Perks of Being a Tyneesha: Spring & Such

This post is part 13 of 19 in the series:
Perks of Being a Tyneesha

You know the drill – here’s the update! (If you don’t know the drill, do better. Figure it out; it’s not that hard.) There’s not a heap going on at the moment, just getting through uni work and living life.

Spring time! Again!

As mentioned repetitively and relentlessly, I am not a fan of the cold. Naturally, this means that the eventual rebirth of spring is that much more joyous. I make a point of spending time outside, eating fruit and drinking water. I know those are things to be done year-round but doing it purposefully is different. I willingly crawl out of my winter cave and intentionally try to cultivate a general sense of warmth and calmness. Part of that is creating my Spring playlist. I don’t usually continue listening to it for more than a couple of weeks – but the point is that there are not allowed to be any sad songs on it. I’ve made 4 yearly installations of this playlist so far; here’s the latest. You can listen while you skim the rest of this post. Have fun.

Spotify: BCSS4 Warming Up

Cool rich aunt things (minus the rich part)

In my last update, I mentioned that my sister might spontaneously combust – I’m delighted to report that she, soon thereafter, gave birth to a beautiful baby boy. Thank god he’s not an ugly baby. My sister would agree with me on this; there’s nothing more awkward than meeting someone’s baby and having to say, “OMG, they’re so little” because they look like a big weird sultana strapped into a stroller.

University Things

This is just a little info dump on my Uni projects for this semester. I’m doing 3 subjects when I’d usually be doing 4. It should be less work, but these subjects have rather hefty assessment criteria. I’ll run you through it.

Subject 1. My last proper Journalism subject. We all create our own respective projects to work on throughout the semester. I’m creating a project called ‘Colours of Wollongong’, a series of feature articles aiming to promote local art and artworks, focusing on artists from culturally diverse and intersectional backgrounds. I’m really excited about this one, and it’s going reasonably well. Let me know if you’re reading this and know of any Wollongong artists who might be up for an interview!

Subject 2. Game Media Industries. I’m not a massive fan of this subject because I think it’d be easier to understand if I were someone who enjoyed video games regularly. I’m doing a project for this subject where I create lookalike avatars of my peers using the Sims 4 interface. I keep forgetting about it, so I’ve not done much so far.

Subject 3. Collaborative workshop. This subject is basically just a semester-long group project. I’m fortunate enough to be in a group with some of my good uni friends, but the subject and the way it’s taught have a degree of disorganisation that I don’t love.

The Suzuki is rather Swift; in fact

I mentioned last month that I’d recently mourned the loss of my Peugeot and purchased a Suzuki Swift Sport to replace it. I am happy to report that the car held up for the drive home after my sister had her baby. It was a relatively comfortable drive. However, having the truly worn-down shocks changed while home made the drive back to Wollongong a lot more comfortable. Huge thanks to my dad, my brother, and my sister’s boyfriend for saving me the mechanics fee and the backache by doing that for me.

Car troubles: nothing dramatic, though

A couple of weeks ago, I was driving to the beach after work because it was a long day, and I deserved a moment of peace. Naturally, peace evaded me as I got pulled over by a police car on the way there. I truly had no idea what I could have possibly done wrong, but I quickly found out. I have a phone holder in my car, mostly so I can use my phone to navigate long trips. I’m on my green P’s, and apparently, it is, in fact, illegal to have a phone holder until you’re a fully licenced driver. Luckily, the policeman didn’t fine me; he just issued me a warning.

In other minor motor vehicle mishaps, shortly after I got back from Dubbo, my car battery decided to die. Slightly inconvenient but manageable. After all of the car issues I’ve endured in the last 12 months, a flat battery is the least of my concerns. I don’t remember if I mentioned it before, but I also accidentally acquired a parking fine a few weeks ago. I wish there were some valid explanation that isn’t just “I forgot how parking machines work”, but alas, that’s what I’m working with. I did some photography work to pay that fine, so there’s that.

Looking ahead…

I get to go to Fiji for a little while in about two weeks. I mentioned this in my last update, but I thought I should reiterate it to keep it in mind while getting through the next few busy weeks. I am very much in need of the rest time, so it’s a good motivator. I think I’ve mentioned this in scatters over the last few months, but we’ve been putting together a website for all my photography dealings, and I hope to have that done before the Fiji trip, so after my break, I might do some more fun photo stuff!