The Lovers, the Dreamers, and Me

Ahh 21st century, how I missed you!

2011-01-14T12:16:54Z

I am back after 7 or 8 months without internet at home. I have been surviving with basic internet access at work (edumail, banking, news) and making a weekly visit to my parents.

To make a long story short: when I moved in 18 months ago I was told that repeatedly that ADSL was not available here. I went through 3 unsatisfying suppliers of mobile wireless that crawled, only allowed 4 gigs a month and didn't shape. My house is in a blackhole for mobile reception and it got to the point where I had no reception at all for my wireless. After arguing with 3 for about 4 months (during which they continued to charge me for a service I wasn't receiving) I was finally released from my contract. My father has helped set up naked ADSL and voip and now I have 150 gigs a month!

I can't wait to hit youtube again...

She'll never be a showdog

2010-07-20T11:05:49Z

Phoebe, as long suspected, is a freak.

I took her to the vet for a major service a few weeks ago (manky ears, itchy rash) and had them look at a strange lump on her ribcage. I had noticed it about a month prior because it was bleeding. It didn't seem to bother her too much. They took a biopsy (she didn't like that at all) and couldn't really see anything except inflammation. They wondered if it would reveal itself to be a wart once the inflammation went down and she was given a shot of steroids.

She presents her belly to me on the couch and I give her a tickle. I start counting nipples. The lowest pair, then the next higher pair, then I find one half covered by fur below her rib cage. I look for its partner and.... nothing. I remember her mystery lump and check it out in its less inflammed state. Bingo.

Meet my favourite Youtube family

2010-06-29T04:41:27Z

The Colbert Kid..

...who was then shown on The Colbert Report.

His little sister sings They Might Be Giants songs:

Be still, my beating ovaries.

My favorite color is fluorescent beige

2010-06-28T07:56:55Z

I just finished watching Precious. It was a good watch, although you can hardly call it enjoyable. I bought the book about 2 months ago and it has already become one of my favourite reads. I will sit in the bath reading, reading, reading until the water gets cold.

The subject matter is bleak but I find the novel uplifting. The movie doesn't quite capture that. As a teacher, I love Precious' joy for learning and pride in her progress. I love the little touches of improved spelling and grammar in the narrative as Precious herself is learning. I love how her love for Abdul is so evident in the book and is such a driving force.

Precious is such an introverted character that it really needed the first-person narrative. I know narration in film is often considered to be lazy but I think it needed more voice-over. The book Precious is driven by self-determination and love for her son. After leaving Mary her mother isn't much of a factor. Education and hope are what propells Precious forward. In the novel Mary still seems to be holding Precious captive and there needs to be the final revelation in Ms Weiss' office to release Precious.

The book Precious is already free, and the story is about her realising that.

It's the most wonderful time of the year

2009-09-26T07:51:10Z

Christmas decorations are appearing in stores! I know most people find it annoying how early in the year the shops start stocking Christmas stuff, but it is the time I feel most Christmassy. I always peak too soon. I love Christmas in September/October and wish I could put up the tree and that the TV channels would start showing the Christmas movies. By mid December I am just kind of over it all. I can't be stuffed decorating, I realise I have some last minute shopping to do and don't want to fight the crowds, and it dawns on me that I will soon be seeing my extended family again (it's not that they are bad people, I just resent having to act like we are family when we see them once a year. I see my dentist as often as I see my cousins.)

Maybe this year will be different. I have my own house now which means I can get a real tree (no more crappy fake ones). I can start my own traditions, like my Ugly Ornament Scavenger Hunt.

I started it 2 years ago, but for some reason I can't find my first winner, so maybe I should call this the second annual Ugly Ornament Scavenger Hunt (or Ugly Ornament 2: Electric Fugaloo). Last year's most ugly is still at my parents' house. I'll pick it up next visit and post a picture. It truly is a site to behold.

It kind of speaks for itself, but with a few provisions:

It must be unknowingly ugly (someone somewhere must have thought it was a good idea)
It can't just be a standard ornament in non-traditional colours (today I saw an all-black tree: black plastic fir, black tinsel, all black baubles. Ugly by my taste, but not ugly enough for the sake of this Ugly Hunt).
It must be tangibly Christmassy (ie. Not just any old thing with a loop of ribbon around it, like 80% of the stuff I saw today. Little high heel ornaments, little Dora the Explorer ornaments (at least stick a santa hat on her head or shove a candy cane in her hand!), etc). Unfortunately that rules out something awesomely awful I saw today: a little Hawaiian shirt ornament. Not even Christmas colours: orange and green Hawaiian shirt to hang on your tree.

That narrows it down quite a bit, but there are quite a few gems out there. If anyone on my flist wants to join in, we can make a competition of it. Now that I have a credit card (how long will it take for the power to corrupt me?) I can buy paid accounts/more userpics/some other goodie for the winner.

I didn't manage to pick up my winning ugly today ( I usually prefer to wait and survey my options before settling on the ugliest of the ugly). I did pick up some non-ugly stuff in anticipation of hosting my first ever Christmas. I am dealing with some job uncertainty (more on that later) so I think I will try to spread out the Christmas ornament shopping otherwise my tree will be very bare and my first Christmas here will be quite colourless.

Today I picked up: (my camera has decided to crap out on me)

A novelty jumbo santa pen. It's quite goofy looking but I find comically oversized things so...comical. I look forward to nonchalantly whipping it out to write a note at school and my students will be all "um...what's with the pen?" Tee hee.
Little 'holly' thingies. I'm not entirely sure what their purpose is. They are little plastic sprigs of holly on little stick things. I don't really know what was going through my head when I got them other than "hey that's my name! And they're only $2!" I think I had vague ideas about how my friend went to Europe and took little Aussie flag tooth picks and stuck them in things to 'claim' them for Australia, except I could claim things for me. ALL FOR ME.
A '12 Days of Christmas' bauble set. I think they are just plastic rather than glass. (The box doesn't say, although it does have "For decoration only" on the bottom. No shit, Sherlock. What else would I use them for? Oversized anal beads?) Each bauble has a little illustration of one of the lines of 12 days of Christmas. I like the idea of having some kind of base set of decorations. I could have these for years and I'll always be able to say I had them for my first independent Christmas, and maybe the 'Pipers piping' one might get lost somewhere along the way and Holly Jr might break the 'Geese a-laying' on her second Christmas and it will all become part of the family mythology.

*Sigh* In September, I still just love Christmas like I was five again.

Posting pictures of my cats on the internet, could I be anymore cliche?

2009-07-25T12:09:18Z

Elly May and Bob Dylan

The nation flips a coin

2007-10-28T03:03:39Z

The election is creeping up and I have been surprised by how little campaign advertisements I have seen. It might be because I don't watch much in the way of television anymore or it might be because Howard knows he is as doomed as a virgin on a date with Tommy Lee to not really care about ponying up the dough. My predictions are more optimistic than nomnivore's: Labor will win the federal election, but I do think state Labor will lose the next Victorian election. Brumby just doesn't impress many people, and while I would never vote Liberal unless Voldemort himself was on the ballot for Labor (although I think Voldy would run under a One Nation ticket), I think many of the less devoted Labor voters could switch. There also tends to me a lot of pressure for a change for the sake of a change. I think a big part of Howard's diminishing polls is just people wanting to give someone else a go, and the same factor could easily come into play at a state level. My only hope for the coming federal election is that Howard makes such an arse of himself (preferably with a pissy concession speech) that it ends up on the Daily Show!

We are having our traditional big Sunday meal and my father is making Orange Semolina Cake. His recipe has cornflour, and I can't stand touching a bag of cornflour. It has this strange feeling, similar to cotton wool, when it is compressed. There is this horrible friction that is to me as distressing as fingernails on a chalkboard. Someone really needs to invent a verb for the horrible squishyness of cornflour/cotton wool so that I can actually express it to someone without looking like a loon.

Random things currently contemplated

2007-09-28T13:11:31Z

Toilet training Harry doesn't seem be going anywhere. Today I was walking around the house in my socks (odd socks, because Harry eats all my socks and I can't seem to find a pair anywhere) and I stepped in a puddle of pale piss that was indistinguishable from the white porcelain tiles in the dining room. Only when I lifted my foot to inspect the damage could I see the tinge of yellow. I stepped in another puddle as I made my way to the paper towel and disinfectant. Having two disgusting smelly feet took me back to my days of working at the kennels. We would wear gumboots for the pressure washing but we needed to rush around all day and runners were the best bet to avoid constant slipping. By the end of the day all kinds of disgusting liquids seeped through my shoes. I only wore certain socks for work to avoid ruining good pairs and I threw out the runners every few months. My feet were in horrible shape. I swear I had something akin to jungle rot. My skin was practically yellow.

I made bread for the first time today. I was very proud of myself and I think I shall make it a habit. Although I have not done any calculations, I get the feeling that it is not cost-effective to make your own basic loaves of white or wholewheat bread as they can be bought so inexpensively, but I think specialty breads such as pull-aparts are probably cheaper to make. I made 3 cheese, bacon and onion french roll thingies for probably about $2.50 each. Mostly I just enjoy the kneading the smell of bread so I think I will make it a bit of a habit even if it costs a little more.

A little overcooked, but not bad for a first try.

While I walked back to my car after going into the office to change rosters, I had a sudden thought that played out like a little film clip. It was as if it was a government advertisement that was anti-contraception. A man takes out a package of condoms and finds each condom coloured either pink or blue and with a child's name on it. A woman takes out a packet of contraceptive pills and finds the same thing. This thought was not preceeded with thoughts of all the government advertising on at the moments and a "what will they think of next?" pondering, it just came out of nowhere as I thought about a client with a bowel instruction. Maybe my subconscious has a taste for foreboding.

(I actually had to just look up foreboding as I had the urge to type forbodance but was sure it was not an actual word. Turns out forboding is both a noun and a verb. My grammar is not perfect despite the fact I will almost certainly be a qualified teacher in a little over a year. I only hope to show my students that I don't know it all and that when I encounter a barrier I try to find out more rather than accept defeat and limitations.)

I am currently reading Nickel and Dimed and it makes for fascinating but depressing reading. The author travelled to various American cities where she attempted to live the life of the working poor. She exposes the miserable and exhausting conditions that so many endure: needing a minimum of two jobs 7 days a week just to live in a crappy motel, not being able to lose a day of work even with a broken ankle, having managers control every minute of their day. Some workplaces don't allow bathroom breaks or drinking and eating over an 8 hour shift (although I suppose if you couldn't pee for 8 hours you probably wouldn't want to risk drinking anything). I like to think things are a little better here. Our award wages are more reasonable ('tipping' jobs in America such as waitressing are only required to pay a little over $2 an hour!) and it seems that welfare is easier to receive and parents especially don't seem to be forced back into the workforce (that I am aware of, if anyone knows otherwise I'd be interested to learn more).

When someone works for less pay than she can live on ... she has made a great sacrifice for you ... The "working poor" ... are in fact the major philanthropists of our society. They neglect their own children so that the children of others will be cared for; they live in substandard housing so that other homes will be shiny and perfect; they endure privation so that inflation will be low and stock prices high. To be a member of the working poor is to be an anonymous donor, a nameless benefactor, to everyone else.

Xmas is fast approaching (man this year is zooming by) and I am thinking about gifts. My father is easy to buy for: he nominates some new, previously unmentioned hobby. We all buy him something related to the new interest. It is never used and then next Xmas or birthday he has a new hobby he has yet to embark on. My mother is a little trickier. She says "surprise me" which seems to mean "prove how much you know and love me by picking a perfect gift without any hints at all". My sister usually compensates by spending a huge amount of money on some kind of luxury item. This year I have the thought to give my mother I.O.U.s for household tasks my mother hates: cooking (which she does every night even though she works just as much as Dad and hates cooking) and cleaning (which she does herself every week even though it was a joint decision to fire the latest housekeeper). I think she might enjoy this as it would allow her more time to herself. My concern is that it may appear I am just giving this gift to be cheap and not because I think it is something that she would value. On the other hand, my family is getting more and more extravagant with gift-giving and I want to slow the pace a little. When my sister told me she couldn't find any bookstores that sold the Postsecret book I had asked for for my birthday, I told her to just give me a card and no gift. She was horrified.

My vegetable garden is a week and a half old and is surviving, but not thriving. I don't think my Cos lettuce will make it. It was trampled one too many times by New Puppy before a fence was put up. A couple of the tomato plants look puny. I think part of the problem is a lack of good sun over the past week. I am still daydreaming of a successful Summer harvest

Obligatory puppy picture:

boodilly @ 2007-09-22T13:51:00

2007-09-22T03:51:37Z

Puppy is all better. I feel like ass. I had a cold about a week ago and had three days off work and now I have something similar and just as irritating. I slept for 14 hours last night. I'm not sure if I coughed up blood or if I had blood in my throat from an earlier nose bleed (caused by rapid sneezing). Eugh. I feel like a zombie.

boodilly @ 2007-09-20T13:19:00

2007-09-20T03:19:37Z

Harry is doing okay. He still has diarrhea but it looks less worrysome. When he began it was horrible murky brown water so dark that I couldn't even tell if it had any blood in it (big warning sign for parvo). Yesterday he actually had some firm stools during the day, which to me suggests it isn't a virus like parvo or gastro. In the evening he had diarrhea again. This time it did not have mucus and it looked a lot like baby poop- opaque yellowy brown liquid. Mum and I decided that we would put him on liquids only today to give his guts a rest and we threw out all his puppy milk in case that was the culprit (he cried as he watched me- I think his level of understanding was that I took the milk out of the fridge and then it didn't end up in his bowl. Tragedy). I am undecided as to whether to buy him more milk. He loves the stuff, and right now we want him to have as much fluids as possible. Yesterday he was trying to nurse from Chloe, I suspect just for the comfort of it. He has been fine on puppy milk until now, so if the puppy milk caused the problem then I reckon it was just going bad and he doesn't have a sensitivity to puppy milk in general. We have him on watered down pumpkin soup today and I'm going to buy some broth and some flavourless Gastrolyte (suggested by the vet).
He is cheerful and active, harrassing Chloe continuously. He is a big barker, which is a departure from Chloe who was always very quiet until the past year or so when she barks sometimes at people passing by.

I had a nice birthday. I got a new motherboard (I'm going to get a droolworthy quad core CPU) and my sister gave me the PostSecret book. We had pizza, cake and lemonade. Fine cuisine in my books. Thankyou to sonneta, aphephobia, and nomnivore for birthday wishes.

Procrastination #234577997 / How many hands is it, please?

2007-05-06T05:59:32Z

Rather than preparing for tomorrow (which I will begin soon, I swear), I have been contemplating a sims family in which every child has a name of a keyboard symbol. So far my names list is:

Tilda

Solidus

Apostrophe

Asterisk

Dash

Ellipses

Ampersand

Hash

Hyphen

Bracket

Interrobang

Best French & Saunders video:

boodilly @ 2007-04-15T21:52:00

2007-04-15T11:52:13Z

Why do I get the feeling Australia gets ripped off when it comes to DVDs? I've been ebaying to expand my documentary collection, and so many searches will come back with international auctions with the films available for AU$10, AU$15, and $AU20 (including postage and after conversion), and yet to buy within Australia you are looking at AU$35-$40, even before adding postage.

It is inspiring me to finally get organised with a PayPal account so I can get involved in the international auctions.

boodilly @ 2007-02-07T22:17:00

2007-02-07T11:17:59Z

I got one wrong. I'll bet it was the one about US capital cities. Stupid cultural bias.

boodilly @ 2006-12-07T17:05:00

2006-12-07T06:05:28Z

While writing my last post, I googled 'capitalisation' and 'west' as I can never remember when and where to capitalise the directions. (Turns out you only capitalise when referring to regions. ie Eastern medicine, Western world, Northern bastard). Doing this, I stumbled across this article about educational ideology in US schools after the 9/11 attacks. As a wannabe (and hopefully future) teacher, I was intrigued. Apparently there was some controversy surrounding the curriculum taught for social studies as it explicitly stated to avoid blaming the terrorists and to try to understand the criticisms leveled against US foreign policy. I can understand why this was met was anger. It was (and still is) a touchy time after the attacks and jingoism was all the rage. No one wanted to hear any implication that America brought it upon themselves.
If I become a teacher, I will try to teach my students the difference between empathy and sympathy. I will try to show them that we can strive to understand a person's position and identify with their struggles while still condemning their actions.

AC, baby!

2006-12-07T05:52:43Z

Woot, I have air-conditioning!
Kind of.

I was so sick of dreading every summer because my room faces the west and I can never sleep well at night, so I purchased a 11 litre Portable Evaporative Cooler and Heater.

So far me likey.

Uni Results

2006-11-29T09:32:57Z

I took five units this semester, which was a cause for mild alarm as I have been known to neglect my studies when I had only 4 units. It all ended up alright. Two high distinctions, two distinctions. The fifth unit was a pass or fail only unit, and involved all the official business of teaching rounds, lesson planning, and lesson analysis. I passed that.
Both semesters next year will have 5 units. I had more semester one classes to complete than would fit into a normal schedule, so that is why I added one on there. For the second semester, I figured I could try to keep up the workload and then have an easier time in my final year with a lighter than average load.

It's nice to be here right now. I know exactly where I am and exactly where I am going. I haven't been able to say that since high school.

boodilly @ 2006-11-18T19:03:00

2006-11-18T08:02:25Z

I was reading something about homosexuality in animals, and it got me thinking. Could there be an evolutionary advantage to being bisexual? Think about it, men have prostate glands that are stimulated pleasurably by anal sex (not really sure what women are meant to get out of anal sex, not having prostates, but let's forget that for the moment). Few things in nature are mistakes, and for men to have prostates that are capable of being stimulated in such a way, this must have been passed down through natural selection. Early men with such glands must have also had heterosexual intercourse to produce children, and so the joys of butt sex was spread throughout the species.
I guess we are not all that different from Bonobos, and we probably used sex with both genders to keep the peace and encourage groups to live together to combine forces to raise offspring.

boodilly @ 2006-10-03T17:45:00

2006-10-03T07:45:48Z

I have my singing test (worth 40% of my grade) in a little over an hour, so rather than get dressed and practice, I decided to post about my sims. I have a new favourite family, the Pleasants (the mother in the family is great-great-granddaughter to Maxis-made Daniel Pleasant).
Lucy Pleasant was one half of my first ever set of completely identical twins. Here she is with her sister Avery, I can't remember which is which.

After ther twins had grown up, they both moved in with a gentleman called Draco Malfoy. I had noticed I had far too many females, so Draco had a series of women living with him, usually about 5 at a time. I gave him a free-will bed which allowed them to choose to have children on their own, and then left them mostly to their own devices. Draco seemed to have sinister semen, as his women folk would perish within about 5 hours of pregnancy, despite having a luxury house and several servents serving meals regularly. Draco caused 8 pregnancies, and 7 of them ended in the death of the mother within the first day. Avery had been a family sim, and she was one of them. Lucy was more practical, a romance sim. She didn't want kids, so she never chose to try for a baby, preferring the low risk 'woo-hoo' instead.

She survived about 15 days in the house, until the demise of Draco.

She then moved out on her own, but only had $3000 to her name. She bought a small block of land, and took out a $20K loan to build a modest house. She had a successful date with neighbourhood Casanova Don Lothario, which resulted in an unwanted pregnancy. However, this did benefit her somewhat. I have a child support mod in my game, so she now was receiving payments from Don which paid her bills and serviced her loan. After her son Dominic was born, she romanced her male maid, Remington, which resulted in another boy, Lewis. She then paid the local friendly neighbourhood gypsy $18, which got her a date with an extermination called Robi Charvat, which resulted in another son, Frank. Her next blind date set her back only $4, but resulted in her first daughter, Charlotte, fathered by another exterminator, Jessie Day.

She now had many support payments coming in, and her loan was almost paid off. I have decided that there needs to be a collective noun for a group of babydaddies, and I declare it to be a stipend of babydaddies.

Here they are shown here, playing with Robi's son Frank. From left: Frank, Don (Dominic's father), Remington (Lewis's father), Robi (Frank's father), and Jessie is holding his daughter Charlotte.

The attractiveness of the babydaddies decreased with each subsequent pregnancy. Jessie is hideous, but luckily did not pass on his smooshed nose to Charlotte.

[meh, I better get ready for the test, will continue this post later]

[Am back, test is over, thank god. It went okay...wasn't brilliant by any measure.]

Now where was I?

Dominic grew up to be somewhat geeky cute. Throughout his childhood, he was obsessed with purchasing things, probably due to the fact he owned no toys and shared a bed with his brother Lewis. I let him be a fortune sim.

Lewis grew into a kind of dorky teenager. With his attempted Fonzie look, I let him be a romance sim, like his mother. However at this point he has yet to even flirt with a girl (or guy, I better keep his options open). Dominic, on the other hand... I turned my back on him for just a few minutes and he was autonomously woohooing with the neighbour girl, Delilah. I hadn't realised I had teen woohoo enabled on his mother's autonomous bed. Oops. It's quite disturbing, really. The transition from child to teen is very sudden. One day they are blowing bubbles and playing with their dollhouse and then later that same day (past 6 pm) they are shagging at will! There should really be a preteen stage. They can be whiney and moody and steal their older sister's makeup and sing bland pop tunes.

This is Frank. He is somewhat unloved. He is the only child with a negative relationship with his father (due to catching him in bed with fellow babydaddy Jessie Day, during one of their custodial visits), and he isn't close to any of his siblings. He doesn't seem to be very bright. Whenever he needs something: sleep, shower, toilet, etc; he doesn't do it himself, he just whines and implores me, his God, to direct him. (That's Lucy with him, Charlotte was a late-in-life baby so Lucy became an elder the day after her birth).

Charlotte got off easy considering how much of an ugmo her father is. Considering her outfit, I tried giving her goth makeup but it just didn't suit her. Maybe when she's a teen I will let her release her inner emo. She has only just become a child so I haven't seen much of her personality yet.

Lewis and Dominic have developed a rather disturbing habit of lying naked together on their mother's bed. Get off that bed boys, your mother needs it for when visitors stop by!

So where to now for the Pleasants? Well, usually this is point in the game where I get bored and switch families, but I like these guys for some reason. Maybe I'll let Lewis bulk up and woo (and woohoo) the neighbourhood girls. Maybe I will ship the kids off to live with one of the babydaddies before Lucy shuffles off the mortal coil.

But for now I think I will get souvlaki to celebrate the survival of an incident of public singing!

Last day of 21

2006-09-18T01:28:44Z

I've noticed that I often use my livejournal as a place to vent or express anxiety due to some unpleasant event, and then I rarely write after the situation has been resolved. It doesn't really create a flow, especially for myself when I try to read over my past.
My most recent stress had to do with my teaching practicum, which finished over a week ago. It actually turned out quite well. I started to become firmer with the kids, and slowly gained a bit of respect. I made the really bratty girl cry, and I am far too proud of that fact. I got a very good assessment, both from the supervising teacher and the university assessor. I actually am missing the kids. They made it clear I can visit whenever I want, so I might go back after the primary school holidays (a fortnight from now).

I've been dealing with a horrible cold for the past week, no doubt given to me by the preps. It's hard to sleep through constant dry coughing and green phlegm that threatens to completely seal off my oesophagus. I also have the most painful pimple ever, in the crease next to my nose. This zit could star in its own campy Japanese horror movie, I swear to god.

It's my 22nd birthday tomorrow. Scary. 22 sounds so very much old.

My computer keeps wigging out. Explorer.exe starts sucking up 100% of the cpu and then I just have to shut it down. I'm hoping it is a windows corruption rather than a hardware issue. I can't afford to spring for a new cpu right now, especially since my car is begging me for its long overdue service, and I'm sure I'm looking at about a grand of repairs.

Next week is a study week, so I don't have any university classes. It is meant to be a mid-semester break, but in reality it is far past the midway point. In the week following, I have my practical music test (singing and playing instruments all on my own!), then I have most of my major assignments due the week after, and then exams the next week. It's serious business for here on in.

Shit, I better get studying.

boodilly @ 2006-08-18T18:21:00

2006-08-18T08:21:40Z

I just had to force Chloe to come back inside because she was standing in the rain staring out into space. She always has loved being dried with a towel. I guess it's the doggy equivalent of a full body massage. But this time she was shaking and holding her tail between her legs. You would have thought I had just given her a thorough beating with a 2x4. I gave up and now she is half-wet in the corner of my room, lying on a pile of DVD cases and staring into the wall.

She's slowly becoming a dog I don't recognise.

Nothing will happen soon. I'm holding out hope that she is just pining for my parents, even though she was already like this before they had left. I think we'll probably let her make it to 11 (early November), but too long after that probably isn't fair on her. She is clearly miserable.

The bloodwork and urine came back pretty good. There is some inflammation in the kidneys that she is now on medication for. The dementia is really the bigger issue, and that isn't so easily dealt with.

On a more cheerful note, I had a successful case study presentation today and submitted two assignments. I have a 2000 word essay due on Monday (350 words done), and on Monday I also commence my three week practicum. I'll make a list of all the cruel names which are afflicted upon my five and six year olds. To prepare yourself, just imagine that Britney and Kevin had nineteen children and they let loose with their kre8tive juices.

boodilly @ 2006-08-15T21:05:00

2006-08-15T11:05:25Z

Right now I am procrastinating working on a case study for child development. I find it far too intimidating, especially since it requires a presentation and full report (both due Friday).
Tonight I took the pooch to the vet. Awhile ago I thought she was drinking and urinating more frequently, but I had thought I was being paranoid. Tonight she was very strange, shaking violently and cowering from me. The vet took some blood and gave us a speciman jar to get a urine sample at home. They want to rule out diabetes, Cushing's disease and kidney disease, but they highly suspect she has doggy dementia.

Everytime something happens with Chloe, I declare it is the beginning of the end. But then I get used to it, and I go back to thinking she will be here forever. She seems reasonably happy. About 80% of the time she is just quiet and sleepy, and then 10% of the time she is bubbly and outgoing. That other 10%, when she is bewildered and disorientated, is what concerns me. How far do we let it go? What if she is fine 75% of the time, is that acceptable? Is 50% happiness/ 50% unhappiness unfair on her?

We should get the bloodwork results tomorrow, and hopefully I can get the urine sample and drop it in before work, and they can run that quickly too. I'm trying not to worry.

And that little yodel I mentioned? It was the ipod! I had accidentally set the alarm somehow. Mystery solved!
Now if only I could work out who keeps eating my newspaper. (I suspect Elly May)

boodilly @ 2006-08-06T00:02:00

2006-08-05T14:02:04Z

There is something in my room that does a little yodel at the stroke of midnight. I have no idea what it is, and where it is. I now know it isn't the phone, because it is uncharged right now.

Maybe this is just a sign I should clean my room.

Australian Culture: An Oxymoron?

2006-08-01T10:21:35Z

Someone once told me that culture is everything that we do that we need not do. We need to eat, so eating in itself does not constitute culture. What we eat, where we eat it, how we cook it, how we present it, the rituals and ceremonies involved in sharing a meal with others; these are factors that make up culture. The same goes for how we shelter ourselves, how we raise kids, the rules and customs we create for ourselves revolving around sex and reproduction, and of course everything involved in entertaining ourselves and creating a community.

In my SOSE class, culture was simply defined as "the way we live". As small groups, we were given a task of making a poster depicting Australian culture. The end result was unilaterally a Steve Irwin-like character, complete with swagman's hat or akubra, beer, BBQ, Australian Rules Football, cattle dog, jar of Vegemite and rusty old Ute. The tutor was quick to point out that we had all presented the stereotype of Australians, and rhetorically asked us if we actually knew anyone like that. That stereotypical image is cringe-inducing to most of us. So why did we respond to the task in that way? It was the obvious, easy path to take, especially considering the task wasn't being graded. But more than that, it is the only culture we have that we don't share. We leech literature, film, music and television shows from America and Britain, our food comes from as many countries as our immigrants, wider social and political trends imitate those of the States, we even latch on to American colloquialisms.

When critics of Australian multiculturalism criticise certain groups (mainly Lebanese immigrants) and implore them to assimilate, I wonder what culture they expect them to adapt. It is unreasonable to expect them to be Steve Irwins when no one else is held to that standard.

boodilly @ 2006-07-31T20:22:00

2006-07-31T10:22:09Z

I'm currently killing some brain cells by watching the Big Brother finale. They actually included something I found very interesting. I had always wondered how the ex-housemates react when they return to the outside world and saw all that had happened in their absence. To my knowledge, this year was the first time they showed the final housemates a video of news events. Watching them gasp as they saw clips of the latest Middle East crisis and the recent Indonesian earthquake, I caught myself gasp also. As news unfolds around us, it is sometimes hard to be shocked. Details trickle out across days or weeks, tragedy here, many feared dead, death toll reaches 100, death toll reaches 1000. I seem to remember it took almost a week before the world really reacted to the Boxing Day tsunami.
Seeing the housemates watch the video of tragedy and disaster without the context of a timeline, it reminded me to be shocked. There is a war going on, it's probably going to get worse. Howard is talking about sending Australian troops in greater than token quantities. These are shocking days.

Go Camilla! You are the lesser of two evils.

boodilly @ 2006-06-10T21:16:00

2006-06-10T11:16:52Z

I have this one adorable client, Mrs R, and she is so short that I was thought that she must be a little person (she is 4 foot something, so i guess she would be a tall little person?). Anyway, I got to talking with her yesterday and it turns out she was short because as a child she broke her back at 2, again at 5, and her back and neck at 8! I had always wanted to ask her if she was a little person so I'm glad she brought it up in the conversation and I didn't have to work out how to broach the subject politely. I doubt she would have cared if I did ask, she volunteers information about her bowel movements and former sex life. She's pretty laid-back.
It's been about 6 degrees in the morning lately, and I can't find my work jacket, so I have been going without. Mrs NotLittlePersonTechnically took pity upon me and I scored a cool cardigan. Woot!

In other news, this is the shit (so take a big wiff).