morsla: (mantis04)
There's been an unintentional radio silence on all channels, but I'm still here.

Lots of writing to do this week, as I need to get a doctoral consortium application written by Saturday. I haven't made any progress on it during the last week, as Easter + everything else has prevented me from sitting down and writing anything.

My "Easter" holidays will probably start on Sunday. I desperately need some time off, or at least some time when I don't have to feel guilty about letting a huge pile of uni work build up. I also need time to paint, as I need to clear my desk and pay some bills. I think I'm going to bunker down for a week, in an attempt to turn my paintbrush into some extra cash to reduce a bit of pressure on our budget.

Paying for a house on (currently) four-fifths of a teacher's salary and a postgrad scholarship is exactly as painful as it sounds, as money will be very tight for the rest of the year. We have about $100 in the bank at the moment, and two months to save up for all the mid-year bills (insurance, body corporate fees, etc). Various side jobs will start helping that situation in the next few weeks - painting for me, tutoring and Etsy sales for [livejournal.com profile] aeliel. Unfortunately, they all require that other precious commodity: time.
morsla: (dream)
A milestone slipped past me unnoticed on Wednesday, while I was heading home from Brisbane...

As of the 25th of August, [livejournal.com profile] aeliel and I have been paying off our house for a year :) We haven't actually lived in it for that long, but we've now been home-owners for a full cycle around the sun.

That feels significant, somehow - there's still a long way to go, but we now own about a thirtieth of the bricks in our walls...

Collected

Mar. 15th, 2010 01:14 pm
morsla: (lookin)
I lost all my Massive Attack tracks when the desktop computer died. Instead of hunting down all the albums again, I found a copy of Collected - fifteen years worth of memories, from Blue Lines onward. It's not quite the same as being able to listen through whole albums, but it's a good start.

Massive Attack are touring Australia at the moment, for the first time since 2003:
they're playing the Opera House forecourt tonight, and the Myer Music Bowl on the 20th. I'd love to go, but tickets are $100 a pop - well and truly beyond my budget. They're in town to promote Heligoland. I haven't bought a copy of the new album yet, but have been streaming bits of it from various different websites. It's slowly growing on me - not as immediately catchy as some of their past releases, but I like what I've heard so far. It's also much more affordable than a concert ticket (sigh) so I might buy a copy of the album instead.

(Hint: the Paradise Circus clip is very much NSFW, being mostly made of footage from The Devil in Miss Jones. Google at own risk... ye been warned!)
morsla: (Default)
I've discovered the thread linking all my disparate jobs and hobbies together: a ridiculous attention to detail, bordering on obsessive/compulsive :) I seem to enjoy the jobs that most people find soul-destroying, like spotting misplaced commas at ten paces or paintng the eyeballs on tiny figurines. Here's hoping that there will always be a demand for minutiae, as they form the nano-scale foundations of my career.

I'm now working at Synergy Publishing two days a week, with two projects to occupy my time. The first is a book - a memoir, to be precise. I started work on it last week, but it's on hold for a while as there is still a lot of editing to finish. It's the second book I've designed - the first being the Weapons of the Gods Companion... I hadn't realised at the time just how far into the deep end I leaped with that project. Memoirs and novels are serenely calm in comparison. Five text styles instead of thirty, one author instead of half a dozen...

Project #2 is an educational journal called "Junior Horizons," which is actually a lot of fun to design. It's aimed at pre-school and early primary teachers, and also has information for parents of pre-schoolers. It's a riot of colour, fonts and illustrations. It's also a nice manageable 16 pages. I spent today re-buildng the layout templates, as it looks suspiciously like the file has been edited and re-saved for every issue they've ever worked on it.

I'm still in the process of sorting out paperwork like an ABN (I need one!) and GST registration (perhaps - only compulsory if my annual turnover will be over $50k). I'm planning to quiz the accountant at work tomorrow, to find out exactly how this works. Wading through the ATO website was on my list of things to do eventually, but I didn't expect to start two jobs before I got my feet under me.

My goal for the week is to register for all the legal things I need to do, and then start sending out invoices for all the work I've done over the last few months. With the exception of the "hobby income" (painting), I haven't actually been paid for any work I've done this year... high time I sorted that out. I'm also thinking of rolling my painting income in with all the other elements of the Sole Trader operation (essentially considering painting, writing and design all as "professional" income sources). If I have to start collecting GST on my income, I might as well claim back the GST component of the things I spend most of my money on.

Thanks to those who surprised [livejournal.com profile] aeliel on her birthday :) She's headed back to Blackwood for a couple of days, so I have an empty house at the moment. I feel like I've stepped back a few years in time... I'm back late from work, the music is cranked up nice and loud, and I'm heading upstairs to paint until my eyes drop out. Plus ça change...

'ere we go

Jul. 26th, 2006 06:30 pm
morsla: (Default)
It might be week two at Deakin, but it's the first week back for Melbourne Uni. That means I'm just in time to make a new start of things :)

I went to the first Tai Chi class for semester two today, and got quite a few curious looks... I vanished without a trace last semester, two weeks after paying my membership fees. In the third week my "free" mornings promptly got swallowed up by travel times to reach Burwood, cutting off any chance I had of reaching the rest of the classes.

I've missed it, though. I've missed getting things done in the mornings, too - I'm not exactly on an "office hours" timetable these days. Realising that peer pressure is a much stronger motivator than good intentions, I've told everyone to loudly ridicule me if I don't keep going to Tai Chi this semester, as I don't have morning classes any more.

Getting up early has done strange things to my brain, too. I've spent the day cleaning and throwing out junk, and putting things up for sale/giving them away on WAU. Which reminds me - [livejournal.com profile] kitling, I found another cache of Dark Eldar for you :) Which days are you working in the uni this semester?

In other news, I spent a while looking into bank accounts and interest rates. Turns out that I actually earn 0.01% on my main account, which would explain the complete lack of earnings on that front. I'm shifting it across to a savings account, where I'll get five hundred and sixty five times the interest :) Still not a huge amount, but better than the pittance that I've had recently. Plus, it won't involve setting up any new passwords for online banking, which is nice.

September 2014

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