Homework

Hi!

Well, unfortunately, I have to say up front that no adventures were had this week. Not unless you count going out to dinner, discussing how best to write a very lengthy job application, until past bedtime on a school night, an adventure, then maybe a little one was had. Otherwise, nothing. Nada. Nyet.

Here's the thing, I have to get a new job. And in order to do that, I have to look in my spare time, as I can't at work. And the only time I can really look and write applications is on the weekends. Yes, I know you've heard all this before, but let me explain. If it's a government job worth applying for, then you have to answer selection criteria statements. It's crazy. You absolutely cannot apply for a government gig (which includes everything from the health sector, to Parliament, to the police, to education) without answering this stuff. Some can be 1 or 2, or in the case of the one I've been writing all week, 8 statements long. And you can't just state the obvious, like cutting and pasting from your resume and repeating yourself or answer it nicely in one sentence. No. They want at least 1/2 a page for each one. Put it this way, the application I was finally able to put together came to a total of twelve pages. Twelve. That's cover letter, selection criteria and resume.

It sucks.

And it's incredibly stressful. Which is the number one reason most people in government jobs never leave, because they can't bear the thought of answering selection criterias. Some questions look innocent enough - "Highly developed administrative and project coordination skills", and some don't - "Ability to undertake cost benefit analyses in relation to to proposals to enhance registry wedding services and to provide reports to senior management about proposals" (that was one I had to answer, somehow, and I was just applying to be a monkey marrying people at City Hall!). Yeah. Each one has to be broken down by word, and each word answered with an example of how you did whatever. It's worse than writing an essay or report for school. Much worse. I've not been able to apply for jobs that not only do I have a degree in, but practical experience in, because I couldn't answer their selection criteria. And if you try to apply without it (I've tried), they throw your application away without batting an eyelash. You could be Bill Gates applying for an IT helpdesk gig for the government and if he didn't answer the selection criteria, he wouldn't even get a phone call to tell him his "...application was unsuccessful at this time...". He'd get a form-rejection email. They miss out on a lot of good people because of this stuff. And, it's really only Queensland and some tiny pockets of Australia, nowhere else in the world (my luck). But, I've recently noticed that more and more government jobs are doing away with it because they've finally noticed that people have other people write their selection criteria for them and when it comes to interview time, the people can't answer the questions because they don't know what they said on paper. Dur. So the govt has finally seen the light that, gee, maybe if we just went by people's resumes and interviews, we might get decent people after all. It's so dumb. But, right now, if you want a decent job, that pays pretty good, you have to put in the hard yards (as the locals say).

So. Like I said last time, until I get a job, no adventures. Well, no really exciting ones anyways.

I know, I know. This isn't what I came all this way to do. But without money in the bank, adventures will be thin on the ground. Veryvery sad but true. Like I asked before, if there's anyone trying to get ahold of me about a lottery payout or an inheritance, I'm right here!!!!!!



Sorry about the tirade. But that's what I've been up to this week.

Otherwise, all is well. The weather is starting to warm up (I'll say!). It's supposed to get up to the mid-80's today. Eeeeek. Such a good thing I'm on the top floor - get great breezes all day! Kona is fine, tho he did knock another one of his ping pong balls off the balcony onto the bottom floor patio, next door to the other patio with the previous wayward ball. Hee hee. I'd take a picture if I thought the neighbors wouldn't have me arrested.

And that's about it! Hope you guys are all well up there! And if anyone wants to come visit, better do it before it gets hot and gross down here!!!!

Bye! J!

P.S. The eggs here come with smiley faces. I have no idea why.

Fe Fi Fo Geese!

Hi!

Well, that was a busy week. Busy at work as we're losing a person a week, so that leaves very few of us to do twice the work. Nice. (Oh dear, Kona just kicked one of his ping pong balls right off the balcony..... Oooh the neighbors below will be so pleased to discover a multi-colored ping pong ball on their patio). So yeah. Work. Busy. New subject!

I bought new clothes to look nice at work (kind of a change of subject). They're nice, but boring. Corporate gear. Just what I wanted. I look nice though. Everyone thought I had a job interview to go to. Not any time soon, sadly. Just got sick of the same 4 outfits that came with the suitcase I brought. Always nice to have new clothes. Reminds me of the first day/week of school. So after work on Tuesday Jan was kind enough to take me to this outlet mall (out by the airport) where the clothes are the same fancy-pants stuff in the shops and boutiques in town, just 50% off. Cool. She's so nice. She's the one that brought a little bit of her farm (barley hay and little logs) for Kona to get in touch with his inner farm cat.

Friday night I met Mave and Roger (and some of the people he works with) for dinner/drinks after work at Zen Bar (in the middle of town). Corporate hang-out only with bamboo trees (I guess that's what makes it Zen - bamboo trees). He's doing this really big triathlon up in Noosa at the end of this month with a couple of these guys from his work (they're old pros at this stuff, this is Roger's first bigbig one). So they spent half the evening talking about their previous times, workout hints and tips and how old songs from the 60's and 70's have been remixed to sound new (like Elvis' "Little Less Conversation", etc). I was so damn tired I had to be rude and stumble home at the dark hour of 9pm.

What else... See? I'm trying to think of interesting things, but I'm afraid you're bored stupid..... I'll keep going.....

Saturday, Mave, her neighbor Angela (works with Roger, up from Melbourne temporarily to work on a project), and I went to go see "The Devil Wears Prada". Excellent! Well, if you've ever worked in an office for dragons. I have. Mave suffered through pretty much the same thing (as in the movie) only for a majorly self-important hairdresser (picture Jose Eber, only Lebanese with a big thing for rainbows and pink speedboats). So she really loved and identified with it. Meryl Streep was amazing. The gal who played 'Emily' the first assistant was hilarious. Great lines. Really good little movie. Then we wandered back to the pub to wish Daryl, the Manager, bon voyage as he leaves the pub to move down to Coffs Harbour (about 6 hours or so south of Brisbane, right on the coast. Nice spot. Very pretty bay. Or so the guidebooks make it out to look). We'll miss Daryl as he was a font of interesting and funny stories. Good luck to him down there!

And today - mini-adventure! The usual suspects and I went up to the Glasshouse Mountains for a little nature walk. Very nice. Hell, always nice to get out of town, even if for just a couple of hours. The GHM's are just over an hour north from Brisbane, in the Sunshine Coast Hinterland, about 10km (miles?? Math??!) from the Australia Zoo (crikey!). In fact, the main road to get to the GHM's, Glass House Mountains Road (pretty creative), is going to be officially renamed the Steve Irwin Way. That's nice of ol Peter Beattie (Queensland Premier, like our governor), considering Steve Irwin singlehandedly put this nice little corner of Queensland on the map. Lovely little drive. Anyways, so after our walk, we stopped in at this cute little cafe with a lovely view of the mountains. Get this - they had guard geese under the stairs. Hilarious. Big suckers too. Loud. Had to be quick up the stairs if you wanted all your toes and ankles.

Heehee, every time we go on these little mini-adventures, as we go down the freeway (sorry, motorway) I spend most of the ride staring out the window looking for koalas in the eucalyptus trees, because, well, that's where they live. I haven't seen one yet (Mave spotted one tho, well done, it's hard to do). I'm always afraid that seeing as some of these trees hang over the road a bit, am terrified one will drop out and land on/in the windshield. Hey, sometimes it happens, the little critters fall out of their trees. Not often, but it happens. And I'm just afraid it'll happen while we're rocketing down the motorway doing 85mph. Eeek. I look out for kangaroos too. Same worry, minus the trees. They like to bounce out in front of speeding cars at dusk. So the general rule is you shouldn't drive after 4pm until dark. Most of the trucks (big and little) have "'roo bars" in the front to prevent the ugly event killing anyone else besides the poor little (well, not some of them) 'roos. I have yet to see any kangaroos either. Maybe they're smart about the motorway. Or maybe I need to get out of town more. Or maybe they really do like country living as opposed to living in the suburbs. I'd love to see a koala in a tree outside my office in town, or a kangaroo hopping down the Queen Street Mall.

So there you go! A little bit of adventure was had. A nice little colorful week. Am tired tonight though. We felt the temperature creeping into summer during our walk. Hot and humid. Ugh. Still nice at night though. The bats have come back again (seasonal I guess). These guys are massive. I'll try to get or find a photo of one. But they're really neat. The geckos have come back too, chattering and clicking during the night. The crows have shut up for the time being while they build their nests. The trees are blooming and turning greener. It really is a lovely city. Come visit!!!!!

Bye!

J!

BBQ's & Housewarmings

Hi!

Well, here I am. Survived another ______-filled week. Whew! And yet, magically, there's another week waiting in the wings. Ahhh, gotta love Sundays in my house. The whirr of the vacuum, the splash of cleaning in the bathroom, the shudder of the washing machine, and the bliss of knowing I have a cat who can clean while I type..... Just another Sunday, trying to liven it all up.

So, for starters, we had forced fun at work Wednesday morning in the shape of a barbeque. Yeah, I was a little horrified too at the thought of bbq'd anything at 8 in the morning. But no, it was bacon, eggs, sausages, tomatoes (shudder), bread rolls, fruit (well, not bbq'd), etc. It was all actually really good. There are free gas bbq's in all the parks around Brisbane. They're reallyreally cool and people are really nice to them, meaning they tidy up when they're finished, there aren't wierd things left behind and the parks service actually keep them in normal working order. And they're usually situated in a nice spot under a tree with a nice little view of the park. So ours was in the Southbank Parklands (not far from work, of course) with a view of the river. It was pretty nice and people came and had a decent time and got to chat, something we rarely get to do during a working day as we're all too busy to have a normal conversation. It's wierd and a shame, but that's our work.

So some of the pictures are of the nice folks I suffer through the day with. Really nice people who help immensely with the retention of sanity and sense of humor. So hats off to Ella (r) and Denise (l) and Jan (r, blue top)!




What else did I accomplish...... oh, last night Mave and Roger and I were invited to a little (literally) house warming party for this nice couple Ed (blue tshirt) and Moricha (pink sweater; she's from Portugal and he's from NZ) over in Paddington (where the cat food comes from). Cute little worker's cottage (another term for 'lovely old Queenslander' style of house, only pint-sized) spitting distance from the Suncorp Stadium (where the rugby games and bigbig concerts come from). It was a very cute little place and we all had a moment of envy at their proximity to the stadium. As residents of the immediate area, they get first dibs on tickets to major concerts at said stadium because when it was originally built (2003), they weren't supposed to have concerts, but seeing as it seats 52,500, they thought they'd be crazy not to let the Rolling Stones ever come play. So to appease the locals they give them first crack at cheap to free tickets. So anyways, there's this singer guy who's MASSIVE down in this part of the world, Robbie Williams, and people will sell body parts and family members to get tickets to his gigs. Well, wouldn't you know it, Ed and Moricha were offered FREE tickets to his upcoming gig in December and they turned them down because they're going out of town the day before the show. Once word got out to their friends, a small riot was held and houses were threatened to be broken into just to look at the outer walls of the stadium and hear the show. I'm not sure the verdict of the decision to let folks stand on their verandah while they're out of town, but it was pretty funny to watch these people get so bent out of shape about some concert. But like I said, Robbie Williams is bigger than sliced bread in these parts.

Anyways, the evening was nice. Met some nice people that Roger and Ed play football (soccer) with and Moricha and I had an interesting discussion about the woeful state of early childhood education in Australia (she educates childcare centers how to educate the teachers and the kids. Did you know, you don't even have to be a qualified teacher to teach 0-5 year olds in Australia? Scary). And that was it. Oh, hee hee, in the cab on our way back to our 'hood, we watched a gal outside a pub not quite, but very nearly, throw up on herself and her friends while she held on for dear life to the lamp post. Ha, it was funny. Poor thing can't be feeling so hot this morning. Anyways, turned out our cab driver was from just outside Colorado Springs! He told me "there're lots of us around the place", so that's interesting to know. Did I ever mention there's a barman at the pub next door who's from Boston? Andrew. Young guy. First time away from home (how cute). Studying IT. Nice guy. So yeah, I guess there are a few of us hiding in the corners.

Otherwise, I'm afraid I didn't quite achieve my adventure quotient for the week like I promised I would. Let's face it - I need to find a new job and until I do, like I said last week, the fun will have to suffer. Sorry, hard fact of life. Still, I'll keep trying in whatever small way I can!

BYE!
J!

Duchess of Dull

Hello!

Well, I am very sorry to report that I have no news. Nothing. Nada. I'm sorry, I tried, but no luck. I mean, yeah, today I went to the store, met Mave and Roger at the banana stand, but then I came right home. All week, all weekend, no news. No adventures.

Okay, Friday night was slightly interesting in that a few of us went out after work to celebrate a guy's birthday that's tomorrow (Monday). It was slightly exciting in that we went to a new pub called the Ship Inn, just at the end of the Goodwill Bridge, Southbank side, but other side of the river from the University of Queensland. It's a nice bridge, as far as bridges go. Spacious. Modern. Safe. Spots to hide when there's a sudden downpour (unfortunately, I have no photos of it, yet). The pub was nicer than the one we usually drink in (the Plough Inn) for these events (why they all have to be the Something Inn, I dunno). But that was that. We sat around and gossiped about work (yawn) and drank beer (mmmm), had dinner (eh, very average) and went home. And that, my friends, was the height of the weekend's excitement. Pretty damn dull. I'll try harder this week and into the weekend.

Work? Eh. Yep, still employed. Am keeping my eyes open for options. In fact, that's what I've been spending my precious weekend doing - trawling the 'net looking for "options". Found a few, have thrown my hat in, fingers crossed. A girl never knows. People are leaving my work at the amazing rate of one a week. I've only been there 6 months and at this rate, I'll be an "old timer", training the newbies. Oh dear. So yeah, am trying to watch my back. Which is where the adventures suffer. It's a bummer, I know, I'd rather write about exciting adventures, even if they're only discovering new neighborhoods, but until this job thing settles itself down a bit, them's the brakes. So for all our sakes - I hope I find something new asap!!!!!!!!

Oh, ok, I guess this is where I can talk about the weather... It's nice. Well, getting warmer. I heard people swimming in the pool the other day. All I know is I stuck my foot in it about a week ago and it turned blue instantly. These Aussies must be built of stronger stuff than me. But, the temps have been steadily crawling up there, mid teens at night (sounds scary, doesn't it? In farenheight it's around 60) and during the day it's been getting up near 30 (mid-upper 80's). So far the humidity has hovered around 53% or so. Very tolerable. But you should see the look on people's faces as they describe the worst (hottest, most disgustingly humid) months - Jan until about March, April. That alone could be enough to inspire me to move to Sydney. Then again, bear in mind, Sydney had the worst heatwave ever last year on Christmas Day of something like 45 (near 115). So then again, maybe not. Maybe Tassie (Tasmania), that's the next best place to being in NZ. Yeah, they have airconditioning here, sure. But when you've got only feet and public transport to get you from A-B, well, ugh. But hey, for now, it's absolutely lovely. Sunny, breezy, warm. Perfect. Now if only that pool would warm up just a little......

So there you go. Apologies for the dullness. Will try harder next week. Promise. And will take more photos. Maybe I'll walk over that Goodwill bridge........

J!

P.S. I tweaked the settings here and I think you can go in and leave a comment without having to surrender hours going through whatever it was they'd make you go through just to leave a dumb comment. The filter is on to stop internet spammers and wierdos from leaving messages. So if I get any said undesirables, I'll have to turn the filter back on. But really, how popular am I. I don't forsee there being any problems. So give it a go!

Mayonnaise in th' 'Hood

Hello again!

Well that's another week down the gurgler (yet another gem from the locals) and staring down the barrel of another one. Ahhh it seems like "Groundhog Day" lately. But nonetheless, am happy to be employed. Ahh, enough about work.

Today, Sunday, I did the usual store run with the added assistance of Roger and Mave's rental car! So to shake things up a little we went to Kelvin Grove, a far-flung suburb (far-flung for us foot-folk) only to discover that A)it wasn't that far away, really and B)the prices weren't any cheaper (jar of Best Foods mayonnaise 430g, who knows what that is in ounces, not me, math-challenged, thank you Mr. Foight, is still $4.91 either down the road or in this random, far away suburb). But it was neat to see how the commuting folk live. Eh. I like my 'hood. I don't care how expensive it is, I don't have to commute. Then I trekked out to hunt down the cat's food in Paddington. Then home to be picked up by Patrick (owner of pub next door. Keep up.) for a trip to another far-flung 'burb of Chermside (sounds like some sort of chemical-treatment facility. It's not tho. Looked a lot like St. Lukes in Auckland. Which isn't saying a heck of a lot, but safe to say it's not a chemical treatment plant). Their big thing is, literally, a mall. Sigh. He was in the mood to shop and I'm always up for a car ride to a new suburb. So winners all around. I'd forgotten my camera (gasp!) otherwise I'd've taken photos of, well, the mall. But, honestly, aside from different shop names, one mall here is like one in Germany, is like one in NZ, is like one in England, is just like one in the States. Still tho, always neat to see how they do things in another part of the world, even if it looks like where you came from. So on the way back to our 'burb, we went on a little sight-seeing tour of the 'hoods and discovered a lovely little place called Rosalie, not far from Paddington (where cat food comes from), which is not far from the City,
which isn't far from Spring Hill (me). If anyone gets ambitious you can look it up on a map. Rosalie. Really quaint, clean, not-too-snobby, no hippies (bonus!), the only downside was all the strollers stuffed with babies. I'd never fit in (the neighborhood, not a stroller. But with some of these newfangled modern 4x4 off-road stroller things, I probably could). Nice little neighborhood if I do say. I'd need that groovy Vespa though, far too many hills for these little feet.







Oh yeah, and Friday night, Roger got tickets through his work to go see a soccer/football match between the Brisbane Roar (yeah, I giggled a little too) and the New Zealand Knights (at least they didn't add 'black', 'silver' or 'white' to their title as they are wont to do with all of their other sport teams, Black Caps, All Blacks, Tall Blacks, Silver Ferns, etc etc). As the photos show, NZ got their butts kicked.







Still, it was a fun game. Went to see it at Suncorp Stadium (which, incidentaly, Steve Irwin's memorial is not going to be held, that'll be at his zoo, nicer place for it really). The audience at the game totaled 15,596 (something like that anyways). I looked around the stadium and it didn't look anything like 15,500plus. Big damn stadium. The neat thing about the game/night was, well, besides being free, was the city provided free shuttle buses to and from the stadium. Lots of buses. So it was dead easy, speedy and hassle-free to get there and back. Was quite a good night. And the game was only 90 minutes, so not so long you got bored stupid. Was pretty fun actually.

So there you are. Another mind-numbing work week, topped off with a neat, semi-adventurous weekend. Kinda sad I suppose when I consider a neat weekend is discovering new neighborhoods. Hey, I'm happy and that's what counts, dammit.




J!

Quiet, Rainy Sunday

Hi!

Well, it was a busy and fast week. After the previous week of not doing much at all (well, workwise, anyways, mewise it was busy), it's always a harsh reality to have to work a full week. But I must say it flew by, thankfully. Though here I am on a rainy Sunday afternoon thinking about the week ahead. Sigh. If there are any rich relatives in the family having a read of this, do contact me.

So the week had a few ups and downs. I'm sure you've all heard the news about ol' Steve Irwin going to the big zoo in the sky. Crikey! was right. What a surprise that was. I mean, we knew it was bound to happen, but sad nonetheless. They're planning to have a big public memorial for him here in town at Suncorp Stadium, the big rugby stadium. Australians are feeling kinda bad that he was so popular in the States compared to here, so I guess the offer of a State funeral was their apologetic attempt. He certainly did more for Australia and wildlife conservation than people think. His little girl certainly has her work cut out for her!

Work was fine enough. The bank is happy (made even happier that my tax refund came in! Whooooohoooo! Which, in turn, will make that credit card happy. Ahhh, it's a vicious cycle!) But have made big note to self to explore other possibilities in the employment sector........ Always good to keep an open mind to options. And that's all I'll say on that subject.

So, sadly, this was a bit of a quiet week (adventure-wise), thus making for a short little entry. I mean, honestly, do you really want to hear how I went to the pub for dinner one night (Liz is, at this very moment, jetting her way back to Brazil for an overdue family visit), went to the store and bought groceries, rented a couple of movies, went to Mave and Roger's for pizza and movie night, and how Kona's new favorite thing is to wake me up at least 5 times a night to punch me in the face and bite my nose? I didn't think so. So this time maybe I'll just get nutty with the photos.

So here's to a good week for one and all!!!!!!!

J

Fireworks & Bananas

Hi!

Well, that was a quick and easy week. Started off with two days off – excellent! Time spent getting a haircut, taking myself on a massive walk to the Vespa showroom, through neighborhoods I’d never given a second thought to (and for good reason – no, not bad or scary, but when you don’t need anything from random neighborhoods, who cares?) all just to drool over the little Vespa ET4 150cc scooter I would some day like to park as mine but at $7,800 new ($5,500 used. Sigh.) it looks like drool is all I’ll be doing; Going to the grocery store; Getting my hearing and my eyes checked for free (better hearing than most people and perfect eyes, well, for another few years yet) and generally lazing around. Then, come work time, I was told to ‘use it or lose it’ about my remaining vacation that they don’t pay out. So I basically worked one whole day last week, the others were either non-existent or really short. Was pretty nice. Gotta love paid days off! But that’s it now, no more. So in place of no more paid days off, bring on the higher hourly wage!



This weekend has been pretty nice in that the rain stopped (it rained for about a week), thus leaving the skies nice and clear for a huge fireworks show that they had last night to celebrate the wonders and the glory of the murky Brisbane River. It turns out they’ve recently discovered how cool it is having a city built around a river (they had to know something was up with all the towering high-rise apartment buildings that keep going up near it. Hmmm). So they threw a big festival centered around the River and water in general. I can’t keep up with every festival that they have (at least one a month) so I just opted to go with Mave and Roger to watch the fireworks near the Story Bridge. It was a pretty neat little fireworks show all in all (but honestly, after growing up with those fireworks shows at Disneyland and the ‘99/’00 New Years fireworks in NYC, everything else looks like beginners’ attempts. Awww). It started off with a fly-over of an F-14 (or some other speedy little fighter jet) doing a dump (oh dear, that sounds baaaad, but it was really cool and not a little scary. Especially for those people living in that apartment building it flew near). All I have to say about taking pictures at night, with a sensitive digital camera, is tripod tripod tripod. Just look at them and appreciate them for their "artistic" effect.





This morning was ‘Market Day’. The day, if I can haul myself out of bed in time, Mave and Roger and I go to the Eagle Street Pier Sunday Markets (my favorite). Those 2 go for the cheap bananas (and assorted fresh produce) and I go for cheap bananas too (I’ll admit it. I’m not ashamed), but really to look at jewelry for design ideas. You have to get there early as it’s only on for one day a week (Sunday) and the bananas sell out before 10am. Here’s the story – they had a cyclone blow through Northern Queensland a few months ago that pretty much wiped out the banana plantations (this seasons crops anyways). So in response to the "shortage", the grocery stores jacked up the price from like $4 a pound to $20, overnight. Yeah. In retaliation, the local farmers (or ‘dealers’ as I like to think of them) have set up shop in the little weekend markets undercutting the stores by 75%, thus making bananas affordable. To me, it’s all kind of funny. It’s psychology, isn’t it? Tell ‘em they can’t have their banana fix and they behave like heroin addicts lining up for methadone. I quite like these markets. This week was even livelier than previous weeks. There were stalls selling everything from opal jewelry, exotic breads, cedar socks (who knew?), to kangaroo skin wallets. There’s usually a little jazz band that plays once the place starts to pack out and the stalls get horrifically crowded. Early morning, tough as it is, is best.




So that’s the wrap up for the week. I gotta say, I love this little camera and I hope it helps give you guys an idea of what the place looks like. Any questions or comments, just ask!!!!!


J!

P.S. Still working out the photo bugs. If anyone knows an easy way, or, hell, ANY way to upload photos so they look normal and don't take all day to upload, do let me know.