February 10, 2009
· Filed under Random
I haven’t dropped off the face of the earth…
I think I just went through a period of not wanting to write anything down. I just realised I haven’t blogged since I finished my honours thesis! That was months ago. But anyway, a quick update in the life of me. Honours is finished. While there are still some loose ends to tie up which I will not go into due to the nature of the internet, I guess I’m officially done and I graduate in April. I’m aiming to write it up as a journal article and publish it before too long. The idea of being a ‘published academic’ is completely foreign and not something I’ve ever particularly strived for, and yet at the same time it’ll be great for boosting future career opportunities. I’ve been working as a research assistant and all in all I quite enjoy it. I’m managing a study that I actually care about which certainly helps when I have days full of data entry! I can almost call Microsoft Access my friend. Wow- I never imagined the day coming.
I’ve been on a few short holidays/weekends away which have been fun, although sometimes I feel like I come home for the holiday! I’ve even started reading again- novels that is- not text books! It’s been good and terrible all at the same time. I wish I could read a chapter of a novel at at time, put it away and then get about my daily activities. But no, I have to become completely engrossed in the story, struggle to put it down and then when I do I walk around on another planet for a good hour before I land back in reality. My dreams also change when I’m reading more. Often they become even more bizarre than usual. Just the other night I dreamt I was a man. And in my dream I found myself analysing the behaviour of girls from a whole new perspective! It was frightening! I woke up feeling quite odd.
Last week a very close friend of mine got engaged, and to my complete shock asked me to be her maid of honour! I certainly do feel honoured. I think the whole experience will be fun and challenging. Challenging in that I keep finding myself attempting to plan my own non-existant wedding and living vicariously through her!! I’m already dreaming up ideas about a fun hens night I can organise.
Sorry this post has been so dull in terms of actual content. It’s hard to jump straight back into blogging after such an extensive blog-drought!
October 7, 2008
· Filed under Faith, I'm avoiding study..., Not happy Jan (it deserves its own category), Over-analysis, Random, Uni stuff
It is now day 4 in a row of unproductive days. Not completely unproductive…but I don’t feel as though I have enough to show for what I’ve been doing. I have to present my findings in 3 days. THREE DAYS. Oh it’s painful. Painfully painful! All I want to do is dance (oh…that reminds me I’ll have to post on my nomination for the ‘logies’ of dancing soon- what a joke)…but yes because of course that’s going to lead to the career of my dreams! It’s typical though…at this time it’s usual for the most abstract of things to start taking over my brain and convincing me that they’re the most important things I should be thinking of right at this minute…as compared to writing a thesis.
I lay awake in bed last night for 3 whole hours- THREE long, agonising hours- before I got to sleep and in the end only managed about 4 hours shuteye, and the night before that I slept for 13 hours straight without waking once- much to my disgust. This is unusual!! Not only are sleeping patterns up the creek…but I no longer like food. Vegemite toast and extra salted peanuts can at times be forced down, but otherwise it doesn’t take much more than a spoonful of breakfast cereal to remind me that the digestive system has a wonderful feature called regurgitation. Lovely.
I feel like I’m being tempted in the desert. No I’m not likening myself to Jesus…I just empathise with him right now. He had a big job to do and all these enticing things were there for the picking, but he abstained. Well I wish I could say I was as noble, holy and able to ignore the lure of the grass on the other side. My defenses are weak at the moment- I can tell. The idea of things that usually seem absurd are all of a sudden ‘not so bad- surely?’. *sigh*
Oh great! Chainsaws have started singing their sweet tune next door. Perfect study noise.
September 29, 2008
· Filed under I'm avoiding study..., People I love, Random
As I said last time, blogging’s slipped its way down the priority ladder recently as other things like a 12,000 word thesis have taken precedence. However I felt compelled to quickly jot down some thoughts from the last week.
I had my 3rd visit to the Naturopath last week and it was a rather eventful hour or so. To cut a long story short…I’m hoping it’s my last visit. In the process of having my finger pricked to find out what blood type I am I somehow fainted. Seems ridiculous for such a thing to happen when I wasn’t even looking at my finger as it was stabbed or anything like that- but a few minutes later I was off in lala land dreaming about playing with my nephew Sam when all of a sudden I was being shaken and my head was shoved downwards as the woman was saying ‘keep breathing!!’. It was an odd experience- I could’ve sworn I was out for hours and I didn’t quite know where or who I was when I came to either. I was already feeling under the weather that morning and since then I’ve come down with some horrible head cold that doesn’t want to go away. It’s been 6 days of basically no uni work because of it and I’m beginning to wonder if I should apply for an extension (cringes…I hate applying for extensions!).
Other than that going on, (and I mention this quietly/tentatively) there does seem to be a budding friendship starting for one of my family members which is exciting and weird at the same time. It’s kind of forced me to re-evaluate my relationship with this family member, which frightened me at first but I must admit that it’s been good as it’s forced us to delve into some tricky topics together and remind me of how much I cherish our closeness.
That’s all I have time for now, another time when I’m sick of thesis-ing I’ll jot some more thoughts down 
September 12, 2008
· Filed under Random
I said I’d post about my second visit to see a Naturopath. My recent experiences were not overly positive and I must say that I was not looking forward to going back for my 2nd appointment- especially not if it involved having my finger stabbed again 
.
One thing she did this time was take a photo of each of my eyes and chart them on an iridology map. I’m not sure how convinced I am of the concept of this (for example the fact that I have big pupils means that I’m a more open, vulnerable and sensitive person. I thought my pupils looked large because there was a very bright light shining on them?!) but it fascinated me none the less. A few things she pointed out about my eyes were that there’s a black line running from my pupil in my left eye out to the outside edge of the black ring surrounding the blue bit of my eye- and apparently its position signifies a genetic weakness in the left side of my neck. This kinda amazed me because I actually do- whenever I go to the physio he says that the left side is always tighter and harder to get the muscles to relax.
Another thing she said was that the little white cloudy bits in my eyes signify a weakness to dairy products- because my lymphatic system wasn’t very good at flushing itself through. I guess that could partly explain why I often have pain in my sinuses. But who knows. I’ve decided to go off dairy for 2 weeks to see if it makes a difference. I LOVE my milk, cheese and yoghurt so I can tell you I am not happy about this!!! But, I’m much less happy about having headaches…so I’ve gotta weigh things up.
Again the appointment went for over 2 hours- but it took quite a different turn towards the end. After she loaded me up with herbs, pills and supplements- she said she was going to massage my neck a little. A naturopath who does massage? Interesting…I certainly wasn’t complaining- it was much better than having someone grill me about my diet and personal health details. Oh one important detail was that randomly during the appointment she asked me ‘are you a Christian?’…bit out of the blue- but I said yes.
So I’m sitting there having some sort of deep heat rubbed into my neck feeling excruitiating pain at the same time as pure bliss (very odd experience…but good I think). After I while I started to relax a little bit and could’ve almost fallen asleep I reckon, and I was startled back to life a bit when she quietly said ‘can I pray for you?’. I was taken aback but said ‘yes- please!’ straight away. So I’m sitting in this little office with this woman with her hands resting on my forehead and neck praying away- and honestly I have NEVER felt such heat coming from my forehead before. I felt like my head was on fire! It was super relaxing though- probably good I was sitting down. After a while- time kind of seemed to stand still- she stopped praying and took her hand away. I was like ‘wow! My forehead felt like it was on fire!’. Her response?
‘oh…yeah sorry I still had some deep heat on my hand’.
I didn’t know whether to laugh or feel embarressed. Here am I thinking some pretty full-on prayer ministry is going on and someone’s just holding deep heat against my forehead! I still believe that it was more than that…but it’s still funny.
So yes…that was my second Naturopath experience. Quite different from the first! I have to go back in another 2 weeks…so we’ll see how this no-dairy trial goes!
September 8, 2008
· Filed under Random
Well this has made my night. I’ve found a band called Ruth. Now, there’s no need to go into how I found out that my name is semi-famous (apart from the fact that it’s a book in the Bible :p). Let’s just say that facebooking your own name is possibly one of THE most pathetic forms of procrastination from study. However sadly after a long and big day and under the strain of a terrible headache, that sort of thing doesn’t seem so abnormal in my mind until afterwards. Time for bed perhaps.
August 28, 2008
· Filed under Not happy Jan (it deserves its own category), Random
I realised yet again tonight that I have a very strong dislike for being home alone at night time. *sigh*
It’s quite a debilitating and un-realistic fear. And yet it is very very real all the same. Didn’t help that somewhere in the house I could hear what sounded like a mouse scratching at something *shudders*. Doesn’t seem to matter how loud I sing, how loud the TV or music is on, how many lights I turn on- I still manage to hear the slightest of noises and freeze while half expecting a complete stranger to enter my kitchen.
Fear sucks. It really does.
August 27, 2008
· Filed under Random, Social Health stuff
I saw a Naturopath for the first time yesterday.
WOW.
It was full on! I found it hard to concentrate on all the explanations of what each organ in the body does and how certain types of food can hinder or support the processes of that organ. It was frustrating that so many technical words were used and when I did ask her to use ‘plain language’ she started giving me metaphors of ‘building your house on the sand or the rock’ and how ‘a river should be like an organism teeming with colour and life, with water so clear you can see through to the bottom. BUT! If you stick a factory up one end of the river then it gets polluted!’…I’m not too sure what I thought of her explanations.
She pricked my finger using one of those little things that you can use if you have diabetes. OUCH! “Mosquito bite” my left foot! The tip of my finger is still purple and bruised from the ordeal. She laughed at me because before she even started talking about what she was going to do I had my head turned away so that I wouldn’t be able to see what she did- or any blood for that matter. Well in a funny way I ended up seeing much more of my own blood than I’ve ever seen! She stuck it under a microscope and it came up on this big screen right in front of my face. At first all the cells were darting and swimming about but eventually they slowed down and she started to point out things about them. I admit as a self professed scardy-cat when it comes to anything blood related- it was rather interesting. Apparently all the cells should be roughly the same size- but I had a lot of little cells in amongst the normal cells and supposedly the little ones were starved of iron. I felt very sorry for the little dwarf cells trying to make their way around but the bigger ones just overwhelmed them.
It was a little disconcerting when her ‘mmm’s’ turned into ‘ohhh’s’. She was moving the picture around saying ‘these lymphoids are usually rare and hard to find- but you have an overabundance! They only appear when your body is fighting a virus or infection!’ Oh my poor little lymphoids…they were trying so hard! She then showed me some other little blobby looking things starting with ‘m’ that were supposed to be helping these lymphoids fight infection. I was less than impressed with their size and number! Although the worst thing she did was every so often she’d point out this little squiggle and say ‘fat cell’. Hmmmm….. :s
Anyway….after all this use of big words, shaming me about my diet and looking all too closely at my blood- the bill came.
WHOA.
I was told that we’d start ‘conservatively’ addressing my health needs and deficiencies. Apparently ‘conservative’ equals 3 bottles of pills for $90- which won’t last very long because I’m taking two of each everyday. What bothered me most about this is that it acts to exclude the already excluded. If people want to improve their health through better nutrition and supplements that can apparently be very beneficial, they’d have to be rather affluent to have any chance. It makes me question- is this because funding for natural health remedies is so low? Or are the prices unnecessarily high? All I know is that we have a problem when we start increasing health inequalities through class divisions. Hmm…so my story about a naturopathy consultation turns out to a little rant about health justice. Maybe now I’m in a better frame of mind to write some of that thesis…
August 26, 2008
· Filed under People I love, Random
Went for a lovely long walk this morning with a lovely friend Would’ve been about 3-4 kilometres we walked- and not just flat either! My legs are at that stage where my muscles hurt, but not so much that it’s uncomfortable- more that they’re just reminding me that I’ve used them. It was the perfect time for a walk as the sun was shining with just a slight cool breeze. Just walking along chatting and contemplating life- it was great. Mind you conversation can get tough when you’re marching up steep hills and almost out of breath!!
I’ve been a little too inward thinking these last few days and it was great to talk out some of my ideas and realise that it’s always good to run things by a good friend before deciding if they’re really worth thinking about or not. It’s so so true that God created us to be in relationship with others. It’s so important to bounce thoughts off each other and thrash out ideas. I always find it so liberating and refreshing. Sometimes it’s hard if you simply don’t understand what the other person is on about- but when you do it’s just great . Makes life not seem so isolating and scary. And I don’t mean that ‘it’s nice when everyone agrees’- because then no ideas are bouncing or thrashing!! They’re just sitting still. But I do see a lot of worth in the validation of other ideas.
I wish I’d taken a camera to take pictures of some of the views we saw. Ah well- the weather’s warming up so I’m sure there’ll be plenty more walks to come! I’m also in a particularly happy mindset today because last night I started imagining spending a month somewhere in Europe next July. Of course these thoughts come when I’m busy with study hehe…as usual! And if my bank account found out about such ideas it might run and hide…but still…nice to ponder
August 23, 2008
· Filed under Random
Last weekend I spent a fair bit of time in the city catching up with friends and going to some live music acts. There’s just something about the city that gets me every time. Ever since I was a little little girl with my gran going in for a day of adventures I’ve had this sense of awe and wonder about the city. Perhaps the reason why I haven’t grown out of it is because I don’t go in often enough to become nonchalant about the place- as I’m sure many who work there everyday could easily become.
But yeah…I love Melbourne City. I’m proud of it also. And why not?? It’s certainly come a long way in lots of areas- which I’ll discuss more. So I’ve decided to develop a little list of things that I love- and feel free to add your favourites to the list! (little sob…I’ve just remembered the assignment I did for final year uni about Melbourne’s urban planning history and it’s influence on sense of place and health…and it’s all gone!! Yet another thing I’d forgotten I’d lost due to the dreaded ‘incident’. Grr). But anyway- I shall endevour to remember!! Ok so here’s my list:
1) I love the layout of the streets in the city- the grid makes it easy to get around, nothing’s ever super far away or hard to get to and it’s just plain user-friendly.
2) The Botanical Gardens. I’d hate Melbourne to be the kind of city that is completely full of concrete. The nice gardens around the place make it easy to escape from the hussle and bussle without having to go far or pay anything. I also particularly like the public art projects that’ve contributed to this recently- especially in Melbourne Central’s food court- anyone seen the vertical garden?! It’s incredible.
3) The Traveller’s Aid. This one’s for Gran. Everytime we’d go into the city for a day when I was younger we’d have lunch at the Traveller’s Aid on Collins St- this cool little place about 4 floors up above some offices and it was always full of backpackers, the elderly and they had a lot of resources for disabled travellers. The food was average but I didn’t think about that at the time. I loved their apple cakes and we’d always sit at the same window- the one looking across at Abbey Bridal (I was obsessed with wedding dresses- poor Gran).
4) Degraves and Flinders Lanes. Twenty years ago the space for outdoor dining and resting was minimal in Melbourne. Since then according to my cousin who’s a senior Urban planner these spaces have increased something like 350%?! A huge effort has gone into making Melbourne a more livable, vibrant and cultural meeting place. I think they’re doing a good job. Fed Square is another such place. I still think it’s slightly ugly looking- but I love it. They always have cool exhibitions on in the NGV galleries there and I love the free concerts- like when JBT played.
5) The 35th floor of the Sofitel Hotel- if you don’t know about it- you should. From an early age my gran would take me up there and each time she’d say ‘now look posh- keep your head up and pretend you’re staying here’ hahaha…it was hilarious fun. We’d saunter up the big red velvet carpeted stairs until we reached…the toilets. Those toilets have THE best views- floor to ceiling windows that I’m always too scared to get too close to but are great to look out.
6) The Windsor Hotel- again the toilets. I mean why use ordinary toilets in the city when you can pretend you’re staying at fancy hotels and use bathrooms that have actual towels to dry your hands with?! And cute little chairs in front of the mirrors? And flowers? I think I’ve made my point. Oh and their chesterfield lounges in the lobby. Mmmhmm. Weird looks from the guys who stand to open the doors for you…but who cares.
7) The arcade with Gog and Margog in it. I’ve forgotten it’s name- but on the hour these funny looking creatures on the walls move about. Come to think of it they’re kinda scary…but it seems to be a tradition to go and see them do their thing.
So yeah…a few things that I love about Melbourne. I might add to the list at some stage.
Oh and one more thing- those 3 funny looking statues on some corner…they’re 3 men dressed in business suits and I always have the urge to pat one on the shoulder when I’m waiting to cross the road. They’re awesome.
August 20, 2008
· Filed under Random
I had an exciting morning- I got to participate in an honours study at Uni on chocolate, mood and eating habits. It was all quite interesting- we filled out some surveys about our mood and attitude to eating, then we ate chocolate (and it was good) and then filled out more stuff discussing how we felt when we ate it and how we felt eating at other times. AND then at the end of it we were given a $20 coles myer voucher for our time! Makes me wonder why I chose to do such a mentally exhausting study with a) no chocolate! and b) no rewards to give my participants :s.
Maybe if I do a PhD I’ll have to twist my research parametres a little…
