Well, I had my job interview this afternoon. I think it went quite well, although the fact that I don't have a car and can't drive will go against me. The job itself is as a "Senior Receptionist", which pretty much means "general dogsbody". That's the kind of job I like: endless variety, multi-tasking, and a complete lack of boredom. I hope to find out if I have the job by tomorrow afternoon.

Thanks to those who gave their good wishes by commenting on my previous post :)

In other news, our car is at the mechanics. They haven't had time to look at it yet, so we still don't know for certain what's wrong or how much it will cost to un-wrong.

In other other news... actually I don't think I have any. We're probably going to go and see Prince Caspian tonight. The Narnia books were among my favourite as a child; anything that could transport me to other realms than this sad reality was always a favourite. That still applies, really. Fantasy, sci-fi, even classics set in an age so different from my own time. So hopefully the movie will carry me away as easily as did the books.

I have a job interview tomorrow!

63 Random Questions I Stole From "A Bit Of Fluff"

1. The phone rings; who do you want it to be? Nobody really. I don't like phones too much. If it has to be somebody, it can be Aidan. If it's the home phone, I know it's my mother-in-law, because she's the only person who has that number.

2. When shopping at the grocery store, do you return your cart? I generally use a basket. Last time I used a trolley, I left it in a place I knew the trolley pick-up guys visited regularly.

3. In a social setting, are you more of a talker or a listener? Neither. I'm not very sociable as a general rule, but when I am with friends (ie, those I like and trust very much), I'm both.

4. Do you take compliments well? I'm getting better... but no.

5. Do you play Sudoku? Nah, I'm more of a words person than a number person. I do cryptic crosswords.

6. If abandoned alone in the wilderness, would you survive? I really doubt it, not for any length of time. I know enough to stay in one place. I'd probably be ok if I had my mobile phone, and if it had reception.

7. Do you like to ride horses? I used to, quite a lot. I haven't ridden in about ten years though.

8. Did you ever go to camp as a kid? Yeah, every year my school had camps. The best was to Central Australia – lots of hiking and climbing and stuff.

9. What was your favorite game as a kid? I was a solitary child in the bush, I played make-believe all by myself! I played every part in every story I could think of!

10. If a sexy person was pursuing you, but you knew he/she was married, would you go for it? No way.

11. Could you date someone with different religious beliefs than you? Love should transcend religious beliefs. But I couldn't tolerate somebody trying to change my mind. (Intelligent debate is great, "I'm right because my bible says so" is not.)

12. Do any songs make you cry? Sometimes... it depends when I hear it.

13. Are you continuing your education? Sadly, no. There are a lot of things I want to know more about, there is so much to know and I know so little of it. I hope to study again at some point, when I figure out which topic I want to know about the most!

14. Do you know how to shoot a gun? No, but I could probably figure it out if I really had to.

15. If your house was on fire, what would be the first thing you grabbed? I don't really have that many possessions that I value overly much. Probably just my mobile phone, so I could let everybody know my house burnt down.

16. How often do you read books? Very often, I love reading. Although I often have trouble deciding what to read, or re-read, so I might just save myself the trouble and not read instead.

17. Do you think more about the past, present or future? Probably the present. I have a terrible memory, and I have trouble putting faith in any imaginings of the future.

18. What is your favorite children's book? The Phantom Tollbooth, by Norton Juster. Full of puns and plays on words, which I love!

19. What color are your eyes? Blue-grey. More grey when I wear my contact lenses.

20. How tall are you? I dunno, about 165cm I guess.

21. Where is your dream house located? I don't have a dream house, or a location for one. There are too many wonderful places in the world to choose one, and far too many that I haven't been to yet.

22. Do you have a secret fetish? If I did, would I tell?! But I don't.

23. Have you tried sushi? Yes, it's quite nice, but not a favourite.

24. Have you ever taken pictures in a photo booth? Yes. Once. Wouldn't bother again.

25. When was the last time you were at Olive Garden? Is this some American thing? I don't know what Olive Garden is.

26. When was the last time you were at Church? I have never been to a church service. I went to a wedding in a church once, about 5 years ago.

27. Where was the furthest place you traveled today? Into the city and back, about a
14km round trip. On foot.

28. What was your favorite job? I'm not sure... all my jobs have been menial. Probably my current one or the one immediately before it; both office admin jobs.

29. Do you like mustard? Yuck yuck yuck!

30. Do you prefer to sleep or eat? I tend to eat out of boredom. But I guess I actually prefer sleep. Or rather, being in bed. Often with a book.

31. Do you look like your mom or dad? I looked a LOT like my mum when I was younger. Now I think I'm more of a hybrid, kind of both but neither. I have my dad's forehead.

32. How long does it take you in the shower. Depends how keen I am to get out and go to work!

33. Can you do splits? Nope. No way. Never have.

34. What movie do you want to see right now? The new Indiana Jones, and/or Prince Caspian.

35. If you could fast forward your life, would you? No, I think I'd miss all the good bits. I wouldn't even want to miss the bad bits; after all, how do you know what's good if you've got nothing bad to compare it to?

36. What did you do for New Year's? I don't remember. That's not because I got drunk; I'm almost certain I didn't. I probably blogged it, so just find that entry!

37. Do you think The Grudge was scary? The what? If that's a movie, I haven't seen it.

38. Could you relate to a character in Mean Girls? Thankfully, no. They were all equally horrid. Although I suppose the main character sort of slightly redeemed herself at the end.

39. Do you own a camera phone? Yes, it comes in handy sometimes. Every now and then I see something that nobody would believe if I didn't have photographic evidence!

40. Do you have an "ex box" with pics and letters from past lovers? No. I do have a box full of “memories”, which may or may not contain some “ex-related” stuff, but I certainly don't keep things specifically because they're ex-related.

41. Was your mom a cheerleader? Ha. Ha. Ha. No. She did sort of attempt to become a model at one point in her youth.

42. What's the last letter of your middle name? E.

43. Do you like your middle name? I guess it's ok. It's a derivative of my mum's first name. I don't really use or think about my middle name very much. (Although I do tease Aidan sometimes because he forgets how to spell it!)

44. How many hours of sleep do you get a night? It varies insanely. Just depends what I'm doing before and after sleep, as to how long I stay up and what time I wake up.

45. Do you like care bears? I barely remember them.

46. What do you buy at the movies? Popcorn! I often don't get a drink because then I'll need to pee halfway through the movie, but if I do it'll be a small soft-drink.

47. Do you know how to play poker? No. I quite like watching people play, and laughing at how serious they are.

48. Do you wear your seat belt? Only in the car. My scooter has no seatbelt.

49. What do you wear to sleep? Jim-jams that look rather like a clown costume.

50. Anything big ever happen in your hometown? Bushfires are regular... also the yearly “Wool Week” - wool is the main industry in the area, so there's a festival for it, although I think that's dying out now.

51. How many meals do you eat a day? Depends how hungry I am.

52. Is your tongue pierced? No, I would never get my tongue pierced. Just thinking of the risks of facial paralysis and loss of taste... no way.

53. Do you like funny or serious people better? Probably funny people. Serious people sometimes make me nervous, but funny people are easy – I just laugh!

54. Ever been to L.A.? Nope, I don't really want to either. Maybe just for a day.

55. Did you eat a cookie today? No... but I did eat fast food for the first time in AGES.

56. Do you steal or pay for your music downloads? Depends... if I'm at home, and think of a song I want, I'll download it. But if I'm in a music store and see a CD I want, I'll buy it.

57. Do you hate chocolate? I hate liking it!

58. What do you and your parents fight about the most? I've only ever seen my parents fight once, and although the memory sticks out like a sore thumb, it's the aftermath I remember and not the cause. (Don't worry, everything worked out ok and they celebrate their 38^th wedding anniversary tomorrow.)

59. Are you a gullible person? I don't think so... but if I was, I might not know.

60. Do you need a boyfriend/girlfriend to be happy? Nah. I mean, being married is fantastic and I wouldn't NOT be married for anything. But I was happy when I was single too.

61. If you could have any job what would it be? How can I get paid a lot to do very little?

62. Are you easy to get along with? I'm not sure... I often struggle with small-talk, so strangers may find me difficult or odd. To my friends/intimates, though, I think I'm good. I hope so anyway!

63. What is your favourite time of day? Nighttime. I've always preferred staying up so late I go to bed when others wake up!

Our car broke down yesterday. In a big way. Click click click click BOOM!!! Smoke smoke, no more driving, no starting, zip nothing nada. Had to get it towed home (fortunately less than a kilometre away), and we can't do anything about it until after the long weekend. Tuesday will be (hopefully) the first time a mechanic looks at it and tells us how much it'll cost to fix. Oh well, we do have insurance that covers some engine parts to a limited value. Things could definitely be worse. But we didn't get to go to the poultry show we were thinking about. (The Megg Miller mentioned in the article is my mum's boss, so we were going to drop in on her too.) So anyway, we're a little bit homebound, unless we feel like an hour-long walk into the city, which we did today. We were hoping to get some D&D books and an idea on how to actually play. But the books were too expensive, particularly as we may have to front up some dosh to fix the car shortly. Talk about a wasted walk! But Exercise is Good, right? I need more of it, my tummy's getting flabby again! Oh well, as long as my pants fit I'm not too fussed!

I'm really quite bored right now. Aidan's gone to bed because he's got an early start tomorrow, but I'm not tired yet and I don't work again until Tuesday. Speaking of work, and Tuesday, my recruitment agent is coming to visit because he's found a job he thinks I might be interested in. From what he's told me so far, I am interested, although they're offering a little less than I was hoping for. But they might negotiate. We shall see! I remain optimistic, as usual!

Hello hello! Good news, everyone! (a la Professor Hubert Farnsworth.) I am in fact working every day this week! Yes, a five-day week. It's been a while since I've done that, I forgot what it was like not to have days off during the week! My boss is giving promising indications that I'll be working five days every week, but although things are looking up we are still unsure of the company's future after tomorrow anyway!

In other cheering news, New South Wales has expanded the rights of lesbian mothers. Children can now inherit money from their "non-birth parent", and both parents can now appear on the child's birth certificate. All that remains is for every other state to follow NSW's example. Apparently 71% of Australians now support the concept of equal rights for same-sex couples, which I think is great. It's only a matter of time before same-sex couples can marry properly, and adopt children, and have the same rights and benefits as heterosexual couples.

It is a darn good thing that I borrowed somebody's office key yesterday... because I got here 15 minutes ago and nobody else is here yet... If I hadn't had that flash of inspiration, I'd still be sitting outside!

Blogspiration has been lacking of late. My general outlook has been poor. This has a lot to do with work right now. The job and the people are still fine, no problem. The problem is job security. They can't afford to pay me; I've worked only three days in the last fortnight and will probably only work two days next week. Also I've just found out that, this Friday, we will be told whether or not our office will remain open - in other words, whether or not we still have jobs. Admittedly I'm only on a 3-month contract, but the expectation was always that I would be offered the job permanently at the end of that time. But the lack of hours, and the fact that the company's going under... not cool. Also the secrecy that surrounds many aspects of the business and the way I found out about this Friday third-hand rather than straight from the boss... it all gets very irritating. It sometimes seems like there's some conspiracy afoot! Fortunately I have the coolest recruitment agent in the world, he knows the situation, and he's already keeping an eye out for other jobs for me. But really, I hate job-hunting and job interviews and updating my resume and having to dye my hair a "normal" colour that isn't purple... I just want to keep this job that I like, with the added bonus of working enough hours to pay the rent and eat (and save money and pay off a loan)! I guess there's always the chance the company will start making some money in the next week or so...

I wouldn't have thought it possible, but our computer went screwy again recently. It's alive and kicking now, but once again we've lost everything. Photos, music, programs... so we've had a fun couple of days making it fully functional again. It's not as though I don't have plenty of time; my boss currently can't afford for me to work much, so I'm only working Thursday and Friday this week. I need a new job, as soon as my contract ends in a few weeks.

However, I have discovered a new way to waste time (I mean, a constructive and healthy use of time...)!! I may be the very last on the bandwagon, you probably all know about Geocaching?! It looks to me like a lot of fun, so I'm tossing up whether or not I'm going to stay interested long enough to justify buying a GPS unit. I did go for a fruitless wander today, in the general area of where a cache is supposed to be; but lacking a GPS unit or a particularly good map, I didn't find anything. However, it was a really nice walk (almost a hike, up a mountain), giving wonderful views over the city, somewhere close to home that I hadn't even thought of going to before. So even though I didn't find the cache, it was still a worthwhile trip. (Yes, this photo is our capital city, taken about 5 or 6 kilometres from the city centre.)

In other news... I'm bored. I need to find something to do for the next three days; Aidan will be working but I'll be home. I could, of course, just MUD, but that's probably not a constructive use of my time and is really lazy. Suggestions??

This is the glorious vegetable soup I made last night! Sometimes I surprise myself!

Ingredients:
Potato (3)
Carrot (2)
Celery (lots)
Turnip (1)
Onion (1)
Red kidney beans (1 can)
Chick peas (1 can)
Pepper & Salt (to taste)
Beef stock (quite a bit)

Instructions:
Cut stuff up, simmer everything until you get bored, eat!


This is the equally delectable bread that Aidan made - well, it's half of it, because the other half got eaten before I could photograph it. I don't know the recipe for this, it's Aidan's speciality!

Together they made a perfectly scruptious meal, which I fully intend to duplicate with the left-overs tonight while Aidan is at work!

It's such a wonderful feeling to produce entire meals from scratch like this, particularly meals that most people buy in cans, boxes, or bags. It's very satisfying, lots of fun, and it tastes better too. The next step is to grow everything ourselves, in an ideal world.

We keep talking about a self-sufficient lifestyle: growing fruit and vegetables, keeping some livestock, even milling our own flour! We both grew up in more or less rural areas, and such ideas hark back to our childhood and our mothers' homegrown produce. One day, when we're tired of travel and we've saved enough that we don't need to work, it would be marvellous to get back to nature. Not entirely - I do like my electricity, flushing toilets, and so on! Did anybody ever see The Good Life? That's what I'd love to emulate, one day! (I mean as Barbara, not Margot.)

I suggested to Aidan that we should move to a commune. Not the hippy druggy ones, but a nice community of people who just want a simple life with outdoor work and animals! That would be nice.

In the meantime, I'm going to re-heat some of that soup, butter some bread, and try to find The Good Life clips on YouTube.

Second singing lesson this afternoon! Unfortunately I'd spent the whole afternoon working in the warehouse, so my throat was full of dust. It wasn't too bad, Nina (the teacher) was still pleased, but it could have been better. Still fun though! Lots of practice this week, I hope. I really didn't practice last week, I guess I need to get back into the habit of "learning" or "studying" something - it's been quite a while!

Work today was hectic. I stayed half an hour longer than I'm meant to, and still didn't get everything done. We had some people from TNT come to install a program on our new warehouse computer, and train us how to use it, but of course that ate into our usual Friday dispatch routine. We had a lot to dispatch today because we just received a shipment, so everybody with backorders had their stock sent out today. Eventually we had to send everything without invoices, since I didn't have time to prepare them and nobody else knows how, so I'll have to remember to post all the invoices out on Monday.


I think I'm definately going to need a beer tonight. Thank god for homebrew. Aidan makes a good beer, especially after it's been left in a dark cupboard for six months, forgotten about, moved to Canberra, re-discovered, refridgerated, and then drunk!

While I'm drinking my beer, I will certainly continue playing the Discworld MUD, which I have recently become re-obsessed with! I've been playing for years, but I stopped for a while... and now I've started a new and better character, and I'm hooked again! It's not the game for everybody - text-based, and revolving around the Discworld books by Terry Pratchett. But if you like reading, it's great!

Anyway, enough blather about what I'm going to do. I'm going to go and do it!

I get so sleepy at work... one of my colleagues, Ian, insists on having two heaters going at all times, and it gets so warm and stuffy in here! I have a small window next to me, which I try to keep open, but it doesn't help very much. I do have work to do - I could be downstairs in the warehouse re-organising it and making it make sense. But I feel like emulating this kitty. Flop.

I should get a job where I can work from home. My own conditions, heaters off and windows open (unless it gets too cold), and flexibility, and all that! And no kitties going flop.

I've just come home from my first singing lesson since I was about 17. I was pleasantly surprised that the tutor seemed rather impressed with my voice, but maybe she just says that to everybody! So we did some breathing excercises (very different to how I was originally taught, I'll have to un-learn some bad habits), and she's given me a song to learn and practice. The song, I was thrilled to realise, is "I Dreamed A Dream" from Les Miserables, which I love. I've already spent a significant period of my life singing that song when I thought nobody could hear me, so the only unfamiliar thing will be doing it in front of somebody!

So that was fun, but now I must return to mundanity and go shopping for dinner. I'm thinking of a wonderful, nuitritious, healthy microwave meal that will only taste a little bit like cardboard.

Things that I do like about Canberra:

Peak hour traffic. Actually the lack of peak hour traffic. They really don't have a peak hour here, although I've heard reference to a "peak half-hour". Traffic is never at a standstill, which happens every morning in Melbourne.

Fresh air. Not that Melbourne air is particularly bad, although it sometimes gets pretty smoggy. But Canberra, being practically in the bush, generally smells pretty good.

Being in high demand. Most people in Canberra are here to work for the government. People like me, who would rather work in the private sector, are fairly rare!

The interesting and often unpronounceable place names. Narrabundah, Tuggeranong, Stromlo, Jerrabombera, Giralang. I'm not joking. These contrast nicely with the very English-sounding place names like Kingston, Watson, Hackett, Dickson, Campbell.

You know what I really miss about Melbourne? It's the alleyways, the small streets, the funny little backways and hidden-away shops. It's the hustle and bustle of 3 million people getting on with their own lives. Going exploring in Canberra eventually brings you back to where you started, but exploring Melbourne means getting lost and finding yourself somewhere out the back of Richmond or South Yarra where you've never been despite having lived and worked there for eight years, and finding several funky shops and some awesome grafitti along the way.

I'd better get to bed. It's nearly 1am, and I have my parents coming to visit tomorrow. Wish me luck!!!

These are for Hilary, who asked to see the purple hair. It was hard to get good shots of it, but I tried...

As at least one person may have noticed on Aidan's blog, we're back up and running!! We have our new house very nearly organised (except for the massive pile of empty boxes), and we have an internet connection again, yay! Aside from that, I really don't have that much to add. Work is still going well, I still enjoy what I do and like my colleagues. We had Andrew here over the weekend, which was great, and he brought us gifts to remind us of Melbourne! I should probably put some pics up...


This is the view over the city of Canberra. It doesn't look much like a city... it's practically the bush, but that's our capital. It is a very pretty city, but a tad on the dull side.


I believe I mentioned that one of my colleagues is a gilder, and this is what he did to my fingernail. It looked extremely awesome, until it fell off because I didn't look after it properly. That is actually real 23 carat gold leaf.



These pictures illustrate what our new house looks like: a mess.

Hello! Apologies for my recent blog-silence, but time and opportunity have not presented themselves too often! Just a quick one with a news update:

I'm still alive.

We have somewhere to live, we move in on Tuesday!!! Rent in this city is insane, it's almost double what we used to pay in Melbourne... I actually earn less than we pay in rent right now, so thank god I'm not single and my husband is on the gravy train!

Work is going quite well, it's not rocket science but it suits me and my tendency to organise other people. (I rarely organise myself.) The people are really nice, which I always think is one of the most important things about a workplace, so I can probably say that I've made some friends too.

Aidan and I both have contact lenses now! Glasses are a thing of the past. They're a little weird to get used to, but I like them. It will be a lot more comfortable to wear a helmet now, when I start riding my scooter again. (She's locked in a garage now, Aidan has the only key so I can't get her out!)

My boss has allowed me to continue my habit of dying my hair insane colours. So my hair is bright purple again, I've always thought purple hair suits me the best.

One of my colleagues is a gilder by trade - he puts gold on things. So he gilded one of my fingernails the other day! Photos will follow when I have my own computer back. It looked really cool.

I think that is about all my news for now... I will keep you all updated on the move once everything is up and running!

Take care!

I have a job now! Part time office administration. I've just worked my third day, and so far I've done a lot of filing, data entry, and paper shredding. That's ok, I find those things far more enjoyable than the other career open to me: call centres. It's been fun so far, it's a small office but the three other people there are really cool.

Also, hopefully, Aidan picked up our car today! We have a car! It'll be the first car we've actually bought, rather than use contacts and our parents. It's a big independance thing, and it's actually a good car rather than the two bombs we've had previously. So we're pretty wrapt with that. I say "hopefully" because Aidan would have left for work about an hour ago, before I got home, so I haven't spoken to him since I left early this morning.

The only thing we don't have is somewhere to live. Aidan went to look at a townhouse yesterday, and we're going to put in an application for it, but apparently about 40 other people are also applying for it, so we'll see how that goes.

Anyway, I'm going to pop over to Facebook and with my brother HAPPY BIRTHDAY! He turns 29 today, the old bugger. Take care all!!

This is the City of Circles in which I find myself! Isn't it confusing? I can't wait until I have my scooter up here, then I can get lost properly!

In other news: I was offered a job yesterday. I'm going to call the woman today to accept it. Office administration, roughly 3 days a week. Should be fun, or as fun as any job is.

Still here, still unemployed, still homeless!!! I've had a couple of meetings with recruitment agents, but nothing on the real estate front yet. It's hard because I really don't know the areas or where anything is, I really need Aidan's help to find us somewhere to live but he's so busy! I'm hoping he'll be able to have a look online at work today. I hate being unemployed. As much as I've hated various jobs I've had over the years, I hate not working more. It's so boring! And so restrictive - it means that I can't just go and buy a book or DVD that I want, I can't just casually have an expensive lunch if I feel like it... I mean, I have a little money saved up (and I spent some of that yesterday on a DVD), but I still feel that I really need to be careful until I have an income again. I feel guilty spending anything when I'm not bringing anything in. Neeeeeed wooooork! Anybody want to pay me to do anything? Maybe I should start having ads on my blog?! What a sell-out, no way. Oh well, things will get better. It's not as though we're destitute, there are millions of people worse off so I shouldn't complain.

Hello, I live in Canberra now. I've been here for nearly a week, and haven't had a single job interview. Then again, there was the long weekend, so this is really only my third business day here. It's a weird feeling, like being on some kind of enforced holiday. Staying in a furnished apartment, not working, knowing nobody, learning my way around this city... But with the added bonuses of trying to find work and looking for a permanent place to live, too. It's like this nasty little cycle: It's hard to look for jobs and houses without having your own computer in your own house. But I won't have my own computer until I have a house to put it in. But we probably won't be able to rent a house until I have a job. How's that for nasty?! The world is not kind to relocators. We're also trying, or at least thinking of trying, to get a loan so that we can pay out our credit cards and buy a car/motorbike for Aidan. How adult, taking out a loan. Never done that before. Never needed to. I'm 25 now, by the way. I don't feel any different. I'd better get back to looking for jobs.

Why should anybody care...

- If Kevin Rudd went to a strip club once, long before becoming Prime Minister of Australia?
- If an American Idol contestant used to work as a stripper?
- If a now-prominent Australian politician smoked weed a couple of times in his youth?

The fact that all of these "issues" have been featured in one of Australia's more intelligent newspapers in the last couple of days worries me. It speaks of the lingering conservatism among Australians, and an outdated concept of morality. I can understand being concerned about these things in the 1950's, but I would hope that we've come a long way since then. Is there a person out there who has never done something they now regret, or which reflects views long-since discarded? This is normality, this is life, this is not something worthy of being published in a broadsheet newspaper. It's not news, it's olds.