SHOES!

So, I brought my boots with me to Sweden, for all the cold weather. But considering I'm constantly taking them on and off again I felt that some smaller shoes were in order. I found the smaller shoes yesterday, in a cool shopping/cafe area just down the road called Haga. I bought a pair of dark brown suede desert boots from clark's. Wheeee! I think my parents owned desert boots in the 70s or 80s. I certainly have memories of them. I'm going to take my desert boots on a walk this afternoon, somewhere lovely, like the fabric shop, just down the road. Mind you, that is dependent on it being open. I'm going to make a wheat bag to help when my unhappy girl bits appear again. My Australian wheat bag is fabulous, but it's in Australia. It was just too heavy to bring with me all that way. Especially when I had to make room for all sorts of other delightful things like clothes and vegemite.

IKEA trip

Hello again.

I've been rather busy since I last posted on here, so I haven't managed to sit down and post anything. Today I'm sitting in my PJs on the couch, watching the snow fall outside our windows. We got up about half an hour ago and in that time the snow has gone from not sure if it's rain to definitive snow, and it's falling on an angle. It makes me glad to be inside and glad we got our wandering and shopping done yesterday.
So I can't quite remember what I wrote last time, and am too lazy to look it up, so I shall guess.
Last Saturday we went shopping, with my new boss and her daughter, to IKEA and COOP Forum (supermarket) to pick up a chest of drawers and a shoe shelf, plus a few food items. IKEA was like every other IKEA I've ever been in, except it was filled with real Swedish people.
We wandered around and I think the boy got quite frustrated with me and my boss. We were looking at everything but chests of drawers. The first thing we did on arrival was to drop Embla (7 yo daughter of boss) in the playroom. Here we found our first delight in Swedishness. She was given a little bib with a number on it. All the children in the playroom were numbered. Marvelous.
Then it was the time to look at all the IKEA 'stuff'. My boss insisted on buying us some bulbs in pots and a low vase/bowl thing to put them in and some rocks to put in the bottom of the bowl. She said it was very Swedish and we could watch Spring approach with the blooming of the flowers. The boy wasn't too keen on the idea, but I was rather delighted, so we got them. We did eventually end up getting a chest of drawers, Hemnes in white, shown here in blue and a shoe shelf. For those not familiar with the European/Scandinavian shoe world, shoes are taken off on entrance to a home and you go around in your socks. You need somewhere to store your shoes in the front hallway. So we got ourselves on of those too. We also picked up a bathroom rug/mat thing and a few other plants.
We picked up Embla from the play room and had ourselves some lunch somewhere in the middle of all this stuff and had ourselves an IKEA lunch extravaganza. Well, more accurately, the boy had Salmon and I had meatballs. The boss again insisted on getting something, in this instance cake for dessert. I was absolutely stuffed full.
After IKEA we loaded up the car with our purchases and drove about 300-500meters away to get ourselves some food. We went to COOP Forum. As far as I could tell, it was a mix between the biggest supermarket you've ever been to in Australia, combined with a Kmart or Target. There was everything there and heaps of it. I couldn't get over the size of the place and the choice was enormous. I intend on revisiting that same place one day to get some photo evidence of the hugeness. I'd write more here, but really it was a supermarket shopping experience and is really not that exciting.
My boss took us home and we started constructing the furniture. Anne (the boss), was really keen on constructing the furniture then and there. The boy suggested that maybe we could wait until the next day and he and I would do it. But she was pretty keen on doing it then, and to be honest so was I. So the three girls put together the majority of Hemnes set of drawers and the whole of the shoe shelf. I was impressed with the dexterity of Embla. She even used a hammer pretty well. I'm guessing they must train kids here early in IKEA furniture construction.
The last item of business of the day was dinner at Anne's house. We made our way there and were greeted by some lovely food that her husband had cooked. It was red rice with chicken breasts covered in vegetables and bacon I think, cooked in the oven. Really tasty. We also had some cask red from Australia (apparently). The boy also got to try some beers that they had in their cellar and we got a tour of the house. Towards the end of the evening, we started playing a board game. It was effectively dungeons and dragons, as far as we could tell. We ended up winning by accident. We played as a team, Anne and Per were the second and Embla and Ask (their son) were the final team, though Embla wasn't particularly interested and spent most of the game out of the room.
Okay, this is already a long post, I shall add some more stuff at a later time. Right now, I'm going to have a shower and get some thesis work done. I'll be back later on today to talk to you about Saturday Sweets, new shoes and Thai food, Swedish style.

I fucking love running

Exercise makes everything better. It fixes all problems. Well, perhaps that is an overstatement. But it makes me happier. I was feeling rather, shall we say, unhappy about the thesis. I went for a 20 min jog/run around the area surrounding our flat. I feel so much better now. I've found out it's possible to run, even when it's really cold outside (about 3 degrees C). I didn't get lost and I saw a bit more of the area. It's rather lovely around here. There are lots of shops and cafes and the like. Fantastic! I think this will soon become a daily routine. Help me clear my head.

So, message reads, yay for running.

Thesis

I got another draft returned from my supervisor this afternoon, Swedish time. Getting an email from him fills me both with hope and dread. Hope that he'll like what I've written, dread that it will not be good enough.
As ever, it wasn't good enough. This chapter he didn't like the structure of it and wants it to be more like a former student of the lab who did something similar. Bleh! It means more work for me, more than I had hoped for. But I had to expect it really. I kinda feel like it'll never be over. But that can't be true. It has to finish.
I'm also not sure how much time I'll have for my thesis, now that I'll be working full time in a new lab. I'm lucky that I have a 'househusband' to sort out the house stuff so I can work at night.
Speaking of that, I should probably go do that now, start some thesis work. More to come about the Swedish experience, including our trip to IKEA and subsequent construction efforts by me, my new boss and her 7 year old daughter, who is quite handy with a hammer and an allen key.

Sverige

Hello and welcome to a blog post from Sweden. I'm sitting in our kitchen, at the kitchen table. The boy is cooking some pasta that we bought at a market hall thing yesterday. Two different types, one with walnuts in the pasta and stuffed with cheese and the others made with normal pasta and a different type of cheese. We have a couple of candles burning and it's been raining all day.

Welcome to Sweden!

But it's not that bad. I'm not sure what to say about Sweden just yet. It's cold, (yay!), it's very ordered, it's full of people who speak English well. Our apartment is a studio, but has a kitchen with room for a table that sits 6 and two full sized fridge/freezer things. Our bed is tiny for a double or large for a single, we haven't quite worked that out. We can't work out how to turn the heating down, and it's really quite warm in the flat, somewhere around 25 degrees, which is far to warm for sleeping purposes. We don't know where our rubbish goes, or whether we have a storage room. But, we do know how to book the laundry in the building and it's about two doors down from our flat. So we're pretty well set up.

There's a supermarket 2 mins walk from the flat, a lolly shop across the road, a fruit and veg shop + deli as well. We have a 7-11 nearby too. I can walk to work in about 10 minutes (uphill) and we're about 15-20 mins stroll from the centre of town.

Hmm, what else? We've still not found out what the rent will be on this flat. We don't have a bank account. But hey, we've only been here for 2 days.

Okay, I'd better go, the pasta is almost ready and I should probably go and see if the boy needs any help.

By the way, my English has gone to shit since we arrived. I think it's because I'm trying my darndest to learn as much Swedish as possible. So all my nouns have gone missing from my brain. Apologies for the wandering manner of this post and my potentially shitehouse English from now on. Better get that thesis finished!

Less than a week to go

So I'm currently visiting my Opa who is on his last week of chemo and radiation therapy. It's likely that while this may help and completely reduce the tumour (10%), the more likely scenario is that he will have a smaller tumour removed surgically later. But we'll find out about that in March. Otherwise he's doing okay. He doesn't like to eat too much because it results in pain at the other end. He's lost 10kgs and Oma has lost 5 due to the lack of full meals. But there he's still relatively positive, even if he does whinge a bit. My brother and I drove up from Melbourne last night and were amazed by the destruction we saw from the Hume, brought by the bushfires. It was amazing how much was burnt and how much smoke there still was in the air.

P (the brother) has managed, through working and playing too hard, to get himself a dose of flu. He's got a fever, sore throat, headache, sinus pain etc etc. So he's currently napping again, after a full day of napping. I didn't realise how sick he was on the drive up though, until we stopped for some food at a 'crap in a box' chain restaurant and he was saying how cold he was, but was burning up. It's a trip to the doctor tomorrow. Poor bugger.

To the topic of today's post, less than a week to go. This time next week I'll be on a plane, somewhere (I think) between Hong Kong and Helsinki. I would love to say that tomorrow I'm flying to Canberra to submit my thesis. But alas, this is not the case. What is the case is that I will have two full drafts of my thesis completed and submitted to my supervisor by Friday the 20th of February. As ever, the thesis is taking longer than expected. I have made significant changes to the original documents and it currently sits at about 30, 000 words of thesis goodness. I'm hopeful that it really will be only 1 more draft and then I can submit. I would have loved to be finished by now, but I hope that by submitting later I might actually pass. Updates no doubt to come soon.

I think I shall now go and do a little bit of work on the thesis while Opa watches the news.

Thesis thesis thesis thesis

So the last few weeks have been pretty full on with thesis work. I've been working solidly towards getting the thesis done. We fly to Sweden on the 24th of February and I'm hoping (cross your fingers for me) to submit on the 19th of Feb. That means the thesis has to be finished and printed before then. I think it's possible, I hope it's possible, I expect that I will make it possible.

Inter-dispersed between these bouts of thesis mania have been a number of different things. I found out a lovely lovely woman I was friends with in Canberra died last week from secondary cancers. She originally had breast cancer a number of years ago. She was a very stylish, friendly woman who had great taste in shoes. We weren't super close by any stretch of the imagination. We met through dancing and would talk and see each other occasionally, at socials and other events. I was so sad to hear of her death. She was only 35. 10 minute prior to finding this out, I got an email from a friend from uni. He's relapsed again with his lymphoma and is going into his last attempt at cure with some really hardcore chemotherapy followed by a stem cell transplant. I'm hopeful that he'll do well and recover.
So I've had two people I know be touched by cancer. That an my Opa is currently undergoing treatment for bowel cancer. It's just a cancer-a-thon. I'm really looking forward to some good news.

I'm not sure if this counts as good news, or just something that is new. I've been making good progress with the couch to 5km program and am up to week 7 of 9. This means I'm going for 25 minute runs/jogs 3 times this week. I've already done 2 at this length and was able to run further the second time. My running buddy is in Canberra at conference this week, and the temperature is going to be over 40 degrees until Sunday, so I'm not sure how well I'll go on the planned runs for Wednesday and Friday, but I can but try.

Anywhoodle, back to thesis talk, seeing as that is all my life is about, if you pay attention to the questions I get asked by people. I look forward to a time when someone asks me how my thesis is going and I can tell them that it's done, finished, submitted and dealt with. 3 weeks today until I need to print it. Today I'm sitting in the state library in the domed reading room, making use of the free wireless. It's nice in here, cool, well lit, and the desks are really old wooden ones. It usually works to make me work well and focus. Today isn't going so well, but I'm almost done with my planned work for today, so maybe that has something to do with it.
Bleh, I'm also suffering from raccoon eyes. I've not been sleeping terribly well, too much stress = too little good quality sleep. I have exceptionally vivid dreams which while not specifically nightmares, are disruptive to good quality sleep. But at least I can aim for pretty well rested eyes after the 19th of Feb. With that in mind I'm going to leave this poorly constructed post and go back to the joys of chapter 5.

This and that

I'm laying on my couch, watching Monsters Inc. I'm going to go and check on the boy later. He's had somewhat of a skinful today, which contributed to his not feeling too great. He doesn't always cope well with family situations and today was a step too far for him. It's not something that I really truly understand. I'm totally okay with family situations, and enjoy myself a lot. But, different strokes for different folks I guess.

It's been a stressful few weeks here in scientician land. We're starting the move tomorrow to NBs house. I've got a lot to do, but no doubt it'll all get done and go fine. My plants are growing a lot and there are proper flowers on the capsicum plants.

Now, is definitely time though to go and start working out what stuff I need to pack for storage, which stuff to pack for moving with us, and which stuff to pack for selling/giving away/getting rid of. Movie is almost over and I need to get moving. Mind you, maybe getting an early night would be in order.

Stress and itching

I’m itching to buggery. I don’t think this is helped by the fact that I’m wearing linen blend pants. It’s all my own fault really, I haven’t been moisturising properly. I always pay if I don’t keep that up. I have really dry skin that needs a good moisturisation to keep my body from completely itching from head to foot. It’s worse when I’m stressed, and when I’m busy.
At the moment, I have a lot to be stressed about. My thesis, while it continues along and seems to be proceeding okay, needs to be finished by a certain date so I can make that move to Sweden. I have a job lined up, yay!, starting on the 1st of March. I need my thesis to be completed, signed off on, printed and submitted before we leave, hopefully in the last week of February. This, in and of itself, is pretty stressful. But you add to the top of that, we’re moving in a week. We’ve got to be out of the current house by the end of the year. We’re having our final inspection on the 30th (wish us luck) and we need to pack everything up and move out. We’re moving in with my best friend of some 26 or so years, NB. She’s been my friend since I was two years old. We went to the same primary school and then separated to go to different high schools, but remained friends. We hardly ever see each other anymore, but the bonds of best friendhood have been maintained. So, she has graciously offered the boy and myself a place to stay between leaving this house and moving OS. So it’s back to share house living for a little while for us. We visited the house last night, on the walk back from the parentals. So the boy has now seen his new house for the first time. I think we’ll settle in well there, though it apparently gets hot in our bedroom, which for me is always known as Natalie’s room, after NB’s older sister. We’ll see how bad the heat is and if necessary sleep a few nights at the parentals, in their newly installed ‘evaporative cooling’ house.
In any case, everything we own has to be packed up and moved, either with us to the new house, clothes and DVDs I’d say, or put into storage at my parents house, or sold. I’m bringing my gardening endeavours with me, which continue to impress me with their proliferative nature (can you tell I’ve been writing about proliferation of cells etc in my thesis recently?).
Oh yeah, so onto the third thing that is stressing me, though perhaps to a lesser extent. We’re moving to Sweden! In about 2 months! And I have to organise a visa that has the right name on it, which I think should be my married name, though I intend to work under my maiden name for publication purposes etc. I still am waiting for my new passport to be sent to me, I hope it arrives before we move. We need to try and find somewhere to live in our new city. This is apparently going to be really difficult as the Swedish system of flat rental is interesting and complicated and the city we’re moving to, Gothenburg, is really tight, rentally speaking, at the moment. But I’m sure something will work out, it’s going to have to. We just have so much to organise, in particular what to take with us, flights to get us there, and all sorts of things to do with paperwork and the like. I’m trying not to stress about it, but it’s hard. I like to be organised and know what I’m doing.
The fourth and final thing that has been stressing me, and last week was the catalyst for a very shit day, is that my grandfather has been diagnosed with bowel cancer. He’s been having difficulties with that end of his food tube for a while. It was going to be ‘fixed’ last week and when they went in, they found cancer. He’s starting radiation therapy next week and has been told that it’s treatable. But he’s yet to see an oncologist, so I wonder a little about that. We’ll have to wait and see.
I can understand the process of cancer formation, and that, as you get older, it’s almost one of life’s inevitablities. But I want my grandfather to be well, to not be suffering with pain (as he is at the moment) and to continue to have a happy existence with my grandmother and their lovely dog, Monty. But there’s not much I can do about that. So I will have to wait, hope for the best and hope that he uses the pain medication properly so he doesn’t have to suffer pain and discomfort. It will be good to see him, and Oma, on Wednesday, for our traditional German Xmas. This year it’s at my parent’s house.

So, it’s been a stressful couple of weeks for me. I’m hopeful that, with the move over, we can relax a bit more and get back on an even keel. The boy has been delightful in helping me maintain my sanity and I cannot explain how much that means. He’s just delightful.

Back to the salt mines, ie my thesis writing. I wish that writing it was as easy and flowy as writing this blog post (that has been composed in the basement of the biomedical library at Melbourne Uni while on a mental break from working), but alas, no such thing is true.

My famous brother

I'm sitting in the living room. I've just finished writing some figure legends for my last result chapter to be drafted. I've found some mistakes, I'm in the process of fixing them and trying to find some of the data I want to use. In any case, I'm also listening to PBS. My brother is playing live with his band, the Black Jesus Experience. He's the drummer. They are probably what you would call a mix of African hip hop and jazz. It's hard to explain, but I like it. They're also playing the Melbourne leg of the Big Day Out next year and going to Womad (spelling?), the world music festival in Adelaide. He's definitely going places this brother of mine.

Ooh and he was doing his best as a Bradman model earlier in the week. He works for an auction firm that were auctioning off Donald Bradman's baggy green (one of them anyway) and he had to hold it for photos and the news. Apparently some friends saw him on the Channel 10 news.

If you're ever in Collingwood on a Sunday afternoon and want to see my brother in action, head over to The Horn, which is the African cafe that the Black Jesus Experience plays at every week. It's on Johnston Street, just near Smith Street. Then stick around and eat yourself silly on the really tasty Ethiopian food.

Fats Waller

My lovely husband has acquired for me some Fats Waller. I adore it. Should I be allowed to DJ at all again, in a lindy hop context, I will be using some of this.

Lovely stuff.

I made another quilt

I'm in the process of making a cot quilt for a friend of mine's baby. She's due, actually I'm not sure exactly when she's due, but sometime next year. We haven't got a clue about gender, but there is a clue about hair colour. My friend is a redhead and it's a fair chance that she'll produce another one. So with that in mind, I tried to choose colours that would complement a ranga. It's finally up to the quilting stage. I hand sewed the 'squares' together with no pattern in mind, just a whole bunch of different sizes that I hoped would fit together nicely. I had a few holes in there that I had to creatively patch. But I think it's worked out well. So now all that is left is to quilt it, and then bind the edges and she's all ready for the expectant family. They're such lovely people, I hope they like it.

So here's a photo of the sandwiched together quilt. I used a tablecloth that I got from the op-shop as a base, some bamboo batting for the middle and the top that I sewed. Go crafty me.

Planting up a storm

I recently, well about a month ago or something, planted some food plants to help me keep sane and give me yummy food to eat. I planted a strawberry plant, cos lettuces about 6 capsicum plants, 2 jalapenos, some basil and some of that coriander you buy at the supermarket in a pot. The strawberry started off with no flowers and just one misshapen strawberry that was still white. It's now grown quite a bit, the strawberry is ripening nicely and there are flowers galore on it. The capsicums have started to have flower buds on them, as are the jalapenos, as well as growing a whole heap. The coriander initally looked like it had died and I thought I wasn't likely to get any. But it started to sprout a new sprout and I swear is growing mms overnight. I has a new prong to the sprouting part nearly everytime I look. The basil has grown, but seems to have stalled somewhat and I think needs to be repotted somewhere where it isn't shaded by the lettuce. The lettuce is growing well and we've started eating it in sandwiches and salads and I'm really pleased. Yay! So here are some photos of that, these are the grown up plants. I think I'll pick the strawberry really soon. It looks so tasty. Nom nom nom nom nom.

So here's the newly sprouting coriander:


The buds on the capsicum:


The stawberry is top left, to the right of that is the jalapenos and along the bottom are the capsicums.


Another capsicum plant in the background, lettuce in the middle and basil in the front. It also appears as though something is eating the basil. Perhaps it's time for more snail bait?

Running is my drug of choice

I never thought that I would enjoy running. All throughout high school, while I danced a lot and was cardivascularly fit, or so I believe, I never was good at running. The school run was a torture. 1.3km or so, around the school. We had to do it for PE, a lot. So I never thought that running would be fun.
I can't remember when I started doing it. Maybe it was about 2 or 3 years ago when I was at the gym and thought that it might make a bit of a difference from cycling. In any case, I started and kinda enjoyed the endorphin kick I got from it.
In recent times, I decided to start the Couch to 5K program again. I had tried it on a treadmill in the gym before and had gotten to about week 3 (of 9) and then due to various different things like stress and illness didn't manage to get any further. Recently I wrote about the next thing to happen to me while trying to run, the ankle spraining. That turned into about 6 weeks of pain. I was on crutches for 2 weeks, not able to walk at all. I had an ultrasound, and an x-ray and a bit of physio. Turns out that torn ligaments really do take a long time to heal. But now I'm done with physio and my ankle is stable and strong. It still aches a little in the evenings if I've done a lot of activity. But it's pretty much healed. So I've started the program again. Last Monday I did a week 1 run again. I was supposed to run again on Wednesday, but due to the 35 degree day, I decided it was just too hot. Thursday was also hot and Friday it rained all day. Though I could have those days mixed up. In any case, no running was done then. But Saturday morning, I was determined. I got up early and did another week 1 run.
Now, the program says to run 3 times each week. But I figured as I had gotten through most of week 1 previously that I could get away with running week 2 today, rather than waiting until Wed. So this evening about 7.30pm I went out and did that run. And it was relatively easy. I was doing intervals of 90 seconds jogging/running with 2 mins of walking and I didn't completely exhaust myself. It was good to feel as though I'd gotten somewhere. A little fitter. So, the plan is as follows, run again on Wed and Friday this week. Get myself to week 3, and then week 4,5,6 etc. Don't get injured again! Fortunately, or unfortunately considering I just bought cross trainers to help support sideways motion of the feet, soccer is not on this season as they couldn't get enough people together for a team.
Okay, enough procrastination, let's write some thesis!

3 problems with our house

We've had a series of interesting problems arise with our current house. The first was that there was the pipe that took the water from the laundry sink outside. It was broken, before we even moved in, and would leak a lot of water down the side of the house. We were promised a plumber for a long time. This weekend, we finally got one. It only took 3 and a half months. But it was fixed! And in the meantime, while waiting for the plumber to eventuate, the bathroom sink was clogged and draino hadn't fixed the problem. The plumber fixed that too. Huzzah!

The second problem was the possum/s in the roof/wall of our bedroom. We called the real estate agents and after much harassment got them to send out a possum man. They were almost impossible to get hold of and I'm not sure they were convinced that the problem was really all that big. Mind you, they weren't getting woken at 5.30am by the little bastards returning from a night of frolicking.
Anthony, the possum man, came and looked around, found where they were getting in and set up a one-way exit. But we were still having problems, being woken at 5.30am every morning by the returning beast/s, hearing noise in the wall during the day. Anthony suggested that it may not be a possum. It was probably rats. After absorbing this more disgusting news, he put a non-lethal trap in the roof to have a look to see whether it was a possum or a rat. Possums are native and protected by law. So if we had both possums and rats, we'd have to get rid of the possums first, then bait the rats. The trap was set off the first night and whatever it was escaped. This pretty much confirmed rats. So Anthony has now baited them and we should start to find that they don't make any noise anymore. At one level, I cannot wait for them to be gone. We've been sleeping in the spare room because the noise is annoying, and we have a visitor coming this weekend to stay. We'd like to be back in our own room. At a different level, I feel bad for killing the rats in such a horrible way. Rat baits work by the use of an anti-coagulant, meaning their blood is very thin and doesn't clot properly. It also, I believe, includes something to ensure they start bleeding, like glass shards. So the little buggers bleed internally and aren't able to stop it. It sounds like a horrible way to go. Oh well, at least they won't be waking us up anymore.

The third problem is our lawn. The house is a on a really big block. The lawn hasn't been mown since we moved in, in August. Spring has been great for the growth of the grass and it's very high now. The possum man said it was a good idea to get it mown. No-one I know has a mower, so we've had to find someone to do it for us. You would think that would be simple. It is not. I initially called the guy who mows my parent's lawn. He's not doing lawns anymore and instead is doing a much more honourable and possibly more interesting job working with a charity that helps the homeless. The next port of call was one of those chain services, VIP. The guy rang me. He had injured himself in a pretty bad way, that might need surgery. He wasn't able to do our lawn. The third option was a guy I found in the yellowpages from the local area. He came this afternoon to look at the job and apparently will be here to do it 'sometime this week'. So I'm hopeful of this problem being solved too. Mind you, with my experience of the plumber (he called once, promised to call again to sort out a time and then never tried again. We had to call the estate agents to get his number, which should have been the case in the first place), I am skeptical of the mowing dude turning up at a sensible time or at all really. If it gets really bad, and he doesn't turn up, I have plans to be nice to our neighbours and borrowing their mower. They use it enough.

So soon our house should be going well and have little or no problems with it. Mind you, we only have a lease until the 3rd of January, so there won't be a heap of time to enjoy it.

Next post will be about bottling wine, growing herbs and veges and should include pictures of one of those things. But for now, I'm tired and the thesis work has been minimal today. I'm going to go and do some work on the discussion for my 'this worked' chapter of my thesis. I've got a fair idea what I'm going to write, but I have to get it down on paper first and then try and get it into the computer. Don't know why, but it's just how the brain sometimes works.

Possum magic

We have a possum in our roof. It woke us up at 5.30am. I am not impressed. I asked the boy to get on to the real estate agents about getting a possum man to come and remove it. I hope that that happens. But who knows? They haven't organised to fix a pipe that has a leak in it, so why help us out with the possum?

In other newses, I was in Canberra on the weekend, visiting, attending a wedding. I got to catch up with some ladies I used to work with. All but one of them was pregnant. I felt a little left out (not really). But it was great to see them all as well as all the other mates I've missed since moving back to Melbourne.

With all the pregnancies going on around me (another friend EE is also pregnant), I've been busy making stuff. Just little presents to give to expectant mothers. So here are some pictures I took earlier of presents taken to Canberra, or being sent to Tassie.





I made some more booties like the green ones for VA, but didn't get time to photograph them.

Anywho, I have just finished making a delightful cake and should go and ice it. I've also made a totally tasty salad to go with the lovely lamb chops I'm marinating for dinner tonight. I'm using my procrastination to good purposes today, I'm being a proper little housewife. As much fun as that is, shoot me if I start calling the boy my hubby. I detest that word.

Angry

I don't exactly know why, but today I am angry. There are a number of things that are making me angry.
-I received notice that an application I put in was unsuccessful, and not for content reasons.
-I'm angry because due to injury, I cannot exercise properly and am barely walking, though the barely walking is an improvement on the last two weeks I guess.
-I really want to be closer to finishing the thesis, but it seems like, today at least, it's an insurmountable task that looms over me, not allowing me to do anything else, not allowing me to move on with my life.
-I'm angry because I have to move soon and moving is a bitch and a pain in the arse and I really don't want to have to find somewhere else to live, I'm relatively happy with the place we have.
-I'm angry because I would like some more communication with someone, but am not getting it. Admittedly, I should be trying harder on my end, but they are a little bit scary, so I'm kinda avoiding it. Terrible I know. But it makes me angry that they haven't acknowledged me for quite some time.
So actually, I guess I do know why I'm angry. I'm most angry about thesis stuff, and frustrated that it isn't going faster. If I could exercise, maybe I would be able to vent that frustration and anger. Guess I'm just going to have to make do with screaming a bit and maybe punching something. Wish me luck.


Edited to add the following: fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.
Consider this my blogging version of screaming.

Injury prone

I don't know that the title of this post is strictly speaking true. I don't know that I am injury prone per se. But I seem to be able to injure myself at inconvenient moments. Like last Thursday. I have been the replacement Kate for my cousin's soccer team. The other Kate is injured, something to do with her knee. So for the last 6 weeks or so, I've been helping out and having heaps of fun, as I have mentioned. Until this last Thursday when it was almost an entirely family affair. My cousin G, his wife C and my other cousin T were all playing and Macca was the non-family exception. All was going great, I was defending like a mo-fo and all of a sudden my right ankle went over and I heard a snap. The snap was not good. I have not walked properly since, in fact until today I've been on crutches or hopping the whole time.
So Thursday night saw me being taken first to the Western Hospital in Footscray, where there was a 4-6hour wait to see a doctor, to the free medical clinic on Bell Street, where I waited about 35 mins to see a doctor who spelled soccer: soccar, and heard : heared. I'm guessing he didn't get his medical degree by being able to spell. In any case, he strapped my ankle, told me to get crutches, gave me a prescription for panadeine forte (woo woo!) and told me to go and get an ultrasound to see if I had any ligament damage. I finally made it home and started making the husband (hehe I still giggle at calling him my husband) do things for me. He made me a lovely dinner, helped me in and out of the shower, and the next morning gave me a piggyback to the toilet and went and got my crutches from the pharmacy. So this Thursday I'm going to the ultrasound place and then back to the doctors to see what needs to be done. I've bribed my physio friend with food to help me learn how best to strap the ankle and today I'm hobbling around the house sans crutches. I fear, however, that the dancing I had planned for tomorrow night will not go ahead, nor the running regimen I had started last week.
But in good news, I got two pairs of glasses for $400 and I've got some crafty things on the go. Should be great. Now I just want to get to an op shop to pick up some quilty type stashes, I forsee quilting in my future, or at the very least patchwork. Next post will have photos, absolutely!

Running and descriptive biology writing

Today has had two themes : running, and descriptive biology writing.

This morning I went for a run. I've started, for about the third time, the couch to 5K program. It's a running program that means in 9 weeks, if you follow it through, you can be running 5kms. It was good fun, and hard work. I'm hopeful that if I stick with it this time it'll help my indoor soccer skills. I've been playing indoor soccer for my cousin's mixed team on a Thursday night (not sure if I've written about it before) and while it's heaps of fun, it really does show up how unfit I am in a cardiovascular sense. We'll ignore all the other kinds of unfit I am for now. The fun bit was checking out a bit of the Yarra trail. It runs all the way from near my parents in Macleod to the city along the Yarra river. I got as far as about Ivanhoe, from Heidelberg, and then turned around and came home. I'm thinking that perhaps as the weeks progress I'll get closer and closer to the city. Though I don't think I'll ever go all the way in, it's about 25kms of winding track. So, theory of the program says I'll be running again on Wednesday. I hope that is true.

The other part of today is descriptive biology writing. I'm having a major mental block at how to write this though. It's for the most successful part of my thesis work that I've done, the prostate gland stuff. It's worked really well, but I'm just not sure how to write it. I know what content has to go in, I know exactly what I did and what I found out in the process. But I cannot for the life of me work out a way to write it in a coherent manner. It's very frustrating. I think I might have to start with dot points and move them around a bit until it flows. There are many ways to approach the writing. In a chronological sense (not in terms of when I did the experiments but the timing of the development of the organ), seems to be the most sensible, but there are other ways that also make sense to me. I really don't know what I'm going to do. I've made thesis figures already for this and they seem to make sense to me. Perhaps I should just describe them and go from there. Gah! It's all a bit brain-hurty.

And one last thing, in recent times, 19th September to be exact, I got married. I'm now Mrs Burgermeister, or am if you believe my boy and facebook. I've changed my licence and medicare card over to the new name and it's all a little strange. I'll be keeping my maiden name for work purposes, publications etc, but for everyday life I'm someone new. I wish this new Kate was good at writing descriptive biology.

two more sleeps to go

In two more sleeps (3 days kinda), I'm getting married. Between now and then I'm getting a manicure, massage and an awesome hairstyle done. I finally can justify getting myself made up all pretty like. Huzzah! I think everything is organised for the day. I have my dress, ring, underwear and relaxed attitude all ready. Just need to get there on time and everything is fine, fine, fine.

The other news of this week is that my discussion for one of my chapters (thesis) is almost done. I hope to finish it today and send it to the supes with a note explaining the whole getting married thing and suggesting we chat next week about it. We haven't been chatting much of late, via email or via phone. I think it's time that changed, and after the wedding seems the best time. Before is just a ridiculous notion, too many other things on the go. He can, I'm sure, wait another couple of days before talking to me. He's managed to go this long without talking to me.

I've also been playing indoor soccer with my cousin's team on Thursday nights. It's been great fun. We're in a mixed team and I'm the replacement Kate. The other Kate from the team has hurt her knee and I've been called in to help out. Last week was probably my best week, I kicked two goals! Yay!

Other things going on are: I've been DJing in Melbourne. Hooray! I have now DJed twice at Carnivale, which is a new dancing night in the Melbourne scene. It's Thursday nights (after soccer for me) at Suede bar in Smith Street. It's been great fun. I love to inflict my musical choices on other people. I can't go this week though, nor to soccer. I'm getting my hair done in the city, then heading to the airport to pick up the boy's Dad and 'stepmum'. I say 'stepmum' because she's only been with his Dad since he's been grown up, so never had a role in raising him. Then it'll be straight home for sleep before getting up really early on Friday to get to the wedding on time.

Anywho, this is a rambling post with little sense, so I should go and bathe and get that discussion finished before my manicure this afternoon.