show was a bit better and didn't have those cliche university scenes in it, but I'll take it if it means Gawin continues to grace my screens.
On my bookshelf: Read a bunch of fanfiction stories, but nothing truly recommendation worthy. Updates on my favorite spy fanfic have also slowed a lot, now that the author is busy with work again.
On my playlist: Saw this song used in an Instagram post by an actor I follow, and it's been stuck in my head ever since.
Love looks pretty on you
Look pretty on me
If heavens for lovers
That’s where will be
On my camera:
St. Leonard's Centre now called Oxley Business Centre is a 1972 building in the Brutalist style. The building was initially built for CBC Bank, as the central computing hub for the Bank’s Sydney branches and housed a Honeywell 6000, one of the most advanced computer systems in Australia at the time. More documents from the opening of the building here.
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