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Monday, 28-Apr-2003 7:19 PM Nobody knows about those little deals you make with yourself. Today I found myself staring through the library windows at the leaves on the trees outside. It's Autumn and they're turning that magnificent orange-brown color. I watched in awe as random leaves fell. Then my eyes fixed on one leaf and everything surrounding it became a yellowish blur. And in my mind, I told myself: If this leaf falls, that's it. I am gone. I am not supposed to be here. I am not meant to be studying in the library, nor going to university. Chiro is not for me. The wind shook the whole branch and all the leaves rattled. My heart felt like it was being squeezed in anticipation. It dawned on me that inside, I was really hoping it wouldn't fall. Coincidentally, a cockatoo landed on the branch across from it. Stayed there for over an hour. A sign perhaps? Well the leaf didn't fall and I am still here. I want to be here. Sunday, 27-Apr-2003 11:29 PM Enjoying it while it lasts. So the holidays have come to an
end :( It wasn't long enough! I really hope I get myself organised
this time around. Cleaned like a madman today. Vacuumed the house,
cleaned the bathroom, cleaned half my desk and the clutter on the
floor. I found this really blurry cam pic I took about two weeks
ago of part of my desk: Thankfully, that's the part I cleaned :) I watched this home improvement show and this lady refurbished a really worn out, wooden cupboard using actual walnuts! All you do is scrub the walnut over the wood and it removes scratches and small nicks and adds a nice stain to the wood. I tried it with a brazil nut and it worked wonders :D Now my desk is scratch-free and feels real velvety smooth =D It was so hard staying up late when this Easter break began and I had to work my way, hour by hour, to stay up late and wake up later. Now that I'm there, it's become an old habit resurfaced. I love staying up late. I'm a night-owl =D Been trying to reverse it the past few days by sleeping earlier but it's not really working and as for the 'waking up early' thing, that hasn't happened yet :P I find it so hard to get up in the mornings.... ten more minutes......okay just five more minutes....just another minute....this goes on and on until I've hit snooze about 16 times over two hours. Fingers crossed for a good week ahead for everybody :) Sunday, 27-Apr-2003 0:35 AM One scrub for me, one scrub for you. Ahhhhhhh...Had some private time in the shower with just me and the toothbrush. Sure was a lot of friction down there. But it was much needed! Now I have a brand spankin' clean shower! Well, not exactly..there's still some mould around the edges but I did what I could. It's much more time efficient though, to take a shower while you're cleaning it too :D I'll bet you all were hopin for a little more of the good kind of action ;) My dad called while I was ironing and catching some of Rainman on tv. That's a damn great movie. Anyhow, he's in Brisbane right now and they've put him in this huge room with two balconies, two tv's, masterbedroom, two bathrooms, dining room, lounge etc...it sounded like something out of the movies. He says it's bigger than the whole top level of our house! He even started counting steps while talking to me. 16 steps. That's a 16 meter long room. That's not fair :P I told him, when he comes over to Sydney (still for business), to tell his company that he's not staying here at our house, so they'll have to put him up in another hotel :D Then we can swap if he'd rather his own room here at the house :P It was so nice to talk to him....he's changed...perhaps not permanently, but the last two times I spoke to him on the phone, he actually sounded happy and wasn't degrading my mom or someone else. I hope this new attitude of his lasts. Saturday, 26-Apr-2003 12:04 PM I don't like being caught off-guard. I just tried to call Salami then and I don't know why, but I still get a little nervous when I hear the slow ringing. Then the answering machine comes on and the nervousness increases, coupled with the fact that I wasn't ready to leave a message and I have remnants of a brazil nut stuck to the roof of my mouth. It's funny..I can be spontaneous but for the most part, I need to be ready to leave a message otherwise I usually hang up. For important calls, I even write what I'm going to say down on paper =( I know I'm not the only one who does that, so I don't feel so weird about it :P My dad is going to be here this Monday and my mom will be here a few days after that. 'What about SARS?' I asked my mom during a phone conversation last night. I told her I didn't think either of them should be travelling much at the moment. She replies with, 'I know, but I MISS YOU GUYS SO MUCH and I WANT to see you!!' Aww..mom =D Hmm, now I'm wondering where Salami could be. I'm a worry-wart. The other day, in the midst of clearing my desk, my eye caught a quick glimpse of his picture and I don't know what got into me but I stopped momentarily and just stared at him. It's funny how one two-dimensional image can bring forth so many different emotions. Sometimes I'll look at it and I'll have this huge cheesy grin break across my face. Other times, all it does is make me sad and I heave a big sigh. This time though, I held it to my chest and three minutes passed without my realising it. I miss him.
Friday, 25-Apr-2003 1:02 AM I started the day with a hotdog. Spent all day at the Royal Easter Show! My legs ache, my feet hurt, my back is tired, I'm tired...ahh it was GREAT! :D I went with my cousin and we met one of her friends there. He was real nice but a little strange =) He was from HK and he's studying the same masters course as my cousin. What I loved about today was hanging around with people who enjoy rides, shows and food! I've been to the Easter Show numerous times with different groups of people and the previous lot have always been a little restricted with what they wanted to do. When I found out last night that I was going, I emailed Salami and he wrote back saying that he likes when I get really excited about going somewhere. I guess I'm always complaining and it makes for a nice change, huh? :P Well I really enjoyed myself because for once, I felt there was no time restriction or excitement barriers. I got to see all the things I wanted to see and no one complained. When someone wanted to do something, we all were upbeat about it. I really appreciated that and I think they could tell how happy I was when I got to see the huskies on show. They are such amazing dogs. They had been waiting in this huge dome and we went to see all the dogs in their individual units. I got to put my grubby paws all over some of the huskies. Hmm..they make me smile =) My cousin went crazy with the showbags. Mainly the ones with magazines. They were SO heavy! I got two of them :D Hehe..that's enough workout for my arms for the day :) We were there for about 7 hours. Got to taste test lots of food....fudge, fruits, nuts, olives, milk etc. Had to end the day with a gelato, since I'm still on my crave-an-icecream-a-day phase. Oh hey! I even won a soft toy! Haha..I never win with those games :) It was an easy one though, where you had to shoot water at this particular target. My cousin's friend played a bunch of things but he didn't win. Not that he was bad or anything. But during his attempt at shooting plastic rings over the neck of a huge bottle (holding a soft toy inside), the man in charge managed to talk my cousin into having a go. You get four shots with the rifle. He used up her first one to show her how to do it. She shot a ring down with her first attempt which won her a doll. Shot another ring down on the second attempt. Another doll. I don't know what happened there but they didn't let her have any more goes. We went back later on and she won yet another one :) Haha..I'm definitely not going to mess with this girl in the future! I love rides =) Most of them anyway. I think my favorite is the Pirate Ship. I love when the wind blows my hair back. I think I like it so much because I used to love playing on the swings in the playground when I was little. Heck, I still love to do it today but they have those weird baby seat ones and my ass doesn't fit in it =( Mm..okay...I'm off to rest my tired body :D Lets set aside the troubles for another day. Thursday, 24-Apr-2003 1:10 AM I want to be the Salvidor Dali of feet. I am a lucky girl. I have friends when it counts. Thanks for brightening up my day :) I've just been Miss Depressed this week and it's terrible. In fact, I actually cried while talking to someone online today, though he doesn't know it. I don't want to feel this way and hopefully, it'll disappear tonight when I sleep. Tried running away from my problems, literally. I ran for twice the distance I usually run and I felt great, until the next day when my legs were suffering :P I'm going to the Easter Show tomorrow! It's the last day too. Talk about timing. My cousin rang me and asked what I was doing. She really wants to go and doesn't have anyone to go with, so hey, we're goin! I was really excited for about ten minutes, and then I hit rock bottom again when I became overwhelmed by the amount of work I have to get done before Monday comes around. Argh, and it doesn't help that A asked me to go study tomorrow with Stairsguy. That makes me feel super guilty. Wednesday, 23-Apr-2003 11:06 AM And I'm dreaming of a place where I can see your face On last count, there are about three lawn mowers going off in my next door neighbour's backyard. For the past 40 minutes they have been going non-stop. My neighbour doesn't even have much grass to begin with...grrrrrrr shut up already! It is so damn annoying. One of them sounds like it's grinding on rocks. Ahh, finally it's stopped. Woah, I'm already halfway through the Norah Jones cd I put on. Damn noise :P And it's started up again. Now I've forgotten what I was going to say. Yesterday the crowd outside the Immigration office was huge. Granted we went at lunchtime which is a big no-no..but it all moved rather fast and we were in and out of there with no hassles :) Renewed my visa to stay here another five years. Was feeling absolutely cruddy though...I think my sister's getting sick and she's passing it over to me :( Spent all day out...dropping her off to pick up her car, then went to the mall to do some grocery shopping and to look at the animals in the petstore :D So cute :) Salami and I were planning on going to New Zealand in July but there's not much to do during those months unless you're an avid winter sports fan, which he isn't. I think he'd love it if he tried. So then we thought about Canada but there's the whole SARS thing. I'd still love to go there. I'm thinking, the next couple of places I visit have to be the ones I daydream about living/working in, so I can at least have a fair idea of how I'd fit in if I do decide to work elsewhere besides here. I already started looking at places to visit and things to do over in Vancouver :D It was funny because the following night, I talked to my old best friend from way back in Bangkok days and she tells me she's going to live in Canada for a year, this September. I think I shouted down her throat for that. I was so jealous =) Speaking of SARS, I finally bought some facemasks because my parents had bugged me about it three weeks back and I said I'd do it. I'm hoping they'll just collect dust on my floor and never have to be used. Though they cost $4.50 a piece! Okay. All jealousy and no work makes me a very very behind-on-work girl. So I better get to it :D Tuesday, 22-Apr-2003 1:33 AM 'You mean Geoff Huge-Gills' - Salami Yesterday, my sis and her bf cooked dinner. At 9pm. This happens time and time again and I don't understand it..I mean, I used to get annoyed at how early aussie families eat, but now, I would much rather eat at 6pm. I felt obliged to stick around while they were cooking because they were talking to me about the wedding they went to the day before. I don't even know who these people are! After dinner, I was trying to do my lecture tape and my sister's bf called me over to watch 'the kiss'. I didn't even know what he was talking about. I thought he was referring to some show on tv. Anyways, they made me watch all that wedding video stuff. Again, I don't even know these people!!!! The only time I really care to watch strangers during their wedding day is on Australia's Funniest Home Videos. Today was another one of those depressing days. They've been coming and going lately. It may have something to do with the long weekend and the fact that everyone went somewhere but me :( Or it may have to do with the lack of motivation to study. I am really finding it frustrating to get things done. I think I am much better suited to a mundane desk job. Someone tells me what to do, and I just do it. Day in, day out. Come home and relax - no more new material to learn. Nothing more to study. I know people say that that's too boring. But I like being bored. I like not having to think so hard. Plus doing the same thing day in, day out, means you know your job inside out and are less likely to make mistakes. Bah. How bout I just become a mail-order bride and try and get me a rich fella :P
On another note. I was lounging on the sofa two nights ago and I saw Geoff Huegill on tv. That made me sit up automatically :D I have had the biggest crush on this guy for years! Even before he became this super popular, hot stud. Can I express how disappointed I am? He's been reduced to a Pizza Hut advertisement. What?? Yes, that's right. You heard me. And he's wearing a shirt with flower outlines on it. Goodness :( PLUS, he's advertising a pizza that has PRAWNS scattered all over it. I'm so embarassed. I can't look at the screen when it's on. What I really don't understand is why elite athletes would even sign a deal for an ad that goes against their lifestyle. I'm talking about runners who promote Nutella, a chocolate spread and say it's good for them and their children. Hello, everyone with half a brain knows how little truth there is in that. And now pizza?! PIZZA?! At least the rowing team advertised fruit, even though it was soaking in a tub full of sugary syrup. Plus Geoff recently got voted Cleo's Bachelor of the Year. I just came across a line in his interview where he was asked what keeps his interest in a woman. To which he replied "A smile, conversation.....and sex.". Eh, you just had to throw that one in, didn't you? Now if you weren't so damn cute and with personality to boot, I'd knock you off my 'flavor of the month' pedestal with that last line there. Monday, 21-Apr-2003 2:15 AM Uhmf. 2am and I'm all neurology-taped out :( I wish I could learn faster, absorb faster, read faster, remember faster. I feel like a zombie. Saturday, 19-Apr-2003 10:48 PM Ice.Cream.O.Holic. Lately I've been craving ice cream like there's no tomorrow! I guess my pal, A, read my mind and he called to ask if I'd had dinner. I already had but I said I could go for icecream! Anyhow, he ended up getting pizza for himself and buying me gelato in a cup! Brought it to my house too :D hehee..I don't know how his girlfriend is going to react to her boy acting upon my beck and call :D Just kidding. This boy...I suppose we used to be best friends during the day but with the first girl that came into his life, I was booted out. Not by his doing though. Silly dork...brought his first girlfriend past my house (they were driving) and said 'this is my best friend's house!' and apparently her response was that he not talk to me anymore when she found out I was a girl. Bitch:P I'm harmless, really! I tried to pay him for the icecream. I even stuck the money in his shoe when he wasn't looking :P He wouldn't take it though.... I owe him one :) Johann sent me a picture of his gold. He won't share though :P Pig! I love timeout chocolates!
So I have to do something right? Something to show I'm not jealous and I got the goods too! :P
Mmm..Guylian chocolate shells =)
Okay, so this picture is old and the Godiva's were melted, but they still tasted good! :D Friday, 18-Apr-2003 11:31 PM wish those proprioceptive mechanisms would kick in a little faster Well we went out for yumcha today! It was gooooooood. My sister and her boyfriend wanted to look at the animals at the same petstore I was at yesterday, so we drove all the way and the found the parking lots were deserted! Everything was closed! So we drove over to this vetinary clinic that has kittens for sale. We just wanted to have a look :) They were closed too. It's funny how major shopping malls were closed but a tiny suburban 'kitchen and sinks' store we passed was open. I've one week left of this Easter break and my list of about 1000 things to do only has about three lines crossing through it :( I reeeeeally have to get motivated and get those gears goin. For some reason, I thought it was Saturday for Salami but Friday for me. I had things switched around and I was shocked when I got an email from him just now from work! I've been doing this more and more lately..mixing things up, confusing myself and the dizziness...it's still there :( I'm losing my balance when my eyes are closed too...err..what's going on? :( My sister's bf made me try this new edible mouthwash thing. It's a small blue rectangular sheet that dissolves in your mouth. It was really strong and it felt like I drank half a bottle of mouthwash mixed with toothpaste. I felt pretty sick for about 7 hours. Didn't really eat dinner :( I hope something good comes out of it - like fresh breath for the next decade! Friday, 18-Apr-2003 11:13 AM The other night I had a dream that my bed and everything under it was in Iraq. The air around me was dusty and the war was still going on. I was hiding under my bed, lying half on and half behind my old futon that's stored there. Then this American soldier saw me from about 20 meters away and he shot an arrow that was attached to a long wire cord from his gun, right through my head, between my right eye and the bridge of my nose. All I could think was 'You bastard! You just shot me through the head. So am I dead now?? Technically, I should be, right? But I'm not feeling anything and I can still see the damn wire coming out of my face, trailing to his gun'. Anyhow, it was a short dream and it ended there because I woke up. The good thing about the long weekend is that everyone tries to piss off somewhere for a short holiday so bums like me who want to go shopping can find parking on the best level :D I wasted a good amount of time staring at the puppies in the petstore yesterday. It makes my heart ache. I don't know if I could ever get a pet from the petstore anymore because I keep thinking of what Salami says about them and I feel really guilty. Oh but they are so cute and silly :D I'm not a huge fan of toy/small dogs but there was a real cute jack russell x maltese that was so engrossed in eating the paper that was stuck on his face, it was too cute =) I also went to buy a book yesterday and waited for this old man to pay up before me. As he was leaving, he heard the cashier girl sneeze and he turned around and said 'That sounds like SARS!' and he cracked up laughing and left. She was only half amused, and I was a quarter. Didn't think that was such a nice thing to say because she looked rather ill. So I walked up to pay and then it suddenly freaked me out. For the first time since hearing about SARS, I panicked and thought, well shit, what if she DOES have it?! I subconsciously took half a step back and I held my breath for the entire transaction without her realising (because hey, I can hold my breath for well over a minute :D ). Hmm..now I would love to go for yum cha in the city but I'm becoming paranoid. On the news they said that fewer people are going in to Chinatown but that sales have increased on those herbal teas which claim to boost your immunity against SARS. I wonder if that's true or if they're just trying to make a quick buck out of the gullible. Thursday, 17-Apr-2003 2:39 PM Home Sweet Home Took another one of those tests (ack! I just typed testes :( ) the other day and here are apparently the best ten cities for me to live in! : 1 Boston, MA-NH-ME I'd love to do one where every city in the world was included :D I'd probably end up in Perth, Australia =( I'm a little concerned there are so many NJ cities in that list =/ But hey! I guess I'm going to have to put Boston down as one of my must-see places now. NY was already there, of course :D Thursday, 17-Apr-2003 1:44 AM I am intimidating. Hear me roar. My brother has a new girlfriend. She's either VERY shy or just plain scared of me. No one knows that much about her, even he doesn't. She's been over the house a few times and on one occasion, she didn't want to come inside, so she waited outside in the car for my brother. On the second occasion, I was putting groceries away and the last thing I needed to do was pour the rice in this container that we use to store it in, when my bro and her came home. This would be the first time I'd actually see her. My brother walks into the kitchen and says 'okay, be nice' and there she was, hiding behind him in the doorway. I try to sound nice and friendly and I say a warm hello (it WAS warm damnit!) and I asked what they were doing today. My brother answers with 'you mean what have we already done today!' and he walks off to use the bathroom. So I say 'okay, what'd you guys do today?', in between pouring the rice and looking up at her but she was nowhere in sight! She had completely disappeared! I found out later she was hiding near the front door. That is until I had to throw the garbage out a minute later. She left to follow my brother quicksnap. One of my brother's friends called up when he was out today and we had a little chat about this new girl. It's just strange...very strange to see my brother with someone like her because he's the complete opposite - LOVES to talk, loves to go out. Plus it's a huge change from the other girls. He told me tonight though, that he was sick of the typical girls here - they're all outgoing and friendly but they have no heart. Well, they're not all like that big bro, but I do hope you find someone that doesn't treat you so pathetically, like the last one. This one is so quiet though! "I don't care. I just want the hugs and kisses." he says. Aww. And then of course, in true bigbrother style, he adds in - "I know it's gonna take at least six months before I get any sex outta her." Wednesday, 16-Apr-2003 1:23 PM Toes can come in handy sometimes. Raymond, this is for YOU.
Something to help shift those gears and take your mind off the crazy things going on in the world. I was initially going to write Dr Saddam on there but decided against it since his name doesn't deserve to be written on my feet! Although, that would mean I could step all over him afterwards. Hah...instead, you can have the pleasure of knowing that you will be in my smelly shoes and accompanying me to the post office in a few minutes :D Bendy Ears thought he'd pop his head in to say hello (Actually I shoved his head in there to separate the words but we won't tell him that or he'll feel less important). Wednesday, 16-Apr-2003 0:31 AM I win the month long 'ignoring you' battle. And this is my reward? Are we back to square one? How is it that I manage to win and lose at the same time?? It has been over a month since the boy and I talked. I hardly see him on but he was around tonight for quite a while. Gosh I wanted to say something..badly...but this is what always happens. It's like my brain forgets the last conversation we have, every single time. Or the lack of conversation but the bucketful of rudeness he dishes me. But alas! I he spoke to me first! I was reading someone's blog actually and this thing just popped up on my screen. I didn't even recognise what it was, that's how absorbed in other people's journals I am :P But when I realised it was him, my stomach leapfrogged into my throat. Now he's gone. It was less than 5 minutes since that window popped up on my screen. And I have no idea what to make of this: him:
"you know you can say hi once in awhile :P" me: " well you can too, you know :P" him:
ok What the hell is that?! If life is about lessons and learning, then goodness me, I'm dumb alright?! Just TELL me already what it is I'm supposed to be learning because I can't do this anymore. What is it with this guy??? I know I can be as undesirable as a girl who greedily chomps on chickpeas out of a can and then sneezes it all out (no, that is not a painted picture, I actually DID that earlier :P ) but hey, someone loves me and here I am, risking that by talking about this jerk! Ahh..........oh I see....... well that's a stupid lesson :P Ok, ok..I take it back. It's not a stupid lesson and I do know that I need to move on and just ignore the guy and stop talking about him. Or actually, tonight would have been my opportunity to ask if he remembered what he said to me in the last convo we had, which was rude, uncalled for and really makes him not worth being friends with. But I know that he'd get all psychotic and say that I'm always making everything like shit because I don't ever ackowledge the good things we have....but uhh...if it wasn't for me acknowledging the good things we have and keeping them so close to heart, I wouldn't be writing about you all the damn time now, would I !? At the same time........I'm thinking, what good things??! It's almost so hard to remember them now since it's majorly outweighed by all the bad things. Anyhow, I think it is suffice to say that I don't know squat about guys and how their minds work. Perhaps it is so UNcomplicated that it's just too simple for me to understand :P Someone explain it to me :D Monday, 14-Apr-2003 10:52 PM Life. In black and white. Updated the Art Gallery with a few old drawings. I'd been meaning to take a picture of them for years now but I kept putting it off. I took a few close-up shots of two of them but if you want to see the full image and the others, they're in the gallery :D The first two pics below was a project in 9th Grade I think, where we had to find some stylish picture in a magazine and copy it. Then we had to blow up three sections of the picture and add it to the overall drawing (which you can't see in these close-up shots). It's over a meter in height.
The one below is my favorite of all =) It's one of three drawings I did for my Grade 12 Art Majorwork and it comes from a series of black and white postcards I bought in Malaysia. I didn't get a terribly good mark for it and that will always haunt me but til today, I'm still surprised that I actually drew that from a tiny postcard. This one's about a meter long.
Monday, 14-Apr-2003 4:17 PM It may look like barf, but it sure tastes goooood =D Sometimes I'll get into that mood where I have that aching, longing feeling. And I just miss him in bits and pieces all throughout the day. But enough of that..I have something else that will gross you out :P Salami taught me how to make this really delicious sandwich a few years back. Not telling you the recipe but I've modified it to suit me. ie I make a three-layered sandwich instead of two because I'm a pig :P
Monday, 14-Apr-2003 0:14 AM He has bendy ears too =) My sister was scrambling under her desk for something and kept telling me not to come inside. She said she got it a week ago but couldn't hold it in anymore and wanted to give me this for Easter.
He's so cute and soft with beans in his tummy :D Unfortunately he's glued to the lid of the box. But! He's sitting on a goldmine of colorful, foil-wrapped chocolate eggs. mmm :D
Sunday, 13-Apr-2003 9:39 AM This tore me up when I read it From Sarah's diary:
My Brother...
I love this entry and hate it at the same time. In so few lines, it was able to move me completely and put my life on hold for a few minutes while I waited for the goosebumps over my body to disappear and my eyes to unwell. I used to think that if I secluded myself and loved less people, then I wouldn't get hurt as often in life and I wouldn't have as many loved ones to lose. I'm not sure if I still have a smidgeon of that mindset now. I realise it's not a great one to have. Anyway, I did have a point but I can't seem to get it out so I will just say that I'm sure what I'm feeling right now is only a fraction of what her family feels. I hope they don't have to wait long for his return. He'll be back :) Sunday, 13-Apr-2003 0:47 AM He doesn't know it but sometimes I cry myself to sleep. Saturday, 12-Apr-2003 9:49 AM This is the story of a girl Yesterday I was running a little late for uni and as the garage door opened, I noticed there was something on the driveway - looked like metal. I walked out there and found it was our mailbox x. Figured some jerks must have driven by and hit it over with a baseball bat - something kids used to love to do back in the day. Then it dawned on me that my brother's car was diagonally across the sidewalk. It had gone right through the concrete housing of the gas meter and right through the mailbox pole, knocking the mailbox over. What the hell!? His car looked fine, but I could see the part of the concrete leading against it and the other parts shattered into large pieces all scattered around. Did someone else do this? Did he know about it and just left it there? Did the car roll down the driveway? Now for the part I feel awful about. I thought of going back in to wake him up but I envisioned anger from either waking him up to something he already knew about, or something he didn't know about and time being consumed and me being late for class. I hesistated a few times but chose not to wake him up and I drove off. I tried to call him while on my way to uni but he wasn't answering his phone. I didn't think he would anyway because he doesn't answer his phone when he's sleeping. So as a last resort, I called the housephone and yelled out my message in hopes that he'd hear it. No such luck either. This was at 8:30am btw. He called me back at 2:30pm asking what the hell happened - did I see it? And what happened in the bathroom? Why was there puke everywhere?! What did my sister do that night?? etc etc. Sister had left the night before at 10pm and I had gone to bed. So it wasn't either of us. It was him. He just can't remember a thing. As for the car thing, the handbrakes weren't up all the way. He was at my cousins' house and they were drinking all day and then he drove home. I hate that. I hate it more that I can't do a thing to change either of those two boys (cousin and bro). I don't mind the drinking, but gees, don't drive if you can't even put two and two together. Anyhow, the gas had been leaking for all those hours. I'm so stupid. It could have blown because his car was almost over it. I should have done something about it but instead I was worrying about being late for a goddam class. =( I had my Orthopaedics test that day too. The line for it was going out the door. They take in 10 people at a time (5 pairs of students) so everyone else has to wait outside. My partner just walked on up to the front and people were saying 'Don't even think about it! Get back to the end of the line' but she was saying 'I gotta catch a plane.' so we were in the first group :) Everyone likes this one particular tutor/supervisor. He's nice and friendly and doesn't make you feel inferior. There's one in particular that no one likes and everyone was trying to avoid. When we walked into the room, this guy already beat us to the nice tutor so we went to this other lady. Two other students came and just stood where we were and then one of them begged us if they could swap with us because they didn't want the other tutor. Wtf?? I don't think so. But what always happens? I lose. We lose. The scary tutor called us over and said we had to go there because we hesitated. God. Scary stuff indeed. One time I was practicing on my partner and he came up to me and said he'd fail me for what I did because the table height was too low. So anyhow, outside the room, my partner and I had done paper-scissors-rock to see who would go first. She won but because this tutor dude wrote my name down first, I had to go first. It wasn't too bad except all that was supposed to be required was you do the orthopaedic test involved and say what a positive sign would be. Which I did. For one of them I said a positive sign would be such and such and would indicate disease of the buttock (which is extra info!). Scary tutor asks me what sort of diseases, so I tell him bursitis and tumors. Then he asks me where the bursitis is exactly. Grr! What's with all the extra questions there?! That's not fair :( On a different note. I just fixed the gas heating outside so now I can take a nice hot shower :) Man, I feel like MacGyver =) Friday, 11-Apr-2003 6:46 PM Hey. I'm entitled to my opinion too :P I just watched this segment on the news about Chiropractic for kids and how many are unconvinced, especially the medical profession. It made me furious. I hate to think how many parents watched that and now fear a Chiropractor's hands ever touching their child. What a loss for them. There are many chiros out there who treat babies and there are many out there who would treat babies except that we live in a medically-orientated world and also one where legality issues play a huge role. We almost don't DARE to do many things which would greatly benefit your child because of this. A patient will only listen and take in your information on healthcare when THEY are ready. Which makes it all the more harder because they already have a preconceived notion that a medical doctor is the one and only helper for all problems. I did not expect anything less coming from the medical professional who spoke out against the chiropractor. He said that treating the baby (shown on tv) goes against everything every medical practitioner has been taught. That's because they are symptom-based. You go to them only when you show signs and symptoms of a possible illness/disease. Chiropractors are about restoring normal body function, normal body biomechanics for the individual so that they are functioning at their optimum. We don't treat your symptoms, we treat YOU and by doing so, symptoms usually disappear (as a result of our adjustment). Therefore there is often a misconception that we can treat headaches/migraines, low back pain, asthma etc. What we're really doing is removing subluxations that exist, hopefully rehabilitating the patient and teaching them how to prevent their problem reoccuring through stretches, exercises and better ergonomics etc and if the headaches, back pain and respiratory symptoms reside, it is often as a result of the chiropractic treatment. What I'm really trying to say is that we treat the cause of the problem because we understand the nature of the problem -ie we find what is causing that low back pain or that headache and we do something to improve the situation, without the use of drugs. And for clarity, we are NOT manipulators. We are adjustors. There's a difference. An adjustment has intent behind it. The intention to achieve biomechanical and neurological restoration (and even more things but I'm keeping this short) with the vertebral subluxation complex in mind. We are not merely affecting 'bones out of place' - there is a hell of a lot more going on than just that. Okay, my mind is running away here....I'll try to close off because I'm annoyed and tired and I don't want to spend my Friday night bitching about this. So, a baby can receive many benefits from chiropractic treatment. A pregnant woman can receive many benefits from chiropractic treatment. Everyone can. Please don't be so narrow-minded as to take everything your medical doctor says as the truth. When they diagnose you with something, it is based on their opinion from their findings after taking your history and examining you. That's often why people get different diagnoses from different doctors. But, this is also the case with Chiros and Physios and many other professions, so don't think that I am against medical doctors (just small-minded ones). It is all based on history taking skills and the ability to correlate what they've learned as well their clinical experience to come up with a diagnosis of what you have. It is not to say that chiropractic alone has the answer to all your problems, nor physio, nor a medical doctor. You may receive optimum restoration of a certain area from one and optimum restoration of another area from another profession. So really, a patient would receive the best care if only all these professions could work hand-in-hand. But you know, it becomes so hard when you get bad-mouthed because instead of ignoring it, you bad-mouth back. Or at least I have the tendency to :( Okay I'm done. For now. Thursday, 10-Apr-2003 7:49 PM Not so good results I'm bummed =( We got our first feedback form today with our results from last week's Gonstead test and I got a shockingly bad mark. I didn't come across anyone else (though I didn't ask many) who had a lower mark. So for the rest of the class, I couldn't really concentrate, but I tried to hide my sinking depression. It was eating me up though and I really wanted to just leave and mope. Most people said they did badly and were all lining up to ask the tutor where they went wrong and why they got marked down etc. I showed another supervisor/tutor some set-ups and he said they were great and worth 8-9's (out of 10) which I would have been damn happy with since that would have been a rather high mark. I didn't fail....least I don't think so, unless they hike the pass mark up to 75% which they've mentioned they might. So I came home and pigged out on anti-depressing foods: chips and salsa. I don't have any chocolate around :( Johann said he'd send me some if he knew my address =) That's nice of him :D Well now I'm really reluctant and scared to do tomorrow's Orthopaedic test. Plus my partner has to catch a flight home for Easter Break so we'll have to go first, or be one of the first pairs tested. That's good and bad. Good if I know everything plus I'll be able to start my two week break earlier. Bad if I have to wait over an hour with a whole bunch of nervous wrecks in a poorly ventilated hallway. It's crazy. There's 140 of us and 1 hour to test us all in. We have three minutes each, so we're in the room for a total of 6 minutes (your partner has the other three minutes).They said that technically speaking they can get us all done in less than an hour because there are five tutors. How does that work??:P The terrible thing is that this is ONE result and it's throwing me off the deep end. I've already pondered doing something else for a living and I've questioned myself again why I'm doing this :( But then the news was on in the background and I hear of civilians in Baghdad dying and I think again, I have to keep at this. I have to help people. Just changing the lives of one person, changes the whole planet they say. So what I'm really doing is throwing myself on the deep end to save the world. Sigh, wish me luck for tomorrow. Wednesday, 09-Apr-2003 6:05 PM MeowR! Claws out. It REALLY drives me berserk when people only think of themselves (inconsiderate bastards!) and eat CRUNCHY foods during a lecture. I happened to be sitting in front of one such person today who was hiding a plastic container of dry cereal under her table and she'd sneak her hand down there (that sounds kinda kinky:P) and roll her fingers around (woah, even kinkier!), scrummaging for one piece. Then the crunching begins. Can anyone else not HEAR HER!? Why is everyone so much more tolerant than I?! I glared at her through these reflective windows we had. *Crunch*crunch*crunch*effincrunch*. No luck. I will NOT let it get to me, I will not let it get to me, I kept repeating over and over in my head and of course, we all know what that lead to. I was gotten to. Terribly. I could feel my face starting to burn. She was eating one at a time and I wanted to turn around and either sock her in the face or tell her to hurry the hell up, put at least ten pieces in her mouth and finish the fuckin thing. The patient history taking test for Preclinical Studies was pretty good. Pretty easy since it was done with everyone in class. Two to a chiro table, sit how you like and away we go, asking questions from our 'patient' and scribbling it all down within our allocated time (20 mins). We were all given a problem to present with (ie low back pain, or shoulder and arm pain) and were supposed to make things up when it was our turn to be patient. During our neuro tutorial, the tutors seemed on edge. Yelled at people a few times..it was quite out of the norm. We later realised it was because there's this American guy who's come in to spy on us:P Well basically, to see how we compare to the chiro colleges over in the States. Gees, if only they knew. I'd like to know though..how we fair in comparison, in knowledge, skills and also course organisation. Oh dear me. I hear my brother choking outside in the garden and some loud thump sound. That means someone has finally done something about the mould-garden we were growing inside the rice cooker about ten days ago =D Let me tell ya, I have never seen such amazing fluffy mould. I almost took a picture of it. But I didn't. Instead, here's a pic of one very scary cat that's up for adoption!
Tuesday, 08-Apr-2003 1:56 PM 'The key is to eat a lot at night so you don't have to have breakfast in the morning' - Bushpig I hate when I read over some entries and I find really, really dumb mistakes with my spelling and grammar. :P I guess my brain wasn't functioning for the last two entries I wrote. I think I fixed it all up though :) I woke up really dizzy this morning..I still am quite dizzy..it's as though the left side of my head keeps wanting to move in clockwise circles while the right side remains still. I wonder what those sausages were made out of from last night's bbq :P Dropped by the postoffice this morning to mail some stuff and on my way back home, I noticed someone had hammered a small sign next to the neighbour's bush outside their house. Seeing as it's some kind of native plant, I thought it was a sign saying what type of plant it was and what year it was grown etc but upon driving by it, I only caught the first line and it read 'Some low-life thief...' etc. I'll stop by it on my way to uni. I wonder what happened though..I hope no one broke into their place. I also noticed that my brother's housekeys were dangling on the front door, key in slot. He's done this numerous times and we've been SO lucky no one's broken in. Same with my bro and sis not closing the garage door. It's nice to be able to live in an area where you're relatively safe. On my way to uni, I always pass this house that has a whole bunch of cut flowers at the front and a bucket with a sign saying 'Fresh Flowers $2.00'. The couple never come out to check until the end of the day when they take the remaining flowers in and the money. My neighbour just called out to his wife and said 'Alright dahl, I'm going now, I'll see you back in an hour.' and the cockatoo answered back. I don't like that cockatoo. You can't understand a word it says because it mumbles and it sounds freaky. 4:06 AM Ok, I think I took things one step too far. Two bowls of risotto, two choc chip cookies and one bowl of miso soup later, plus some late night tv, and I'm ready to go back to sleep :) My brother actually came home and was cooking food himself when I went downstairs :D So we stayed up and watched Chris Rock on Letterman. Where'd Letterman go anyway? And who is that dude in his place?:P
Tuesday, 08-Apr-2003 2:40 AM What does one do when she has a throbbing eyeball headache coupled with a general braincramp? Well..instead of going to bed she surfs the net to read all her dailies, sends two emails to the mainsqueeze, who is at work, and then watches tv for a few. Caught up with the war news, she's back to send a third email to say goodnight and how much worse her headache is. Bah. It's getting too confusing to type in second person. I'm up because I couldn't really sleep. Well, I was asleep but I kept waking up every ten minutes or so. I had two dreams incorporated into one, where every second ten minutes, I'd wake up and realise that my tutor is still explaining stuff to everyone (stuff I already knew), so I'd grumble and go back to sleep. Mind you, he was explaining stuff while on my bed. I think he was sitting on my legs too. Weird. Then every other ten minutes, I kept thinking I was in New Zealand with Salami and we were about to do stuff that requires you to avert your eyes :D ahahaha.. my, don't we have dirty minds:P Anyways, I was sending him an email just now, telling him all this and I accidentally sent it to his work address =/ They screen the emails apparently. I hope they don't come across that! Hmm..what're your thoughts on eating at super late/super early hours of the day? ie, I'm starving and need someone to say it's okay to eat when you're hungry and starting off your GIT system at 3am is fiiiiiiiiine :D Sometimes it sucks knowing more than you want to know about the body (not that I know everything, or close to everything for that matter) because it can work against your bad habits:(
Cookies, anyone? =) Monday, 07-Apr-2003 8:52 PM You make me anxious. If I didn't actually skip my tutorial this morning, I would have been at uni for almost 12 hours today, but seeing as I went to the next tutorial, that makes almost 11 hours I have been at uni. I have that eyeball headache now..you know the one? The one you get after a movie marathon? Well yeah, I have that, only I didn't get to watch anything to my enjoyment.... Okay, I haven't actually ever been to a movie marathon :P but it's the one I get when I've been staring at my computer screen for about 10 hours straight :P Actually, the reason why I am home 3 hours later than usual is because we had a bbq before one of our old lecturers came to give a talk. He was great..except he picked on people and asked what a 'subluxation' and 'adjustment' was. He was adamant on the meaning of these terms back when I had him in first year for philosophy. I'm scarred terribly from all those years ago when he called my entire row to come out to the front and he asked us questions. I, of course, was the first one and he asked me what a subluxation was. I freaked, started babbling and I think I opened my notebook (which i was gripping tightly) and tried to flip through it for the meaning (because we could, not because I wanted to look stupid:P although that occured anyway). 5 years later and I still can't come up with a definition on the spot. My arm went dead after he randomly picked on 5 people. I had a death grip on my arm. I hate when lecturers freak me out like that :P After awhile, the more I stared at him, the more he began to look like Richard Gere. So full energy and so passionate about Chiropractic, it's almost spooky. But, we need it...to remind us of who we are and why we're doing what we're doing. This poor dude..he just wasn't getting it and people were making noises each time he put his hand up to contradict what the lecturer was saying. I was doing it too, but in my head :P Don't get me wrong...I didn't agree with anything this boy was saying but I can appreciate someone who has a brain and dares to questions outside the square YOU live in. Got another skills test out of the way. I thought it would be like last week where we'd pair up with our usual partner but they called us out randomly today and I was first. I paired up with this guy and I thought my fingers were shaking all the way through but when it came to his turn, man..when he put his fingers on my neck, it felt like I was sitting in one of those vibrating massage chairs :P Hehe..nah, wasn't too bad, but he was nervous and that actually made me feel better, coming from a guy who I thought thought he knew everything. Actually, he probably does think he knows everything..but I know better now:D hehee We did four set-ups and two motion palpations...I saw a lot of ticks under my name, so I guess that's a good sign:) Plus we all think this tutor (who was marking us) is a softy so that's good :) As for that meaning of subluxation...I'll get back to you on that :) Haha....no seriously..if you really are curious, just ask me :D Sunday, 06-Apr-2003 11:14 PM Whenever I touch myself Hey hey hey! It's back up and running at halfspeed (because I have three exams and one assignment due this week !) ...hopefully anyway. Lets keep those fingers crossed for no downtime and a quick end to the war :D I spent about 5 hours or more in total at uni this weekend. That is both Saturday AND Sunday. Practicing for skills exams this week :( All those different contacts for motion palpation bugs me :P This Norwegian friend of mine is so funny. She doesn't realise the things she says and we just crack up laughing until she does. Two examples come to mind from today...we were practicing and she says 'Whenever I touch myself, it hurts!', referring to her Cervical transverse processes (those bones in your neck). The other time was when I was lying down and she was supposed to do a cerivical set-up on me. We asked her what her direction of thrust was and she goes 'this one is the tit!' I said if the supervisor asked her what direction she was thrusting in tomorrow during the exam, then I dare her to spend a moment pondering and then say what she just said as though it quickly came to her mind. :) She's silly, that girl :D I have not spoken to theboy in over a month now..? I think anyway. He hasn't been around for awhile and suddenly reappeared three days ago and also tonight, he seems to be staying up real late. I had to fight the urge twice to talk to him..I keep needing to remind myself of that last conversation we had where he was just such a jerk to me, as with most our conversations. Ok! So..I need to apologise to the people who regularly email me (you know who you are!). I've lost all my emails since switching hosts. If you can't be bothered to email again, I will come FIND you :P As soon as my break comes around, which is in 5 days! WoohoO! =) Two weeks of bliss ..or more like two weeks of intense catching up :( Nite folks :D Saturday, 05-Apr-2003 10:30 AM I, the chiropractor, treat cacti patients. Well once again my site has been down for a few days. Nothing suprising there. I'm waiting for my domain to transfer over to a new registrar. Tedious I tell ya..mainly because things only happen during business hours and with the whole time difference thing between here and the States, nothing gets done fast ! I had two practical tests on Thursday. It was strange because we did it all together in our usual tutorial rooms (has about 30 chiro tables in there) with no partitions. You just pair up with your usual partner and practice your set-ups while 3 tutors move from pair to pair, getting each person to show them 4 set-ups. Guess who was the last group. Yep. Yours truly was actually the very last person in the first group to do it. The second lot of students were already piling in - distracting. The thing with these practical exams is one part worrying about whether you've learned everything and practiced it enough to get it all correct and another part is whether you've shaved your legs and are wearing matching underwear:P They're picky about skin-on-skin contact so that means you have to wear shorts and tank tops, or a gown. Actually for the second prac exam, I saw a guy in his undies =) It's funny how guys can just change in front of everyone...they don't realise that sometimes, not all of their 'package' is held in by that tiny piece of material! Or is that WHY they change in public?!?:P My partner had really prickly legs that day. I mean REALLY prickly. I don't mind a bit of prickliness because sometimes you just can't help how fast your leg hairs grow..but yikes! It's hard to do a basic lumbar roll on a cactus =( It was really bothering me =( Anyways, you try and put that aside as best you can to get the job done. I just realised that this is probably reality and most my patients in the future may be even less unkept. (is that a word? feels like I just made it up or something :P ).
Thursday, 03-Apr-2003 7:39 PM I thought I would listen to last week's Rehabilitation lecture on tape since I skipped the class. I've decided not to go to them because I can't hear a word of what the lady says. I feel my ears straining subsconsciously and instead I find I can catch all the conversations going on in the back row. Anyhow, upon pressing the play button, all I hear is this chinese man talking about marketing. Hmm. What happened there :P On the tape, you also hear this phone ringing loudly, stopping the lecturer in mid sentence and some guy from the crowd calls out 'that's because you forgot to put your microphone on!'. The class goes silent until the end of the call and the lecturer hangs up and says 'You right. I forgot microphone.' These lectures sound more fun than mine :D Tuesday, 01-Apr-2003 9:24 PM Flavors of the month...who's yours? I've hit this block where I'm confused about everything that's going on. I seem to have forgotten all the things I learned last week and what's expected from us this week. I find I'm losing my step every now and then and waiting for the crowd to pick me up. I'm happier though, than I have been, with this group of people. I think there's a huge bunch that were neither here nor there and started Masters this year. The majority of the people are friendly, some stand out as completely unfriendly. The group I entered 1st year bachelors with were neither. They didn't really stand out as super friend nor mean. They just didn't look at you much. If they did, it was more of a blank look rather than a 'you're not worthy to be my friend' look. Last year I had that new flavor of the month(s)...remember him? Hehe..the one that reminded me so much of Salami. Well..I've bumped into him every now and then and yesterday was one of those times. I was practicing some skills with a friend and he came into the room. I don't know what it IS about him but when he stepped in, I just gawked. And gawked somemore. I couldn't move (well, literally couldn't too because I was acting as patient for my friend, and she had me in a BLR position) - my eyes were fixated on him. The whole time my friend was asking me if she was doing it right and what to do in the next part etc and I don't recall a word she said, but I do recall answering with 'uh huh, uh huh, yeah, uh huh.' =D He came over to us and I said hi and he said hello back to me. He remembered my name too. Yeah..that was enough to get me smiling from ear to ear =) He even said hello to my friend, who was shocked to see him - I found out she went to see him at the student clinics to get her xrays done. We talked a bit more and then he had to go to his tutorial. I was still smiling for some reason. I don't know what it is. I wonder if this is inexcusable behaviour? If your girlfriend had her 'flavors of the month' ..would you be pissed off? I usually go on and on about the ever-so-cute Geoff Huegill (World Record holder for Butterfly)...Salami is more than used to that :) He is so damn cute though, that Geoff :D Did anyone watch the swimming? They showed his mom in the stands cheering for him. She's the cutest :D She's at every meet of his and she's always cheering him on, jumping up and down and covering her face when it gets beyond exciting =D And damn, he's trying out these new, WHITE tights to swim in :D
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