Eight Mondays Left in 2006

Ok, ok. I feel the need to call on the Evil God Of Time and ask - what the heck has happened to 2006? Where has it all gone? There's something about October that breeds a feeling of complacent numbness - it has no real place in the space/time continuum as far as the unstoppable progression of a year is concerned. Then - it's November. And suddenly, when you are innocently buying your weekly groceries, you find yourself peering into a box of solid chocolate Santas.

It seems rather trite to complain about a speedy year when I've had such a fantastic time. But the other morning, I woke up and thought that I was 21 instead of the comparatively ancient age of 23 that I actually am, the moment of realisation that I was in the final year of my early twenties thumped me figuratively in the face. Truly horrible.

Halloween came prematurely for Cara, Aoife and I this year - for some deluded reason, we thought that people would be celebrating Halloween on Saturday night so we all dressed up. These were our outfits:

Aoife - zombie fairy
Munro - eucalyptus tree (she dressed normally and we attached foliage and little clip on koalas to her)
Me - ninja

Of course, we were the only people in the whole bar that were dressed up. Infuriatingly, people kept taking my sword from me and beating me with it. Beating me with my own sword! Admittedly, this was better than when the sword was finally confiscated from me. Cara and Aoife encountered The World's Stickiest Floor in - you may have guessed it - an Irish bar. The floor was so sticky that they actually broke their flip-flops. Needless to say, everyone that decided Halloween was worth bothering about got dressed up last night (31st October). So obvious that it almost makes sense.

On Sunday, I went to Noosa with a friend for the day. Said friend has a classic 1960s Holden HK (don't bother asking me what this means - all I know is that the car broke down, apparently for which I am responsible as I was less than respectful towards the vehicle). It was a great day though - I saw my first wild koala (nestling lazily in a eucalyptus tree, much like Munro tried to aspire to), a pod of frolicking dolphins (standard Aussie day trip affair) and an eagle. Actual visible wildlife that isn't a badger - how I shall miss you when I return to Ireland!

Sorry Derek - Vegetarianism is Calling

Well, where to start? I have always fallen back into the realm of lists whenever I have an overload of information so here goes -

1) I'm healthy!
2) Aoife has arrived in Brisbane!
3) There are now three of us in my bedroom and I have been helpfully informed that my room smells like 'girl'. I can only assume that's a good thing.
4) The hot social spot for my house is outside, just below my bedroom window and two nights ago, a man (who shall remain nameless) was chatting to some of my housemates. He then proceeded to utter a classic line - "Yeah, I heard, like, that there's something in Coke that causes you to become fat if you drink too much." Give the boy a food pyramid (highlighting the word sugar).
5) Munro, Bole and I went to Moreton Island yesterday, the 'world's third biggest sand island' and had a great time. Munro and I went sand tobogganing. I think that this is Australians bemoaning their lack of snow and inventing a reasonably viable alternative. It was brilliant fun but I don't ever remember tobogganing down a snowy slope and getting a faceful of sand.
6) Munro and I went to a rock/indie/reggae/metal local music festival at the weekend. Cue headbanging, vegan food, animal cruelty stalls and I actually cracked and have decided to become a vegetarian proper.
7) We also went to a gig on Thursday night with a group of really cool girls and - to cut a long, painful story short - I ended up getting locked into a closed part of the pub and had to escape by climbing over scaffolding and over a fake plasterboard wall into the boys toilets. You can probably guess that there's more to it than that but no one shall ever, ever know! Ever!
8) Munro and I had a huge bitching session about how the Terry's Chocolate Orange ads are false advertising. You can never, ever make the orange pieces fall apart the way they do just by tapping it gently on top.

Lists are most definitely the fall back of the desperate. If I could form long, coherent passages right now, I would. As it stands, I am definitely having several 'Fire bad, tree pretty' moments.

Yet More Sporadic Photo Posting!

Hello all! I have posted up more photos on Flickr, my loyal yet rarely used photo friend. Feel free to have a squizz.

Swimming: Apparently Good For You.

Munro has arrived in Australia in a flurry of inaccurate airport terminals, random meetings with people including a blues/souls musician, a guy who went to Queen's and studied drama at the same time we were there (class of 2004, wooo!) and yet more karaoke. On the rare days that I flick through my old blog entries, I realise that there are more references to karaoke than are strictly healthy. I'll let you all know when I get a life.

Cara and I had a hectic weekend - we went to a house party with it's own mixing deck and be-hatted DJ. It all ended nastily with kebab regret and waking up at 5:30am and realising that the sun was up.

So, after a hectic weekend, last night was a chilled one. We watched The Biggest Loser, an American exercise (hee!) in ritualistic humiliation - taking the poor buggers on a cruise and making them choose healthy items from the buffet - Hitler-esque in its evil ingenuity! - and one large lady, after swimming a length, said something classic: "I never knew that you could get a work out in a pool." After we had finished guffawing, Munro commented that said lady probably believed that running was good for stretching the feet.

Work is still traumatisingly complicated. A guy walked in yesterday and said freakishly quickly "IwanttogotoRiyadhSaudiArabia'. It took me ten minutes to work out what he wanted. My fellow consultants were all hitting the chat facility, explaining that he wished to go to the capital of Saudi Arabia. Competent, I am not. A running joke in my workplace - I am.

Australia is preventing all North Korean ships from docking in its ports. I am curious about the current atmosphere in South Korea, given Mr Jong-Il's recent predilection for all things big and explode-y. I remember having lunch at my hag-won last year in Seoul with all the other teachers when the air-raid siren went off. Then, we just continued to calmly eat our kimchi jiggae. Perhaps reactions might be a little different now.

My First Serenadation!

Sometimes, sedate nights out can end on a perfectly crazy note. I was walking home from a club with a friend on Saturday night when a bloke stumbled up to me and said to my companion, ‘Is this your girlfriend?’. My friend replied no, in a tone of horror usually reserved for catching sight of zombie necrophilia, or even a fat kid who’s just discovered that someone has eaten the last piece of cake. Anyway, the random bloke took my purported singledom as an excuse to enlist his equally drunken friend to sing to me. They were actually pretty decent - even going as far to improvise with their lyrics to suit my actions - ‘She’s walking down the road, oh-ohhhhh, she’s walking up the stairs, yeah!’. Awesome stuff.

I was kindly escorted to North Stradbroke Island at the weekend for a reggae / dub festival. This basically consisted of a ramshackle stage (actually, two!), some random stalls, an animals rights group and a vegan food stall. It was a hippie fest and lots of fun simply to observe...especially the skinny dippers at the nearby beach that took all off in front of lots of shocked couples walking their St Bernards. I confess to chuckling quite a lot to that one.

Munro shall be descending upon Brisbane this week and I can only hope that Australia hasn’t received its full quota of yoooooos for the year as she most certainly will provide them.

Ha! The Land Down Under is on the radio right now!

I am beginning to love Australians more and more, even if they only have one football chant (Aussie Aussie Aussie - Oi Oi Oi! - truly inspirational). Maybe my Aussie heritage is returning to haunt me and I will rediscover my predilection for BBQs and VB beer. Ok, never the last one. Never!

The REAL Nobel Prize awards

Proving that the universe began with a big bang? That's nothing compared to the scientific genius of querying why woodpeckers don't get headaches.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/story/0,,1888844,00.html

Always Be Casso-Wary

Alright there!

First of all, this is a big shout out to Ceri. It was so good to hear from a fellow ex Flinders Park-er and it was totally unexpected (always the best kind of surprise...actually, the only kind of surprise. Cleverness - my strong point.)

I have just returned from a fantastic trip to Cairns where I met up with the Bole for four days of reef, rainforest and random encounters with nature. We also learned about many killer creatures including, best of all, the cassowary. Apparently, the cassowary is a deadly bird capable of gutting you if it feels threatened. So, all around Cape Tribulation and the rainforest there are friendly warning signs such as Be Casso-Wary, coupled with a threatening picture of said bird glowering at the camera. Hilarious, if terrifying. I can think of better ways to go that don't include a large, horned bird slashing me open with it's flawlessly designed claws.

I got to dive on the Great Barrier Reef, which was amazing. Aoife and I snorkelled together and she discovered, with her sixth zoologist sense, a beautiful green turtle idling around the coral so we just swam and watched it for ages. It was magic. I also met a cool dive assistant from Bolton so I entertained myself by making him say classic Peter Kay-isms such as 'Cheese cake?' and 'Garlic bread?'. It was all dandy until he got fed up with me and pushed me off the end off the boat.

We visited Cape Tribulation, went canoeing, painted each other with ochre rock, went on a boat trip down the Daintree River - combine this with drinking and you have a very messy picture. I am still in the process of recovering.

So, it's back to work and unfortunately, reality. I mean, who dictated that reality is work? Why couldn't reality be riding on the back of a gargoyle whilst eating hole-less doughnuts? There was a flaw in the grand plan of creation - a definite flaw.