Two months in a nutshell

As seems to be the case far more often than I'd like it to be, I've had good intentions of writing but failed to put those intentions in to practice.

April in Brisbane passed fairly quickly and uneventfully after I worked out how to ring the bell on the bus.

My "silver jubilee" was pleasantly quiet and spent doing grocery shopping, laundry and studying French. Just what I wanted really. A normal day catching up on things that I wouldn't otherwise get done during the week.

I've read far less in the last few weeks than I had when I initially arrived. Big crocheting projects like blankets and jumpers saw me spending much more time in front of the television. I'm still very much in chick flick viewing mode but I am hoping to move into arthouse again some time during the week.

A few weeks ago I was in Melbourne visiting Mum & Dad and it was sooooo good to see them. There was much excitement in the house. I've never seen the dogs run around quite like that when there isn't food involved! It was a short visit as I had to head back to work but I'm glad I went down to see them anyhow.

There's a bit of traveling about coming up next month with hi-jinx in Sydney, and another trip to see my folks before the crazy festival life takes over till mid-August.

I had planned to write more but I'm going to save that for another day when there's more to tell.

Back in Town

After a relaxing few days in Sydney and a delayed flight I'm back in Melbourne counting down the hours until the cool change sweeps through the state.

Overall I did well, returning with just one addition to my library, Across the Nightingale Floor by Lian Hearn. While the cover and Japanese themes have always grabbed my attention, I'm fascinated by the concept of a nightingale floor. Perhaps I should add that to the list of random things that might be cool to have in a house (I've been watching Grand Designs again).

Having enjoyed a few days off (it only counts as a holiday if I'm elsewhere... while I'm down in Melbourne not working it's more like unemployment or being lazy) I'm ready to tackle the grand task of sorting out my life. I'm currently considering treating that as a job in itself. It's the control freak in me really.

Anyhow, tomorrow I'm going to start my lists afresh. Set new deadlines for various bits of paperwork and generally spring clean my life and get rid of as much clutter as possible. We'll see how long the enthusiasm holds... hopefully long enough to spark the next challenge!

It's good to be back at work though, even if it's not the challenge I'm seeking, at least there's some structure to my day to keep me from languishing in the comfort zone that is Melbourne.

A Quiet Start to the New Year

Three days into the New Year and I'm desperately clinging to my resolution for a better 2008. My weeks of scattered work are all culminating with an incredible impatience for my next contract. My mind is going a little spare without work. After all, she's my mistress.

New Year's Eve was one of the less painful of the 24 that I've experienced, although I can hardly count the earlier years as difficult as I was blissfully not thinking much at that point. I was lucky enough to spend brief amounts of time with quite a few friends, I'm sorry to say, achieving more quantity than quality in terms of time spent compared with number of friends seen. Still it was wonderful to see the Monash kids, who I seem to see annually, as well as a few of the Ceremonies crew. It was the first NYE that I've actually gone into the Melbourne CBD (or any city's CBD for that matter) to watch the fireworks. They were pretty and shiny as fireworks are want to be. There was champagne, singing and the odd reveler throwing sparklers from their balcony to mark yet another year passing.

The city was a ghost town the next day until mid-afternoon. Apparently I was up a little "early" for the New Year. I followed up my social evening with more social catch ups before I inevitably disappear from the social scene and drown myself in work. Well, that's sort of the plan any how...

When I finally made it home last night I curled up in bed and read for awhile before falling asleep at a far more respectable 00:30. This allowed me to wake up, for the first time in weeks, in the morning! So I spent much of that time in bed anyway, finishing Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer. I liked it a lot although it did make me feel a little sad.

One load of laundry later and I feel like the day has been reasonably productive!

Now, I'm waiting for the birds to start their morning song, triggering that part of my brain that allows me to fall asleep. Not long now...

Midnight Cakes

Not only am I nocturnal, I'm beginning to make a habit of baking cakes at midnight. This is of course totally in line with Dad's nocturnal habits but I'm sure it's not good for us!

Tonight's cake was a simple pound cake made with a recipe that I've altered a bit and am still tweaking. Perhaps a little less egg but otherwise a delicious cake that will be perfect with my morning (ha!) coffee.

Speaking of coffee I don't think I've mentioned how in love I am with our new espresso machine, which in all honesty isn't that new any more as we've had it for almost a month... Purchased the day after the dishwasher caught fire which I also seem to have failed to mention. I guess that's what happens when I write while I should be asleep.

I have had a fairly productive day today despite only making it out of bed at 13:00. I've achieved 80% of what I wanted to do.

Tomorrow I'm aiming to:
- do at least one load of washing
- clean the bathroom
- head to the post office and post my international mail
- head to the supermarket to pick up some supplies for further baking adventures
- have a cup of coffee with a slice of tonight's cake
- read another chapter of The Pleasure of my Company and one of The Ghost's Child (apparently children's fiction and literature have captured my attention from the stack of sci-fi/fantasy that's sitting by my bed
- write a few more cards
- finish the entrelac scarf that I've been making out of Noro's Silk Garden yarn.

We'll see how I go... first I need to get out of bed before noon! Excellent practice for Tuesday when I have to be at work at 09:00. Wish me luck!

Back in Melbourne

I've been back in Melbourne for a week and a half now. More than enough time to settle into my nocturnal habits once more. Luckily I'll be working nights for the Melbourne Fringe.

While I was in Darwin there were a few changes around my folks place. For one the old CRT tv transformed into a 42" plasma tv. What caught my attention though, once I managed to drag myself away from the new blue-ray DVDs was this...



It would seem that the dogs are enjoying the same fresh water that we are. It's only fair I suppose...

Nothing else to report really. My days have been spent looking for post-Fringe work, reinstating the blue streak in my hair and feeding my Facebook addiction.

It's been great spending time with my family though. Since Mum's cancer diagnosis Dad's been working from home a lot more so we've been lucky enough to have most meals as a family.

Mum's doing well at the moment. We received the latest results from her scans/tests and have been told that the cancer is now largely hard tissue and it's looking like she will only have to go through one more 6 week cycle of chemo before they can remove it. Right now she's having a short break from treatment as her white blood cell count is too low. Overall we're pretty happy with the latest news and I'll be sure to keep any interested parties posted. Many thanks for the well wishes.

Plans over the next week involve reading trashy magazines with Mum, heading to the city to see the Guggenheim exhibition as well as the Pixar showcase and of course the mundane catching up on paperwork and job hunting. I must admit I miss Darwin life, the warm walk-conducive weather and beach just moments away but it's good to be back in Melbourne. The skies may be grey but it's still t-shirt weather for most of the day and the owls nesting outside our house are much less shrill than the birds that shared my garden in Darwin.

Home Soon

I'm struggling to comprehend the notion that this time next week I'll be in Sydney! We've got three nights left at the Star Shell before it all gets packed away for another year.

The last week or what I think is the last week (days and nights are melding into one) has been quieter on the going out front. However it's SoCo's second last night tonight so I think there will have to be a bit more effort on our parts to get out and enjoy the containers one last time for this festival season.

My laptop is fixed! It's probably the biggest news for me today... it's been out of action for the last couple of weeks as I've been busy running about doing Festival stuff I didn't manage to get it serviced until yesterday and they managed to fix it today! Very excited. So much so I'm going to drop by home and pick up my camera to take all the site photos that I've been meaning to take but didn't because I figured I couldn't get them off my laptop anyhow.

I've had a change of plans for my return to Melbourne. I've decided to cut my Sydney visit shorter so that I can be home to hassle my Mum earlier. So for anyone who cares to catch up with me in the coming weeks...

I'll be in Sydney between 1st and 3rd September and I'll be back in Melbourne on the morning of the 4th September. There are many drinks to be had!

The Star Shell is calling... I'll try and write again soon (no excuse now that the laptop's working!)

Two Weeks of Good Intentions

As the lack of blogging in the last few weeks has shown, good intentions sometimes don’t get you very far. This comes from years of finely tuned procrastination skills, recent increased personal letter writing and (I like to think) the Festival opening being next week.

Life has been fairly uneventful in a rather pleasant way. The weather has been consistently warm and sunny. The sunsets are always beautiful and I feel a little spoilt knowing that most of the people I know are going through an actual cold winter.



Since I last wrote I watched 2 seasons of the Gilmore Girls (five and six) until I started dreaming about the show. Season 2 of House was next although my lack of self-discipline saw me watching 4 of 6 discs the night before my senior first aid course. 8 hours of first aid training on 3 hours sleep is less fun than you might think.

I made sure that I had marginally more sleep the next night, after all I only had two more discs to go…

So I now hold a current senior first aid certificate and I rock at bandaging. This is not meant as an encouragement to do something that requires bandaging!

My DVD marathons aside, work has taken up most of my days. The hours have started to get a little erratic with somedays ending at 5:30pm and others at 11:30pm. On the bright side (?) they’re all starting at approx 9am. Right now I’m in tech spec & scheduling land. Especially since I have crew arriving in town this weekend. It’s a little frustrating trying to chase people up in Darwin. It’s almost like they’re on slightly faster timeframe than Doha time, but not by much. Jaia and I also letter dropped over 2% of the population of Darwin. So far we’ve dropped letters to 1300 houses notifying them of our main venue as they live in the area. It’s astounding to think that so many people have our numbers. Luckily they’re not all calling at once. Sadly the big print runs of letters killed our printer… it took over 6 hours to print 1100 pages. I was not a happy camper at the end of that day…



On a brighter note, some of you may have heard of the Triple J Goes AWOL concert that was in Humpty Doo. Well it just so happens that Humpty Doo is about half an hour from Darwin. So we packed a picnic rug and headed out to check out Blue King Brown, Something For Kate and Missy Higgins. It was a great night despite it being the first dry concert that many of us had been to. (The vodka tonics were flowing when we got back into town).

At some point in the next week I’ll be moving from the city, to Nightcliff, which is all of fifteen minutes drive from the city. I had a look at the place today and I feel spoilt to be moving so close to the beach. It’ll be wonderful!

Having had nothing exciting to report in the last couple of weeks, I’ll leave you with some photos from the Darwin Show. While I was updating my first aid skills I was missing out on such highlights as pig racing and pig diving. The unofficial world record for pig diving was broken at the show. Sadly there wasn’t a Guiness Book of Records person to officiate… Miss Piggy (the record breaking pig) will have to wait till the next diving meet. Many thanks to Viv & Rosie for taking the photos.

Nothing Compares

Nothing in my 24 years of life could have prepared me for the news that my Mum's cancer is incurable. Not even my GP telling me that treatment was more likely to prolong her life than cure the cancer. Still to her credit she's still remaining positive and is ready to step up to the challenges that the treatment will set for her. To say that Mum is a strong woman would be an understatement beyond compare.

When I called Dad and he told me the news I was standing in my new bedroom watching a gecko scampering across the wall. I nodded and asked the questions that I wanted to ask and then he had to go. One minute later it hit me. A sudden feeling of being completely lost in the world. Not knowing what to do, who to call or how to breathe. It lasted for a brief moment before I realized that there is nothing I could do except to be there for Mum. The hardest thing for me (being the control freak that I am), is knowing there is nothing that I can do to fix this.

Luckily I remembered how to breathe and with that all-important knowledge remembered who to call. I deliberated calling home again as I didn’t want to disturb her rest. After all the phone was bound to be running hot tonight in the wake of the latest news. I called anyway figuring that I had special dispensation (being her daughter) for interrupting rest. I’m glad that I did because she seems to be having one of her better nights where she’s not feeling exhausted or dizzy. Just hearing her voice and hearing her describe her first thoughts (what am I going to do with all my wool and beads?) after mishearing the oncologist and thinking that she only had 18 months to live (as opposed to finding out the results of the treatment in 18 months which I believe is what he said).

Hearing her voice and hearing her talk was wonderful. For just a moment I was just on the phone having a chat with my Mum like I always do when I’m away. For ten minutes life seemed normal again.

Right now I’m sitting on my bed trying to remember what I was originally going to write. After all I’ve been in Darwin for 33 hours now and it’s a wonderful place.

The house I’m staying in is just amazing. The gardens are large and beautiful with a fabulous array of lizards of varying sizes. There are plenty of windows in each room letting the sunlight and fresh air circulate through the house. I’m staying in a quiet street that’s a mere 1.5 km from the city centre and it takes me just fifteen minutes to walk to work at a comfortable pace.

I had my first day at work today which is always exciting. It started with a staff meeting which is always a great way to start. It means you get to meet everyone and get an idea of what’s going on and where you’re at even if none of it makes much sense yet. It always feels a little slow settling in but I had a good time reading through the documents from last year and getting a feel for the information that I’ll need to gather in the coming weeks.
We ate our lunch in the Botanic Gardens where I managed to find my favourite tree from Singapore. (I’d just like to clarify that I don’t actually know where the tree originates from but Singapore is the first place that I encountered the tree). It’s a big leafy tree that has red seeds about the size of a pea. I used to go to St Andrew’s Cathedral in Singapore and collect the seeds with my Mum and she’d make them into tiny bean bags (about the size of the small high bouncing rubber balls you used to get in news agencies). Then we’d play five-stone (jacks) with them until it was time to come back to Australia where we couldn’t bring them.

So all in all there are plenty of things about my first day and night in Darwin that have been really wonderful and my brief experience of Darwin has been really positive. I think it’s a great place and will rave about it as much as I planned another day.

Tonight, I’m just not in the right frame of mind for it. I’m just going to have a quiet night so that I’m well rested for tomorrow.

I’m also going to continue to curse the fact that I forgot that I didn’t have a modem and as such have no internet access at home so this will have to wait until tomorrow to be posted.

This is a much longer post than I’d planned to write. If you’ve made it this far, thank you for reading. It’s been really good to get these thoughts onto a page (and a half).

Many thanks!

Failing to Pack

While I should be packing for my trip to Darwin, I am instead updating information on the plethora of profiles for online communities that I've joined this week. It would seem that it's the week for it... after all I've joined three groups (Facebook which I much prefer to MySpace, Friendster, and Linked In). With the amount of time I've spent playing about with the profiles I can't help but think that I should have organised drinks with friends instead... Oh well!

Friday was my last day of temping for at least the next four months and I'm grateful for that. The day dragged on as there was very little for me to do. Still it was nice to be asked to stay on by so many people. Even nicer to know that I couldn't because I'll be in Darwin on Monday in a job I'm actually excited about!

So packing you say? Well, tonight wasn't really the night for it as I headed out for drinks to celebrate Dave's birthday. Besides, anyone who's traveled/lived with me knows that I'm a last minute packer. The world would implode if I wasn't up to the wee hours of the morning throwing things into my bags/boxes...

Small Amusements

I've been hhttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifaving a little trouble getting to sleep lately. So I've taken comfort in the vast resource of entertainment that is the Internet.

From the evil laugh activated hand drier to the Death Star-esque building proposed in the UAE, there are hours of entertainment to be had.

Other current internet haunts include:
LibraryThing - where I'm in the slow process of cataloging my books
TwitterLit - First lines of books
The Anticraft - somewhat alternative craft... probably not something to show your folks!
Wired Magazine
Knitty - if only to be indecisive over my next potential knitting project

Tomorrow I'm thinking of heading to the Leica Gallery in Collingwood to check out the Qatar Migrant Workers photographic exhibition. I think I recognised a couple of the guys we worked with in Doha...

We'll see how that pans out when I eventually crawl out of bed.

Happy Beanie Smart Cookie

Yesterday was Gene's birthday. I was not as prepared for celebrations as I'd planned to be as it's been a big week at home. (I keep saying that but the weeks seem growing exponentially).

I started and have already failed my attempt for 1 photo per day. No matter it's the quality over quantity thing I say! I will share two photos though.

The view from my window:


Dad's first finger-knitting experience:


Dad learnt how to finger knit earlier this week and what you're seeing in the picture is a headband he made for Mum.

Further finger-knitting explorations have been put on hold as Mum went into hospital on Friday. Turns out she has a lesion or tumour on the head of her pancreas (might not be diabetic after all). So she went in for surgery on Friday where they removed her gall bladder (neither of my parents have gall bladders now) and bypassed the ducts that had been blocked by the growth. Sadly they couldn't remove it as there were too many surrounding blood vessels. So they took a biopsy and we'll know the results today or tomorrow. It's looking like she'll go for radiotherapy when she's better. Mum's still in hospital, probably till the end of the week but she's recovering well with her sense of humour well in tact.

While I'm sure other things happened this week I can't recall them. Priorities and all!

So it was Gene's birthday yesterday and I was unprepared. The space invader socks have proven far more time-consuming than I had bargained for and I had to start again with finer wool and less time. The short-row knitted beanie that I'd started for him was gigantic. It was looking a bit disastrous. I had to resort to plan B - making it up as I went along. In the end there was a large cookie cake (think two cake sized cookies with chocolate-cream-cheese icing) and a crocheted beanie. Why the cookie-cake? When I was at uni in Ballarat in one of my end of semester assessment interviews the topic of Gene came up and one of my lecturers said that Gene was a smart cookie (I was a good fish apparently). As for the beanie it was crocheted quickly in Gene colours as he said he'd lost his Barcelona beanie.

Happy Beanie Smart Cookie! I hope you still had fun even though you had to work last night!

I can't believe we're leaving tomorrow!

Today was filled with shopping, eating and the last of our moving. Gene & I headed to the Converse factory in Smith Street as all of his shoes have pretty much fallen appart. He ended up with some rather slick looking black cons. I just couldn't help myself and I ended up coming home with a pair of red mary-janes that are coming with me on our trip.

We said our last goodbyes to the Beach House today and handed in the keys. There was a sense of relief that we finally made it out of there with all our stuff considering this time last week we'd barely packed anything...

While I should be packing my luggage (like Gene is) I'm currently entering addresses into my T5 to take with me on our trip so that I have the option of sending postcards to people if I manage to be organised about it. I love sending postcards!

I've also be finalising details like emergency contacts and whether or not my phone will work overseas. So far it should work in Singapore but Japan is going to be a little tricky as I only have a tri-band phone and they're up to quad-band.

So many details to explore! I'm looking forward to studying the phrase/guide book in more depth on our way there, or at the Hong Kong airport...

While my current plan is to try and blog daily (even if it doesn't get posted daily) I think that's a little optimistic.

Well the night isn't getting any younger and my bag's not going to pack itself!

Blog-o-matic

It's depressing how tired I feel when I really haven't achieved much today. Went in to a very empty office today. Checked my email. Replied and forwarded as appropriate. Got the name of the place I'm meant to be at for dinner tonight and then headed into town on a retail therapy recon trip. Ended up bumping into my boss (busted much) but he was in town shopping too so it worked out well.

So here I am back at home having avoided spending any money and I'm just exhausted! My eyes are feeling dry and I can't seem to drink enough water lately. I think I'll just spend the afternoon stretching and enjoying the nice day.

Might even do some gardening.

Definitely no running. In fact, I think I'll look into pilates courses... and glucosamine because I keep getting recommended it by different people - medical or otherwise. Anything to help keep my knees in good health and less pained.

I can't believe how much I've blogged today... can you tell I'm still trying to work out what to do with my time?

Oh hang on, I did achieve something today. I may have another job lined up. Just have to make sure I can get some time off from my current job for a couple of days. More details when I've confirmed the job.

Relatively Early Night

I was sad today when I arrived at work and saw that most of the stage that was there just 12 hours before was gone. Post show blues haven't fully kicked in yet. I'm still far too excited about how well it went and still can't believe that I was a part of it.

I have my flashing star ball thing that the audience got last night, my gold security sticker and plenty of memories to last me a lifetime.

Today I was back to the reality of work sifting through invoices and preparing them for accounts. It was good to be busy again but I've been spoilt by weeks of interesting rehearsals so it was a bit of work getting stuck back into the old routine.

Joe very kindly let me go home early tonight and it was such a wonderful feeling going home in daylight. It was also wonderful to know that I had time to go and get things I'd been meaning to get for weeks at the shops.

Naturally when you run out of laundry detergent you go down to the local shops and instantly go into K-Mart and buy a tub of hair mask, some hair clips, socks and a pair of jeans. Of course when you finally make it to the supermarket you simply must go and browse all the aisles and pick up such items as a bird seed log (for Herman), yoghurt and a set of rechargable batteries. On the bright side I managed to come home with some actual laundry detergent. Two types actually. One's the usual sensitive skin one and the other is a theatre tech's dream. Specially formulated laundry detergent for blacks. I've heard it's good so here goes...

My early night is turning into a bit of a housework night. I've tackled part of the kitchen and gotten stuck into the laundry again.

Like Nomes, I'm feeling kinda restless and I'm still really keen on this moving to China thing because I want in on the next big gig and I want to do everything I can to make sure I'm a good candidate. I also want to be able to have Gene on the next gig because that would be a dream come true and so far the big move is looking like the most efficient way to sait all my desires (travel, improve my Chinese, new life challenge, learning) for now. Money is a slight concern, but I can make enough to go I'm sure of it. If there's a will there's a way right?

On a less enthusiastic or even important note... what is it about cheese flavoured snacks that make them so damn tasty? I had corn chips cravings today and I didn't even get to indulge those because we'd run out at work. Sad panda.

Anyway, having gotten my gripe about corn chips out of the way, I think it's time to focus on enjoying my night off in ways other than sitting in front of my laptop all night.

Last minute evening

Yay for definite tentative plans! I'm definitely tenatatively going to dinner with Nomes now and it'll be a wonderful way to start the weekend. It's just a matter of getting out of work early enough to get there...

Not much to report other than that. Spent the day chasing paperwork (not literally in most cases) and now I'm home madly crocheting a bag that I've been working on for the last week or two and have suddenly decided would be a great gift for my Grandma in Singapore... the only catch being it has to be finished tonight so Mum & Dad can take it over to her. Wish there was someone to help organise me sometimes :)

Waiting for dinner...

Today was a little warm really... by a little I mean very! I'm somewhat dreading the weekend to be honest. I don't really cope well with warm weather but I'm very much looking forward to the showers/storms that are possibly going to hit. :)

In response to Naomi's comments I'd love to catch up with you guys some time. I think I have a day off in that period... well I'm hoping I do anyway! It'll be pretty busy but I'll be sure to do a last minute call around if I'm not curled up in bed... either that or I have a traditional slumber party where we all sleep in the same room. We'll work it out I'm sure!

Currently I am armed with a "tetra pak" of lactose free chocolate flavoured milk and am browsing the holiday pages of various travel sites... I desperately want to go on a holiday to somewhere. Anywhere. Sadly this will mean I do need to look at our budget a bit harder. I'd love to surprise Gene with a holiday some time... Stupid bad saving habits!

Tonight's dinner will be a late one at the Thai restaurant across the road from our house. Good food, but it can be a little hit and miss as to what you receive for your meal/order.

I'm really quite tired and could fall asleep right now but I'm thinking it's time to start building up stamina for the longer days that are ahead.

All in good time I guess!

Miss you all and look forward to spending more time with all my wonderful friends.

Love
S

PS. You're pretty safe so far Naomi, I don't think Gene knows this site at present!

Good

Gene's picking up a couple of large pizzas to sait his pizza cravings. He's blaming the garlic that we fried and popped in oil to make garlic oil last night. Well more accurately he's blaming the rather fragrant and lingering aroma of the garlic that permeates our house... Hope our neighbours like garlic!

Work is good still. I don't think that's going to change really... it can only get busier! Busy is good!

I've started to ride to work now. Saturday was the trial run and today was the follow up... now as long as the weather holds up tomorrow morning (I'm expecting showers) I'll ride tomorrow. I get to pick up my "uniform" on Wednesday which has a rain jacket so I'll definitely ride in the rain if that fits. It's actually really good that it takes me less time to ride to work than it does to take public transport. That's a big incentive to ride. Apparently fitness isn't a good enough reason to kick me into action... just too lazy!

Ooh... pizza's here!

Day 1

Today is the first day of my 10 day Detox (yes, I'm on that band wagon in the small hope that this will avoid future gastric complications). It's actually been pretty good today. I am fully aware that I'm still rather early in this new experience, but I'm quietly optimistic about the whole thing.

I was up early this morning to make lunch - Thai chicken red curry with brown rice - and to pack snacks for the day. I ended up not snacking at work but drinking lots of water instead. So far the only distasteful thing I've encountered has been the "digestive bitters" which honestly don't taste so good even if it is meant to help with my digestion. I had my first breakfast in several months - fruit & vegie juice, I didn't get around to making anything more substantial than that - before heading off to the orthodontist.

Thanks for the health insurance advise there Nomi, I've actually got that whole life time limit thing happening but was happy to discover that I could still claim a just under fifty percent of my claim today (I should have looked for a Members Choice provider, but I was lazy). It feels really weird not having the plate in any more. There's a slight gap between my back teeth where the plate used to be and my gum's actually grown into the shape of the plate behind my lower teeth so it almost feels like the wire's still in there. I figured that while I was fixing up my teeth I should go all out and listen to the orthodontist's advice... So tomorrow afternoon before I head to my show call I'm going to see the dental hygenist for a full clean and inspection. I'm also in need of some fillings (yay) but that's going to wait for another visit *sigh*. Oh but I am excited because today is the first trip to the dentist that they haven't given me a brushing/flossing lesson so I must be getting better at it... I also learnt that a "dental calculus" is just their way of saying "tartar". I was somewhat concerned when I saw on the quote (oh yeah it's not going to be cheap) something about a removal of calculus and had a minor panic attack. I know I need to get two wisdom teeth out but I was hoping not to do that quite yet... happily I now know that they'll just be doing the good ol' scraping of my teeth.

It's funny how you retain knowledge of products and industries that you've left behind... I actually checked to see if the dental practice had HICAPS (and they did, they had the black ICE terminal in case you care John). Not that it would have mattered greatly to me even when I was at HICAPS because I wasn't in sales... but I still look. I'm glad I learnt about health insurance and know what to look for now too. Besides, I'm making the most of my claiming of stuff. I'm going for a massage as soon as I remember to find a registered masseur nearby.

Work was good today, I caught up on some work from last week when I was away. Tomorrow's an early start though... I get to take minutes for a meeting so I really should make sure I get a good breakfast so that I'm awake! Well, that and I'm driving into work tomorrow... so I should probably be awake for that too.

I caught up with Tracee at the Storeroom where she's doing a return season of her sellout Fringe show, "I Forgive Catriona Rowntree". I'm really looking forward to working with her again. It really is a great show and I think she tells her stories really well.

Mmmm I can smell the roast turkey that we're having for dinner tonight... I think I might go and take a peek at it... mmm hungry....

Reaching for the Stars

I have decided to take a proactive approach to digging myself out of this rut of gloom. I am fully aware that given my current state of apathy this may be a little ambitious, but you've gotta reach for the stars right?

Firstly fitness, or lack thereof. I will join the Carlton Baths as soon as I get paid out from Salesforce. In the interim I'm going to give one of those pilates DVDs a shot. There's something that I don't like about them, I'm not sure what, but I figured I needed to start while I'm still keen.

Today is not a good day for cycling. I discovered this as I rode to the shops to get some notebooks for uni and the aforementioned DVD. It was rather windy and I was getting blown across the road a little. Perhaps if I get fit I can gain some weight and not be so easily swayed by the wind.

I also returned the DVDs that I'd hired last week and got some new ones that I'm looking forward to watching. I bought Closer from our video store for a bargain $19.95 and it's barely scratched! Love the language of that film. Some really great lines. Damn I'm glad I bought that!

Anyway... due to a miscalculation in funds transfers I've got to wait till tomorrow to buy my textbook and despite my fast reading skills I'm concerned that I'll be behind in my first week of studying Myth in the Ancient world. I've actually got readings to do for that subject. Two chapters. I'm hoping they're short... I've tried searching the libraries in Victoria but no one seems to have it.

I'm expecting a plumber to show up at any moment now. Would you believe that our hot water has died again?

On the bright side I've discovered that I can go to the Melbourne City Baths and have a swim, spa, sauna and a shower for just under $15.

Time for some food and cleaning. I can barely see the desk at the moment and studying in the kitchen is bad for me. Too much food!

Weekend Round Up

Hazzar! Job interview's done and I think it went well. I of course have nothing to base this on aside from a general feeling of having done okay and the fact that they said "don't worry if you don't hear from us soon, we're negotiating budgets at the moment so it's no reflection of how you went."

So yay!

Still loving the free time although it is a little lonely at home. What I really should be doing right now is cleaning since we have a house inspection on Friday morning. However I'm feeling sheepish that in the two weeks I've been keeping a blog I haven't managed to keep my daily writing target for a whole week yet!

I just finished reading "Kushiel's Dart" by Jacqueline Carey based on the recommendations of the guy at the fantasy/sci-fi bookshop that Gene found in the CBD, Of Science and Swords. It was an enjoyable read (I read it in just over a day) and quite engaging. The language was at times a little frustrating. I feel that it takes a great deal of skill to write successfully in older forms of English and have discovered that the word "mayhap" really bothers me. Aside from that I'm looking forward to buying a copy of the next novel in the series. Yes... my name is Sarah and I'm a book junkie.

No buying new books yet though. Gene also bought me a copy of "Ilium" by Dan Simmons which caught my attention because from what I discerned from the back of the novel it's a sci-fi telling of the Iliad-ish. Anyway, I'll undoubtedly blather on more once I've read the novel.

Hmmm, so my last ppppp----pp00000000000000000pppppppppppppppp (sorry I had to fix my keyboard, there was something stuck under the "p" so I had to take off two keys.) Where was I... last post was on Thursday. Well Friday was Gene's day off (yay!) so we did what we had to do, which included staying up late Thursday night watching the last few episodes of season 1 of "Scrubs", then slept most of Friday morning. After we got up we went into town to do stuff which is where the book-shopping incident occurred. Saturday afternoon saw us doing romantic things like cleaning the bathroom together and sharing the wonderful fumes that come with using the fabulous Exit Mould. The house still smells a little of Exit Mould but at least it's breathable. We went to drink beer with Phiby who was in town for the weekend to drink away the thought of further cleaning and it was quite a good night. Naomi made the keen observation that you can tell that we've been in long term relationships for a while when you're checking out who looks dumb at the bar instead of who's cute. All too true that night. There was a guy in a pink polo shirt in particular who stood out. He kept checking out his muscles and glancing over to see if we were doing the same. He also rolled his t-shirt (I can't emphasise enough that he was wearing a short sleeved top here), to show off further. Yep there was some classy stuff out there that night!

I found out that my Uncle Albert passed away on Friday night about 6:30pm so Mum's back in Singapore for the funeral. It's kinda silly but I was having a nap around that time and just before I woke up my old dog Ziggy who I grew up with trotted up to me in my dream and gave me the "pat me now damn it" look and I woke up feeling much less grumpy than I had been and feeling somewhat comforted by the dream. Then Dad called to tell me the news. Timing...

Well if I'm not going to clean right now the least I can do is eat. I've got to work on not falling asleep during the day. I'm just struggling a little because I'm not excited about the whole cleaning the house thing and I'm looking forward to reading my book!

Hungry now. Going.