todayiamadaisy (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
todayiamadaisy) wrote2016-08-28 05:18 pm
todayiamadaisy) wrote2016-08-28 05:18 pm
Entry tags:
To Heaven with Love
The job ads for my replacements are now live. That's ads and replacements plural. My 0.8 FTE position is being replaced with two positions totalling 1.6 FTE. Which... on the one hand, it is nice to feel so special that it takes two people to replace me. On the other hand, maybe, just perhaps, just maybe, that might be the problem in the first place.
On Thursday, I went to my penultimate board meeting. One of the board members, Doctor F, caught me before the meeting, very excited. "What's the goss? Have you been head-hunted? Or is it a WEDDING?" I think he might be That Relative at his family's Christmas dinner. He was slightly deflated when I said, "No, it's just time for a change." Only slightly deflated, though. In the next breath he told me about the conference he's going to in Barcelona. (My boss told me that when he told Doctor F that his brother was dying of mesothelioma, Doctor F said, "Oh, dead in a year." Cheers, Doctor F.)
Board meetings are in Melbourne in the evening, and work offers accommodation afterwards. My boss doesn't stay if he can help it, preferring to drive home instead, so I normally go with him. But this time I took up the accommodation offer so I was in Melbourne for my day off on Friday. I went to the National Gallery's winter blockbuster exhibition, which this year is Degas. I now know everything there is to know about Degas and his favourite subjects, which were: dancers, horses, and women getting out of the bath.
Normally I buy a commemorative bookmark at these exhibitions, but I've got hundreds of the things now. Well, not hundreds. More than I need, though. So this time I bought a lens cleaning cloth instead (just the cloth, not the glasses case). I'm sure Degas would be thrilled to know his work was being used for such a fine cause. (I notice that all the merchandise is to do with his dancers. Not much joy for fans of his Women Getting Out of the Bath œuvre.)
I arrived at the gallery a bit early, so I sat on the low wall out the front to wait. Next to me was a young woman, a student or backpacker (or both, I suppose) with an American accent. She was on the phone, saying, "I need you to tell Josh that I have to sort some things out and until I get my head straight I can't be in a serious relationship. You have to tell him that I want to be casual. [Pause for other party to speak] Casual and exclusive, he has to understand that." So good luck to Josh understanding that, because I'm not sure I do. Those two concepts seem to me to be mutually exclusive.
After the exhibition, I caught the afternoon train home. I had time to buy some sushi for lunch and eat it in the waiting area, where I got to watch a little drama. Passengers on Melbourne trains have a card that they swipe on and off, but passengers (like me) on regional trains get paper tickets stapled into a little cardboard cover, which we have to show to a ticket inspector as we pass through the barrier. So there were three teenagers in school uniform. Two of them had gone through the barrier and were on the platform side. Their friend was on my side, and the three of them had just realised that her ticket was stapled into the same cover as the other two. There was much hopping up and down and saying Oh My God. The obvious thing to do would be for all of them to go to the ticket inspector and point out that there were three tickets and three girls and could the last girl go through, please?
But they didn't do that. Perhaps because the train staff have a reputation for being, let's say, unhelpful and uncompromising, the girls decided to go cloak and dagger instead. They went right up the other end of the concourse, as far away from the ticket inspector as they could get, and tried to pass the ticket between the perspex panels, then under them, and finally they had to stand on tiptoe and toss the ticket over the top. So then there were two girls on the platform without tickets, which is not allowed, and one girl on the public side with three tickets.
What I could see, but they could not, was that they were still in the direct eyeline of the ticket inspector, and there was a bit of lull in passengers, so she wasn't busy. She watched the whole thing. So along comes the last girl, clutching her ticket, and the ticket inspector waited until she reached the swipe barriers about ten metres away from her, then jerked her thumb to tell the girl to go through. The girl looked around: Me? The ticket inspector waved again, and the girl held up her ticket, all "don't you want to see it?" The ticket inspector jerked her thumb again, and it finally dawned on the girl that the ticket inspector knew all about it. She looked a bit sheepish, then scampered through the nearest barrier and disappeared down platform 8A with her friends.
Also this week: Knitting! Well, a bit of knitting.
It's not ready to wear just yet.
On Thursday, I went to my penultimate board meeting. One of the board members, Doctor F, caught me before the meeting, very excited. "What's the goss? Have you been head-hunted? Or is it a WEDDING?" I think he might be That Relative at his family's Christmas dinner. He was slightly deflated when I said, "No, it's just time for a change." Only slightly deflated, though. In the next breath he told me about the conference he's going to in Barcelona. (My boss told me that when he told Doctor F that his brother was dying of mesothelioma, Doctor F said, "Oh, dead in a year." Cheers, Doctor F.)
Board meetings are in Melbourne in the evening, and work offers accommodation afterwards. My boss doesn't stay if he can help it, preferring to drive home instead, so I normally go with him. But this time I took up the accommodation offer so I was in Melbourne for my day off on Friday. I went to the National Gallery's winter blockbuster exhibition, which this year is Degas. I now know everything there is to know about Degas and his favourite subjects, which were: dancers, horses, and women getting out of the bath.
Normally I buy a commemorative bookmark at these exhibitions, but I've got hundreds of the things now. Well, not hundreds. More than I need, though. So this time I bought a lens cleaning cloth instead (just the cloth, not the glasses case). I'm sure Degas would be thrilled to know his work was being used for such a fine cause. (I notice that all the merchandise is to do with his dancers. Not much joy for fans of his Women Getting Out of the Bath œuvre.)
I arrived at the gallery a bit early, so I sat on the low wall out the front to wait. Next to me was a young woman, a student or backpacker (or both, I suppose) with an American accent. She was on the phone, saying, "I need you to tell Josh that I have to sort some things out and until I get my head straight I can't be in a serious relationship. You have to tell him that I want to be casual. [Pause for other party to speak] Casual and exclusive, he has to understand that." So good luck to Josh understanding that, because I'm not sure I do. Those two concepts seem to me to be mutually exclusive.
After the exhibition, I caught the afternoon train home. I had time to buy some sushi for lunch and eat it in the waiting area, where I got to watch a little drama. Passengers on Melbourne trains have a card that they swipe on and off, but passengers (like me) on regional trains get paper tickets stapled into a little cardboard cover, which we have to show to a ticket inspector as we pass through the barrier. So there were three teenagers in school uniform. Two of them had gone through the barrier and were on the platform side. Their friend was on my side, and the three of them had just realised that her ticket was stapled into the same cover as the other two. There was much hopping up and down and saying Oh My God. The obvious thing to do would be for all of them to go to the ticket inspector and point out that there were three tickets and three girls and could the last girl go through, please?
But they didn't do that. Perhaps because the train staff have a reputation for being, let's say, unhelpful and uncompromising, the girls decided to go cloak and dagger instead. They went right up the other end of the concourse, as far away from the ticket inspector as they could get, and tried to pass the ticket between the perspex panels, then under them, and finally they had to stand on tiptoe and toss the ticket over the top. So then there were two girls on the platform without tickets, which is not allowed, and one girl on the public side with three tickets.
What I could see, but they could not, was that they were still in the direct eyeline of the ticket inspector, and there was a bit of lull in passengers, so she wasn't busy. She watched the whole thing. So along comes the last girl, clutching her ticket, and the ticket inspector waited until she reached the swipe barriers about ten metres away from her, then jerked her thumb to tell the girl to go through. The girl looked around: Me? The ticket inspector waved again, and the girl held up her ticket, all "don't you want to see it?" The ticket inspector jerked her thumb again, and it finally dawned on the girl that the ticket inspector knew all about it. She looked a bit sheepish, then scampered through the nearest barrier and disappeared down platform 8A with her friends.
Also this week: Knitting! Well, a bit of knitting.
It's not ready to wear just yet.