I’m pretty happy right now. You know one thing that could possibly improve on my happiness? If I had a pet rabbit in the same colours as Napoleon, and they kept each other company all day while I was at work, then when I got home they both greeted me at the door. That would be the epitome of awesomeness.

Here are some shiny things:

* Only four days until Tim gets back
* Pay day tomorrow
* Napoleon
* A rabbit the same colour scheme as Napoleon

I know that the last one is not something I actually have, but I just like imagining it.

This pay period I am not going to buy any clothings. I have far too many bills to pay! Maybe I will get a couple of pairs of tights (because it’s getting colder), but that’s it. My goal for this pay: to be good and stick to my budget! I’m pretty sure I can do it. It will be an interesting experiment. I think the main thing is to cook lunches for work, so that I’m not buying overpriced food that tastes like crap anyway. I did mean to do some sewing last weekend, but never got around to it. I won’t be doing it this weekend, that’s for sure. I wonder if I’ll get time during the week?

Hi Tim! I know you will have played at Glendalough by the time you read this. How was it? How is Ye Olde London Town? I always used to say “Ye” as in how it is spelled, until I read somewhere that in the olden days, Y was the symbol for “th” sound. Therefore, “Ye” is atually just “The”. I kind of liked “ye” better. It’s like how Conor used to speak on the net, “how ar’ ye!?” and it made me think of the sea captain from the Simpsons (arrr, ’tis a shame that).

I feel like going to the movies. Anyone wanna go see a movie? Or something? Or maybe I should use this extra time to do some sewing. I have a few things that need mending.

Sooooo today was our first day in our new building. Best river views ever. There was a slight problem in that our desks are on the Western side of the building, and it seems to get uncomfortably warm despite the airconditioning. Closing the blinds helps a little, but mainly with the glare. It’s still pretty warm. I’m hoping that I will get to move at some point in the near future, if I don’t leave beforehand.

The view from my desk, if I swivel around in my chair:

And some others:

When we first arrived this morning, we were greeted by breakfast in our food preparation area. They supplied us with bacon & egg muffins, cut up fruit, ham & cheese croissants, bagels with some crap on them, and tiny muffins. Plus bottles of orange or blackcurrant juice in the fridges. It was cool! The day slowly became less cool, after about the one millionth phone call and stupid email from stupid people. Plus people are being rude because things aren’t going their way, and there’s nothing that they can do about it because they have no control over what’s happening with us.

I’m looking forward to the first time we get to see a storm moving in from the big windows, that’s going to be awesome. Imagine if it hails, and they’re huge hailstones, like golf ball size, and they crack the windows. That would be ironic, because the company would have to call itself to lodge an insurance claim. It would be funny if they rejected the claim and said something like “people in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones”. Not that they were throwing stones, but just having your walls made of glass is asking for trouble. Expensive trouble.

Having a shower when you first get home from work is one of the best things about summer. The comparative fresh feeling that you get almost makes it worth having to suffer through the heat and humidity in the dirty city. ALMOST. I’d say that if you’re one of those people who think that it DOES make it worth it, you’re one of those people who say summer is their favourite season. Also another nice thing is having a shower and then going into an airconditioned room from the heat of the bathroom. Bestest.

On to something more fun and exciting: A list of my DS games Click on the image to go to the Nintendo page for that particular game.

Animal Crossing – Wild World is cute. You get to have a house, plant flowers (I keep stealing the prettiest flowers from other people’s yards), buy clothes (I’m wearing a viking helmet and red glasses right now), write letters, do little jobs for other people, go fishing, collect shells and fruit and sell them in the store… You also get to furnish your house, and sometimes if you do things for other people, they’ll give you a present in the form of something to put in your house.

Big Brain Academy tests how much your brain weighs based on your ability to solve various different puzzles in different levels of difficulty. I haven’t played this one much yet, it’s one of my newer games so I don’t have a score for every puzzle yet.

I <3 this. It’s just like Mario Kart 64, except little and with a combination of tracks from all the previous Mario Kart games. I can’t wait to unlock more tracks.

My puppy is a Siberian Husky named Joue. I haven’t had a lot of time to teach her new tricks, but she knows how to sit and she was learning to roll over this afternoon. She met Lauren’s puppy Lola on the weekend, and Brian’s puppy Kemo, who is also a Siberian Husky.

I <3 Super Mario Bros too. It’s sort of like Super Mario Bros 3, with a game map and mini games etc. I wrote about this on a previous blog. Quit being so lazy, GOSH!

My brain age is pitiful, because I only ever get time to play this when I’m tired after a long day at work, or on the weekend after I’ve just woken up and my brain isn’t functioning yet. I like the fact that you get to unlock different brain training programs the more you use the game. I do best in memory and language games, and worst in calculations, surprise surprise.

This game is awesome and weird. It’s all mini game where you have to use the stylus to do certain things. My favourite is the little halloween girl, because the boss level is where you are the earth floating through space, and you have to save a baby that looks like a foetus that’s floating through space. When it hits the earth, it gets smaller and smaller until finally you hear a splash and it drops into the ocean somewhere. It’s funny.

Tomorrow morning will be our department’s first day in the new building, Brisbane Square, on the corner of George and Adelaide Streets. The picture below is just some of the concept imagery from before the building was finished, but that’s pretty much what it looks like.

The awesome new logo design on this website is by Nathan. This weekend (Saturday afternoon), Christian did a photoshoot with Nathan and Lauren and some of their friends for My Bestest. Christian, being a super duper amazing fashion photographer, got some rad shots. You should go check out his gallery. A highlight for me was being able to purchase one of the My Bestest T-shirt packs – they’re not even on ebay yet! Score. That’s going to be chapter one in my new book: Making Nepotism Work For You.

So anyway, here is My Bestest new T-shirt:

I was checking my grammar for the title (in French) by translating it in both Babelfish and Worldlingo. Literally translated, it means “I have a bad of the head”. What it means is “I have a headache”. What I really wanted to say, however, was that I have a sore head. I looked it up, and it came up with “j’ai une tête endolorie”. I’ve never seen this endolorie word before, so I did a translation of that sentence back into English. Apparently English doesn’t have an equivalent, because what it comes up with is, “I have a head endolorie”. I’m just wondering what makes it possible for a word to have an equivalent translation from English, but then not to be able to translate that same thing back to the same word in English. It’s really strange…

Anyway, the reason for the title is because yesterday morning I hit my head on the broken soap dish in our shower, and had to get six stitches and a tetanus injection. I bent down and when I stood up, I hit my head against the sharp edge of the soap dish that Nathan broke previously with his head. I stood for a while, washing the conditioner out of my hair, and realised that the water off my head tasted salty, and that there was liquid running down my face even when I wasn’t under the shower. I put my hand up to my face, and it came back with blood all over it. It was then that I realised there was blood all over the floor. I went into mum’s room, and she initially thought that I had botched a dye job or something. She took me to the hospital though, and went dressed in her PA uniform (it seems like we get preferential treatment when they can see mum’s a nurse) so I got seen straight away. It still took a while for them to stitch me up and send me off.

I was seen by an intern, who didn’t use enough local anaesthetic to start with (which, by the way, hurts A LOT more than either the injury OR the stitching) so I could feel him pulling the needle through the cut. Mum thought that I was only going to have a couple of stitches, but I ended up needing six. When I stood back up again after the intern had finished stitching, I looked back at the pillow and it was just red from all the blood.

I was lucky that the cut is just back from the hairline, and so isn’t visible or anything. The registrar came in to see me before the guy started stitching and asked if I could handle some mess for a few days. “What mess?” I said. She said “We could glue your scalp together.” And I said, “Probably not a good idea. I have an awards night tomorrow night.” So stitches it was. I’m relieved. It was bad enough having blood all through my hair, let alone glue. I wonder if I’d even be able to wash my hair? Granted I haven’t washed my hair since it happened, not with shampoo and conditioner anyway, but I’m definitely going to before tonight.

Christian and I watched a few episodes of Jericho last night. It’s a good show. I haven’t watched it since the first episode was on TV, because I don’t keep track of the TV schedule and I don’t really watch TV at all, but this was a show that I would probably buy when it’s out on DVD. Like Lost, which apparently has started its third season, and I haven’t even seen the second one. I really need to catch up.

I have come to the conclusion that there aren’t enough hours in the day. With work, friends, family… how does anyone have time to do anything they want to do? I guess it would be good if what you want to do includes spending time with friends and family (which it does), but it seems to be a difficult balance to be able to do really well at work, and still be able to concentrate on the other things. It might be simply because of overtime at the moment (which wears me out, but I can’t turn it down all the time because it’s good money) and the fact that I feel guilty when I can’t get my usual 15 files done in a normal working day. On Thursday night I hit the wall, as far as productivity is concerned. I did 15 files (I think – as I wasn’t at work yesterday I couldn’t check the report), which should be a good day, but by the end of it I just literally could not even look at another file, I’d just had enough of it.

I’ll have to do a whole heap of work on Monday to make up for my clumsiness on Friday preventing me from being able to go to work. We’re so short staffed at the moment.

Awards night tonight, at City Hall. I wonder what it will be like. I wonder if we’ll win prizes? There will be a couple of different people there this time, I think… Ben will be there, which will be fun. I think it’s Kathryn, Melinda, Penny, Aileen, Scott, Stephen, Debbie, me, Ben, Karen. Maybe. Not sure if I have that right. Or maybe Denis will be there, and someone else not… I’ll find out tonight.

I have to pick up my dress from Scaasi! Yay.

This was a bulletin post… but I don’t want to force people to re-post if they don’t like filling out stupid surveys.

1. How tall are you barefoot?
5′9… or 5′8… I can’t remember. Maybe I’ve shrunk.

2. Have you ever smoked heroin?
No…

3. Do you own a gun?
No. I own a pirate sword though

4. Who’s your true friend?
Noelle

5. Do you get nervous before “meeting the parents”?
Hmmm… it depends on the situation and the relationship.

6. What do you think of hot dogs?
They used to be awesome from Wendy’s at Grafton Shopping World when I was in school.

7. What’s your favorite Christmas song?
The First Noel.

8. What do you prefer to drink in the morning?
Chai or juice

9. Can you do push ups?
Yes, but not too many because my broken/healed arm isn’t very stable.

10. Is your bathroom clean?
Clean enough, I would like to wipe down the sink though.

11. What’s your favorite piece of jewelry?
My green cameo necklace. I hardly ever wear it though, as atm I don’t have that many green clothings to go with it.

12. Do you like painkillers?
I like the effect they have on pain. I don’t take them that often.

13. What is your secret weapon to lure in the opposite sex?
I’ve said this before I think… why must you term it as “weapon”? Can’t we all just be friends? This isn’t a war you know!

14. Do you own a knife?
a PIRATE SWORD. GOSH.

15. Do you have A.D.D.?
No. I have a problem with not being able to stop paying attention to something. I have too much attention sometimes. Like now, for instance, when I should be getting ready to go to work. I’m going to be late!

16. Middle Name?
Marie

17. Name 3 thoughts at this exact moment?
- what time will i have to finish work today
- i wonder if the traffic is going to be bad from that road thingy
- ouch napoleon!

18. Name the last 3 things you have bought:
- milk
- honeydew melon milk tea
- sandwich (yesterday at lunch)

19. Name 3 drinks you regularly drink:
- chai
- pineapple juice + water
- coke zero

20. What time did you wake up today?
5:05AM

22. Current worry?
work

23. Current hate?
see above

24. Favorite place to be?
that’s a secret

25. Least favorite place to be?
um… in the city at the bus stop when i’ve just missed the bus and I have to wait for the next one.

26. Where would you like to go?
Vietnam, Hungary, Russia, Korea, Thailand… Yamba! Well, at least I get to go there this weekend

27. Do you own slippers?
No I wore socks all through winter time. I kept meaning to get slippers, but never got around to it.

28. What shirt are you wearing?
Red polka-dots with a black singlet over the top.

29. Do you burn or tan?
Burn. I used to tan easily, but now I’m too pale.

30. Favorite color(s)?
Deep, verdant green.

31. Would you be a pirate?
O’ course ye scupperin’ scoundrel!

32. Last time you had an alcoholic drink?
Friday night

33. What songs do you sing in the shower?
Whatever is on my mind at that moment

34. What did you fear was going to get you at night as a child?
I wasn’t really afraid of the dark. I preferred a dark room to one with a night light. A year ago I was afraid of zombies.

35. What’s in your pockets right now?
I don’t have pockets

36. Last thing that made you laugh?
Christian’s drawing of Link puppy

37. Best bed sheets you had as a child?
The hot-air balloon ones

38. Worst injury you’ve ever had?
my broken arm. Or back. But I think arm was worse because i had to have surgery for that.

40. How many TVs do you have in your house?
4

41. Who is your loudest friend?
I’d probably be loudest amongst my friends.

42. Who is your most silent friend?
No one’s really silent… maybe Frank?

43. Does someone have a crush on you?
Like anyone can even know that Napoleon!

44. Do you wish on shooting stars?
If I see one, and if I remember that you can wish on them. Most of the time I just say “oooh! cool!” and i’m not thinking about wishing for anything. Seeing a shooting star is pretty special in itself.

45. What is your favorite book?
ummmm Harry Potters are good, but also I like Year of Wonders, Doomsday Book…

46. What is your favorite candy?
turkish delight

47. What song do/did you want played at your wedding?
’sif I’ve planned a wedding song!

48. What song do you want played at your funeral?
No idea…

49. What were you doing at 12 AM last night?
sleeping, perchance to dream!

50. What was the First thing you thought of when you woke up this morning??
what time is it? Can i go back to sleep…?

Today was a fairly decent day of work as far as productivity goes, but a pretty bad day as far as morale of most people goes. Brooke announced she is leaving because Leigh was successful in obtaining a position at a Hotel down the Coast (New South Wales) about an hour out of Sydney. So that means Brooke will be here for another week and a half and then she’s gone. And Kirra is going in another two weeks as well. So next week will be the last week of two pretty senior members of the team, as far as length of service/time within the team/role go. I’m predicting that this is going to have a profound impact on the remaining team members. Chrissie is already looking at alternative employment, and I’m not sure how long Benyamin will stick it out.

Anyway, enough of that. Cocktails & BBQ at my place this Friday night from about 7pm to celebrate Napoleon kitten’s existence! If you haven’t met Napoleon kitten yet, this would be the ideal forum for such an endeavour. I guarantee you’ll like him. There’s just no way possible that anyone could not. It’s impossible.

Payday tomorrow. I’ll be putting aside some money for the Yamba weekend, and also paying off a crapload of crap. Crap such as the rest of the vet bill, and some money on my credit card. I’m thinking I’ll also need to get some credit for my phone, which is something that I haven’t had to think about until recently when I cancelled my post-paid account with Optus and switched to Vodafone. This is, incidentally, one of the best suggestions ever made to anyone in the history of the world. I recommend it to everyone.

Also I want to buy a new dress. Scaasi is just teasing me every time I walk past there and they have the most beautiful dresses and I just look and sigh and my eyes are glued to the window until about Sunglasses Hut when I am unceremoniously dragged from my reverie by the stupid guy with the portable microphone. BLEUGH!

By graphic images, I mean images of my arm/hand.. I’ll post them at the end of the blog in case you don’t want to see them. you can still read this

Today was my first day back at work. I’m exhausted. The strange thing about being back at work is being in different climates/temperatures. While on sick leave, I’ve practically lived in my pyjamas. They are nice and warm, because the days are cold and there is no heating in this house. But as it warms up, I can wear just a t-shirt. Being at work today, I found the temperature stiflingly and ridiculously hot.

They seem to turn the heat way up to overcompensate for the chill of outside, but it just made me feel feverish. Then also, on the train on the way home, they had the carriages overheated too. Combined with the body heat of all the people crowded on there, it was enough to make anyone feel claustrophobic. I’m not claustrophobic, but that’s how I felt… It was so nice to be out in the fresh air on the walk home from the station, even if it was chilly. I so much prefer winter to any other time of year, but I wish that public transport and businesses would stop cooking everyone.

I am now known at work as an “Emogan” (well, really only by Kirra and Calum, but meh.) This is a cross between an emo and a bogan. The bogan part comes in because of my tendency to over-syllabalise words that are monosyllabic. For example: “here”, I pronounce as “heeyah”, although not quite as extreme as that. I’m getting a complex. Also because I come from Yamba, and apparently that sounds like a bogan place. The emo part comes in… because… i like Nightmare Before Christmas, and I have black and coloured hair, and I have emo glasses… and i like buttons… and … some other stuff.

Calum and I were discussing pronunciation of different words. Specifically, “Maroon”. Here are my pronunciations and definitions for maroon:

1. Maroon (Mah-roon): To put ashore on a deserted island or coast and intentionally abandon.
2. Maroon (Mah-rohn): A dark reddish brown to dark purplish red.

words aren’t always pronounced the same way as other words. Like the rule for maroon is proven by comparing it to afternoon. But what about can? we say “can”, not “cahn”, but we say “cahn’t” not, “can’t”. If we were to say “can’t”, we’d be accused of americanising.
Anyway, here are the pictures:

I’m not actually crying. I don’t even know if my playstation is dead. But I sort of think it might be, because it thinks that it can’t read any discs that I put in there. I think it’s just not trying hard enough. You can do it little PS2!!! If you believe in yourself, you can do it!

So anyway, I was going to watch a movie but now I can’t, and I shall just have to sit here and be bored. Work today was good because I got to finish early (I still have to make the time up somehow) and also because I was doing the easy, repetitive task-based job today. It’s nice to have a break. Work was also bad because I had an argument with someone, which really just involved me going quiet and looking unimpressed until they went away. Good. Until Kirra came back from lunch, then I wasn’t so quiet. We had funny email wars today with Chris. I can’t remember what they were about, but they were funny.

We’ve got Penny’s engagement party tomorrow night and I still don’t know what I’m wearing, because if I go to Chris’s party afterwards (there’s every chance that I will) then everyone will probably be going out after that, so I need to wear something engagement-party-ish, but also going-out-in-the-valley-ish. I could go shopping tomorrow morning but I think I want to sleep in.

Rosie called me today and said, “I’ve got to catch the bus today from the transit centre, but I don’t know where that is!” and so I tried explaining it to her, but I could tell she didn’t get it. But she ended up finding out that the train that goes from our place, while not going straight to Roma Street, has a connecting line at Central and so she could get off at the transit centre and didn’t have to walk there after all. I couldn’t believe she didn’t know where the transit centre was, I mean, she’s caught the bus home before! Who doesn’t know where Roma St Station is? She’s got another two hours on the bus before she gets there (i think), so hopefully they play a good movie or something to keep her entertained.

This is going to be a stupid, stupid, boring and idiocy-filled. Just as a warning. Also, I can’t say much of any substance because Lauren is sitting beside me reading my screen every now and then. Your mom goes to college, GOSH!

Anyway. There are some things that I never thought about and had no idea would happen until now, when it’s actually in the moment and happening. Not real things, mind you, but thoughts running through my mind. Is this vague enough for you? Good. So, since there isn’t anything i can do about it I guess I just have to live through it. Then you can all wonder what I’m going on about and guess what? you’ll NEVER KNOW!!!! haha.

I am in Ireland, in a net cafe in Dublin (£1 an hour! WOOT!!!) and it’s freeezing outside but I’m refusing to wear my coat because I’m like extreem tuff like you can’t even imagine (in my own head, but my body doesn’t agree). Plus it takes to long to put on and take off again with all the bags I’m carrying and every single time we go into a place indoors it’s warm. Yaaaay. I think I have spent more money here than in any other country I have been to so far (perhaps not England, I think they might be on par at the moment becasue of the accumulative costs of being in England for so long). Dublin really is an expensive city. You’ll hear all about our cheap night on the town if you are in my list of favourite people (you know who you are. And also those people who my favourite people will forward my emails onto – you know who you are too. And I’m sorry I can’t email you directly but for reasons I’m not listing here I didn’t put everyone into the “To” field immediately when I sent my first group email and because that is the precedent, I’m being lazy and relying on whatever has been happening since that first one.) We really are being very enterprising tonight. And plus, Dubliner’s are extreeeeemely helpful and accommodating. and friendly. and funny.

Rosie, bub, I am totally about to send you an email. You know it. Here it goes….!

Things I didn’t know about the UK:

1. Light switches here are REALLY BIG. They’re like giant-land in Super Mario Bros.

2. It really is very cold here, but jeans ARE warm enough on their own – you don’t need to wear thermals under them . I might have to rethink this once we get to Europe though.

3. There are NO EMOS in London. I mean, it’s like the hugest city (please don’t correct me on this) and there are no emos! How can this be? Everyone just looks completely themselves, everyone’s wearing whatever. It’s awesome. Apart from the chavs. Girl chavs wear skin-tight ripped to shreds jeans, stiletto riding boots over the top, little boob-tubes or singlet tops with push-up bras, and tacky little boleros. I don’t know how they don’t freeze to death.

4. Everything is really old here. The houses, the office buildings, the pavers…

5. You never feel thirsty, or if you do you just feel like drinking tea, so it’s really easy to get dehydrated. And you don’t realise until you’ve got a mean headache.

6. Drinks come in pints, which are REALLY BIG.

7. They don’t have lemon lime bitters here. You have to ask for a lemonade with bitters and a slice of lime.

There are a few more but I have to go. No photos as yet because I haven’t had the chance to upload them. More later (maybe!!!!)