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Today's excursion was very successful. My class discovered the reason for the mysterious fern garden I discovered yesterday. Most of them have decided to make it their special place when they want peaceful writing time - it really is perfect for contemplation and writing. I discovered that not all the bodies from Queanbeyan Cemetery were returned there after the flood. We all discovered that if you don't preface a visit to a Dada and Surrealist exhibition with the words "This is difficult" then every student can understand it and enjoy it.

We spent the morning doing various writing exercises based on art.

The ballet one was very hard, as my students didn't know ballet at all. I love the Ballets Russes costumes so very much that I was determined to get their meaning across and their life (I want to write a novel that includes their curious Australian fate, one day). We crowded round the cabinet and looked at a brigand costume. I talked about dance as story (one student had never gone because he thought it was for the 'We are very far up ourselves' folk, so the story element was crucial - how dance communicates tale and why it's a dynamic form of narrative). I mimed steps and etc, which was probably very stupid. It worked. After that, everyone focussed beautifully and wrote closely, and became very enthusiastic about the relationship (dance relationship, in this case - we were talking about how clothes can be designed for movement) between the Bakst cotumes and the peasant costumes in a picture in the next room.

We continued talking about the costume fits and what choices there are for materials and how the lights on stage work with costumes to create the working environment for dancers. We talked about folk stories and peasant dance and I did a grapevine or two and almost (almost) taught them a hora, there in the National Gallery. Finally, my students wrote. Dadaism was easier, but this was more satisfying.

My students are going to borrow The Red Shoes from the library over summer and check out other dance DVDs. If Moira Shearer and Robert Helpmann do their job, then a bunch of people who thought dance was only for snobs will know it's for anyone who can love it. I might give the class some potted ballet stories as part of their cultural heritage writing, next year, just to continue the work.

We all loved a cabinet with Art Nouveau household items. (Art Nouveau is some of my favourite stuffs in the universe - always has been.) With this display, again, I didn't try to explain it as art. I had my students look at everything through the eyes of everyday beauty. I asked them to think of the pitcher or the teapot and to imagine using it and focussing on its lines and pattern and exquisiteness as they used it.

This worked. Each and every one of them wrote pieces that showed an emotional affinity and deep understanding. By getting them to put the Tiffany lamp and the Loie Fuller light into mundane environments in their mind's eyes, they leaped over their mental boundaries as if those boundaries didn't exist. Without any effort, they forgot about the cabinets and display cases, and saw what the artist intended. There are many good reasons why I love these students and this is just one of them.

I tried to use cabinets of fine ceramics to look at shapes, but M asked about what something was made of, because "It looks like paper, but that's not what the description said." I talked about fine porcelain, stoneware, the mechanics of glazing and firing and thanked the universe for giving me pottery as a hobby in my pre-teens. I never got very far with pottery, because a doublejointed thumb meant I couldn't work on the wheel, but I was able to explain why a glaze could make a surface look like metal and how a clever Japanese artist could make his porcelain look like brittle folded paper.

That excursion (the whole thing, not just this small sample) was all my morning and some of my afternoon. My students filled a notebook apiece.

I did two quite separate lots of shopping (one with help from J, so I now am ready to cook for the weekend) and have my missing medicine. I have weathered many phonecalls, not a single one of which contained bad news. I have weathered 312 emails, several of which were less than seasonal in their joy. And I have watched anime with my friends.

All in all, it's been so long a day, my body is not happy. Worth it, though. And if my mind needs restful thoughts, I can turn to that exquisite fern garden, which was designed by a local artist, Fiona Hall.

Much humbugness (because 'humbuggery' just sounds wrong)

Don't read this post if you feel festive and joyful. My grumbly self is emerging. I'll put it back in its box soon, I promise, but I'm letting this whinge happen because it means I get to sit down quietly for a bit. Simply, I hurt.

I'm paying for yesterday and the day before, but it's not nearly as bad as it could be. This is despite the fact that whenever I stop to take a minute's break, the phone rings. It's the day before first candle, and I'm trying to get things together (work and Chanukah and sorting out the long summer so that it won't turn magically into the long bleak summer) and my phone has an ornery streak and is working overtime. I get phonecalls. Umpteen a day. Most calls are for things that the other party should have done months ago,and they've decided that clearing the decks for boughs of holly is a good idea.

Some calls are easily sorted. Some aren't. Call by call, though, I get more and more frustrated. Almost all these people know this is a busy week. Each explains "I need to sort things out so I can get time off for Christmas." This is the closest to an apology I get, except for those who can't come to my party, who are genuinely sorry for that (missing my cakes, they are - of course they're sorry!).

The first sacrifice I made to these phonecalls was two end-of-year parties. The second one has been the half-day off, which means I'll be on painkillers for the rest of the week. But other people are clearing their desks for Christmas, and that's got to be important.

I could save myself much angst by putting off my completionist tendencies until 22 December and start a round of urgent phonecalls myself then. After all, from Saturday week I'm through my holiday period and back in work zone. I'm not so mean, though. I'll grumble now, but I'll let everyone else have their holidays unsullied by panic.

I *will* become mean if anyone else asks if I'm visiting family this summer. That's the real trigger, today.

Normally I don't visit family over summer. Family and summer don't go together if one doesn't do the Christmas thing. And besides, Mum and Les always went to Mount Martha and camped with friends. Mobile family is hard to visit.

This year, however, the family is staying still. We have to finish the formal mourning for Les. It's not a good place to be, I suspect.

I will issue an invitation to the next person who talks about how wonderful it is that I can visit family over summer. Mum and I would be very happy if you did the family summer holiday thing with us. Come to Melbourne. Bring many soft cloths and a bucket of water. Graves don't clean themselves, after all.

Mum and I plan to visit much family and clean many graves, so that when Les's grave is consecrated Dad's grave will also look fine, and so will my aunts' and grandparents' and great-grandparents' and so forth. We will leave stones, and we will tell family stories, and we will remember them all. That's my time off in January. With family. Lots of family. Mostly dead.

I'll have work with me, of course. It's not a holiday time. Why should it be? Jewish New Year is my holiday time. Or should have been. And the other reason I'm so very annoyed now (apart from missing both Les and Dad), is that some of the same people who caused me to have to work through my holiday period in September, are so busy clearing the decks so that they can get holidays that I'm working a seven day week now. And none of it is paid. Most of it won't even result in future pay. It's just stuff that must be done and that could have been done weeks ago.

Look how bitter I am! I shall declare a moratorium. From lunchtime tomorrow, anything urgent will just have to wait till Monday.

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On a happier note, I'm emailing my little present tomorrow. It's not too late to give me your email address, if you want a copy.

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Sorry about before. I overloaded and couldn't find the reset button. I cancelled lots of things today and did gentle stuff round the house and feel a lot better for it. Also, the phone stopped ringing.

My reset button for this blog is a meme. anghara had one I haven't done before. I can't guarantee taking it seriously. This is because it assumes a world that has odd limits, and my Earth is most certainly spherical. I can define North and South by caps of ice, East and West are harder to find.

Longest distance ever travelled? Melbourne to London via Japan and North Pole. Or Sydney to Paris via Indonesia, probably. Longest flight distance was 31 hours. Never again...

Farthest north? The North Pole. Though Anchorage is probably the furthest north I've breathed the air. That's 61 degrees north. I want to explore the North Pole region, someday (in my dreams, probably - Iceland and Greenland and other cool countries are a very long way from Canberra).

Farthest south? New Zealand, 45 degrees south or so. I once had all the qualifications for a dreamy job in Antarctica; my asthma meant I wasn't allowed to apply. I have polar dreams in both directions, it appears.

Farthest east? Anghara had Japan as east, but to me it's north. I've been there. Farthest east from here, without coming back on myself is probably New Orleans. Yep, New Orleans is the Far East. I do like this thought.

Farthest west? Farthest west is obviously Anglesey, looking over at Ireland, longingly. I hae a serious travel bug and no capacity to indulge it!! Or maybe farthest west is Perth. Perth is pretty westerly, after all.

Highest mountain? Mt Kosciusko in Australia, obviously. Mt Snowdon in Wales. And that's probably it. I adore mountains and live among them, but I'm not someone who races to get up high peaks to be able to say she can.

Lowest point? Depends. New Orleans if you're talking about open air. Various caves and goldmines in SE Australia if underground qualifies.

Hottest Temperature? I have no idea. The hottest I can remember is 48 degrees C (118.4F) in the Warrumbungles when I was a teenager, but I mostly don't check when it goes above 40. it honestly doesn't help deal with the heat, knowing that the temperature is something abominable.

Coldest Temperature? Toronto, -38 F. I went outside for just long enough to be say I had breathed the air. Then I came straight in.

Most countries visited in one year: 4? I would rather live in a place for a while than collect countries like trophies.

Furthest North / South distance traversed in one year: Melbourne to the North Pole, again. I saw the sun rise over the polar ice. It was amazing.

Number of continents visited: 4.

None of this was recent. Recently I have spent most of my life in Canberra, with occasional diversions elsewhere. I am a dull person, obviously and need to do something interesting with my life. Dream up exotic universes or learn medieval history, perhaps. Or maybe folkdance.

That reminds me: you will want to avoid my flat later tonight. My violin is coming out of hiding and I'm going to torment the summer air with squeakings. I can guarantee they'll be something worth running from.

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Happiness comes in threes.

Three old, very dear friends have re-appeared in my life over the last few weeks, two through Facebook and the third, just now, through email. I'm going to have to stop complaining. And I might have to leave that violin under the bed till next time things go wrong. My neighbours are going to be very relieved.