Generic Update Post

I've been disappeared for about the last ... oh, two or three months.

The Olympics happened. I went to the Women's Epee, and I have photographs, which I will publish ... at some point. Once I get a better grip on the whole RAW thing.

I missed going to the Paralympics dressage because I was unable to wake up on the day. I was angry as hell about that.

I've been cooking roasts a lot lately. And tuna bake. And also making stock, which the at-home version is soooo much better than the storebought. And cheaper, even when I buy bones.

I haven't been doing much, or really any, photography. I just ... haven't had the will for it. I'm hoping to change that, starting with photographing my plants ... well, probably not daily, in all honesty, but at least sometimes. Maybe if I get really tricksy, I'll do a stop motion. Once I figure out how. And setup. And that kind of thing.

I've been trying to figure out how to continue my wine studies. I can't really swing the 2000 GBP and 18 days twice a year - which is what I'd need to attend the required residency schools. I can't swing the 8000 GBP (and I'm not sure about the hour or so travel every day) to complete the degree here, either. The Master of Wine requires I already have the degree and industry experience, so that's right out.

.... actually, my woes there will end up being a post in themselves. I'll do that later. Suffice to say, I am frustrated and angry and depressed over the whole thing.

Said frustration has transferred itself to doing any study at all. So I haven't been doing that, either. 

Fitness? I laugh at it. I was doing okay in September, but that came crashing to a halt. I need to re-establish a regular routine, but as always, logistics get in the way.

General health? Well, I haven't had a cold or gotten sick. I have had severe issues with sleeping - the anxiety over study, general existential angst, etc, has been giving me a bit of insomnia. And I was off my medication for a week because I was too exhausted and tired and sleepy to go down the road to get more.

So what have I actually been doing? Playing world of warcraft, reading a lot. Also, researching the wine thing takes a lot of time. Doing chores. There's another post in here about how I'm not doing anything coherent because I don't have anything to aim at, but again, I'll leave that set of angst for later.

What am I planning on doing? Making plants stay alive, figuring out if it is at all possible for me to continue study, getting less unfit, reducing my ongoing overheads task list. Which I need to write and braindump.

So, how have you been?

Writey writey words ...

Today I did lots of stuff.
- slept 4 hours
- found my black cardie
- forgot my gym gear
- forgot breakfast
- did not cry, or freak out, or lose my calm
- booked a massage
- wore contact lenses for the first time in a couple of years
- related: decided I really REALLY need to get/find a pair of sunnies
- bought a lens (EF 50mm f/1.8 II)
- changed the layout/style of my blog to stop the right hand edges of my photos being cut off
- took 200 photos
- uploaded some of the nonblurry ones to my SmugMug page
- ate a cookie made by my husband

I'm really enjoying learning about my camera and my lens. Tonight was mostly playing with the buttons - white balance, aperture, general settings. I still haven't really played with shutter speed or ISO. I used flash a few times; the lighting at home isn't great. Also? I have really shaky hands, it seems.

Very much looking forward to tomorrow, and getting the focus where I want it for a change. Well, so long as my hands don't shake, anyhow.

In aid of that, I'm going to head off to take out the contacts, curl up around my climate textbook, and sleep.

Status quo

An easy thing to write about is updating where I'm at at present, in various aspects.

I'm studying. That's freaking me out a bit, because I haven't been keeping up with my studies at all, and I have an exam on Tuesday 2nd November. That is stressing me out a lot. I'm going to be spending the next few days buried in wine chemistry, which should do interesting things to my brain.

Speaking of november, that's NaNoWriMo! My plan is to write that long-awaited DnD campaign. I have no idea if there's 50k words in it, but I do know that I can probably get most of the way there, especially as many of my workmates will also be doing NaNo, so I'll have a lot of peer support and encouragement. I'll write more about the project as it evolves.

I'm on the get-healthy-lose-weight-get-fit kick again. I'm cycling to and from work a few times a week (when weather and health permits), using the cycle2city centre as my work terminus. I'm eating a mostly-Paleo diet, with a few slipups. I've started seeing a personal trainer again, and I'm working on my upper body strength mostly, which is currently in an entirely woeful state. I'm hoping to be a fit, strong, healthy size 10 by my 30th birthday in May. Mental health wise, aside from a few incidents here and there, I'm doing well. No major depression, no major anxiety to talk about aside from the occasional spike, and usually for cause. I have my off days, but by and large, I'd say I'm almost normal, for just about the first time in my life. And it's been long enough like this that it feels normal, which is wonderful.

I'm working fulltime, as a Content Author at RedHat. I'm enjoying the work and not finding it overly challenging at present. It's nice not to be stressed out of my mind while working for a change.

I'm still a committee member for Linux Australia. We're working on some pretty useful, although possibly not exciting things that should be good for the org in the long term. I'm enjoying it quite a lot, especially the bit where I get to work with awesome people. I'm looking forward to LCA, where I will not be volunteering (I hope) and actually get to enjoy the conference. I probably won't be speaking; I can't think of anything to actually speak about that either hasn't been done to death, or might possibly be relevant. Seriously, most of my tech stuff these days has to do with wine production, and whilst that's very interesting, I'm pretty sure it doesn't have a place at an IT conference.

I've also been doing a fair amount of volunteering and participation in various wine events. I stewarded at the Royal Queensland Wine Show at the RNA and the Courier Mail-Mecure Queensland Wine Show recently. I'm heading down to a Purple Palate event, Juicy Fruits, next week on Thursday evening, and really looking forward to it.

In my clearly obviously copious spare time, I'm playing World of Warcraft, Fallout: New Vegas, going to lots of #btub events, and painting my nails interesting colours.

So. That's me at the moment.