Stuff TM
All is improv'd (as opposed to punish'd for example).
Various things - will make friends only post later as pertains to my last post but one - have gotten better due to good talks with good people. That aside, on Monday last week I started my new job! It's been interesting so far, writing rejection letters to authors (which fascinates me - I keep thinking of Emily of New Moon from the L M Montgomery books getting back her m/s with "damns of faint praise" ...) I have also been running costings for books (you take a book, predict the print run, the cover, art costs, typesetting etc and see if it is viable). And of course, various general assistanty jobs, brainstorming copy for our catalogue and so on. What I really like about it is that I am left alone alot of the time to just do work, in my own time, without the rush rush of pressure that always went on in marketing. Now I loved marketing, especially towards the end when Robyn gave me lots of responsibility and let me micro-manage projects, but this is satisfyingly blissful too - and it's the start of the book process, it's concerns itself with the book itself, purely, instead of the pushing of the book into people's faces (although that too was interesting).
Anyway, it was a hard week in many ways - getting used to the changes and also looking after my replacement as she is now on her own ... we will see how it goes.
On Thursday I went to trivia with my work mates and we won a jug of beer which was pleasing :-) one of the new girls came too and turned out to be v nice. On Friday I went out with the Barcelocas - we had dinner at Abdul's on Cleveland and Elizabeth St - super yummy - wow - haven't eaten that much in ages! We had a banquet room at the back and we ate: tabouli, reams of lebanese bread with baba ganoush (so smokey and good) and hommous, the best felafel I have had since Barcelona's maoz ones, crispy on the outside and tender on the inside, chicken skewers, dolmades, lamb kibbeh, and kefta - and delicious lamb kebab skewers too. We were well on the way to bursting by the end, all lying slumped around on low couches with empty glasses of vino - very nice vino too. We went for a wander around the streets of Slurry Hills afterwards and ended up at the Clock where we met Sangie's boy and his friends. I dropped my loverly strawberry vodka on a table by accident (well obviously not on purpose) and I wasn't even drunk! Which meant it was embarrassing. Anyway, eventually Groove and I muddled home on the trainlet. Bridhe yelled out to me as she left "you're great Nat" in one of our mutual love sessions which happen up to now approx every three years. I really do think she's fabulous though - when we went to see Dimitri from Paris at La Terraza en Barcelona in '04 we both told each other how much we liked each other (as people not in a lurve way) at 6am after dancing like locas all night.
It was really good to see las locas so soon after our last meeting - much more relaxed and calm XD - less champers too.
Anyway on Saturday Matty and I held our house re-arming as I like to call it - about six months after moving here. We had a barbecue - at 2pm we cracked open a couple of beers and wondered why no one had arrived. So Matty called Dave and we realised we had actually told everyone to come at 4! So we had a napski and were all refreshed for uber barbecueing - GOD I CRAVE more cevapcici - love that stuff! And we have a packet of 15 in the freezer. I was the barbecue queen until around 11pm when I realised I had had about 960930930 bottles of beer on the wall, 99 bottles of beer, you take one down you drink it down, etc. By that point we were at Cabana Bar - which is down the road from us, and open air - it was the perfect weather for it - but there are alot of randomised cockroaches running around.
Anyway now it is today and I have caught up on emails and similar such things and am feeling all around satisfied.
xo
Nat
Various things - will make friends only post later as pertains to my last post but one - have gotten better due to good talks with good people. That aside, on Monday last week I started my new job! It's been interesting so far, writing rejection letters to authors (which fascinates me - I keep thinking of Emily of New Moon from the L M Montgomery books getting back her m/s with "damns of faint praise" ...) I have also been running costings for books (you take a book, predict the print run, the cover, art costs, typesetting etc and see if it is viable). And of course, various general assistanty jobs, brainstorming copy for our catalogue and so on. What I really like about it is that I am left alone alot of the time to just do work, in my own time, without the rush rush of pressure that always went on in marketing. Now I loved marketing, especially towards the end when Robyn gave me lots of responsibility and let me micro-manage projects, but this is satisfyingly blissful too - and it's the start of the book process, it's concerns itself with the book itself, purely, instead of the pushing of the book into people's faces (although that too was interesting).
Anyway, it was a hard week in many ways - getting used to the changes and also looking after my replacement as she is now on her own ... we will see how it goes.
On Thursday I went to trivia with my work mates and we won a jug of beer which was pleasing :-) one of the new girls came too and turned out to be v nice. On Friday I went out with the Barcelocas - we had dinner at Abdul's on Cleveland and Elizabeth St - super yummy - wow - haven't eaten that much in ages! We had a banquet room at the back and we ate: tabouli, reams of lebanese bread with baba ganoush (so smokey and good) and hommous, the best felafel I have had since Barcelona's maoz ones, crispy on the outside and tender on the inside, chicken skewers, dolmades, lamb kibbeh, and kefta - and delicious lamb kebab skewers too. We were well on the way to bursting by the end, all lying slumped around on low couches with empty glasses of vino - very nice vino too. We went for a wander around the streets of Slurry Hills afterwards and ended up at the Clock where we met Sangie's boy and his friends. I dropped my loverly strawberry vodka on a table by accident (well obviously not on purpose) and I wasn't even drunk! Which meant it was embarrassing. Anyway, eventually Groove and I muddled home on the trainlet. Bridhe yelled out to me as she left "you're great Nat" in one of our mutual love sessions which happen up to now approx every three years. I really do think she's fabulous though - when we went to see Dimitri from Paris at La Terraza en Barcelona in '04 we both told each other how much we liked each other (as people not in a lurve way) at 6am after dancing like locas all night.
It was really good to see las locas so soon after our last meeting - much more relaxed and calm XD - less champers too.
Anyway on Saturday Matty and I held our house re-arming as I like to call it - about six months after moving here. We had a barbecue - at 2pm we cracked open a couple of beers and wondered why no one had arrived. So Matty called Dave and we realised we had actually told everyone to come at 4! So we had a napski and were all refreshed for uber barbecueing - GOD I CRAVE more cevapcici - love that stuff! And we have a packet of 15 in the freezer. I was the barbecue queen until around 11pm when I realised I had had about 960930930 bottles of beer on the wall, 99 bottles of beer, you take one down you drink it down, etc. By that point we were at Cabana Bar - which is down the road from us, and open air - it was the perfect weather for it - but there are alot of randomised cockroaches running around.
Anyway now it is today and I have caught up on emails and similar such things and am feeling all around satisfied.
xo
Nat