So glad this week is over. We had out last fusion panel today, which was ok, some students were asking about how do we know what art is, and mostly the art lecturer was answering, but then I said something about the debate over what constitutes art being relatively new, from around the early 20th century, but now the more i think about it the more i think it has always existed but it just changes. I probably shouldn't worry.

Now I have basically a week till marking starts and so I am hoping to knock off at least the bulk of chapter two, it should be do-able, I keep re-writing the plan but I think the one I wrote today is a winner. I am going to take it a bit easy this weekend and re-charge a bit. So tomorrow morning I am going out for breakfast. Anyhoo. Then I am going to see mum (and Hamish) and mum is taking me out to buy some new shoes because I am broke and so are most of my shoes.

I also have to re pot some plants, Dad dropped off some potting mix. I might also have another go at growing basil, the last lot got covered in green fly or something small and annoying.

I think I will spend Sunday reading and writing by hand so I have something concrete to start with on Monday, without the tyranny of my hugely messy word document.

Ohh my friend Nadia won a big art prize, hurrah. Clicky.

Finished some more marking, took ages as I have felt so off colour all weekend. So hard to write articulate comments when your head seems full of cotton wool. Figure I have about a week and a half free now to try and get chapter 2 finished, then it will be basically editing. But so much for having the draft done by end of October. Oh well.

Feelings of hopelessness have been compounded by having a paper sort of rejected, or at least sent back with what I think are rude comments, but Mark thinks are reasonable. Urgh. I really hoped I would have learnt to be able to write properly and assess my own work properly after five years of Phd-ing. Obviously not.

In good news I made delicious choc chip biscuits and have been watering the lemon tree and hydrangeas outside the apartement block and both have started to flower.

I am so cross with Melbourne Uni again, well my anger is directed against certain people really. Once again my timesheet hasn't been approved in time for me to be paid this week, for no good reason, no notes, no emails as to why, I submitted it two days early as I always do. Bloody lazy bastards, this is my income. I have Mark's birthday coming up, amongst a lot of other things and will basically have no money for any of it. I turn up to so many unpaid aspects of the course, do extra prep, meet with students, all basically unpaid and they don't even have the decency to pay me on time. I really want to storm in and tell someone off when I go in for my meeting this Thursday but I will probably just end up crying, like I am now. Fuckers.

PAY ME...

I made a new background, I think it looks good, the process felt a bit like the digital equivalent of using blunt scissors and old sticky tape, but I got there eventually.

So glad it is Friday. I have a fusion panel today, might sit up the back so I can slip out. I'm not even sure why I feel obliged to go when I don't get paid. Maybe I'm still not ruthless enough. Hopefully I can get some thesising done. I have to deal with the bloody Medici who I never planned to have in my thesis but keep worming their way in there with their operas and garden festivals. Grrr.

A Naumachia or naval battle in the palace courtyard.

Courtyard and Garden at the Boboli gardens in Florence today.

I was reading this and was struck by the line 'A PhD in googling', exactly what I feel the coordinator of our course has actually been promoting. Considering I looked at one link she put up and once you clicked past the front page most things were 'under construction'

But anyhoo, it is interesting, something I often think about, but not so much only in terms of google and reading online, but my style of reading full stop. I read novels and other 'fun' reading cover to cover but often when I am researching, even with books I love and use extensively I have such an aversion to reading cover to cover whether online or not. I think partly at the moment it is a stress thing, just trying to grab all that stuff I need and shove it into the thesis, maybe it will change when I finish.

Photos from last weekend in Daylesford.

Bress winery, I love Bress, they make the best rose ever. The winemaker is slightly mad too. And there are chickens.


Sutton Grange, a slightly more fancy pants winery, good wine, but not as good as Bress.

My dress.

Artichokes, my favouritest food ever.

I am so glad I only have a few weeks of teaching left. These new subjects are just so, nothing. I don't feel like the students have got anywhere particularly new, in fact whil we were waiting for our eye clinic visit (don't even ask) yesterday I overheard them saying "so do you think Monash or Deakin?", "Do you know which one will credit our first year subjects?" Yup they want to change unis. Don't blame them, I would have detested this new model. They just don't work, breadth sounds oh so great on paper but actually trying to enforce it, rather than let it develop naturally is so false. For example I was trying to explain today why I thought the essay qustion were far too general and basically dull, but no they have to be that because they have to be about inter-disciplinarity. Urgh. Honestly isn't the idea just that students do different areas of study? Not that each subject has to ram down their throats the VALUE of breadth and to write about it? It is not interesting in and of itself, it is just a big floaty concept.

Yesterday was on bad eyesight and we had these goggles to simulate eye problems, so I wore them in class, gave me a new perspective.

Anyhoo I should be working and I was looking at some old master drawings on the Sotheby's website but got distracted by the fashion photography auctions.

But enough of this indulgence I must get back to good ole Julius II and his Belvedere Courtyard in Rome.