Pointless Fun

The Other Andrew had a little thing on his blog today about his Life Path Number. It's from a site called Blogthings. I went there, found out my Life Path Number is 6, but even better I found out my vampire name (Magdalena of the Far North), I have a 56% chance of being a millionaire, I’m only 67% Libran, when I always believed I was typical, I'm 25% fake 'cause I wax my eyebrows and if I were a flower I would be blue. The best, in light of my chronic high blood pressure problem is that I appear to only be 47% stressed!

Anyway…check it out, if only for a little time wasting.

You've Changed 64% in 10 Years

Compared to who you were ten years ago, you've changed a great deal. In fact, you're probably in a completely different phase of your life - and very happy about it!

How Much Have You Changed in 10 Years?

Pigeon and Friend

Yesterday at Uni, my poetry class homework was set for the week, we had to write a new poem for workshopping next Tuesday. On my way to my next class I saw a pile of pigeon poo at the bottom of a pillar. Looking up I saw a grey security camera and tucked in between it and the roof was a pigeon, safe and sound in the dark (one of the few dark places in the city) for the night. Straight away I wanted to write my poem about it. This is what I came up with today. As usual, feedback welcome about how yummy or crappy my poetry is!

Pigeon and Friend

Flying high
Grey streak above the cityscape
Safe in the sky
Looking down
Scavenging for food
Racing for life

Sitting high
A grey box on the cities walls
Watch for safety
Eyes observe
Looking for foul play
Strives to save life

Resting high
In harmony they sit as one
Bird and camera
No one sees
Nesting safe and sound
A life that’s safe

Beauty Abound

I travelled north over the weekend and stayed in one of the most mediocre hotels I have ever stayed in but the location made up for its decoration (see tap picture in previous entry)/facilities/heating failings.

Falls Forest Retreat was sitting in the bottom of a valley surrounded by mountains and natural bush land. So despite being awake at 0700 on a Sunday morning (I had no idea this time existed on a Sunday) I went for walk in the dew covered grounds in my open toed sandals. Here are a couple of the pictures I took…and they don’t come even close to showing how beautiful and tanquil it was.

My reason for being in Taree was an alpaca meeting, but that only took up six hours of my weekend, so I spent the rest of the weekend in the car mostly, driving. It's a long way to Taree, via Gloucester. I did however get the chance to take some super photos of alpacas and moo cows apart from purdy flowers at sunrise. It was a very visual weekend!

Drainage Solutions

Miss Eudoxia fixates on Loo Roll and Pegs...this weekend I discovered mine while staying in a hotel/motel.

What is the point of having a tap that pours the water directly down the drain?

$10 Question

It would appear that I gave my mobile number to someone whilst out last Friday night. The guy, I have met him before and both times I have found myself supremely un-attracted to him. Well, that may be a tad unfair, he’s dark with a pretty good body, only he’s foot nothing with heels on. Height is important to me, not sure why but I find looking up when talking to a potential boyfriend (I’m married, so it’s been a while, going on memory here ;-) is much more comforting than looking down.

Anyway back to the phone number. On Monday I received a text message from him saying (and I’m paraphrasing) ‘Good night on Friday, wanna catch up for a drink sometime.’ I didn’t respond immediately as I was to sick to think about anyone but myself and my cats who appreciate a good temperature to keep them warm. Today I replied with…’what do we need to catch on up on, exactly? Risotto’

He fired back within 10 minutes a response of ‘anything really’. Not phased at all by the strange, weird even, Risotto comment. If I had received a message like that I would have run for the hills and deleted the number from my phone, but he totally ignored it. Must be keen!

So the question is…should I go for a drink with my little Garden Gnome to find out if he has the secret to a good Risotto?

Not a Hangover

One of the nastiest bugs to cross my path in a long while has landed on my head. At first I thought it was a hangover, come to think of it, I think it snuck in, while I was hungover on Saturday after a rather fine evening on Friday with my mate Edna.

We went to Hellfire, dressed as school girls up for no good. Lollipops were sucked and champagne drunk. No dancing took place as Edna had worn shoes that her feet were not used to, so they looked something like the reddened arses on the St. Andrews Cross in the corner. We got chatted up by a lesbian, an Ozzy Osbourne look-alike, a short but rubber obsessed hunkie. Edna seemed to catch the eye of a very short Billy Idol impersonator. At three forty five am, we assisted each other home before passing out in our respective beds.

Saturday morning passed in a coma like state, before walking to the local ale house for a giant fry-up. I was feeling somewhat tender in the stomach and the head. Edna, being a few year younger seemed to be handling the effects of eth night before somewhat better.

I spent my evening on the couch, gathering no sympathy from my Hubby ‘it’s self inflicted’. Edna I was to learn later, spent it in the company of other friends, drinking hair of the dog.

On Sunday I woke feeling as bad if not worst than Saturday. I read a little, most of my Uni readings for the week. Truman Capote, really isn’t any better be read about as reading his book In Cold Blood. I know it’s supposed to be a master piece, but I find it wordy! Is that fact that I have just been listening to it in audiotape, showing in this blog entry at all?

Monday has come and gone with me in a state of complaining tummy and stuffed up head. Sleeping at the drop of a hat and waking groggy.

Today, Tuesday, I have had to blow off my Uni classes ‘cause I’m still feeling crabby and crap. My nose is running like a tap, my whole body aches, I’m having trouble focussing on anything for more than a moment and I still have the sh*ts…in more way than one.

I hope I feel better tomorrow, ‘cause I’ve got an job interview!

(396 words)

This morning

I'm feeling a bit better now I've got it off my chest!

In line with my studies, there my appear the odd blog entry in poem form. Hopefully it will make it just a little bit more interesting. Off course, if it get on yer tits, please tell me;-)

Breakdown

Today, I’m having feelings
of rejection, loss and hurt
I’m not quite sure of meanings
but I know I’m feeling sad

First, the poem reading
then, the meeting for a job
it’s a sucky feeling
That makes me feel so sad

I know I should be tougher
that it is all in my head,
I really must seem so fragile
but I want to go to bed

Forgot, I almost did
the prat that still insists
on spelling my name with an I
when E appears on lists!

These feelings, sad, they come and go
depending on the week
they’ll past by most un-noticed
‘til laughter, again does tweak.

Found in Translation

In the process of doing research for my Poetry homework, I was looking for sites that would do some translating for me. I need to translate a sentence (I have picked ‘the cat sat on the mat’ for consistency) and I stumbled across Geordie.org.uk.

What fun! ‘I'm having a great time’ becomes ‘Ahm having a geet time’

The cat just turns into a moggy ;-)

Btw. I still looking for translations (with the verb sat, highlighted) in Sanscrit, Farsi, Japanese and Chinese if you can help.

The Results are in

Out of 53,669 finishers I was 51785 at 205 minutes.

City2Surf

My Sunday mornings in bed are precious to me. However, like many slightly odd Sydneysiders, I got up yesterday and made my way to Hyde Park in preparation of walking the annual run/walk from the end of William Street to Bondi Beach, via Vaucluse. Trust me when I tell you, that this is not the most direct route!

We started walking at 9.45, having been hanging around in the park since 8am. We didn’t even get a little red baseball cap to wear to keep our heads warm, but lots of pictures were taken though of people doing warm up stretches and generally prancing about.

It wasn’t the hardest walk I’ve done (that would to the 26 miles of RMP March in 1997) but I felt it. I felt it in my hips going down the hills, I felt it in my feet from checkpoint 11 and I felt it in my bum bone when I finally crossed the finish line 3 hours and fifteen minutes after starting! I even got a little medal, I was dead chuffed.

Fun was had during the walk and after, courtesy of the six bottles of bubbles drunk by Edna, hubby and myself in the SwissGrand hotel while waiting for the hoards to disappear so we could travel home.

And inline with doing Poetry at Uni I even wrote a little ditty.
Feedback (as always) appreciated.
(390 words)

Ode to the City2 Surf

I would like to make a case
As to why exercise is bad for you

The other day, I walked
(a long way, I might add)
Into it, I had been talked
For all the fun that could be had

It started in the morning
With dew still on the ground
After waiting, and the sun soaring
The pavement we did pound

Along the street with thousands
Some weaving in and out
I set pace of charging fans
I’ve never been a lout

Heartbreak hill made me puff
My hips protested some
Not one to give up in a huff
I never dreamt to run

Down the other side I went
The sun rays hit my back
The sun block I’d been lent
I missed spots, as is my knack

Liquid was given along the way
Lots plastics laying
Later my feet were to pay
For all the water spraying

My buggered hip did start to groan
After checkpoint ten
Made from plates, bolts of chrome
Home, I did wonder when?

The finish line I did cross
With blisters and much pain
My Sunday morning lost to me
And thoughts of being sane!

Long Meeting

I’ve been in a meeting all day today. But, to be fair it was a special one. It was a meeting full of VP’s, Directors and me, currently a humble ‘low’ level instructional designer. The eight people present included the lady from ‘Those that can’t do, Manage. (from here onward referred to as Idaho)

All morning I listened to get a feel for why I was there, by lunch time I knew why I was there, supposedly it was to give advice and suggestions on how to write and deliver training. However, the Director of Training was also there and seemed to get an awful lot of credit for things he said that seemed to me to simply be versions of what I said twenty minutes earlier, only reworded from the Buzz Word Bingo sheet.

Anyway…at lunch I was standing in the queue for free lunch, when the plate containing hot food was uncovered. The guy directly behind me (who turns out to be the director of something important) says ‘Oh, hot stuff’.

Forgetting where I was and having lost the will to live, I immediately fired ‘Why, thank you very much!’

The room went silent.

Before the target of my comment started laughing one of the heartiness laughs I have heard in a very long time, followed rapidly with the rest of the room.

The downside of this, Idaho, spent the rest of the day sending daggers my way when I spoke. I resisted the urge to tell her what I was truly feeling, and resolve to return for part two of the meeting tomorrow with the silent knowledge I made an impression on people much more important than her. (You’ve gotta have something!)

(281 words)

The Light Bulb!

I may or not be right, but I get the feeling that the title of the poem gives you a clue as to what it is about. The actual poem expands the theme further with flowery langauge and metaphors. So here's a little attempt I had tonight.

I've called it Australia Post (late note 11-8-06, after some feedback, the Title of this piece is now 'Mail')

my rectangle of feelings and devotion
scribed with haste and fervour,
slides into
the mouth of loneliness,
the pillar of blazing fire
To be consumed
Now!
And again, later

(leave a comment please with feedback and what you think I'm talking about, ta :-)

Poetry - I just don't get it!

I’m doing a poetry class as part of my post-graduate studies. I know most of you would rather eat your own hair than do poetry, but I’ve always kind of enjoyed it in ignorance. I have read a bit of e.e.cummings, Robert Frost and I’ve even given Beowulf and Dante’s Inferno a go, among others. I enjoy them and have never felt a need to analyse or examine the form, because quite frankly I never understood how some of it can be called ‘poetry’.

I’ve also had a go at writing a stanza or two. One I remember clearly (and I now know was sh*t, I still have it somewhere) was a little number about a man called Jock who drank a bottle of Hock while looking at a hole in his sock. I was eight and writing by fading light ‘cause I’d been sent to bed early for some forgotten misdemeanour. Further attempts have been laughed at (not ‘cause they are funny) and generally ridiculed by all and sundry.

So…when given an opportunity to study ‘Writing Poetry’ I jumped at the chance.
Well, two weeks in I still don’t get it. Worse still, I have to write 1500 words about a poet and his poetry, which has been published in the last 10 years by the 22nd August.

The problem, I don’t get it! There seems to be no rules to some of the stuff. I was reading a perfectly logical little number relating verbs to cooking lastnight (3 stanzas of 6 lines) when at the end was the seemingly throw away line, all on its own which said ‘the boiled egg curdles the bacon’. Or some such nonsense.

Somehow I have to find a way to write an intellectual essay about it this poem in two weeks. I’ll keep you posted on the progress.

(295 words)

Readie Meme

On Monday, The Other Andrew had put an entry called ‘The Bookish Meme’, this is my reply.

1. One book you have read more than once:
A few – but the one I’ve read a number of times is 101 Dalmatians. I just can’t get enough of the black and white haired baddie, Cruelly De Vil!

2. One book you would want on a desert island:
Cook your own coconut for Dummies or maybe a empty book so I could write the ultimate diary. After all, in the words of Oscar Wilde ‘One should always keep a diary as one should always have something scandalous to read.’

3. One book that made you laugh:
Fat Forty and Fired by Nigel Marsh, read it last year and loved it. In fact it could almost fit into the next question too, I laughed so much.

4. One book that made you cry:
The Bridges of Madison County by Robert James Waller. And that was even before I saw the film, that really made me cry. Other would include Harry Potter 6 The Half Blood Prince, Watership Down and In Cold Blood by Truman Capote (because I hated it and had to read it for Uni!)

5. One book you wish you had written:
Dracula by Bram Stoker. An enduring Classic, it may not have made as much money as Mr. Brown has, but it will be around a lot longer I think.

6. One book you wish had never been written:
Ohh.. do I have to just pick one… there are so many! (see question 4;-)

7. One book you are currently reading:
A couple of books as normal. I never have just one on the go.
How to Understand Poetry by Margaret Cutler-Stuart, The Journalist and the Murderer by Janet Malcolm and Erotic Tales by Alison Tyler. The first two are for Uni, the last one is all for me!

8. One book you have been meaning to read:
So much to read, so little time!
However, I have a lovely 1910 edition of Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy that I brought in a dusty old south Australian second hand bookshop for $20 a few years ago. I’m sure one day I’ll get to read it.

9. One Book That Changed Your Life:
Ken Hom’s Hot Wok, he taught me to cook Chinese food and the best wontons on the planet.

10. Now tag five people:
Five people would have to read my blog for that ;-)

If you want to play, leave a comment or a link to your blog with your answers. But most of all…have fun!

21st Century Girl

My hubby went to retrieve my USB key from my handbag the other day and when he came back he said, ‘You truly are a 21st Century girl!’

I asked him why and his reply was, ‘Well, I had to get past the PDA, the IPod, the digital camera, the mobile phone, the Mylanta and blood pressure pills!’.

(58 words)

Alpaca Pride

The Hubby and I spent our day on Saturday amongst the warm smells and humming sounds of alpacas. It was our regional Spring Show, yes I know it’s technically still winter, but some bright spark thought it would be good to move the venue two months out and we could only get this date. Better planning might be in order for next years show!

Anyway…I took three of our four animals to the show. It’s been a while since I pranced around the show ring struggling to keep an animal in-line and get it to walk the way it needs to for the judge to have a good look, but it brought back a few memories (the one other show I attended with Wispa) and some pain to my arse bone.

But I have good news today, in fact, FANbloodyTASTIC news, dear reader, between them they brought home FOUR ribbons. Alto was the first of my animals in the ring (Intermediate Male Grey/Roan) he came second and I was more than a little chuffed. Then, a little later Wispa, Alto’s mum got a turn in the Senior Female Grey/Roan class; she also came out with a red ribbon to hang on the wall. But our recent addition to the herd made me very proud. Between Alto and Wispa, Arabella (nicknamed Beckham because of her funky fringe) strutted her stuff in the Mature Female Grey/Roan class and came out with not only a blue first ribbon, but a Green Reserve Class Champion ribbon too.

So today, I feel really good, if a little sore, but quite frankly the celebratory drinks last night have that covered!

(274 words)

Alto - waiting in the line up before winning a red ribbon for second in the class

Arabella 'Beckham' wins first in her class and class reserve champion

Wispa wait patiently while the Judge shakes my hand after rewarding her a red second in class ribbon

Those that can’t do…manage!

I currently work as a contract instructional designer for a very large world wide charge card company. I’ve been here on and off since October last year, they like my work so much, they keep asking me back. So when the team leader told me she was leaving and that I should apply for her job I gave it thought. When her manager came to me and told me that she would like me to apply for her job, I gave it a little more thought, then did.

I figured after 10 years of contracting a little stability would do me some good and to top it off I actually quite like doing this job a lot more than project management.

So, I applied, as requested. That was 6 weeks ago.

Until today I had heard no more about it until sitting in the team meeting, with all my colleagues and the new Director of Training and the Director who asked me to apply when she announced that from the many resume/cv’s received, they are currently interviewing ‘external’ candidates (I’m classed as external, ‘cause I’m a scum-bag-contractor) and that next week they will start interviewing Internal candidates.

Why to tell me I hadn’t been selected, even though you asked me to apply!

I think I held it together quite well, although Edna did inform me (she was sitting next to me in the meeting) that I lost a little colour. The Director though was worse by all accounts, the instant she started speaking she realised she’d fucked up, but rather than cutting it short she continued to explain more details.

The longer I contract, the more the title of this entry proves itself to be true.

Not being a smoker, I immediately consoled myself with a whole bag of Naturals Jungle Animals and a Boost juice.

(306 words)

Sushi and Leaning

I love Sushi, I may have mentioned this before, I may not have, but I love the stuff! I could quite happily sit with one of those little conveyor belts going past me for breakfast, lunch and tea.

Roe Boat, Seaweed ship, raw salmon on rice, raw salmon and tuna, gyoza, miso soup and a cuddly toy.

I was having lunch today at an establishment, the aptly named ‘Sushi Train’ which is very close to were I work, it was full as it always is at lunch time, when the one thing that disturbs me about sitting at a jam packed sushi bar happened.

The man (tall, dark and grubby with a touch of body odour) to my left reached his arm across my placemat, shouldered me out the way and grabbed for the Wasabi.

It’s a god-damn moving belt, it moving towards you. Wait for it to get to you!

Now…I know this comes down to manners again and I know I keep going on about them, but I figure it’s may be because I put a higher value on them than others seem too. To me it seems rude to lean over a stranger whilst they sit and eat. I was taught never to even do that to someone I know, so why do people feel the need to do so when in the company of strangers. Maybe it’s because they know the chances of ever seeing the person they offend again are slim to none.

Anyway…I’ve had one of the day were I feel the need to go home and go to bed, because surely it cannot get any worse.

(273 words)

Edna demonstates a finer example of Sushi selection!

Boredom

I believe that as you grow older you should be able to occupy your own time and stop bugging others.

I can quite honestly say that the only time I have ever been bored is when I’m at work. Maybe there has been one or two occasion were I’ve been bored at home. At work, you may have quite times between projects, but it would be inappropriate to whip out the embroidery or other such crafty past-time. Now, that I have writing in my hobby bag, boredom happens much less, even at work.

My hubby is less able to stop time passing at a crawl. He watches telly, plays his computer (be it, game or generally) and … well really that’s it!

If I ask him ‘how ‘ya going?’ He will reply that he is OK, only to announce a little time later that he is bored! Over the years we have had the ‘Get a hobby’ conversation a few times. He’s tried drawing (he wrote his name in the front of the drawing book I brought him), reading (he can only read before sleep, NEVER during the day), gardening (he pruned things until they died, so I had to stop that), playing the guitar (I got him a ‘teach yourself guitar’ book and tape, he wouldn’t go to lessons), remote control boat (the battery died) and puzzles, the jigsaw and mental book type, he got bored.

Help me please, I’m running out of ideas, have you folks got any ideas for hobbies for an unmotivated, prone to boredom male.

(259 words)