Goals for the week

I have a lot to do in a week and a half; a ridiculous time frame but not one of my making. So, here are my goals for the week. The photo is where I'd like to be to recover when it is all done and dusted. From here.

1. Marking. I have 9 programs, 27 exams and some other bits and pieces to do. Should take two days if I really get stuck into it. The programs should be done for tomorrow and the exams I technically have until Friday week. Might need that extra time in the end.
2. Thesis proposal. I have all the major bits except the abstract written but there other bits that need to be done too. The due date is Friday but I have a meeting tomorrow to discuss it and it should be pretty much finished for that.
3. Research for exhibition. Yeah, I haven't really done any. It is due on Wednesday week.
4. Exhibition brief. Again, done nothing. Due Wednesday week.

Right, so today is marking. Tonight is thesis proposal.
Tuesday is thesis proposal, meetings and I really want to get to a writers' workshop in the evening.
Wednesday is thesis proposal plus teaching plus uni class plus another evening thing I want to go to (and LOST finale!!!!!!)
Thursday is thesis proposal.
Friday I will send in the thesis proposal and start on the research.
Saturday will be research.
Sunday I will start the exhibition brief.
Monday I'm off to my volunteer job and I'll probably need a recharge in the afternoon and do nothing!
Tuesday will be research and exhibition brief.
Wednesday I teach then will go to my class, hand it all in and then collapse onto the couch.

There are some other little things that need doing, like visiting students who are on prac and actually working on my business, but they'll have to be done around all the other things.

Looking forward to the next ten days been over and done with!!

Have a great week - I hope it is nothing like mine :)

New Book!

What heaven to be in Paris, to be young...everyday after we'd dunked our brioches in our bowls of chocolate, we sallied down to the foyer [...then out ] to explore Paris. It was not spring, the chestnuts up the Champs-Elysees were bare - but it was still the most beautiful and romantic city in the world and has always remained so to me.


So Australian Eugenie Louise McNeil (nee Delaure) wrote in 1902 and so Rosemary Lancaster opens her book Je Suis Australienne: Remarkable Women in France, 1880-1945 and which I will be starting, sinking into, devouring and gloriously enjoying tonight.

Louis Vuitton

Love getting to look into other people's houses, especially very famous, very rich people?

Go here http://press.louisvuitton.com/TheJourneyOfaWardrobe/ and click on Paris then the family house - there is lots more to explore but most of it isn't live yet. Make sure you have your sound on!

Paris

Instructions before reading this post. Click to open this page in another tab/window/whatever but don't look at it yet. Music will start that will set the scene for this post....Go on, I'll wait. You can look at the website (which is beyond awesome) afterwards.

I don't think I've really waxed lyrical about how much I'm in love Paris and how I am actively planning and plotting to get there and stay for three months in September 2011. Well, I am. It is a rock solid goal of mine. I'm going to rent a studio or one bedroom apartment somewhere awesome with a view over the rooftops of Paris. I'm going to eat cheese and bread and drink a lot of wine. I'm going to walk and walk and walk, take photos, breathe and generally experience Paris. I'll probably try to take some "work" to do of some kind. Sewing, writing, photography...I don't really care. I want to be in my apartment as the autumn sunshine lengthens over the chimney pots and be creative.

Does this all sound very romantic? It is supposed to. I have only visited Paris once before and then only for three days. It was the end of my last Europe trip (six years ago now!) and I had just enough money to dash over the channel for a couple of nights. I'd never been to Paris before - I thought, how can it be that amazing? It is just a city, I'm sure I'm not really missing out on anything. Wow, but I've never been so wrong about anything in my life. And it hit me from when I stepped off the train. I really find it difficult to explain why I loved it so but I did. I think about those three days more than all the rest of my trip combined (although the six weeks in Sweden were pretty incredible too). I rode a bike around the city, including around the L'Arch de Triomphe, and if you've seen this you'll know how dangerous that is. I giggled insanely while I did it and felt immune to death or injury. I wandered museums, visited Versailles, ate a market-bought picnic beneath La Tour Eiffel, did a cooking class in a chef's house in suburban Paris and learnt to clean a squid from scratch. I ate at a restaurant where there was no menu, just what the chef had bought at the market that morning and at cafes where the price of a hot chocolate included people watching for hours and at crepe stands where mountains of crepe and fillings cost hardly anything and were delicious. My hotel room had real french doors that led onto a tiny Parisian balcony where I could watch the coming and going from the cafe across the street.

I did have one bad experience there when I saw a fight in the street but even that, which shocked me to the core at the time, has not dampened my love for the city. And I can't wait to get back there.

Okay, now you can go and look at the website...ahhh Paris. See you next year!