cht #5

"Quiet people have the loudest minds..." - Stephen Hawking

Deafening.

Sunday Junkie

About five weeks ago a free-to-air TV station here in Australia started showing a little program called PopAsia on a Sunday morning, and well, to get straight to the point... I'm borderline addicted.

While I was previously aware that it was kind of a big deal for some, I had never really given KPop a second thought until this show. As soon as it popped up on the guide, my ingeniously opposable thumb danced straight over the remote to the button with the big red dot. Out of curiosity... and an abysmal lack of alternative Sunday morning entertainment.

The thing is... it's kind of hypnotising. The songs are super catchy (a lot more than can be said for the avalanche of soft-cock rock that saturates our charts at the moment), the videos are all super slick, and all the artists are dripping with modelling potential.

Now I have to 'fess up here: asian girls are a big turn on. A big part of my watching is for the eye candy. Sue me. You probably watch Beyoncé for the same reason. The songs genuinely make me want to dance though. They get stuck in my head, I walk around singing lyrics I can't understand, and they kinda give me a happyfuzzy feeling inside; that's more than I can say for The Fray.

So there you are... go check it out if you know what's good for you. Meanwhile I'll sit here and stare dreamily at Seungyeon and count the minutes till next Sunday morning.

Haawwt.

Hello World

I'm still here. It's just that when I say that nothing has been going on with me these last 9 months, well, I mean nothing. Nothing interesting enough to post for non-existent followers, and nothing impersonal enough that I have felt inclined to articulate to the web-space-ether.

Who am I kidding? I'm just lazy.

Sooo... what has been happening with me lately? Here's a quick catch up (for anyone who cares):

• I had an entirely unexpected and unprovoked job offer working at a local out-of-school-hours childcare (a frightening proposition at first, but to my pleasant surprise I love it, and seem to perform the role well); 
• I turned 30 (involuntary mini-mid-life freak-out ensued); 
• I started hitting the gym regularly... and sticking with it;
• finally finished the Harry Potter series just in time to go see Deathly Hallows pt.II in cinema, then had a thorough rant about them completely changing the end sequence;
• the parentals left me alone to fend for myself for an entire month while they vacationed overseas (the first time I have had to do so). I survived, so I guess I pass;  
• pondering my apparent success as a child carer, applied to university to study primary teaching next year, in the hopes that I have finally found my calling; and
• finally conceded there is no good reason that everybody shouldn't do kegals regularly. I mean, apart from the reason you're thinking of (you dirty, dirty person) who really wants to wind up spending their latter years in adult diapers? Exactly.

Right now I'm thinking about ice-cream, and why Ben & Jerry's is so expensive in Australia (US $11/pint).

I did have something else to say, but I've forgotten, and I have a raging sore throat and thumping headache radiating from the base of my skull... I think I may be getting sick :(

PS. I just decided it should be a new goal of mine to attract at least one follower of this blog... more posts are in order.

Hit The Ground Running

I don't know where January ran to hide because I don't feel like I've seen it... but in a good way. Normally at the start of the year people reflect on the year that was, set goals, and take aim at their goals for the next twelve months; but I've had a unexpected but welcome distraction from reality in the form of a visiting second cousin from England.

Having overseas visitors staying with you is always a good excuse to dress and act like a tourist on your own home turf, a façade my family and I pulled off particularly well this time by packing the street directory and still managing to not know our way around our own area *awkward*.

So with water bottle and camera in hand, I have been on a bit of a holiday the past two weeks or so, travelling around our local area, as well the Hunter Valley, around the Blue Mountains and down to Kiama (an amazing spot - I have to say), and of course Sydney.

Of course now the excitement has abated, I've come crashing back to reality and realised that I have to find a job quick. Money's tight. I also have to get back to the gym after an extended Christmas lazy period. Yikes. And I should probably take half an hour or so to write down some other twenty-eleven goals for myself too; make a plan.

Oh hello February, how long have you been standing there, listening? I didn't see you sneak in...

I'm Just Sayin'...

Summer's finally arrived - 104°F yesterday, and it was still 86°F at midnight.

We don't have air-con.

*zombie*.

Edit: this weather ended up hanging around for five days straight.... ugh.

Bloodlines

OMG whose idea was it to research the family history? Mine...?! Dammit!

This month I decided to just go for it and pay for a month's access to ancestry.com to try and trace me some ancestry.

Mum had been gathering old photos and papers from her brothers and sisters for a while, and always kept mentioning the idea but never seemed to actually move on it. I was patient for a while, but I couldn't take the procrastination any more and snapped. Out whipped the credit card and into the depths of the past I dove with my time machine (otherwise known as iMac).

As I only wanted to pay for one month to start with, just to see what I could find, I've been frantically researching the family history on both parents sides before my access expires in a couple of days; and my brain is so full of people and names and stories I'm starting to feel a little um, confuddled.

I have come up with some interesting leads and stories though, that I will continue to check out... at a more moderate pace. It really is one of those beasts that just gets bigger the more you work at it. A project that I can see, never ends. It's fun; and hopefully it's something that one day my grandchildren will be thankful I did.

I'm Me, You're You

It's raining outside, my head hurts, and I don't know where to start...

First things first: I didn't forget about this blog, I wasn't just lazy, or ignore you (if anyone actually reads this), or get locked in my basement by a pedophile relative; but my head has just been so full of stuff that I honestly didn't know what to write. I still don't. If I'm truthful I think I was scared to attempt putting digits to keys for fear of what I might read the cursor revealing to me on my own screen. At least until my thoughts and feelings had stopped making me quite so dizzy.

While I don't quite feel the need to put here the finer details of why I have felt such a mess lately, suffice to say that it definitely felt like a pretty hard fall to the bottom, and a lot internal work to get myself to the point of making sense of things again.

The outcome of said events were that 1) I lost the extra 5kgs (11lbs) of muscle I had just spent the past 3 months living/sweating at the gym to gain; 2) I still don't have a job, and thus am broke; & 3) realising that everybody has flaws, including me, and that is OK.

You (yes, you) and I are both perfectly good enough, just the way we are.

It doesn't matter if you don't look a certain way, don't know what your 'life's calling' is, whether you prefer the snow over the sun, or like to eat you pizza backwards. None of that crap that people try to define us by really matters. It just doesn't. It's not who you are. That stuff is just like fluff. What matters most is the imprint you leave on those lucky enough to know you. My favourite people I have met so far in life have made me happy to be around them just by being comfortable being their own quirky, 'flawed' selves.

It's OK to have work-ons; things to try and improve in ourselves; goals and dreams to aim for... but putting too much emphasis on who you think you should be (or who you think other people think you should be), instead of just being comfortable with who you are, isn't a good thing. Trust me... it's a lesson I've just spent the better part of a year learning.

The only thing you have to do is be true to yourself... and realise all the other stuff will follow naturally, on it's own.

I'll be back here soon...