Grand Prix weekend

X surprised me with a weekend room booking at The Alto Hotel on Bourke St. The room was little larger than a prison cell, but everything was so done with so much thought, I was completely charmed. Free flowing hot chocolate in the lounge, as well as free books (for taking) too!

The velociraptor at Harbourtown, Docklands. Surprisingly realistic and freaky, in spite of the elfin limbs.

Fitzroy Gardens. Breathtaking.

The Goof at the Fitzroy Conservatorium.

Tudor Model Village.

My gorgeous Seafood Linguine at Tiamo, Lygon St. Beautiful ambience and service, very reasonable.

Shafertelli (?). X meant to get the Meatball Maccherroni but accidentally ordered this instead. All the fancy Italian names confused him.

We then watched The Men Who Stare At Goats. The nonsensical hilarity is only second to my all-time favourite, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Universe.

Gold Coast to Melbourne

X, The Bestest Ex Ever, took 10 days' leave and accompanied me on a 3 day, 2,000km journey shipping my 7 boxes of Clothes, Shoes and Junk in my 22 year old car. Like the old days, we spent most of the time making scatological jokes, getting diarrhea and keeping each other in companionable silence. Pictures in reverse order (sorry, am having a really bad day).

I drove most of the third day. When I was a kid, I could never imagine how adults could stay awake, drive crazy distances and manage their own lives and sometimes, others' too. Yet I somehow managed to do 420km on my own on the third day, after dropping X off to meet his sister at Traralgon, after a yummy lunch at The Lakes Entrance (I forget the name of the shop, but it's Slippery-something).

The view from Idlewilde Motel in Pambula where we stopped for our second night, a tiny little town of 1,000 in NSW. Lovely little place. X and I have observed that *every* town, no matter the size, has at least one Chinese restaurant. You know how the RACQ caravan park guides depict the locations by its proximity to the local Post Office (PO)? Well they should change it to CR (Chinese Restaurant). Unbelievable how ubiquitous my people are.

The coastal front in Kiama, NSW. I am in love with this town. When I'm 50 and semi-retired, I'll live here with my dogs, cats and husband.

The Kiama Blowhole: When The Ocean Farts and Tourists Gasp. I should so be a copywriter.

The town itself - not overdeveloped but still pretty happening.

The view of Wollongong (note the concentrated pollution) from the Aboriginal Cultural Centre, somewhere along the Princes Highway. We had takeaway calamari and chips. Note to self: Chewing rubbery seafood whilst driving at 110kmph is a bad idea. Thank God for the rubbery painted lines.

The sunrise at Hawks Nest Beach. I recorded a video of it too.

Early dawn at the caravan park. Very pleasant, full of holidaying young families. X and I meant to stay at Tea Gardens. Tea Gardens! What a name! It's as picturesque as it sounds. We also passed Hungry Head somewhere along the way. Australia is a land of funny names.

Spinach and feta quiche with yummilicious Caesars Salad (sans bacon) at the organic cafe in Kempsey. The capers perked the entire dish up.

Hehehe. The cafe had a wall-full of charming and nonsensical doodles. Sadly, it seems to be the only thing Kempsey has going for it. Unemployment is rife. I wandered about, receiving strange looks and got jeered at by a large group of very, very young Aboriginese girls (like 15 or younger), clearly drunk, by some back street cafe. You do see drunk people around Australia, but I certainly have never come across such young ones before, especially during school hours.

The house on the truck.

Sugar factory in Broadwater, NSW.

Pivots

Have you ever thought about the times you made a life changing decision? Per the Myer Briggs Type Indicator (I'm currently reading Gifts Differing, best book ever), I'm an INFP, with judgment as my weakest point. Meaning I'm one of those people who tend to take a lot of crap before I put my foot down (read: doormat). My desire to be tactful and peacemaker has led me into a lot of undesirable situations, in which I felt compromised.

It's always taken a fair bit to really push me over the edge. Below are some turning points, times where the proverbial straw broke the equally proverbial horse, when...

... you insisted on moving with no consideration for my input.

... you termed my attempt at efficiency 'lazy'.

... you dismissed all my effort summarily.

... you blew me off without even a semi-decent excuse.

... you lied to my face for the final time.

... you left me alone in a foreign country.

... I graduated.

... you became an asshole during that NYE trip.

... you posted that slanderous note about me publicly.

... you overreacted when my foot slipped.

... you sniffed deeply into my hair during that movie.

(Points deliberately vague as many of these people remain a part of my life, only much less important than they could have been.)

Moomba + Natural Bridge

Colin Hay at the Moomba Festival. If the name doesn't ring a bell, he's the vocalist of Men At Work, who came up with the anthemic Land Down Under. And also the trombador in one of the earlier Scrubs episodes who followed JD around.



Vanessa Amorosi of the annoyingly catchy Absolutely Everybody fame. She was half an hour late, which is terrible when the crowd is standing the indecisive Melbourne weather. But was it ever worth it. The woman is an amazing stage performer. I'm not a fan, but her enthusiasm got the crowd singing and clapping along soon enough.

The Melbourne skyline from the Southgate food court, where I had some good-natured verbal sparring with an astonishingly tall cashier at BOOST (yes, the semi-cute redhead). He started it by calling me "small". Ooity's leftover chips attracted the city's pigeon population, from which we fled.

Skywriting on an especially sunny Saturday. Sooky and I did IKEA (long live Swedish meatballs!), beachy suburbs and Alice in Wonderland. Tim Burton is some crazy genious.

The Little Nerang Dam. YM and I failed to see the Hinze Dam (yes, it's STILL under construction. Phase 3 now. My great great grandchildren may catch a glimpse of it next century).

YM vs Persistent Turkey. It followed us for a good 20 metres before he lost his patience.

The cave at the Natural Bridge. We'd decided to go there on a whim, on a day with Melbourne-sque weather (showers, sun, showers, sun etc), so we had the entire park to ourselves.

Lizard. We saw some wallabies too, but snap reflexes aren't my strongest point.

Wistful.

Angus and Julia Stone - What You Wanted

Angus and Julia Stone - Bella

Angus and Julia Stone - Babylon

Angus and Julia Stone - Paper Aeroplanes

One AM Radio - A Brittle Filament

Angus and Julia Stone - Campfire

Angus and Julia Stone - All of Me

Angus and Julia Stone - Choking


Georgia Fair - Picture Frames

Augie March - The Hole In Your Roof

Phoenix - Love Is Like A Sunset Part II

Mogwai - I Know Who You Are But What Am I


Breaking up is hard to do, but letting go is worse. Be brave, heartbroken lovers.

Faith

As a churchgoing child, it's funny I should say this - my clearest memory of faith, hope and love are not from the Bible, but from an Enid Blyton book, The Land of Far-Beyond.

If I remember correctly, it's about a motley crew of characters travelling through all sorts of strange, sinful lands to the pearly gates. At the end, few make it and the angel asks, which is most important, faith, hope or love?

Naturally, the answer is love. Even pop culture agrees on this one, albeit the view rather distorted.

As for hope, I'd like to think of myself as a forward-looking optimist, always believing that the future holds much more.

I was never good at differentiating between faith and hope. I suppose in many ways, faith held religious connotations for me. On the other hand, we use hope for everything - I hope you're feeling better, Hopefully, I'll get this! etc. And let's face it, religion doesn't sell as well as optimism.

Yesterday, I had my faith tested. I'm ashamed to say that when things did not go my way, I crumbled and dissolved into tears. I threw up (though that is more likely a result of hanging out in the CBD for 10 hours in a miniskirt at 13C). I immediately dialed the ex's number.

But then I remembered earlier in the day, SL had tagged me on an eloquently put note on Facebook. And it was about faith. And it felt preemptory, as if she knew what I would go through in a few more hours.

I reread it, thoroughly this time. Sooky consoled me. I threw up again. And then at the end of it, I stopped crying, blew my nose, downed tom yum noodles, and decided that if this was going to fall through, I was going to believe anyway, that my Maker had made all the necessary arrangements for what is best and what is right.

"Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, BELIEVE that you have received it, and it will be yours." - Mark 11:25

"NOW faith is, the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things yet unseen" - Hebrews 11:1

(Quotes stolen from Sarah's Facebook note, which in turn are from the Bible)

I wonder if they do it in champagne?

I've found the wedding dress of my dreams! Now all I need to do is to grow another 7 inches taller and start dating men 25 years younger than me. Swoon.

Better

I came across these and intend to spend part of my Sunday on self-psychoanalysis. The shift to Melbourne and living with other people (I have only ever lived with my family and X, ever) has thrown me a little off the loop. Some self discipline needs to be exercised. Must... stop... buying stuff... (In the almost-three weeks I've been here, I've already doubled the amount of clothes/ shoes I brought over).

Become an Unforgettable Woman - 40 Fabulous Secrets
I know this one is a little too focussed on pleasing men, but overall, I think the sentiment is right, if a little Stepford-ish. I'm probably alone on this here, but I miss the era of feminity and chivalry (yes, coming from a reformed tomboy). Nowadays, it feels like girls are trying to become boys and boys are becoming girls, yet both retaining so much of the undesirable traits.

OMG, I am old-fashioned.

Characteristics of a Self-Actualizing Person
It's funny how you study Maslow's hierarchy of needs, yet it never really sinks in. And then I stumbled upon this and finally was able to put a name to that desire to achieve all these. There are definitely some things I need to work on. The nice thing about breaking up, but still being best friends with X (most self-actualized person known in existence) is, the feedback I get on How Good/ Bad a Girlfriend Was I? (Decent but plenty of room for improvement).

My random life

The weather was completely insane today. Sooky and I had been contemplating a Great Ocean Road drive but decided to head to the South Wharf DFO instead. I am now poorer by three figures, but have gained in dresses (I ♥ silk, though not the drycleaning bill) and footwear (silk flats and leather thongs). Turns out the climatologists had greatly underestimated the weather - we had hail, rain and the entire Melburnian public transport system went haywire. So much for the Moomba Festival.

The trees had their branches ripped bare. Maple leaves scattered across the tram stop roof at the Arts Precinct.

Hail! Sooky's car suffered a few light indentations, whilst the fibreglass roof at our apartment porche shattered from the force.

The floods caused the traffic to slow to a crawl. By crawl, I mean an inch of movement every 10 minutes or so.

JH's complaints of stomachache escalated and we finally took him to The Alfred at Prahan. The visit resulted in an overnight stay and an appendectomy. They're still nervously waiting on the arrival of the invoice, with an estimated damage of $5,000 - 8,000. Never fall sick in Australia unless you're covered by Medicare or private insurance.

A unit block somewhere along the Hawthorn part of Glenferrie Rd. I could not get the Easter Island character from Night in the Museum out of my head. No, you dumb-dumb!

Kites at St Kilda beach, as I strolled around, eating 2 cheeseburgers and a large fries (thank you, metabolism), post-interview.

I ♥ my friends

Sometimes after all your good intentions have been turned against you and you feel alone amongst a room full of people in a strange city, it's really nice to have someone care. Even if it's over 2,000km away. Or in Jenny's case, 7,000km.

janbanks.blogspot.com says:
i am
but my friends here r female
so i do have shopping and cafe buddies
but i like doing roadtrips and long walks
which is more boy stuff
haha

Yaser says:
you make me sad
i feel like takin next flight to melbourne and do a roadtrip with u
though we did not get alot of time .. but i loved spendin time with u

God bless strangers connecting through Facebook. Because overcoming the perceived social stigma of reaching out to someone and opening yourself up can be so rewarding.