I really do use English. I swear.
My computer just decided to switch into pinyin, i.e. asian character input mode. I have no idea how it did, since I'm pretty sure I didn't install the asian language packs and I didn't (knowingly) turn it on.
There's no way to turn Pinyin mode off from the preferences on the language bar (poor oversight!), and it turns all your English characters into Chinese at some point, so I spent an interesting ten minutes trying to work out how to turn it off without being able to type into the language bar help/google search.
I resorted to typing things into Notepad and copying them to my browser/the help file to find the answer. Just when I was on the brink of a breakthrough, it automagically fixed itself and all was right with my world, so I disbanded the search.
Two minutes later I'm again typing stuff into notepad to try and fix it. I just want a tickbox that says "yes, I really do use English. Please don't make me type in Chinese."
oh, that's cute - write it down!
I have a bit of an obsession about recording and collecting things (or, I should say,
wanting to record things). For example, I'll often find myself doing the grocery shopping, driving my car, eating dinner at a restaurant or any number of un-computer-accessible places, have an interesting moment or thought, and then go "hey, I should write that down."
I wonder if it comes from the fact that my memory is getting pretty bad, or that I just like hearing myself talk :p I do like reading back on random moments sometimes, because it helps me to recreate things I've experienced. (You would think that my memory could adequately do that, but apparently not).
I'm definitely not from the Less is More camp. Just look at my
photos when I go on holidays. There are almost 70 photos for a long weekend in Melbourne. I used to collect movie ticket stubs when I was in high school, and carry them around with me in my purse. I'd get a strange enjoyment going through them with my other friends who'd do the same thing, and we'd compare which movies we'd seen and how many times we saw them. It was at the stage where I was carting around over 100 ticket stubs (with a hundred more at home), some of which had faded to the point when I couldn't read them anymore. I'm not entirely sure why I kept them.
Why am I such a hoarder? It's like experience isn't enough for me, I need something tangible to be able to present to others and myself, and say, "I was there". Or maybe I'm a bit like a prosecutor - collecting as much available evidence as I can to present to the jury (my later self) to make up their own mind about things later.
This blog seems to be just another thing I hoard. It's a snapshot of my brain at a point in time... like the ultimate souvenir of my life. I wonder what I'll think of it in ten years when I go back to read it again? Will any of it make sense? Will I understand where I was coming from? I hope so.
a rainy melbourne day
We arrived in Melbourne last night, via Virgin Blue. It was the smoothest flight I've had in a while, and the sky was very clear, so we had a perfect view of Sydney by night as we flew south. I could see the M5, Stoney Creek Rd and Forest Rd, but I think we actually flew directly over Alfords Point, so I couldn't see my old suburb :( However, I spotted Canberra and the giant roundabout that goes around Parliament house, so that was quite exciting. From the sky, you can see that Canberra is indeed very well planned (as they say - whoever 'they' are).
The flight was quite novel - the planes are very new and have
leather seats! The emergency procedure cards also had some detailed instructions on how to open the doors and operate the life rafts. You have to tie them to a seat to deploy them, which seems rather complicated in the middle of a full scale emergency. ("Wait! don't run from the flames yet! I have to secure the life raft, it'll just take a minute!").
And to tie in with their funky young image, the hostesses put little jokes in their regular spiels, like:
"This is a non smoking flight. Anyone caught smoking will be asked to step outside."
"Dimming of the cabin lights is standard procedure for night flights, and enhances the appearances of your flight attendants."
I was amused (but then again, I think I'm quite easily amused).
The flight was ahead of schedule despite leaving late, so by the time we got our hire car it was only 10:45. It turns out that since I'm under 25, and despite the fact that I have a GOLD licence, I can't drive the hire car without paying an extra $27 per day. No way in hell were we going to pay another $100+, so Cameron decided he'd do all the driving, which suits me just fine.
We'd agreed to meet his cousin Victor for supper somewhere, but got a little lost on the way. Cam had brought his GPS unit along which kept insisting we were about 200m northeast of where we actually were, so the directions were totally wrong. Sigh. We aborted the plan to meet Victor at his house, and ended up going to the
supper inn in Chinatown instead. After google searching it, it appears it's an institution. The restaurant was tucked away on the first floor down a side alley in Chinatown, and there was a line outside at 11:45pm at night! Pretty impressive. It does some good congee, not as good as
superbowl, but still very tasty. Victor is a funny guy. He's also a geek - must run in Cam's family - but very cool. He alleges that Melbourne people dress trendier, and offered up his jeans-and-sandals look as proof. (He may have been joking on that point).
We got to Cam's aunt's place so late that they were asleep and none of the kids were home. However, this morning when I woke up at 9, Cam's other cousins Les and Helena were awake, and I got a proper look at the house we're staying at. It's lovely, with exposed brick walls inside, with several split levels, and a very high ceilinged lounge that has huge windows facing the mountain ranges. Gorgeous. :) And a beautiful thing to wake up to on your first day on holiday.
They took us all out to pho in Springwood for breakfast. Unfortunately, I was allergic to something - possibly MSG - and got itchy :p sigh. I thought allergies were supposed to go
away as you grew up...
Anyway. Cameron had bought a snowboard on eBay a few weeks ago and wanted to pick it up from the owner, so we trekked out to Eltham. The board has a huge scratch in the back, which I guess was sustained when the single male owner smacked into a tree and broke his arm. It looked quite nasty but can probably be filled in when we get back to Sydney. Cam also stopped by his old neighbourhood and took photos of his house and street. By the time we finished with that it was 1pm, too late to really go to Mornington Peninsula, so we went for a drive around Mt Dandenong. I remember having done this when I came with my parents a few years ago, but the view was decidedly less exciting than I remember. Most of Melbourne is fairly flat and you can't see many mountains in the distance, so you're just looking at urban areas that stretch to the sea. It's fairly uninspiring. However, we salvaged the visit by taking some funny photos at the garden by the lookout which I'll put online later.
There are a lot of little towns along the Mt Dandenong Tourist Drive; we stopped at Olinda to have a look around. They have TWO old fashioned candy shops, inviting cafes with many delicious looking desserts, lots of antiqueries (one was selling a very realistic petrol bowser replica with an illumated plastic sheep on top of it, tagged with "for the guy who has everything!"), and the famed Olinda pie shop which has won FIVE gold medals at australian championships for its meat pies. Natrually we had to try one, even though we were already extremely stuffed from all the free food that Cam's aunt keeps pushing onto us. The place was packed with a waiting line for seats at 3:30 in the afternoon and had a lot of funky old wood furniture and those old style advertisements for Aeroplane Jelly, Coke and Pears Soap lining the walls. I'm a little bit ashamed at how easily I was swayed by the kitchy decorations, but I guess if I opened my own tourist restaurant, I'd know how to decorate it.
It started to rain as we headed back to Melbourne, so we just headed home - not that anything would be open, anyway. It suited me to veg out by the large window overlooking the mountains while it rained!
Tonight we'll be eating dinner with Cam's aunt, uncle, his cousin Victor and wife Prue. I heard talk of poker afterwards, so I don't think we'll be short on activities to do :)
grumpy clouds
Today was a day where everything was conspiring to make me grumpy. I started the day rather cheerily (and who wouldn't, when in two days' time there will be a four day weekend?) but the cheer lasted about two minutes after I arrived at work when a whole heap of problems assulted me at once.
I'm fairly certain I was grumpy alllll day. Profuse apologies to my work neighbours for anything I did today.
However, the whole thing became funny when I was about to leave after 7pm, and a colleage commented that I was beaming (yes, BEAMING).
Is there a grumpy cloud hovering over my desk? If so, who put it there? Is it just the lingering grump that I deposit at night, to pick up again in the morning? Or do people come along and leave residual grump so THEY don't have to deal with their own grumpy? (If so, that's not very nice). It's one of life's little mysteries.
On the cheery front, I got my annual leave for Malaysia, so I'll be there in May for my cousins' wedding. I'm not sure what airline I'm flying, but if it's Singapore, I'll laugh. I've visited that airport more often than I've caught the train this year.
Oh, and the sun was nice this afternoon.
How to fund a takeover when you're short on cash in five easy steps:
1. Send an exciting new opportunity for investment to all the staff in your company, citing existing staff members who are successful and happy shareholders
2. Give your staff a whole 24 hours to consider the proposal before they must join or miss out.
3. Mention that the minimum investment required is $10,000 and you need to cough up the money within a week.
4. Regret to inform them that they can only allow 15 more investors before the pool closes, and this is the last opportunity to invest in the company in a very long while.
5. Neglect to mention that if you leave, your share options go down the toilet and you must depend on someone else buying your shares to recoup your money.
(any resemblence to a real life offer is purely coincidental.)
In other news, Mondays still suck.
take me with you!
Two days ago, one of my friends was accepted for a 12 month exchange program in Japan.
Yesterday, another friend of mine announced she is planning to move to London in two months.
Today, I discovered a new method of cockroach control that actually sounds like it will work.
It's been an eventful weekend.
I'm actually really happy for both of my friends, because one has been looking forward to his Japan exchange for ages, and the other is just keen to travel, and what better way to do it than when you are young and have nothing to tie you down :)
On the other hand, all my friends are moving to London. What's with that?
The travelling bug bit me after my europe trip last year, and considering my work situation (everybody stressed, people leaving right and left, me not feeling very enthusiastic about it), it seemed like a good idea to think about moving. I felt really apathetic about everything in Sydney and was looking for something to rekindle my interest.
Then as soon as I started thinking about moving, the nostalgic part of my traitorous brain went into overdrive. I started thinking about everything that I'd miss in Sydney, particularly my family and the dog, the beautiful harbour, the sunny days, long drives and the beaches down the coast, my friends and network of people I've known all my life and who wouldn't be there to fall back on.
Then there was Japan :) That trip was truly wonderful, and I think it quelled a lot of the anxiety I felt about life in general. It put a lot of things into balance - namely in the general scheme of things I have a pretty good deal. My family is healthy, I live out of home and can do what I please, and I have money to travel. I should be happy with the chickens I have. I think I subconsciously resolved not to throw my life into uproar for the sake of an impetuous whim.
THEN (this is the last 'then', I promise) this weekend hit me out of nowhere. Two more of my friends are leaving and they'll be doing all manner of exciting things that I certainly won't be doing while in Sydney :( After being confronted with it, that SEVEN of my friends are moving or have moved overseas, I just think,
what am I doing? I should go while I have the opportunity (and while everyone else is in London too), being young, single and without any assets to deal with.
Two years ago, I never, ever, ever thought that I'd even consider moving overseas; a year ago, I wasn't even thinking about London as a destination, and now, there's just an overwhelming desire to experience new things. It really makes me wonder what I'll be doing in a year's time.
When I was little, I used to think that everything remained fairly stable. People had a general path (go to school, go to uni, get a job, buy a house, start a family) with curious little side adventures like travel, or a photography hobby, or learning to tap dance, and that was what made life interesting and unpredictable. I know better now :)
yes, it's all about cheese
random moment: I was looking for a new url to host my recipe book, and found a guy Blog Squatting on comfort-food.blogspot.com.
His actual blog is rather amusing, and he attributes his reason for blogging to cheese. Amen.
bugs
We have a cockroach problem.
I really shouldn't be surprised since I live in the inner city, but it's somewhat off-putting when you walk into the kitchen and you see 3 in the space of a minute (not an unusual circumstance). I used to be scared to death of cockroaches; now I just have a feud to settle.
What's worse is that I think they're german cockroaches, the ones with an amazing life cycle and the ability to spawn six generations in a year. Ugh.
We seem to get about 6 months of major roach activity each year. The horror starts in December, the worst of it peaks in March/April, and then it dies down in Winter. We have a few blissful months where we might see one or two roaches a month, then it all goes wrong again.
My flatmate and I have tried many things to erradicate the bugs - surface spray, roach bait, ignoring them - but nothing has done the trick. We even bought cockroach bombs (a self-emptying can of roach spray that kills bugs and then settles into your cupboards, beds, couches, utensils, books, clothing and any other personal items you value) but we chickened out. We figured it was too much work to clean everything afterwards and we'd probably get re-infested within a week anyway.
Roaches are the #1 thing I hate about my apartment. :(
mmmmmmmeeeellllbourne!
My first parent-less trip to melbourne is mere days away. I'm excited. :) There's a lot on the List of
things to see, including a couple of
time out activities (and more than one way to
spend money).
I'd like to go to St Kilda and Fitzroy - a colleage at work raved about the music scene in St Kilda. "People just get up and play Jazz! It's fantastic!"
I'd also like to drive around the Grampians, if they're not too far away. If they are, I'll just settle for the Dandenongs. I'm going with a friend of mine who used to live in Melbourne and has never been to the Great Ocean Road. Crazy, or what?
Anyway, as I said, I'm excited! :)
i feel shame.
It occurs to me that I used to hate people with blogs because they were always whiny, angsty little teenagers who babbled on about their problems ad nauseum.
I like to think that the quality of blogging has increased in recent years, rather than the fact that I've lowered myself to their standards.
ugh. mondays.
I never used to have a problem with Mondays. I mean, you go to work, and do the same stuff that you would normally do on any other Tuesday or Thursday. You get paid the same amount as if it were a Thursday, and you should be fairly refreshed from your weekend of not working to put some enthusiasm into it.
Having said that, the past few weeks have been Monday Hell. I feel like I annoyed the God of Mondays somewhere and he has now brought down wrath and fire.
Today was no different. There's an enthusiastic new mantra at work, to identify the top 20 problems for our clients and fix them. It sounds okay, right? Except now we don't release any new code until the bugs are fixed. (Actually, this is sounding less bad and more advantageous from a development point of view, except when the development projects manager breathes down your neck because she can't release stuff to clients as promised). The actual problem for me is that my issues make up one fifth of that list. :p So, I have to drop everything that I'm doing and fix the bugs. The bugs aren't really bugs, they're just design that's been obsoleted. I didn't even write the design, I'm just the codekeeper now, but I've inherited it. So I redesign, and it's not a two line fix. There are a lot of broken unit tests waiting for me tomorrow morning. I'm hoping I'll get it all done in the morning and not have to stay until 7:30pm again. I even got into work
before 9am, and this is how I was repaid...
With daylight savings over, the office got dark at 6pm and that was just another grumpy thing to add to this 'ugh' of a day.
If the deity of Mondays is out there: Please. Tell me what I did, and I'll work out how I can fix it.
daylight savings boon
I love the feel of flying at high speeds :) (horizontal flying that is, none of that jumping-out-of-a-plane stuff). I should mention that we went ice skating at Canterbury today, which was really fun.
I think I'm getting a better with my ice skating. My balance has improved, and I can cross my feet over when I turn corners (or at least when I turn left, since we're always going in the one direction around the rink. Isn't that a bit silly? What if people want to practice turning right once in a while?)
After ice skating, there were board games at my house!! We feasted on gyoza and japanese tomato curry, with mini almond magnums to seal the deal. Mmmmm... In amongst all the eating, there was taboo and scrabble. Gus won at everything. He should definitely have a Board Game Handicap whenever he plays. We weren't even drinking, so we didn't have any excuse for losing so thoroughly.
The added bonus was that everyone left by 10 when it felt like midnight - a free hour thanks to daylight savings! w00t!
Even with all the associated stress of hosting an evening, there's nothing quite so good as ending sunday night in the company of friends. I don't usually like entertaining at my place - it always seems so small and stuffy - but 6 was a good amount of people to have over. And I didn't even mind doing the washing up. I'd be keen to do it in future, if we still have a group in 6 months :)
The group is getting a lot smaller these days. Three people have left for the UK, another one is going to Japan in a few months, and another is planning to go to Canada. When that happens, there'll be 4 people left in sydney, possibly 6 or 7 if you count sattelite people who occasionally drop in. I'm slowly becoming friendless :(
