I am sick. Not fair :(
Nick has gone out to buy me more drugs- bless him. The drugs I have must be working, because when I speak, the only ones to hear pain are those listening to me. My throat is nicely anaesthetised, but I sound AWFUL. Really awful. I've taken to using mime based sign language instead. Then I look completely stupid, so I've taken to staying in bed.
This is not fair. I think I caught cold at Christmas (when I insisted on wearing my pretty summer dress saved for the day, even though it was the coldest Melbourne Christmas on record). Now, with a New Year's Party at our house tomorrow night, I cannot speak, and I have very little energy. This sucks.
Speaking of NYE, does anyone know the best way to secure a piece of string to a skull? Eh, never mind... I'll explain later.
Saturday, December 30, 2006
Thursday, December 28, 2006
I'm a-going on the railroads...
My train tickets for Europe just arrived. Yay. Have just realised that, between my Europe plane tickets, my and Jackie's New Zealand plane tickets, and my and Lisa's train tickets, there are an awful lots of expensive pieces of paper floating around my house waiting for me to lose them...
Wednesday, December 27, 2006
Christmas food babies and postponed giraffes
So that's it. Christmas done. Despite the exhaustion from the insane running around I undertook on Christmas Day (Kew - Ringwood - Moorloobark - Bentleigh via partial diversion to Kew - Berwick - Kew via diversion to Resrvoir), as well as a few Xmasy outings on other days, I had a really good Christmas. It was great to see everyone, some really great presents and lots ( AND LOTS) of delicious food. I swear, after eating Christmas lunch followed in quick succession by Christmas dinner, I looked a little pregnant (with a food baby). Ah well, if you can't pig out at Christmas, when can you?
*sigh* The giraffe job (KidzBodz, teaching health at primary schools) has been postponed. The managers were planning to hire me, then replace me for the term I will be in Europe, but apparantly this was a logistical nightmare. Instead, they have made an employment file for me, and promised that if I contact them when I return from Europe, they will get me work, because they love me. Aw. Hope that happens! I am so keen to do this job - dressing up and singing and dancing for little kids? Sounds AWESOME. *ahem* Sorry, let me just compose myself.
Very happy, because when I booked all my train tickets for Europe last week, I forgot to book my return ticket from Paris - London. The sale on Eurostar was supposed to finish Dec 22, but luckily the website had not been updated (ha ha ha) and on Boxing Day I was able to book my train ticket for the special price :) Yay. So soon my tickets should arrive in the mail. How exciting.
It is only two weeks until I go to New Zealand, and about three months until Europe. Seriously, how jealous are you? This is SO exciting!!!!!!!!!! :) I can't wait. Weeehhhh.-
*sigh* The giraffe job (KidzBodz, teaching health at primary schools) has been postponed. The managers were planning to hire me, then replace me for the term I will be in Europe, but apparantly this was a logistical nightmare. Instead, they have made an employment file for me, and promised that if I contact them when I return from Europe, they will get me work, because they love me. Aw. Hope that happens! I am so keen to do this job - dressing up and singing and dancing for little kids? Sounds AWESOME. *ahem* Sorry, let me just compose myself.
Very happy, because when I booked all my train tickets for Europe last week, I forgot to book my return ticket from Paris - London. The sale on Eurostar was supposed to finish Dec 22, but luckily the website had not been updated (ha ha ha) and on Boxing Day I was able to book my train ticket for the special price :) Yay. So soon my tickets should arrive in the mail. How exciting.
It is only two weeks until I go to New Zealand, and about three months until Europe. Seriously, how jealous are you? This is SO exciting!!!!!!!!!! :) I can't wait. Weeehhhh.-
Saturday, December 23, 2006
The desensitisation of the Christmas spirit
Have you noticed that Christmas sneaks up on you? When you were little, there was a real sense of anticipation surrounding Christmas, and all the decorations and advertisements only heightened this feeling. But as the Christmas Creep (in which advertising for Christmas becomes earlier and earlier) advances (soon we'll have Christmas adverts straight after the post-Easter sales finish), I am finding myself immune. I have special built in Christmas blinkers.
Christmas is different when you get older. It's not all about the presents (but they are still fun. Don't stop giving me presents!); it's about seeing your family (and spending a fortune in petrol doing so as you drive all over the city); it's about sharing time, gifts and food with your loved ones (and working out how to cook a turkey!?!); and it's about relaxing after the Christmas rush. Isn't that mad? We find that we need the holiday to relieve ourselves from the insanity pre-empting the holiday!
I suggest that some of this insanity is due to the anaesthetising effect of the Christmas Creep. For months there have been Christmas decorations, Christmas sales, Christmas carols in the stores. For months I have been ignoring them. It was only when I coincidentally watched a Christmas episode of a DVD that I realised Christmas was only two weeks away and I hadn't even put up any decorations. I felt so Scrooge-like! Nick has been feeling Christmas-blinkered in much the same way, except that in his case he hasn't had time to finish his Christmas shopping ( I split gift shopping with my siblings, so we have to find a time when we can all shop together, which leads to pretty good organisation to make it happen, preferably early).
This is the seventh Christmas since Nick and I got together; it's the first Christmas we will share in the same city as each other. We've been planning to have dinner together Christmas Eve, and then see friends or Nick's sister. That said, we hadn't made any tangible plans until we realised Christmas was fairly well upon us, resulting in a mad rush to get food (an enormous turkey roll, what will we do with an enormous turkey roll, how do I cook that anyway?!?) and invite people to spend some time with us. Don't even mention the food I haven't yet bought to take to various family gatherings on Christmas day. For all the blatant "Buy this" lines, I have bought very little at all. I have not thought about Christmas sufficiently to organise myself, and now Christmas is a hassle!
Perhaps the Christmas Creep still works on kids, although I doubt it is very effective. Sure, the aim is to make children nag for gifts and sweets. But Christmas advertising used to also make you excited that Christmas, and the associated celebrations and school holidays, were near. When this starts three months before-hand, anticipation can't last. You become blase. Christmas Creep is ruining the thrilling atmosphere of Christmas, and both encouraging and pandering to the me generation who want everything now. These kids don't fully comprehend the joy of sneaking up to the Christmas tree to try and work out which presents are for you. They've been demanding presents for weeks, and it's become boring.
Maybe I'm just getting old. Maybe I am really becoming a 'Bah humbug' kind of person. But, then again, there's a present for me under our 'tree'. It's soft, with a strange harder section I can't work out. Maybe the anticipation of Christmas is still there, after all.
Christmas is different when you get older. It's not all about the presents (but they are still fun. Don't stop giving me presents!); it's about seeing your family (and spending a fortune in petrol doing so as you drive all over the city); it's about sharing time, gifts and food with your loved ones (and working out how to cook a turkey!?!); and it's about relaxing after the Christmas rush. Isn't that mad? We find that we need the holiday to relieve ourselves from the insanity pre-empting the holiday!
I suggest that some of this insanity is due to the anaesthetising effect of the Christmas Creep. For months there have been Christmas decorations, Christmas sales, Christmas carols in the stores. For months I have been ignoring them. It was only when I coincidentally watched a Christmas episode of a DVD that I realised Christmas was only two weeks away and I hadn't even put up any decorations. I felt so Scrooge-like! Nick has been feeling Christmas-blinkered in much the same way, except that in his case he hasn't had time to finish his Christmas shopping ( I split gift shopping with my siblings, so we have to find a time when we can all shop together, which leads to pretty good organisation to make it happen, preferably early).
This is the seventh Christmas since Nick and I got together; it's the first Christmas we will share in the same city as each other. We've been planning to have dinner together Christmas Eve, and then see friends or Nick's sister. That said, we hadn't made any tangible plans until we realised Christmas was fairly well upon us, resulting in a mad rush to get food (an enormous turkey roll, what will we do with an enormous turkey roll, how do I cook that anyway?!?) and invite people to spend some time with us. Don't even mention the food I haven't yet bought to take to various family gatherings on Christmas day. For all the blatant "Buy this" lines, I have bought very little at all. I have not thought about Christmas sufficiently to organise myself, and now Christmas is a hassle!
Perhaps the Christmas Creep still works on kids, although I doubt it is very effective. Sure, the aim is to make children nag for gifts and sweets. But Christmas advertising used to also make you excited that Christmas, and the associated celebrations and school holidays, were near. When this starts three months before-hand, anticipation can't last. You become blase. Christmas Creep is ruining the thrilling atmosphere of Christmas, and both encouraging and pandering to the me generation who want everything now. These kids don't fully comprehend the joy of sneaking up to the Christmas tree to try and work out which presents are for you. They've been demanding presents for weeks, and it's become boring.
Maybe I'm just getting old. Maybe I am really becoming a 'Bah humbug' kind of person. But, then again, there's a present for me under our 'tree'. It's soft, with a strange harder section I can't work out. Maybe the anticipation of Christmas is still there, after all.
Thursday, December 21, 2006
Life is a revolving door
Seriously, what is the deal with revolving doors? I mean those4 elctronic ones which constantly circulate, so you have to get in pace with the door and duck in as it swings by... I am currently temping at a place with a revolving door, but probably 90% of people will walk to the conventional dorrs either side and open them. This got me pondering possible reasons for installing a revolving door:
1/ to discourage terrorist attacks. It's very difficult to burst in brandishing bombs and guns and things when you have to slow down to align your step with the speed of an electronic door. And because they're normally glass, you'll be seen before you can use the element of surprise.
2/ hygiene? Maybe it's better not to touch the doors? I don't know...
3/ you're really busy and don't have time to talk to people, so you have them on high rotation. This way, they're not allowed out of the door, they just call out their greetings as they shuffle past.
4/ to discourage people getting to know each other, by seperating them each into their own door-copartment. This way, when they get to their individual cubicles, they are used to the isolation and don't waste precious work-moments on pointless diversions such as conversation.
5/ as the designer of the door, you are just a nasty eprson who laughs at other people's discomfort; either confusion and panic as they try to enter and exit the door; or nausea as they find it all too much and just keep gong round and round...
6/ it's actually a piece of installation art
7/ the revolving door is a subtle and overlooked artistic metaphor fof life itself, and the neverending inanity we fill our lives with.
Yeah. Deep, huh? I still don't get the point of them.
1/ to discourage terrorist attacks. It's very difficult to burst in brandishing bombs and guns and things when you have to slow down to align your step with the speed of an electronic door. And because they're normally glass, you'll be seen before you can use the element of surprise.
2/ hygiene? Maybe it's better not to touch the doors? I don't know...
3/ you're really busy and don't have time to talk to people, so you have them on high rotation. This way, they're not allowed out of the door, they just call out their greetings as they shuffle past.
4/ to discourage people getting to know each other, by seperating them each into their own door-copartment. This way, when they get to their individual cubicles, they are used to the isolation and don't waste precious work-moments on pointless diversions such as conversation.
5/ as the designer of the door, you are just a nasty eprson who laughs at other people's discomfort; either confusion and panic as they try to enter and exit the door; or nausea as they find it all too much and just keep gong round and round...
6/ it's actually a piece of installation art
7/ the revolving door is a subtle and overlooked artistic metaphor fof life itself, and the neverending inanity we fill our lives with.
Yeah. Deep, huh? I still don't get the point of them.
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