Schengan Confusion

We went to fetch our passports from the French Embassy today. We were running late and made it in my the skin of our teeth - they close at 12 and we got there at 11:46. :P The lady at the desk gave me a slightly peeved look but you know, I was still in my limits! Anyway, we got the visa and oddly enough I don't look as drugged in this one as in the other two. Something about the light in the picture, although they're all from the same shot. Also, we're a bit confused about how it works. We asked for a multiple entry one, long stay but although the validity is from now until end of March, the duration is listed as 30 days. So we're a bit confused. Hope we haven't spent all that dosh on a dang 30 day visa. That would mean we'd have to do all our trips before the middle of February. :(

Painting with friends

This morning, Ferzana, Nuran and I set out to paint together. Ferzana has been drawing and painting for years, Nuran has been doing so as a hobby as well. I don't draw much and don't paint at all but have always been interested in doing so. As Ferzana had the most experience we decided to take her lead. We took some pictures to work from, printed them out, and stocked up on paint supplies at Builders Warehouse - turpentine, canvas, linseed oil, oil paint, and brushes. Then we came back to mum's house, set up our things in the garden, and got started.

Ferzana got us mixing paint, doing something called "scumbling" where you mix different colors together to form a background color, then we used some flat brush strokes for definition and applied more paint in lighter colors with a trowel (sorry Ferzana - painter's knife).

The result was this - a jumbo print sized picture based on the one Nuran took of sunrise. I call it "Sun rises on Jammie Steps".

I wasn't too sold on the idea at first but once I'd done scumbling on the background colors it suddenly took shape and started to resemble something, where before there was nothing. After that I decided that painting is definitely something I'd like to take further.

Gears of War

Now playing on Insane level. And boy is it insanely hard... :( Mommee!

Sunrise, January 1st, 2008

So, with the parents trying to discourage me from going and the husband fast asleep with tissue stuffed in his ears (he's out of industrial earplugs), I made the decision to go on out to Jammie Steps and watch the sunrise, even if it meant I had to walk out of the house at 5am and drive there myself. As I drove along, I realized that I'd almost left it for too late. The sky was already starting to lighten. I got to campus and made my way up the steps to where the Nordiens were stationed. It turned out, I hadn't missed much.

The air was still (apparently a big change from previous years) and smelled of trees. We watched as the clouds that were skudding over the mountain turned from purple, to pink, to golden, and finally a silver tinged white. The sky went from navy to a brilliant azure. It was breathtaking.

In a moment of introspection that was probably influenced by my hopes and fears for the changes that are come in the New Year, I realized that sunrises can be seen as a metaphor for life. You can't compare one phase of the sunrise to any other. You can only hope to find the beauty in each and enjoy it while it lasts.

I'm glad I decided to watch the sun rise today.

New Year's Thoughts

So, I think it's still early enough for me to be posting some New Year's thoughts. Let's see.

1. Even if you're covered in itchy spots, all the mosquitos in Observatory will try to feast on you in the early hours of New Year.

2. Even though you're going on 28, if you're living with your parents, they will call you at 3am to find out where you are and what you're doing on New Year's.

3. You may find your parents mysteriously examining the lawn at 3:30am when you arrive home from your New Year's eve gathering.

4. Your husband will simply refuse to accompany you to New Year's day sunrise, using the argument "But you can go without me. I *want* you to go".

5. Your friends will still think it's unreasonable to take a nap between midnight and sunrise on New Year's even though they know that your are mid-morning person. Laragh peeps will know that I only function efficiently after 11am. Everyone else should know that I'm likely to fall asleep standing up after 11pm.

6. There may be a lot less people around next year to appreciate my bad jokes. Given the circumstances last night, I thought "Who let the cat in?" was a perfectly valid comment.

And that's as far as I got with New Year's thoughts, as I (predictably) fell asleep early on. But hopefully, will still get to see sunrise. *fingers crossed*

Otherwise, I am up to the following:

a) Watching re-runs of selected Battlestar Galactica episodes. Ohmygod this show rocks!
b) Listening to the Battlestar Galactica Season 3 original soundtrack. Bear McCreary gets better and better all the time. Personal favourites thusfar is Storming New Caprica. That made me want to go back and watch that episode again. (And did I mention that this episode rocks?)
c) Reading The Running Man by Stephen King, written under the alias Richard Bachman. It is awesome! It's been a very long time since I've been so nervous that I had to skip forward a few pages just to make sure the main character didn't get splattered too bad.
d) Playing cooperative Gears of War on hardcore level with the hubby, this time as Dominic Santiago. Forgot how hard it was. Grrr! Hate those damn lambent wretches! Hoping to move onto a new game after this or possibly go back to playing Oblivion.