receptionist for a day

Today I was Angie in the office as she was away today, and volunteer James was me from last year, going out to get the mail and doing odd jobs etc. So I had a little bit of a power trip and was allowed to boss him around. Not really though, I was interviewing actor's all day and he was helping out the volunteer/venues peeps.

I have been answering and forwarding calls and I'm getting the hang of it. There are some very rude and insistent people out there.

"When will ***** be playing at the festival?"
"I'm not sure yet, the festival guide isn't due out for another week."
"but I just want to know when one film is playing."
"I couldn't tell you until the program is finalized and printed, which won't be until next week."
"But it's just one film."
"I'm a volunteer filling in for reception today, all I know is that you can get the program, with dates and times and venues and reviews and everything, online, in The Age and at the Box Office at The Forum as of next Friday."
"[Grmupy and short] fine then, I guess I'll wait... *beep, beep, beep, beep...."

Truth is, although I do know when and where some films are playing because I was given the arduous task (Cough cough) of trying to break the offline version of the ticketing system yesterday and reporting any problems, there is no way I can check and no way I can remember off the top of my head.
I don't know how Angie deals with such rude people every day.
Speaking of which a delivery man came to the door earlier and I buzzed him in and he wouldn't come in so I picked up the phone to talk to him and he said he had a delivery, so I told him to come in and he got so angry that I had the gall to assume he would bring that delivery up to us (we have an elevator by the way). So I went to find someone who could help me and he demanded a permit because the loading zone was full and the parking inspectors weren't being reasonable. Somewhere in the thick of it he left and later he came back and said he'd contacted his boss who had told him that it was his job to bring the delivery up to us. Somehow two people from the office still ended up doing it instead. Ridiculous. That article on the Yahoo front page today about political party members whose job it is to predict future economic trends saying Australians need to work harder or face declining living standards is sitting pretty ominously in the forefront of my mind right now.
They may be onto something there.

working hard or...

One of the requirements of living off government money when one is unemployed is that you have a job services case worker who meets with you occasionally to discuss why you think you are still unemployed, ask you what skills you have and what you are doing to make yourself more employable etc. My jobs services provider is in one of the poorest parts of the state meaning that someone with a degree is new to them and they do not really know how to work with someone who wants a career and not just a job and has as many qualifications as me and is still unemployed. So they haven't contacted me in 6 months and now, since I got myself a job placement, they are all bamboozled and instead of sending me to vocational school for two weeks they are letting me do my internship full time for two weeks and no one will bother me about going to job interviews etc. so I have been getting up early every day this week (something very new to me, and I trend I can hopefully continue beyond these two weeks) and it has meant I am getting to do a lot more stuff in different departments of the festival.
I got my invitation to the opening night the other day. It's pretty exciting, the festival is less than a month away. So now, because the invite said Red Carpet and Film Screening, I am going to have to make myself a really awesome dress. The trouble with working every day however is that I don't have a lot of time to go material shopping, which will mean I will have less than two weeks to make said dress.
I figured I'd make a full round, pleated skirt dress that comes about to me knees, a ruffled, layered under skirt with a love heart bodice covered in black lace up to my neck and down my arms to my hands but only around and under my shoulders, around my neck leaving my back completely bare. That's fancy right?
I hope I get the chance to speak to Geoffrey Rush. I saw him on a train at Camberwell once so at least I'll have a conversation opening. I'm meant to be helping the volunteer co-ordinator guy right now but the system is being crappy so I'm waiting for him to figure out what he is going to do so that when we are putting in details of volunteer hopefuls we do not overlap numbers and thus delete people out of the system.
I was thinking of writing a love letter to one of my genius's but I've been reading Sandman and I can't think of anyone but Neil Gaiman.
Man that is a good series. I was so wrapped up in it on the train yesterday that I didn't even notice that my friend had gotten on the train and sat next to me. When I noticed we had a good laugh and then started talking about 100 Bullet's because I have read it and he hasn't but he wants to.
I'm listening to two playlists on my ipod that kind of merged, so it's half Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd songs that make me feel really calm and that I put together the other night when I couldn't get to sleep, and part poems, fables, songs and skats from beat generation artists. I'd really like to transcribe some and pop them on here because I think they are beautiful and everyone should enjoy them.
Perhaps that will a project for me the next time I get super bored.

putting it off

I haven't been able to bring myself to blog for a while because I want to blog about Doctor Who and I'm still wrapping my head around how brilliant part one series seven was, and how good the surprise was. We finally know who River Song is, YAY! I'm so glad I completely stayed away from all spoilers and forced myself not to think about it because it was such a shock and such an amazing feeling when it all came together. I started off watching from the couch and ended up about half a metre away from the TV, with my knees kind of bent as if I were sitting on an invisible chair, hands clenched into fists, and an extraordinarily excitable look on my face. Then when the ep was over and I had that weird excited squealy thing going on in my throat and ears, I paced around my living room for a goo five minutes saying "oh my god oh my god" and "Steven Moffat is such a genius" over and over. Then I started to think "I have got to talk to someone about this", but Josh decided he had too much work to do to watch it so I called him tentatively and he had watched it, the last part at least. So we talked in hushed excitement until my chest stopped fluttering and my eyes closed slightly to resume normal sizing, and my sister was no longer afraid to enter the living room for fear of getting in the way of one of my fist pumps into the air, and we went down the street to buy alcohol in order to play the Iron Chef drinking game.
I scared the check out girl at the super market. She must have thought I was nuts but I didn't care, I still could not wipe the insane expression off my face or stop breathing "oh my god".
I can't talk about the show properly though because I think if I think about it too much, analyse is, I'll lose this amazing feeling and stop thinking that it was so wonderful and I don't want to because that is what being a nerd is to me; getting so involved in such an epically geeky show that some weeks you can't wait for it to air and you download it and read all the magazines and books and comics and when something really epic happens you're half a metre away from the TV sitting on an invisible chair and absolutely loving being unashamedly lame and being in love with someones writing brain, so that's enough from me on that one.

WATCH DOCTOR WHO SERIES 5 AND 6. IT'S THE BEST.

Back to the real world

I didn't get picked for a case because the case we were empannelling for was the same one that was empannelled on Friday because one of the jurors that was picked then couldn't hear the trial so they had to dismiss the jury and as it was the third time they would have empannelled a jury for this one case, the barristers decided it would be best if the case were heard in front of a judge like on Judge Judy, and let the judge make the final decision. So we went up there, waited around while the barristers talked to the judge about this decision and then we were asked to go home. So it was a very boring venture altogether. I took so many books and had 20 odd episodes of Community transferred on to my ipod and 5 Doctor Who episodes on the first day because I heard it was going to a lot of waiting around and it would get very boring, but I was barely at the courthouse for 4 hours on the first two days, which included watching a half hour video, being taught the process, and then going through the for an hour or so, and then we got sent home. On the last day it was barely 2 hours, but I got to Ballarat super early because in the morning the trains are about an hour an a half apart, so I sat in a cafe/bakery where you can pay $3 for a cup and then just help yourself to unlimited tea, coffee and hot chocolate all day if you want. On that last day I was super tired from waking up so early so I drank more coffee than I should have (thinking I was going to have to be super alert for the court case) and then we got sent home and I felt really sick on the train like my chest was about to implode and my whole body would collapse in on itself. I don't think I'll drink coffee for a while.
I also bought myself a TV/DVD player while I was up in Ballarat because Dick Smith had an 18 inch LED for $179 which I thought was pretty good. I will need to get rabbit ears to get TV reception, but for now I'm happy just watching DVD's because my complete series of Daria box set arrived the other day and I forgot how funny that show was.
Guess how much I got paid for doing jury duty? A bit over $180, so I broke even.

It has been a while

I haven't posted anything for a while. Every time I've been on my computer in the last week I've been using it to transfer avi's of Community and Doctor Who into mp4's so I can watch them on my ipod because since Thursday I have been doing jury duty in Ballarat and I was informed that there would be a lot of sitting around being bored and doing nothing, but Ballarat is small and that means there are not many cases so I have been going up there everyday, watching the induction DVD, going through the empannelling process, not being picked and then coming home around 12 or 1pm. Tomorrow is my last day, unless my name comes out of the hat, then I could be there for an extra day or week or month as the jury peeps before me found out. On the first day I didn't want to get picked because the case was a rape case and as soon as I heard what the case was I felt very very uncomfortable being in that room at that moment with that gross guy sitting there with his black eye judging us (and obviously I wouldn't have been able to remain impartial).
The second day I wanted to get picked though because the case was a civil case and a person was seeking damages for injuries sustained on the job. I also don't want to have spent all this money going up to Ballarat everyday for nothing.
Tomorrow is my last day so hopefully I get picked for something. I have heaps and heaps of things on my ipod to watch now. And I don't want all that file transferring to have been in vain.
One more week until the mid season finale of Doctor Who (in Australia anyway, so shut up if you've already watched it). This past week was a pretty big cliff hanger so I can't imaging what is in store for us.