a second beginning

A rainy Sydney Saturday - English teacher detritus, steaming Chinese tea and gerberas from my husband

You've Got Mail was on TV this evening.  Now, either CNN loves me very much or he is developing a taste for romcoms because he prioritised watching it over watching the Indigenous All Stars vs. NRL All Stars rugby league game.  I'm hoping for both although there were some disparaging comments when we reached the grand finale of the film.

I'm sorry I haven't been the best of bloggers.  The job interview I was meant to go to last Tuesday was cancelled.  Not only was it cancelled, it was cancelled the day before the interview via email.  Isn't that rude?  I'm over it now, but I have to admit I did spend most of last week in my bednest, reading.  I highly, highly recommend The Thousand of Autumns of Jacob de Zoet.  No mindfucks but a writer at the peak of his powers (I'm sorry I just used such a clichéd term, but it's true).  We also ate an abundance of Chinese food because it was Chinese New Year (Happy Year of the Rabbit, everyone!), but also because I thought New Year's fell on the Wednesday when it was actually on Thursday.  So we celebrated twice - no harm in that, right?  (Please can those of you who are super au fait with Chinese traditions hold your tongues if it is really unlucky to celebrate twice?)

On the weekend, our house was filled with boys.  CNN is part of a sports tipping competition called the ASS which stands for the Armchair Sportsman's Shield (there is an actual shield).  They held the 2010 presentation last weekend and I really enjoyed spending time with the opposite gender.  I haven't had many friends who are boys thus far in my life but I am open to this changing.  In fact, I am generally open to making friends in Sydney so if you see me, wave and smile and I promise to do the same back.  The other good thing that happened last weekend is that I decided on a church.  There were two that I really liked but I came to a decision after talking it over with CNN (which seems like an odd thing to do because he's agnostic but is one of the reasons why I love my husband).

This week I have been a busy bee, applying for jobs, looking after my buddy as the combination of new school and big weekend has lumbered him with a cold, and cleaning up the house after the ASS weekend.  As CNN is now the primary breadwinner, we are currently operating a 1950s marriage (although CNN is still responsible for cleaning the bathrooms and windows in a chore trade-off made whilst we were still in London).

In weather news, which I feel I must mention (is this a hangover from having lived in England for so long?) this week has been cool and grey - a big contrast from the superhot weather we had last week.

And finally, something exciting from two weekends ago...

We have furniture!  Unpacking our books made our little flat feel even more like home.  CNN and I spent a very enjoyable and very geeky afternoon figuring out how we were going to catergorise and store our books - our English and teaching degrees had a field day!

I'm sorry I've been a bad blogger.  Pinky promise I'll be better if you promise to continue reading?

catching up is hard to do, part one - food and books

Ooops.  I have been meaning to update - I even have ideas for two yet-unwritten posts - but PMS exacerbated my sadness at CNN going back to school and my rejoining of the lonely hearts club for one.  I definitely was not in the mood to blog.  That's not to say we haven't been busy though...

We have been sampling local restaurants.  Corn fritters for breakfast certainly brighten up a grey Saturday - especially when it's followed by a trip to Newtown.

Despite what everyone has told me, Newtown is most certainly NOT the Bethnal Green of Sydney.  We didn't have the best start to our visit as we were both a little grumpy when we arrived but we got into the swing of browsing through clothes we couldn't afford (for those who worry about me, please note that our cash flow issues have ceased now that my husband has had a pay day) and a visit to Elizabeth's bookshop helped too.

CNN has been reading from (and collecting) the novels in a book list for men put together by Shortlist (oh how I miss it's sister magazine!) and he found a novel that is apparently very hard to get secondhand.  He also purchased the Arden edition of Hamlet for work.  I spied The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell for $16 so that had to come home as well.

My sister called today and I gave her a mini-review of The Thousand Autumns thus far (I am just under a third of the way through).  My basic premise is that whilst reading Cloud Atlas and number9dream is like taking drugs: lots of crazy things happen and you have a great time, but you can't remember what happened when it's over, The Thousand Autumns feels much more grounded.  My sister pointed out that mindfuck part could happen at any point.  She's a smart lady but part of me wishes she hadn't told me that.  I feel like I'm trying to look around the corner all the time now, on high alert for it all to unravel.