who's to say what's normal?

Lenny, now you've inspired me... especially since now I know we're the same amount of abnormal...

You Are 40% Abnormal

You are at medium risk for being a psychopath. It is somewhat likely that you have no soul. You are at medium risk for having a borderline personality. It is somewhat likely that you are a chaotic mess. You are at medium risk for having a narcissistic personality. It is somewhat likely that you are in love with your own reflection. You are at low risk for having a social phobia. It is unlikely that you feel most comfortable in your mom's basement. You are at low risk for obsessive compulsive disorder. It is unlikely that you are addicted to hand sanitizer.

How Abnormal Are You?

To be perfectly honest, I"m actually surprised that I am only 40% abnormal. Pleasantly surprised i guess. I'm not too sure that i like being told I have no soul... although i guess it could be considered true by certain people.

But it's right about one thing.... i'm a chaotic mess.

do you ever...

do you ever wish you hadn't done something?

My brain's been arguing with itself:

sensible side: I wish I hadn't gone out last night. I'm exhausted. two overseas trips in a month, 100 hours work in the last 11 days, late nights all over the place....
Fun side: but geez it was good to see people you haven't seen in a while, and go out... you haven't been out in ages.
sensible side: but there's a REASON i don't go out during the week, I need to be able to function at work. especially this week.
Fun side: but you had a good laugh, had a few drinks, were home reasonably early.
Sensible side: I don't called 2.30am on a Thursday morning reasonably early. Falling asleep in the cab, waking up this morning with your shoes still on, and dreading the day ahead...
Fun side: But are you really suffering all that much for it now?
sensible side: No. not really.
Fun side: so stop whineing.
Sensible side: OK.

You should hear my head when i'm trying to make a decision.

in an upside down world.

I'm in NZ.

I'd honestly always thought of New Zealand as just another state of Australia.... seriously, how different can it be? The people, they're a little bit like Tasmanians, aren't they; a bit backwards? But otherwise unremarkable...

So... imagine my dismay when i popped on the telly tonight. I saw an ad for Grey's Anatomy. FOr anyone whow doesn't know, one of my favourite television shows of all time (if you've seen Dr. McDreamy, you'll understand why watching it is 59 minutes of pure joy in a week otherwise filled with uninspiring men...). Normally I would be quite excited to see an advertisement for this particular program, because it would mean that it would be coming on tv soon. Naturally, being in NZ, i assumed it would be an episode from last season that I had already wseen.... to cut a long, anguish-filled story short, it wasn't. It was a new episode,. I haven't seen it. I quickly jumped on the internet so check Aus tv programming for the next week... no Gray's Anatomy.

NEW ZEALAND GETS THE NEW SEASON BEFORE AUSTRALIA.

It really is a truly beautiful country, but this is complete and total injustice.... isn't it?

So tell me... is it me?

Your Power Color Is Gold

At Your Highest: You are engrossed in passions that mentally stimulate you. At Your Lowest: You seek thrills and neglect what's important in your life. In Love: You see dating as adventure and approach it with an open attitude. How You're Attractive: You passion for life makes others passionate about you. Your Eternal Question: "Am I Having Fun?"

What's Your Power Color?

Well who wouldn't?

It has never really occurred to me like this before:

There are millions of people in the world who would prefer to live anywhere other than their own country.... why shouldn't some of them be elite athletes?

I was astounded when i read that 70% of the Sierra Leone Commonwealth Games team went missing at the Manchester Games in 2002: astounded to the tune of my jaw dropping almost to my knees. So far, there are 9 athletes "missing" from Melbourne 2006.

I wonder though, at my first reaction: "Why didn't they run in their races BEFORE they disappeared?" I can think of no greater honour than representing my country in my chosen sport (or at least, this was so when I was involved in elite sport). I'm obviously a product of being brought up in a wealthy country, because if you only became an athlete in order to win a free ticket to another country, then I guess there are more important things to you than running a silly little race.

waaa waaa waaa i'm a whiney bitch.

Ok. So since I arrived back in this glorious city i've been feeling quite uninspired. I'm sure that's normal, and I think it even has a name... holiday blues. The kind of feeling you get when you:-
-come back to work to 480 something emails
-have not had enough sleep
-have to organise functions and expo stands at very short notice
-drink too many coffees and then crash
-look at your photos from your holidays and remember that 72 hours ago you were still having fun
-look at all the things you bought duty free
-think about all the things you should have bought duty free
-feel bad about whingeing about how much work you have to do to the poor people who haven't been on holiday at all, but don't really feel bad, just feel like you SHOULD feel bad... especially when they point out to you that you've just been away for 2 & 1/2 weeks while they've been taking your calls and doing your work (doesn't seem like they did much to me!).
-get emails from friends who are overseas for months on end

See it annoys me that i've turned into such a whiney bitch. Seriously. Who complains when they've just had the best holiday of their life?





oh.... that's me.

i'm back.

Things That Have Happened To Me Since I Got Back That I'm Not So Happy About:

-It took 20 minutes to get from 20 metres away from my house into the front door on the way home from the airport yesterday. Stupid Commonwealth Games.
-I have a sunburnt nose from spending half the day outside watching the marathon runners run up Southbank yesterday. Stupid Commonwealth Games.
-One of our sales guys from work has been staying with my parents while I was away, and was supposed to move to a hotel yesterday so i could have my bedroom back. There are no hotels in town for less than $500 per night. Stupid Commonwealth Games.
-I couldn't go to sleep until 10.30pm last night because we only have one tv in our apartment and everyone was watching sports in the living room, sitting on the couch, my makeshift bed. Stupid Commonwealth Games.
-I arrived back at work this morning to be bombarded with 486 emails, many of which were junkmail, the rest of which were directions from newly gung-ho, enthusiastic and organised boss. Stupid holidays.

a survival guide... of sorts.

Oh my goodness oh my goodness.... (annie-style... got it?).

what an amazing day i had today. Quite possibly the best day's skiing OF MY LIFE.... yes. seriously. that good. It was snowing ALL day. It didn't stop. not once. I skied until 8.30pm.... oh what fun!!!!

Now, the good news is, that i have FINALLY worked out how to ski powder. I know this will be a relief to all of you snow people out there.... and for those of you who are not snow people, well... you just be happy for me. K?

I have learned some very interesting things here in Japan... many of which I thought of during the day today, but few of which I can remember now that I want to write them down. However, I will attempt to give you a guide to surviving in Japan:

1. Tell people you are ALLERGIC to seafood, rather than that you jsut choose not to eat it. Seriously.
2. Don't walk under the eaves of buildings... it's likely you will be crushed by snow falling off the roof, and whilst this is not QUITE as serious as an avalanche, it can have the same disastrous outcome.
3. When you are at the checkout of a shop and the Japanese person talks at you and talks at you and talks at you, smile and nod as if you know what teyr'e saying, say Arigato (thankyou), and beon your way. You should be aware, however, that they may well be saying very rude things about you and your family, but lets give them the benefit of the doubt, yes?
4. If you don't eat seafood, you are never giong to get your money's worth at an all-you-can-eat buffet including seafood. The best you can hope for is that the people around you enjoy their seafood, and don't pretend to poke you with a used crab claw TOO many times during your meal.
5. If the road looks icy and slippery, don't plan on arriving anywhere with a dry bum (unless you do what I have taken to doing, just go everywhere in your ski pants... they're built for landing in the snow).
6. Bring an alarm clock. I brught my phone. However, realising that my phone would not work in Japan, I didn't bring my charger. I have slept through early morning meet-ups with new friends (read: south australian boys) 3 times this week because i don't have any way of waking up!!
7. Go to an onsen. Be prepared to get naked and scrub yourself within an inch of your life with all the Japanese girls (or boys, if you're a boy!!) before you jump into a natural outdoor hot spring in the dark, and sit there learning japanese words whilst being snowed on. (girls note: you will ALWAYS have the biggest boobs at an onsen, unless there are other white girls there....apparently the same goes for guys.... just notabout their boobs).
8. Don't expect to know what you're buying in the supermarket. Whilst many signs have english translations (many of them quite humorous), the run-of-the-mill supermarket products do not. Pictures are quite helpful, but today we tried to buy peanut butter and ended up with a peanut jam-type concoction. It was not a success.
9. You know there are too many AUstralians in a place when you can buy time tams and vegemite in the local supermarket of a country town (I, quite proudly, have done neither!). Apparently this is not the case in the rest of Japan...

Well. there you have it. Some things to remember. Not many of them were actually things i'd been planning to write about... but... i can't remember what those things were, so this will do for now!!!!!!

japan no. 2

Oh dear oh dear oh dear. there are only two lifts open... the rest of the mountain is closed due to high winds. i thought things like this only happened in Australia? I'm sitting here in my bed using a laptop looking ou the window at one of the running lifts, the queue of 26 million people at the bottom and the snow plummeting down out of the sky. So that's all good. It means that when i do go back out there and ski, it will be in beautiful beautiful powder snow!!!!!

Niseko is a beautiful little town. There is one set of traffic lights, and it's not too touristy at all. The skiing is amazing... the first day we got here at about 5pm, and skied that night until 8.30pm. You can ski until 9pm every night here.... it's SO cool. You can almost see better at night time than you can during the day. Yesterday was a clear bluebird day with almost no wind, and because it had snowed just the day before, the snow was all still fresh.

We have been eating at a different place each meal... the food here is great, and the restaurant staff are so helpful... almost every place has an english translation (or a nearly english translation!), So i've been able to identify what i'm eating almost all the time. Last night we ate this soup thing, they bring a little cooker out to your table with this big pot on it, and a whole bunch of ingredients in it. They turn the cooker on, and the soup cooks there in front of you. Thing is, they didn't tell us this when they turned it on.... we opened it up and just looked at each other, um... it's raw!!!! Turns out it had to cook still. It was THE most delicious soup i've ever had. ANd it was great because it had lots of vegetables in it!!! For all Japanese food is supposed to be so healthy, there seems to be an awful lot of deep fried food, and not very much in the way of vegetables!!!!!

The hostel we are at is really cute. The room is great, split into two levels, one downstairs and upstairs a little loft thingy... so we really have our own rooms. It's really funny when you walk down the corridor, there are all these pairs of slippers outside every door... the Japanese have different slippers for everything .First off, you leave your shoes in the shoe room at the front door and put on some slippers. Then when you get to your room you leave your slippers outside your door. When you go to the toilet, you swap your slippers for the ones that say "toilet" on them, that are waiting at the toilet door. When you go out onto the balcony you swap them for the "sport" slippers that are waiting on the doorstep (not recommended today, as they are covered in about 4 inches of snow... but you get the idea!!!!).

My japanese is coming along well... I now know about 10 words!! hehe. THey said Hai for so many things... officially it means yes, but it can also mean no, and thankyou and just general aknowledgement that you've said something. Of course i can say hello, konnichiwa, but the thing i say most often is arigato - or thankyou. Also, Domo, which is short of domo arigato, thankyou very much. It's quite funny when you go to buy things in a shop, most of the time the person at the checkout talks to you in japanese, as if you can understand them. It's kind of bizarre to only be able to say thankyou back to them. But for everything here, if you smile and nod, they appreciate it!!! Many of the young people have quite good English, and their ENglish is certainly better than my japanese!!!

Today hopefully i'm goign to go to an onsen... a natural hot spring outdoors that this area is famous for. I juyst have to work out on the map where it is ... i'm not much good at reading the japanese characters!!!!

okay. i think that's about it for the moment. off to stand out in the snow... just because i can!!!

japanese foots...

I'm in Japan. yes. i got here.

quick summary so far...

the people are amazing.
the place is amazing.
the scenery is amazing,
the temples and shrines are amazing.
the food is... um... interesting. I'm just never really quite sure what it is!!!!
the place is absolutely SPOTLESS.... i'm talking... NO rubbish in the streets at all.

But the biggest realisation i've come to in the last couple of days is something much more important than that.... Japanese women have feet of steel. EVERY single one of them is trudging around the city and on the trains ALL day with the HIGHEST stilettos you've ever seen. Even the ones who are standing up all day for their job... huge heels. I just don't know how they do it.

GOING skiing tomorrow. i'm a little bit excited :-p

CANCELLED.

So. my plane was cancelled. I'm going to Japan, it's a 10 hour flight... the incoming plane had to land at cairns with mechanical problems.

So i thought to myself...
Perhaps i'm glad it was delayed.
Perhaps I'm glad to be getting on a different plane.
Perhaps i'm GLAD to have to GO HOME from the airport when i'm supposed to be GETTING ON A PLANE.
Perhaps i'm glad to be spending tonight sitting up in a plane seat instead of going out in a foreign country and crawling into a comfy hotel bed.

Or not.

True, i could have died if the plane had mechanical failure in the air. Then i wouldnt' have made it to Japan at all. BUT I'D BE DEAD... so i wouldn't really care.

I just wish they'd called me and told me... I would have slept in.

Austraya

I have often found it interesting the way that most Australians are so fiercely patriotic. However, I have never encountered a MORE “Austrayan” bunch than when I was living in Whistler, Canada.

Anyone who has been there will tell you that more than half of the population of Whistler is made up of Australians… and most of them, lowly retail or mountain workers in the so-called “Billionaire’s Playground.” Nothing like being poor to bring a bunch closer together, I reckon. I think it also makes them louder, and more determined that everyone know they’re there…often a little obnoxious, and more than a little stupid when drunk. (Please note, that I did not go tobogganing backwards down a mountain in the middle of the night whilst under the influence of alcohol. And if I did, I did it quietly).

Don’t get me wrong…I am very proud to be Australian. I love my country, I believe in it, and even though I’m a little disillusioned with government in general, I think that generally John Howard does an acceptable (if not stellar) job of running the place.

However, I find that when overseas, and particularly when in groups, whether small or large, you can spot Australians a mile away. Often their behaviour makes me try to distance myself from them, and ask myself… Does everyone else think of all Australians the way I am looking at this person? Is this the image we are portraying? Perhaps what we see as being fun-loving, footloose and fancy-free is what people from other countries see as loud, rude, and disrespectful.

I have said before, that I generally try not to classify people… but those well-known stereotypes are always in the back of my mind: Americans are rude and in a hurry; French are snobs; Italian men pinch bottoms; Russians drink too much vodka; New Zealanders… well let’s not even go there!! But all of that said, I’ve often seen people from all of these countries behaving better than their Australian counterparts.

I guess the reason I’ve been thinking about this is that tomorrow I am going to Japan. Japan is a country full of people known for being extremely gentle, impeccably polite, hard-working and respectful. What will they think of me? And most of all, will they think I’m rude if I walk down the road singing at the top of my voice on my way home from the pub?

A pinch and a punch

A pinch and a punch for the first day of the month, my friends.

Geeez. i'm glad i got that childish behaviour over and done with for another month. Ahah!!! nobody came back with, "a hit and a kick for being so quick..." did they?

Or perhaps you did. But because i'm in blog land, you can't possibly kick me as hard with your school shoes as i used to do to any boy who dared to pinch and punch me in grade 2! That said, i didn't really need a reason to kick them. Or hit them. But kicking was my favoured method of inflicting pain on the scoundrels.

Up until the end of grade 3, i was at a co-ed school. I have only recently seen the wisdom my parents showed by putting me into an all girls school after this, as much as i disliked it towards the end... (9 years in an all-girls school is a VERY long time...). For I was somewhat of a tomboy (please don't fall off your chairs in shock at this admission...). Whilst i was a tomboy, it was really only because i was taller, stronger, faster and smarter than almost all of the boys.** Not really being the wallflower-type, i felt the need to show off my talents at every chance I got: "little-lunch" and "big lunch."

Kiss chasy was my favourite game. Not because i liked kissing, or even being kissed, but because when someone else was it, i would let them catch me, and then run away before they got the chance to kiss me... thus i was It, but didn't have to endure the childish peck on the check. However, once i was It, the real fun began. I would catch the boys (remember the faster and stronger bit...) and promptly give them a quick kick in the shins; much more fun than kissing back then, let me assure you!

Now i think these few years in the school yard set the tone for pretty much the rest of my life... playing with boys was just more fun. And it still is. Many of my friends are boys, almost all of my very very close friends are boys, and i generally get along better with boys in general... This creates a couple of issues:

-First: whilst i do like to be considered "one of the boys,"I don't actually want to be treated like a boy ALL the time. I'm sure that sometimes the boys i spend time with forget that i actually AM a girl...

-secondly: when i meet new girls, especially girly girls, i don't quite know how to act around them. Sometimes i just downright feel like they're going to steal my boys away from me... I guess this is because this does happen. Not that it's stealing... because they're not mine... but slowly these boys disappear off the radar... they spend more time with their girlfriends, less time with their friends, especially their friends who are girls...

To me, this raises the "can girls and guys ever really be truly close friends" flag. I find myself fervently hope they can, because otherwise my true friends-list is shortened considerably. But many girlfriends are, by nature, suspicious or jealous of their boyfriends' friendships with girls... especially very close friendships. So where does this leave us girl-friends?

Don't get me wrong... i love most of my guy-friends girlfriends... it's the ones i don't know yet I worry about.... and i wonder what's going to happen when all my friends are grown up and married...


**please note that i was not the MOST tomboyish girl in the grade, one of the girls actually may as well have been a boy. She played cricket, and brought her own cricket bat to school. I at least still played on the monkey bars.