chef hands

so things are still going brilliantly, which is awesome. except i have been feeling pretty anxious and down a bit. i think im a bit homesick here and there. but ill get over it, only have about 2 months and 6 days left and im back in the united states of america…. woo hoo. yea, that didnt sound too exciting in my head while i typed it. but things are getting better at M.O.O- the place where i work. im still doing a lot of line and prep work in the kitchen, its awesome! i made this mint and walnut paste or the fresh ocean trout dish, which is also served with a beetroot puree, yea nice stuff right there. mum and dad, maybe ill be cooking thanksgiving dinner this year with a bit of spice.. that would be pretty awesome. anwyays, mike, head chef, was needing some inspiration and a nice meal after all the shit thats been going down and not happening in the kitchen- lack of a proper team, so we decided to go out for a really nice dinner. went to this italian place in st. kilda called cafe di stazio- real nice place, except for the creepy bathroom that made me feel like i should be commiting suicide or doing drugs- not a good feeling at all. straight out of trainspotting or something. anyways. we ordered some panfried eggplant with tomato, basil, and parmesan, some fresh ocean trout, with creme fresch- and no joke, i actually ate it and enjoyed it. it was pretty weird, but exciting. and then mike got some suckling pig, which was incredibly tender and i got some veal with sage and some gnocchi. they make the ebst gnocchi to exist. well i havent eaten much, but mike was thinking  the same thing.  it was pretty funny, because the waiters just thought we were everyday kids, trying to have a good meal. mike asks where the pork is from, and the guy was like, yea this isnt something you would have at home or get from your IGA, its from.. somewhere. so now we know where to get some real nice pork. the kind we get is a bit larger and not as expensive, but this stuff was money. funny how little secrets get out.   and its different eating out for me now, i think about the food a lot more and look how it is served and so on. its pretty cool having this different mind set. and what i meant by chef hands- ugh. for some reason my nails are real dirty and my hands smell like food, even a few days after not being in the kitchen. its pretty strange. and i have a bunch of cuts on my fingers, from knives and glass. yea, my hands are looking real pretty. well i havent eaten for hours and my stomache is starting to get a bit pissed off about it. hope everyone is eating well and is staying in good health. hope to hear from any of you at any time. i love all your faces

 .B

man my eyes hurt

so another long day of blowing glass has left me blind. well not really, but my eyes are feeling pretty shit and blurry. but i began my new project today, blowing some vase-like pieces that kind of look like sea urchins. pretty cool though and real fun to make. ooh and i finally have some pictures i can put up on this

once again, sorry about the long times wait of me not writing, but that might be happening. ive just been soo ridiculously busy with both work and class. i’ve gotten pretty tied up into this job, but i love it so much. and i think i want to become a chef. i ended up doing a lot of prep and line work and some easy dishes. spending hours at a time in the kitchen, learning and cooking. pretty rad. and the time goes b really fast, compared to being a glassy. but i think gary is going to start me off serving drinks soon. we had a bit of a wine tasting last week so ill be able to give suggestions and whatnot. so the job is great, i actually get more excited t go to work than class, its a bit bad. not much i can do about that though.

so the two kids i went riding with last weekend, mike and lisey, we’ve become this incredible little trio, its great. i think we’ve boosted the moral and bonding at the restaurant. but we do pretty much everything together and have been staying over at mike’s in saint kilda. the area is  awesome. its a little beach town near the ocean filled with little streets of great shops, bars, and restaurants, and just carries a great vibe. it has one of those local and comfortable feels going on. i think all of you who read this, that i know of, would absolutely love the place. i guess imagine a bit of lock Island, Portland Oregon, and a touch of  somewhere else. but its pretty rad.  oooh yea, so i saw the movie wolf creek the other night, i dont think ive seen anything that gruesome and scary as that. its pretty terrifying, but definitely a scary movie worth seeing, but not alone.  well off of that subject, i think im going to end right here. i can smell myself from a long hot day of glass and i need to shower and get some dinner and relax. ill catch you all later. here are some photos

.B

by beach in st. kilda

beach at st. kilda

also beach at st. kilda

food and snow- two of my favorite things

so it seems someone is getting pretty lazy with this blog thing. sorry about that. so plenty of things have happened since i last wrote. like great things. i condense it all pretty well for ya. since work is pretty busy and the kitchen is lacking a real team right now, i was in there doing some prep work. like tedious shit- i mean i was there shredding chicken and cauliflower into tiney shreds and flourettes.. for a few hours. and then rolling zuccini in flower and egg and breadcrumbs to make zuccini fritters which also took quite a while. but it had to be done. i really dont know how they get by in there with all the things that have to be done with so few hands. its crazy! but somehow, the food comes out amazing and looks beautiful as well.  that reminds me, i got to try a crystallized violet, i mean who even things to make that? crystalized violets…   yea, so i worked in the kitchen a bit and in the bar the rest of the night on thursday and friday and then on saturday, worked in teh kitchen from 2-7 and then 7-2:30 behind the bar. it was a looong ass day of standing. and then, we planned to get to the mountains and ride on sunday. so after work we left to get our stuff together from like 4 different places, didnt get to sleep until 5 and then got up at 8, left around 9 and for some reason didnt get to the mountains until about 4 or so. we went the wrong way and made some pretty random stops. but it was a beautiful ride through the country. it was soo nice to get out of the city and away from school and work and this area. and finally getting up to the mountain and seeing snow, was awesome. it was just a really expensive weekend, with the ticket, bed, boots and board, and i had to buy soem new goggles- it sucked. and the boots were terrible, but i made the best of it. i mean there really wasn’t much to do and we didn’t know anyone with extra stuff. anyways, we stayed at a backpackers in a tiny room with bunk beds and a bathroom. i made the judicial desiscion to skip school on monday, but im doing well, so i wasn’t worried about it, and i mean come on- its snowboarding. the mountain- mt. buller, actually wasn’t that bad. real open terrain, like a-basin, bigger than the basin too. the mountain was pretty all over the place, a bit confusing actually and the snow was soo heavy and varied around the mountain. pretty soft on the front, hard and icey in other areas. but it was so much fun just being there and getting to ride for the day. well i better get back to class.  i need to work again tonight and probably tomorrow night and well the rest of the weekend. so ill try to find some time to write more. i haven’t been doing very well with that lately, compared to my first posts… oh well. time doesn’t stop.

 .B

Janine Antoni walks among us

yup, thats right. Janine Antoni actually came to my school and gave a talk about her work and then i was blessed to actually meet her and talk to her for a bit. it was incredible. not sure if many fo you know of her work or would understand it actually. but tis just amazing. really check it out and read about her and her stories and reason ebhind it all. its lovely and extrordinary. i still cant beleive i met her. she really knows how to articulate and speak about her work, unlike a lot of artists, myself as one. but im not a distinguished artists, so im not too worried about it yet, but maybe i should be. hmmm. well its wednesday again and im on class break from glass. and im going to make this one short, seeing how i killed all of your brains with the last novel that i posted. alright im going to the glass studio to do some cold work. photographs will appear eventually…

 .B

M.O.O

so my weekend was pretty fantastic..

thursday. roy and brigette walk around the city, sort of and go to a few galleries again, i think it was raining, so we didn’t get much done- like the long bicycle ride that we had planned. i think we ended up at jerome’s later that night too, can’t really remember.

Friday- brigette and roy walking around. well first off. i get up and get a phone call from this guy who is a manager at this bar, restaurant place called M.O.O- the money order office. he was wondering if i could come in and work that night around 4. so i said alright, letting him know that i dont have any bar experience, but he said it didn’t matter, they are just understaffed, really needed my help and he would teach me. so i said sure! i had previously met this girl named lisey at the carlton, and we talked about how i didnt have a job and she said she would put my name into her boss. so i guess thats how the whole short notice came about. but its great! so i went out looking for a black collared shirt- my work attire. and as we are walking about, we come upon this whole box of unopened bags of chips! it was awesome, and i was pretty hungry at the time. so we take the box and continue to walk around- handing out bags of chips to random homeless people on the street. it was beautiful. funny thing- this lady was singing opera from her little wheelchair cart, and i offered her some chips. and she looks through and is choosing which bag she wants. it was quite funny- “no salt, no BBQ, are there any plain ones?” i didn’t think to much about it, i probably would have done the same, but roy goes-” that lady is homeless, and here she is deciding which flavor she wants… hah” well it was pretty great. so we keep walking, it starts raining again, get a shirt for real cheap, shower and head off to my new job. pretty excited about it all. the place is done an alley way between little Bourke street and Elizabeth- for anyone out there who is in melbourne reading this- kind of doubt it though. but its like a jazzy, underground, dim, but fancy, chic, hang out for an older crowd. wow i should try to find a few more adjectives to describe it.    you can probably see it online or something. but its cool and they play great music. im settled polishing glasses and doing random things behind the bar- its pretty good. and i get fed amazing food and top-shelf special drinks. not too bad. and the best part is i get paid 12$ an hour in cash, weekly. its crazy! and the people are just fabulous. the owner is this older gray hair man with this perverted, but hilariously funny sense of humor. i ended up working from 4- about 2:30, so in one night i made 120$- not too bad. and ate some delicious beef stew- spiced with some rosemary, great touch. we all hung out after work, had some drinks and laughs. and then ended up going out afterwards-late night.

saturday- wake up in some random garage way out int he middle of who knows where- well i knew whose house i was at, which was good. so i get out of bed- one of the house mates who was a way- who lives in the garage. but i get up and, meet another one of the house mate-jerome and take off on a tram back to the city. it was probably 2 in the afternoon. hmm. i get back home (roy, ricardo, berto, and sunday’s place), i call it home at this point. but i get back, take a shower and get ready for work, eat some ravioli, have a beer and head out. night starts out slow, but upstairs there is some birthday function going on but its like burlesque themed. i think thats the right adjective. but there are these ladies at the front door dressed in fishnet tights, big feathers, corsettes or whatever those things are that you wear all laced up around your mid section. anyways, all dolled up, there are dudes in top hats. a band. photographer. it was pretty great. but throughout the night, id come up stairs to grab something form the storage fridge, which also happened to be the room where these ladies were changing… and they weren’t like young attractive girls. more like a bit saggy, some chubs, 30 or soemthing women. some i saw some nasty tits and some flabby asses. not the greatest part of my evening- but pretty funny. im in there like- do any of you know there the martini glasses are-”oh yea i think they are here, we were hanging our bras on them earlier” hearing shit like that. pretty good. wish there were some photos of that. but the night went well, polished a bunch of glasses, met some dude who snowboard races at steamboat, which was real random. hmm ate some  beetroot risotto- that was bomb. and got to try some real tender bits of steak and duck, and of course drink some crazy drinks- mojitos, some drink with ginger in it- that one was good., well all sorts of drinks. like ones that i would never order or pay for if i was in the situation. and gary- th bartender, said he would teach me how to make drinks if i wanted, and of course i do. so when i get home ill make you all some nice drinks. so i worked until 3 that night- it was a late one. pretty pooped the next day.

sunday- pretty relaxed, got a free meal over at this little cafe called .. well something weird, went home and then went out to this bar to see ricky and luke dj for a bit. it was fun but i needed to get home and sleep. roy and i ended up walking back and saw all these cool things on our way and actually found a huge unopened bag of bagels that some place had just thrown out. so we had a pretty professional bum weekend. it was awesome.  shit this is long. ill start up a new one that starts yesterday..monday  thanks for reading

.B

jewellery, germans, and glass

This weekend was a bit more mellow, good for a change. Arrived in the city on Wednesday, after a nice long day of glass blowing. speaking of which, my cups came out pretty nice. one if rather large, more like a pitcher. i gathered to much glass, but decided to give it a go anyways. but the second cup came out to be a pretty nice size and shape. ill get some photos. i keep forgetting. that made me realize that i didn’t go into the city until wednesday. i spent thrusday morning in the jewelry studio, working on a project, well i told you all about that already. thursday night, roy and i just hung out at home, and watched some films, played some card games. didnt do much. and then friday we did some things road around, i got a flat tire. it was a bad weekend for my little bike. but i got a new tube and i think we fixed the noisy break. friday night was the stencil graffiti festival night of film screenings. it was a trip over to get there, so we decided to go for the last film, bomb it, the one i wanted to see. it was pretty good. but it could have been better, for sure. the beginning started out with some graff artists from the states from like the 80’s, 90’s, like lady pink and then a bunch of random dudes. it was kind of weird. the footage was kind of old too. and then it went off on about different cities around the world, talking to a bunch of different artists from those cities. i cant remember their names, but the two twins from, i think barcelona. they make some beautiful work. real colorful. the barcelona scene was amazing. another place to add to my list. anyways, the movie was pretty good, hardly anyone there, that was kind of surprising. the spread of works in the gallery were amazing to say the least. i got a few shots of the place, but i haven’t uploaded the photos from the weekend yet. ill get to that tomorrow. after the gallery, we wandered to a few bars, ended up at the carlton and saw a bunch of friends. it was a nice night.  saturday, me and roy went to a bunch of galleries, saw some good stuff. one of the gallery owners told us to check out this other show that was ending that day, so we walk off towards the place, see the sign down this little alley and go through the door that is under the sign. we end up in the backroom of a kitchen, that was pretty funny, and well the wrong place too. it was just weird. so we walked back out the alley to the place on the corner where people are walking into. the  lady made us get in the elevator, told us it was the only way to get in. kind of confused, we get in the elevator with a few others, and there is an elevator man all dressed up like an elevator man. it was great. so we get out at the 5 or 6th floor and there are a bunch of people, all with badges, pins, and the same little bags. some chick asks to scan our passes, we have no idea what th hell is going on. so the girl explained, and well i guess we came across this furniture design fair that had bee going on for 3 days and there are buses that bing people all around to different galleries and what not. but they told us to come in and hang out. so we did, can’t really turn away free drinks and food, and the interesting furniture, of course. the whole thing was pretty funny. but i had some drinks and good cheese, with some jam stuff, sat on a few different pieces of furniture, spoke to some older lady about how lite been in the states has the same alcohol content, but less carbs. here, lite beer is like 2.7%.  freaking strange. they didnt understand the whole 3.2 thing and whatnot. i think i started to get a bit angry about it. anyways, after that, we ate dinner and ended up going to this german housewarming party, Roy and Ricardo’s neighors are german, by the way, and one american, well i guess only one german, an american and a kiwi. all nice people, but the party was pretty shit. no music, the tv was on playing weird workout commercials, there was some short, pushy, little, bitch running around trying to cop our drinks, it got to the point where i told her off pretty hard and was about to punch here in the face. well  guess i could have kneed her in the face, she was so short. that would have been pretty funny, but im afraid i would probably have ended her life right there. maybe a comma.   it just wasn’t good. but the next day i went to a real nice glass gallery, Kira gallery. one of my teachers works there and all of them have work at the place. beautiful work. its pretty rad seeing all of your teachers work in different galleries around the city.   well i think that was all the excitement of the weekend. i need to do some grocery shopping, dont want to be in there for hours upon end. ill try to remember to get those pictures up. hope your all sleeping well these days.

.B         oooh sorry that was soo long

some of my work and other randoms

so im not too sure how to make just a photo album, so here are some more random pictures

saw this rainbow as i was headed into the city one weekend

this is the infamous joint, jawa bar, where foose takes place

outside jerome’s. apparently, one night someone lit the whole pile on fire, bad news

some color changing lights projected on the building

pretty car

probably the most elaborate public bench ive seen. i think i creeped the guy out, so he got up to leave

good stuff right there

some engraving i did

small cup i blew with sandblasted ghosts, i think i already put this one up..

random exploring for metals and jewelry class

more exploring, well the next few are part of this project-looking at different ways of constructing

its funny seeing a lady wearing a hajab, and at the same time carrying a hotwheels binder

hannah, or well anybody, correct me if i was wrong by saying and or spelling hajab. that is what those scarves are called, right? well it was just a funny site to see here in this noise ass library. i really do hate it when people are noisy in libraries. kind of a weird thing to bother me so much. but people have there mobiles on like super loud ring and then there are people running around, people talking about crap real loud and who the hell else knows-just plain yelling it seems. way too loud for library purposes. i just don’t get it. good thing im not trying to write a thesis paper on the formation of lactic acids or something. now that would be terrible. but the week went alright. i was starting to stress real hard about getting this metals project done for tuesday, which is so up in the air and ill never know whats going on in that class in terms of what and when things are due. i guess no one does. the teacher is kind of dumb and dick like that. but anyways i thought we had to have the project finished for monday, i thinki said tuesday earlier, but i mean monday. so im in the studio, which b the way i get there and all the drawers and doors are locked to where i need to get tools and work with drill presses and things, so that was already a bad beginning. so i start to work on this one bit and while im doing that, this girl comes in from class. a girl who in my mind works real hard and i thought would have hers done already or close. and shes all “whatcha doing?” and i told her i was working on the project, not really knowing what m doing. and she was like “shit! your in here all the time and your way ahead. im still working with cardboard, i think we are to start with metal on monday. thats good your so motivated.” soo turns out im a pretty good and diligent student. who would have known. the teaching methods are a lot more relaxed here and they leave the students kind of up to themselves. its weird. throwing me off quite a bit. but the girl said simon, my teacher, will randomly say things are due next week, and thats when everyone starts to actually do there projects. so that lifted like a brick house of weight off my chest. im so relieved now. i thought i was going to get some grays from that one, i was getting soo nervous. anyways im going to head into the city for this weekends adventures. i really hope this stencil graffiti festival is pretty good. im looking forward to the films. and ill post some photos of some graffiti i took last weekend. but hope you all remain in good health.

.B

ghost patrol, i think. beautiful regardless

building at federation square

no use for a title here

So another week goes by and im on my class break from glassblowing, again. sorry i haven’t been up to date lately. ive been busy with studio times, the city, sleepings, breathing, grocery shopping-that one always sucks me in. way too many isles and decisions. but i have to admit i love going to teh grocery store and looking through all the weird foods and think about things i don’t know or have the capability of making. hmpf. well for some reason my computer isn’t connecting to the internet, leaving me pictureless, once again. my apologize. not sure if i spelled that right. anyways. class is still great. we finally started our cup and bowl project today. im going with more of an organic and ovular shape. ill take some photos when its out of the kiln…i promise.

things coming up in my future… well starting on the 1st and ending the 10th, there is this big stencil graffiti festival going on, pretty stoked to check it out. i forgot about it until a few days ago and then i had to come back to school. but there are some film screenings, including the movie “bomb it”. not sure if any of you have heard of it, but i’ve heard good things so far. check it out.  aside from that, roy and i are planning on doing a long hike one of these days, maybe this weekend if i finish up my projects for school. but it should be fun, maybe some camping, grass lunches, lots of hiking, i miss doing that. it will be nice to see the actual outdoors and the mountains and hills, countryside and whatever we may run into. well im going to have to leave you all with that. class and lunch are calling from the depths of my stomach.

   .B- Rabbit

another day of glass

Getting to blow this morning was pretty nice. it was only me and this other dude cameron, not sure if i told you about him. but he’s some older dude with the weirdest hair. its shaved on the sides and on the top its long and pulled back into a ponytail. not really my style. anyways, so it was a bit difficult with just two of us, usually we work in threes. but we blew some weird cups. its just frustrating working with this one teacher guy, ben. for some reason he makes it hard for me to experiment and try whatever. kind of sucks. so in other words, hes not too encouraging. hmm so i haven’t really beena ble to put myself into my pieces..yet.  but today is berto’s birthday and roy just dimmed his boring job down to only 2 days a week, so we shall have a bit of celebrating. i think were having a bbq tomorrow. should be nice. i love bbqs, makes me really miss grilling and drinking keg beer at my brothers in denver. good times. shit, that makes me want to come home. i relly do miss all of you, the ones i know…who read this. quite frankly, i have no idea who is reading this, except for the few of you who mention it. but other than that, it really is a bit creepy to think about. well i guess its like books. the author really doesn’t know who is going to read the material. anyways, im going to head into the city soon. im on a mission to get some good shots of the amazing graffiti, so you will have plenty to look at when im back on sunday. yea, ill keep that one short. hmm i cant remember who ive told things to or if ive told about the night with my flatmates.. ill read back. sorry. alright im going to stop writting now