I had this one job, only a small one, mind you - a set of teacher's notes to go with some primary school books - that was given to me with the following words: "it's already been edited. You just need to get it to the typesetter and give it a light proofread."

I doubt that the job was edited at all, and it has been a nightmarish experience, especially compared with the other book I'm looking after, which went pretty smoothly.

This was the first project I was ever given to manage, and I didn't really know the processes. I learnt a lot from this whole nasty experience. There are things I will definitely do differently next time, and I know what questions to ask when I get handed a manuscript by a Developmental Editor.

Note to self: ask when the cover design brief is. Read two chapters of the book no matter how fervently the DE claims that it has been edited.

Still, my department manager wanted to speak with me on Monday morning. He isn't upset with me at all - he just wanted to find out how it was going and what the situation was - and he insists that this is just an experience thing, but yesterday morning just wasn't the time to talk to me about it. That stupid manuscript had been haunting me for weeks, I was feeling really low, even useless, and the longer we spoke, the more I could feel my lip starting to wobble.

I took gulps of my tea to cover it, and tried to distract myself. Then right at the end of our friendly chat, I started to cry.

It was so embarrassing.

I can't believe I cried in front of my manager. I did my best to keep on talking through my blocked-up nose as though it had just been a momentary thing. Soldier on, I say!

I then went to the bathroom, locked the door, and cried properly, just to get it all out so it wouldn't happen again.

I think I was really sleep-deprived. I also will not pretend that it wasn't at all PMS-related.

But still.

I cried in the car on the way home as well.

Today was much better, so I'll be interested to see how tomorrow goes.

I forgot to mention my weekend! Daniel and I went snowboarding. I've lost some of the confidence I managed to build up, since we haven't really done any proper snowboarding in close to 18 months. It took a couple of runs but I started to feel more confident again, and to make it better, the snow was incredible. There was fresh powder everywhere, and though it was a little bit sticky, it was such great fun to ride in. We went to our secret little out-of-bounds place near Guthega, where we rode through the trees and glades by ourselves until our thighs burned (we're not that fit these days so it doesn't take as much as it used to), and even then we didn't stop.

The best thing about going out-of-bounds is that pretty much nobody else goes there. You get fresh snow all to yourself. The worst bit is that since it's technically not part of the public area of the resort, it doesn't lead you to a chairlift. Instead it leads you to a road, where you have to unstrap and walk for what feels like ages (probably only 10 minutes or so), carrying your snowboard and dragging your feet along in their heavy snow boots. The lift you eventually reach is three flights of stairs up, which is a real killer at the end of such a long walk.

But it's the price we're prepared to pay.

We rode all day Saturday. I knew I'd had my last run when I was having to stop every few hundred metres to massage my leg. When I got to the bottom of that run my right leg was practically convulsing - trembling from the cruel overuse to which I had subjected it.

I called out to Daniel that I'd had it, and that I'd meet him at Front Valley, but he convinced me to get on the t-bar with him as I'd only have to walk back otherwise. I agreed.

I then proceeded to gracefully fall off the t-bar after about 100 metres. I was facing outwards and not paying much attention (I'm familiar enough with those contraptions to be able to do that these days), when my hand slipped off the, er, T? I don't know what you'd call it. But my hand slipped off, followed by my body, and then I wasn't on the t-bar any more. My reflexes were quick enough to make me reach out and grab the bar so it was towing me, at which point Daniel said, "What are you doing?" and I really didn't know the answer. I was too tired to try to heave myself back on so I let go, rode across as far as I could get from so far down, and walked back to the main chairlift, where Daniel showed up a few minutes later.

Glad I shared?

Petty moments on the snow:

1. One-booting down to a t-bar, where Daniel was waiting for me. I had considered strapping in ("eek, it's too steep to ride with only one foot strapped in!") but eventually went with "oh bugger it, it's not that far, what's the worst that could happen?" So down I went, and it was much easier than I had expected, and Daniel was watching me as I approached. I knew exactly what he was thinking, so I lifted my right foot and wiggled it in the air as I approached the lift queue.

Damn straight, punk. I was not strapped in.

2. Kids can be so obnoxious. As Daniel and I sat on the side of a horrible (but thankfully quite short) traverse strapping back in, a little girl - about nine years old - in a pink jacket was skiing past. She put on what she thought sounded like a convincing innocent-little-girl voice. I saw straight through it because she was trying to sound TOO innocent, like a five-year-old.

"Why are you sitting down?"
"Because we have to strap back in." (I might add that I thought my grown-up-talking-to-child voice was quite surprisingly cheerful-sounding.)
"Why did you unstrap?"
"Because we don't get poles like you do."
"You don't have to strap back in."

And off she went with a smug little push of her stocks.

"Eh, if you were older I'd give you the finger." (That last bit was muttered under my breath in a much less friendly voice, out of earshot, but it got a laugh out of Daniel.)

Seconds later we were strapped back in and on the go once more. I said nothing but took great delight in whizzing past Pinky, who was probably working a lot harder to make it along that long, flat traverse than I was.

Yeah, I know. I was silently pleased at getting my petty victory over a child.

Bah. According to one of the textbooks at work, childhood is just a relatively recent social construct anyway, so there.

3. Group of 11-year-old boys standing near us in a lift queue, generally chatting amongst themselves. All are on skis. One of the boys asks another whether he still snowboards at all. "Nah," the kid replies, "I can't be bothered. Snowboarding is [raising his voice] SO GAY NOW anyway." I ponder this for a moment. The kid obviously wanted us to hear it. I could let it slide, or I could acknowledge.

I turned to him and grinned. "Yer funny," I said, with a note of jovial challenge. The kid wedged himself in between two of his mates. "Um, nah, I was just kidding," he grinned back sheepishly. "I'm a snowboarder too," he added with a note of apology. Having received my amusement in seeing him squirm, I said, "ah that's OK. Sometimes I wish I had stocks too." It was left at that. I wasn't rude or unfriendly, but I got to see a kid squirm as a result of his big mouth, so everyone was happy!

I forgot how different a resort is during school holidays.

Sunday was mostly spent driving. It's a long drive between Sydney and Jindabyne.

We had a candlelit bath together on Sunday night. We just sat there, squished into our too-small tub, with glasses of wine (and some snacks should we decide to nibble), and talked about not much. It's nice to do that from time to time, and I think I would like to do this more often, because I felt truly relaxed.

(Ow! I just bit my tongue.)

More immaturity: I don't know what we'd eaten but Daniel was letting loose some really, grossly stinky farts over the weekend. He couldn't even laugh at my crinkled up face because he was too busy screwing his own nose up too.

In the bath I managed to create a small set of bubbles (revenge!). Because we were so squashed, the bubbles travelled along my leg and across to Daniel's side of the bath. He stared at me. "That made it all the way over here!" he exclaimed. "What, you deliver now?"

He makes me laugh.

We've been together for five years now. Our nominal anniversary is today - five years ago today I made him ask me out. I said something like: "You know, you never really asked me out. I'm not your girlfriend until you ask me out." So he did and I said yes and we fell asleep because it was really late.

This morning before I crawled out of bed to face the dark, cold morning (damn you, winter!) I kissed Daniel on the cheek.

"Happy five years."

Daniel mumbled a few words, like an audio test pattern fading into coherence.

"Is that today?" he eventually managed.
"Yes."
"I'm sorry."
"Why?"
"I forgot."
"Would you be offended if I told you I wasn't expecting you to remember?"

Poor guy. I know he tries, but he's terrible with dates. It took him a couple of YEARS to learn my birthday (not that I was ever cruel enough to not mention when it was impending just to "test" him) - he ended up making it the password for his email address or something, so that he couldn't afford to forget it. He did the same thing with his parents' birthdays, actually. Seriously, no memory for dates and numbers.

Besides, our "anniversary" is a completely nominal date anyway, so it doesn't bother me.

Anyway, I'm going to have a shower and go to bed and read my German book. Since I last mentioned it here, I have progressed by about six pages. Slow going indeed.