betty loves blogging

A holga lot of fun

Tunnel at St James Station

I finally got my first rolls of 120 I had run through my Holga camera I bought aaaaages ago developed today.  The results are blurred, some I have accidentally overlapped shots and there are light leaks... so I am a happy Holga user!

My sister in the park

I think I had the camera on the wrong setting for a lot of the shots so they are quite blurry and I also only had 100 ISO film in so some were underexposed, but I am pretty happy with the shots and I guess it will be a learning curve from here.

Autumn leaves

I mainly got the pics developed to decide if I would pack dear Holga in my bags for Indonesia and the answer is yes!  I'm sure my pics will improve and I also want to use some foam and run some 35mm film through it to see what happens as well (developing 120 is sooooooo exxy).

I could probably have glammed them all up a bit in Photoshop if I had it, but I lost it in the great computer crash of '08.

Messy desk (which I sold on the weekend... there's now just a big gap in my room!)

The rest of the holga shots can be found here.

Breakfast in Surry Hills

I had breakfast with my laydeez this morning in Surry Hills at Le Pain Quotodien to celebrate my new Jakarta job.  It was lots of fun.  I can't say much about it really, but it was hysterical... you really had to be there.  We always get lots of looks from other diners when we go out for meals... we get pretty rowdy.

I'm going to miss them all lots when I leave.

The food at Le Pain was pretty good... I've been there for lunch before and I think the lunch menu is better quality than the breakfast fare.  But it's all about the pastries and the bread there, really good.  The Fruit Tart pictured up top was so delish.

So, you are unexpectedly moving to Jakarta...

It's all been a bit of a flurry. I've unexpectedly landed a job in Jakarta on a new English language paper starting up there. I am very excited, but madly trying to get organised because I start there in just a few weeks. So I need to pawn off my Ikea furniture and "catch up" with everyone as well as buy things I probably don't need to buy here but will feel unsecure not having over there. There's a million things to organise.

But for you, dear reader, it means the blog is probably about to get much more interesting. Less Australian Idol commentary, more humorous stories about how my lack of Indonesian language skills has got me into trouble yet again. Less observations on D-grade Australian celebutards, more reflective commentary on the comings and goings of Jakarta life.

But I don't think the blog will see much love in the next few weeks, so just be patient. There will be good stuff coming, I promise!

Tight security

Our paper recently moved into a different office (well, half our paper, but that's a long unfunny story) and you need a security pass to access the building.

That in itself is pretty unextraordinary for most offices these days.  It's hardly surprising that the secrets of community newspapers need to be fiercely protected.  But I often wonder, if we didn't have passes, if people would just wander in off the street and start doing our job without being paid. I'm often tempted in cafes to do that when I have been waiting too long for a coffee.

However, I realised this evening (after somehow leaving my pass at home... it's not as if it's something you take out of your bag to use once you have left the office, I don't know how it ended up on my dresser), that you also need your pass to get out of the office.  It's very cruel and difficult when you happen to be one of the last people still tied to your keyboard at 6.30pm to discover that you can't actually leave work.

The only option is to greatly annoy another unpaid-overtime-working-desk-monkey, get them to walk all the way to the exit and swipe their pass so you can leave.  It's especially awkward when you don't know any of the people in the office.  And I imagine it's not best practice in case of a fire or other emergency to trap your workers inside the office.

But I think maybe the whole "swipe and leave" system is designed to shame people into just staying in the office overnight to keep turning the grinding wheel of capitalism rather than dragging some sullen office inmate away from watching YouTube clips of people harming themselves to open the door.

Poor blog

Poor blog has been neglected a bit lately.  Sorry blog.

I've just been plodding along with my CV website and I will post something funny here soon.  Promise xx