Yeah, fuck recapping my months in great detail.
February – passed by much as January had. At its end, I led a dwindling group of first year university students around the glorious Parkville campus of my dear unimelb. I joined ACMI cinematheque for the year, then discovered my uni timetable would in no way engender my attendance. I tag along to a two-day editors’ workshop at the Wheeler Centre and start getting to know the Farrago crew, who I will be subediting for over the course of the year. They have let me say many things
March – I commenced Writing Journalism, Sex and the Screen and Hollywood and Entertainment. In each instance, both my lecturers (Carolyne Lee, Dion Kagan and Angela Ndalianis) and tutors (Jen Cook, Jasmine McGowan and Louise Sheedy) were fucking amazing. The whole inspiration to work thing was quite new, and would cause its fair share of stress over the semester. But really, when you’re writing essays on Singin’ in the Rain, Shaft, Hedwig and the Angry Inch or Community… who gives a fuck! I also saw Belle and Sebastian, Joanna Newsom and Darren Hanlon, and got very ill indeed.
April – The comedy festival. It technically started in March, but when I think back to April, it is all I think of. I saw three dozen shows. Due to uni being so cray-cray, I hadn’t seen as much of my friends as I find preferable, so delightfully they acquiesed joining me for a show as my birthday gift. The birthday, as ever, was much more joyful for me than the rest of the nation. See, on April 25 we’re supposed to be remembering our dead soldiers. Mostly I remember to eat all of the things. Shameless Self Promotion started, which was pretty freaking rad.
May – What the fuck happened in May? A lot of study and wearing leather pants to drinking games. It’s practical, really, as I always spill my drink and it helps to be able to just wipe it off. Eurovision was my favourite of all things. I assigned countries. I was Moldova.
June – with my final essays submitted, I ventured back to Armidale for a spell. A small town with nothing more to celebrate in the course of a year than the coming of Autumn, because the trees go very pretty colours. Come winter, Armidale has all the warmth of hell’s 9th circle, and no one is afraid to greet you with a chesty cough. After the ash cloud delays our return, mum visits and we see the Merry Widow. I enjoy ballet, so many taut figures in tights.
July – A speedy decision to move from The Fortress, my Windsor abode for a year and a half, meant I spent a week property searching, filling out applications and making myself very presentable indeed for inspections. I ended up getting two places, and felt like the flirtiest girl at the property party. My budget is shot to shit with moving expenses and on the day of the move itself… they don’t show up. All the more awkward because I had moved a hefty lot of my possessions down two flights of stairs to save time. They thought the move was the next day. They were wrong. We end up driving across the city in peak hour traffic and by the time we arrive, my dinner consists of half a jar of peanut butter, because the 7/11 is a five minute walk away and therefore much roo far. The next day I go to Ballarat for a dear friend’s 21st, and it is confirmed that my entire system actually shuts down in the cold. ALSO THERE IS PULP.
August – I join a gym to avoid looking like the eye-carrying monster from Pan’s Labyrinth. My mother moves a lot closer. Adieu, independence, I hardly knew thee. I don’t know, my mother and I get on quite well most of the time and it’s easier to justify buying a bunch of coriander. Uni starts back and my subject luck is not repeated, and a 9:00am Friday lecture ensures my reliance on caffeine will begin to kick back in.
September – Moar illness, boo. Also a shockingly bad time when nothing I attempt to organise socially invites any attendees. Well, they were invited, but they did not attend. Also boo. The month ends on a high as I celebrate the 21sts of Lyndal and Asiel.
October – Another. Fucking. Cold. More essays, some self-defence and some attempts at productivity. The radio show recommences, I apply for jobs and am successful, and Lip publishes my reaction to a really fuckawful piece on Fox News. Start being honest about my ambitions and consequently do some stand-up for a marvelous friend’s fundraiser. It must be said, it took me a full five minutes to remember what happened in October. Socially? Fairly dire.
November – Submit essays, bid adieu to my wifey Captain Jacq (the ‘Q’ is for Queer), and play a long game of ‘Treat Yo-self’. Attend Harvest Festival, where I care much less about booze lines than anyone else in the world. Apply successfully to do a column on lip, huzzah. In Bechdel Taser I attempt to make funny about the way women are treated in films. It’s great, it gives me a reason to have my phone out in the cinema (I use it as my torch. And never fear, I sit up the back). I realise my food tour of Melbourne is sponsored by anxiety. Whoops!
December – A Christmas party here, an endless stream of meals out there, a lot of cinema, some deli-meat slicing, plenty of radio and an increasing amount of coffee.
Result – I have much more reason to budget than I did at this time last year; my weight is up but my cup-size is not (seriously, the number on the scale would not bother me if I had the ‘C’ I was in possession of last time around); my caffeine addiction is slowly returning.
2011 has been a year of objective achievements. Writing published and awarded; accomodation and employment sought and gained without much fuss; marks in the upper bracket; delightful and talented people interviewed for audio prosperity… but jeepers, could have done with more friend-time.
ducksandsunshine 