World swimming fight

Does anyone else find it an invasion of privacy that the argument/fight between a Ukrainian coach and his daughter at the world swimming championships in Melbourne was televised?? Fair enough the police stepped in as he did physically abuse her (and she him). But did the whole ugly thing really need to be shown so publicly? The poor girl must be so embarrassed. I hope it didn't stop her from swimming her best.

Story and pics here.

No poo in class thank you

What is it with men and their fascination with bodily functions and secretions? I hate to generalise but i'm talking about men in their early twenties acting like teenagers. I taught a class of young ESL students today and a group of four young men spent a good hour or more chatting away about their bodily functions!

Ah but they were speaking in English and therefore studying you say? Nope. Each time I set a pair/group discussion task, off they would go again talking about their poo in their own language.

Aaarrgghhh. How gross! They are adults! They have spent a whole heap of money to be here studying English! They are surrounded by students of other nationalities. Perfect opportunity to make new friends, learn a new lanaguage and expand your possibilities.

They choose poo. Good choice boys.

Picture perfect

Creek in the Dandenongs, originally uploaded by BeingWanderLust.

How is this for a relaxing spot? Hubby and I went for a drive in the Dandenong Mountains last weekend. We stopped and had a picnic of roast beef sandwiches and tea just near here. Then we went for a walk next to this creek.

Just the medicine to get the city out of your hair!

What kind of primate are you?

What kind of primate are you? A gibbon, an orangutan, a chimp or even a baboon?

I'm a gibbon; see here.

Thanks Mum

This beautiful big bunch of flowers was sent from my Mum, Dad and a friend. My husband and I had a loss recently and Mum wanted to cheer us up.

Thanks Mum.

Valentines Day

I made a chocolate cake. Thanks to CacaoWeb.net for the easy and yummy recipe.



Hubby gave me a beautiful red rose. I gave hubby a cute teddy bear. Sounds corny I know but he didn't have a teddy bear! No grown adult should be without their very own teddy bear.


Guess what hubby named it? Kuma. Which is 'bear' in Japanese. Not sure if i'll let him name any future kids....

Baking bug

Sunday was rainy and nice and cool here, so I got the baking bug.

First it was difficult trying to decide what to cook (I had narrowed it down to something sweet as I had a craving for it- usually I prefer savoury).

Here are a couple of the numerous cookbooks I have inherited from two Grandmothers and my Mum.

I decided on a Rasberry Coconut Slice. I didn't realise until after I baked it that it was a recipe my Grandmother used to make. As soon as I had the first bite, the memories came back. I then found out it is my Dad's favourite slice. Too bad i'm almost two states away, sorry Dad.

Then I made some cranberry cupcakes.

Book Meme - or let's play tag

Medea tagged me for this game and i'm glad she did, as it prompted me to come back to my blog. I've been flat out with work recently and let posting to my blog slide. But here I am to play this game.

Here are the rules!
1) Grab the book closest to you
2) Open to page 123, go down to the fourth sentence
3) Post the text of the following 3 sentences on your blog
4) Name the author and book title
5) Tag two people to do the same

The thing was I wasn't sure what kind of book? Any book, even a text? The closest book to me was a grammar book of my husbands and very dry. So here are the details for it.

4 We haven't got lemon tea, but you could have mint one instead.
5 Those aren't your gloves. You must have picked up the wrong ones.
6 'What kind of cakes do you like best?' 'Ones with cream inside.'

Advanced Grammar in Use by Martin Hewings.


The next closest book book was this.

Now it is June, but the pair arrived in eastern Greenland from Scotland's Western Isles in late May, returning to their nest site of previous years. The ledge, as high as a 20-storey building, is safe from Arctic foxes, which would relish both eggs and adults. The female lined a hollow with lichen and down plucked from her breast, then laid four white eggs and covered them with more down.

The Wildlife Year by Reader's Digest.

I tag Meron-chan and India.

It's a New Year

Hello 2007! We managed to do quite a bit in 2006. Yutaka's visa was approved. Yutaka quit his job in Japan. We planned our move from Japan back to Oz. Moved back with my folks for a few months. Yutaka got a job in Melbourne. So again we moved, interstate this time. Then I got a job here too.

Phew.

So now to 2007. Not too many plans yet. My brother is getting married in February. My best friend is coming to stay in April with her new bub (due any day). And we hope to have a new addition to our family some time this year too.

What are your plans for 2007?

Chat Room

I've tried to get a little chat room up and running on this blog. If you scroll all the way down to the bottom of this page, you should be able to see it. Please feel free to join and add comments/ask questions. I'd been trying to get a chat room working on another site I look after and thought i'd experiment here first.

Conflicting times

I don't like making decisions at the best of times but recently i've been getting crapier at it. I'm trying to look for work in Melbourne and have applied for a few jobs so far. I have two types of work i'm after. One that I first studied at uni but have had absolutely no experience in and another that I've been doing since I left uni. It seems I'm only employable for the latter type of work. Problem is....I don't enjoy it. Sometimes I hate doing that work.

I am so conflicted right now in this topsy turvy time in our lives. Should I just suck it up, work a job I hate and help us out financially? Or should I pursue the type of work I'd prefer to do. This would mean either retraining, or doing volunteer work in the field. Neither of which would be helping us financially.

I'm so torn. I know we need the money and this is the best time in our lives for both of us to work with no other family commitments. But then I think of the daily grind of doing that job that I really dislike...and it makes me feel helpless.

Damn, I wish we were rich, so I could just pursue whatever the hell I wanted to.

Mad Melbournites

We have moved once again. Yutaka got a job in Melbourne and now we're here. My first impression of Melbourne? The drivers here SUCK!

When I got here two weeks ago I the first thing I noticed was the excessive honking. I am used to the use of honking such as a short friendly one to say hi, or a long loud 'danger' type one but Melbourne people just sit on theirs. People honk needlessly, willy nilly all the time. Yutaka and I are forever trying to figure out who honked and why. Car horns have loss their shock value for most people here, no-one pays them any attention. Call me country but this sucks, it's just downright noisy.

Today I went grocery shopping and instead of going straight home I decided to drive around my suburb a little to try and get to know the area. I was driving down a road doing about 50km/h maybe in a 60km/h zone when I saw the (young male) driver of the car behind me moving his hands all around. I figured he thought I was going too slow, so I put my indicator on to take the next turn and get out of his way. As I turned and he sped past, what did he do? ......... He gave me the finger! At first I was just surprised but then I got soooooo angry!!!!! I may have been going a bit slow but I was not driving dangerously, nor did I deserve that.

So I turned back for home, trying to calm down. I had literally just made a right turn into my street when I heard a loud loooong honk by the car behind me. The middle aged male driver sped right up to my butt and proceeded to overtake me on the left! That's the kerbside in Australia. Then he sped past, up to the car in front of me and then overtook them too. This is on a 60km/h residential road!

Any more thoughts I had to continue exploring my neighbourhood by car today were totally out the window!! I wish so bad that I had gotten either of their numberplates. Now you may say, 'don't worry about them' or 'just drive slower to annoy them' but I can't handle it when people are angry around me, it rubs off on me too. These incidents today have actually made me feel less confident about driving around here. I am so mad with those two stupid men for making me feel like this.

I miss my country town.

Something in the water....

Do you know how many pregnant ladies (plus a couple who have just given birth) I know right now? Here is a bit of a list:

-my NZ friend from Japan just had her second son (he's a little cutie, hi J and T!)
-my best friend (due in December)
-a good Japanese friend I used to teach (also due in December)
-my brother's best friend's wife (sounds like a tenuous connection but this guy was like a brother to me when we were growing up)
-a couple of friends online, from a Foreign Wives Club (hi Fukuchan and Queenbee) plus a couple from there who have given birth recently
-a couple of my husband's university friend's wives
-hubby's good friend's wife

Sheesh, I reckon 2006 will be a baby boomer year.

Blogging lull

I haven't been blogging much lately. Could be the upheaval my life is going through. Could be lack of time to access the net and no broadband here at the folks place. Could be as I can't use my own PC with all my links. Could be i'm too busy writing job applications, working at the zoo and the international office and preparing for a TESOL conference this weekend. Or I could just be lazy.

A is the first letter

I have been tagged by Jazz to come up with 10 words starting with the letter 'A' that are meaningful in some way to me. 'A'?! Jazz, did you give me the hardest letter or what. Although, having giving it a couple of weeks thought (been away from my blog that long) I actually came up with more than 10. But here are my top 10 words starting with 'A'.

• animal - anyone who knows me will not be surprised that I put this word first. I have always been a sucker for animals. As a kid I grew up with dogs, cats, sheep, chicken, cows, ducks and various other assorted farm and native animals. At present I have a character of a cat Whisky, who makes me laugh so much.
• air - we all need it. Having just moved from Osaka to rural Australia, it certainly is something you notice right away. There is nothing better than a walk along the beach of an afternoon. Which leads into my next word..
• afternoon - my favourite time of day. Especially late afternoon/dusk. The kangaroos are out feeding, the kookaburras are laughing, people are coming home from work, dinner is being cooked and all is good in the world...
• anglo - that is me. Boring pasty white little me. See this previous post for more of my thoughts on that Being White, the new uncool?
• Australia - the country, the people, the lifestyle. I choose to live here.
• alcohol - specifically wine, any colour. I love it, I drink it, I occasionally get a sore head but I drink it again. After recently visiting the Yarra and Barossa valleys, I am even more in love with it.
• ABBA - I am not ashamed to admit that this group rocks. If I wanna fire up a party, or dance in my car seat, I reach for my Best of ABBA CD.
• abbreviation - as an Aussie this becomes a natural thing to do. We don't tend to like words of more than two or three syllables. Afternoon becomes arvo, barbecue becomes barbie, kangaroo becomes roo....yada yada... One new one I heard yesterday on JJJ was 'the comm games' for the Commonwealth games. But it just didn't sound right somehow.
• adventure - as a kid I loved adventure books where a group of children went on weird and wonderful journeys to faraway places and met many strange people along the way. As an adult, I feel i've been living this life for the past few years. I may get back to some sort of normality now i'm back in Oz though.
• antithesis - for no particular reason except for the way it sounds when said out loud. Say it and you'll know why I love it.

Alrighty then, now my turn to tag peoples. Ummm....who reads this blog who might want to do it... ah, Meronchan with the letter 'J' and Jacqui with the letter 'C'.

Proud of Mum

I have many reasons to be but this one is the latest.

Three days ago my Mum saw a car accident. A single vehicle drove off the road and hit a pole. Mum stopped and ran to the car, where a middle aged lady was unconscious and bleeding profusely from the neck. After adding pressure to the drivers neck wound, Mum tried to keep one hand giving pressure while trying to flag down passing motorists with the other. After about seven cars passed with NO-ONE stopping, Mum's adrenaline (and righteous anger) kicked in. Next Mum had to make sure the pressure bandage would hold and then Mum climbed back up the embankment and placed herself right smack in the middle of the road to stop the next car.

After the ambulance left and Mum gave a statement to the police she drove to work covered in blood!

Later in the day after talking to the police again, the police were joking with Mum that they could have sizzled bacon on her anger. Apparently the first time Mum talked to the police earlier in the day Mum was so fired up and angry that no-one had stopped to help.

Here is an interesting point to note: all those cars that passed this accident were in the wrong and if the police had found them, they would have been booked. So next time you see an accident, please stop and offer assistance.

How cool is my Mum!?

The family grows larger.

The bestest news. My Brother is engaged!!!! Congratulations to Eron and Jane. I am so happy to finally get a sister. Jane is from Wales and so makes this family all the more multicultural.



This is the Welsh flag. How cool is this Dragon?! It's tongue is just down right scary.

Interesting Welsh fact:

The world's longest railroad station name is in Wales.
-Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwyll-llantysiliogogogoch.

http://wales.costasur.com/en/did-u-know.html

I'm ba-ack

Sorry for my long absence. Our computer decided to chuck a fit just before we left Japan. So that with all the packing that needed to be done meant I couldn't update here for a while.

We're back in Australia now. I thought it might be interesting to write a list of things that I first found odd/weird/or just different when I first got back to Australia from Japan. These are my gross generalisations, so just take with a grain of salt.

-loud; everyone seemed to be talking so loudly

-service; not as focussed on the customer as in Japan. Here I have found cashiers chatting to each other rather than serving, one was asleep. On the flip side of this though, I had a lengthy conversation with a cashier at a supermarket yesterday about the price of bananas and zucchinis. Having a good ol' convo with a check out chick NEVER happened to me in Japan.

-the 'formula' doesn't exist in Australia; by this I mean, the set phrases that are used in Japan by people in the service industry. The 'irashaimase' when you enter a shop, and the 'arigatou gozaimasu' when you leave, the 'thanks for coming' and the 'how many people' when you enter a restaurant. In Australia each shop person says something different and I find myself having to concentrate on what they are saying, so I can give an appropriate response.

-fashion; basically doesn't exist in Australia

-fatness; shit! No wonder Japanese think westerners are fat, I have seen soooo many big fat people since I returned. One thing though, my arse is no longer the biggest in the room.

-multicultural; I love it!!!! It's so cool to see all these people from different cultural/racial backgrounds walking around without other people staring at them.

-the crap that Australians drink; at Sydney airport where we bought lunch, the drink fridge was just filled with softdrinks. Sprite, Coke etc. Water was available but was more expensive than the softdrinks. Bring back the Japanese conbini and green tea!!!!

-friendliness; walking down the street saying 'good morning' or 'lovely day' to people you pass (admittedly i'm in a small town right now)

-the perfect perfect air; I have been sucking it up like it's about to disapear. A world away from the air in Osaka.

One final thought before I head outside into the garden to enjoy my morning cup of tea with lovely matured cheese on a muffin is.... I AM NO LONGER A GAIJIN AND I LOVE IT!!!!

Sayonara Sale

Well, it's nearly time to leave Japan. We went through our place and have a heap of household items and clothes to sell/giveaway. If you live in Japan please have a look. Or if you know someone who lives in Japan, please let them know. We would hate to just gomi (chuck) a lot of these things.

We can send COD in Japan for the clothes and smaller household items. Or pick up in Hirakata Osaka for the larger items.

Men's and women's shirts

skirts, pants, socks, sweaters, jackets, shoes. Washing machine, mixer

drawers etc. Please take a look.

Pictures of everything for sale

La Sure Am!

Japlish Japlish everywhere in Japan. I thought I was immune to it and then I walked past La PIST. I guess it's not technically Jap'lish' as it appears to be French. So maybe Japrench or Japench? Is pist a word in French?

*giggle*