It appears that I have a daemon. Which is curious because the old tiger has been my totem for years, seems he's back.

A Perfect Day

D came home Saturday night and wanted to know if I would like to go on a boat on Sunday. So we bundled little missy up and went on the most fantastic Sydney Harbour cruise.
It transpires that his collegue has a rich daddy who owns a cruiser. So a private party with some of D's work friends turned into the most perfect of days.
We wandered around Roseville Chase, down past Balmoral and out into the Harbour proper. Then past the Opera House, Harbour Bridge and into Darling Harbour. Then out and around to the fish markets for a lovely fresh fish, lobster, prawn, octopus lunch. Wow.
You don't get many days like that, a complete tonic after the madness of the end of semester.

Yay for friends!

Academic schmacademic

Been madly writing papers and book chapters for the past few weeks.
I've just submitted a book chapter for a peer-reviewed book in Design Patterns for E-Learning, which is cool, although I'm a bit nervous about how it will go.
My CHI paper looks like it won't make it though, oh well. Chalk that one up to experience and keep on going.
I also had a major holdup with my ethics application, but that is now through, thank goodness and I have to update it, by next week, so I'm going to be busy busy busy.
I suspect my supervisor is never going to be happy with me, so I'm just going to keep on keeping on and hope for the best.

Sooo tardy

So, my ethics application took 4 months to get. I have a book chapter due in this week.
I have been exhausted, sick with a cold and laryngitis.
My co-author has just gone overseas for a family funeral. I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed, but we'll get there.
In other news, baby Kate spent a Sunday afternoon at the hospital two weeks ago with a crack on her head. It was classed as quite unexceptional except for her bizarre reaction to it which is called "pallid breath holding" and means she went all quiet after she hit her head.
Work is going well with this crop of animators looking to be very good. Fingers crossed.
I've re-enrolled in the PhD so I'd better pull the finger out and get some things done. I've enlisted a couple of designers to help out, which is good.
I'm actually having quite a nice time of it lately, with the exception of a few health issues. D is as lovely as ever.

Bumps

So we spent the morning in the hospital as baby took a tumble and got herself a bump on the head. Not serious except for the fact she went all quiet afterwards and groggy, so we raced her in and they had her for observation for a few hours. She's fine, but I have to keep an eye on her for the next 24 hours.

Went to Gabby and Brian's wedding yesterday. It was lovely.
Really happy to see Gabby sorted. Well I hope she is, anyways.
Great wedding. Kate had a good time. I did ok but was a bit overly protective of bubs. Even D had a good time. So I guess all's good.

Adorable

Djamel is currently asleep on the couch with Kate. It's just so lovely to have him back from overseas. It's been ridiculously busy without him. He really does lighten the parenting load heaps. I didn't realise all the little things he does before, now I really appreciate them.
I just cooked a nice dinner for my little family.
I'm taking a week off. A proper one. I have to have a little exploratory procedure done in hospital next week and I really don't want to be stressing over everything else at the same time. Mind you - I haven't heard from the hospital, so I'm wondering what's up.
It's term break and I'm appreciating the time off. I got the poster and the paper all done and I WAS feeling rather pleased with myself until Andy reminded me I had another thing I should have done as well. Sigh. Lost sight of the big picture again. Typical.
Overall I think everything's good.

One thing then another

I have been ridiculously busy. What with the PhD, doing a paper and a poster in the past few weeks..
And teaching.
And "spring cleaning" the house and bedding. Very very busy.
I'm teaching too, and loving every minute of it. So all in all. Busy busy busy.