In Soviet Russia, blog writes YOU!!!

Sometimes you think you know what you want, or in this case, what you don't want. But when what you might want is offered to you, how do you know if you really want it or not before it's too late? I don't want to get fooled by what I think I want and make the same mistake a second time. But these complexities make my life infinitely more interesting than what it was this time last year, and I am thankful for the chance to decide, even if I do fuck it up and choose wrong.

Happy Valentine's..?

These were my "I don't give a rat's crap about Valentine's Day and all it's bullshit paraphernalia, but here are some love-heart shaped biscuits I baked on Valentine's Day, and it is just a coincidence that they were heart-shaped" biscuits. Shameful, shameful attempt that was. The biscuits stank. Not literally stank but they weren't very nice. I still ate them all, pleased that I was on my own on Valentine's Day, not feeling obliged to go out and write some shit card and find some tacky present for my one and only.

The art of growing.

I have just found a bull ant making a home inside my bra that was lying on the ground. This is very worrying, because where there is one bull ant, there are his dangerous friends. However, I have almost everything I need to re-create that famous 90s Antz-Pantz add that involves lots of bull ants and an ant-eater named Rex. All I need is an ant infestation and an ant-eater.

This is just introduction to the point of this post; to ascertain whether I have 'grown up' or not. This is a reflection on the goals I set for myself in an earlier post.
It was already settled that I am able to 'pay my way in life,' for apart from accepting free payments from an Australian social security establishment when they feel generous enough to give them to me (which is never), I earn my own money and pay my own bills and buy my own stuff.
However, I may be able to earn my own money, but I am unable to manage it. I am still desperately in need of a budget and so far I have devised a temporary one until I get around to making a proper one: DON'T SPEND MONEY. EVER. So far it is going well. I have cancelled my upcoming costly plans which were to attend the Moonlight Cinema (sadface) and I have only spent $2 in the past two days, which was on a work-sponsored Valentine's Day Raffle. The prize was a bottle of red and a movie ticket, so I was clearly going to enter. Don't think I'm getting into the spirit of this Valentine's Day bullshit, because I am absolutely not! I merely felt I had to spend money to make money. And by 'make money' I mean drink wine. I also found $1 on the ground, so it's all coming up Cardwell for me. However, Hollywood-produced Up in the Air staring the very attractive George Clooney is calling me, and I may accidently end up paying for a seat in a cinema on Monday. This is a complete impending disaster for my finances.

Next, being able to get from A to B. I did it, I made it to Sydney (B) from Melbourne (A) all by myself (win). This gives me immense confidence. When I manage to do this in Europe, I will be completely satisfied.

Learning how to cook myself dinner is proving to be more difficult. Or cook in general. It is nearly as difficult as not spending money, because I always need to spend money to buy the ingredients I need to cook myself dinner. My plans cannot exist alongside one another, which is making my project to become an adult following my own deluded criteria rather difficult. Nevertheless, I have had a few attempts in the kitchen, not all of them failures. I made a banana cake thanks to the recipe a lovely Belinda Shapardon gave me. I baked this the same night of the frightful dinner I spoke of in an earlier post, and my dad had the audacity to say it was "the best banana cake [he] had ever had." So. He had room for my cake but not for the dinner I made him. This is making me angry all over again. I also made cupcakes for my friend Claire's birthday tea party, but they went the same way as the dinner I made for my dad. Unappreciated because there was too much food eaten beforehand.
On Thursday, inspired by my budget not to spend money unnecessarily, I whipped together a stir-fry using the ingredients in my kitchen like any accomplished cook would. However, I may have gone a little bit overboard with the oyster sauce. Nevertheless, I was extremely pleased with how my dinner turned out, and I ate it up and appreciated my own cooking like nobody else can. Tomorrow, it is my plan to make some jam and cream shortbread biscuits. I shall keep you all updated on how they turn out, and I shall not bother to share them with anybody this time. They will be for me, and only me.

Last, and certainly least on my list, is to be friends with my ex, which is a very mature thing to do. Unfortunately, the other side of the equation is acting far more immaturely than I am, and speaks of silly things like "pain and angst" and "it hurts me" in regards to my proposal. I cannot figure out why he/she might be feeling these things because they are a douche incapable of feelings.

So far, it is still too early to tell whether I deserve the respect of an adult. Only time will tell, and though I am amazingly mature, this year will definitely tell a lot.

In other news, I am miraculously cured of my ailment! My awesome immune-system did not let me down, and fought off my lymphatic cancer, and now I'm as fit as a fiddle!

I told you I was sick.

I am sick. This is a very novel circumstance, for I am rarely sick. But I am feeling slightly unwell. I can still manage to do everything that needs to be done, however, the only difference is the constant complaining from yours truly at how horrible I feel and how every movement is agony. I'm not even in any form of agony. I just have a sore throat. However, seeing as I have what has been described as "an immune system of an ox," I rarely get ill. When I do, I don't know how seriously to take it. So when I woke up on Saturday feeling a little bit run-down, I realised that that was not the same state I was in when I went to sleep, and something had clearly changed within. How drastically, I do not know.

Today it is Wednesday, and I still have the sore throat, and the stiff neck. The muscle aches are gone, as are the headaches, but symptoms are persisting. Now is the awkward stage of how long do I leave it before I make and appointment with the local village physic for some tonic. I never go to the doctor! They just dish out drugs, and for some reason, I like the idea that my body can beat the virus on its own. The last thing I want is to find out is that I have "a throat infection" and will have to take "antibiotics" because that is the sickness of weak skankbots I went to school with, who were able to take up to an entire week off school to recover from their "throat infection." Up until this point, I thought that the Throat Infection was make-believe. But after four days of painfull swallowing, I'm starting to think otherwise, and I decided that something ought to be done. What ought to be done? WebMD of course!

Now, my first hurdle is to determine whether I have cold-like symptoms, or flu-like symptoms. I do not have a runny nose, but I do have general aches and pains, so I am leaning towards the latter. (How exciting! I have never had the flu before, let alone in the middle of Summer!) Next was to ascertain what exactly the problem is. Now with the lovely diagnose-yourself capabilities of this website, I have discovered that I have some form of lymphatic cancer. Or just a sinus issue. But most likely, what I am dealing with is lymphatic cancer and I should speak to my doctor.

Not only am I now terrified of certain death from a sore throat, there is also a lovely and thoughtful quiz that the kind people at WebMD have put together, entitled "Are you depressed?" to which I discover - surprise surprise - I am at the "higher risk" end of the scale, all because 'I've lost interest in the activities I used to enjoy (I once liked to run, and go on dates), I feel tired almost every day, I have problems sleeping, I'm either sleeping too much or staying awake at night (because I go to sleep at inhuman hours of the morning because I stay up late writing this), my appetite has changed (it's too hot to eat), I'm not eating enough, or I'm eating too much (healthy eating patterns are near-impossible), I have trouble concentrating (product of the 21st Century), I'm having frequent headaches, stomach problems, muscle pain, or back problems (I'm sick, I told you).' Lucky that I stumbled upon this website, for all these 'problems' I have been having are merely symptoms of depression, and are not mere side-effects from living. I must be severly unhappy and I did not realise. I think a lot of my friends are too, because,

"Depression shows up in many different ways. People often lose interest in favorite activities, have sleep problems, gain or lose weight, feel irritable or angry, or are in physical pain for unexplained reasons. Feeling guilty, anxious, or having difficulty concentrating are also common signs of depression. Fortunately, there are many ways to treat depression, and more than 80% of people treated for depression improve within a year."

This description could be fitted to many of my close friends as well! Who would've thought we were so unhappy! We will talk with our doctors, and we will get through this together.

Some more interesting reading courtesy of WebMD, if you hadn't had enough already.. And I thought I was just hungry.

Only in Sydney

I happened to be walking behind this boy on the right who had struck up conversation with this girl on the left. His attempt at making himself sound more interesting, and increase his chances of becoming a potential mate for this girl on the left, was to tell her that he was a banker, but he was not in it for the money. Hmmm!

Sydney. Part III.

After waking at the very early time of 6:53 am, I rushed to open the blinds to see my amazing morning view. Because I am very particular, I requested the highest floor possible. Though I was given the highest floor possible, my view was that of the laneway situated behind the hotel. Irate at having to look at the other side of an Asian shopping complex, I dressed for my second and last day in this amazing city. However, my top had a dirty mark on it, and I had ruined my other one spilling very delicious choc-mint ice cream on it in Circular Quay the previous evening. This meant I had to wear the skirt I wore when I arrived. I was most displeased by how my day was fashioning itself.

I wandered down for breakfast, the quality of which in no way reflected the exorbitant price I paid for it. A bowl of coco-pops, a glass of orange juice and a serving of fruit later, I went back to bed until check-out time, just to get my money's worth. After a long and painful checking-out process where all manner of rude travellers pushed in front of me to check-out, I left the hotel. I gave many a well-deserved look of scorn and the hotel presented me with a complimentary bag-minding service for the trouble they caused me. This brightened my mood marginally. I decided that first stop was more coffee, so I returned to The Workshop because I knew it would not let me down. However, this time, I hoped that Attractive Barista on the Left wouldn't catch my eye, because I definitely did not want to be seen in the same skirt I was wearing the previous morning. Oh the shame of that!

It was time to do more sightseeing. I went straight to Government House in the Botanic Gardens but was greeted with a sign that read,

HOUSE CLOSED
NO PUBLIC ACCESS.

This was indeed a nuisance. However, it did give me ample time to check out the Rupert Bunny exhibition at the Art Gallery of New South Wales in the Domain. Rupert Bunny was an Australian artist residing in Paris at the turn of the 20th Century who led a moderately successful and cosmopolitan lifestyle.From the early stages of the exhibit right to the end, one gets the impression that he never fully understood what he was painting. He fleetingly dabbles in several different styles, from traditional mythical scenes, impressionism, even something oddly resembling fauvism, but never quite successfully depicting anything convincingly. His work seemed so contrived (please don't point out that all artwork is essentially contrived, his just seemed, for want of a better word, phony), a feeling probably resulting from the fact he was merely a humble Australian living in Paris. It is of my opinion that he was living the lifestyle for the glitz and glamour, rather than for the satisfaction artists get from their art, through depicting the impression of a sunrise over a river perfectly, or the truth hidden behind a subject's eyes in a portrait. My belief that his works were artificial were confirmed, when on display was one of his notebooks. Within, he had quickly sketched the outline of a landscape, and used numbers in each mountain, with a key to the side for what colour paint would represent what number. He literally coloured-by-number, which is ten times worse than your standard colouring in. Had he actually worked en plein air like his contemporaries, he may have been able to capture the essence of a scene rather than something resembling a colouring-in book.

Yet this is not to say it was all bad. In fact, his portraits were rather good. They, like all good portraits, were honest in that they were able to depict some sort of truth about the subject. For instance, his close friend Dame Nellie Melba's singing was closer to unbridled warbling than singing, yet this is not to say she wasn't a very powerful person. Bunny's portrait shows her as strong and fierce, and a force to be reckoned with, which she probably was. Likewise, his works of women are sufficiently acceptable. His intention was most likely to depict the French belle époque, but instead has just painted women looking beautiful and perfectly subservient as they sit lost in thought, or feed swans, or nap in their finery, or put lipstick on after a bath, or smell roses, or lounge around with their friends asleep in the nude. They were definitely his depictions of the feminine ideal, for not one looks like the nagging homewrecker she probably was. Rupert Bunny was definitely a pompous chauvinist (ignoring the fact he had what looked to be a very beautiful and intelligent wife as seen in the numerous portraits he painted of her) who created bullshit at its finest.

Upon leaving the art gallery, I encountered the one highlight of the day. There was an installation outside the gallery by a Japanese artist, Tatzu Nishi whose work War and Peace and In Between used the two statues situated outside the gallery by Gilbert Bayes, The Offerings of War and The Offerings of Peace in a really interesting way. He surrounded the statues with two domestic environments, which was totally unexpected! If you want a word to adequately describe the sensation one gets as they enter the environment, it's AWESOME. Later, I tried to interpret the works; why the room with The Offerings of War happened to be a couple's bedroom, and what this could possibly symbolise, while The Offerings of Peace was a living room. But I didn't get very far in my interpretations because quite frankly, I couldn't be bothered. The sheer reaction of the viewer was reason enough for it to exist as 'art'.

From here, I rang my father to see what his opinion of Rupert Bunny was, and he appropriately said, "Oh who was he again... Wasn't he neither one thing or the other?" Yes Father. That was him, and it is responses like that which makes me proud to call you my father. On his ordering, I went to have coffee in Hyde Park because that's what we once did in 2005 and it was nice, so one would assume it would be nice again. Assume differently. I should've trusted my instincts, for any place with a name as pretentious as The Quattro is certain to be a failure. And it was. In fact, one of the Ts were missing in 'Quattro.' The over-zealous staff were decked out in their Segafredo finery, as was the entire restaurant. The freaking logo was everywhere, which only screams Crap as far as I'm concerned. I ordered a regular cappuccino and a serving of apple crumble with ice cream as I attempted to settle down to more Steppenwolf. Instead of Apple Crumble and Ice Cream I was given some form of (cold) strudled apple with icing sugar, and fresh cream which is not what I was after. Instead of a regular cappuccino, I was presented with some form of tepid dishwashing detergent with froth on top. This "coffee" was not coffee by any stretch of the imagination. It didn't even taste like a bad coffee for it did not, in any way, taste like coffee. The fact that it would've been no hotter that 50 degrees celsius at the most was just the icing on the cake. I would've demanded another, hotter, one with the hope that they would actually use coffee this time instead of cyanide, but three ladies had just shown up unnecessarily excited for their long-awaited reunion as they had not seen each other for - shock horror - one year. They were crying and laughing and crying some more and it made me throw up a little (or that may have been my "coffee" and "crumble") and I was out of there as soon as possible. It's a bit of a shame, with it's gorgeous sandstone building and position right on Hyde Park, The Quattro had an awful lot of potential.

I decided to find a better coffee shop, and thought fashionable Martin Place would help me. Instead, there were countless business men and women in their fine Italian suits but not much in the way of coffee. Eventually, I was walking past some shop that was called Vella Nero and even had the nerve to have a slogan which was, get this, Coffee couture... Seriously, what the fuck is that. Couture is a French word - note, not Italian - and it refers to sewing, in particular, high-end fashion. Now this café was run by three young very not French (or Italian) women who clearly did not know what they were talking about. Anyway, I decided to enter this unfathomably pretentious place in order to see whether their coffee was as good as they kept saying it was, and to experience this "coffee couture" bullshit. I ordered a felafel wrap which one of the three young not-French women very kindly toasted for me without my approval. The result was a mushy mess of chick peas in a hard casing I only ate half of because it was quite repulsive. I also ordered a regular latte. The coffee was not bad. But it was definitely not good either. It tasted like water, and sat half-full when I left. First impressions are very important, and it is clear that the three bogan women who run this place realise this. This is why my latte came out with copious amounts of superfluous and highly pretentious latte art. Latte art is not necessary for it does not suggest that the barista is accomplished and it certainly not does make the latte taste any better. This was very much the case for this coffee. It also had about 75 mm of froth which I think is definitely not enough. Fail latte.

Upon leaving, I noticed that all over the front window were articles about the awards for coffee these three intolerable ladies had won. For instance, in May 2008, they won a Gold Medal award at the Sydney Royal Show. This suggests that a) Sydney does not know what is required for a good coffee and the award was completely undeserved, or b) the award was deserved because their coffee was the best of a bad lot. Whichever way you look at it, it doesn't reflect very highly on Sydney's coffee 'culture.' In an interview regarding this unlikely win, the question is asked "There are so many coffee places in Sydney (Where??). What sets you apart?" to which one of the stupid sisters replies, "We're probably the only place in the CBD with an on-site roaster. Sydney really leads the way world-wide for coffee (HAHAHAHA!!) so people here know a good cup from a bad one. That's why our reputation has grown." If this place is the best in Sydney, I definitely would hate to see the worst.

After this disastrous day, I decided it was time to go home, four hours before my flight was due to leave. Leaving Sydney as I entered the steaming hot Central station, I thought that the city smelt like an old, filthy, obese woman without any teeth or deodorant on a 45 degree day, swimming in a pool of off milk. So with that smell attacking my face as I fled, I went to the airport to spend the next few hours partaking in my new favourite past time: watching planes take off and land.



Note: just because I played in an orchestra with you for several years, it does not make us friends. You were a second violin, I was a cello. We were in different circles. I don't even know your name. So just because we happen to be in the same stationary shop in the same interstate airport at the same time, it does not mean we need to talk about it. When we spotted each other on the escalator in Frankston the other day, we didn't talk. It was better like that.

Sydney. Part II.

Upon arriving in the city of Sydney at 7:20 am, I was overwhelmed with excitement. I was like a kid in a candy store. The cashed up type of kid. Spoilt, usually fat, rich, rather horrible excuses for children, they are too. Well that's what I was like! I had the greatest city in Australia at my disposal for 30 hours. So off I went, Crumpler flailing madly behind me, in search of a coffee.

I walked up George Street hoping to find something more suitable than Starbucks, and after twenty minutes, came across a little place called The Workshop. Not only was it adequately pretentious, but there was a queue of no less than fifteen business men and women waiting for their morning caffeine fix. This was confirmation enough that the coffee at this joint was of an adequate quality. And sure enough, it was. I also caught the eye of attractive barista on the left as he made my large strong soy latte which only affirmed my belief that Sydney was the city of Gods.

Equipped with a delicious coffee in hand thirteen minutes later, I was ready to take on the world! Or rather, Sydney. I ventured into the beautiful Queen Victoria Building. Now let me just say, the Melbourne GPO is a poor attempt to replicate Sydney's QVB. I couldn't help but admire how much better Sydney was to Melbourne in every single way. I even decided it smelt nicer than Melbourne. I was convinced that Sydney smelt sexy. It literally smelt attractive. Like CK One or Intimitely Beckham, but rather than wafting from any particular mandouche, it had been sprayed over the entire city. At this stage, I was blinded by love for this place.

I decided that first on the agenda was a trip to the lovely suburb of Double Bay to find the Finnish Consulate, or as we like to say in Helsinki, the Suomen Konsulaatti. This required boarding a train at Town Hall to Edgecliff. Not only are Sydney's stations ridiculously hot, they are impossible to navigate. I felt like I had a massive sign over my head that flashed STUPID MELBOURNE TOURIST, because I definitely became one that first day. On my first attempt at using the station, I bought a one-way ticket from the airport to the city, only to have it get stuck inside the ticket barrier on my way out of the station. "Great," I thought, "on my first day in a foreign city, at peak hour, something manages to go wrong." A nice gentleman kindly pointed out to me that I had in fact, bought a one-way ticket and thus, the machine will take it at the end of your trip. "Right, thanks! I'm from Melbourne!" I pathetically spluttered in reply. He nodded as if he understood and sympathised, and was on his way.

Second attempt at the station was just as difficult, as I was running up stairs and falling down escalators all over the place. Platforms were stacked upon platforms and there were trains with all sorts of levels going in all sorts of directions and I missed at least three of the bastards. Eventually, with the assistance of several old-fashioned station guards, I ended up on a train on my way to Edgecliff. Now I would just like to speak about these station guards, if that is what they are called. They stand on the station with a flag to signal the train conductor, while another will hang out of the train door. It is all very old-fashioned and lovely. Melbourne's public transport system is not so personal. There are only grumpy ticket inspectors at the gates. Once we had tram conductors, and I can remember how endearing they were with their ticket bags and socks and smiles. Nothing good ever lasts.

Anyway, what was required was boarding a train to Edgecliff to go to the Finnish Consulate to submit my Finnish Passport application. After a long, humid, winding walk through pretty Double Bay, I made it to the consulate where I was greeted with an excited hyvää huomenta! Very soon after this initial greeting, I started to fret, for I had not brought with me my certificate of Finnish Citizenship; a document I hadn't even heard of, let alone owned. So after a few moments of unnecessary panic, she decided she did not need it, and I handed over my $156, and was on my way again.

After lunch in the seedy Kings Cross which was regrettably not very seedy at midday, I decided to fill in some more time by catching the Monorail to the Chinese Garden of Friendship. This was certainly a $3 well spent. It was the most charming place I went to whilst in Sydney. It is a clean, peaceful, haven in the midst of a panicking, polluted city. It was the one time I was disappointed I was on my own, for I did not have anybody to dress up with in the traditional Imperial costumes based on designs from the Ming and Ching dynasties and take my photo in the circle that people like to do to make themselves seem more spiritual and cultural. I am sure one of the little Chinese ladies who were supplying the traditional Imperial costumes based on designs from the Ming and Ching dynasties would have been more than willing to take my picture as I stupidly stood there on the circle, but you know, come on. No.

After checking into my Heritage Listed and appropriately crap hotel, I had a well earned thirty-minute nap - my first snooze since waking at 8:30 the previous morning. I then changed into the most Sydney/stylish clothing I could find, and decided to wander around Circular Quay, because Sydney Harbour is Amazing with a capital Am. I walked all the way around through to Wooloomooloo, and then back through the Botanical Gardens. These Gardens had a delightful little herb garden! It wasn't as nice as the C G of F, but it had countless pretty smells emanating from everywhere. It made me want to go straight home and plant seeds in my own little herb garden! Instead, I went back to my Heritage Listed but still very crappy hotel for some pay-tv goodness, which involved the 50 top songs of the nineties. My night was officially complete.

Sydney. Not Sydney, Melbourne. Part I.

I am going to write about my short but oh-so-sweet trip to Sydney, because for once, I have actually done something worth writing about. In fact, I have so much to say, I am going to do it in three parts. This is the first.

For the first part, I want to share with my avid readership my story on how I occupied myself in the city of Melbourne for a night. This is very difficult task when one is by herself, actually. It is a highly boring past time. I decided that seeing a movie would be a very convenient way to use up as much time as possible, so I arranged to see the 9:45 screening of the Spanish film Broken Embraces at Nova Cinemas in Lygon Street. Now going to the cinemas is not something I often do, especially by myself. In fact, this is the second time in my life that I have been by myself in the cinema. I thought it to be a very novel thing to do, and I felt a little bit like Holden Caulfield. I did enjoy the film, but I am not going to say anything about it because I did not enjoy it enough to render it worthy of my opinion. I take my opinions very seriously, and I do not pride myself on forming bullshit opinions on films; I leave that for art. However, I will say this: it did contain attractive people, and this is always a bonus in life. I can see why my dad is in love with Penélope Cruz, for she is a little bit magnificent.

When the film ended at around midnight, I decided to stroll back into the city via the University of Melbourne. The old quad looked like a scary castle and I did get a wee bit frightened. I wasn’t sure how I would defend myself against a bat attack, or any angry ex-professor ghosts who might haunt the old arts building. Or what I would do if the sinister black cat I saw skulking around decided it didn’t like my presence in his midnight crib and set his bats and/or professor ghosts on me. After about 20 minutes, I was literally too scared to stay any longer and went back to Swanston Street in search of caffeine. This I found in a grotty cafe called L’incontro, which just happens to be open 24 hours. Here, I read Steppenwolf for an hour and had a strong soy cappuccino to keep me awake. The coffee was alright, but the cup had marks all over it. I didn’t really mind, it was 1am and the shop doesn’t sleep. I will forgive it for having dirty crockery. Soon enough, I thought it time to retire to Spencer Street Station to sit out the remainder of the night and await the bus that will take me to the airport. Once again I didn’t mind this fact. Like Melbourne Uni, Spencer Street is unusually active at 1:30 am; there were young foreigners milling about all over the place which provided a mild form of entertainment. When the young German boys playing soccer with a tennis ball bored me, I went back to Hermann Hess. Considering my mind had stopped functioning 90 minutes earlier when the coffee had stopped doing what it does best, reading a man’s existential struggle while falling asleep seated in a train station proved to be a bit too much for my mindtank. I ended up spending the remaining minutes looking at the beautiful coach terminal scenery.

The bus came, I gave the man my ticket and got on, and he took me and some more foreign backpackers to Avalon. Here, I didn’t need to buy any more coffees, I was far too excited and awake to need them. I embarrassed myself like I knew I would while checking-in when I didn't realise I had already web checked-in, and waited for my flight. My goodness planes are fun. You never know whether they’re going to stay up in the air or not. I couldn’t figure out why everyone around me was sound asleep, when we were I-don’t-know-how-many-thousand-feet in the sky! I was also granted the opportunity of seeing the sunrise from this high in the sky. I made sure that when I chose my seat that I had a window seat facing the east for this purpose. I am a little bit particular when it comes to things like this.

The story only gets more exciting from here, my friends, when I actually venture out of the state! Stay tuned for more adventures, won't you.