Hoping in Hellbourne

I've been scared to write this, in case all of my procratinating protodoctor comrades catch sight....

but it's been a bloody hard and horrible month.

there was the night I woke up sobbing at 3am, and renaissance girl found me 10 links on post-thesis depression... all this while she was managing end of term reports/exams/psycho colleagues/psycho students... oh - and her own personal tragedy which is makes my thesis completion comedown feel like a broken nail being compared to a ruptured spleen.

I wish i'd had cash or foresight or non scary mutual obligation frights to take some time off and go and swim/meditate/walk/weep for a couple of weeks somewhere cosy and quiet.

instead I returned south and tried to establish some sort of post-thesis life. Part time work? very very difficult to find. I've looked, public service, academia, public service, temping... lots of places. Ten rejection letters from Public Service jobs is even more crushing than writing thirty serious job applications.

the deck chair shuffling at the CES/JSP/JSA titanic hasn't helped. Just when I'm gung-ho about getting a job - i've got no official support to help me get one.....

finally after weeks of major soul destroying commando style cold calling, I have scored a teensy weensy bit of part time work. It's casual, precarious yet miraculaously in an amazing area that i'm interested in.

at times i have tried to pursue ART in the great southern city. and had little success.

The other day I made my tenth attempt to enter and be entertained at ACMI. why? because I like cinema, and REALLY like video art. You think this would make it more appealling than dragging myself plus John Brack's grim canveases or the horrors of Dali's lugubrious onanism.

hell no. the first six times I entered from the Fed Square entrance, and the last four have been from the Flinders street entrance. Each time I've been incredibly repelled, confused and simayed by the interior and had no idea where to find ANYTHING. including info on what could be seen, when or where. Actually I tell a lie. The 8th time i attempted an entrance, I found a staffed counter, with a person issuing programs. I took a few. the foyer was dark, the print was small and pale on a dark background, so i took them home to read them.

It appears that acmi runs cinematic festivals according to themes, where they screen particular movies at particular hours and days for particular fees. this information is available aone the website and wihtin brochures that are occasionally made available at a front desk, when it isn't being renovated. i have yet to encounter any signage within or near to the premises themselves that explains this.

this may be due to endless random renovations that have marked my last two attempts at entering ACMI and from which I have beat a retreat - often to the more endearing and engaging temporary public sculptures set into the foyer area of the NGV Australia.

On the other hand, it may be a deliberate conspiracy to scare away the Bev's and Kev's visiting Fed square from entering the hallowed halls of Art DOM.

I wonder if anyone has actually entered ACMI and experienced a Moving image Experience without the benefit of initiation and hand holding by a local cognoscetti. If so, please leave a comment with directions and advice to the wary.