Still feeling rather sick and woeful, but as I haven't gotten worse since Wednesday, I guess I don't have the piggy flu after all. I was, anyway, well enough to get to the last glass class of the term. There was still so much left to do on my shade that I don't think I could have finished it even if I'd been feeling 100%.

While unpacking our projects, I got talking to one of the advanced students, Gill, and she offered to give me a ride if I want to come back for the next two terms. I hate to leave the shade unfinished, and I'm enjoying stained glass much, much more than expected. I guess I may as well take advantage of low-fee community classes now, whatever the government decides to do next year.

Okay, lampshade stuff...

Here I am having more soldering fun joining the green and orange pieces together for the lamp skirt. The flux is oily and the fumes are awful, but the magpie in me finds it difficult to resist touching the beautiful shining balls of hot solder rolling off the iron onto the newspaper. I burn my fingertips several times during the class, but pride keeps me from yelping out with pain.

With all ten sets of the skirt pieces finally soldered, I prepare to attach the spider to the main part of the shade. Procuring the spider has been tricky. I was going to have to go all the way out to Pukerua Bay again to get one from Olaf, but fortunately found a place in Newtown that could order one for me. It then took several phone calls during work time to confirm I could have one in time for class, causing curious co-workers to send emails: "What are you ordering a spider for? And why do you have to have one by Wednesday?", except that they used about six extra question and exclamation marks. I work with some very excitable folks.

I need to apply patches of solder on to the ends of the spider's five spokes, so I can then solder the whole thing on to the shade. The spokes are smooth metal and the solder refuses to attach, even when Greg shows me how to roughen the spokes up a bit with some random tool I do not know the name of. In the end we resort to using a different type of flux, which is more corrosive and more spluttery, but helps the solder attach a lot better. Then at last I solder the spider to the shade. Here, badly framed, but looking yet another step closer to a real lampshade.

This is as far as I get by the end of the class. I chose to bring all my stuff home with me for safe-keeping and more photo opportunities. Here, witness up close, my stellar soldering skillz:

And, also, one of many burn injuries from the night, when I accidentally pressed one of the hot spokes of the spider against my arm. It didn't hurt for long, and now only resembles a soy sauce stain.

This is the end of my first eight weeks with stained glass. I expected to enjoy myself, but am surprised at just how much I actually loved it. This has to be the only community class I've attended where I looked forward to every single class (which says a lot, it having been a winter term and all). I especially liked the project-based aspect of the course, being able to work at something big and challenging, achieving a bit more every week, and seeing results without the bother of homework and mid-week practicing required in language classes.

Stay tuned for more stained-glass adventures, kids.

Wednesday is my favourite day of the working week, but I didn't go in today because I have a very sore throat and some general snuffliness. I'm sure it isn't the beginnings of swine flu or anything, but I notice people are rather more tetchy these days towards anyone who so much as sniffs or coughs. Besides, it's my last glass class tonight and I need to be well enough to go.

I had plans to work on my assignment, now three days overdue, but couldn't muster up the energy. Instead I drifted round the apartment, looked at the fish, took a photo of my scarf, ate some bread, and watched about two minutes of MASH, then retired to bed for more aimless drifting on Wikipedia and Flickr.

By courtesy of $27 Grabaseat fares, I recently got to trip up to Auckland with the flatties, which coincided happily with the Simon and Garfunkel concert I was going to with Rachael and our pa. Here are a couple of videos snaffled off others on YouTube, as a picture paints a thousand words, etc.

This is the wonderful Clooney where we ate on Friday night.

A dining experience that was, for me at least, right up there with Tetsuya's two summers ago. We were well looked after by head chef Des Harris, who is lovely and so humble for his astounding talent. Two especially amazing dishes were the ostrich carpaccio (thoughtfully created, melting and beautiful) and the citrus bombe glace (sharp, cold, sweet, clever). All splendid.

And this was the second highlight of the concert. My favourite S&G song, Paul Simon's microphone failing, the crowd coming to the rescue, making it all far more memorable than if everything had gone like clockwork.

After this, Paul said, "That was really cool. I'll never forget that", and Art, "That's the nicest thing an audience has ever done for us".

But the first and ultimate highlight of the concert - and the whole weekend - was having the privilege to be with my father when he saw Simon and Garfunkel live in concert for the first time. He has loved them since always, Rachael and I grew up on their music and later learned to play their songs on the guitar and piano, so it was really very moving and quite indescribable to watch him watch them.

Awesome-o weekend.

I happened upon this style blog a couple of days ago, and it's already become a quick favourite. Resident Style Rookie Tavi describes herself as a "tiny dork that sits inside all day wearing awkward jackets and pretty hats". In fact, she has a sparky personality and a sense of style so unique and sharply defined I can hardly believe she's only 13 years old.

(I was wearing shorts and dinosaur t-shirts when I was 13. This was back in 1990, so just remember folks, that dinosaurs, robots, spaceships etc were not yet being considered icons of retro cool.)

Tavi, however, creates amazingly inventive outfits from such unlikely items as her mother's shirts, old Halloween costumes, and even the reflective neon belt from a crossing guard's vest. The trousers pictured below are from an op-shop and too large for her so she's taken to them with safety pins. Clever.

I also like her post about beauty icons. So incredibly perceptive, and so strong and original at an age when kids just want to be the same as each other.

Tavi's blog is fun. Go be inspired a little, or a lot.

I arrive at class tonight with all thirty pieces copper-foiled so, as promised, I get to begin soldering. It is unbelievably fun, melting and dripping that stuff all over the place. I solder together three sets of the two small green and orange pieces that make up the lampshade skirt and will be able to finish the remaining seven sets next week.

Greg then helps me assemble and tape together the main pieces of the shade, and together we raise it up and tack solder all the pieces together. He is so calm about the whole thing that I only realise later that what we were doing was the most precarious and delicate part of the lampshade-making operation, the very thing Dave had warned me about.

I spend the rest of the class carefully peeling off the bits of blue tape and tack-soldering more of the joints between each piece to strengthen them. The whole thing feels pretty sturdy now. Next week, I will turn it upside down and solder the inside of the shade. Sometime before then, I also need to buy a four or five-legged spider crossbar, which I believe is the first of the few lamp fittings I will need to acquire.

It's all getting terribly exciting, and seeing it come together all of a sudden tonight was so super thrilling. It's the last class next week. Greg says I will "come very close" to finishing my shade. I mean to take that as a challenge!