The girl behind the counter at the Virgin Store said, "It's very different. I think she's sold out."

I looked at the baby blue cover of Jewel's (with her in bright pastel colours) new album, 0304, in my hand, "You think? It's very very different from her previous albums, that's for sure. I'm all in a whirl. I don't know what to think about this."

"Did you like her new single? Intuition?" asked a bloke behind the same counter.

"Yes, I did. A lot."

I contemplated the cd in my hand. "You know what? Let me sit on this a few days. Let it all mull around in my head," I handed the cd back to them.

"Sure!"

I've let it mull in my head for a week now - going back and forth to the music stores to have a listen and more listens to the cd. I am dead serious about my music. It has got to be music I can live with day in, day out before I eventually buy a copy.

There is very little of the folk Jewel sound of previous years. The songs are still lyrically beautiful and still has that Jewel feel in the words, but where previously the lyrics drove the melody and shaped the song, this time round, I think the melody or beat must have come first. The first impression is the beat, not the words. There's a pop/electronic/dance feel to the album, which was what threw me for sixes when I first heard it in the store. Jewel, I think, calls it "an urban, hip-hop record"? Whatever it is, it is different. There is a touch of Sophie Ellis Baxter running through it, but with Jewel's own brilliant poetry colouring it.

I haven't really had a good listen to the entire album - mainly because I can't get beyond the second track, Run 2 U. The folk element of the first three albums is there, but she's added another dimension to it with this insistent beat that makes me want to jump up on the floor and groove! That's not a normal Jewel reaction - that's more a Justin Timberlake reaction! Ordinarily, Jewel makes me want to cry and then rush out to save the world!

If Jewel's intention was to shake her fans up with this album, she has certainly achieved that. I am "all shook up". But seeing, and Joy can attest to this, as I like Justin and his music, I will probably, definitely, go out and grab a copy of 0304. However, it will eventually sit with Kylie, not with Norah Jones.

Is change gradual, or does it occur almost instantaneously? If change occurs to someone or in someone, do the people closest to them change with them, or get left behind? How do you comfort someone who is bewildered and confused with the changes that are occuring within? Can you see the change in a person's eyes? Does change in one person mean that there will be a change in the other? How does this alter the dynamics of the relationship? Does it mean you will drift apart or are you brought closer together?

Should I explain the week's silence?

Nan Witcomb. I stood in the bookstore, yesterday, drinking her words and wanting more.

If I could find my way
behind your eyes
to make you see
the kind of world I see -
if I could learn to dance
to the rhythm of your heart
and hear the music as you do -
if we could journey
to each others minds
and share a dream or two,
or make an hour into a holiday,
then one day soon,
perhaps I'll find you loving me,
as one day soon,
you'll find me
loving you .....

[deleted]

22.6.03. The world does not revolve around me. I am not the center of the universe. A person is never your possession. Do not assume the worst, and give up before you even begin. Do not let fear dictate your every thought, your every reaction, your very being. Do not give in to fear.

I won't be going home for my usual sabbatical this summer - I got the job. I'll be directing summer school! After practically choking P with exuberance down the phone line, I calmed down and am now quite nonchalant about the whole thing.

Kell on the other hand ... Kell was so stoked that we got it that she messaged me last night - six hours after they had rung us to tell us that we got the job, "I'm so excited! I'm still on a high!"

Peter will not tell me his middle name. I can't say I blame him. He knows I'll use that knowledge every time he's in trouble, very much in the same vein as when I yell at Darren when he's in trouble. "DARREN KELVIN!! You get yourself down here this minute!!!"

But man, oh man, it's fun trying to get it out of him.

The semester is finally over - I shoved my last assignment into my supervisor's pigeonhole on Monday, before I staggered home to get some much needed sleep. I now have about 3 weeks of relative peace and quiet before the next mad season begins. So, to celebrate, Sharon and I are going shopping this weekend - the stocktake sale season has begun! I clap my hands with glee and dance around like an excited child everytime I think about it. Pete laughs and shakes his head at me whenever I do that, and I laugh right back at him.

"When was the last time you saw me this cheerful?!" And excited, to boot.

"It's been a while," he said and gathered me to him for a hug.

I teased him, "Take advantage of this, Pete. The window of opportunity is brief. In 3 weeks, it's back to the grind, and I'll be running around like a mad chook again."

He smiled and said, "You take advantage of it. Do nothing, for a change. Don't volunteer for anything."

So, I'm doing nothing. With him.

I'm getting sick of saying, "I'm tired."

"The Sorcerer's Apprentice! Let's go see that!"

So, P and I went to see it last night. On any other night, I would have thoroughly enjoyed myself.

However ....

I was so tired (long week) that I dozed off twice in the second half of the concert. Twice! Right in the middle of the second and third movement of Tchaikovsky's "brilliant and much loved Pathetique Symphony." How clever was that?!

"One day I realised that they very best things happen when I let go of the urgent desire, when I do all I need to do and then 'put it out there' to the Universe, and then get on with my work and life."
- Lynn Champion, Messages from the Fridge.

I have a job interview on Monday. I'm not anxious about it. It's like what Lynn said. I have done all that I need to do. I have put in the hard work. I have "done my time". So, I will not dwell on the interview. I will just get on with it. The Universe will do right by me.

I learnt how to perform CPR yesterday. You may now call on me should you ever collapse and suddenly stop breathing, in the middle of the street.

On second thoughts, don't. I may do the same thing and collapse next to you and then where will we be?

You know how family comes before friends, and friends before boy/girl-friends? So, what happens if your boy/girl-friend is actually a friend? What happens then?

I'm tired, chickie babes, and depressed. Winter is here. I miss the sun, my life-giving, happy sun. The wind has been howling all day, painting everything in monochromes. I miss that warm amber glow of autumn dusk bathing the trees and the buildings as I drive home from work. I miss my joy.

I'm tired. Just tired, sweetheart.

Oh.

"Something is rotten in the state of Denmark," I said, and left it at there. I waggled my eyebrows in an attempt to look mysterious.

Two hours later, I am trying to figure out what I was trying to get at. What on earth does that qoute mean?!

Liv-speak, part 1 ...
where I de-mystify Liv-slang.

1. "Oooooh, shiny things" or variation there-of.
Origin: Rehearsals of "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe".
Translation: I am uncomfortable with this situation. Quick, change the subject. Oh, let's pretend I'm easily distracted by shiny things.

2. "Let's all do an interpretative dance!"
Origin: Challenges & Innovations workshops.
Translation: We're all sick to death of the conventional presentations, let's do something wild because I can't be bothered being serious and teacherly. Instant solution to a problem.

3. "I'm cranky."
Origin: Overwork.
Translation: I CAN'T THINK ANYMORE. THINK FOR ME!

I want to crawl back to bed, pull the doona over my head and hide from this cruel, cruel world.

Stupid idiotic bureaucratic fools expect us to knock up a decent proposal in a weekend?!!! After we've been after them since January to let us know when the thing was due, the requirements and what criteria we should be addressing, of which I only just got a copy of on Friday?!!

I wish I had Kell's chutzpah. She'll walk in there and give them hell for giving us such short notice and demand an extension, while polite I would go in there, smile very nicely and walk out with no extension.

This sucks.