Angel

Sun, 25 Nov 2007 05:12:12 GMT

Can't say how happy I am!!!! Went to a big party (not a 'Don's Party ') with great friends. Drank heaps. Kissed everyone there (only one person tried to slip his tongue in - ewww!)

Left well after midnight - with both kids still wide awake. Party hosts just called and only woke up at 2pm - and they have a kid as well!!!!

And folks took around a hat for collection - for me!!! for the $120 fee for citizenship. To make sure that next time I'm voting.

So I'll be a true blue Aussie -and now I get to become one under a government with some morals that I share. Because the last 11 years have been filled with xenophobia, self interest and meanness. A true moral vacuum.

Hurrah!!!

Now to nurse the hangover.
_________________

famished!

Thu, 18 Nov 2004 03:27:06 GMT

Just ate 45mins ago...starving again. I guess there are a few things to nuke in the work fridge or possibly a yogurt.

but crimeny! I'm not even at 9wks - what is it going to be like in a few months?!

Thu, 04 Nov 2004 03:00:07 GMT

This morning was the forst time I vomited with this pregnancy. Fitting I thought; there was so much more than just the smell of garlic cooking turning my stomach.

Yep it is garlic and onions that set it off, just like last time. I still love them cooked in things, but cannot handle the raw or cooking smell.

complusory voting

Thu, 04 Nov 2004 02:50:11 GMT

Just imagine what the vote would have been if the US had compulsory voting. Hopefully much different.

When I first came to Australia I thougth of compulsory voting as somewhat Orwellian. There is a right not to vote, etc. With every year I am here I seem to have shifted, and now belive that it is a more effective means of democracy.

Voting is seen as a [i]responsibility[/] not a privilage. One can still make a protest my not marking the sheet (no computers here, just pen and paper - or is it pencil?) or writing in a candidate. But they must show up or vote absentee or else face a fine. There is about an 80% + turn out for local elections and a 90%+ turnout for federal and state. And no conservatives questioning the legitimacy of selected citizens right to vote.

And the counting is done by hand, not machine. With scruiteneers from all parties stading over the sholders of the returning officers. No chads and definately no computers without receipts.

I know it is not going to be on the US agenda anytime in the near future, but I am interested in what peoples gut reactions are to the prospect. Does it smack of Orwellianism to you, as it did to me some 15 yrs ago?

brain dead

Tue, 02 Nov 2004 01:52:34 GMT

I just have this overwhelming feeling of brain dead-ness. Not able to get started on anything...lots of things I will stress about shortly, should be stressing about now.

I have made my life too busy. Must do soon: Aboriginal Language proposal, Little Athletics schedule, work stuff, clean house for landlord inspection. ARRRRGH!

Just give me a little bit of time to eat chocolates and have a long bubblebath.

Thu, 14 Oct 2004 07:07:00 GMT

Tom Waits... charismatic story-teller with a
penchant for freaky people and unusual
settings. You thrive on the concept of the
underdog coming out on top.

Which fucked-up genius composer are you?
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Sat, 21 Aug 2004 03:06:13 GMT

Post a memory of me.
It can be anything you want.
Then post this to your journal.
See what people remember of you.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
damn - everyone who is doing this seems to have met irl at a mama gathering!

It's started...

Fri, 30 Jul 2004 00:54:02 GMT

vomiting that is. 5weeks and one day. Work lunch today - please don't let it happen then.

some news

Thu, 29 Jul 2004 02:49:46 GMT

seems I have been so out of action lately.
very very busy with work life,etc. I have been doing some really cool stuff at my job. One of those things of "if I die now I will have contributed to soiety stuff." I wrote my first tender - for a program based around Aboriginal Languages. And we got $35,000!!! So it covers curriculum developement, training Kooris to be trainers, guest speakers coming from country for mentorship, resources, etc.

I've met some amazing people through it all. And we are delivering the courses just around the corner from my house. At the local school for the Redfern community. If any news of our riot a few months back made it to your tv...well that is the area we are working in. Severe disadvantage, and something like this that helps people reclaim their culture - well past due.

Oh, and I have started an afterschool activities program at Tgrrls school, put in over 60 hours at her school making props/lanters for her "Primary school Rock Eidstedfod"(Pics to come), become *gulp* President of the emerging Little Athletics Club (servicing Redfern, so lots of linking with communtiy orgs, funding submissions, trying to get money for disadvantaged kids, stacking meetings so it keeps a social justic focus instead of becomming sut another middle class sport, etc.) Oh yeah, and I'm pregnant. Five weeks. Just went to the doctor today. So I have jsut spent the last hour making heaps of hospital bookings, etc.

Hoping I can still get stuff done before my brain starts to go to mush.

missing everyone and really super envious of all the mamas who went to the gathering.

Sun, 21 Dec 2003 01:43:54 GMT

Ted Allen

Which Queer eye for the Straight guy are YOU?
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not much of a surprise - I'm a sucker for a man who knows how to cook.

it's everywhere

Wed, 17 Dec 2003 03:00:22 GMT

Death that is. In the last hour I have had one call from a co-worker who just returned from his sisters funeral (she had cancer and in his words took way to long to die - it was a reief), when on that call Steve called, his Grandmother died. Which is good. She lost the plot a long time ago, she was not in pain, but she wasn't there - semi delusional most of the time - a weird alheimers state she has been in for years. She has not been Rita for a long time. But still is is sad. I have a lump in my throat - even though deep down this is what we have all wanted for over two years.

Then I come here and read about elphaba13's dear friend Jane, and Wabash's grandmother...

I feel like holding the world and those I love tight, for it is too easy to let it slip away.

Sun, 07 Dec 2003 01:28:04 GMT

Hmm. So this is my mixed up take on being brought up in WA, but living my adult life in Sydney. I usually forget which saying is from where.

1. A body of water, smaller than a river, contained within relatively narrow banks? stream

2. The thing you push around the grocery store? shopping cart.
3. A metal container to carry a meal in? Lunch box.
4. The thing that you cook bacon and eggs in? pan
5. The piece of furniture that seats three people? Couch
6. The device on the outside of the house that carries rain off the roof? Gutters
7. The covered area outside a house where people sit in the evening? veranda
8. Carbonated, sweetened, non-alcoholic beverages? soda. Although I call it fizzy-drink when talking to my 5yrd old.
9. A flat, round breakfast food served with syrup? pancakes
10. A long sandwich designed to be a whole meal in itself? say what? they don't really have those here. From memory a hero.
11. The piece of clothing worn by men at the beach? shorts, boardshorts
12. Shoes worn for sports? sand shoes
13. Putting a room in order? tidying
14. A flying insect that glows in the dark? Firefly - I guess. Down here there are glow worms.
15. The little insect that curls up into a ball? potato bug
16. The children's playground equipment where one kid sits on one side and goes up while the other sits on the other side and goes down? see-saw
17. How do you eat your pizza? hands, although everyone here uses a knife and fork
18. What's it called when private citizens put up signs and sell their used stuff? garage sale
19. What's the evening meal? Dinner. But a generation ago dinner was your mid-day meal. 'Tea' was what is now dinnertime. And supper is something light a bit later.
20. The thing under a house where the furnace and perhaps a rec room are? Basement - but NO ONE has a basement here!!!! Oh how I long for the space, the storage area. Me thinks it is something about Sydney being built on sandstone.
21. When you are waiting at the bank, you are standing -- in a queue (as in pool cue)
22. In a school, if you want a drink of water, where does it come from? drinking fountain
23. What are the chocolate things that you put on ice cream called? sprinkles

Did you miss me?

Tue, 25 Nov 2003 03:23:59 GMT

I been overwhelmed. Flat out like a lizard drinking as they say. Mass deadlines and a contant feeling of stress, stress, stress.

But yesterday I was given 4 free tickets to this: http://www.santaskingdom.com.au/

yes- produced by the same folks that brought us the 2000 Olymics opening and closing ceremonies - Chrismas extraveganza.

Did I mention it was free (the the tickets are about $40 each - and you must buy one for the grown up)? So I took Tallulah and two of her friends on my own. They kept saying "Oh, my goodness!!!!" so it was pretty 'magical' for them.
We picked up her friends from daycare and had made all the girls little dinnerboxes of sweet potato chips (homemade), tofu-rice burgers and cookies. Steve arrived to pick us up with dishes of ice cream for all the girls.
They had fun.

Green River

Fri, 07 Nov 2003 00:58:05 GMT

It was my favorite soda. Bright green, sickly sweet and I remember drinking it at Farrell's (a parents nightmere, but a woderland for a kid).

Then when in early high school, or maybe it was middle school - they started finding the bodies. Young women, sex workers - wasn't this just one of those thing that happened to those women who had chosen that life? It wasn't like the days of 'Ted' - where I remember my mom getting friends to walk her around at night. I remember references to 'Ted' (they didn't know his last name then, and they didn't know Ted was his real name either). Those were women 'like us'. Many of them looked like my mom - long hair, white, mid to early 20's. With 'Ted' she was target - women who are "like me' now feld genuinely scared. The Green River killer was safe - he targeted an 'other'. Sex workers may have felt huge fear, but that was buffetted from the rest of the community.

My mother was horrified that my friend's band named was named Green River, even more horrified that theyenjoyed a certain amount of popularity. I brushed it off - "oh I think htey named themselves after the soda mom." Ha, ha, ha. It was irrevernt - we were teens. It pissed off my mom (as did the music). - the name doid the job. Now as a mother, as a mother of a daughter, I too am repulsed.

So here I am, halfway around the world, reading in the Sydney Morning Herald that the GRK was finally caught and sentenced, and is giving up his 'secrets' in exchange for his life. He killed so many women it is just a burr to him.

And their families still grieve for their daughters, sisters, lovers and friends. I wish them peace.

I now know that that line that separates me from those women who for whatever reasons ended up working the streets doesn't exist. A change in circumstance and or an addiction - it could have been my sister, daughter, lover, friend or possibly me.

I am a QUEAN!

Mon, 20 Oct 2003 05:19:09 GMT

I actually got a pretty cool word-o-the-day:

Today's Word: Quean (Noun)

Pronunciation: [kween]

Definition 1: No, today's word is not a misspelling but a slightly different word from what you thought with a radically different meaning. A quean is a bold, impudent, or ill-behaved woman, even a hussy or a strumpet.

Usage 1: This word is seldom used today because its pronunciation leads it to confusion with "queen," the other word with the same pronunciation and etymological origin but a vastly different meaning (usually). The British magazine 'Listener' referred to a someone in a 1969 issue as "an old quean who thinks she's an old queen." (Hmmm, I think I know someone like that.)

Suggested Usage: Lest the rappers think we ignore their needs, here is an example of how they can put today's word to work for them: "Jean is a keen dean at school but a mean quean on the neighborhood scene." Don't overlook the fact that, should you write that your boss, teacher, etc. is "a real quean," they will at worst think you a bad speller. A somewhat archaic but still quite quaint variant of today's word is "cotquean," a combination of cot "house" (the root of "cottage") + "quean." For example, "Mary Grace scolds her family like an Amazonian cotquean when they displease her."

Etymology: Today's word originated as Old English cwene [kwenê] when "queen" was "cwen" [kweyn]. Both are akin to Dutch kween "barren cow" and Swedish kvinna "woman." All these words originated in the Proto-Indo-European root *gwen-, which also produced Greek gyne "woman," found today in English "gynecology" and "misogynist." In Russian and other Slavic languages it became "zhena" and in Persian, "zan." The Irish descendant of the same root was bean "woman" which, when combined with the word for fairy, "sídhe," becomes bean sídhe "woman of the fairies" or "banshee," the female spirit whose wailing presages death in Irish folklore.

—Dr. Language, yourDictionary.com

Thanks...

Fri, 17 Oct 2003 03:21:32 GMT

for all of the good vibes. It means alot.

Oh I for got to say that the othe morning I woke up at 4am, hearing the "whistling". Steve woke up when the burgler was in the house because he heard strange whistling noises - it was his partner whistling to him - the sounds continued to carry on after Steve had chased the guy out.

So I wake up at 4am, and wake up Steve:
Me: Steve it the whisteling, they're here
Steve: um, Angel it jsut the birds, the Coells (sp) are here

Coells, although I have no idea how to spell them, migrate from PNG, Make a bloody racket! and are nasty things that kick other birds eggs out of their nests and lay their own, like cukoos - only bigger so they eat the foster-parents out of house and home. Another reason to hate them.

Sleepover!

Fri, 10 Oct 2003 04:34:32 GMT

So Tallulah hasn't wnated to do the sleepover thing. Last one was a year ago (other than at grandparents) She ended up crying for us to come home. So the parents tried ot call us on our big noght out (my bd) - and both of our moblie phones had been cut off. Talk about bad parents (or bad dh!). So we front up to see our frined band and they had called the pub only kowing that "autie Kath" was in the band. So steve went to pivk up our tramatised dd and I sayed to party on.

A year. She is 5 for maudesake! She is social. We have had lots of kids sleepover at our house.

So... and invite. The friends we did the 6 weeks of Friday nights have insisted that thier dd wants Tallulah over THIS SATURDAY. please have her go, please have he go, please have he stay the whole night... And they will take her to the bday party on Sunday.

Too good to be true?

Just how stupid...

Wed, 08 Oct 2003 06:35:11 GMT

I just heard the news about the CA Gov. race.

I am in gobsmacked mode. Co-workers are having a big gaffaw, "only in America"...and you know the usual about how stupid the sepo's are (rhyming sland septic tank= yank , drop the second word and do the Aussie thing of sortening a word to end in "ee" or "o" ).

So a little contest... how low can it go? Who next for a major political position?
Judge Judy for Supreme Court?
Jerry Springer for...no scratch that, he is a 'liberal' by their standards...
That Bobbit guy for senate?

baa.. from wabash

Wed, 08 Oct 2003 05:29:24 GMT

What is your LEAST Favorite....?
1. Food: eggs, eww..
2. Type of music: prayer music in Arabis (12 hour bus trip, insessant prayer music...still with me 16 yrs on)
3. Subject of discussion: money
4. Time of day: the 4pm sugar low
5. Time of year: Ausgust (winter here) because it is just piss-week cooler weather here. no snow, no real change, cold - but not able to bring out my georgous winter coat
6. Fragrance: eggs cooking
7. Actor/actress: Steven Segal, but he is soooo repulsive on so many levels there is some comic value there / Molly Ringwald - I've always hated her, but loved John Hughes movies (my eternal inner teen dag), therefore forced to watch her
8. Commercial: I guess anything Barbie - we get different cmmercials here I just zone them out
9. TV sitcom: Friends - because it is so anti-intellectual - Paelentologists (sp?) are cool! But is still watch sometimes.
10. Singer: Oh there are so many...but I must stick with an Aussie here - Niki Webster (the Girl from the Olympics) or possibly Danni Minougue...

Sun, 21 Sep 2003 04:39:34 GMT

can anyone tell me how to post to a community? I want to post an intro at food/love, but I can't for the life of me figure out how. Total dunce, I know.

Thu, 18 Sep 2003 05:19:20 GMT

Fucking llllljjjjjj!
I jsut spent all of this time cutting adn pasting and only about a quater of the courses I wanted to list b/c I was so proud and I have worked my ass off geting them inthe new program showed up.

Probably just would have taken up to much space as I am crap at those cut tags.

oh well the other courses I have planned (jsut need the punters) are :
Guiding Childrens behaviours for parents of 2-3 yr olds
Handling Peer Pressure for parents of 9 -12 yr olds
Negotiating with your Teenager
Sticking up for Yourself for parents of 5-9 yr olds
Superhero Play for parents of 4-6 yr olds
and Transition to School

I had such a crappy mornign I just wanted to blow my own trumpet

This is what I do -

Thu, 18 Sep 2003 04:34:14 GMT

New this term in my new 'Parenting' section:

CHOSING CHILDCARE (2 hrs total) $15 (conc. free - & this is Australian $'s)
Choosing the childcare that fits best for your child and family can be a daunting prospect. Learn about the range of early childhood service types available as well as the elements to look for when identifying a quality service for your family and child. The structures which govern early
childhood services will be discussed including the Department of Community
Services Regulations, the NSW Curriculum Framework and the Quality Childcare and Accreditation System. A checklist of things to look for will be given as well as a list of useful contacts.

GROWING UP WIHT SEPARATION AND DIVORCE (2 hrs total) $25 (conc.$5)
If you are a separating or divorcing parent you will already know that the anxiety, anger and confusion children feel is very real. This session gives you an overview from the child's perspective together with reassuring, practical strategies for dealing with your children's emotional responses to separation and divorce. Discussion will explore how a child's age and gender affect their reaction to separation/divorce and how to recognise signs of emotional distress early, minimise your child's stress and pinpoint and alleviate the hidden fears that can cause children to 'act out' at home, school or with friends.

Brestfeeding +

Fri, 05 Sep 2003 04:04:41 GMT

The new national (Asutralian) dietary guidelines just came out this month adn they say:

• Brestfeeding exclusivley until 6 months, and then gradually introduce solids. Continue breastfeed unitil 12 months (min. recomended time to wean) or beyond, for as long as the mother and child desire.

• Vegetarian mothers should breastfeed for as long as possible - two years or more.

Apparently these align with ciurrent WHO standards. Now they are working on the babyfood companies saying solids should be introduced at 4mos on food lables.

I just keep thinking of the asshole mother (complete with 'cool' credentials) who said "What, are you still breastfeeding".. when dh was just 2. Sweet vindication (although I always knew it was best).

what, I don't rate on my own?

Thu, 04 Sep 2003 02:00:30 GMT

Plus I am all smitten on Russ (but he was more of a superspunk when he was slim - like in Proof) - I think he is actually talented and has a brain cell or two. Primadonna? I could live with it.

You're Russell Crowe.
...ha, ha.

Which Annoying Australian Are You?
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Sun, 24 Aug 2003 03:58:12 GMT

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