Kholakat.net Dissociative Ramblings

Greetings and salutations,
I have finally decided to take some control in the direction in which my life has been heading… After nearly 10 years of on-again-off-again tertiary study (mostly on!), I have decided that I am not doing the course that is best for me and my career path. I have cancelled my uni enrolment and instead want to concentrate on work and improving my work skills. I’m not sure if I will go back later or not. I am interested in doing shorter courses about other things though. I really enjoyed the Business Analyst Essential skills course I did earlier this year. I’m not sure if that is the path I want to go down but it has potential. Once I made the decision, I must admit I felt a wave of relief, after trying to balance so much on a day to day basis. Finally I can come home after work and really try to relax without feeling guilty that I should be studying or working on some assignment. Maybe I can finally get that work expense claim done! The unit is already looking much tidier and the kitchen has been getting a bit of a workout when I got a little culinary the other night. I’m going to make my own spicy fruit bread using gluten free SR flour. The first attempt wasn’t too bad (I’m not working off an exact recipe).

I’ve also recently heard that one of the students from my graduating class at high school has passed away overseas, just months before the school reunion. This was someone who I wasn’t really friends with at all, but I think we all share the loss of a person who was very vibrant in our classes. She sang ‘Wasn’t it good’ by Tina Arena during a year 12 gathering (singing really well), which at the time the lyrics weren’t that exciting (I mean, high school was ok, but definitely no match for the uni years!!!!), but hopefully they will play that at the reunion in rememberance of her. Oh, that would be the reunion that I am not going to. Why? I think that I have kept in contact with the people I want to keep in contact with. The rest of the night would be caught up in ’so….. what have you been up to?/What are you doing now?’ Not a bad thing in itself, but with the correct intonation, can be quite a loaded question. Last time I did something like this, it ended up feeling like a big comparison competition. Not so good for the self-esteem (Romy and Michele anyone?! ). Sure, the movie ended up with a positive message about just being yourself, but unless we have a Lisa Luder hiding in our midst, no thanks.

On another note, we went to see Star Wars III the other night when most of the Brisbane population were at the first State of Origin football game. Why most of Brisbane? Because we passed them all on the way back home after the movie. Darn traffic and wandering, drunk football revellers! Movie was brilliant! Ok, crappy romance and wooden actors/wooden lines, but great action scenes and cute widdle Yoda and his cute widdle light sabre!! Lots of aliens and gorgeous scenery too. By the time the lights came back on in the cinema, everyone was tempted to go out and watch Star Wars IV (not something you can say everyday in the movie world!). Unfortunately we don’t have it…yet… I know, I know what kind of try-hard geek I am? But I have good friends… who have lots of geeky movies I can borrow. Hi John…..

Oh, and I also did a complete rebuild on my pc (actually Nath did – not because I can’t though!) and will be installing Debian on the spare HD so I can finally learn Linux. Should be fun! Unfortunately I probably wont use it as my primary OS since the VPN I use for work best tunnels through Windows. Darn technology limitations! Along with the rebuild came a new CPU and more RAM. Yay! I will test it out on some games another time. No uni means I will be able to try and get that LAN going with Meegan and Ray. I think Lionheart was the current game of choice.

Bye bye now

Tonight we celebrated the wedding of Meegan and Ray, some friends of ours with which we are continuously promising to organise a mini-LAN of sorts. We got to the church in time (just as the bride did – oops!) and was able to see a bunch of Japanese tourists stand by the footpath and take photos as she emerged from the limo. I had originally thought they were very casually dressed guests (invite said ‘formal’) until they all continued to walk down the street once Meegan went into the church! It was St Andrew’s church in the city, opposite King George Square. Quite a nice little church. Meegan looked beautiful in her dress and all the guys cleaned up real nice too! Photos to come (hopefully).

The ceremony was quite nice and afterwards there was a bit of a break until the reception so Nath and I headed into the mall to get some necessities (read: Lush bath bombs and Red Dwarf VI from JB). The reception was held at the St Lucia Golf Club, and was set up inside a nicely candle-lit ballroom. We had a great time catching up with friends (including me being able to catch up with someone from work who was a cousin to the mother-of-the-bride!), eating the great food and toasting the happy couple with much alcohol. Unfortunately some of that alcohol ended up down my back when one of the waitresses accidentally toppled a glass of white wine on her tray. Brrr…. cold wine. I wasn’t too worried cause I was wearing a black top anyway but I had to make sure that the people I spoke to knew that I wasn’t an alcoholic! Nath and I went up to dance a little later but weren’t able to use any of our funky dance moves that we learnt at the dance school. (Btw, we finished our 7 classes there and decided not to take it further for now since they wanted to sign us up for another 30 lessons for around $3000!!! At least we now know some cha cha, rhumba, tango, waltz, swing and foxtrot. Although only the basic steps, and even those I forget sometimes! Just as well the guy is supposed to lead!!!). One of our friends, Tom, got up to sing ‘I can’t help falling in love with you’ for the bride and groom and he sounded amazing.

Anyway, it’s now 3am and I can’t sleep. I am wondering if it has something to do with the wine I drank although I thought that usually sends me to sleep. Work just called me accidentally (not on call) but I could help a little with troubleshooting. Good timing I guess – at least they didn’t have to wake someone else on a Saturday night/Sunday morning. Hmmm… might watch some ‘Lost’ now. Good show that.

Tonight Brissie had a freakish hail storm around Toowong which left lots of hail along the sides of roads, and even backed up around drains to appear snow-like! Unfortunately Nath and I don’t have a camera with us (yet another reason why I _should_ get a new mobile phone!), so we couldn’t capture the cool-ness. Oh well, back to the assignment. Blah!

It is good to be back home again, where all my stuff is within reach and where I have a whole kitchen with which to play with! I find it really hard to eat properly when I am away since so many menu items have potatoes or wheat within them (unless you go to eat Chinese food), and I really shouldn’t be eating those things. So now that I should be back in Brissie for a while, it is time to continue with the healthy eating/increased exercise/drink more water scheme that I was trying to go with earlier. I even bought a pedometer from ebay recently to try and help me do more exercise without being too intensive (read – boring).

On another note, I think that I would really like to go to Japan one day. I was watching ‘the grudge’ recently, which was set in Japan. That, along with all the press around Gwen Stefani’s gwenihara and her lyrics plus the soft spot in my heart for Iron Chef has meant that it is currently almost at the top of my list of must-visit-places. I’ve heard it is really expensive though so I’ve got to learn to save more money. But the gadgets!!! oooo, the gadgets….

oh well, back to ebay then… I am trying to get together some more Anne McCaffrey dragon books since I haven’t read them in over 10 years! Welcome back old friends.