SimDragon's Journal

The home insulation scheme rort

2010-07-12T10:03:00.000+08:00

I now understand first hand why the Australian government pulled the plug on their Home Insulation scheme, whereby they were offering $1200 worth of insulation free to householders.

We already had insulation. It was old, but it was doing its job - having rented places without insulation, I know you can certainly tell when there isn't insulation! So when Marcos told me a company had phoned his mobile and offered to install free insulation, and he agreed and set a time and date with them to do so, I was surprised and a little concerned about what we could expect from a company that had cold called us.

When they arrived, I told them we already had insulation. They said that if it was more than 10 years old, then we were still entitled to the free insulation. They had tshirts on that said "The Insulation People", so I did a quick search, found their website which said they were government accredited, and checked the government website and found that yes, their company was in fact listed. So, a little mollified that they did seem legitimate, we agreed to them going ahead.

They said it would take about an hour. It took more like 3. There were 3 installers, one of which spent the whole time sleeping in the van while the other 2 did the work. They left quite a mess when the finally completed the work.

That was in February. We finally had a government inspection on 6th July 2010, and the results were not good. While there were no safety issues, there were plenty of other issues. The written report said "Many small to large bare areas throughout the roof space, very poor quality work generally. Below R3.5 insulation used in areas."

The inspector told me that it looked like a 5 year old had installed the insulation, and that he normally takes 30 photos during an inspection, but he took 87 photos of ours, there were that many issues...

The next step was to try phoning the Insulation People to get them to come out and fix the issues. I tried phoning the Director, Siraj, since it is his mobile number that is advertised as the company phone number. He fobbed me off - he took my name and number and said he would get someone local to call me back in the next 5 - 10 minutes. That was 6 days ago. The next day, Wednesday, I sent an email through their website with the details of the report, again requesting they get in touch and rectify it. Nothing.

This morning (July 12th) I tried phoning Siraj again. No answer. No answering service even. His number was unreachable. Hmmm. Did I mention that his phone number is the only one advertised for his business?

So I've now phoned the government's energy efficiency hotline and lodged a complaint about the business. Unfortunately, that's all we can do. Because there is no safety issue, the government won't take any responsibility for fixing it. They advised us to contact a licensed installer (which these guys were - they are government accredited!) and pay at our own expense for the job to be redone...

What I'd like to know is this: why didn't the government inspect the work *before* handing dodgy companies like this their $1200? Surely a lot of problems would have been avoided if a condition of claiming the rebate was the work actually meeting the government standard?

New adventures

2010-03-12T12:38:00.000+08:00

This month seems to be a time of beginnings here!

I'm finally making use of my massage and reflexology qualifications, and as of next Friday (March 19th) I will be working on Tuesdays and Friday at Yes 2 Life in Armadale. I'll have a laptop with me to do web development in quiet periods (I'm not one for sitting twiddling my thumbs!). I'd prefer to be using that time to give massage and reflexology treatments, so if you know anyone who can make it to Armadale during business hours (9:30 am to 5 pm) I'm offering 20% off all massage and reflexology sessions for the rest of March.

I have applied for membership of the Australian Traditional Medicine Society and once that has been approved, I should be getting health insurance provider numbers to offer rebates for reflexology - sweet!

I'm also looking at having a stall at the Canning Vale markets as of next weekend, where I will have Sound Therapy products and ipillows.

In the mean time, I am trying to get the websites for Totally Sound Health and Las Niñas Web Development finished. There is a lot to organise, but it's slowly coming together!

On the family front, little Eva turned 2 yesterday. Not that her birthday meant much to her, but Ariana now understands birthdays, and was excited on Eva's behalf! Both girls have now settled in well to day care (thank goodness!). Ariana has started telling me about her friend Jasmine at day care. It sounds like Ariana has her first best friend. :)

Marcos is having new adventures too, spearheading the proposed Rotary Club of Murdoch. (If you are in the Murdoch vicinity, and would like to make a difference locally and internationally, Marcos would love to hear from you!) So it's all systems go on all fronts at the moment!

2010-02-21T21:14:00.000+08:00

Dusting off my Blogger blog...

It's nearly the end of summer, but lately I have been in spring cleaning mode!

With my heavy use of Facebook, my poor Blogger blog has been badly neglected. Well over a year since my last post - oops! Now February 2010 is nearly ready to tick over to March, and since this past month has been a time for finishing, or at least making progress with, things that have needed attending for the past year (or more), it seemed timely to give my old web presences some thought.

So, quick recap of the past year and a bit:

Finished a Certificate IV in Applied Language (Spanish) and started the Diploma course.
Finally completed my Certificate IV in Remedial Massage.
Continued working at UWA 1.5 days a week, as well as in my own businesses at home as time permitted - very little on Las Niñas Web Development as I just didn't have the time, but building up my Sound Therapy work.
Went to Argentina for a month.
Took the girls to Tumbletots for 3 of the 4 terms.
Resigned my roles in my Rotary Club, only to be re-elected to them again in the second half of the year.
Started up a new Rotary fellowship which has so far failed to get official recognition.
Got chest pain from trying to do too much on too little sleep and too much caffeine, and spent a night in the cardiac care unit of a hospital.
Finally started cutting back on things to try to start rebuilding my health: quit my spanish studies, finally resigned from UWA (again!) after having been a staff member for nearly 9 years.

And here we are. Now fully self employed, with the girls finally in day care two days a week, which doesn't leave a lot of time for me to try to earn an income, but it does give me a bit of a break and a chance to get on with things uninterrupted. The little ones are growing fast - little Eva will be 2 in a fortnight's time! And Marcos is still working at Murdoch Uni, but back to 5 days a week now that the girls are in day care.

So how regular will updates here be now? Good question. :) Hopefully not a year apart! I have a lot that I am catching up with at the moment, but I'm getting there. :) Once I have a few other web sites finished (that I have been mulling over in my head for at least a year!), I think an overhaul of SimDragon's Lair is in order, and an overhaul of this blog is likely to follow suit.

2008-12-24T22:07:00.002+09:00

Since 2008 has nearly drawn to a close, and it has been several months since I last took time to write an update here, I thought it a good time to do a "year that was" type post even though there is still a week to go until the end of the year. Because at the rate I'm going, it will be well into 2009 before I make time to do this again!

The beginning of 2008 saw Marcos' mum Silvia here with us for 6 weeks, which was absolutely lovely. We were all very sad to see her go at the end of January, especially as she missed the arrival of her second granddaughter by just 6 weeks.

Little Eva Micaela arrived in the world on March 11th, and Ariana quickly adapted to the role of big sister. The two have become great little friends - when Eva sleeps, Ariana wants me to wake her up again ("more Eva!") so she can keep playing with her. Eva is now mobile, having mastered both crawling and pulling herself up to stand, and they two think it is great fun crawling around together.

I worked at UWA up until the week before Eva was born, and took up working from home (for UWA) again 6 weeks later. I have been struggling to maintain a good work/life balance ever since, and am sure Marcos would agree that I have not been succeeding well at that. I have been burning the candle at both ends, and as a consequence am quite unwell at the moment. A couple of weeks ago, Marcos returned to staying home on Fridays so I can go into UWA to work, and after the Christmas break I will work on Wednesday afternoons and Fridays, as I did before Eva was born. In the long run I want to solely work on my own businesses, from home, so I have complete control over my workloads, but in the short term I need to keep working at UWA so we can start saving up some cash.

This year Ariana started Tumbletots, and it has made a marked difference in her ability to climb play equipment. She loves climbing, going down slides and going on swings, so we bought the girls a swing and slide set for Christmas, which has already clocked up a lot of use.

Ariana is becoming more and more proficient speaking in both english and spanish. It is interesting to see which words she picks up in either language, as she doesn't always go with whatever is easiest to say. Eva has started trying to talk (she's got mum-mum-mum down pat, and something that sounds like yummy as well), so it won't be long before the two are chattering away to each other.

It has certainly been a challenge trying to juggle everything this year - thrown into the mix has also been Rotaract (which we both had to "retire" from at the end of June, which was a big life change), the move into Rotary, regular physiotherapy sessions for me upon discovering the intense pain ín my hip and back I've had all year is arthritis (!!) and much, much more.

I'm planning to use the Christmas break to recharge (after I recover from the cold that has knocked me out at the moment!) and set out some plans for 2009 so that when I reach the end of next year, all aspects of my life will be healthy. ;)

Wishing you all a happy holiday season, and all the best for the new year.

2008-10-01T20:58:00.002+08:00

Where does the time go? It's been 3 months since my last update here. During that time, I have thought of many things I have wanted to write about here. I just haven't made the time to sit down and put my thoughts down in writing.

(If someone could invent a device where I could channel my thoughts to a blog post, or an other written electronic form, so when I have a quiet moment to be still and think, but I'm not in front of a computer, I can get my thoughts down rather than trying to rehash them later.)

Where to start?

Winter saw us all stricken (and in the girls' cases, twice each) with various bugs. I was busy nursing for 2 sick girls, then a sick husband, then sick girls again, before finally succumbing myself, and in turn needing looking after! Touch wood we're all well now, and with Spring well and truly here and the weather finally warming up, hopefully we'll keep that way until at least August next year now. ;)

Both girls are growing so fast! Eva is now 6 months old, eating solids, getting around a little via rolling. Ariana's vocabulary (in both languages) is continuing to expand rapidly. They are both wonderful little girls, who absolutely adore each other.

I've been struggling a bit trying to find the right work-life balance. I've been alternating between staying up really late to get some solid work done, which means other nights I have to go to bed ultra early or spend the bulk of one of the days on the weekend catching up on sleep (between Eva's feeds), which is far from ideal. I ended up quite run down, which is why I ended up getting sick. So I'm trying to find a better balance, which is still tricky as there is usually at least one little one still awake even at 9:30 or 10 pm, so I can't sit down and really concentrate until about 10 pm or later. That's a bit tricky to solve right now - we've tried putting Ariana to bed at a set time (8:30 pm), but if she doesn't want to sleep, she screams and screams, which in turn wakes Eva up, who likewise starts crying. In time that will hopefully get easier, but for now I'm not really sure how best to tackle the situation, apart from continuing to have some nights where I go to bed around 2am so I can get 4 solid hours of work done a few nights a week.

2008-06-20T16:22:00.002+08:00

The end of ebay?

Recent changes to ebay.com.au have royally pissed off sellers and buyers alike - limiting payment method to PayPal (or cash on pick up only), and removing the ability to leave anything other than positive feedback for buyers, even if they don't pay.

As someone who has regularly used ebay as both a seller and a buyer since mid 2004, I am one of the people who is very unhappy with the changes. Although ebay claim they are making it "safer" to buy / sell, all they are doing are reaping higher profits for themselves (since they own PayPal and get extra fees per transaction there), and making it so that problem buyers can no longer be identified in advance via negative / neutral feedback. Every way you look at it, there are no pluses for buyers, only big reasons to leave and move to a competitor's site. And that's exactly what I've done.

At first, I had no idea what other Australian auction sites existed... after all. ebay is pretty synonymous with online auction. But thanks to a facebook ad, I discovered Oztion, and through another ad I've also found BidMate. Unsurprisingly, both have experienced phenomenal growth in the last couple of months, in light of the notification from ebay about their changes.

Both are sooooo much cheaper than ebay. The cost of setting up a shop was prohibitive on ebay, but for $5 a month on Oztion I figured I'd give it a go! And a shop looks to be completely fee on BidMate!

On first impressions, Oztion is a very professional, well thought out site. I think it will become the replacement for ebay in Australia.

BidMate is not nearly as professional (it looks to be a one man shop - more power to Ron!), and information is scarce - you basically have to ask a question on the forum to find out how anything works... but that aside, BidMate has the cheapest fees, plus it offers a very generous $80 in seller credit right now, so sellers won't have to pay a thing for quite some time after signing up! With that in mind I figured, why not!

I've created accounts on both, and will test them both out. Watch this space for further impressions after I've used them a bit more!

2008-06-09T02:16:00.002+08:00

Just a quickie tonight... I'm trying out a new site that looks to be an interesting take on affiliate marketing, putting it all together under one "shop". Different groups can set up a "shop" as a means of fundraising, and can show what they are fundraising for. Check it out: AShopFor.

2008-06-05T09:48:00.002+08:00

Wow, it's been over 2 months since my last post here... In that time I've posted a few "notes" in Facebook rather than coming here to Blogger; although Facebook does import this blog of mine into facebook, it leaves each post untitled (it used to show the first sentence as the title, which was better!), so I've just posted there instead. So for those of you not on Facebook...

Eva is now 12 weeks old. She is a gorgeous little soul, and absolutely no trouble at all! She feeds well and sleeps extremely well - she started sleeping through around 2 weeks; now we average one or two 7 hour sleeps at night each week, and 5 hour sleeps the other nights. She gives us beautiful smiles and gorgeous coos. She is simply a gem!

Ariana is quite the little lady now, and she is such a cutie. Her vocabulary (in both languages) is continually expanding. We can generally understand what she wants (mostly Wiggles!!). The poor little mite isn't so well at the moment, but hopefully her fever will pass soon.

In the past week or so I've finally been able to get back into some sort of rhythm with doing work. My Sound Therapy business is picking up; considering how little time I spend on it, I think it's doing extremely well! I am also in the process of setting up my own web hosting business (as a reseller for the company I have been referring friends and clients to), and I will collaborate with some of Marcos' friends in Argentina to offer a variety of web development services. It will be fun to see how all that pans out. ;)

We now have a family website at www.carotcollins.com - at the moment there is mostly info (photos, videos etc) about the girls... I've started a page there for myself but it's not finished yet, as I keep changing my mind about what to do with it! :P So for now my old SimDragon's Lair is still my primary personal site, but that will change when I finally decide how much of that old stuff to keep. Thoughts welcome. :)

2008-03-26T20:15:00.002+09:00

Two weeks ago Marcos and I were blessed with a 2nd beautiful little girl. Eva was born at 8:18 am on March 11th by Caesarean section. She looks VERY much like Ariana did at birth, only a little bigger with more hair! She is such a good baby, though it is quite an adjustment getting used to the constant feeds again!

At the moment, my whole day seems to revolve around Eva's feeds. With Ariana, we were encouraged by about day 3 to "top her up" with a bottle as she didn't appear to be feeding much because she was jaundiced - well, that's what I believed at the time. Now I know that I should have just persevered with breast-feeding her when she was hungry, but in any case, Ariana got used to a bottle, and it made a huge difference in terms of how long (and how often) she fed. I could pretty much set my clock to Ariana feeding every 3 hours, and during the night Marcos and I took it in turns to bottle feed her, though I always offered her the breast first. Ariana weaned herself off me at about 3 1/2 months, so bottle feeding her solely after that was reasonably quick.

On the very first night in hospital, with Eva wanting to feed pretty much constantly, one of the nurses asked if I wanted to give her a bottle, but being better informed about breast feeding this time (I had bought and read the Australian Breastfeeding Association's book "Breast feeding ... naturally") I refused the bottle and persevered with just breast feeding. A few family members are trying to encourage me to introduce Eva to a bottle, for "convenience", but I want to keep with it, even if it means I spend a very, very large amount of my time just feeding Eva!

I am finding it a little difficult not really getting any time to myself to be able to sit down and concentrate on things, like work or studies, like I could with Ariana, but I guess it is still very early days... I am only managing to get a few things organised at home every day right now, especially as Ariana has been unwell and I have had a lot of extra washing as a result. I feel extremely domestic right now!! I had hoped to be able to start doing some work soon as we could do with the money, but that looks unlikely to happen for a few more weeks at least, at this rate. We'll just have to wait and see how things pan out...

2008-03-10T01:23:00.003+09:00

It's my last day at home as a family of three - tomorrow night I will be in hospital, getting ready to deliver our second little girl by Caesarean on Tuesday morning.

In some respects it still doesn't feel real, despite the huge belly and all the discomforts that come in the final stages of pregnancy (I can't wait to be able to turn over in bed again!). I'm now 39 weeks pregnant, 2 weeks further on than I made it with Ariana. All in all, things seem to have gone a bit easier this time, and although I weigh more than I did when I gave birth to Ariana, I have put on a lot less weight this pregnancy, and my belly is actually smaller than it was with Ariana (we have a belly cast from my pregnancy with Ariana, and surprisingly there is room to spare!). So I'm anticipating everything should go smoothly on Tuesday.

We've been very busy getting everything as organised as possible at home prior to Eva's arrival. Marcos is wonderful - he has done so much work both inside and outside the house; I've done what I can, but my energy levels lately haven't allowed me to do all that much. Still, I've managed to get the majority of things done that I had wanted. I have a few things left to organise tomorrow (well, later today - it's 1:30 am so technically it's Monday already rather than still being Sunday night), such as finishing off some work and studies, but the house is ready at least!

I'm going to miss Ariana when I am in hospital. She is such a cutie! She is growing so fast, learning so much. She brings us so much joy - we really are blessed to have such a beautiful daughter, and I hope she adjusts well to being a big sister!

I'm still gradually building up my Sound Therapy business - last month has been by far the best in terms of sales! I need to build my own shopping cart, as what is in place at present is clunky, but at least it is still bringing in some sales. :) So at some stage in coming weeks / months I will be playing around with coding my own PHP shopping cart, which will be fun!

My brother-in-law Damian has recently started his own business too, a mobile dog wash service in Perth, K9 Hydrotherapy and Pet Care. So if you live in Perth and need someone to wash your dog, Damian is your man. :D

Well, I guess I better think about getting to bed soon...! My body has already adjusted to being awake at night, ready for feeds every 2 - 3 hours... *sigh*

2008-02-18T11:51:00.004+09:00

One of Ariana's Wiggles' DVDs has a performance of "La cucharacha", which has a different final line to what Marcos knows. Since my knowledge of the lyrics was along the lines of "La cucharacha, la cucharacha, la la la la la la la...", I decided to do a quick search on google to see what the lyrics are, and the results were quite astonishing. :P The first 3 lines generally agree:

La cucharacha, la cucharacha (the cockroach, the cockroach)
Ya no puede camina (can't walk)
Porque no tiene, porque le falta (becuase it doesn't have, because it's missing)

But there is a huge amount of variety as to what the last line should be!

Marcos sings something along the lines of missing its legs, which makes sense.

The Wiggles sing "enchiladas que comer" (enchiladas to eat), which I thought was a bit odd, but apparently "limonada para tomar" (lemonade to drink) is a reasonably popular substitute. But the most common version, apparently is:

Marijuana para fumar (marijuana to smoke)...!!

No wonder the Wiggles sing about eating enchiladas. :P

I also discovered on the Wiggles a 2nd verse that I had never heard before:

Ya la murio la cucaracha (The cockroach just died)
Ya la lleven a enterrar (And they carried him off to bury him)
Entre cuatro zopilotes (Among four buzzards)
Y un raton de sacristan (And the sexton's mouse)

I also came across references to La cucharacha being similar to Yankee Doodle and On Top of Old Smokey in terms of the variation of lyrics to the tune, which reminded me of my primary school days and the various versions of "Old Smokey" that we used to sing. "On Top of Spaghetti" was one, and the lyrics for that seem to agree around the world (from what I've seen in a Google search), but the version of "On Top of Old Smokey" involving the teacher that we (Penrhos College junior school girls in Perth, WA) sang was:

On top of Old Smokey
All covered in sand
I shot my poor teacher
With a green rubber band

I shot her with pleasure
I shot her with pride
I couldn't have missed her
She was forty feet wide

I went to her funeral
I went to her grave
Some people threw flowers
I threw a grenade

The coffin went up
The coffin went down
The coffin went splat
All over the ground

Cheery, eh?

2008-01-09T08:34:00.000+09:00

Happy New Year! We had a quiet start to the year, which I prefer, but Marcos misses how they bring in the new year in Argentina, with everyone letting off their own fireworks.

I'm all booked in for a Caesarean, on March 11th. Last time it was organised 2 days in advance, through necessity, so it's a little strange having a date for it so far in advance this time! March 11th makes it 10 days prior to Eva's estimated due date, whereas last time my Caesarean was 3 weeks early. On the whole I think things are going a bit better this time round - I didn't get gestational diabetes this time, which I did with Ariana, though I am anaemic right now, which was a bit of a surprise as I had been more careful about taking iron supplements this time. Oh well. While heartburn has been a bit of an issue, I think it was much worse at this point last year too, as were the leg cramps. I think it helps that I haven't put on nearly as much weight with this pregnancy!

Marcos' mum, Silvia, is staying with us at the moment, which has been great. Ariana has really taken to her - I'm a little worried that Ariana won't understand what is happening when Silvia has to return to Argentina at the end of this month. With 2 spanish speakers in the house now, Ariana is saying some new things in spanish - she's about 50 / 50 with english to spanish words that she says now - she gets to pick which words are easier (eg sí instead of yes, but ta and thank you instead of gracias).

I've been in a big catch-up mode lately (it helps having Silvia here!); as well as doing a lot more work, I've finally caught up with answering ALL my letters in the first time in years (I'm about to tackle my email next!), and I have finally started selling things on ebay that have been sitting around waiting for me to put them on ebay for over a year. Marcos has been selling refurbished computers, and I have been selling a whole variety of things that I just haven't used / looked at in years (and in some cases I've been surprised at how much people are willing to pay for some things - I made a profit on some of the Bon Jovi memorabilia I sold!). My next bit of catching up will be to heavily update the various websites I maintain privately. ;)

2007-12-24T20:57:00.000+09:00

It was the night before Christmas...

Well, it still is the night before Christmas. This is Marcos' and Ariana's first Christmas in Perth, and also Marcos' mum's first Christmas in Perth too, as she is currently visiting us for 6 weeks. Ariana is really thriving having another doting family member around the house (especially another person willing to walk endless laps around the house with her!). Ariana is walking extremely well now - she is quite capable of walking on her own, and does so quite a lot now, but she still loves nothing better than grabbing hold of someone's finger and leading them around the house!

Ariana finally has her first tooth! She may be ahead of the pack with walking, but she was VERY late with getting any teeth. She's now 13 months old and only has the one tooth, which came through a week ago!! She's not the slightest bit phased by it - we've been quite surprised at what she's been able to eat without teeth (she's made whole jelly babies disappear without any trouble...). She is also talking a LOT, and has quite a number of distinct words (and some phrases, like "big poo"!) but the lack of teeth does mean she can't quite pronounce some words properly (eg, queso, spanish for "cheese", comes out as "quedo").

I'm now 7 months pregnant; Eva (the name we've settled on for little little one) is developing really well and is due to be delivered by Caesarian on 11th March 2008. Unfortunately Marcos' mum is going to miss the birth by about 6 weeks, but with luck we'll make it over to Argentina with the 2 little ones later in 2008.

We're pretty much all settled in at home now - we managed to get just about everything done prior to Marcos' mum's arrival that we had intended, with the exception of patching up all the chips in the wall as we discovered the spare paint in the shed had all gone dry! One of these days we'll have to get some new paint made up... The guest room will become Eva's room when she is big enough to sleep in a cot. The garden is looking fabulous, and we have some great vegies growing.

I'm trying to get quite a bit of work done over Christmas - although UWA shuts down for a fortnight or so over the Christmas break, being casual means that I don't get paid if I observe the shut down!! There's plenty of work to do, at least. I have also been trying to make more of an effort to gradually add more information to my Sound Therapy Perth site. I'm also intending to update Ariana's website with photos from the past 2 months, and move the Rotaract websites over to a new ISP (and also majorly update my Rotaract club's website while I'm at it..!)

Well... no point rambling on any further! I hope anyone reading this during the festive season has a great Christmas / Yule / Litha / anything else that is being celebrated, and all the best for 2008.

2007-12-03T23:12:00.000+09:00

Can you believe it is December already? This year has gone by so quickly!

We have finally finished unpacking all the boxes - yay! Now we just need to do a little painting (mostly touching up the walls that were chipped when the previous owners moved out), put pictures up on the walls, and finish organising the spare room, which is looking less and less like a junk room and more like a bed room, yay!

Ariana is now one year old. She still doesn't have any teeth (!!) but she has started walking a little (unaided) which is great. She will be walking completely very soon. She is still very much a chatterbox, and is gradually expanding her vocabularly, both english and spanish (mostly english, but there are some things she seems to pick up on better in spanish).

And I am now 6 months pregnant. Eva (little little one) appears to be developing well, which is always reassuring. It will be interesting having a 2nd little one in the house next year!

Marcos' mum will be here with us in less than a fortnight, which is very exciting. It certainly gives us a great incentive to make sure everything in the house is ordered sooner rather than later. Marcos will have a bit of time off while she is here, which will hopefully mean that I can catch up on some of the work that I haven't been doing while concentrating on Dial-A-Santa lately.

It still doesn't seem right that 2007 is almost over. It's been a huge year of change. Hopefully 2008 will be a little more stable...

2007-11-19T14:57:00.000+09:00

I've been a little slack posting updates through Blogger, as I've just used Facebook's Notes to post my last few messages. So for anyone who reads this who isn't on Facebook, baby #2 ("little little one", now also known as Eva as we found out she is a girl) is due next March. We're very excited about having another little girl to terrorise Ruby the cat! ;)

Ariana is growing so fast - she turns 1 in a few days. We had a little birthday party for her yesterday, which turned out to be a very quiet affair indeed. With 5 people pulling out at the last minute, and more than 50% of the invitees declining in the first place, she only had her maternal grandparents, an aunt, uncle & cousin, and 2 of our friends help her celebrate. Fortunately she is too young to be disappointed by people not turning up to her party. Well, it was their loss. The weather was absolutely beautiful - a great day to be outdoors - and we had lots of lovely food.

I'm feeling a big down in general right now. I'm getting tired of putting a lot of effort into things, particularly on a volunteer basis or as a favour for others, and then having to spend even more time chasing up other people for things. Most of my day today has been spent chasing up why I am still waiting on a month of pay from my work at UWA, and trying to chase up what has happened to all the Santa suits for Dial-A-Santa, as it looks like those who said they would take them back to where they were being stored never did so. Well, at least it is my last year involved with Dial-A-Santa - since it's all been left to me this year, I imagine it won't happen next year, which will be a shame, as it is an invaluable service that has been running since 1981. But sadly, too many people are apathetic about... well, everything! It's a shame that it's not viable to turn it into a business rather than a volunteer service...

2007-09-21T23:02:00.000+08:00

We've been without internet access at home for a week with having moved house, thanks to Telstra (who aren't our telecommunications service providers, but managed to help stuff up our access anyway)...

We settled and received the keys to our new home this time last week (Friday 14th Sept) and started moving some things in that day. Saturday was the big move, though we had to make a couple of trips back to the old rental to pick up the last of the things (like clothes etc) as we ran out of boxes and didn't feel it worth trying to track down more. We handed back the keys to our old home on Thursday, and although we are still surrounded by boxes and suitcases to unpack, this new place in Canning Vale is starting to feel more like home.

I had notified family & friends of our new phone number last week, as we had received a notification on Tuesday that the new phone line had been connected and that broadband was expected to be available for us on the Friday (ie the day we settled). Woo hoo! However, my sister phoned my mobile on Sunday to say that when she tried to call our home phone, she got a message saying "this number could not be connected". Eh? So I tried dialing out from our home phone... nothing. A half-hour phone call to iiNet (my ISP) later - of which I spent all except about 5 minutes on hold - and it was confirmed that our new phone line had been disconnected, without anybody telling us, but without any idea why.

I was on the phone to iiNet at least once a day after that trying to sort out what was happening. It appears that although the previous owners had moved out some weeks ago, they never bothered to get the phone disconnected. When our new connection went through, it disconnected their old one, but because they hadn't advised Telstra that they weren't using it, and Telstra were still able to bill for it, Telstra then reversed the new connection... *sigh* We were finally able to get a new new phone line (with yet another new number, which is not as easy to remember as the other one was *sigh*) on Tuesday, and finally got our broadband access back today, a full week later than expected.

With no internet access for a week, I now have a lot of email to catch up with! It's going to take quite some time to get on top of it, so if anyone is waiting for an answer from me, hang in there. :P I still have to devote most of my time to unpacking and getting settled in to our new home, and catching up with my work, so it may take quite a few weeks to get through it all...

2007-08-30T22:22:00.000+08:00

This time last week I was on my way to the airport to head to Malaysia for the 4th Asia Pacific Regional Rotaract Conference (APRRC).

I spent 5 days in Melaka, Malaysia, and it was utterly awesome! I really love the APRRCs - they have a great blend of Rotaract content (at all levels) and interacting with everyone. I was again the only Aussie Rotaractor (*sigh*), but not the only Caucasian Rotaractor this time - there was a Rotaractor from Hungary who was there as he was on student exchange to Singapore, and it was great to chat with him to hear more about Rotaract in Europe.

I ended up being involved in 5 (yes, 5!!) presentations - even the MCs joked that the only other person on stage more than me was the conference chairman!! :P I was originally asked to be involved in a panel session on Multi District Information Organisations (in a general plenary), and also provide more training on MDIOs to the District Rotaract Representatives in the DRR Assembly. Then, being the only Aussie there, it was also up to me to provide the country report for Australia. So, originally, I had prepared 3 presentations.

A few days before I was due to leave, I was asked if I could also participate in a panel session in the general plenary about the Rotary/Rotaract relationship, as one of the Rotarians originally in the panel had pulled out. Sure. That was harder to prepare in advance as I didn't hear from any other panelists (there were 5 of us for this one) as to what we would each do, but I found out in the Leaders Meeting the day I arrived that we would each give a 5 minute presentation on our thoughts on the Rotary/Rotaract relationship, so that night I compiled a PowerPoint presentation (luckily I had brought another one to use as a base). Ironically, this was the most well-received of my presentations, and I had a LOT of requests to send it to Rotarians and Rotaractors alike. (Once I unpack and sort through all the name cards I collected, I will start doing just that. ;)).

The 5th presentation, the final panel session for the conference, on "One World, One Voice" came as a complete surprise to me. I didn't know I was participating in the panel until they called my name!!! It turns out that again, another panelist hadn't been able to make it, so I was a last minute addition... only, they forgot to tell me in advance. :P Not to worry. Fortunately, when we were on stage, one of the other panelists whispered to the Rotarian chairing the panel to confirm what we were to do - a 5 minute talk on our thoughts about this year's APRRC and how we will move forward. Two of the others went before me, so I had a few minutes to gather my thoughts on what I would say! I don't think anyone could tell that I was making my presentation up on the spot... I received a number of congratulations on another good speech, and when I told a couple that I hadn't known I was going to be in that panel, they were surprised. Thank goodness for years of public speaking practice!!!

The next APRRC will be in Bali, and even though I will not be a Rotaractor anymore by then, I really hope we can go (perhaps as Rotarians!) to show our support.

I managed to come home with a very sore throat (a combination of too much air conditioning and too much speaking!) and a cough, which has progressively got worse. :( I've spent the last few days at home in bed! Still, the APRRC was worth it!! Well done to DRR Dinesh and all the Rotaractors in District 3300 for a fine conference. See you all next year!

2007-08-19T22:42:00.000+08:00

The house-hunting saga continues...

On Friday night, Marcos and I went back to another property in Thornlie that I quite liked. It was much bigger than the one in Bluebell we had loved and put an offer on, and while it wasn't as nice as the other one, it was freshly painted, needed a little bit of fixing up & cleaning, but apart from that, I felt it would have done us just nicely. It seemed fantastic size-wise, with by far the best cupboards in bedrooms, plus it had a substantial brick workshop that I felt would have been perfect for Marcos to repair computers. So, we filled out an offer for it, but needed my parents to have a look and sign the papers as well.

They went on Saturday morning... and hated it. They refused to counter-sign the offer, so we were back to square one. Mum was determined that she wanted us to live in Success or Atwell instead, as some of her friends assure her they are high growth areas in terms of house-price rising in future years, but we really aren't interested in those suburbs. And so it seemed we were at an impasse - they wouldn't approve anything we wanted to look at, and we were interested in anything they wanted to suggest. *sigh*

I have an email alert set up at realestate.com.au to receive notifications of new listings in Thornlie and surrounds in our price range. On Friday I received a notification of a house in Gosnells that sounded really nice, and as a bonus, had 4 bedroom plus a study in the price range we were looking at, only 4 years old in a very new area of Gosnells, so I thought it might be worth looking at. I forwarded it to dad, who orginally said that mum was adamant she would not consider Gosnells (mind you, she isn't the one who is going to live in the area, we are - I think she forgets that!), so we weren't going to waste our time looking at it.

Then dad phoned this morning to say that we could consider it, since it was in a new part of Gosnells. He advised we should go and look at it, and that he would try to get to the home open too, and then he would look at houses in Canning Vale (we don't want to live in Canning Vale, but ironically, Canning Vale is ok with my mum now - it wasn't when my sister first moved there - because my sister does live there. :P). So, we went, and I thought it was fantastic - I loved it! So I phoned dad to ask if he was going to be able to make it, as I really felt it worth looking at. He was still at home, so I asked if he wanted me to make another time, and he said yes, so I did. I phoned him back to tell him, and heard mum giving an earfull in the background about it...

I had several conversations with Dad during the afternoon, several of which left me in tears, as I was just so frustrated that mum is not the slightest bit interested in what we want. Because Dad is putting in about 40% of the money, she wants about a 90% say in where we live!! Which is typical, but still very annoying nonetheless.

Mum absolutely refused to look at the house, even though I love it. Dad came and looked at it, and agreed that it was extremely nice and would have suited our purposes perfectly. We then looked at a house in Canning Vale that ironically was built to a similar plan (the same plan but with modifications)... and the house in Canning Vale is much more expensive (Dad wouldn't tell me how much it costs) but not a fraction as nice as the one in Gosnells!! The one in Gosnells was just so much classier... the rooms were bigger, the backyard was infinitely nicer, it had extra shelves and benches built in, and the theatre room - wow!!! There is just no comparison between the two houses. But mum absolutely refuses to let us put an offer in on the house in Gosnells. :(((((((((((((((

Ever since then, she has been bitching about us wanting to get above ourselves by getting such a big home that costs more than what we had agreed... completely ignoring the fact that the one in Gosnells IS in the price range, and fulfills all her requirements in terms of nice finishings and loving it.

So now we are faced with a decision... agree to go with the house in Canning Vale, even though we don't like it as much, knowing I will wake up every morning feeling intense resentment for mum not allowing us to get the nicer, better house simply out of spite? Or do we cut our losses, and continue renting somewhere further from the city, such as Armadale, in an effort to gradually save up more money, and look at buying something without their help in say, 10 years time?

Either way, we need to make a decision tomorrow, as our current lease is due to expire in a month, and the property manager wants to know whether we want to extend the lease or not.

Regardless of the choice we make, the damage has been done... mum's whole attitude (especially tonight when we had dinner out with the extended family to celebrate 2 of our nephews' birthdays) has taken me back to how I felt shortly after Ariana is born: I don't want anything further to do with her at all. I just don't want to accept any more of her help, because it is double edged and comes with too much emotional blackmail. So from now on, if I need Ariana to be looked after when I have work meetings, I will hire a babysitter. I am not going to accept any more offers of help - I rarely ask for it, usually she offers, like they offered this time to help us buy a house. We had intended to keep renting, and they were the ones who offered to help us buy a house, and it has ended up causing nothing but distress. No more! We will find a way to do things on our own, so she can never try to control us like this ever again.

2007-08-14T23:52:00.000+08:00

We fell in love with a house on Sunday. We went back and had another look yesterday, and put an offer in. Everything was totally perfect, from the rooms, the layout, the storage, the gardens, even the street name and house number!

Unfortunately, some one else beat us to it, by a couple of hours. We found out tonight that we weren't successful, so the house hunting resumes... *sigh*

This whole house hunting business is extremely depressing. The nicest houses are getting snapped up straight away. There was another one that I would have been happy with - it had 2 offers by the end of Sunday. Another I phoned up about yesterday had an offer put in on Sunday as well... It's great for the sellers, obviously, but very disheartening for us, especially since we ought to be very attractive buyers since we don't have to sell a house first, and have pre-approval for the home loan.

Plus it's such a time intensive thing, scoping out possible houses, arranging times to see them, travelling all the way out to Thornlie / Huntingdale / Gosnells, going back, finding it's no longer available, and repeating the whole process again. It's consumed a great part of the last week, and I'm getting even further behind on everything else I need to do (including preparing 3 presentations for a conference next week... hmm....)

Hopefully somewhere out there is an even more perfect house for us... it's hard to imagine, but there must be some positive reason why we weren't able to get the house in Bluebell Court...

2007-08-11T22:57:00.000+08:00

We've all been sick this past week - we finally succumbed to the bug that Amber and Tameka have had for a while. Ariana hasn't been sleeping well because of her blocked / runny nose, and we eventually had to get some antibiotics for her. I had a good 2 days of no energy at all, so again got very little done work-wise this week. I haven't got anything done at home either, so it's looked like a bit of a disaster area!

I started on a new SureSlim diet yesterday, which I was a little hesitant about, not because I want to do it (I do!) but because I didn't have the energy to spend as much time cooking & preparing food as is needed. I managed to survive yesterday, and even felt better for it energy-wise! I was wiped out today though, possibly because we spent a good 5 hours out house hunting... As seems to be usual with me, now that it's later in the evening, I'm feeling reasonably alert and have more energy, so I'm finally working my way through all the stuff that I've dumped on the dining table over the past week... yay!

House hunting was unsuccessful in that nothing we looked at today was terribly nice. Mum and dad came with us, which ended up being a good thing in that I think we finally got through to mum that we couldn't get a nice house in a nice suburb when our price limit was $420,000 for a 4 bedroom houe; since my parents don't want us to move any further south than Gosnells, the houses we looked at today were in Gosnells and Canning Vale. So the outcome of today's efforts was to up the price limit to $460,000, and I've got a new set of houses to check out tomorrow, in Thornlie, Gosnells and Huntingdale (unfortunately none of the slightly more expensive houses in Canning Vale had home opens listed, so they are on a reserve list if none of the houses tomorrow are any good either).

I'm still lacking enthusiasm for Rotaract and feeling more and more anti the idea of joining Rotary when I do leave Rotaract. The idea of what Rotary does is fantastic, and I certainly enjoy the international friendships that are possible through Rotaract and Rotary, but the more I interact with Rotarians, both locally and through fellowships, the more inclined I am to just keep well away as the politics that seems to abound is not something I want to be a part of anymore. Well, we'll see. Maybe a break would be good. Maybe I would miss it all and want to be involved again. Who knows?

2007-08-04T00:50:00.000+08:00

What a week...

Marcos has been away this week, attending the first ever face-to-face meeting of the RI Rotaract Committee at RI HQ, at RI's expense! Ariana was fine the day Marcos left, and I got a lot done, and thought this week would be a great opportunity to catch up with things.

If only...

Ariana was unwell on Monday, and the poor mite spent most of the day crying and just wanting to be cuddled. She had a fever, and dad thought she was either teething (though still no teeth!) or had a virus. She would settle (eventually, like an hour or more later) after having some panadol, and she finally got to sleep at 11:30 pm. Although I would normally stay up and work until 1 or 2 am, I was so drained I went to bed not long after that myself. I had hoped she would have a good sleep since she went to bed so late, but was wide awake at 5:45 am wanting to be fed, since she hardly touched any food the day before.

She slept at my parents' house the next night as I had my spanish class, and she was perfectly fine for them. So I managed to get a few hours of work done.

I picked up Ariana on Wednesday morning, and she wasn't too bad during the day. She was quite good at Rotaract, having a bit of a snooze cuddling against me at the meeting, and I thought she would just go down for the night when we got home. Nope. She started grizzling on the way home in the car (which is very unusual for her), and she was inconsolable for the rest of the evening. Even cuddling didn't seem to help, so I finally resorted to giving her some Panadol again. I phoned my parents around 11 pm to see if dad had any other advice, and he ended up coming over to pick her up at 12:30 am as she still hadn't got to sleep! By then the Panadol was starting to take effect, and she was quiet as long as I cuddled her (she even started having a bit of a chuckle watching Ruby play in the kitchen). Apparently she woke at 3:30 am and again at 6:30 am.

I tried to catch up with some sleep in the morning, and actually managed to get 8 hours of rest for the first time in a very, very long time! I was still quite tired when Dad brought Ariana over, and shortly after that he came back with my niece Tameka as well, who I looked after for 3 or so hours while my parents were at Rotary. They thought Tameka would sleep the whole time, but pretty much as soon as she came back home, Ariana started grizzling again. Tameka did sleep for about an hour, but Ariana's incessant crying woke her up, and Tameka also started crying, repeating "bubby, bubby", clearly distressed that Ariana was upset.

I was struggling to stay awake, I was so exhausted, by the time Tameka went home. I had put Ariana down for a sleep, and she may have caught a little sleep, but she was still crying when my parents came over again, so Dad took her back with him again. Apparently she got off to sleep that night at 7pm! I had another meeting that night, and did catch up with a few things that night, before getting about 6 hours of reasonably decent sleep.

I didn't feel too bad this morning, and got a number of chores done, got out and did the shopping and banking, and finished some web work I had wanted to finish last week. I would have liked another rest this afternoon, and think I managed about an hour or so, before Dad brought Ariana back over. She was quite tired, and went down for a sleep at 6pm, but was awake again an hour later. She finally went to sleep for the night around 9:30 pm, which was quite good! Maybe she knows Marcos is going to be home again tomorrow. :p I ended up relaxing for a few hours after she slept, and then felt in the right frame of mind to start catching up with the mountain of email in my inbox.

I haven't caught up that much, but I've made a start. It's better than nothing! I really hope Ariana's sleep pattern returns to normal tomorrow. I don't feel like I will ever discover what it feels like to be fully rested again!

2007-07-20T00:52:00.000+08:00

Marcos was very excited on the weekend, when we bought him a new bike. Nothing flash, but a decent sturdy bike that he was really happy with.

So imagine his extreme disappointment when he got home from work yesterday afternoon to find it was no longer in our backyard! He hadn't even had a chance to ride it, apart from a short ride home from the bike shop!

The worrying thing is that our unit is the very back one, and to reach our backyard, the thief would have passed many other units, all with unsecured bikes also in the yards, which are all surrounded by reasonably high (about 6 foot) brick walls. It was the first day since we bought the bike that we have had both cars out of the carport (I was out for a short while on Monday, but walked, so my car was still in the carport)... which indicates to us that possibly one of our neighbours saw Marcos bring a shiny new bike home on Saturday, and as soon as it was pretty reasonable to assume that no one was home, they came and nabbed it.

What a low thing to do!

Of course, that is conjecture - we can't prove it. But it was pretty coincidental timing, and to have passed other bikes to reach ours (we can see our neighbour's bike through an adjoining wooden fence), plus they didn't take any of the computers lying out the back, seems to indicated it was targeted. It's not like someone can walk by on the street, see a bike lying unattended, and steal it. They had to walk down a laneway to the last house of 6 others, of which the contents of the yard are not visible until you go through the gate. The bike wasn't chained to anything, but it was under a tarpaulin.

After phoning the police and the insurance company, we will buy another new bike, as well as a chain and something to engrave it with, and we will keep in inside, at least until it is engraved - not that we really have room for it. Don't all dining rooms have bikes kept at the end of the table?? *sigh* We're just still in shock at how quick it was stolen!

I'm glad I haven't got my bike out of storage yet, or we might have had 2 bikes to replace...

2007-07-16T00:20:00.000+08:00

Not a lot of news right now. Life has been fairly quiet, though I turned 30 last weekend, which I guess is big! It doesn't feel so big because I didn't really do much for it - just had dinner with my immediate family - and consequently didn't receive much in the way of gifts, so it was more or less just another day. I just don't feel up to big parties right now - I feel so tired most of the time, trying to squeeze as much out of every day in terms of looking after Ariana and working and doing a lot for Rotaract etc. To be honest, I was happy to have the opportunity to relax and sleep a little that weekend!

Saw the latest Harry Potter movie tonight, as a fundraiser for my Rotaract Club. We took the little one along, and I was a little concerned she would fret a lot in the movie since she had been wide awake for *hours*, but as it turns out I think she enjoyed the opportunity to be with both of us for so many hours, and she loves being out and about, seeing new people, and she also loves watching things on TV / any sort of screen, so she was really good! She actually watched the first part of the movie, and only started getting a little grizzly as she was ultra-tired towards the end of the film, and she ended up falling asleep in Marcos' arms. She woke up when we got back to the car, and she was smiling and laughing all the way home! She really is a gem!

We've started house-hunting - for a rental that is bigger than where we are now so we can get everything out of storage and still have enough room left over for Marcos' mum to come stay with us for 6 weeks at the end of this year, and for Ariana to have room to play. I've looked at 2 places so far, and they've either been ultra-yuck or too small. So I'll keep looking... No rush just yet, but it would be good to have some idea by the end of this month so we can give appropriate notice to move out of our current place of residence.

Well, time to get some sleep, finally!

2007-07-06T13:56:00.000+08:00

I was highly amused to receive a call last week from some web design company in Bentley that I had never heard of before, who had found my Sound Therapy website and were offering to improve it for me - specifically offering search engine optimisation.

Hahahahahahah!!

Heeheeheeheeheeheehee!!

You might be thinking, I don't get it - what's so funny?

Well, you see, the site has already been optimised by one of the leading SEO / accessibility / usability gurus in Perth, namely moi. ;) And I'm not just blowing my own trumpet; I've been headhunted by a few different organisations because of my reputation. And the fact that this other
mob found my site also goes to show it's already doing extremely well at being found. In fact, I received an email enquiry through my Sound Therapy site yesterday from someone in Queensland, who had heard Rafaele Joudry (the founder of South Therapy
International) speak, and was looking for Sound Therapy International's site, and instead found mine!! (She
thought it was the Head Office's site, and emailed to ask why there were no contacts in Queensland mentioned, only
Perth... ;))

So you see, if this other company tried to "improve" my site, I'm quite certain they would only make it worse. ;) They obviously didn't take time to look at the source code of the site to see that it was done by someone who knows their stuff. Granted, my Sound Therapy Perth site isn't finished (it's about 3/4 there) and isn't the most polished looking site (yet!), so they may think I am a gullible person who could be taken in with their big words (they offered to meet with me to teach me what SEO involves *grin*)

I should have asked what they charged, out of interest. ;)

On an unrelated note -

Ariana is 7 1/2 months old now, and can finally sit on her own! She is a regular little chatterbox, and is now experimenting with different consonants. Although Marcos wants Ariana to call him Papi rather than Daddy, he is claiming that when she says dada she is referring to him, and he also claims her "blahblah" sounds are also an attempt to say "Papá". Hmmmm.

2007-06-25T19:32:00.000+08:00

We've had a rather eventful weekend. Saturday was spent cooking and cleaning up (which carried over to Sunday too), as we catered for the Rotaract Changeover brunch in the morning, and then had a couple of friends over for dinner that night. We hadn't intended for both to be on the same day - at the time we organised for our friends to come over, the Changeover was going to be held in July. We had to change our plans for the Changeover at reasonably short notice due to the outgoing President moving to the Seychelles tomorrow (!) Both went really well, with good food and great friends. ;)

Ariana didn't settle on Saturday night, which is unusual for her. I ended up phoning Health Direct around 11:30 pm for some advice, as it didn't seem to be from teething, as cuddling her didn't soothe her, but in fact seemed to make her scream even more. As well as being in obvious pain, she had a rash around her mouth, and we later discovered she was covered in a rash around her nappy area, and Marcos thought she looked like her arms were swelling, so we took her to the emergency department of Princess Margaret Hospital for Children. I would have to have been a in a life threatening situation! When we got there, you had to check in with a Triage nurse who took all your details.. there was just the one nurse, who was talking to someone else, so we had to wait while they finished... so after waiting at least5 minutes we were finally able to explain what we had observed with Ariana... at which point we were sent to wait again... We spent a good 10 minutes watching the next receptionist doing everything except seeing us... after midnight we were finally interviewed by that person, who asked a lot of the same questions again and wanted to see our Medicare card. Then back to waiting... waiting...

After half an hour of sitting in the waiting room, we were taken through to the next room. The number of children on beds (with their parents waiting with them) with no one at all attending them was an indication of things to come... A nurse weighed Ariana and took her temperature (meanwhile the poor mite was screaming her head off). The nurse then took us to a cubicle and said a doctor would be with us soon.

We waited.

And waited.

And waited.

In the mean time, Ariana's symptoms had abated somewhat, and her screams turned to simple cries of tiredness. She eventually fell asleep in my arms.

At 1:45 am, after having been there for 2 hours, and seeing the person who had arrived immediately before us leave so time earlier but no sign of anyone coming to see us, we asked how much longer it was likely to be before we were seen. We were told that there were 3 more people in front of us, and that it was likely to be a good hour before we were seen by the doctor!! We figured there was little point in staying, since we couldn't show her symptoms, so we weren't likely to find out what the problem had been (we suspect she had an allergic reaction to something, possibly something she ate). So we gave up and went home.

I was really surprised that no one at all attended to us in all that time. I felt at least one of the nurses could have given us some indication as to what was going on. Why tell us we would be seen soon if we were likely to have 2 and a half hours of being completely ignored by everyone? I appreciate that they must only have had one or two doctors on duty, but that is the only place you can go if you have a child that is too sick to wait to see a doctor the next day.

So we are no closer to knowing what was actually wrong with Ariana on Saturday night. We've avoided feeding her the foods we feel could have been likely to have caused that reaction, and will try them again only when I know my dad is available to see her should a problem arise again.

Speaking of my parents, they are finally arriving home tomorrow morning, after having been away for nearly 2 months. It will be good to have them home.

Other news... I joined facebook recently, and I love it! I had ignored invitations for ages, thinking it was just another one of those same-old networking sites like Hi5, Friendster etc. But a friend convinced me to try it out as he assured me it was different, and he was right! I'm hooked!

2007-06-15T23:01:00.000+08:00

What a week!

One of my dreams came true this week, as I saw Sebastian Bach (former lead singer of Skid Row) live in concert, as he was one of the support acts for Guns N Roses, along with Rose Tattoo. Sebastian had never toured in Perth before, and since Skid Row broke up quite some time ago now, I didn't think I would ever get to see him perform. I am so glad that I did - he is awesome!! And he looks utterly gorgeous too!! And... he announced that he has a new album coming out soon. Woo hoo!!! Amber and I have a bit of buying to do!!

Amber bought the tickets, and decided to get seats rather than standing in the general admission. After Rose Tattoo had been on, and we saw how feel people had arrived by then (Guns N Roses didn't start until 11pm, though the concert itself started at 8:15 pm), and that it was possible to lean / sit on the barriers there, we really regretted not being right down the front to be able to see Sebastian up close, and to dance (well, jump!).

I only knew one Rose Tattoo song, but they were awesome too. Their albums would be worth looking up as well. And while I'm not a huge Guns N Roses fan (I primarily went to see Sebastian!) their show was really good too. We finally left at 1am.

That was last Sunday, and definitely the highlight of the week!!

Ariana has been quite unsettled this week... her teeth have been bothering her again, and they still haven't come through! I really feel for her. She is obviously in so much pain. She was very good today though - we were out a lot of the day, and she was very well behaved at both meetings we went to, and had some nice big sleeps when we got home. The excitement of seeing lots of people and new places is great for wearing her out!! She charmed everyone with her smiles and talking (quite a change from the first half of the week, with lots of grizzling and screaming), and we discovered that she likes pineapple, when I picked a piece up for morning tea, and she opened her mouth to try it... and didn't want to give it back!! She sucked on 2 pieces of pineapple, but didn't care for the watermelon she tried as well. It's the first fruit she has tried that she hasn't screwed her face up about.

Last weekend was mostly relaxing - this weekend I have a lot of work to do. Next week Marcos starts full time work at Murdoch Uni (rather than 4 days a week), so now we won't be able to do various bits of running around on Mondays anymore, which is a shame! Fortunately he has his Australian drivers license now so there is not so much that we need run around and organise right now. Things are slowly coming together - yay!

2007-05-25T22:58:00.000+08:00

Some quick updates..

Ariana is now 6 months old! She is enjoying eating solids - well, she LOVES rice cereal, but isn't too sure about pumpkin yet. We've also tried giving her some apple juice, on the advice of a doctor, but Ariana seems to take after me in that she doesn't like the taste. I might try her on another vegetable next week, once she is a bit more used to pumpkin.

Ruby seems to be settling in ok. She is a really friendly, affectionate cat, but seems to run away from me during the day (she's quite the opposite at night - it's bizarre!). She is a very talkative little thing in the evening as well, but she's not one to play. I don't know if that is because she is still adjusting to life with us, or if that is just her nature. Juliet very much acted like a kitten well past the year mark, in terms of playing. Ruby has started playing with Juliet's toys a little, but not very much at all.

We were disturbed by some noises outside last night, and upon investigating them, discovered 2 possums right outside the back door! We took a photo of one of them, which was sitting on the roof beam of the verandah about a metre away from us, opposite the door. Unfortunately I couldn't get it's tail in the photo, as it was hidden on the other side of the post. The glance I got looked like a ringtail, but western ringtail possums are an endangered species, so I guess we wouldn't have those around here! The other possum, which we only got a fleeting glance of as it bounded from the bush in front of us across to the bottlebrush definitely looked more like a common brushtail - from what I saw its tail liked bushy. I hope we see them again - I'd like a closer look to try to identify them for sure.

2007-05-14T19:10:00.000+08:00

Yesterday was my first Mother's Day as a mother. My own mother was away, so we celebrated Mother's Day with her - dinner out at a restaurant - a couple of weeks ago. Since we didn't have any particular plans, we spent most of the afternoon at Amber's house. Marcos bought me some 80% Lindt Lindor Balls (yummmmmmmmm) and we went to the Cat Haven for me to choose a new cat for us to adopt. It was so difficult to choose one, they were all nice! In the end, I chose the first cat we looked at, a white short haired cat called Ruby.

Apparently, white cats are among the more difficult for them to adopt out because they have to be kept indoors all the time - you can't let them outside as they are prone to skin cancer, and as it turns out, they are also prone to deafness. We picked Ruby up today, after she was sterilised, vaccinated and microchipped. She is very quiet, understandably, as she is still under the effect of the anaesthetic. She hasn't moved from the same spot, but we have patted her quite a lot, and she has purred a lot, so hopefully she will be happy here. We don't think she's deaf, as she has startled from sleeping when Marcos has gone near her and made a sound.

The other big news is that I have been headhunted! I certainly wasn't looking for work, though was starting to entertain the idea of doing so as our finances were getting really stretched. The person who headhunted me is someone who I have liaised with a lot at UWA over the past 5 years or so, and we are on a very similar wavelength, so I was very interested to hear what he had to offer. There appears to be quite a lot of flexibility - the first project, which I will start this week with luck, I can do entirely from home. Yay! I live about 2 blocks from the office anyway, but the more I can do from home the better, as I don't want to be away from Ariana any more than necessary. It will be interesting to see how it all goes...

2007-04-29T10:32:00.000+08:00

RIP Juliet
15 October 2002 - 28 April 2007

My beloved pussy cat, Juliet, passed away last night. I'm not entirely sure what she died from, especially since she was only 4 years old and had been in great health (as far as I am aware), and had been indoors for the previous 24 hours, so is unlikely to have been poisoned outdoors.

Fortunately I was home at the time (I have been out most of this weekend). I was just about to leave to go out again, when I heard Juliet give what I can only describe as a "scream", then heard her water bowl (which is glass) thunk on the floor. When I went to investigate, Juliet had collapsed, was bleeding from the mouth, and was totally unresponsive. She was still breathing, but within minutes she had died, cradled on my lap.

Looking back, I had noticed that she hadn't eaten more than about 1/4 of her dinner the night before (which is unusual), but I put that down to the meat not being so fresh, so I put out some new food for her just before she died. Also somewhat unusually, Juliet didn't attempt to go outside when I hung the laundry outside yesterday. So there had been signs that she was out of sorts during the day, and looking back, I wish I had had some inkling that she was worse than she appeared, to have been able to take her to a vet and perhaps have her life saved. I regret being out so much over the previous day and a half, to not notice she was not as well as she appeared, and even more, to not have cuddled her more in her last remaining hours.

It is such an awful feeling being totally helpless while a loved on lies dying. Being 5:30 pm on a Saturday, practically all the vet clinics were closed. I phoned a LOT, especially ones listed as "24 hours" and "emergency service available", to find that that ISN'T the case - there are only 2 places in Perth that are open 24 hours (one in Balcatta in the north, and Murdoch in the south, neither of which are anywhere near me), and the vets that claim to be 24 hours etc just have an answering machine with the phone number for one of those instead. Had I been able to get Juliet to a vet quickly, the only thing they could probably have done was take a guess at what she may have actually died of. After 40 minutes of phoning, I finally found a vet that was open (20 minutes by car!), but by then it was far too late. I had held out hope that she could be revived, but dad came over and verified her heart was not beating, and he buried her in the back yard.

Juliet was a wonderful companion. She was a reasonably friendly cat (as far as cats go!) and she had been a great friend to me during times of intense loneliness and sorrow. It's hard to believe she has gone, as I had expected Ariana to be able to grow up with Juliet around.

I miss you Juliet. Thank you for bringing joy into my life, and teaching me how wonderful a pet can be.

2007-04-28T00:23:00.000+08:00

I received this from my mum - I don't know where it originates from, but I like it enough to share it here!

Today we mourn the passing of a beloved old friend, Common Sense, who has been with us for many years. No one knows for sure how old he was, since his birth records were long ago lost in bureaucratic red tape. He will be remembered as having cultivated such valuable lessons as: Knowing when to come in out of the rain; Why the early bird gets the worm; Life isn't always fair; and Maybe it was my fault.

Common Sense lived by simple, sound financial policies (don't spend more than you can earn) and reliable strategies (adults, not children, are in charge). His health began to deteriorate rapidly when well-intentioned but
overbearing regulations were set in place. Reports of a 6-year-old boy charged with sexual harassment for kissing a classmate; teens suspended from school for using mouthwash after lunch; and a teacher fired for
reprimanding an unruly student, only worsened his condition.

Common Sense lost ground when parents attacked teachers for doing the job that they themselves had failed to do in disciplining their unruly children. It declined even further when schools were required to get parental consent to administer Tylenol, sun lotion or a band-aid to a student; but could not inform parents when a student became pregnant and wanted to have an abortion.

Common Sense lost the will to live as the Ten Commandments became contraband; churches became businesses; and criminals received better treatment than their victims.

Common Sense took a beating when you couldn't defend yourself from a burglar in your own home and the burglar could sue you for assault.

Common Sense finally gave up the will to live, after a woman failed to realize that a steaming cup of coffee was hot. She spilled a little in her lap, and was promptly awarded a huge settlement. Common Sense was preceded
in death by his parents, Truth and Trust; his wife, Discretion; his daughter, Responsibility; and his son, Reason.

He is survived by his 3 stepbrothers; I Know My Rights, Someone Else Is To Blame, and I'm A Victim.

2007-04-27T00:03:00.000+08:00

I'm once again at the point where I don't know if it's worth continuing in Rotaract. I am just getting so sick of it all - the Rotary politics, the frustration at my club not functioning as well as it ought to after all this time... It's been 9 very long years of seemingly getting nowhere, and I just don't know how much longer I can keep it up.

Marcos headed over to Sydney today for DRR training. This has been my first night alone with the little one. It has certainly given me an added appreciation for single mums. Although I spend most of the day alone with Ariana, it does make a difference to be able to enlist Marcos' help when he gets home in the evening.

I have a long list of things to do tomorrow while my parents are looking after Ariana. I will have to try to avoid the desire to just sleep!

I've been trying to get the Rotaract articles for the next Rotary Down Under completed, but although I set a deadline of April 16th, I have too little to work by to get very far. I have so much on this weekend that it's going to be hard to finish it now - with luck I can finish as much as possible tomorrow night... providing the information I am waiting on comes through.

As it is, it's after midnight now. I'm not particularly tired now, but Ariana wakes up around 6:30 am, so I better head to bed so that I'm more or less alert when she wakes me up!

2007-04-23T18:25:00.000+08:00

Argh... I had just about finished a post here last week, when my session crashed and I lost it all. That will teach me for using IE rather than my trust, preferred browser - Opera. I don't know what I was thinking.

The past month and a bit since I last gave an update here has been extremely busy.

The little one is growing extremely fast. Ariana is now 5 months old! We haven't taken enough photos of her this month... I have a nice movie of her to upload to her site, but everything else I have so far is online. She gets around quite a lot by rolling, and she is teething again... poor mite. Her teeth haven't quite come through yet, but they are so close! She doesn't scream with pain so much anymore, she just cries and wants to be cuddled, drools everywhere, and munches on whatever is at hand (preferably, my knuckle).

I have been very busy working on my Sound Therapy Perth website. I launched it last week, though it isn't 100% finished yet. I have a lot of research that I am in the process of tracking down and sorting through. Being able to back up claims is important to me, and I think it will be an important part of the site. I've made a start to that section of the site, but it will be some time before I can consider it finished.

The other big thing we have been doing is trying to work out what we are going to do house-wise. We did start looking at houses, but the ones we looked at in South Lake were either in really bad neighbourhoods (in terms of the neighbours), or had huge transmission lines right behind the house. *sigh* We also looked in Yangebup - which absolutely stank! Ewwwwwwwww. Shame, because the location was very convenient. In the end, we decided to can the whole house-hunting idea, especially since it's not likely we would be successful procuring a loan until Marcos' next visa is approved, which may not happen until after June. We're intending now to continue renting, possibly moving somewhere cheaper (or at least bigger so that we don't have to pay for self-storage as well), until we move to Rosneath Farm.

Speaking of Rosneath, we made a 2nd trip down there yesterday, and picked the site of our future home. We're not landowners yet, but we have reserved one of the lots - Lot 8. Very exciting! At the moment it is all bushland (it is going to be a shame to bulldoze some of it - we hope to keep as much of it as possible). We will have one immediate neighbour on Lot 7, so it will be very tranquil. And there is a gorgeous valley behind. Another nice plus - there are a number of kangaroos living there. We saw 2 yesterday, which Marcos
was extremely excited about - the first wild kangaroos he has seen reasonably close up. I can't wait to be able to move there!

Marcos is heading to Sydney on Thursday for DRR Training. He will be back on Sunday. It will be lonely without him! I have quite a busy weekend coming up, so the little one and I won't be alone all that much. Still, we are going to miss him a lot!

2007-03-18T23:12:00.000+09:00

Argh... I wrote a longish post yesterday, but I wasn't able to publish it... *sigh* Let's see how much I can remember of what I wrote!

We went down to Yallingup last Sunday to check out Rosneath Farm. We really liked what we saw and intend to move there when we are in a financial position to be able to do so. We are likely to need to continue renting until that time so that we will be able to build a house at Rosneath. The question still remains as to where we will rent, whether we will move somewhere else, and if so, when... but I don't want to worry about that too much until I have my whole Sound Therapy website up.

Speaking of Sound Therapy, my site is coming along well. I'm over halfway through it now - well, the first stage anyway (the 2nd stage will be translating the whole lot into spanish). I plan to have it online by the end of this month, as I have an ad appearing in The Senior newspaper.

Ariana is growing very fast. I will need to update her website tomorrow. ;) We don't have so many photos or videos of the last few weeks, unfortunately, but we will need to rectify that as she has reached so many milestones lately - laughing, rolling over... and now she is sleeping in her cot rather than a bassinette. We did take some videos of her today, but Marcos is too shy to put them online as he is singing to her in them! I hope I can convince him to change his mind, as they are really beautiful videos of their interaction.

Well, I better get some sleep - we have quite a busy day coming up tomorrow...

2007-02-21T21:36:00.000+09:00

It's been a busy week...

Marcos and I finally got married on Saturday. Our short, non-traditional ceremony and reception went very smoothly, as did Ariana's naming. My 15 month old niece Tameka was extremely cute - she was a flower girl, and although Amber and Damian sat down with the rest of the guests after the naming was over (in which they were appointed Guardians of Ariana), Tameka decided that sitting down wasn't for her, and she wondered around the stage quite a bit, bringing much amusement to all! Photos will be uploaded somewhere (a new page / site) once we actually have them. ;)

So now we are officially Mr & Mrs Carot Collins. I have plans for a new website about the Carot Collins family (ie us!), after I have completed the other projects I have on the go.

We had a very brief (2 day) honeymoon in the Swan Valley, thanks to 4 sets of friends who paid for it! It was wonderful for the 3 of us to spend all that time together relaxing. We spent most of Monday at Whiteman Park. Marcos (and Ariana) finally saw (and touched) his first kangaroos, koalas, and wombats - I am now convinced that Caversham Wildlife Park is the place to take tourists rather than Cohunu. ;)

I went to Mother's group today (we now meet at The Warehouse cafe, which has a great room down the back ideal for informal meetings), and thought myself lucky finding a parking spot on the opposite side of the road. I soon discovered why it was vacant - the owner of the shop I parked in front (Bloomsbury Antiques) came out pretty much as soon as I had turned off the engine and was in the process of putting some sunshades up (it is the middle of summer, and it is VERY hot!), and enquired if I was planning to go in her shop. When I said no, I was going in to some shops on the other side of the road, she told me she was about to call the ranger, and more or less threatened to ensure I received a parking ticket, even though she has no exclusive right to that parking spot, which is a 30 min parking bay for use by anyone visiting the area!! I took Ariana in to the cafe and told the others what happened, and it turned out that one of the other mothers had the same experience last week. I did move my car (further away, to a 2 hour bay), as I have come across other nasty people like her who take perverse pleasure in trying to get parking infringements issued (I'm thinking specifically of a couple who lived opposite my father's doctor surgery). So.. don't reward rudeness. Don't shop at Bloomsbury Antiques on Onslow Road, Shenton Park!

We had Rotaract tonight. We have some good projects in mind, but I am concerned that the club is being optimistic about achieving them (actually, I am more concerned that we will continue with the same trap of leaving things to the last minute, not having enough time to plan and advertise properly, and subsequently the event / project turns out to be a complete failure). I am also very concerned that we are doing a LOT of talking, and very little doing, going round and round in circles... the same old All Talk, No Action... *sigh*

2007-02-12T18:05:00.000+09:00

Oh no! Today when I was cleaning the kitchen, some of the wood came away from the cupboards... a closer look revealed that quite a lot of the wood appears to have been eaten away. Yep - TERMITES!!!'

I am trying to determine what our rights as tenants are, whether we can break our lease without penality and move somewhere decent, since the landlord here keeps the units here only barely habitable.

Moving down Rockingham way is a very viable option right now, as there is a strong possibility Marcos may be able to work at Murdoch's Rockingham campus. Housing is much cheaper (and nicer), and there is little holding us to Perth now that I have handed in my resignation at work. It might be a first step in our plan to eventually move away from the city altogether.

2007-02-06T23:41:00.000+09:00

I've just purchased a new web hosting account with an ISP that I haven't used before but seem to offer the best package I've seen so far (in Australia). I am hosting my new Sound Therapy Perth site there, which isn't finished yet, but I have put up a small site for now (none of this "Site coming soon!" with absolutely nothing else crap) so that, with luck, I can start possibly getting some orders. It also takes quite some months now for Google to index new sites (*sigh*) so hopefully by the time the site is totally finished, Google will have found it. :p

I'm hoping that they turn out to be as good as they seem, as I'm inclined to move my Rotaract sites there. I do like the ISP I am with in terms of service, but we keep running out of space (we have 13 MB of site on a 50 MB site, but we keep going over...!?!), plus we stand to save a considerable amount of money if we move across. I'm inclined to give that a go soon, so we can pay for the hosting at the new place in one hit (for one year) rather than monthly where we are now - trying to get a hold of a 2nd Rotaract district signatory is proving to be very, very painful these days...

Now I just need the time to work on those sites... I have some paid work through DUIT to finish, but at least that won't be for much longer. I have resigned, as will finally finish up there at the end of this month. Hopefully then I can reduce my stress a little, and not stay up so late at night trying to get work done (which is what I will be doing tonight - it's midnight already, and I'm about to make a start on things..).

Ariana seems a little under the weather, poor thing. Her voice is a little husky, and she just wants to suckle constantly, to soothe herself. She seems to be sleeping reasonably well still, and hasn't gone off her food, so it doesn't seem to be anything too serious. I've been keeping Ariana's site up to date with photos and videos, and continued to tweak the interface a little (I think it's finally where I want it to be, though Marcos has suggested I add some navigation to the bottom of each page as well as the top, which I guess will be the next tweak. ;))

The wedding is just over a week away now, and I am so unprepared for it. :P Quite the opposite of the first time around. It's ended up bigger and more formal than I had intended - mum has kept inviting more and more people, many of which I have had very little to do with, so I don't know why she has invited them when it was supposed to be a small gathering for CLOSE family and friends. I finally got a dress today, which cost way more than I wanted to spend, and isn't what I had in mind, but post-baby I've gone up to a size 16 for now (I was a size 12 pre-baby) so absolutely nothing looks good on me as I look like a whale still. :(((((((((((( I think the only photos I'll be framing are head shots! I guess the next few days will be spent trying to finalise things - I really can't believe I've left it all to the last minute!! It's just so hard to get anything done with a baby - I knew that, on a theoretical level, but now I really *know* that on an experiential level.

Well, time to actually get on with things, I guess...

2007-01-20T00:46:00.000+09:00

I've just updated Ariana's website with a month's worth of photos... it helps to have more recent photos up, as she certainly has grown a lot! It's hard to believe she will be 2 months old in a couple of days!

I've finally made a start on my Sound Therapy website, which I have been planning for absolutely ages. Stage 1 is actually getting the site operational; stage 2 will be translating the entire thing into spanish (a job for Marcos!!) and offering the choice of the 2 languages on the site. It will take ages to do, but I hope to get the initial site up in the next month or so. It took me ages to come up with a design I was happy with - I redesigned it on paper 4 times before I finally started building it, and I am really, really happy with how it is looking now.

I have been feeling a little better in general lately, mostly as I haven't seen that much of mum. I caught the 2nd half of Oprah today, and the episode was quite timely - it was about girls with very low self esteem, as a result of their mothers inadvertantly passing on the message to them that they weren't worthy. It reinforced to me that I don't want mum spending too much time with Ariana and hurting her with what she says the way she has done to me; already at 3 weeks mum was telling Ariana how fat she was - not in a pleasant "how cute your chubby cheeks are!" but a nastier "stop feeding her so much, she's so fat". I really hope I don't give Ariana any complexes about how she looks as she grows up. I think she is absolutely beautiful, and I hope she believes that about herself when she is older too.

I will be seeing a Women's Health counsellor on Monday. It will be interesting to see where that goes. They offer group counselling as one-on-one counselling. I guess the group work is to give you a support network, knowing that others are going through what you are feeling. I don't know if I would be so comfortable with that, as I think my issues are more about my mother and how she has reacted to Ariana than more generalised things. Sure I also feel down about the "usual" things - my post-pregnancy body (I just want clothes that fit!!), our financial situation now that I am no longer receiving a regular income, the severe lack of sleep, and just not getting anything done at home, or anywhere else, as looking after a baby takes up so much time it's incredible... I think I'm coping with the rest of those things ok though.

I've been getting out and about a little more, mainly taking Ariana out in her pram to the shops on a daily basis. It's a win-win situation: I'm getting some much needed exercise by walking to the shops rather than driving, and Ariana loves going for walks in the pram, and it settles her really well (as long as the pram keeps moving!). I should try to gradually build it up (heat permitting) and take her for walks along the river.

Ariana now sleeps through the night most nights - yay!! She generally sleeps from about 11 pm to 6 am. In theory that should allow me to also get a solid 7 hours sleep, but I am finding it difficult to get to sleep before about 2 am... *sigh* Oh well. I am getting about a solid 4 hours sleep, which these days is quite good! I have a daytime nap about every 2nd day - I cuddle up with Ariana, and we both sleep really well for 2 - 4 hours (depending on whether it's morning or afternoon, and whether we are disturbed by the phone ringing!). It's already after 1 am now, so I might try to get some sleep... well, I will read a little first to relax my brain, and then get some sleep... ;)

2007-01-10T14:41:00.000+09:00

Ariana is now 7 weeks old today. This is a reasonably busy week with all her 6 week check ups. We went to the child health nurse yesterday, and she was satisfied that Ariana is doing really well. She's now 55 cm long (12 cm longer than she was at birth) and weighs a hefty 4.385 kg (she started at just 2.955 kg).

The nurse also confirmed that I have post natal depression. No surprise there - hardly a day goes by when I don't cry, and at times I just want to lie on the bed and do absolutely nothing, which is quite against my innate drive to get a lot done and cross things off my "to-do" list. It is a little easier being home and not seeing people quite so much, but my mother is still causing me a lot of heartache, being her usual petulant self about trying to get her way - again - about how our wedding will go. The nurse is going to refer me to someone for help with the depression. I reckon if I could just stay home without outside interference for a couple of months I could probably get over it without too much trouble... the sleep deprivation isn't so much of a problem as the constant conflicting and sometimes aggressive opinions from other people who have had children. I dress Ariana too hot, I dress her too cold, I feed her too much (just look at how fat she is!), she needs to be fed more as she is obviously hungry, I ought to breastfeed her more and try to cut back how much she is bottlefed, I should give up on breastfeeding and just bottlefeed her... don't worry, I'll get the hang of it someday. Argh!!

Ariana and I had our first outing alone today, as Marcos was at work. We went around to the shops, then called into work so I could drop off some timesheets, then finally went to our first New Parents Group workshop. Trying to get around with a pram on my own was quite an eye opening experience, trying to lean over and push open doors while trying to get the pram through without any help was quite difficult (I feel really sorry for people in wheelchairs!! Things really aren't that accessible at all), and we were out when Ariana was ready for a sleep, so she was really unsettled and cried quite a lot... including through most of the 2 hour workshop... Returning home wasn't much better as someone came over within about 10 minutes of me getting home. Ariana didn't really settle until they left, and even then she only slept for about half an hour before waking and needing attention again.

Actually, the other thing I am really struggling with is the inability to really get anything else done apart from looking after Ariana and trying to keep on top of the dishes! If I create a daily "to-do" list, it takes a good 2 weeks to get through everything. There are so many things I would like to catch up with - I'm finding it impossible to keep up with my email, and I have a stack of stuff I want to try to sell on ebay, but I just can't find the time to sit down and create entries for them. I was somewhat prepared for this, having looked after Tameka for a couple of hours at a time and finding out just how much constant attention a baby needs. I thought I could catch up with things when Ariana sleeps, but she rarely sleeps more than an hour or so at a time. She is sleeping better at night now - she's had 2 nights where she has slept from midnight through to about 6 am. On a few occasions I have just stayed up at night using the time she is sleeping to get some things done... the down side to that is that I don't get any sleep. I did that last night - I worked solidly from about 10:30pm through to 3:30 am... it was a bit of a shock to the system then getting up at 7:30am...

2006-12-30T23:48:00.000+09:00

PS I forgot to mention that photos of Ariana are now online. ;)

2006-12-30T23:18:00.000+09:00

It's been quite some time since I've been able to post anything, largely due to the adjustment in routine with having a small baby. It also didn't help that we went to Melbourne for 2 weeks, to celebrate my dad's 70th birthday with all the family in Melbourne, and also to spend Christmas with them, and during that time we had extremely limited internet access. There was no access at all at the apartment hotel we stayed at (well, we could have paid for dial up access - dial up!! no thanks!!), so were restricted to either going to an internet cafe (which we did from time to time), or taking my laptop a little closer to Bourke St to tap into Bigpond wireless - for a premium.. *sigh* One day Australia might catch up with the rest of the world in terms of technology...

Anyway, the past month has been quite a roller coaster ride. I'm loving having a daughter, even considering the sleep deprivation and being weed on a lot (Marcos seems to be the main one who gets vomited on!) Ariana is a great baby - generally she is very content, and she doesn't cry all that much. I felt very confident as a parent - in fact, I was quite surprised at how well we adapted to caring for Ariana. I thought it would be much harder than it is. But going to Melbourne changed all that...

The last time I went on a family holiday with my sister and parents was 1997, when we all went to Bali. I swore then never to go on a family holiday like that again. Unfortunately, I forgot about that. Not that mum really gave us any input into the arrangements for Melbourne, but with them paying for it all, I wasn't really in a position to argue. Since Amber & Damian returned earlier than the rest of us, Marcos and I stayed in an apartment with my parents. Which meant we were around my mother a LOT. Which also meant she was constantly giving us advice about how to care for Ariana... and it wasn't just advice, but commentary on how poor a job we were doing at parenting, and how she was much more experienced and should look after Ariana more, and we would get the hang of it, eventually... After hearing for the past year how great a job Amber and Damian were doing as parents to Tameka, it was quite a blow to be constantly told I had no idea what I was doing, when I had felt the opposite.

To compound the problem, apparently a variety of other family members agreed with mum, and talked about it a lot (never to me or Marcos though), with the result that Amber on a few occasions took me aside with conversations along the lines of "We can't help noticing that you do..." or "everyone has commented about...". And a few members gave conflicting advice, especially in relation to feeding Ariana, and it got to the point where I no longer felt like I knew what I was doing. Whenever Ariana cried, I no longer knew what to do about it, as I was starting to believe that I didn't know what I was doing, and I started spiralling down into depression.

About halfway through the trip, I wished I was home again, and started counting down the days until we returned. I also started trying to avoid mum as much as possible, going out for meals if they were going to be eating in at the apartment, and declining offers to go on day trips with them. I was also resenting having to take Ariana out so much, which made feeding and changing her much more difficult, and completely threw her out of her normal routine. It also didn't help that I was still recovering from the Caesarian, and as well as being sleep deprived, was also in quite a bit of pain from the operation still, and walking around Melbourne a lot was a little tricky.

It was nice to catch up with family and friends, don't get me wrong... I just think my parents were being overly ambitious in planning for me to travel 3 weeks after having a baby. It's not something I would do again. Ariana was perfect on the place - she just slept through everything - but it's difficult enough adjusting to a new baby without throwing in being in a totally alien environment as well.

It's somewhat of a relief to be back home again. We've been able to get back into some sort of routine, and without the constant comments about my parenting skills, I'm feeling more confident again about raising Ariana. After all, if she isn't complaining, why should everyone else do so? It would be different if she was ill or unhappy, but as my father commented the other day, she is thriving.

The depression hasn't lifted though... I don't know whether it's just hormones, or a combination of other things that makes me cry when the smallest thing goes wrong. I know it's reasonably normal to have the 'baby blues' - but I guess like everyone else, I never thought it would happen to me!

2006-11-28T22:35:00.000+08:00

It's a girl!!!

Ariana Angelica Carot Collins was born on Wednesday 22nd November at 08:08 am. She was born at 37 weeks gestation (ie 3 weeks early), and is thus a smallish baby (though considerably bigger than I was when I was born!), weighing 6 lb 8 oz (2.955 kg) and measuring 46 cm in length.

Our little angel gets her looks from her daddy, which includes a large amount of very dark hair on her head! She is a real cutie.

We were discharged from the hospital this afternoon, and are slowly settling into our new routine at home... though it is going to take a while to establish just what that is, since I am still recovering from a Caesarian, so there is a lot I can't and won't be able to do for quite some weeks yet, so Marcos is home as well, doing the vast majority of things around the house!

It is absolutely wonderful to be a mother -I can't imagine life without Ariana anymore. She is so adorable!

I hope to organise some sort of online photo album for Ariana in coming days... watch this space for the address. ;)

2006-11-04T19:21:00.000+08:00

It has been quite a while since I last posted anything. The reason for that is that I have been incredibly busy, and also incredibly tired as I near the end of my pregnancy.

I'm now on maternity leave, but I'm hardly sitting around at home doing nothing!

Marcos finally arrived in Perth around 3 weeks ago (yayyyyyyyyyyyyy), and we moved into a rental - a townhouse in Nedlands, across the road from UWA - the day after he arrived. We are more or less settled in now, though I still have a number of things to sort and find a home for, and a large number of things to attempt to sell on ebay. The townhouse is rather small, so I have had to retain one of my 2 self-storage units, which is an expense I hadn't counted on when budgeting for renting! *sigh* The landlord here has unfortunately turned out to be a pain - she purely wants to make money and will not do maintenance!!! We have fixed a number of things ourselves, and it has taken 5 weeks to get things like flyscreens fixed (some had been completely ripped out of the windows, and without any window panes, those windows were completely open - you wouldn't believe the mozzie, moths, spiders, flies etc that we had to battle with!!). Unfortunately most of the tenants are students, so the condition of all these townhouses is quite bad because they aren't fussed about things being filthy or unusable either. If we didn't have a baby coming within the month, I would seriously look at breaking the lease on the grounds of the landlord not keeping the house in a fit condition to live in, but as it stands, the thought of moving when the baby could come at any time is not something I want to deal with right now!!

Rotaract is continuing to keep me busy. Marcos has now been inducted into South Perth, which brings us to 11 members - not bad, but not too great either. We are have a tremendous problem with commitment in the club right now, to the point where I have been wondering if it is really worth keeping the club going. Most of the board have resigned as they don't feel they have the time to do anything; I've taken on as much as I can, but with a baby on the way, there is a limit to how much I can do too. With luck I can hand over a fair bit to others in coming weeks, but so far anything I have attempted to pass on this year has just boomeranged back!

Baby keeps me awake most nights - he/she is VERY active, which I guess is a good sign! I hardly slept 2 nights ago when the baby moved down lower into my pelvis in readiness to be born, which really brought home that the birth could happen at any time - I am at 35 weeks after all, and I decided to come into the world at 34 weeks! At least I feel more or less prepared in terms of having the essential items for the baby, plus my bag packed for the hospital. There is still the mental preparation that needs to be done though - I still have a lot of things I want to finish / organise before baby joins us and my "normal" routine changes forever.

Marcos has found some work here - just of a temporary nature for now - which is a huge relief. We hope to find a good, permanent job for him in the new year, but thought it best to stick with casual work for now so that he could take time off when needed when the baby decides it is time to join us. I really hope he will be able to find a job that he enjoys and provides enough of a challenge to keep him interested in the work - there is nothing worse than an unsatisfying job!

2006-09-30T23:21:00.000+08:00

Stop Australia embarking into dangerous territory by selling Uranium! Sign the petition at: www.stopuraniumexport.com

On a different note, why on earth do people by things from companies that spam? In just 2 months, the guest book on my Rotaract club's website has received over 2,000 spam messages!!! 4 MB worth!! I receive about 100 spam messages a day to my work email account, and who knows how much else I receive to my other accounts. All the spam we receive keeps blowing our quota on our Rotaract ISP, which is very, very frustrating. So please... don't ever, every consider buying ANYTHING from anyone that believes spam is a legitimate way of advertising. If nobody bought from those companies, then spam would die out as it would be unprofitable.

2006-09-28T00:30:00.000+08:00

Heartburn. Leg cramps. Back pain. And now restless leg syndrome. To put it mildly, I'm not getting all that much sleep these days, and I still have 2 months to go before the baby arrives.

If I'm home during the day, I usually spend the afternoon sleeping (or dozing, anyway). I suspect the only reason why I can get through the afternoon at work these days is because I tend to go through a litre of ice coffee to try to keep the heart burn at bay. It's probably not the healthiest option, I know, but the thought of shovelling Gaviscon down my throat all day is not that appealing.

Just one more day of work left! It's hard to believe. I'm utterly swamped at work, having to turn away a lot of jobs.

I have the keys to my rental now, and have taken over a couple of boxes of things - mostly stuff that has been sitting in the garage here at my parents' house. I have exams this coming weekend, so moving this week was out of the question. I now plan to start moving my larger furniture and boxes in storage next Friday or so. Marcos will be here the following Tuesday (YAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY) so I hope to have a few things in order in the house before then, but if not, there is still the option of staying on with my parents for a bit. I just need to judge when to fully move into the rental so I can organise to switch my internet connection across (though I guess I can always fall back on dialup? *shudder* Not likely!!)

Argh, I hate having restless legs!! I want to be able to get comfortable so I can actually sleep... I know, my body is training me not to sleep through the night anymore, as god knows that will be a thing of the past once the baby is here, but can't it at least let me have 2 final months of sleep?? :P

2006-09-20T12:45:00.000+08:00

Marcos' visa has been approved!!! YAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!

With luck he will be here in the first week of October. :) I guess that will depend on flight availability.

That timing will work out very well, as I will have completed my exams, will be on maternity leave so will have plenty of time to help him organise all the things he needs to shortly after his arrival (Medicare, Tax File Number etc), as well as show him around our beautiful city and introduce him to various family and friends. I am also intending to move house that week, so it will be great to have his help with that.

Yayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy

2006-09-18T15:37:00.000+08:00

Bored.

Just 2 weeks of work left, thank god!! I won't be sorry to see the backs of some of these dull projects, though there are some projects and clients I will miss!!

Managed to stuff up which weeks I have classes on at the LiFE Academy - I had this coming Sunday down as the last week, and received a phone call today to say that the class was actually yesterday, and that by missing it (thinking it was next week, as they are on alternate weeks), I missed a practical exam. Bugger... I have 2 exams for that on October 1st, which is also sooner than I thought! So the next 2 weeks are going to be VERY busy as I have a lot of studying to do. Guess I won't be moving house next week after all...

2006-09-08T09:36:00.000+08:00

The Asia Pacific Regional Rotaract Conference (APRRC) in the Philippines last week was brilliant! I enjoyed my time there immensely. There was absolutely no cause for mum to be concerned about me travelling at this stage of the pregnancy - if anything, I felt *better* there than here: with the warmer weather and different diet, I actually had less back pain, leg cramps, and heartburn! And Filipinos are such great hosts - they really know how to look after a guest well!!

I've applied for a rental property within walking distance of work - a townhouse on the corner of Broadway and Edward St. While it's a little smaller and has less storage space than the place in Belmont, it does have 2 undercover car bays, and it is in an area I feel more comfortable in. The rent is more than I was looking at, but then again, if I can cancel my parking permit at work and save on petrol it will more or less even out, I guess. No one else has applied for the property, so it just remains to be seen whether or not they will allow me to have a cat or not. Juliet is a good little cat, so I hope that it won't be a problem.

Had another check up with the obstetrician today. I'm at 6 1/2 months already! All is going well - baby is very active and growing well. It will be nice to be in my own place, hopefully in a couple of weeks, so I can start getting things ready for his / her arrival, and see what else I need to get (a washing machine!!!). I guess I need to start looking into the ante-natal classes offered at St John of God Subiaco, where I am booked in to have the baby, as there isn't that long to go really!

Got a lot to catch up with home, especially Rotaract things. I need to start training more people up to take over a lot of the things I do.

Well, that covers just about everything for now. Time to wander over to the guild and get a frappe... it does wonders for heartburn. :)

2006-08-30T19:19:00.000+08:00

I'm in Hong Kong!

Well, I'm just in transit... I'm on my way to Manila, to attend the 3rd Annual Asia Pacific Regional Rotaract Conference. I went to the first one in Hong Kong 2 years ago, and it was AWESOME. I didn't make it to the APRRC in Taiwan last year, unfortunately, as it was too close to Interota to afford both, but not close enough to combine them both in the one trip, especially since I also travelled to the Rotaract Preconvention last year.

Travelling alone doesn't phase me, if I know there will be Rotaractors at the other end waiting for me. ;) I quite enjoy it, but would enjoy it even more if Marcos could be here with me now. I don't know if we will be able to experience any Rotaract conferences together, apart from AIRAUP... which was quite a different experience, being totally out of my element as it was completely in spanish! I would like Marcos to be able to see me in action, speaking at a conference... but my days of Rotaract are numbered, and so too will be my days travelling, I think, with a baby to think about next year!

Not a lot else to report at this stage... I'm intending to ramp up my Sound Therapy work, which will be particularly useful once I'm at home with a bub, so that's quite exciting... I've got a lot of ideas. I just need the time to put them into action!

Well, I'll likely be offline now until Monday. I decided not to lug my laptop around with me this time, so I doubt I will get internet access once I get to Manila... I imagine I will be rather busy hanging around with friends old and new from the Philippines, Taiwan, Hong Kong... :)

2006-08-22T02:24:00.000+08:00

I can't sleep... it's now around 2:30 am, and I've dozed a little, but I am really, really worried that Marcos does not appear to have been online at all today. That's very unlike him.

I am so very scared... as much as I want to move out at get settled in my own place ASAP, I am very conscious of the fact that after the end of this year, I won't be receiving an income, as I will be on maternity leave. If Marcos isn't here and able to provide for us... I really don't know if I'm doing the right thing or not!! HELP!!!!!!

2006-08-21T22:12:00.000+08:00

There has been no nett change with my housing situation, though things have fluctuated a lot in the past week.

Dad feels so strongly against me spending dead money by renting that he offered to help me financially (and give the same financial help to my sister). The combination of how much he said he planned to give me, and how much I had for a deposit, and confirmation from a mortgage broker that I could get a loan of about $160k meant that I could now consider buying something up to about $300k. Yay! So the hunt was on, and I compiled a list of properties to check out on the weekend just gone.

All bar 1 were 2 bedroom apartments near the city (Maylands, Wembley etc). We looked at the 1st too, and they were pretty depressing... very small and looked quite run down (despite "freshly painted!" "new drapes"!). It soon became obvious that if I bought something of that size, I would have to keep one of my self-storage units, which defeats the purpose of spending so much on my own place... so we gave up looking at any more, with the exception of looking at the 3 bedroom place on Sunday.

Well, that was the plan.. Dad had a change of heart and decided he was a bit hasty in offering to help financially. So that meant the 3 bedroom villa was now out of my price range, and I was back to square one. Since the likelihood of me finding a 3 bedroom place anywhere in the metro area for less than $250k is pretty much non existant, I'm back to having just one option: renting.

At least now I know that I can't consider a 2 bedroom place. I will just have to bite the bullet and take some time off during business hours to visit any rental properties relatively nearby (ie Lathlain / Vic Park / Belmont are doable, but not Armadale!). I am going to take a look at a place in Belmont tomorrow, so I will have to work back a bit tomorrow night to make up for the lost time... but that's life...

Rotaract is still a source of frustration. How do you instill a sense of commitment in anyone these days? We had our International Dinner on Saturday night, which was supposed to be a fundraiser (I have wanted to hold a separate fundraiser, and keep the Intl Dinner purely social as it usually is, but I was outvoted... by people who ended up not showing up). We had a whopping 6 people show up, of which only 3 were members! Very disappointing from a club of 8. Three people pulled out at the last minute, and 4 who had RSVPed just didn't show up. How much did we raise? $50. Like that's going to make much of a difference... I really, really give up.

I've been looking around at other causes to put my energy into instead of Rotaract, and I've now become the WA Delegate for the Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome Association of Australia. I've also applied to join the WA Greens. And my newest passion... I found out about FreeLife about 2 weeks ago from a natural therapist friend of Dad's, and while at first I wasn't so keen on looking into it, I did so out of courtesy, and what I've read about it blew me away! Now I see that becoming a very big part of my life too.

So life continues to be one big rollercoaster ride right now. I am really missing Marcos - still no news about the visa, and on top of that, we hardly seem to get to chat these days. Prior to me visiting Argentina, we used to chat a good 8 hours a day. I expected after spending more or less 24 hours a day together in Argentina, we would revert to spending as many of our waking hours (albeit in totally opposite time zones) chatting again once I returned home, but quite the opposite seems to have happened. So far today I've chatted with him for around half an hour? It's 10:30 pm here now, and I haven't seen him at all this evening, and it looks like I won't get to chat with him tonight after all. This is not uncommon these days, which has also been contributing to my depression. I feel totally and utterly alone, which is even harder to handle when one is 6 months pregnant!

Well, here's hoping that the rental property in Belmont tomorrow will be half decent, and will allow pets (I will be really miffed if I get out there to find they don't allow pets - I did ask, but they didn't answer, just told me when it would be open to view; I'm assuming if pets weren't allowed they wouldn't have got back to me about seeing the property at all...). It would be nice to have at least one bit of certainty in my life right now, apart from becoming a mother in 3 months time!

2006-08-15T10:58:00.000+08:00

Not a lot has changed.

I'm feeling rather depressed, particularly about the situation at home. I have had a lot of fights with my mother recently, typically when she has come into my room and picked on me about something silly (eg last night, that I had eaten some corn thins, which are quite healthy!!) and gone on, and on, and on about it... and when I've asked her to please stop repeating herself, she got quite nasty. She called me a bitch and a number of other things last night, just because I asked her to stop going on about my weight (I am 6 months pregnant! Of course I am going to put on some weight!), and then when she wouldn't, I asked her to please leave my room. I ended up having to be the one to leave my own room, and after she left, I went back and locked the door (not that that deters her from entering - it is quite easy to pick the lock with a nailfile, and my mother doesn't hesitate to use that method to come in). I'm now trying to avoid my mother (which is very hard when we live in the same house) - I dislike her intensely right now, and don't want anything at all to do with her.

I'm still desperately trying to find somewhere to rent. Properties seem to be snapped up as soon as they come on the market. I will hopefully be able to look at a place in Forrestfield on Thursday, which is not an area I want to live in, but right now, I will take anything I can that has at least 2 bedrooms and allows pets!

Hmmm... if it wasn't for the lack of an internet connection, I'd even buy a caravan and go live in a caravan park! Unfortunately, that doesn't solve the problem of all my belongings being in storage... But it might be an idea worth exploring...

Work is also a major source of frustration. I've applied for maternity leave, but that still doesn't seem to have been processed. I wonder if my boss thinks if he doesn't do anything about it I won't take leave until the baby is actually born. I really, really want to start my leave in early October (though I hope like hell that I am in my own place by then, or else being at home with my mother will drive me utterly crazy).

2006-08-12T21:37:00.000+08:00

I'm not coping with life at the moment.

This past week has been exceedingly busy, in all areas of my life, and I'm getting behind with everything.

I feel like everything is out of control. And while I remain living with my parents, I feel like life is in stasis, especially since we have no idea when Marcos will be able to move here, so we can't make any long term plans at all.

I'm despairing of being able to find anywhere to rent right now. With the demand ridiculously high, most real estate agents are opening properties once and once only in a 10 or 15 minute window during a working day... which makes it practically impossible for me to get out to any of the showings, as I can't afford to take 2 or so hours off from work to drive out to the outer suburbs and drive back again.

I just want to get settled into my own place, and be able to organise my belongings (and hopefully get rid of a number of the things I have in storage), be able to live the way I like to live (which is not in a display home!), and start getting ready for the baby.

I'm very frustrated with Rotaract, particularly the lack of action by the RI Rotaract Committee. I fear I am putting a LOT of time and energy into something that is going to be a waste of time... the same feeling goes for my club. I am the only one who does anything about recruitment and retainment (and when I'm not doing that, membership slides backwards), and I am really starting to wonder if it is all worth it... whether I should just let it go, and let the club struggle on until it does inevitably fold. Right now I'm back to feeling that I will not join Rotary in the future... the bureaucracy is just too great, and seeing what Dad has put with for the past 20 years, I don't think it is likely to change anytime soon. So I think I will instead end up concentrating my energies in the areas I now feel passionate about: environmentally-friendly, sustainable living.

I wish Marcos were here. We've been apart for 2 months now, and it is getting very hard to get through the day alone.

To top things off, most of this morning, and part of this afternoon, was spent arguing with my mother, trying to make her see that I just cannot live with her perfectionism and her insistence on pushing what she wants onto everyone. She just cannot see anyone's point of view, so I often don't bother communicating how I feel to her, because we just end up with the situation we had today - everyone getting very upset, but with nothing changing. Right now I just can't stop crying... I am so depressed, so overwhelmed by everything...

2006-07-31T23:15:00.000+08:00

Well, Big Brother is over for another year. Congratulations to Jamie for winning - a Perth boy, yay!!

I'm feeling very unsettled. I feel completely in stasis... living with my parents, apart from Marcos. My mother treats me like a 2 year old - she doesn't appear to think that I can do anything at all for myself, even though I lived away from home for 9 years, and it is driving me up the wall. She is completely shattering my confidence, and I just want to get out of here, even though financially things are not so stable with maternity leave coming up in a few months.

Buying a house is totally out of the question (I still want to move to Rosneath at some stage, in another 18 months or so?) so I am now looking at renting. I had originally thought of moving in October, but I now plan to move ASAP. I'm looking for a place less than $150 / week that allows pets, that has at least 2 bedrooms, and isn't an apartment on a higher floor than ground (to allow for Juliet going outside and to be able to get my furniture inside!), and that is not on a major road. It really limits the options! There are a few I have my eye on, but with those requirements, most of them are well away from the city... Armadale, Thornlie etc. The ones closer by (Wembley & Scarborough) are all apartments, generally on higher floors. I was hoping to get something close to UWA, but there is nothing - then again, this is not a good time of year to find accommodation near UWA (though Curtin appears to have a lot). Once I hear back which ones allow pets, then I guess I will start checking them out. At that price, there is not going to be much that is really nice, and nothing with 3 bedrooms, but beggars can't be choosers, I guess.

I've started my next Spanish and Flower Essence classes. They are both slow going! I wouldn't mind a faster pace! I need to give Paramount a call and withdraw from Biochemistry, and see how close they reckon I am to finishing the Cert IV in Massage (by my reckoning, I'm done, but I've had to redo a lot of things with Paramount, grrrr.. it just wastes more time and more money!)

I miss Marcos dreadfully. It's even harder to deal with the things that are upsetting me here when he is on the other side of the world. I wish the Department of Immigration could give us some indication of when they will approve the visa! It would be nice to be able to plan things, especially with the baby being here at the end of November! I've put a lot of things, a lot of decisions, on hold until we find that out.. and I'm starting to realise that I could run out of time. I really hope my baby won't take after me and arrive 6 weeks early!

2006-07-31T09:01:00.000+08:00

Israel's attacks on Lebanon having been the topic of a lot of news and discussion lately. It's so crazy to believe that in this day and age things like that are still happening. My heart goes out to the Lebanese - there is never any justification for war, and even if there are terrorists living in Lebanon, that is no reason to attack and punish a whole country... otherwise, every country would be fair game.

May those who believe that violence is the answer see the error of their ways - May Peace Prevail on Earth!

2006-07-10T15:32:00.000+08:00

Feeling a bit tired at the moment - I haven't been sleeping well. I had a bizarre dream yesterday where a whole heap of past Rotaractors came back and completely took over. The disturbing part of the dream was that I couldn't speak, and couldn't even breathe... I had to really force myself to wake out of that dream. Very odd.

I'm feeling quite in stasis at the moment... I feel like I can't get on with life while I'm living with my parents. I feel very much like a child rather than an adult, as mum doesn't give me any personal space. She woke me from a snooze yesterday as she was making quite a lot of noise "cleaning up" my dressing table and putting my things in the cupboard. I'm 29!! I can do that myself! Unfortunately, there aren't any affordable houses in Perth anymore, not even on the outskirts of the metro area. So buying a house is out of the question. I guess I may need to consider renting a place, but that's dead money... it will reduce the money available for a house deposit substantially, and I have had a lot of bad experiences with very dodgy real estate agents, so I hate renting because of having to deal with them too. *sigh* I'm not sure how I'm going to solve that one right now, unless anyone knows of any houses for sale under $200,000 ...

Also not getting anything done on my days off yet. *sigh* I would like to get organised a home - organise a variety of Rotaract things, sort through some belongings and get rid of a lot of stuff, but it's just not happening. About all I can manage to do at the moment is sleep! I have a feeling that is only going to get worse...

2006-06-28T22:16:00.000+08:00

Australia is still very much a penal colony, it appears... Got some criminals too awful to let back into English society? Send them to Australia!!

We were rocked in 1993 by the brutal tale of the murder of Jamie Bulger in London by two 10 year old boys, who did the most hideous things to a poor little 2 year old. The boys served 8 years of detention, but were then allowed back into society, with new identities, so no one would know who they were.

But they weren't released in London's society. They were sent to Australia. And at least one of them has been sent to Perth. My city. And not only that. To Canning Vale. The suburb my sister lives in with her husband and 7 month old daughter.

Perth was rocked on Monday by the tale of another brutal murder, this time in our own city. In Canning Vale. At a shopping centre just up the road from where my sister lives, where my family had gone on Saturday before visiting my sister.

Around 4pm on Monday, an 8 year old girl, Sofia, went to the toilets at the Livingston shopping centre. She never emerged. Worried, her family (14-year-old brother, 11-year-old sister and uncle) went there to look for her, and found the disabled toilet cubicle locked, but no one in the other toilets. So they thought maybe she went back to the car without them noticing, so they checked. Not there either. They went back to the toilets - now 20 minutes after she had gone in - and found her, dead: raped, strangled, in the disabled toilet cubicle. Her killer ran past them, out to the carpark. Thankfully, he was later caught.

As if that tale isn't chilling enough, news is starting to emerge today that makes it even more horrifying.

One report I've heard indicates her arms and legs were broken.

And even more terrifying, it appears that her killer is one of the relocated murderers of Jamie Bulger. I will reproduce below the news I received about it from my sister's friend, who has worked in the prisons and who spotted the identity of the murderer. And it appears that she is right - the police are aware of the email that is going around that was written by my sister's friend, and official word is that they "can't confirm that with England"... but they certainly aren't denying it either. The police are asking everyone to ignore this email, so "Dante Arthurs" can have a fair trial...

A fair trial..!?!? This guy was caught RED HANDED raping and murdering, and possibly torturing an innocent 8 year old girl who should have been able to safely go to the toilet on her own!!! This guy needs to be transported back to England and left in jail to rot forever. It needs to be known that he has a history of molesting, torturing and murdering children!!! He is not rehabilitable!!

The information certainly adds up. According to a report in the West Australia today:

"For much of his childhood Mr Arthurs ... lived in England, but he returned to Perth with his family in 2001 to complete high school."

2001 would have marked 8 years after the 1993 murder... when the 2 boys completed their detention and were released...

The newspaper report continues:

"What would motivate him to kill in the way he is alleged to have taken Sofia's life has baffled Police Commissioner Karl O'Callaghan. "It's one of the most shocking cases that I've ever heard of and I know much more detail and it's quite horrific," he said." I heard him say that on the news tihs morning too.

And what's worse... this isn't the first offense "Dante Arthurs" appears to have committed in Perth. He was jailed for molesting a 12 year old girl in Canning Vale, but was release due to "insufficient evidence"...!!!

The letter from my sister's friend:

Hello friends

I am just so angry, frustrated and really upset at what has happened at the Livingston Shopping Centre that I needed to let you all know the "truth" behind the mongrel murderer.

About 3 yrs ago when I was working at the prison we found out that one of the boys (at the time aged about 12) that abducted James Bulger from a shopping centre in the U.K., then brutally raped and murdered him, had reached the age of 18 and had been sent out to Australia with a new identity for his family, etc. Long story short is that he was given the name of Dante Arthurs, his grandfather's name is Arthur Dante, and his family moved into a house in Canning Vale. When the prison staff got wind of this it was all supposed to be kept hushed up, it was some sort of prisoner exchange deal the Aust Govt set up. Soon after he got here he assaulted a 12 yrd old girl in a park in Canning Vale and consequently came to Hakea prison but for only about 6 weeks as they couldn't get enough evidence on him and the incident was brushed under the mat.

His parents used to visit him and their photos were on the computers at work and I clearly recall seeing his mum at the Livingston shops one day. I even had his address and because I've got friends and family in the area, I felt I had a right to tell them, stuff the prisons!!

I had even driven past his house in Lakeview Rise estate in Canning Vale!

Anyway when this happened yesterday I said to Ron, it'd be interesting to see if it's that Dante Arthurs guy from the U.K. and sure enough today we find out that it is him. I am, along with a lot of others, absolutely furious that the mongrel arsehole was allowed to come here via the Govt in the first place and that he was allowed to appear to live a normal life!! Why haven't the police done something about this - he should not be allowed to breathe air, he is the scum of the earth.
And tonight he would be sitting back in a comfortable cell in prison, having just had a reasonable hot dinner and be watching TV!

That innocent little girl and her poor family will never ever be the same again - all because the piss weak Justice System and Govt allowed him to live in our country! There is a register for paedophiles so that the community are allowed to know where they're living and yet this piece of shit can live on our back door step with a new identity.

People winge about illegal immigrants, what about this?

It will be interesting to see what unfolds over the next few days, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if he's whisked out of the country in the same manner he was bought here, then again knowing our pathetic laws, we'll probably keep him here in our justice system, costing tax payers hundreds of thousands of dollars to feed and entertain him PLUS the do-gooders will believe in their minds that they can rehabilitate him!

I was just going to type "sorry " but I'm not at all sorry for alerting my friends to something that should be publicly known.

Stay safe, talk soon.

........

She raises some extremely good points. I have found out first hand how difficult it is for decent people to enter Australia - Marcos was refused a tourist visa, and the amount of paperwork and hoops we have to jump through for him to come to Australia is ridiculous. But a convicted killer is welcomed into the country with open arms...!?! WHY????????

2006-06-25T19:08:00.000+08:00

I'm slowly getting better. I've been in bed for a week and a half! It really takes ages to get well when you can't take any medication, orthodox or natural!

I have been out of bed all day today, but only because I spent the afternoon at a salon, and was not in a position to be able to spend the afternoon sleeping... :p

I've felt compelled this week to complain about 2 shockingly designed websites (no concept of usability - terrible navigation, and in one instance, a clear emphasis on "search engine optimisation" at the expense of usability by just repeating key words over and over on the home page, not in human readable sentences, with most links just leading back to the home page, not to their products!!) It's the first time I've actually used "contact us" to tell them what I think of their website. :P In the first instance, they did ask for feedback, as they recently changed their site (from bad to worse - now every page is a PDF.... ICK!!!!) I was probably a bit harsh with the 2nd one, suggesting they fire their existing web developer, and their response was that they were quite happy with it as the site only cost them a few hundred dollars rather than thousands (and doesn't it show!!).

It's amazing just how many bad "professionals" there are. I've avoided freelancing, feeling I don't have enough skills to go it alone, but after seeing some of these commercial sites, I reckon I could make a go of it, and do a much a better job. Only... I don't want to work for any else, I've decided. I find it hard enough working with some of the existing clients we have at work, who don't have a clue, but don't want to take the professional advice their are paying for. So any work I do on my own, will be for myself... sites to make myself money. ;)

I'm getting thoroughly sick of people not taking advice... I'm very over my own Rotaract Club, for the same reason. I'd built up the club to a healthy level in just 6 months, from 3 to 13 members... and now everything I'd put in place has been undone again, and the membership is reflecting that - about 4 people turning up to meetings. :( You can lead a horse to water... I'm too old to keep resurrecting the club, and I don't have the energy or enthusiasm for it anymore. I have other things I need to channel my energy to - setting myself up, at home, and for the future. Hopefully my skills with Rotaract will come in handy somewhere else... I'm just not sure where yet!

2006-06-22T14:34:00.000+08:00

Sick :(

I finally arrived back in Perth last Wednesday after a mammoth 3 day trip (that is a story in itself). I must have caught something - several things - on the flights, as I have been in bed sick ever since.. so far, a full week, with not much sign of getting better.

I started with gastro, which was absolutely awful. That subsided with 2 days, but was replaced by an absolutely killer cold. While it's not the flu, it feels more or less as bad. I have a nasty, constant cough, my sinuses are totally blocked (effectively giving me a sinus "headache" that stretches the whole length of my face), and so far I have gone through 2 whole boxes of tissues. I have very little energy, and can't stand up for more than a minute or so. I did go in to work yesterday, but they sent me home. So with that exception, I've more or less been sick in bed for a whole week now. My symptoms aren't really reducing, no matter how much time I spend in bed, so it looks like I could be here for a while!

Juliet has been a loyal companion while I've been sick, especially for the first few days - she barely left my side while I had gastro (even me throwing up hourly didn't budge her). Dear little cat!

This isn't how I had envisaged spending my first week back in Perth - I had more in mind things like unpacking, catching up with friends... I've got quite reaquainted with my bed, and also my cat, but that's about it!

Well, time to sleep some more... :S

2006-05-19T08:40:00.000+08:00

Is it just me, or are Micro$oft products really going downhill?

I use Opera as my browser of choice, and have done so for many years, but after reading a SitePoint article about IE7 beta, I installed it to try it out, to see what was in store for web developers. After a week or so, I ended up uninstalling it, as it was so broken, it rarely worked for me!

I've since, foolishly, upgraded MSN Messenger to the Windows Live Messenger beta, and I am not enthused by what I see. In fact, I hate it - I much prefered MSN Messenger. Likewise the move from Hotmail to Windows Live Mail. Hotmail was a very long way from being a good webmail program - even after years of use, I found the layout very confusing, and often had to hunt for the buttons for common, simple actions. While some of the actions have been improved in the Windows Live Mail, the layout SUCKS. The amount of room to actually read and answer emails is so tiny it is impractical to use. And more often than not, I get an error message that it was "unable to perform the function". Guess what? I now forward my Hotmail to Yahoo, and am thinking of asking everyone to email me at Yahoo instead, I hate the interface that much. I've given them feedback, but doubt it will get listened to, as the "Feedback" they proclaim they listen to on the annoying "Today" screen that I can't find anyway of turning off in Live Mail is all positive. "Love the changes" "Thanks! See, we listen to you". Excuse me while I throw up...

Now, if a messenger could just combine some of the better features of Yahoo messenger with the better ones of MSN messenger, I'd be happy!

2006-05-16T09:21:00.000+08:00

Feeling very lethargic at the moment. There are plenty of things I ought to do - catch up with my email, updates for the ROTI website, answer letters... but I just don't feel like it right now. Maybe tomorrow.

I'm not lethargic enough to sleep (though it is coming up on 10:30 pm)... just in the mood to read / watch something. The only problem is, I've run out of books in english to read here, unless you count the 2 SitePoint books I have with me on PHP and JavaScript (which are good to read, but right now I feel like entertainment, noto studying!). I did read one of Marcos's magazines on Biophotonics, which was kinda interesting, but still more in the studying department rather than entertaining. I don't want to use my brain. :p So I've been perusing a few forums... not a lot else. Well, apart from working earlier.

I'm running out of ideas of what else to read...

Aha! Brain wave! For something totally mindless to read... I thought I'd check if Big Brother 2006 is on, and it is! Day 24 already. Well, I can't watch it, but I found last year that reading it was more entertaining than watching it anyway. Admittedly, it means more if you actually watch the show and remember who is who, but what the heck? With articles and updates throughout the day of what the housemates are doing (including sleeping), that ought to keep me occupied for a while... (sad eh?)

2006-04-29T07:25:00.000+08:00

It's been a while since I've posted anything here... I just haven't felt like sitting in front of my computer for hours on end lately, which is rather unusual for me! So the email I ought to answer / deal with is banking up, and I haven't done much on the ROTI website of late...

I'm feeling a little at odds with my decision not to continue my natural medicine studies much further, as I still want the knowledge... I do want to know how to look after my own, and my family's, health as best and as in tune with nature as possible. For example, I've been thinking lately, if there are things pregnant woman can't take / do or should avoid, like x-rays, antibiotics, alcohol, caffeine etc, because of the harm it does to the unborn child, why is it ok for the rest of us, including children (in the instance of antibiotics and xrays, or say caffeine in coke) to be subjected to those harmful things on a regular basis? I guess I will just have to buy a lot of books, and do a lot of reading. I'm all for finding healthier alternatives that are safe to use anytime.

There's about 6 more weeks until I head home, which is a bit sad. It will be strange to be back in Australia after being away for so long. I started wondering last night how much has changed. I think one of the buildings at UWA will be partially demolished by now, and wonder how many other changes will have taken place that I won't have seen happen gradually, and how much of a shock it will be to see the familiar landscape changed.

2006-04-08T02:35:00.000+08:00

Work has been slow this week...

I've completed the bulk of the overhaul of the ROTI website; I have a couple of quick new pages to do and one more ASP page to rearrage so that it has the same look and feel, but aside from that, it's pretty much done. Yay! Now I can start a new web project... ;)

I've run out of books in english to read again, unless you count Web Development references. I bought latest SitePoint book on JavaScript, which I have started reading through. Since I've been using JavaScript for a good 6 years or so, I thought I would be skipping large parts of the book, but I have been pleasantly surprised that the book is aimed at a decent technical level and completely separates the javascript from the HTML, so I have been learning useful little tips right from the first chapter (though I have also been submitting some errata I have found). :) I've stopped reading it for now as I want to test out some of the new ideas on some existing JavaScript code I have written, but haven't got around to it yet.

Heading to Uruguay this weekend. A minibus load of us are leaving at 2am tonight, getting to Young, Uruguay 7am ish... no time for sleep, just straight into a full weekend of District Assembly. Ugh. An exchange student from the USA, Maggie, is going with us as well, so if all else fails, I can talk with her, I hope!

I'm tired now. :p Hopefully I will get a few hours sleep later this afternoon to help offset the lack of sleep tonight...

2006-03-23T08:27:00.000+08:00

I finally finished overhauling my Rotaract club's website. Yay! While I was at it, I also rewrote the Dial-A-Santa website in PHP. That is only a small site of about 8 pages, so it was nice and quick. ;) I updated some of the photos with something more recent as well.. the one of me from 1999 has gone... :)

I haven't been sleeping well the last couple of nights, and my heart has been playing up over the last 3 days. I'm not sure if my heart is causing my lack of sleep, or vice versa (or possibly both driving a vicious cycle). I've been very lethargic the past 2 days, very tired, with my heart causing me a little pain, but not able to sleep. So I've relaxed a lot, reading a book by a Latin American author (though translated into english :)).

The last couple of nights I've dreamt of Juliet. I know she's ok, but I really miss my little pussy cat.

Oh... I was excited the other day (almost as excited as when I heard a John Farnham song here) to see Degrassi on TV!! Yes.. Degrassi High: The Next Generation exists!!
I loved Degrassi when I was in high school.. I remember when the students of Degrassi Junior High were going to be moving to Degrassi High, but that would have made the tv show difficult as the characters were from some different years, so conveniently, the junior high burnt down and they *all* had to move to Degrassi High. I don't know what's sadder... me remembering that, or me admittedly that I remember that (or admitteding that I was addicte to the show).

So now I'm tired but not sleepy. Starting to plan an overhaul of the ROTI website (I've recently become one of the webmasters for that... yay hoooooooo!!!! I have plans to restructure it like I do best... :))))) Plus I have plans for an events page on my district site, and more training materials... I may be fighting a losing battle with Rotaract, but it gives me something to fill (well, more than fill) all my spare time. I was even planning a National Australian Rotaract Conference this morning in bed while I couldn't sleep. If it wasn't for there being so few Rotaractors in WA (and many of them apathetic about things beyond their own club), I believe I could make it a reality, and put on a damn fine conference!!

2006-03-14T01:38:00.000+08:00

Happy World Rotaract Day!

I had aimed to have the new Rotaract Club of South Perth website finished by today. I may have it finished by the end of today; I've uploaded the bulk of the new site (yay! no more daggy, out-of-date old site), and will finish the updates after I have finished my work for the day.

I was originally due to leave Argentina today. I'm happy to be staying here longer! I still miss some things at home dreadfully, but this isn't an experience I'm likely to be able to repeat. It's nice to also have a break from my studies - it's giving me time to finish other things, like overhauling my websites, and finally getting some Rotaract training materials documented.

Well, back to work...

2006-02-19T21:26:00.000+08:00

The violent reactions in the Islamic world to the cartoons of Mohammed have been startling, and very, very worrying. Given how extreme Islam appears to be, I'm a little surprised the Denmark newspaper did publish those cartoons, knowing full well that the Islamic faith forbids it, but come on... in this day and age, it's very, very scary to see yet again another example of how religion can have such a strong hold over people who are too fearful to think for themselves and question if the teachings are actually sensible or not.

We've had to reject a number of posts on rotaract from Muslim Rotaractors calling for a boycott on all things Danish too. Seeing how far they have been sending those emails in the to / cc lists, I've been very surprised at just how many Rotarians and Rotaractors, who are supposed to believe in international understanding and peace, have been sending such things out. If the Rotarians and Rotaractors don't understand that such a reaction is not warranted, then what hope do we have for the less educated in those countries who are more open to brainwashing?

A Rotarian alerted me to an interesting article about the Western world's reaction, or lack of one. I am glad that we don't take to the streets and likewise "show our might" by reacting in the same way, but it does make a point that while we may agree that the cartoonists had a right to illustrate what they like, we aren't showing that by remaining silent.

How are we going to achieve tolerance in the Islamic world? Right now it seems like an insurmountable issue.

May peace prevail on Earth!

2006-02-17T07:31:00.000+08:00

I uninstalled Skype the other day because their customer service sucks. You can read the full rant on my companion website, Vote 1 Simone Benevolent Dictator.

I'm working on my Rotaract club's website again. It's been about 8 months since I last worked on the overhaul. I started looking at it again yesterday. I was going to overhaul it, and then start playing with PHP, but I decided what the hell... let's start playing with PHP on the website *now*...

So far I've updated about 3/4 of the previously overhauled part of the site using PHP. Nice!!! So far, so good!! It will make the code even leaner (I'm aiming to use 1/2 the disk space the site currently takes up by the time the overhaul is complete). I hope to finish the PHP upgrade to the existing pages tonight... then I will sort of be where I was back in May last year... err....

I do aim to finish the site in the next couple of weeks. I'm embarrassed about (a) how old the old site looks now (websites do date quickly graphic wise!) and (b) how out of date the information is (last updated Sep 2003... oops...) I don't have all the images here that I want to use, but that's a minor issue I can sort out when I return to Australia. The important part is getting the site looking nicer and updating the information! I'm happy with how it's going now... I just need to stop tweaking the pages I have already worked on, and start moving across some of the other old pages...

2006-02-09T08:38:00.000+08:00

The moon looks particularly nice tonight. I have a nice view of it from the window here...

Well, a month of trying to find a translator to officially translate my divorce papers still hasn't yielded any results. We've been in touch with the 2 we have been trying - the first we visited a week or so ago, but wanted to charge a fortune. The other told us to see him today, so we went to his office at the appointed time... but no translator. We left a message for him to call, and if we don't hear from him tomorrow, I will just have to go with the expensive one... *sigh*

I've overhauled my personal website, SimDragon's Lair, overhauled my private "portal" which is now my homepage on my own computers so I have easy access to sites I use the most (compiling bookmarks in all the different browsers on all the different computers I use? Bah!). And I've also updated my Rotaract District's website, during the course of which I discovered the webspace for that account now appears to be "unlimited" (it was previously 50 MB) which I was overjoyed about!! It now means I can play around with add-on modules (CMSes, bulletin boards, chat rooms and lots of other fun stuff), if anyone else in the district expresses any interest in using any of these things (so far the silence has been deafening). I will start tackling the final part of the overhaul of my Rotaract Club's site a little later.

I've been doing a lot of thinking about my direction in life, while I am "removed" from it all, on the other side of the world. My studies have been bugging me for a while... I haven't been 100% happy with my naturopathy studies, and have had issues with both colleges I have tried. I think I've now come to a decision that I am really happy about... ditching the remainder of my naturopathy studies (though I want to finish the Cert IV in Massage first, which should only be a matter of some extra clinic hours, even though I did enough at AIHM to complete it...) I will continue with the Flower Essence course, though drop back from an Advanced Diploma to a Diploma. And if time permits (in terms of timetabling), I would like to switch my spanish classes from part time to full time. The plan is to try to finish all my classes by the end of next year... I want to get it over and done with!!!!

By the end of it all, I should have a Cert IV in Massage, a Diploma of Reflexology (just 1 more clinic to do!), a Diploma of Applied Language (Spanish), and a Diploma of Holistic Counselling and Mind Body Medicine. I can thank my friend Maree for indirectly affecting my decision... we are both suckers for punishment when it comes to studying, taking on a lot of different courses in the search for the one that is truly right, believing we need to have a degree to be considered an "expert" in the field. I finally realised that I don't need to go for the highest qualification in every field that interests me... I'll never be able to start working in the area otherwise!! So I'm sticking with the aspects of natural medicine that truly interest me (and I never intended to become a naturopath), and aiming a little lower. I can always add to my qualifications later. I am very eager to finally be able to move into a career where I feel like I am actually making a difference... and natural health / natural living is something I have become even more passionate about.

Another part of my decision to end my studies ASAP is so that I can seriously look at moving to Rosneath farm... the sooner I can return to full time work (or have more time for work) the easier it will be to afford to buy a house... right now I have the money for a 20% deposit or so, but not a high enough income for any bank to even consider giving me a home loan. And I really want to start living sustainably as soon as possible. It's going to be quite an adjustment, but I'm looking forward to it. I've gotten used to some things here in Argentina (they use a LOT less electricity in the kitchen) which will make some aspects of that transition a little easier. There are still some issues, like how much I use my computers, that I will need to explore, but... I'm sure it will all work out... it just feels so right!!!

Well, back to Spanish studying...

2006-02-02T00:56:00.000+08:00

You're responsible, sweet, gentle and lovable! You have a loving heart, a great respect for all creatures (human, great and small), and the ability to see the thing that makes each individual special. However, you tend to overlook the things that make you special, and thus, putting you in a position to be pushed around by others. Take some time everyday to reflect on your qualities, and see that you don't have to please everyone and still be loved for who you are. Which Love Hina Girl Are You?

2006-01-30T09:46:00.000+08:00

I'm finally working on finishing overhauling my personal website. It had been a few years since I had really updated the content (especially the photos), and it was starting to look a bit tired, so a year ago I started rewriting the whole thing. The problem is, each time I've worked on it as been 6 months after I last worked on it - I last looked at it in June - so each time I continue I'm more or less starting from scratch again. And I'm a perfectionist.. I keep tweaking this, tweaking that, making the code leaner... At this rate I will never finish the home page!! I keep changing my mind about things.

Hopefully I will reach a point where I think "enough!"... and finish the remaining pages... I'm throwing away a number of pages from my old site, and adding one or two completely new ones. It's amazing how priorities change over time. I'm adding a new page about my philanthropical interests, and am removing ones about things I've outgrown to some degree, like penpals (Rotaract has more or less replace that hobby) and, *gasp* perhaps even my dragon page.

I also have so many other sites that I belong to or use the services of, such as blogs, photo albums etc, that a lot of my revised site is now links to all those other things. I figure if I use them, people may as well be able to find them!

But I'm still stuck on the ultimate question... a 2 column layout, or 3? :P

2006-01-25T21:27:00.000+08:00

Why is it that no one wants to let me do my job as DRR in 9470?

A new club is set to charter in April, but the Rotarian overseeing it refuses to give me any details at all about the members - and as DRR, it is my right to have that information. No one seems inclined to help with that.

The other club is still on death's door, but is refusing to give in and be terminated. I'm not sure how they expect to revive the club by continuing to do the same things that brought about its demise... I can help it grow again, but they know better... that's why they've gone from the 10 members I started them with down to 1.

And now someone is trying to usurp the role of DRR from me... *sigh*

I really don't know why so many Rotarians in the district have been spreading nasty things about me (well, I'm a Collins, and they seem to have a big problem with the Collins family actually working hard and achieving great things in Rotary / Rotaract); even though it is my role to assist all clubs and ensure they are functioning well, even the new ones tell me straight out "butt out of our business". I'm sorry.. it IS my business.

It seems that 13,000 km isn't far away enough to escape all the nonsense. At times like this I wonder why I still persevere with it, but it's my life... I really believe in what can be achieved through Rotaract and Rotary, even though the beauracy and the politics make it extremely unpleasant to deal with. At least now I'm not a complete lone voice in the wilderness.. watch out 9470, it's not just Collinses you have to deal with anymore. ;)

2006-01-12T21:41:00.000+08:00

It's hard to believe I've been in Argentina for a month already. It certainly doesn't feel that long! The time is going by way too fast.

It's now been over one year and one day since Scott and I moved to separate houses, so I can now legally apply for divorce. I have the paperwork with me here in Argentina, and had planned to get my signature witnessed as soon as the year + day had passed... but I've since found out that it's not just a matter of going to a public notary here and asking them to watch me sign and then sign it themselves... I have to get the whole document officially translated into spanish so the notary is fully aware of what it is they are witnessing. It's not enough to tell them it is a divorce application - they need to be able to read through it themselves.

So we've tried to contact some official translators over the past few days... and haven't managed to get a hold of a single one. *sigh* So it looks like the process is going to take a little longer than I had anticipated. My father commented that there's no rush, really, but it would be nice to finally close that chapter of my life and be able to move on.

2006-01-01T05:47:00.000+08:00

While it is now the new year in Australia, it's still the afternoon / early evening of New Year's Eve here in Argentina, where I have now been for 2 1/2 amazing weeks.

The end of the year is usually a time for retrospection, and the past year has certainly been a big time of change. This time last year I had recently ended my marriage, though was still living with Scott until we had finished packing our respective belongings to move back in with our parents. I was dreadfully unhappy and very sick, and spent a very new years eve alone (I wasn't in the mood to socialise anyway), packing my belongings.

A year on, things couldn't be more different. While living with my parents again after being independent for 9 years was a huge shock to the system, it gave me the space to be able to work on my health and to have time to concentrate on things I wanted to do, like travel, Rotaract, study... As 2006 approaches, I am now living 13,000 km from home, trying hard to come to grips with spanish (:P), still not in the best of health but a lot healthier than I was a year ago. And as for happiness, there is no comparison. I'm with a wonderful man now who I adore, and who treats me so very, very well.

2006 is likely to be a year unlike any other, but it should be very exciting. :) Hopefully at least half of it will be spent in Argentina, and once I return home, there will be plenty of other things to make decisions about and change again... Isn't it said that the only constant is change? :p

2005-12-12T12:51:00.000+08:00

I'm leaving tomorrow!!!

I can hardly believe it!!!

I'm mostly packed... it's just my carry on luggage that isn't sorted yet, as I want to update and condense my spanish lesson materials to take with me. ;) And my electronic equipment - my camera, ipaq, laptop... I'm in the process of sorting the photos currently on my digital cam, installing some last minute things on my laptop etc etc.

I'm very excited... also a little anxious, but so glad I have the opportunity to do something like spend months living overseas in a different culture! My spanish is still far too basic to be of much use, but I really hope to become reasonably fluent in it by the time I return home!

I will add updates over the intervening days as I sit around airports killing time, on my Perth -> Sydney -> Auckland -> Santiago (free wireless!! yee har!!) -> Buenos Aires -> Rosario (by coach) -> Parana (by car) odyssey ... ;)

2005-12-08T21:57:00.000+08:00

I've just realised that my biggest challenge while I am away will not be adapting to life in a foreign country, but rather not having any of my close female friends within calling distance.

There are a few close female friends I chat with, some of which are overseas, but those that aren't in Perth are generally in Taiwan, which is the same time zone as Perth. And it has just occurred to me that I may not be able to chat with any of them while I am away... That is going to be tough...

Sometimes I'm tired, sometimes I'm shot
Sometimes I don't know how much more I've got
Maybe I'm headed over the hill
Maybe I've set myself up for the kill
Tell me how much do you think you can take
Until the heart in you is starting to break?
Sometimes it feels like it will

Darling I don't know why I go to extremes
Too high or too low there ain't no in-betweens
You can be sure when I'm gone
I won't be out there too long
Darling I don't know why I go to extremes
-- I Go To Extremes: Billy Joel

2005-12-01T23:40:00.000+08:00

Sitting on the bed
Or lying wide awake
There's demons in my head
And it's more than I can take
I think I'm on a roll
But I think it's kinda weak
Saying all I know is
I gotta get away from me
-- "Gotta Get Away": The Offspring

2005-11-28T10:13:00.000+08:00

Just over two weeks to go before I leave... thank goodness!!!

I'm really struggling with being here at the moment. Mum is really doing her best to make my feel guilty for not visiting Amber daily like she does (I have visited her once, and called her at least every 2nd day). Mum is pressuring me about a number of things... losing weight, sorting things at home... but the more she hassles me, the more depressed I get, and the harder it is for me to do any of those things. It's a vicious cycle made worse for being at home... but I haven't been home much, so things there are mounting up, which makes me more stressed... it's quite a merry-go-round! :S I can't wait to escape from it all!

With all that going on, I'm not sleeping well. I'm actually not too tired today, considering that I got about 3 hours sleep last night! I was still wide awake at 2am, and woke up sometime after 5am, as I was wide awake when I checked my watch at 5:50am.

It doesn't help that mum is incredibly stressed because of Amber. It's times like these I really regret having moved back home. But with going away soon, there really isn't any point in trying to get my own place. I think soon after I return home, I will need to start thinking seriously about where my next move is going to be. While it is wonderful spending less by living with my parents, mum is driving me utterly nuts. I really don't know how dad manages it!

I can't get this off my mind. It's not so bad if I am home, alone, getting things done. At least then I feel like I'm getting somewhere. :)

16 days to go...

2005-11-28T09:19:00.000+08:00

playground school bell rings again
rain clouds come to play again
has no one told you she's not breathing?
hello i'm your mind giving you someone to talk to
hello

if i smile and don't believe
soon i know i'll wake from this dream
don't try to fix me i'm not broken
hello i'm the lie living for you so you can hide
don't cry

suddenly i know i'm not sleeping
hello i'm still here
all that's left of yesterday
"Hello" - Evanescence

2005-11-25T13:05:00.000+08:00

Welcome to the world, Tameka Dion Kane!

My 4th niece, Amber's first child, was born on Wed 23rd November at 1pm. She is currently at Princess Margaret Hospital, much to Amber's distress, as Amber is in St John of God Murdoch. It will be a blessing to watch Tameka grow up, especially since it seems likely that I won't have any children of my own for a number of years yet. ;)

I've just taken the last lot of text books to the 2nd hand bookstore here at UWA. Almost 6 years worth of books! I have kept some of the IT and Chemistry ones, for now anyway. I started taking them in on Monday, and already some have sold! A cheque for $112 is in the mail to me, yay!! I didn't expect anyone to start looking at the books until February or March. Any extra money at this point in time is very handy!

Another week is over already... time is certainly flying by! It seems like it was Monday yesterday. The countdown to my departure is now in the teens (yeah!!) though I hope my time in Argentina won't fly by as quickly as the time has done recently...

I've been strict with my eating today, after putting on more weight this week. :S It has been very hard not to give in to temptation of buying chocolate or a frappe, especially when my stomach started growling at 11am!! This time of year is shocking for trying to watch your weight, especially since we have to many birthdays in my family in addition to all the Christmas parties. I will skip some parties and take my own food to the others, if I can... (I could really go a frappe right now!! argh!!)

2005-11-20T22:31:00.000+08:00

Yay! There is a website with Sudoku games online, free!! Now I can feed my addiction, anywhere!! ;)

Dad has just arrived home now too. I can relax a little now. ;) Things have been rather tense with mum over the past 3 days... :S

I'm slowly getting things organised to go away. Just 3 weeks to go now!!!

Amber is due in 3 days, so anytime the phone rings I wonder if it is news that she has gone into labour! It must be very stressful for her... I'm anxious yet excited about my trip, but it's not quite as life changing as having a baby!! She must be feeling 10000 times as excited but anxious as I am!!

Well, nearly another work week *sigh*. Still not long to go before I have a little leave, with the start of my trip...

2005-11-17T23:57:00.000+08:00

My mother is driving me crazy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

She is so embarrassing!!!!!

27 days until I am in Argentina... 27 VERY long days!! *sigh* Dad is away at the moment, so she has nothing better to do then embarrass me and make my life hell... :p

She really knows how to make me feel worthless. It's quite demoralising how well she can still affect me like that, even though I am 28 years old...

Save me...

2005-11-14T11:39:00.000+08:00

The weather is warming up a bit... yeah!! With 3 weeks left of Spring, we are *finally* getting some spring weather...

I heard this morning that this year has actually been the hottest year on record, though you wouldn't believe it from our 'spring' this year. I guess the first half of this year was very hot... This coming summer is supposed to be quite hot too, but I won't be here to know...

Feeling a little melancholy.. with just one month to go before I go on my trip, I am feeling very impatient, wanting it to be time to leave already! I have my tickets and my new passport now, and hopefully all the gifts I will need for people. ;) I have a number of other things to organise before I go though... a little leave from work, so I can actually have some holidays while I am away, cancelling my parking permit at work, setting up my laptop to connect to the servers at work (I have the VPN working, and can connect to the web server, but not our DUIT servers, yet...)

So close, and yet still so far away...

2005-11-05T21:33:00.000+08:00

I lost 1.1 kg!! Yay!!! I'm still not being as strict as I ought to, but heck, if I can lose a kg and still enjoy food then that's not so bad...

Still very tired... I can sleep in tomorrow, but that won't necessarily help. :p

Had a fun time with my club last night. We met to buy souvenirs to send to a Rotaract Club in Mexico (I also bought some for my upcoming trip to Argentina). We also bought Barry the Koala, which is already proving to be a heap of fun!! We have just over a month to enjoy Barry's company, before I take him to Argentina. I will get a little more time with him in Argentina, before hopefully passing him on to Uruguay or Paraguay in mid January. Hopefully clubs will look after him well.

Got a quiet day catching up with things at home tomorrow. ;)

Cast your eyes on the ocean
Cast your soul to the sea
When the dark night seems endless
Please remember me
-- Dante's Prayer - Lorrena McKennitt

2005-11-02T13:07:00.000+08:00

Bring on summer!!

The weather is much warmer today - it is absolutely beautiful outside in the sun!

I had got into a routine of eating the same old thing, which was getting very dull... that was one of the biggest contributors to me deviating from my diet of late. But with my renewed motivation, I have started experimenting again, and have even devised a cannelli bean salad that I really like... finally a tasty way to eat beans!

Simone's Bean Salad
85 g Cannelli Beans
135 g of sliced black olives, cherry tomatoes and artichoke hearts
splash of balsamic vinager
oregano, thyme, basil and rosemary, to taste

Mix and enjoy!! Mm mmmmmmmm!

I've been out buying some more summer clothes. I bought 2 skirts, a dress suit, and don't ask me how many tops. I didn't count. But I badly needed them all... my old summer stuff was VERY old and VERY daggy. It is such a nice change to try on clothes and have the majority of them look nice! And to even think "gosh, that's a bit big.. let's try the 10 instead". :D Most of what I bought is black though.. great for going out, but not so good for 38 degree days. I would really love something in red, but there doesn't seem to be anything around... *sigh*

Now I just need the weather to keep warming up so I can start wearing it all, and not hiding under jackets or jumpers!

Life is good. :)

2005-10-31T14:27:00.000+08:00

When I am down and, oh my soul, so weary;
When troubles come and my heart burdened be;
Then, I am still and wait here in the silence,
Until you come and sit awhile with me.

You raise me up, so I can stand on mountains;
You raise me up, to walk on stormy seas;
I am strong, when I am on your shoulders;
You raise me up... to more than I can be.

You raise me up, so I can stand on mountains;
You raise me up, to walk on stormy seas;
I am strong, when I am on your shoulders;
You raise me up... to more than I can be.

There is no life - no life without its hunger;
Each restless heart beats so imperfectly;
But when you come and I am filled with wonder,
Sometimes, I think I glimpse eternity.

You raise me up, so I can stand on mountains;
You raise me up, to walk on stormy seas;
And I am strong, when I am on your shoulders;
You raise me up... to more than I can be.
You raise me up... to more than I can be.

-- You Raise Me Up: Secret Garden

2005-10-31T12:41:00.000+08:00

I've been very tired lately... no idea why... :(

It seems to be a fairly common occurrence though - both my parents also appeared tireder than usual, and another Rotaractor in my district thinks he has the flu, as do a number of his mates. Not good...

The weather is still bizarre. We get a few warm days, and then it plummets back to winter temperatures again, even though we're more than halfway through Spring. And I reckon we've had more rain in Spring than in Winter!!! The lake near the Mounts Bay road onramp is almost overflowing, and our dams are 41% full (which isn't terrific, but better than the 17% they have been previously). I really hope it starts warming up sometime soon. I want to wear summer clothes!! And be able to get outdoors and enjoy the sun!! All I want to do now is stay snuggled in bed...

I'm going to the post office today to apply for a new passport. Just 6 weeks to go until I return to Argentina!! Yeah!!! Tonight I will see if I can get the external VPN operational on my laptop so I can work remotely... It's all happening!!

2005-10-28T12:56:00.000+08:00

After a return to cooler weather, the weather has returned to what I would expect of October - it's beautiful and warm today (and a real shame that I wore a long sleeve top!) This bizarre see-sawing of weather seems to be affecting people quite badly with allergies... I don't suffer from allergies usually, but the warm weather even seems to have got me sneezing and feeling, dare I say, a bit under the weather.

The great thing about the warm weather is (a) I want to drink more water and (b) my appetite decreases. I have been exceedingly slack with observing my Sure Slim diet (read: I haven't been following it whatsoever), which has not been helped by me being out practically every single day. I'm still out more often than not - the weddings are over, but there are a LOT of birthdays on now, especially in my family. I'm really lucky that I have only put on a kilo or so with eating a heap of junk.

Curiously enough, it is my natural medicine studies which is providing me with the main motivation to get back on a better eating plan. Yesterday I gained some interesting insights into my motivation with losing weight, and why I seem to see saw so much. And with 6 weeks until I return to Argentina, I'm running out of time to get back to the weight I want (9 kg lighter, probably not doable before I go, but 5 kilos may be possible ;)). But my motivation has returned, and with great will power and avoided the temptation to buy chocolate mid morning, and instead of a slightly heavier teriyaki tofu (it's all the rice that comes with it that is a killer!) I've gone with miso soup and salad for lunch.

I really need to get back to bringing my own lunch to work, which I had wanted to do this morning (I had set my alarm for 6 am to allow the time to make it, but with these allergies I just couldn't drag myself out of bed until 8 am!) As well as being healthier (though not as tasty :p), it will save me a bit of money too, which I can instead put towards buying some nicer clothes!! I did a spot of shopping in my lunch break today, and while I couldn't find any nice red tops, I did get a patterned black one, and a skirt... ;)

Hopefully this time next week I will be reporting a weight loss of at least 1 kg...

PS: Marquitos, TE EXTRAÑO!!!!!

2005-10-21T09:35:00.000+08:00

It's been a busy, busy week! And the weekend is going to be even busier.

Julia's wedding last weekend was lovely. Simon & Ania's wedding is coming up this weekend. Two weddings in the same week, and then nothing. :p I can't make it to the next wedding I have been invited to, in January, unfortunately, as I will be in Argentina! I'm Matron of Honour for Simon & Ania's wedding, and have been busy with wedding rehearsals, fittings for my bridesmaid's dress etc. Sunday is going to be a very long day - I am going to be exhausted next week!! I'm already feeling very tired now!!

A past Rotaract friend currently living in Singapore is in Perth this week on business, so it has been great to spend some time with him. Saturday will be interesting, as we will be doing the Fremantle Prison Tunnels Tour, which includes a little bit of canoeing!! :p After 2 1/2 hours of that, we will meet up with some of my club for drinks and dinner, which should be really nice!

'Til I'm 6 feet under baby I don't need a bed, gonna live when I'm alive, I'll sleep when I'm dead ...

2005-10-13T17:37:00.000+08:00

Life is good. ;)

First day back at college, and I have my motivation back. Yeah!

I thought I would have to resit my last Anatomy & Physiology test, as I hadn't studied for it whatsover, and missed the class that covered half of the topics. :p I honestly had to guess the answers. I have never been so unprepared for a test before, ever! But... I passed!! I even managed to get a B!! I have no idea how!! But I'm happy. :)

I've even got the hang of quickly working out the right remedy for our homoeopathy case studies. ;) I still don't remember any of the remedies off the top of my head, but at least it is making sense now. I'm just not sure what the deal is with the assessments for homoeopathy, as we have only done 1 of the 3 scheduled tests to date. Hmmm. Hopefully I can ask the lecturer when she returns from interstate.

Now that I have the motivation to get on with my studies, I'm going to be out most of next week. :P Still, I think that week will be unusual, and I can hopefully get back on with things the week after.

And the weather is *finally* warming up!! About time!! So things are great all round. ;)

2005-10-10T16:20:00.000+08:00

FIG JAM ;)

I resurrected an ad for my Rotaract Club at Seek Volunteer about a week ago, and we've had 3 applications already. ;)

I choose to lead by example, and I have to admit, I do a damn fine job. *grin*

13 members + 5 prospectives, and I'm only just warming up. ;) I love a challenge, especially when someone challenges my credibility or expertise. I'm not afraid to prove I'm right and that I know full well what I am doing. :D

Hit me with your best shot!
Why don’t you hit me with your best shot!
Hit me with your best shot!
Fire away!
(Thanks Pat Benatar... precisely my thoughts too ;) )

PS: I hate it when other people take credit for my work. I'm a firm believer in giving credit where credit is due! Unfortunately not everyone seems to share my ethics...

2005-10-09T15:38:00.000+08:00

Feeling melancholic today.

I went to a baptism this morning, for the son of a past member of my Rotaract Club. The only people I knew (other past Rotaractors, all younger than me), all had babies or were expecting babies. It was very odd to be there, alone, childless, amongst them. I would have liked to have started a family before I turned 30. That's not going to happen. :p At least none of my close friends have babies, yet...

Still feeling unmotivated about my work and naturopathy studies. I'm unsure what to do about it. I think I am getting a bit burnt out, with having taken too much on. I can handle it, but I am choosing not to right now... I want to enjoy life, and not be tied down to studying in all the spare time that I'm not working. Still, the semester will all be over in 2 months... on the one hand, it will be over before I know it. On the other hand, I don't feel like I will get everything done in time, particularly my herbal medicine assignment, as I only have 30 of 50 herbs so far. :S I'm not sure how I am supposed to track down 20 more... though I have a back up plan - the Sun Moon & Star, where I can get dried leaves of just about every herb imaginable, if not the whole plant. Maybe I ought to plan a trip there on Tuesday, and get some just in case... :D

I'm also having a bit of a crisis of faith over my rock, Rotaract. Internationally things are wonderful, as usual, but locally, I feel very uncertain. My club is going quite well, but I'm not happy with interclub / interdistrict things that are happening. I feel powerless about it, which I don't like. It's very frustrating. But, it's nothing new, unfortunately.

Well, as much as I would like to spend the afternoon curled up on the bed with Juliet, reading, to forget about it all for a while, I have a Santa meeting in a couple of hours, and ought to get some more studying done (Senior First Aid for the rest of the day, and when I finish that, Spanish)...

2005-10-05T10:58:00.000+08:00

Bored.

That's because I'm at work. And as usual, I have little to do, and what I do have is not particularly interesting and certainly not challenging. I am really disappointed that I lost the battle to introduce database driven websites as one of the services we can provide. *sigh*

There is the usual stupidity in Rotaract locally... Kassandra is back. :p Why does no one here want to listen to my advice, based on years of experience, and proven results? If they really want to reinvent the wheel, and waste a lot of time and money, fine, just don't drag my club into it... and don't tell me I don't know what I'm talking about!!! I TRAIN internationally about this stuff... and I talk to a lot of other experts around the world, who have also had proven results.

I am always open to new ideas, and to revisiting why I do what I do and seeing if changes need to be made, but I have little patience for newbies who think they know it all, and want to tell me, when my club is continuing to grow, that I know nothing, and they have all the answers, when their club really oughtn't be in existence any more, with no one really turning up... I know who I would listen to... That's why I cut ties with the other clubs here years ago, when they wanted to press ahead with throwing money away on things that didn't work, and wanted to drag my club down with them ... *sigh*

The rest of life is going very well though. ;) My classes start again this weekend, so I am getting back into the swing of studying... :p I really enjoy the spanish, but am struggling to find the motivation to keep on with natural medicine. Perhaps I'm still not on the right career track. Or maybe it is just that the change of college has set everything back more than I anticipated, and having to repeat a lot of classes I had already completed is wearing me down...

I really love the sort of things I do with Rotaract (particularly the big picture, international stuff.. community-building, in particular)... I just need to find a job where I can do that sort of thing too. The only problem is, I don't know what sort of job I could find that does that... Most community service orgs only want volunteers, not paid staff. My search a year or so ago yielded no viable jobs in that sort of field. So I'm not really sure where to look. I would love to create my own work, but I don't have any idea what I could do... Well, I do have a grand idea, it's just making the time to work on it (definitely when I am in Argentina!) that is the problem...

2005-09-29T14:23:00.000+08:00

I've got a secret I can keep
You won't get it out of me
You ain't supposed to stoop that low
You want me but I don't know

Whatever happened to Chocolate Starfish? They were a brilliant Aussie band! No one appears to have put their lyrics online though! So I guess I will be the first. ;)

Blasting furnace I can't (? beat? peak?)
Coz we both need to let off steam
You keep hopin', pokin', stokin'
I just might explode on you

Lay me down
You can kiss my ...

(Fire) Kiss my, kiss my burning flame
(Fire) Coz we both need to feel that heat again

Kiss My Fire is quite a sexually charged song, but it is my favourite Chokky Starfish song ;)

Ice and water I can order
Nothing's gonna take your taste away
You make sure the temperature soars
Wrapping your lips around my flame

It would be much easier if I could get the CD cover out of storage so I can read the lyrics rather than trying to listen to them ... *sigh*

Lay me down...

Oh, We're hip to hip, chest to chest
Boil (and ???) has been put to the test
Goodness me you're cooking me
Won't you kiss my

(Fire) You kiss my, you kiss my burning flame
(Fire) Coz we both need to feel that heat again

(Fire) You kiss my, you kiss my burning flame
(Fire) Kiss me, (Fire) come on kiss me (Fire)...

Don't you touch what you can't afford
You think you're above the law
What's mine is mine
Don't you step across that line

Lay me down, lay me down, lay me down

Oooohoooooo oooohooooooo

(Fire) Kiss my, you kiss my burning flame
(Fire) We both need to feel that heat again

(Fire) Kiss my, kiss my burning, kiss my burning flame
(Fire) Coz we both need to feel that heat again

Yeah! ;)

I'll fill in the blanks once I work out what they are :p

BTW, I am SOOOOO happy iTunes finally introduced somewhere to put lyrics for songs. ;) Now for the time consuming part... adding the lyrics for the 4939 songs I have there currently. My CD collection is rather large! I hate to think how much money I have spent on CDs over the years... *sigh*

2005-09-28T15:59:00.000+08:00

My trip to Argentina is BOOKED!!!!!! YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The Sydney -> Buenos Aires flight appears to be VERY popular, so I am leaving earlier than I expected (leaving here Dec 13, arriving there Dec 14)... which is fine with me. ;)

I am very excited!!!!

I have a flexible ticket... I have a return flight booked for Mar 13 (World Rotaract Day - how appropriate!), but can change it. While that costs more, I'd rather have that flexibility than the cheap "non refundable, non transferable" etc etc I normally get.

YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2005-09-26T13:26:00.000+08:00

It's long a weekend here in Perth, unless you work for a university, like I do...

I didn't have any classes on the weekend, which is a good thing, because I haven't got back into the swing of studying yet. I have holidays for about 2 weeks, which I really need to spend studying / getting up to speed with things. *sigh* On the bright side, I have finally found the motivation to sort through all the stuff I own, and get of it! Yes.. it's spring!!! And I want to spring clean!!!

I'm hoping to have sorted through all the boxes I have in storage before I go to Argentina.. so I have just over 2 months to do that. 2 months!!!! Man!!! Where is time going??? It also means I have just over 2 months to hand over as much Rotaract stuff as possible, and organise anything else I need to do before I go.

Speaking of Argentina, I plan to talk to a travel agent tomorrow. My current plan is to aim for 3 months, but to buy an open ticket, and see what happens. :p On the one hand, my boss is ok for me to be away for 3 months or more... on the downside, while my work is possible to be done from any location, he doesn't want me to telecommute, as that will set a precedent he doesn't want set (ie anyone else in the office deciding they'd much rather work from home from now on). So worst case scenario I will be on leave without pay for most of the time... :S My expenses in Argentina will be minimal, but life goes on at home...

Mind you, it's not so bad, not working for that time... I will have 3 months to do other things (as well as explore life in Argentina) - complete some correspondence courses and websites, and brush up my skills in other areas. It would be really nice to have actually completed all the things I want to (unfinished projects etc) by the middle of next year, and actually have caught up with everything.

The weather is warming up beautifully... I love Spring! I love summer more, but spring is nice, when the rain stops and the sun is warm. :) Spring also means wedding season... I have Ania's hens night this Saturday (Julia's is on too, but I can't make it to both at once :S), then Julia's wedding the fortnight after, and Simon & Ania's the week after that. So... 3 more weeks for my bridesmaid's dress to be completed!! It's funny, October and the end of this year seemed so far away, but now the time really seems to be accelerating! That's good and bad.. good, because I will go to Argentina soon, and bad because I have less time to prepare for going to Argentina...

2005-09-21T14:03:00.000+08:00

Very, very tired...

I returned home from Munich in the early hours of Monday morning, and have been struggling with jet lag ever since. That's quite unusual for me, but I have also had a throbbing headache most of that time, which hasn't been helping me sleep!

I finally took something for the headache this morning, as I had to go back to work. Staying in bed all day just wasn't possible (d'oh!)... Now that is is after lunch, I desparately want to go back to sleep! I am contemplating not going to Rotaract tonight (I've just had a whole week of Rotaract!) but we will see how things go...

Munich was wonderful - THE best airport I've been to in terms of getting through immigration quickly!! And the immigration officers are quite friendly too! Interota was great, well worth going to, even though numbers were down. It made it easier to get to know other Rotaractors better as there weren't so many to meet. There were still a number I didn't meet, but I think I met a decent percentage of them.. ;)

Photos are gradually being added to http://photos.yahoo.com/interota2005

Life is almost back to normal... I will be happy when I have got over my jet lag though! I just want to sleeeeeeeeeeeeeeep...

2005-09-07T14:41:00.000+08:00

Not much to add right now, but this may be my last chance to post for a while, as I am leaving for Munich in 2 days... ;)

I am now avoiding caffeine as much as possible. I had a shocking caffeine withdrawal headache yesterday. :p I ended up spending most of the day sleeping. I had intended to complete a powerpoint presentation for Interota instead, but I'm glad now I didn't as I got an email from the organisers last night to say they want to change everything (and I mean EVERYTHING - my 2 hour workshop now looks like it is going to run over 7 hours, with a co-presenter, and they expect us to build a global website by the end of it... I'm not sure whether to laugh or cry, so I'll pick laugh...)

*sigh*

It's going to be strange being offline for 9 days... :S I just hope Munich provides enough distractions (ie interactions with other Rotaractors) to make it worthwhile. With 2 days to go I'm starting to rue my decision to go to Interota...

Oh well... off to the Faculty Office to look at a computer problem...

2005-09-05T19:05:00.000+08:00

I was very lucky today... I realised at lunchtime that I had forgotten to display my temporary parking permit on the dashboard of my car. The parking inspectors are usually VERY strict at UWA (the joy of being in the city of Subiaco)... how I avoided a parking fine I don't know! I managed to rectify the oversight at lunch. ;)

It looks like coffee + a block (pyramid?) of Toblerone is a dangerous combination for my heart. Caffeine overload perhaps? Or maybe I was just unlucky today. My heart caused me some grief... after a few hours I decided to try to see a doctor, but couldn't get in to either my usual surgery or the one at UWA. :( I ended up leaving work at 3pm, so dad could check there was nothing too serious (my blood pressure was normal, which meant the systole was 30 mmHg higher than is usual for me!) I spent the afternoon resting, to try to give it a chance to settle.

No more caffeine for me for a while... just in case...

2005-08-29T13:53:00.000+08:00

I need a massage. :P

I spent yesterday afternoon working in the reflexology student clinic (2nd last one!) and I was really trying to use as firm a pressure as possible... I haven't come across anyone yet who has requested light pressure on their feet. :p Well, you should have seen my hands last night! The veins were really sticking out. Yeuch! The swelling had gone down this morning, but they are still a bit sore. My back and neck are very stiff too. It's been quite some months since I've received a massage myself.

At lunchtime today, I went over to Anais to see if I could book a back massage for Wednesday.. but they were shut! Eh?? :( It's been ages since I have been there for a massage, so I hope they were just shut today, and not shut totally!

I guess I should give Chris a call, and see if he will give me a massage rather than talking me into acupuncture. ;) Perhaps if I actually get my Interota presentation preparation completed, I can take time out for a massage without feeling guilty about it!

2005-08-26T15:37:00.000+08:00

I have a new car! Well, a second hand one... a 2004 Toyota Echo. Yay! I've readjusted to driving a manual car again now. I had forgotten how much more attention is needed for a manual. It's good though.. much easier to switch to an automatic from a manual than vice versa. Now I need to get my personalised number plates back, get a new parking permit for work, and try to find the car stuff I have in storage... after Interota. :p

I also have a check up with my cardiologist yesterday. Things are stable, which is good. ;) My blood pressure is still very low (95/65) but that's no big deal... better than having high blood pressure!

I had a dress fitting for the bridesmaid's dress for Simon & Ania's wedding last night. I'm a size 12, but felt like a bit of a blimp. Maybe it's because Ania is so skinny? I'm hoping to lose another 5kg or so by the time their wedding comes around in October. Meanwhile, Ania is deciding what she wants to do for her Hens night, so I can organise it for her. ;)

The next couple of nights should be quiet. ;) I need the time to organise things for Interota! I've sat down and tried to work on my workshop a couple of times, but have been devoid of useful ideas. I think I'm getting it worked out in my head now... Hopefully I can get a lot of the basic information written down by the end of the weekend. I ought to email the organisers and find out whether they can photocopy handouts for me, or if I would need to come prepared...

Life is good. :)

Currently stuck in my head: "Come Again" - Damn Yankees - I wasn't lookin' when you pulled me in, whoa oh oh oh yeah, Lord, here I come again ... great band ;)

2005-08-21T13:04:00.000+08:00

Life is good again. ;) Great, in fact!

My health is clearing up, thank goodness! :)

Karaoke was GREAT fun on Friday. I think we were all quite surprised!! I'm not sure how many songs I sang.. I lost count. :P We ended up staying on for an extra hour. The photos should be interesting! :p Kym took a stack, but she hasn't uploaded them yet. I took some, but none of them have me in them. ;)

Adriana's birthday dinner last night was nice. ;) It started early, which was good... I was quite tired, so I watched "Moulin Rouge" on DVD (I bought the Red Curtain Trilogy on Friday ;)). I LOVE that movie. ;) It's sad, but I think the music is great, very clever! I particularly love Ewan McGregor's voice. ;) Gotta love having so many Aussies in the movie too. ;)

Hopefully today I will make a start on the workshop I will be presenting at Interota. So far I have been cleaning up around the house, as mum and dad return home tomorrow, and I have been catching up on some of my email...