Apart from the fact that I'm rushing around a work there's a lot else happening.

Xuan Xuan is featured today on the front page at Comics Australia, including this page of mine, from Children of the Moon, Part 2:

Also, I've stocked copies of the last two issues of Xuan Xuan at some fine book and comic stores:
COMICS `R' US, Ringwood 112 Maroondah Hwy 3134 (03) 9870 3841
MINOTAUR 121 Elizabeth St Melbourne 3000 (03) 9670 5414
READINGS Book & Music Hawthorn 701 Glenferrie Rd 3122 (03) 9819 1917

I'm overjoyed that bookshops with this sort of profile are taking it! Really, it's a tribute to how good the book is, though I think it could be marketed a bit better.

On the weekend, we had two rats, who are pets at the School, to stay with us. The children were playing with them, but let them wander a bit. I heard loud sqwawking and looked down from my drawing board to see that the larger rat had grabbed our young cockatiel by the neck! I got hold of the two of them, one in each hand, but separating rat from bird wasn't easy! Rats are perfectly nice pets, but I'm astounded this one was so vicious with our cockatiel. He doesn't seem any the worse, fortunately, despite a bit of shock and some loss of feathers. A good thing I wasn't far away!

We're making an American indian costume for L. for the last day of term, and an Indian costume for J., just to confuse the issue :). J. was very sick all night on Sunday, and I think it was the seafood sticks from the Fish and Chip shop, as L. was similarly ill recently (and I had a bad stomach upset).

Today we heard that the little girl who had been having the problems with L. at School is leaving. I don't think it's the right thing, or the best thing for her. Overall, I feel we have been scapegoated to some extent, for a decision that her parents were already going to make (given their criticisms of the School even last year). A pity, and L. is bewildered by what happened.

They rang today and offered me the job! Apparently, I did well at the interview, but the hold up was that they had a late applicant who they interviewed yesterday. It will be a seven month secondment from my current position, with management duties. I'm looking forward to it!

I heard from my older two children today. Whenever a new issue of Xuan Xuan comes out I send them copies and they enjoy it a lot! For one thing, it seems Manga style boys have a lot of appeal for teenage girls!

Anyway, R. is going for a school camp to Tasmania in a few months, and H. has just got her first job.

I was having a bad day yesterday, but it got a whole lot better when I decided to deliver some copies of the latest Xuan Xuan to Comics 'R' Us in Ringwood. The comic shop owner got me to autograph them all, and I even personalised one to a customer who had left a standing order for future issues! I really think this comic could go a long way with a wider distribution. I'm proud to be in it.

Here's a picture from a one-pager I did for OzComics Magazine #3, if it ever comes out. The original is in black and white, but I coloured it, then made a really tiny edit of part of it as my avatar on the OzComics site.

On Friday I had an interview regarding possible secondment to a different position (involving the running of an area). At the time, it was all very positive and I had expected a phone call today. Instead I got a fairly formal sounding email saying that a decision hadn't yet been made, but that it would be made later in the week, and to look into secondment arrangements at this end.

Evidently they've cooled somewhat, which is a pity. I think the staff situation there is difficult, and that I could probably help to resolve some of the difficulties. Do I want to step into a difficult situation where I don't have complete confidence from the employer? I don't know.

I had a birthday yesterday. Nevermind which one! Tomorrow I'm going for an informal interview for a job I could take on secondment from my current one. This one's a lot further from home but it would help my CV.

The meeting at the School was a strange conjunctions of various people's realities. Without wanting to go into a lot of detail, while I think L. can say some fairly indifferent or manipulative things at times, the little girl whose mother is complaining, does appear to me to pretty disturbed. Still, I respect the opinions of all those who came and it does present a conundrum.

This little girl did come to L.'s birthday party yesterday, but did seem to try to get her exclusive attention away from the group a number of times. On the one hand, she seems to really like L. and be very attached to her, while on the other she seems to use her as an expression of her fears (when at home). I do think the fact that L. is friends with two little girls, who aren't friends with each other, has fuelled a difficult situation. I suspect part of her attachment to The Saddle Club is the model of three-way friendship presented in the show. Unfortunately, The Saddle Club was banned from the School during this meeting, though I feel this is also a form of scapegoating.

Otherwise, some good news is that my earlier one pager will appear in OzComics Magazine #3 if it ever comes out...

Tomorrow we've got a meeting with L.'s teacher, the school principal and two other sets of parents. Apparently, these parents, people we had considered our friends, have been making complaints about L. to the school (on ridiculously minor issues) and trying to make their children desert her and make friends with other children.

My initial reaction was to find fault with L. over this but, given that their children are apparently perfect and in no way at fault about anything, I've reconsidered, in the name of fairness. In one case most of the behaviour they are complaining about is behaviour their child taught to L (did we ever complain?).

In the other, the little girl is evidently providing her parents with wild emotional exaggeration in order to manipulate them (they are separated). Both children still appear to want to be friends with L., but the parents have their own agendas of social engineering and enforcing the separation of these friendships.

One of these people said that L. was "playing (her two friends) off against each other." This is astoundingly unfair, considering how difficult it is to maintain two friendships with two girls who don't like each other. L. went through a period of anguish about how she would manage to be friends with both girls, neither of whom had successfully made a friend before. She had managed it so well but this is apparently where it goes.

How extremely sad that parents want to trample into these areas of childhood friendships and force their own agendas. It is apparently irrelevant these little girls both still want L. as their friend.

Adults sometimes have much to learn from eight year olds!

Yesterday turned out to be fairly productive. i roughed out the first page for Riffin' to Oblivion, Part 3, did some more research and took extensive notes for a possible children's comic serial I'm thinking about, designed a logo for my Oztaku story and scripted a possible one pager for Ozcomics Magazine.

I'm not sure whether OzComics Magazine will use the one pager I did for #3, called "How to Draw Comics." I have a load of other work to complete for them, including short interviews with Chris Wahl, Alex Major and possibly Angelica (Andricongirl) about their professional lives working in drawing comics and animation. While I'm not sure I'm the right guy for this, my extensive interview with Dillon Naylor (Batrisha, "Da 'N' Dill," "Rock 'N' Roll Fairies") went well. I also have a bunch of comics to review for OCM as usual.

Yesterday I had a call from out of the blue from "Colin." When he said he was from "SwanSwan," I started running through "Swan Hill, Swansea, etc." in my mind, but of course he meant the fine Western Australian manga comic, Xuan Xuan, for which I'm currently doing the serial "Children of the Moon." He'd rung to see how many copies I wanted of the current issue. They sound like nice people and I like what I've seen of Colin Sharpe's work, both in Xuan Xuan and online.

Today I didn't do much more, though I did struggle with a background for my possible Oztaku piece. I find drawing tall city buildings really difficult (probably one reason I don't usually draw superhero stuff)!

It's been an interesting day in other ways. I tried to catch the rabbit before it ran behind the television this morning, but it ducked under the wires just as I got my hand on it. There was a flash and a cloud of black smoke as the electrical cords it had previously chewed shorted out, but the circuit breaker tripped and probably saved us both! So no television, video or DVD for a while.

This evening I started teaching Grieg's "Hall of the Mountain Kings" to L. on the piano. Her piano lessons are coming along well and she is keen and also enjoys experimenting. Teaching her this piece was a bit like teaching Percy, the cockatiel, to whistle Billy Joel's "The Stranger" in perfect pitch. I don't mean to belittle the learning process of children, or anybody, but there really are similarities. As with Percy, L. would learn up to a certain point, then struggle and become defeated by it, give up for a while, then return to it and get me to teach her a little bit more and add it onto what she knew.

Learning is an interesting process. L. used to ask, before she first learnt to read, "If someone teaches, do you learn?" An interesting notion, and probably relevant to my view of some of the training I have to perform in my professional life. Maybe I'll write an essay about it sometime :).

Probably time I mentioned that we have a new cockatiel. He's really young and has been handraised from hatching by the daughter of a colleague, along with a sibling (she wanted to sell them as a pair, but we only wanted one cockatiel).

He appears to have a lot of character and is certainly the yellowist cockatiel I've ever seen, being yellow all over, though much of his body may turn white as he gets older (he's a lutino cockatiel). We're currently trying to think of a name that suits him.

I've been thinking about another major comics project that could be serialised in one of the local children's magazines. However, as it's historically based, it needs intensive research.

Lately the ideas are coming thick and fast, so there's no way I can draw them all. I still have that unfinished picture book, am working on some reviews and interviews for OzComics Magazine #4, have begun work on Riffin' to Oblivion, Part 3, and would still like to do the piece for Oztaku, as well as another episode of Children of the Moon for Xuan Xuan (fortunately now only coming out twice a year. Lots of work to do!