Categories: work, study, theatre
Date: 24 July 2007 06:35:42
I'm enjoying the course I'm on (Introduction to Cisco Networking Technologies). The presenter is not only knowledgable, but she is very, very entertaining. It's helping to make these new concepts sink in. Though I'll admit once we hit subnets and had to do all manner of calculations, in binary to boot!, my brain started to cry. I'll sleep well tonight after this grey-matter workout.
The other class members, 8 of them, are also very personable and come from a wide range of backgrounds -- and places. One fellow flew in from Alice Springs and one fellow has flown in from England [he is staying here for several months].
Coming to the City is a new experience -- I really only ever worked here for a week back in 1996. It is busy: oh so busy. People everywhere. I'm not a bustling City person at all. The trains seem to not have improved much -- we truly do have one of the worst railway systems, for both reach and reliability, in the developed world. Almost everyone in the CBD is dressed in suits and such. A very different feel to casual Moorebank [where I work], 45 or so minutes south-west of the Sydney CBD. Though the CBD does have its benefits -- I went to the Lindt Café yesterday after lunch and had a delicious dark chocolate mocha. Mmmm.
I went to see Bell Shakespeare's production of Othello at the Opera House last night. It appears it may be an HSC [Higher School Certificate: the final secondary school exam in New South Wales] text this year as there were many kids and teachers present.
It is a heart-wrenching play: and the actors truly brought this out. Marcus Graham as Iago and Wayne Blair as Othello [who is, surprisingly to me, the first Aboriginal to play the role: given the, continuing, shameful history of the Aboriginal peoples in Australia I'm surprised the parallel between Othello the Turk wasn't used earlier] truly brought the trickery, the deception, the evil even, out. It truly was a very emotional experience. The play was peppered with humour, but this did not detract from the tragedy: if anything, it made it, for me at least, all the more visible and hard-hitting when it happened. Great acting by all cast members in fact, and not forgetting the crew -- wondrous action, lighting, props (simple though they were). A great performance.