1,000 Words

The day started as bright-eyed and bushy-tailed as possible on a Sunday when the usual ritual is to sleep in as long as I can, to make the trip down to Adelaide for the Phil Hoffman Travel Expo at the Adelaide Convention Centre. The event started at 10:00am and so I parked up at Bonython Park and trammed it down to North Tce. With the offer of Free Coffee at the Expo, I quickly trotted off to the nearest coffee station, past all the exhibitor stalls and grabbed my latte of life. In the pre-planning stages of the Expo, I did the research on how many talks I could squeeze into the 6-hour window and crammed in as many as possible. My homework said I could attend 10, and I made it to 8 ½, so a pretty good effort. I mistakenly thought one of the talks started at 12:15 instead of 12:00, so I missed the first 15 minutes of the 20 minute talk; and by the end of the day, I couldn’t absorb any more information and special offers to attend the final planned talk, which was on USA and Hawaii… bu

I was once told, “I don’t think you know how smart you are.” I’m not a person who speaks openly about successes and achievements. In my view, it’s a form of bragging, and it’s not needed. If I was to attend a job interview, and there was a question that required me to speak about what I’m capable of, then by all means, I’ll let it rip, but until then, I’m not about to tell everybody my life’s story – that’s like spending the first 15 minutes of a first date hearing your date talk about how amazing they are… but here we are… I reached the end of Year 11 and thought about Year 12 and beyond, and there wasn’t a clear path I wanted to follow. I knew I had the smarts for English, Drama and a certain amount of maths (but not the advanced stuff). My first qualification I studied was a Diploma in Professional Writing through AC Arts (TAFE SA). That lasted 9 months. The course just had too many modules on aspects of writing I wasn’t interested in, and couldn’t get past it. I went on to a Ce

I set the challenge at the end of the last post for someone to give me a topic and I would write a meangingful blog post on the topic. Nobody stepped up to the challenge (if you didn't see that part at the end of the post- don't worry, you can still give me a topic and I'll do another blog post), so I picked a topic on the first thing that came to mind... Brains... here goes nothing! Anatomically, we all have a brain. The motor functions of our body operate through the nerves system, controlled by our brain - the ability to talk, walk, move, carry out tasks, breathe, touch, get a sensation of temperature, and so forth. But for some people, that's as much as the brain does for them. The reality in 2023 (and many years prior) is that common sense cannot be relied upon. There are too many people on the planet that don't have the brain function to be able to know what makes sense, to know how something could be carried out logically, and more importantly, to be able to

What if you’re living within 50kms of Adelaide CBD and someone told you that you can shop from all the businesses you need within Adelaide and North Adelaide before 4pm and have it delivered to your front door the very next day? REVOLUTIONARY! This will change the opportunities for the many that don’t want to entangle themselves among the CBD traffic – on the road, in the carparks, and on the footpath - but would otherwise risk missing out on purchases they want to make because what they desire is within a store within Adelaide CBD or North Adelaide. byADL is an initiative to stimulate Adelaide’s growth and promote Rundle Mall as Adelaide’s shopping destination as a digital marketplace. Launched late 2022, the advertising and marketing of this initiative missed the opportunities that Christmas presents, but the many occasions and events throughout 2023 can certainly make use of byADL . I can certainly see the positives during ‘Mad March’ when Adelaide is bustling with events and fe

The origin of ErisedCauldron began with the launch of Pottermore in 2012. As 99% of readers will know, I’m an avid Harry Potter fan, so naturally when Pottermore was teased by Rowling and eventually released, I was keen to jump straight in to see what it was all about. Of course, you got to find out what your house was (I’m a Hufflepuff), find out what your wand is (Laurel wood with a unicorn core, 11 ½” and surprisingly swishy flexibility), and as time went on, they allowed you to find out what your Patronus is (White Swan – how majestic). When one originally created a Pottermore account, part of the process was to either create or randomly generate a username – great way to conceal your identity from other users. I went with the random generator and sat at the computer for about 15 minutes, constantly hitting the random generator button until I found something that piqued my interest… and there it was: ErisedCauldron29007! Of course, now if you were to attempt going on to Potte

As this becomes my first post on my blog and my first post for 2023, I have been pondering the last few days what the year might look like... The year that was included great successes, new realities, drawbacks, and opportunities. From the closing of doors and letting go of vices, to embracing opportunities and taking on life’s challenges, I’m now in my 31 st trip around the sun. Let’s start somewhere fun… 2022 started off with being Assistant Director for Green Wall Studio’s production of Pirates of Penzance. It was a great opportunity to further my learning by watching how Mr. Salter directed and presented himself to a range of ages involved in the cast. Furthering from this, to be witness to the way he created a believable story with minimal set pieces has certainly started my rethinking about not always needing a set to tell a story, and this is something I’ve been thinking about for whenever I may once again get the opportunity to don the directing hat. My position as Secre