cyberspace junkyard

Attack of the Cool Calm Collected Vron
Eye-witnesses today have reported sightings in Adelaide of what seems to be a monster emerging from dormancy. In the wake of inflexibility, ego and sheer rudeness, the chillingly cold creature known as Angry Vron has reared her ugly deathstares and waspish logic. In a bid to silence the smattering of defensive arguments hastily erected by her future two-up manager (once she rolls off her current project) and a French systems developer, Angry Vron has unleashed a torrent of slowly spoken mono- and bi-syllabic words: words intended to probe and wound the arrogant. Not for her are the red-faced shouting matches and finger-pointing that characterise other riled up creatures who stalk the corriders and meeting rooms of the Portfolio Services Centre. Oh no. How can you tell when Angry Vron is around? Just look for icicles hanging from the ceiling and windows frosting up.

Sidenote: It really rubs me up the wrong way when people are unwilling to respect others' opinions and to be a bit open-minded about decisions they are making that effect hundreds of other people and processes. All I was doing was trying to explain that you can't < analogy > play basketball with a baseball bat, even though it might be the best baseball bat in the world < /analogy >. After all, the best I can do is to speak calmly and rationally and to hope that they take it on board. It's just so darn frustrating to contend with work politics and people "protecting their own patch" and I felt myself getting internally heated even though I was (according to my project manager) projecting a really polite front. I really don't know how much longer I can keep pushing and pushing and just not adding any value. Ugh. Okay, all better now. :)

Monday noMadic Mumbles
Here we are, as promised!
Was having one of my drama queen moments this morning (to be clearly delineated from my bimbo headshake moments) when I couldn't login to the computer in the guest office for 4 hours. Most of you will know that that is completely unlikely me. I am sedate and subdued. Well, when I'm asleep, anyway, which does count for 30% of my lifetime.

Adelaide is lovely and dry! I'm loving Sydney at the moment, mainly because I'm not there stuck in the miserable rain. My hotel room overlooks the pier and beach at Glenelg, which was fantastic in providing absolutely no impetus whatsoever to get up and go for a morning jog. Knowing that one of my colleagues in an avid lunchtime walker, I decided to take it easy today and not bring my runners into work with me, hoping to use that as an excuse to blog, eat and check email over lunch. Alas, alack, my excuses did not prevail so I and my 3-inch heels were dragged off on a jaunty powerwalk around the suburb of Blackwood at the foot of the Adelaide Hills. One hour, several sob stories about love and life and a huge blister on the ball of my right foot later, I returned to my desk, devoured a sweet pickle, cucumber, cheese and lettuce sandwich and am now sitting here typing about devouring a sweet pickle, cucumber, cheese and lettuce sandwich.

PP: the four saltlight dinners are over! There's still so much work ahead of us in terms of more promotion, rehearsal and recording, but we know that God is truly in control of it all and that we have a faithful group of supporters who are helping us out practically and in prayer. The first recording date is May 31 - we're doing my two acapella tracks. Please pray for me as I finish them off and for On That Note as we perform them!
BV: 1 John 2:15-17 "Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For everything in the world--the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does--comes not from the Father but from the world. The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives for ever."

Come fly with me
Once again I'll be getting well-acquainted with blocked ears, eye-brow raising cuisine and armrests in all the wrong places when I board a plane to Adelaide on Sunday night. It's been 2 months since my last business trip, and hopefully months away til my next one as well. Every now and then, it's nice to get away, have peace and quiet in another city for a few days - seeing a new city, meeting new people... Mate, who am I kidding, I just love staying in hotels!

In fact, here are some pics of the hotel I'm staying at this time around, the Stamford Grand in Glenelg.





Watch out for Monday's noMadic Mumbles from Adelaide!

Stop reading junk!
... is what a good friend told me last night over dinner. I'm crushed. All my beloved fantasy series? Junk? Give me a moment while I recover.

I decided to take him up on his offer to educate me in the true genius of European and Japanese writers, so I'm starting on Hermann Hesse's Narziss and Goldmund, which is only 300 or so pages long, a booklet, compared to the 900 page sagas I'm used to! The blurb at the back reads

In a sense, both Narziss and Goldmund - the ascetic and the Dionaysian - are what Hermann Hesse might have been. Narziss is a teacher at Mariabronn, a monastery in medieval Germany. Brilliant and severe, he feels that Goldmund, his favourite pupil, will never be a scholar or a monk. So Narziss helps Goldmund realize that they must each fulfil themselves in different ways: Narziss retiring from the world into a patterned order of prayer and philosophy while Goldmund quits the cloisters to plunge into a sea of blood and lust; cutting a picaresque swathe through plague, storm and murder; always chasing a fugitive vision of artistic perfections, its form 'the mother of all things'.

Uh-huh. Wish me luck!

Monday Meditative Mumbles
Church politics. Never pleasant at the best of times and decidedly sickening at the worst of times. It's been a trying weekend amongst my church friends and family, with almost an entire congregation up in arms, swinging between mild bafflement, anger and sadness. I will take a leaf out of my minister and his family's book and stay gracious, not directing emotion or assigning blame to anyone for having to make tough decisions and having to inform a couple of hundred people that they'll be pastor-less next year.

The two positive things that are apparent at the moment are the amazing faith and patience which the minister's family has shown and the huge sense of community and responsibility towards them that the congregation have finally discovered. Why do people always leave it too late to show support or say a quick word of thanks to their pastors - those who tirelessly serve what can be a stubborn and difficult flock? I know that this whole situation is in God's hands and that sometimes it takes a blow like this to make us realise what we have and value it all the more. While the future is uncertain, and the infamous Asian pride and culture of "saving face" will almost definitely win out against admitting wrong decisions or even allowing an open forum for people to at least get some measure of understanding of the decision, I know that God is using all of us to bring about growth in His church, ultimately for His glory.

PP: Well, for once supplanting saltlight at the forefront of my thoughts and prayers, please pray for my church as we grapple with politics, the constitution and just remain loving, encouraging and seeking the best for God's people, cos it's His church. In saltlight news though, we have 2 more dinners coming up, and then focussing on recording and visiting churches and speaking to more and more people about This Way Up.
BV: Colossians 1:9-14 "For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you and asking God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding. And we pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and joyfully giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light. For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins."

Friday Five For Fun
I haven't done one of these in donkey's years. (Someone explain that analogy to me, please! Does it mean it feels like a long time but is actually not, or it actually is a long time?)

1. Would you consider yourself an organized person? Why or why not?
Oh yes. Absolutely yes. Obsessively yes. < nods head fervently >
I'm not particularly neat, or clean but definitely organised. Juggling a million and one things in one hand and somehow breezing through everything else on the other. Those who are similar know exactly what I mean.

2. Do you keep some type of planner, organizer, calendar, etc. with you, and do you use it regularly?
Of course! I used to have an HP Jornada (handheld computer) but when that crashed, I started using my Outlook calender and a little black diary. Yes, that is diary, not book. Hee!

3. Would you say that your desk is organized right now?
Yes. In fact, a dear old school friend of mine that was at my house the other day commented that my desk "looks just like it always does - nothing on it!"

4. Do you alphabetize CDs, books, and DVDs, or does it not matter?
Are you serious? Of course! I alphabetise DVDs according to title. I also categorise CDs first (classical, Christian, rock/pop, musicals etc) and then alphabetise by different criteria within the genre. For example, classical CDs are by composer; musicals are by title and rock/pop is by performer. Am I strange? Probably, but I'm used to that by now!

5. What's the hardest thing you've ever had to organize?
saltlight production's first CD, This Way Up!

Legendary Creatures?


You are a muse.

What legend are you?. Take the Legendary Being Quiz by Paradox

Ummm... at least it's a pretty picture. I changed one of my answers and got a siren so I think I'll stick with being a muse!

 # posted by Vron @ 12:59 pm