Why live in the world...

2007-12-03T23:50:00.000+09:00

Miss Piggy

I truly admire Miss Piggy's style. While she sometimes dresses a little scantily for someone of her stature, she is always meticulously groomed and accessorised. Like Barbie, she has had outfits designed for her by high end designers like Prada. My favourite period of Miss Piggy's fearless fashion is her 1980s wardrobe, particularly in The Muppets Take Manhattan.

I'm not so much into Muppet-inspired fashion.

STREET CLASH

2007-10-24T22:48:00.000+08:00

STREET CLASH

I've become obsessed with street style blogs, especially sites where you get a vote.

dropstitch � Blog Archive � Store profile: Pigeonhole

2007-10-24T22:43:00.000+08:00

I'm shocked that I never knew that this store, Pigeonhole, existed. Do I need to start reading the street press?

HOY FASHION � liverpool street style fashion photography

2007-10-14T20:18:00.000+08:00

HOY FASHION � liverpool street style fashion photography

Yet another favourite street style site. This one's from the UK.

2007-10-05T21:29:00.000+08:00

Designers For Target

I ended up getting a Yeojin Bae dress. The sizes are crazy large - I'm only an eight in all the things I tried.

2007-08-09T15:22:00.000+08:00

Blind

For the past few days, I have been visually impaired, due to an unfortunate case of conjunctivitis and annoying delays on the delivery of my new specs. Fortuantely I know how to touch-jtype because even with the font at a ridiculously large size, I cannot see the words displayed on the screen. It has been an interesting world without TV or internet (except in 5 minute spurts) or driving. I have felt too timid to even leave the house, worried that i will be run down by some camouflaged vehicle or fall into a puddle. I found some old specs lying under my bed but the prescription is so out of date that these were headache-inducing aafter all of 5 minutes. Activities that I have been able to do include reading (although I've run out of reading material and have been unable to restock, due to the abovementioned fear of leaving the house), cooking (fortunately one of my last pre-blindness activities was grocery shopping to make a pasta dish) and sleeping (all with the gooey wonder of chloramphenical ointment to keep me company).

Pkease exc;use any typos. I am normally the first to point out errors in spelling but I beg immunity as I can't actually see the errors and I find this laptop keyboard difficult to use, especially without visual feedback. My fingers feel like clumsy logs and my manual dexterity is quickly fading. Glad i don't want to be surgeon, then.

2007-07-26T18:29:00.000+08:00

Salespeople

In general, I find salespeople irritating. Of course, I find most people irritating. Here are some specific examples of salesperson-related irritation that I've experienced this year.

I bought my widescreen TV at Myer a few months ago. The salesboy (yes, this weedy Asian guy admitted to me that he was an 18-year-old studying Science/Commerce at UWA, who enjoys playing computer games in his spare time, on his parents' widescreen TV) repeatedly complained to me that he was staying late to complete my paperwork. When I asked him whether he had to rush off somewhere, he replied, "Nah, probably just going to go home and play computer games." (This was a Saturday night.) The most annoying part was when he kept making comments about my supposed "husband or boyfriend," including: "Do you have a husband or boyfriend to help you set this up?"

Another annoying sexist salesman remark was encountered on Sunday when I was buying my new computer/printer and all the other accessories (including a teeny, tiny mouse - apparently this is a very girly purchase). The salesman asked if I'd been out the previous night, I replied that I was still suffering the consequences of Friday night and his first response was: "What were you drinking? Breezers?" In truth, I'd drunk anything but. Beer, champagne, cocktails, G&Ts, shots of Jack...

Purchasing any sort of home entertainment or IT device (or furniture, for that matter) seems to throw up all sorts of barriers for the young single girl. I know I'm not alone in this. Don't these retailers realise that single young women are a fast-growing sector of property-owners? Maybe I need to buy less hi-fi and more hairdryer/vibrator/kitchen appliance.

2007-03-28T01:50:00.000+08:00

No repeats of Extreme Makover tonight, in lieu of World Cup Cricket. I usually find cricket soooo boring but now that there's a bit of a murder mystery, it's far more exciting. No disrespect intended to Bob Woolmer.

They did do makeovers tonight on The Biggest Loser. I only caught the end of the show but that Patti chick looked H.O.T. All the blokes' dodgy facial hair was gone. That whingey Courtney guy still has a face like he's sucking on a lemon. Like he's a vagina sucking on a lemon.

I'm being my most charming self tonight.I'm trying to stay up late because I start ward cover nights again tomorrow. Although I do have some plans for tomorrow: visit phlebotomist, return unwanted Stella McCartney for Target clothes (about $500 worth), go to the post office, buy Kathy a birthday pressie, buy lots of crap for the DCR and maybe do some furniture window-shopping (as I'm feeling too lazy to carry anything home/assemble it).

Another whinge: the bank doesn't open until 9.30am! I finished work a bit late the other day and thought I'd go to the bank on the way home. I rocked up to Barrack Street CBA at 8.30am and was trying to figure out when it opened. Then my dad phoned me and informed me that banks don't open until 9.30!!! (That's not what he called me about.) My dad used to work for Commonwealth Bank so was quite defensive of the staff and the hard work they do. Which was not going down to well with me, having just come off night ward cover.

I decided to walk to West Perth CBA yesterday as it was a lovely sunny day. I try to aboid visiting the bank in person because they seem to charge you $10 just for walking through the front door (like St John of God Murdoch Emergency Department, only cheaper). However, the lady on the Netbank helpline told me I had to visit the branch in person. Guess what - I didn't. Grrr. Fortunately, while I was there I got them to fix up something else they had messed up so it wasn't a completely wasted effort.

When I came out of the bank it was pissing down with rain. Whinge. I stopped for a disgusting latte, yummy biscuit and Monday's West Australian (yawn) while I waited for the rain to dry up.

Final whinge for tonight - City West train station is having some pressure cleaning. It is noisy. Even with the windows shut. I may go down to the gym and work out. Even though it's 2am.

2007-03-26T22:52:00.000+08:00

Today's whinge

I did night shft on Saturday night/Sunday morning. I worked from 10pm until 8am. I will be paid for a ten hour shift. BUT I WORKED ELEVEN HOURS BECAUSE OF THE DAYLIGHT SAVING ROLLBACK. I didn't get paid for a hour's work. Sheesh. And it was an hour of Sunday penalties (75%). Damn.

Transperth have these new SmartRider cards. Even though travel from my train station to the City or to work is within the free transit zone, I had to buy a SmartRider card ($10) so that I can get on and off the train in the city. Evidently I forgot to swipe off at my station one day. It cost me $4.70 credit off my SmartRider. Dammit.

Enough whinge.

There's a Wife Swap "Partner Edition" on TV. This means that one of the "wives" is a gay man. His new family is a "tradiotional Christian family unit." Dad openly admits that his new gay wife "will have a hard time here because of the hatred that's around in this area towards 'them'." Bigotry at its best. Not as entertaining as Extreme Makeover but should be fun. Fat Mum says, "there's hope the gays can change." Fat Dad's wandered off in the middle of the night to get advice from his Pastor because, "I can't let this get into my home. Having that in my house means that I'm welcoming sin into my house." On the Pastor's advice, he chucked the partner out of the house!

My new sofa arrives tomorrow (assuming that Freedom don't fuck up the delivery). I had it upholstered with custom fabric.

2007-03-14T00:12:00.000+09:00

Budget designer label stuff

Even the international media were covering the Stella McCartney for Target mayhem that ensued yesterday. I avoided the 9am store-opening rush but I did head down to Morley Target around 10am to scavenge the few remaining size 10 pieces. Then I headed to Bullcreek in the arvo - they had heaps more stuff than Morley, even at 4.30pm! Anyway, I read an article about how dozens of people are returning their stuff because it's too big (even accounting for Stella's drapey style). I think I'll just return my unwanted pieces - people are selling the stuff on ebay for heaps! And it's target-quality, made in china stuff, after all. I guess those diehard fans overseas are willing to pay a little more (especially in Australian dollars).

Much more fun than the Stella for Target range was the Alice McCall for Target range. I picked up a silk cami in a really cute print IN MY SIZE marked down to $20! I also love my Alba Fan Club skinny jeans - just $15 each from the Jeans West outlet store. Normally I don't go to Jeans West but hey - maybe the good stuff doesn't sell to their usual customers!

2007-03-14T00:05:00.000+09:00

Good lord. I'm even more Gen Y now - Kathy made me get a myspace page. It seems like a network for stalkers to me. I mean, aren't you just putting yourself out there for identity theft? Ha - I am fooling them all by pretending I'm a 60cm body builder. No one will ever realise my true identity.

Latest guilty pleasures - this TV show that's on around midnight on Channel 7 on Tuesdays, called Life As We Know It. The Sunday Times Magazine. Shop Til You Drop magazine. Internet dating!!!

2007-02-11T16:52:00.000+09:00

I am now a fully-fledged member of Generation Y (yes, the cusp of the group lies on the 80-81 birth year). I bought an iPod. It is a reward/incentive for going to the gym. I love its streamlined design and simple packaging. When I was living in London, Pete "the Fork: Lau (Dave's older brother) and I visited the Design Museum, which was displaying the 5 finalists of some 2003 European design awards. One of the finalist was the designer of iMac, iPods and various other Apple products. Another finalist was the team that designed GTA 2: Vice City. The other entries, some doilies, jewellery and vases or some other arty stuff, couldn't compete. Who needs beauty for beauty's sake when you can combine beautiful form with outstanding function?

There are minimal instructions, evidently geared toward the plug-and-play generation who wouldn't bother to read lengthy manuals. They'd much rather search for help online when it's required. (I'm like this myself - when I'm feeling too "lazy" to ask someone else for help. This has been a problem a couple of times when my web access wasn't working especially as I don't even have a hard copy of the white pages. How to ask for help when your only medium for help is the that thing that you need help to use?)

2007-02-11T10:53:00.000+09:00

All by myself...

When I was young, I never needed anyone, and making love was just for fun...

I have a housemate now! We haven't hung out much because I've been working so much (and sleeping when I'm at home). So far I haven't noticed any problems.

Where I do notice problems is in my payslips! This is an ongoing problem that was not solved when the hospital outsourced our pay. Every fortnight it seems that I have to phone up and say, "I just have a few queries about my pay period ending..." I don't need to explain my queries; the person on the other end of the phone makes some busy noises (murmuring, shuffling paper, keystrokes, etc) then will make an announcement along the lines of, "Oh, it appears that you weren't paid for 6 hours that you worked that week. Would you like me to rectify that?" or, "It seems that they've tried to reduce the amount of penalties they're paying you by shifting some of you penalty-loaded hours into the overtime-loading category - would you like me to pay the extra penalties you deserve." As far as I can tell, these are stupid questions for them to be asking. Why do I bother?

Because I'm worth it. (Although I really can't be arsed to colour my hair, Milla Jovovich.)

Two constancies in life that provide comfort: video clips on weekend mornings and The Simpsons on weekdays at six.

2007-01-26T15:04:00.000+09:00

Happy Australia Day.

My Australia Day, 2007, began in the Emergency Department. Yes, I was working on Australia Day. The last 3 hours of my 10-hour shift were after midnight. How un-Australian is that? Not as un-Australian as the fact that I'm returning to the same ED in 2 hours' time, undoubtedly to fix up more victims of Australia Day drunken violence, drunken accidents and drunken drunkeness. My favourite Australia Day ED story was from a med school colleague who treated a guy whose mullet was set on fire on the train home from the Skyshow. Now that's Australian.

Also quite Australian (albeit circa 1978) - my neighbours. My new apartment building has a swimming pool on the ground floor (next to the gym, sauna, etc.) and I've been enjoying it on these sweltering summer days, swimming laps, inviting friends around and...enjoying the scenery? That's right, there's a plague of topless sunbathers, and not just the hairy, overweight male type, if you get my drift. One of the pool rules calls for "appropriate attire" but this is open to interpretation, I guess. Most astonishing was one girl this week who had oiled her breasts. She was basting in the 35+ degree heat, glistening nipples pointing at the sun. If my breasts are self-saucing puddings, then hers are certainly fried eggs (not that her nipples were yolk-coloured). Whenever I tell people this story, they always ask, did she have nice breasts? Well, of course, otherwise I would have told her to put on some clothes.

2007-01-15T15:40:00.000+09:00

Yesterday was my birthday. I was cruelly stripped of my adolescent status as I joined the "26-40" age bracket. On Saturday night I saw the Plump DJs with Katherine and David. The set was average but the night was fun (as I had been missing my Kathy so) and full of alcohol. We shuffled off to bed around 5am. I awoke around 6.30am when my alarm went off. I felt dreadful. Abdominal cramps and strong waves of nausea. Oh no, I thought, for my birthday I've gotten a hangover. I'd always been told that those would come with age. I realise now that I was not hungover but that I was still drunk. Thank goodness. I am still young.

2007-01-09T17:18:00.000+09:00

My friend Scotty wonders if, in the future, blogging will become a new feature of the DSM criteria (the diagnostic manual for psychiatric disorders). Where once we kept diaries filled with our innermost thoughts, hidden under the bed or locked with a miniscule padlock, today we proudly proclaim our insecurities and flaunt our insanity online for the whole world to read. Maybe it's therapeutic to get things off our chests and to think that somebody on the other side of the globe could be affected in some way by our musings. Even so, do we really want our really want our friends, parents, bosses or lovers knowing about our perceived inadequacies and crazy tendencies? Is it really the modern-day equivalent of the soapbox or worse - standing on busy street corners in a sandwich board with a megaphone, announcing the demise of ourselves?

My friend Dave tells me that I shouldn't drink alone. That's another story.

2006-11-05T18:03:00.000+08:00

These here are crazy times

Not really but I felt in a Boom Crash Opera mood when I typed that.

This weekend is the second in a row that I have spent an entire day in bed, except for brief visits to the kitchen (to eat breakfast) and to the bathroom (to shower). I wasn't even doing anything exciting, just sleeping. Alone.

Today I thought that I'd try to be productive so I visited a couple of those "Home Expo" sites. You know, the ones where you walk around all these little eighties-vintage displays of "Lazy Lawn - make your neighbour feel that the grass is always less green on THEIR side" (I'm sure that they'll be jealous of your astroturf), hideous country-style kitchens, "Ver-golas", fake brick paving and chrome bathroom fittings.

I wanted to look at blinds. I was window shopping for window dressings but the little displays were surprisingly uninformative. Also, the blinds from different companies all appeared to be identical, although in varying stages of disrepair. Then, I had to surrender my contact details just to collect some "free brochures" at the end.

These Expo places are very disorientating. I felt like Brett in the episode of Kath & Kim when he gets lost in Ikea. Where is the exit? Why do the arrows on the floor saying "Exit" all lead to an outdoor pergola display, instead of the exit? Why won't that "Postie Kate" song stop playing over and over? Why are children crying? Why are the walls getting closer and closer? Why is my throat swelling and blocking my trachea?

I made it out eventually. I think the free home visit and quote may be the next step but that also carries its inherent risks.

2006-11-05T09:59:00.000+08:00

My new little friend. I make him do what I want and when I'm ready he dies.

2006-10-25T20:09:00.000+08:00

I have a short attention span.

My patient is no longer on Nurse Boy's ward and I had forgotten all about his lovely eyelashes. Instead, I have been thinking about my new apartment. If all goes to plan, I will be living there in a few weeks' time (albeit in a spartan fashion, as I am yet to buy a refrigerator, television, bar and other such necessities). I haven't seen it but Dad did and he took some photos for me so I won't be too surprised when we meet, me and my new love.

2006-10-19T22:01:00.000+08:00

There is a gorgeous male nurse at my hospital. When I see him I can feel the blush rising (not my usual alcohol-induced "Asian flush") and have to turn my head away for fear of being caught. On occasions that I have a legitimate reason to speak to him, I view admire him as I do a beautiful painting, trying to absorb the details. Long, long eyelashes; delicate cheekbones; softly curling hair. I don't know anything more about him than his name and I'm too shy to find out anything more. I wonder if he likes girls.

2006-10-19T21:48:00.000+08:00

One of Kathy's house mates is moving out (I'm not sure if he knows about it) and below is the me the ad that her other housemate (Frenchman Remi Landaz) posted on the gumtree. I think it's "really fuckin' great". Also I love Remi's fluent but sometimes strange English. The day that I left he told me to "have a good comeback." I assume that referred to my flight home and he wasn't mistaking me for Pearl Jam.

'Shoreditch Continuum Transfunctioner Double Bedroom yeaah!! (£550pcm)
Hi all,

This room has to be filled by someone cool and relaxed, not afraid of a bit of craziness in this rainy world (London)...

The room has a good size and is fully furnished; the flat is on the ground floor so you won’t ripe your knees off climbing 374 steps...
We have a small cutie kitchen with everything you need to cook me a good meal.... I’ll buy the wine, ok.
We got a lounge where we eat, drink and dance... well, there's so much you can do in a lounge then after....
The flat has only 3 double bed room so we're not cramped on each other and you'll share it with 1 guy (me, French, 26) and a sweet Aussie girl, 25, all professional.
Atmosphere is cool, we like to go out together at the weekend and chat during the week... if we’re not too tired... beeuuuuuuu...

What else, the rent is inclusive of all bill – electricity, gas, water, internet broadband.
You just need to come up with 1month rent + £300 of deposit and you can jump in the bed!

Look forward to see you!

Remi + Kat'

wtf is a continuum transfunctioner?

Just gotta wait for Kirsty to return from site and we'll have some pictures happening (of the flat and of London antics in general).

2006-10-17T22:24:00.000+08:00

Back in Perth
My trip to London was "really fucking great." (Kathy may be the only person to get this one.)

I arrived back home last weekend then started my new job (Geriatric Medicine) the following morning. We work long days! Fortunately, I enjoy it (lots of filling out forms, writing letters, requesting tests, other anally retentive stuff that doesn't involve actually touching the patients). Some of our patients are just waiting for a bed somewhere else and behaving themselves, but most of them are being difficult and having a lot of medical problems! That's not what they're supposed to do! I have only managed one lunch break since I started and am yet to leave on time. My love of the elderly keeps me going. And the Pulp song, "Help the Aged" (...one day they were just like you/drinking, smoking fags and sniffing glue/Help the Aged/don't just put them in a home/can't have much fun when they're all on their own).

Despite work, life here has actually been pretty similar to life in London, except for the glaringly obvious absence of the majority of my best friends (girls, I miss you). And the absence of action with random French boys. Team Shamrock threw a party at their beachfront party shack on Friday night (they assure me it was a "Welcome Back Elissa" party, as their last party was the night before I left for London) and it was good craic (I hope I'm using that word correctly). So good that the cops made an appearance and told us to shut up. I woke up in Ana Louise's bed so I am still sleeping with girls (and she didn't kick as much as Katherine).

David had a more subdued housewarming the following night. I have to take advantage of him being in Perth before he deserts me as well. Aah, poor friendless me.

2006-09-21T20:02:00.000+08:00

"I'm so excited" (Ooh la la!)

Today, Katherine's French housemate, Remi, seems to be in a very good mood. Earlier (when i think he didn't realise that I was in the house) he was jumping around and occasionally screaming (like a tennis player who's just hit a winner) and shouting "Fuck yeah!" I was too scared to emerge from Kathy's room for a while.

Last night I met up with Elizabeth, across the road from our old unit in our old street, Old Street. We met in a bar called Cocomo (that's where we wanna go to get away from it all).

I'm waiting in a bar.
I'm waiting, for a friend.
I sit alone i fidget and
My lovely drink I tend.
It's times like these I wish I smoked
So I'd look occupied.
But if I smoked it may be that
I'd already have died.

Fortunately, Elizabeth arrived at this point and I stopped writing my poem (hey, at least it rhymed). She returned to London a few weeks ago but has been busy jetting off to Milan to the achingly glamorous world of fashion. I am so happy for her; she is really giving the world a kick up the arse.

Another thing that makes me happy is that I won Connect Four against her, for the first time ever! We used to play at The Moon and she would always beat me and I would cry into my mango lassi and shoestring fries with double aioli. I bought her a travel Connect Four so that she can challenge whomever she likes in bars, aeroplanes, hotels, park benches, public toilets and cafes across the world, recreating that Moon magic. And unlike The Moon, no $10 deposit required! I do recommend travel Connect Four - those people at Milton Bradley have really outdone themselves with these travel-sized versions of popular boardgames. My Travel Scrabble (Executive Portfolio Edition) that Tanya bought me in the US has provided hours of entertainment, all of which can be packed up mid-game for commencement at a later date. What more could one ask for? (Maybe a list of 2-letter words.)

2006-09-19T16:44:00.000+08:00

Found

This weekend, Kathy and I mainly lurked around the East end of London (my old neighbourhood and her current one). We made a short trip west to pick up her new TV & DVD PLAYER (yay - Eastenders) and it was less traumatic than expected to carry these home on public transport. We caught the bus (due to the ubiquitous tube station closures for maintenance works) and went past such lovely London locations as Cheapside, Poultry Old Broad Street and the Famous Cock.

Much of the weekend was spent trawling the streets to find a table for Kathy's new TV. East London is a minefield of abandoned furniture, probably because of the high cost of wasted disposal in large cities. When I lived in Bethnal Green, my walk to the tube station was littered with chairs, car doors, desks, and so on. Once Elizabeth and I even found an abandoned piano on Brick Lane (upright, not grand). This weekend was not looking fruitful (except for a nice wooden folding chair, which we didn't take because we suspected it belonged to the angry-looking man in the nearby leather store) but on Saturday night a nice metal filing cabinet/office drawers combo appeared in Kathy's rubbish disposal area, right outside her living room window. These drawers are the perfect height for the TV and have the added advantage of storage. Other abandoned items included a black leather couch (gone by Sunday), mattresses, and a pair of large speakers and an oven. A chair and cupboards appeared the following day. Really, who needs Ikea? Previously, I had only seen this level of discarded furniture in Dea's street in Mt Lawley (fourth ave, I mean you) in Perth.

2006-09-18T01:38:00.000+08:00

Over the past week I've done a lot more walking than my lazy body is accustomed to doing. So far I've visited Oxford St, Brighton, East London (well, I am staying with Kathy in Shoreditch), She-bu (Shepherd's Bush - but only to visit Danielle!) and that's all I've managed. I've been catching up with friends (the primary purpose of this trip) and have also managed to drink a bit (an essential part of my former London life).

2006-09-18T01:26:00.000+08:00

You see, i don't really feel that anything can upstage the Hoff. So I'll just write some boring stuff about my trip.

I arrived in London on Monday afternoon,about 23 hours after boarding the plane in Perth. There was a malodorous, odious, obnoxious man in the seat in front of me. Let's call him Fucktard (or FT for short). I had spotted him earlier as we boarded and prayed that he would not be sitting near me. (Praying would possibly be more effective had I a deity to deliver the answers.) The FT was a real caricature of the annoying Aussie overseas. I felt that i might be being set up by some comedy TV show and kept expecting someone from The Chaser to pop up or a hidden video camera to be revealed. The FT insisted on sharing his vast experience of travel with anyone who would listen to him. I heard him talking about his taxi to the airport: "I had a Chinese taxi driver...1.3 BILLION people in China, would you believe it...well, I brought up the Faaaaay-lun Gong and Tienamen Square of course and he had no answer to that..." On the plane, he was sitting next to friends Kel and Bec. It was their first trip to Europe and Kel's first time on the plane. A rather receptive audience for FT. The entire Perth-Dubai leg of the flight he stayed awake, with a constant relay of stewards delivering drinks, all the while keeping up a running commentary on whatever in-flight entertainment he happened to be enjoying at the time. Fortunately, he somehow got up-graded to business class for the final leg of the trip (probably because he was too pissed to make it back to economy) so I had some sleep before landing at Heathrow.

2006-09-16T02:24:00.000+08:00

Fuck Hoff...

Today I met...David Hasselhoff! It was the high point of my holiday to London so far. What am I saying? It was the high-point of my life so far. Kathy urged me to go along as she was working so could not fulfil her lifelong Hoff fantasy. I was about 100th in queue, part of an extremely enthusiastic crowd who chanted Hoff! Hoff! Hoff! when the man himself arrived. People around me were excitedly muttering stuff like, "He looks fantastic," and "I am so getting Hoff on this." Personally, I think he was a little on the orange side, with rather leathery skin. But i guess that's the Baywatch price you have to pay. The price that I had to pay was 13.98, for his autobiography. Hope it's worth it!

2006-08-31T22:36:00.000+08:00

"...that certain texture, that certain smell..."

The weather yesterday was lovely. We sat on the ED balcony basking in the sunlight, getting red forearms and boosting the vitamin D stores. Today was miserable. Yes, the sky was a lovely shade of blue grey, with a surreal quality, but the roads were wet and the traffic was slow. The patients were even more miserable than usual and I began to wonder if I had just imagined the smell of Spring yesterday.

Last night I dined with Team Shamrock and some more Irish doctors. I am the token Australian. The stalk of the Shamrock. (Apparently, I hold them all together.) The restaurant was noisy and they spoke in rapid Irish tongues. I understood most of the flow of conversation, until it was time to order dessert, and Michelle asked me if I'd like a turd. We decided against the chocolate mud cake and instead shared thirds of a towering tiramisu. Another leaf of Team Shamrock, Ana Louise, is trying to nail the Australian way to say "Perth". I haven't broken it to her that she sounds like someone with a swollen tongue saying "pus". Or a New Zealander saying "pith".

I got this link off Dea's blog:

create your own visited country map

I think it's cheating a bit, to say that I've visited China when I've only been to Hong Kong. Or to half the North American continent when I've only visited Manhattan.

Anyway, this trip I'm going to visit friends, not places.

2006-08-27T20:54:00.000+08:00

I thought that I would save this blog from its fate as virtual space-junk by renewing my offence towards the world of blog. I haven't written for months; although I am always thinking things to write, they never find a more permanent home than my ever-diminishing memory. My writing reserve is spent on the endless paperwork of my job as a glorified medical secretary; six years of medical school and my finest achievement is my "excellent documentation" (as noted on an end-of-term assessment form by one of my Consultant Surgeon bosses).

I also must defend my breasts from a simile that compares them to self-saucing puddings. Although this was meant in "an excellent way" (I have written proof from the author), I find that my breasts have little in common with this sweet dessert. Firstly, there is no brown, sticky discharge from my breasts. Secondly, although warm, my breasts do not burn the tongue. Thirdly, although delicious, my breasts are not to be eaten. Alas, I am now unable to prove that my breasts are not pudding for the proof of the pudding is, of course, in the eating.

2005-11-02T11:58:00.000+08:00

Me, myself and sigh.

Antidepressants are the new black. It seems that most the people I know these days are on antidepressants. Those who aren't, should be. It has become socially acceptable to talk about your depression and medications: "Well, I was on Prozac, but now I'm on Zoloft and I'm so happy right now," (or, maybe it's the ecstasy and two lines of speed you just had, now get away from me you cheery freak). Every fashionista has some story about the meds they've taken, the depths of despair they've reached or the therapist who is changing their life. It's also become acceptable to talk about other people's mood disorders: "And Tiffany, she's on Zoloft too, but her therapist isn't as good as mine, she's a woman and wears really bad shoes."

I could say that depression is the new black, except that there's nothing new about depression's association with blackness. Churchill had his back dog. Many have had black thunderclouds. Many feel blue. I don't feel blue, myself. Sometimes I feel grey, or rotting, or numb, but not blue. Blue makes me happy; it's my favourite colour.

2004-02-21T17:30:00.000+08:00

People keep asking me, "Are you glad to be back?" My response varies wildly, depending on my mood at the time, the current meteorological conditions in Perth and whether I've been dragged out of bed early that day to attend uni.