Learning my ABC's

Like a kid going back to school I got myself prepared for my first day at college. I made my lunch, packed all my books (including about 3 I didn't need) and made sure I had all the pens, paper and other such paraphenalia I could possibly need. Ben said goodbye to me and wished me luck beaming like a proud parent then giving me a hug before he left for another of his overseas trips.

My first class was about the laws, rules and regulations of setting up a naturopathic practice. My lecturer is a mad Irish woman with extremely strong ideas, strict rules and a ballsy attitude. At first she was confronting, but I think I'm going to enjoy her lectures! She went off on all kinds of interesting tangents. I came away with a brilliant quote (totally unrelated to naturopathy) when she was talking about her daughter's car. It's one of those hot looking mitsubishi lancers, so she said 'all fur coat and no knickers'...love it!

My second lecture was on Food as medicine. It was as boring as bat shit! Mostly because I know it already and also because the lecturer just read off the power point presentation, and didn't give any interesting additional information. I challenged her a few times by asking her questions, but she gave crap wishy washy answers. God only knows why they didn't credit me on this class! The rest of the class seemed interested, but I was just trying hard not to fall asleep.

One of our assignments for this class is going to involve researching a whole food that can be used in a medicinal way, writing about it in a materia medica fashion, then create a recipe using that food. I guess the one upside to this class is I should get really good marks, and I'm sure I'll kick ass with the cooking bit. I think I'll explore Quinoa (pronounced Kinwaa), it's a grain that was once a staple of the Incas. It has a very high protein content for a grain, it is also a good source of iron, calcium and vitamins B and E. Due to the high iron, B vitamins and protein it's great for vegetarians as these are some of the same nutrients found in meat. I think I know 2 vegetarians who might turn into guinea pigs.

And so it begins!

Today I had my orientation at ACNM! It was all the usual stuff about course structure, what they expect you to do in your own free time, the 'we look down on plagerism' talk and all that. It seems quite a broad range of people starting at the same time as me. A few straight from school, but mostly middle aged women. It will be interesting to see how many freak out and leave after the first few weeks (God I hope I'm not one of them).

What I'm really liking so far is that it's very much research based information not just hearsay. But then the guy giving the talk started to talk about how he has a crystal in his pocket everyday. That kinda stuff makes me cringe a bit. But I figure I'll pick and choose the information that I want. I can just ignore all the hippie stuff.

The lecture rooms were very well set up and it all looks extremely professional. Also it looks as though they really encourage you to be hands on as much as possible. They have lab like rooms in which you can do all kinds of stuff. He was talking about one herbal medicine class in which you get to make tinctures, pills, capsules even pesseries and sapositories! I like the idea of only prescribing things anally! haha

On my way home I popped into office works and bought some supplies. Ben was amazed when I told him I only spent $30. He reckons he can never leave that place without being $100 poorer. I can see what he means, I saw a gorgeous leather diary worth $70 that was speaking to me. The povo-student attitude won out though and I only bought some pens cheap plastic folders and couple of note pads.

My friend Tim is being an absolute pet and helping me get a laptop organised. He has to be one of the nerdiest people I know (in a good way), so I totally trust what he's telling me that I need. I looked in Harvey Norman the other day and was just overwhelmed! I just had this massive feeling that if I started to speak to a sales person I'd get ripped off and end up paying for stuff I don't need. All I really need is something small with a decent battery life that I can do assignments on and also that I can access the web on. THAT'S IT! I don't need to burn DVDs, watch movies, make electronic music, cloan sheep, rip mp3s, launch a space ship. None of that crap thanks.

It's Tuesday

...and I didn't get out of my PJ"s till midday! haha, I just like to brag.

Mum's are cool

I love my Mum, not only did she feed me tonight, she also bought me a new dress and offered to do my washing (which of course I wouldn't let her do). I couldn't possibly ask for more than that! What a spoilt daughter I am!

Go me!

I'm very excited because I just managed to run for 35 minutes!! I don't think I've ever run for that long before. According to google pedometer that was about 4.5KM, and may I just add there were a number of hills!
Note to self: buy new sports bra..ouch!

Simple Pleasures

I've always loved summer, I'm a child of warmth, sun, balmy evenings and the incense like smell of hot soil and fragrant vines. Winter on the other hand makes me cranky and moody, and just generally gives me a glass half empty attitude.

Tonight after returning home from my first day of working for the operations team, which left my mind in a frustrating pile of knots I went for a run. I took my usual route which takes me past the river and also gives me glimpses of the sea. What a panacea for my day! I got a magical glimpse of the warmer months. It must have been a good 6-7 degrees warmer near the river, in comparison to the chilly evening it almost felt balmy. It was that kind of fragrant warm breeze that seems to kiss your skin as it floats past you. I smelt all those lovely summer smells from my childhood, the aniseed smell of the reeds that grow near the river, the iodine smell of the sea and seaweed, and lastly someone was having a bbq...ah the smell of chared meat! Living in a house full of vegetarians I forgot how much I miss that smell!

I'm so excited!

I went and finalised my enrolment today, so it's now official. I just can't wait to start using my brain!! I get to pick up all my books Wednesday week.
Next thing to do is organise hiring a laptop...I know, I know it's better to just buy one, but I can't afford it, so hiring one will have to do.
Yay! I'm all happy!!!!

R.I.P.

The other week our washing machine died, which has left Ben and I trying to come up with ideas of how we can get another one without forking out any money, after all the old one was originally off someones front lawn!

I visited Jane last weekend and totally out of the blue she said to me 'I'll have to take that old washing machine of yours to the dump soon it's taking up too much room in my shed'. Eureka! I'd totally forgotten I had that in storage at Jane's. So after moving the entire contents of Janes dusty shed, which mostly consisted of old car parts that Mike had collected (what is the point of keeping about 5 old hole riddled mufflers?)we got it out. Then with lots of sweating, swearing and grazing of knuckles we managed to get it into the back of her ute (yes my sister is a bogan). Ben then helped get it out, and moved the old washing machine so we could put in the new one. Then comes the proud moment when we give it a test drive. THE FUCKING THING DOESN'T WORK!!! Argh!!!! Now we have two broken washing machines!! The front of our house is starting to look like crazy people who collect stuff 'just in case' live here.

Also this week, after freezing our asses of too much we decided to get a gas bayonet installed so we could use the gas heater Jane has given us. I called the gas people and organised a time,they told me early next week. I got an sms from Ben while I was at work saying 'we have a gas bayonet'. So I think, oh, what idiots, we had one all along, probably hidden behind the giant ugly green couch. I rang the gas people to cancel, and the lady sounding a little confused tells me 'oh we had this booked for today'. Feeling very silly I tried to be all bubbly saying 'thanks, but we're idiots, we already have one, so sorry for the trouble etc...' I msg Ben to tell him I cancelled it, then it turns out he ment the gas guy has been and gone and fitted it. So what he ment was it's been fitted...therefore 'we have a gas bayonet'. Ben got a really funny call from the confused gas dude asking if we then wanted it removed? haha The fun just never ends at our house.

And after all that trouble no doubt it will turn out that the gas heater is fucked too.

Another day another dollar

Today at work I was asked to join our operations team for a week to fill the void due to people taking annual leave. Basically this is the technical side of the call centre, they deal in all the stats and number crunching to keep track of how well the place is running.

So out of the hundred or so people they could have choosen, I was identified as the best person for the job. Translation: I'm the next nerdiest, anal person in the place so I'll be good at it!

I've also been handed the business quality reports by my manager, which is a fair bit of responsability and means I get to be off the phones for a while. Yay! I get to tell all the people in my team about the stupid stuff they have done in the past month, and present them with ways in which they can improve.

So just when my job was starting to piss me off, I get a change. Lets hope that kind of change continues through other parts of my life too.

Saturdays at work suck

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Sisters

This is my sister Jane and myself taken at her 25th birthday party a few weeks back.
My sister has a multitude of nicknames, but my favourite one for her is 'Poodey' kinda sounds all warm and fuzzy doesn't it? The kind of name you'd give to a teletubby..Tinky Winky, Dipsy, Lala, Poe and Poodey...yep that works!

I'm one of those lucky people who's sister is like her best friend, which is suprising considering when we were teenagers and we basically wanted to kill each other. We're very much chalk and cheese in what motivates us, but I think in our differences we can support each other.

Jane is getting married next year to her partner of many years Mike. Poor boy, now he can't avoid being part of our insane family! We all love Mike though, it will be nice for him to officially be part of the family. I just hope they don't make me an Aunty too soon! Argh! I think I'd be one of those sadistic Aunties that pump the kids full of sugar, artificial colourings, and then give them noisy battery operated toys before returning them to their Mother.

I read a quote once that said ' A sister is a little bit of childhood that can never be lost'. I like that, I had a lovely childhood, and it's nice to look back on it with Jane and laugh at the stupid things we used to do.

Favourite childhood games:
-Dress ups: our Nana had a friend who was really tiny, and she gave Jane and I all her old 'gowns' from the 70's, they we're horrendous, but due to her tiny size they almost fit us, we loved it! Mum also used to make us stuff out of old lace curtains, and she'd always make something the same in doll size for our dolls to wear too.

-Lego: we used to spend days playing lego. We'd make all the little houses to make towns, then our Dad would make the cars, he was always the best at cars!

-Monsters: this was a version of hide and seek where the 'seeker' was actually a monster who'd chase you around when they found you.

I give up

honestly...

Running for my life

Here is something I never thought I'd say...I went for 5 runs this week! Each run was about 15-20 minutes long, so no huge distances yet, but it's a start.

Having a job where all I do all day is sit at a desk, talk and type, it's really nice to come home, put my running stuff on, and just enjoy the freedom of running. It's kind of almost like a form of meditation, you switch your brain off and all you think about is your breathing, how you're placing your feet, making it over the next hill, or the best way to use your arms.

So I bought running shoes yesterday, I just couldn't continue with the crappy ones I had. I got a bargain price of $99 for a pair of nike runners, instead of $170. So there are absolutly no excuses not to go now.

I don't think I'll ever be doing the crazy 2 hour runs that Alex seems to relish, but if I can work myself up to being able to do half an hour i'll be happy. There is a walk I often do that takes me through the back streets of North Freo, across stirling highway, across the bridge over the railway to Leighton beach, along the beach and back up to North Fremantle. If I can run that whole way I'll be really happy.

My Mum used to do a lot of running, she even did a couple of marathons. She used to always tell me I had the right body for running (whatever that means), I never believed her, maybe she might turn out to be right.