Identity - GLAM blog club July 2017

Getting in at the very end here...

This month's prompt reminded me of this post from Letters to a Young Librarian. It probably covers what I have to say far more eloquently (and with far more depth), but here is my identity story.

When I first graduated, as a newly-minted librarian who had given up another career path and more besides to change directions, I was very heavily invested in that identity. Had you asked me who or what I was and it were not to learn my name, I would have told you that I was a Librarian. It rapidly became the central fact of my identity, even though I hadn't precisely worked in a library yet, and it would be six years before the word appeared in my job title or description. That didn't dull my investment in my profession or slightly overdone enthusiasm.

via GIPHY

Oh dear.

Make no mistake, it's still an important part of who I am still, but that one-factor identity didn't do me any favours, really. When I began to cultivate other parts of myself again - the love of games and stories (both at once if possible) that has always been there most of all - it was beneficial to my state of mind, general happiness and my professional life.

I still have a strong investment in my profession but it no longer defines me entirely. It's important and valuable but it's not all I am. I take part in professional development but I develop other skills and interests for their own sake. If they overlap, that's wonderful but I don't approach with that expectation.

And I am happier and better off for it.

Reflecting on 2015, looking forward into 2016

A year ago today I set out to have a year of learning and creativity - instead of making resolutions I decided on a focus for the year. I imagined a great deal of photography, craftiness and self-motivated learning with a professional focus. The year started off much as I'd imagined it, while I was searching for a new job I had a lot of control over how I spent my time and fit all sorts of wonderful things in.

Then, in June, I moved across the country with a sudden and radical downsize in housing arrangements and several months of general life turbulence while I tried to settle and establish myself first in a share house, and when that didn't work out, in a flat of my own. I've established - or at least started to - a new network of social contacts and am finding my feet, though some days I feel more certain than others.

Even after the move I found the opportunity to attend training in professional areas and on various topics that caught my interest including origami and cryptic crosswords. Learning how life in general and libraries in particular differ between states was especially interesting with more differences than I expected, a lot of them very fundamental things.

Asides from a bit of origami I feel like I dropped the creativity ball in the second half of the year - and in the last two or three months the learning activities I did do were mostly incidental rather than motivated by my year's goal. I've been pushing myself very hard and taking on a lot of extra things, which has led to extreme exhaustion a few times and has meant that activities I enjoy like photography and blogging have been neglected. I've been reflecting on this today and have come to the conclusion that despite being overwhelmed at the end of the year 2015 was a very successful year - one in which perseverance and adaptability were needed in large volumes which I managed to produce.

This reflection leads me to my decision of a focus for this year. 2016 is going to be my year of balance. When I have decisions to make from little everyday things to the potentially life-changing I will be considering them with balance in mind. I hope that it will take many forms from spending my time more wisely to not overloading myself and taking better care of my body and mind.

One thing I'm starting right away is a challenge to move and be active every day. One of my friends has been encouraging people to take this on - I'll be using the hashtag #move366 on Instagram (find me here if you wish) to track myself and make myself accountable in some way, if mostly to myself. This doesn't mean I'll be spending hours in the gym or cycling through mountainous terrain every day - I'll just try to do something. On those days when I'm out of the house before 7:30 and return somewhere close to midnight I might only have a lunchtime stroll or a decent stretching session to report but it'll be something. Today I started off fairly gently by walking instead of driving when I needed to run some errands.

I'm feeling hopeful, and look forward to reflecting on this in a year.

Library user behaviour and co-operative differences across state borders

As ever, opinions expressed here are entirely my own. This goes for anything in this blog, but it's worth reiterating today.

Once upon a time, a reference inquiry was a rarity in my library life. And when I went on a road trip, I could stop over for another CD just about anywhere without consideration of whether I'd stop in that town again.

Adelaide and Melbourne have very different public library behaviours and internal environments - from the little things all the way up. I've had a lot of time to observe and think on these and write down scraps of what I might say. Instead of writing a tome of minutiae I've decided to focus on two observations - customer usage patterns and inter-library co-operation. The implications of different funding models, particularly the long-term influences, are a third topic that might be worthy of future investigation but I don't feel that I am well enough informed to tackle that subject at present.

But first, some context

My public library experience has been in three library services, and these shape my observations. The first was a large suburban Adelaide library service with five branches (currently four), a range from wealthy to extreme economic disadvantage and incredible cultural diversity. The second was just outside of Adelaide, a town with two library branches, one of which was full-time, which also served a lot of visitors from nearby regional areas. The third, in Melbourne, is a large five-branch service in an area that's predominantly very wealthy.

As a serial visitor-of-many-libraries, I believe these two observations hold at least broadly true, if not universally.

On reference inquiry frequency

In Melbourne, library users understand that the staff are there to help navigate and pinpoint resources and make use of this opportunity.

Freshly arrived in Melbourne, during my first week in training, I was amazed how many reference inquiries I responded to. In Adelaide I did respond to reference inquiries, mostly local history and family history, but they were far fewer in number. Readers' advisory questions had been even rarer and I had begun to question the relevance of training in this, but now I receive several each day. Having always loved this part of the job, I am very happy! The only noticeable downturn I've observed since moving is in providing general purpose support in computer and device use outside of supporting library-specific systems and resources. In both services I worked in during my time in Adelaide libraries these were common, general website, email and word processing inquiries being particularly frequent - now inquires rarely stray outside of e-books, WiFi login and printing.

The reasons for this aren't immediately obvious, I can see the effects of differing user attitudes but the core eludes me yet. I have inklings, but nothing I can make a statement about.

Whilst I continue to observe and try to understand what makes library users in Melbourne more aware of the professional service capacity of libraries I'd be grateful to anyone who can share their own insights.

Strength in numbers

Adelaide's - and indeed all of South Australia's - libraries are recognised for their co-operation by way of the achievements of One Card / OneLMS / PLSA consortium, something I'm asked about often. Their co-operation, however, is much older and deeper. The systems providing public Internet and WiFi are shared rather than operated by each individual service and have been for years. I could visit any public library with my SA library card and log in to WiFi with the same login and no re-registration even before One Card, though that has substantially streamlined the experience. A system less visible to the public, P2, whilst no longer doing everything it was once built for, still offers state-wide consortium buying of collection materials so that even the smallest libraries are able to leverage some of the opportunities of a large buyer. Cross-promotion between library services at both staff and customer levels is quite commonplace.

Melbourne is different - the library services have a powerful individualist streak - there's the capacity to search across all public library catalogues and for customers to initiate inter library loans thorough Library Link Victoria  but asides this the co-operation I see is with other types of organisations - community centres, interest groups and other council or government bodies. Whilst there is interest and talk between library services about doing things differently, they don't seem to have gone terribly far with a myriad of reasons given - though I must add a caveat there, I'm further from such things than I once was so might be missing a lot. It will be interesting to see how co-operative efforts change over the next few years as other examples from around the country continue to appear.

Both Melbourne and Adelaide have very strong professional interactions (though in Melbourne this is more structured with many more events and the number of people involved vastly higher) - librarians talk to each other, share ideas and values but in Adelaide this has led to more joint efforts.

I believe that the difference in past and present funding models for the libraries in each city have played a substantial role in shaping the co-operative differences, however as previously stated, I don't currently feel well enough informed to analyse this with any confidence.

Lastly

There is greater difference between the libraries in Adelaide and Melbourne than I expected - I knew before I arrived that differences of scale would be substantial, in the city-wide sense if not in every branch I visit. Through Twitter I had become well acquainted with several librarians in Melbourne and noticed professional attitudes were similar in each cities and so expected it to continue into the working reality.

The various environments - particularly the historical environment - are what I presume to be the driver of difference. I suspect that funding challenges of the past are especially significant to co-operative differences. The user behaviour differences are harder to understand - it appears more fundamental than a short-term publicity effect.

Most of all I see that each city's librarians have a great deal to learn from each other yet, and that moving from an area of familiarity to another geographically removed from my roots has been a professionally valuable decision

If you'd like to discuss these differences, or others, I'd welcome it either in the comments or via Twitter.

Letters of Note,Copyfight and cultural heritage

One book at a time has never been my style. I feel as if it should be, that it'd be good for focus and so on, but recently I had the good fortune to be reading Letters of note and Copyfight whilst the #cooking forcopyright campaign was in full swing. They complimented each other beautifully.

A quick aside, as I'm discussing matters of law here, I want to point out that I have not studied law and am not a copyright subject expert. Except where stated, opinions here are my own, derived from earlier experiences, reading Copyfight and materials connected to the Cooking for Copyright campaign.

Letters of Note is a collection of correspondence compiled by Shaun Usher, based on the blog of the same name. It's a wonderful book full of insights to popular and historically significant people and times, giving them the human touch a brief encyclopedic article can't. Among my many favourites are the letter from 11-year-old girl who wrote to Abraham Lincoln to suggest that he grow a beard, Tim Schafer's text adventure covering letter to a job application and Kurt Vonnegut's letter to the head of a school board that consigned a class set of his books to their furnace. The letters can be beautiful, funny, shocking and emotional. Presenting primary sources with brief explanations and transcriptions or translations as needed is powerful. It also contains a double page of tiny type with acknowledgements, permissions and copyright statements, a fact I'll return to later. I will also come back to the wonderful Australian inclusion, To a Top Scientist which can also be found on the Letters of Note blog. As I write this a second volume is currently available for pre-order and I am keen to discover what it contains.

Copyfight, edited by Phillipa McGuinness, is a collection of various discussions and arguments around Australian copyright as it stands in mid-2015, a far more interesting and convoluted topic than might be expected. It doesn't look good for copyright now - and I'm unconvinced copyright in Australia has a "good old days". Copyright is perpetually lagging behind developments in technology and culture. The possibilities brought on by the Internet are among the latest of many rounds, once it was music recordings in wax that caused a shake-up.  Unsurprisingly, quite a few of the articles in Copyfight focus on the elephant in the room, copyright owners vs. piracy, which I have no intention of discussing here. Many avoid that headline-grabbing political football of a topic and look at other issues. These make it clear that copyright reform is needed for many reasons beyond the aforementioned elephant. Copyright should encourage creation and balance the interests of creators, investors, consumers (individually) and the general public. I'm not convinced it does that nearly as well as it should.

A number of problems stood out as I read Copyfight. One was lack of fair use provisions, fair dealing does not cut it and probably never did. Several articles in this book explain some of the reasons for this, especially those by Angela Bowne and Dan Ilic. It's likely I've technically breached this many times without doing anything the reasonable person would consider unfair, I might even have done it in this post.  There's another problem in copyright length  - while authors and investors need the right to profit from their work, I see the extension from 50 to 70 years after death of the creator as stinking of protection of multinational corporate interests that are disconnected from original creators and encouragement of new creative works. Justin Heazlewood and Lindy Morrison show  that performers' copyright offers poor protection to individual artists and smaller copyright owners, especially when crossing national borders. Felicity Fenner shows that copyright for visual arts is ambiguous and inadequate. The public inaccessibility of data and reports from publicly funded research in publicly funded institutions is another issue that is explained in detail by Hannah Forsyth. This is just a sampling of the issues.

Copyfight unearths some of the complications reforms must deal with -  our laws exist in an international environment which is affected by treaties, trade agreements and international relations in a world where not all sizeable markets apply the principles of the Berne Convention. Any such reforms would then have to survive meeting the courts.

It's the copyright status of unpublished works that draws this all together. Tim Sherratt's article in Copyfight explores some of the ways that TROVE has been used to explore and understand Australia's cultural heritage through digitisation of newspapers and magazines and the impact this has had - and why most of it stops in 1954 and how even that is in risky copyright territory. Alongside these newspapers, Australian libraries and archives contain a wealth of unpublished resources - letters, photographs, diaries and more that could expand our cultural understanding if made available digitally. The Australian National Library alone contains over two million unpublished works (source, p. 50). At present, under Australian law the copyright on unpublished works never expires. ALIA's FAIR initiative provides an explanation, references and resources. Ownership of this never-ending copyright may be unclear or spectacularly difficult to determine - and there is no exception for orphan works. The holding institution may have some ability to use them, but it is unclear as to whether mass digitisation is covered (source).

Once I found several old annotated photographs in a donation to a library I was working in. The donor did not want them returned or destroyed, and the photographs, while insightful, were not of local relevance. As an alternative, I looked into donating them to the local or state library whose collection parameters they fit. The state library was interested, but wanted a donation form filled out which, amongst other things, requested that I assign copyright to them - it was not mine to give. There is no way to know whose copyright it was as the donor was not the photographer and the items did not give clues. Consequently, if the receiving library chose to keep those items their usefulness would be severely limited.

The pages acknowledging sources and copyright in Letters of Note may be sufficient for that publication, but determining and finding the copyright owners of works in Australian collections would be a greater barrier. Taking the risk that TROVE has in releasing material of uncertain copyright status might not be acceptable to a smaller institution, commercial publisher or private individual. Where copyright owners are living, such as To a Top Scientist in Letters of Note, permission might be reasonably achievable. Some copyright owners would be easy to trace. Many would not, an example given by FAIR is of a letter and recipe sent to a radio presenter where there is a theory as to the author's identity, but no certainty.

So whilst I found the reading of Letters of Note enlightening and wondered what an Australian version of this might teach, I am not likely to find out while our copyright laws remain as they are. Bring on the change.

Reading onward... books 21-30 for 2015

Time to take my nose out of my current book (briefly) and let you know what I've been reading. Forgive me the huge post!

21 - What makes us tick? - Hugh Mackay

I bought this book at Writers' Week during the Adelaide Festival of the Arts. Although I didn't know much about Hugh Mackay's writing his talk sounded interesting, and I had time - although he mostly spoke about a different book I decided to try this one.

In this book, Hugh Mackay explains ten drivers of behaviour and decision-making beyond the basic needs of food, water, air and such. Throughout the book a variety of situations are given and the interaction of these drivers is explained. I started to think of similar situations I've seen, and began to see the behaviour of others I've met with a fresh perspective.

This is a book that really made me think - it gave me a lens to look through when thinking about my own choices and actions and those of others. I plan to revisit it again in future as it's knowledge well worth keeping active in my mind. Along with other books I'm currently reading or have read in the recent past I'm finding that I'm developing a new way of looking at things and learning from them. This can only be a good thing.

22 - Chew, Vol. 1: Taster's Choice - John Layman & Rob Guillory

Tony Chu is cibopathic - he gets psychic impressions from what he eats. In a world where poultry was banned after an outbreak of avian flu killed millions this is a very useful detective skill in the FDA - combating the black market for chicken is serious work. But this skill is not always a good thing. Sometimes it's best not to know the details...and some of the things Tony has to eat in the line of duty are not exactly food.

The story is crazy and fun, the characters are wonderfully fun. I enjoyed the story and am looking forward to seeing where it goes - looks like a lot of shades of grey are developing.

You might not to read this one while eating though.

23 - Poisoned Apples: poems for you, my pretty - Christine Hepperman

This book of poetry mixes issues teenage girls frequently face with fairytales and feminism. I found about half of the poems in the book very enjoyable and cleverly written, but didn't really find much for me in the rest, especially the fairly substantial number of them tackling eating disorders. This might well be a reflection of personal experience, so others might find something more in those.

24 - Guards! Guards! (Discworld, #8) - Terry Pratchett

A mysterious cult, a fire-breating dragon, a collection of unlikely guardsmen and (gasp!) a stolen library book. This book was my introduction to the wonderful and hilarious Discworld. I'd attempted to read The Colour of Magic before but hadn't got far. This book did the trick. When I heard that Sir Terry Pratchett had died I wanted to re-visit the Discworld, and I thought that the book that got me into it was the right place to go back to. I was sad to hear of Sir Terry's passing, but I was soon laughing along with this book. It's sad that he's gone, but the books he's left behind will bring many hours of laughter and good cheer to people for many years to come.

25 - The Disappearance of Ember Crow (The Tribe, #2)- Ambelin Kwaymullina

I really don't want to spoiler this series - and it's almost impossible to introduce this book without spoilering the first so I'll skip right onward.

Once again we're given the idea we know what's going on - but we're proven wrong repeatedly as secrets, some buried for many years, are revealed. It takes fantastic storytelling skill on the part of the author to do this so well, too often twists can be spotted a mile off - but not in this series. There are plenty of surprises here to keep you hooked and reading far later than is entirely responsible (*cough*). 

The Interrogation of Ashala Wolf was a great book, but the second in the series is much stronger. The story has gained complexity and moral grey areas of varying degrees abound. My challenge now, is to wait patiently for the third book. That will be difficult.

26 - Hinterkind, Vol. 1: The Waking World - Ian Edginton and Francesco Trifogli

After the blight, little of humanity remains. Cities are overgrown and life as we know it is long gone. Fantastic creatures and people have returned to the world, and they're not exactly friendly...

Even by my standards, I'll keep this one brief. This book wasn't bad, but I just wasn't inspired or compelled by it. I did continue to Vol. 2, but I'm not sure I would have if I hadn't already borrowed it from the library. I'm sure some people enjoyed it... but this wasn't my cup of tea.

27 - Into the Grey - Celine Kiernan

After a fire destroys their Home Patrick, his twin Dom and their family move into a seaside cottage that was once the family's summer getaway. Now, changed by the fire, they attract sinister attentions. Patrick can see that Dom is changed - perhaps dying- but nobody else seems to notice. As things worsen and history is gradually revealed Patrick will have to deal with the situation to the best of his ability in trying circumstances. 

A good spooky read that drew me in so well that time seemed to disappear within its pages. The supernatural is here, but this is proper spooky stuff, not the more amiable and flashy paranormal that has become so popular. While I really detest gender categorising books, in YA I can't help but notice the dominance of books primarily targeted at girls. When looking for books to recommend to teen boys when they visit the library it can be tough to find newer titles. This book will be great for recommending in that situation.

28 - Hinterkind, Vol. 2: Written in Blood - Ian Edginton, Francesco Trifolgi and Cris Peter

According to my notes, I enjoyed this a little more than Vol. 1 (book 26, higher up in this review). That said, now that I come to write a review not much comes to mind to write about it. The characters are stronger, there are some interesting developments, but I'm not sure I'll continue with the series. There are too many out there that I'd rather read first.

29 - Pride of Baghdad - Brian K Vaughan, Niko Henrichon

Inspired by the real life escape and eventual re-discovery of lions from Baghdad's view, this emotionally powerful story imagines what might have happened and mixes it with a great deal of musing on the meaning, value and costs of freedom and captivity.

I was drawn to this book as I've enjoyed some of Brian K Vaughan's other work, especially Saga. I can't really draw a comparison between that book and this because there's not a lot of common ground. The philosophy was a bit heavy-handed at times but the ideas were interesting and I found myself quite attached to the characters.

If you're looking for a happy ending, you won't find one here. It's an interesting read though.

30 - Faking it (The Intern, #2) - Gabrielle Tozer

Things are going well for Josie. She's found a job as a writer and things are working out well with her boyfriend. But the pressure's building with new responsibilities and expectations and she's developing a shocking case of impostor syndrome...

As with the first book in the series, the characters are wonderfully written. Josie's awkwardness is believable and the distinct personalities of the other characters are really well written. I really only had one gripe - there's a scene with a librarian, she's a horrible, vicious stereotype (ultra-authoritarian, uptight, angry, moralist) who behaves in a manner totally unbelievable to a person who's worked in libraries. Given how well other characters are written it was quite disappointing. I had to put the book down and walk away for a bit. Thankfully that character didn't recur and the book is very, very good otherwise.

I've been enjoying reading some newer Australian YA authors and Gabrielle Tozer and the earlier mentioned Amberlin Kwaymullina have been the standouts.

2015 photo post up-to-dating

54 (23rd February) - Fix - I took time to fix this mouse... he's Mum's and was a victim of kitten curiosity a little while ago. PVA glue was all I needed - that and to tackle the job in stages. At this point there are already some sections that have been glued back together. I was pleased with the results, and the mouse is back on the shelf.

55 - 12 O'Clock - I was out on the road, almost at Keith, on the longest distance driving day I've yet had. I enjoyed it more than I expected though wouldn't want to do this kind of thing daily.

56 - Reflection - after an interview I take time to reflect - on this occasion that meant time at Picaninnie Ponds, a place where I really enjoyed the isolation, if only for a little while, and during the drive. While much of my mind focuses on the road and the route there's plenty left to contemplate life, the universe and everything. The skies were pretty spectacular too. They might not be a literal reflection but they help with the reflecting.

57 - Grow - Something this lobster at Kingston SE did?

58 - Still Life - I took a few more traditional subject photos but wasn't really happy with them. Instead I focused on background and light. Which I need to work on more... but made some progress. This is my favourite of the shots taken, possibly not the best lit but in combination with framing it seems stronger.

59 - Thank you - not so much thank you, as thankful. For the festival season in Adelaide, the atmosphere, buzzing and excited, and for good nights out. This night I caught one of the $5 shows and enjoyed some food, drink and people watching.

60 - Starts with R - R & R and Reading. I've enjoyed a few books with a sociology/psychology angle lately and they've been good food for thought too.



-- From here I decided to take some time off, I don't want to burn myself out, so if I need a break in my creative projects... I'll take them ;) Days 60-74 I'm considering that break though the few photos following I've included anyway. They were taken incidentally rather than as part of an ongoing effort --

66 - Spotted some street art on the way to Yum Cha in the city with friends, these were Chinese donuts, crisp pastry inside, soft pastry outside, tasty sauce. I tried tripe for the first time, the flavour (especially with sauce) I found to be decent but I just couldn't get past the texture and found it difficult to eat as a result.

70 - I made my second batch of jam, this time with peaches. The method was a little trickier but the results were good. It didn't set as firmly as the nectarine jam did but I'm still happy with the outcome. This was also a much bigger batch so I'll have jam for quite a while now.

71 - A night out at the fringe. I saw 'Randy Writes a Novel' with a friend and had a lot of fun doing so. Couldn't take a photo then, so instead, this was my dessert. It was gooood.

72 - Colour - I jumped into responding to a prompt today as it inspired me. Overnight I heard that Sir Terry Pratchett died. His books brought much colour to my life and will continue to do so, I love re-reading these from time to time.

74 - After a huge and wonderful birthday weekend (this mug was a gift) spending time with friends and family and seeing La Soiree, which was absolutely incredible, it was time for a cup of tea. I will keep creating, keeping calm... is a work in progress. Although I'm going forward without prompts for now I'm hoping to resume more regular photography after this break.

2015 photo challenge week 5

26 - Barbecue in a park, playing cricket and kubb, listening to the hottest 100. Magic. Battery operated radio required so I located my CD/Cassette/Radio from the mid nineties and reacquainted myself with tuning in analogue. The party host tracked down the 6xD batteries needed (apparently a rare size now). Challenge increased as the display is apparently somewhat inaccurate - that photo has it tuned to play 105.5. I was too busy playing cricket and such on the day to take photos, so since the radio played an important part, here it is.

27 - A haircut does wonders for the way I feel about myself. I don't know why,exactly, but it's not something I'm going to complain about. I thought it was time that my photo appeared in my project too. (The one on day 24 wasn't originally intended to be part of it, bit of an afterthought)

28 - Calendars have become part of the Christmas tradition, Mum and Dad get me a different one each year. This one features Monet's work, January was 'The water-lily pond with the Japanese bridge' (1899). A whole month gone... dang.

29 - I'll never get tired of sunsets, you don't even need to go far to appreciate them. This was taken from the end of my driveway. The rest of this commentary's going to head into editing, self-critique and such so if you're not interested, skip ahead ;)

One thing I've been learning this year is how to use my photo editing tools better. If I want a quick edit and I'm on a computer that's cool with the idea, I'll use google's inbuilt stuff (or instagram's), but for better results I'm using GIMP 2.8, rather good set of tools, and free too - I'm mostly editing levels though I also twitched a bit using brightness, contrast, lightness and saturation. Many of my photos, prior to editing, have colours and contrasts that don't really represent what I saw. Learning to use my camera better will help a bit, but editing will always factor in. I'm trying to strike a balance between beautiful colours and pushing things beyond reality. I think this one's a touch overdone - I should have edited it to be more orange than purple as the sky was predominantly orange that evening. It's a nice image that I find visually pleasing, I think the composition's good if not stellar but while enhancing an image is often necessary I want to represent what I saw, which this isn't quite achieving. I'll keep trying...

30 - Movie night at Apex Park in Gawler. It was a lovely night though the turnout was apparently somewhat down from the previous week. While I waited for the sun to set I enjoyed one of the cupcakes... again I realised this photo was very fuzzy when I saw it on a larger screen but I can't retake this. So... here are some flowers I saw on the way too? I got two photos of these, the other is a shade clearer but I prefer the composition of this one.

31 - I bought the wrong kind of feta so rather than have it go to waste, I made spanakopita, a new recipe for me. I'd link you to the recipe but I was rather free with it, halving the quantity, substituting frozen spinach for baby spinach and adjusting a few other things as necessary. Thankfully it's a very forgiving recipe - some cooking is more an art, some cooking is more sciencey... this one seems more at the art end. I think next time I'll add a little grated lemon rind, several recipes included that but the one I used did not. I've not cooked with pastry much before, especially in a savoury context, so I was very pleased with the outcome.

32 - After a night in the fridge, the results were delicious. I'm very proud of the results. I've tried it both cool and warmed, I prefer it warmed in the oven as it causes the pastry to become super-crispy and delicious.

Year of Learning and Creativity - 2015 photo challenge week 1

Instead of making a resolution this year, I'm setting a theme to guide me. A twitter friend mentioned they have been doing this for a few years and after some thought I decided I liked it. A late night walk or two later I decided that 2015 will be a year of Learning and Creativity. I chose this theme as learning and creativity are things I value and want to improve on. My learning of the last year or two has been haphazard and disjointed, I want to change that. I have let my creative endeavours slip too - exhaustion and other concerns got in the way. Once again, this needs changing. I'll do this several ways, but here's the first.

As of the first of January I'm setting off on a 365 photo challenge. On a previous blog I did one of these that eventually rocketed on past 500 consecutive days. Ultimately I quit because I was exhausted and it had become a chore. As a result and haven't been doing all that much with my photos or even taking them very often since.This time I have a plan that I hope will be less of a chore and help me rediscover why I love taking photos. So rather than blogging daily as last time, I'll put the photos to Instagram most days with a weekly post here, if I do take any that I want to display in full resolution/not square-ness I might post here a little more. Some days might be more serious photography but there's nothing wrong with happy snaps either. 

This month I'm going sort of... free-spirited with the photo challenge. I think I might try out various organised ones with daily themes in some of the other months. They look like an interesting inspiration.

1 - 2014 ended well - I had good company and went to the cricket, had delicious dessert and watched fireworks before cycling home shortly after midnight. I was pleasantly surprised by how nice it was out on the bike at that hour. Continuing on, 2015 got off to a good start, playing cricket in the nets with friends, excellent Indian dinner, watching the new Hobbit movie and last but not least, a swim at Glenelg late at night. I've never seen the water so clear and calm. It was cool, but I adjusted quickly. I could gladly have stayed a long time.

2 - January 2 was especially hot - I farewelled Amy and Barnaby's kitten and got on my way back home. Once inside I stayed there - air conditioning and movies (Dark Star, Flying High, How to Train Your Dragon 2). The day peaked at 44.7 C at the nearest weather station so I only ventured out for dinner - I wasn't cooking in that.

3 - Terrible bushfires in the Adelaide Hills, some not all that far away, so I spent the day keeping an eye on reports and warnings. I stitched a bit while I did so - this is a project that I've been working on for a long time and needs finishing. Towards evening I could smell the fires but thankfully they've stayed a good distance away. Also, a bonus photo because the sky was beautiful.

4 - When I headed back up here two days ago I brought some Christmas leftover perishable goods that won't last until holidaying folk return. The quantities are still kind of large so I'll definitely get my recommended fruit and veg intake for a few days... though I'm not yet sure how I'll use all the parsley and corriander. Some of it went into this salad. Lacking the ingredients for my favourite cous cous recipe I made it up as I went along. Not bad, though I think I'd make the dressing from my favourite to put on it next time. I've still got crazy volumes of these herbs left and other things besides. Slightly overwhelmed but really not complaining, this really is a delicious conundrum.

Learning to Sketchnote

I've been seeing people's sketchnotes and hand-drawn infographics around the Internet for a while - I'd pretty much discounted doing this myself as my drawing ability is, if charitably spoken about, under-developed. Recently I've seen a few people developing their own skills in graphic note taking, one example being Kim Tairi, this being one of her more recent sketchnotes

Tx @kerrirusnak loved your talk #leadership #resonated #darefest filling my cup with #mojo #sketchnote #mystory pic.twitter.com/TYhdo1c72Y
— girl with fox tattoo (@kimtairi) October 27, 2014

While I'm between jobs I want to learn some new skills and keep on learning so this seemed like a good thing to try. I've had some small art sketch books about my house for quite a while and a lovely set of coloured fineliner pens so I picked them up and had a go.

I was surprised at how well they came out even if they're very, very basic. I didn't start by noting speeches, I started by making graphic notes and diagrams as a thought process to get me through a couple of situations that I was finding stressful. I found it a very good way of getting my mind through the situations.

Since then I've borrowed, on recommendation, The Sketchnote Handbook which I'll have to revisit from time to time. I've been using TED talks as practice and so far the notes below for Brewster Kahle's speech a free digital library is the one I'm most pleased with. Several others have had elements I've liked - headers or specific sections - but this one came together well with just the right amount of space to note the whole thing without leaving large blank areas.

There us space for improvement - the structured could use work, I'd like more typographical variation and I am not sure the emphasis always falls where I want it to but on the whole I'm pleased. I'm going to practice this more, both specific elements and actually producing finished pages - I'm gaining a skill and along the way learning quite a bit from the talks.

I might not be producing some of the wonders visible on Sketchnote Army but I'm very pleased with my progress.