ELECTION! and tales of the past three days

Hooray for Labor winning government, and the Greens picking up Senate seats! Remarkable effort on Maxine's bit as well, clap clap.

Guess where I was on election night? At the Greens party at the Alexandria Hotel! Jealous, jealous? (All the political nerds are jealous and the rest don't care) It was fantastic to be in a huge group of lefty greenies who got deep into their drinks and very vocal throughout the night. And huge screens to watch the election! BLISS.

We cheered when Labor started to pick up seats.
We laughed when Kerry O'Brien couldn't mask his joy over Maxine's convincing lead in Bennelong
We were incredibly shocked over the Bennelong saga.
We booed Jackie Kelly when her very unflattering photo came up on the screen.
There were gasps over the massive swing in the seat of Leichhardt.
We laughed when Julia Gillard's smile was a mile wide, and Nick Minchin was still grumbling.
We drank "Howard's End" wine.

I was out with Soph, and she brought Ash along. We really didn't have many plans for election night, but luckily Ash has "in" with the Greens.

Now, THAT'S how you do election night, you crash the celebrations of a minor party!

And for the sad Liberal voters, just know that there was someone drunker than you on election night.

***

MAP Project screening and following beach day were fantastic. The time we had is probably best explained in photos. You guys know how to Facebook! Actually, the photos of me are pretty horrific ... let's not talk about them.

I don't have much to say but I had the BEST time. It was awesome watching everyone's work, and also just hanging out with everyone the next day.

I can't believe I won't see some of these people anymore! Everyone is freakin' graduating except for a handful of us who are continuing, doing honours, or doing double degrees.

I am seriously going to miss everyone so much, having a massive group of Mappers and getting trashed at the Clare or the Loft after a screening, which is an official tradition now.

I've still got a semester to go ... what will I do with myself after uni?! It's so scary.

***

Going on the trip in less than a week! Eeek. So, will probably be on a blogging hiatus for a while - coming back mid-January. Hoping to have good material for you then!

polls 'n stuff

I took a quiz to work out which party I should vote for (I was already pretty much decided, but was curious about the quiz nonetheless) and I was actually surprised at the 63 Labor - 37 Liberal split, I was actually anticipating something closer to maybe 55-45. Especially since their policies are quite close now.

But what is that purple bar?! Is that One Nation?! Eeek. Obviously, those points must have come from my answers on questions of the economy etc. but yes, I still shudder. Who is running One Nation nowadays anyway?

And I haven't heard of the What Women Want party, but apparently I like their policies.

At Melbourne Airport...

... I almost made a joke about building a bomb.

It was quite late, and for some reason, we're at a gate right at the end of the airport, where hardly anyone goes.

There's no one at the checkpoint where you and all your stuff gets x-rayed, except for the people working there and they all look pretty bored.

So, this one guy whose job it is to do these random explosive traces tests, decides to do one on me, because I'm the only person to have walked through the gate in the last half an hour or something. So, he takes samples off my bag and my jacket.

And I was ABOUT to say something to the effect of "Yeah, I really look like someone whose built a bomb". But then I was like No, Donna! You cannot make jokes about making bombs at airports!

There are signs everywhere, at baggage drop off, around the airport saying that you CANNOT even allude to engaging in any bomb-making, hijacking, terrorist activity et cetera, because they WILL take you seriously, even if you are joking.

...and actually I had been handling matches before (we had bought this candleholder thing with matches for my aunt, and I'd opened up the matches and repacked the matchsticks literally 20 mins before) So, I don't know if match trace would come up and be as considered "explosive trace", but luckily he didn't test my hands!

Melbourne...

Alrighty, huge blog posts because I have finally finished my essay! Never mind if my essay makes sense or not, it's handed in! Last theory subject EVER!

So, I went down to Melbourne for the Portable Film Festival's Screen Academy, but what I really came away with was a desire to go to Spring Racing Carnival!!! (and knowledge and stuff from the media/video workshops as well)

We have to go to the Spring Carnival next year! I felt so cut walking around the city with everyone dressed up to the nines, all around me yummy boys in suits and gorgeous girls, and I felt so underdressed in my jeans. I almost was ready to chuck in this portable film thing to go to the races!

Also, Sydney's Melbourne Cup celebrations are nothing compared to what actually happens in Melbs.

But the Portable film thing was fun - learnt a lot more about producing portable content for devices and online, which was good 'cause it ties in with the stuff I'm doing in Cross Media this year. We were tutored by a range of people, namely the Lonelygirl15 and KateModern creators. I actually learnt a lot about cross-media opportunities of makin' money, cross promotion and tying in branding with video content. And made some friends from around Australia ... a lot of whom surprisingly come from Tassie, who was really well-represented there!

But yes, SPRING RACING CARNIVAL! Keep that one in the back of your mind.