Who's judging who?

Or is that 'whom'?

On my bike ride home tonight (in a new cycle top and new shorts, which made the ride so much free-er [is that a word? You know what I mean]) I realized that with each guy that I pass, I TOTALLY check them out. And make a decision about them. A decision along the lines of, would I make out with them? Completely superficial, I know, but hey, what more am I going to tell about a guy in the 5 seconds that we pass each other on our bikes?

Then I was like, why am I even doing that? Does each guy I run across have to be immediately classified? Do I really put guys into 2 categories when I meet them? Guys I'd date, Guys I wouldn't. I think if you ask anyone who's spent any time with me would agree, the answer is yes.

If I'm doing that to them, are they making the same snap judgments about me? I'm not sure I like that. I know that I don't want to be immediately judged... but if I'm immediately judging other people, how can I expect anything different in return?

the cleanest kitchen in Canberra

I now think I have the cleanest kitchen and pantry in Canberra. I've mopped the floor upwards of 5 times, scrubbed the counters and searched the pantry space for left over open packages of anything.

There are still the little ants, but no more big ants... knock on wood. (Or, as they say here, "touch wood").

I've gotten so many helpful hints on dealing with them, and I know I'm not alone in my frustrations with the little creatures. And for the record - I think ants are fine little creatures, and a necessary part of the circle of life. Just not in my house, thank you very much.

My co-worker Geoff, an entomologist by training, brought in 3 dead ants in a test tube and plonked them on my keyboard after lunch. I jumped about a foot in the air. I don't care if they are dead, I don't want them near me when I'm indoors. And I really don't care if they don't bite or sting. I. AM. NOT. A. FAN. OF. ANTS. INDOORS. Full stop.

Kathryn made me fall out of my chair laughing this morning with her email:

----------------------------
Subject: Because I hope this makes you laugh
Body: http://www.antweb.org/index.jsp

http://www.museums.org.za/bio/aarg/antlinks.htm_

http://www.google.com/musica?aid=pgUNl4OZpOK&sa=X&oi=music&ct=result_ – Because I’m totally funny

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ant_ - Wikipedia

http://www.epestsupply.com/ants.htm?gclid=COrtgq3tiIoCFSQzSgodRyztew_
(Play the Ant Game!)
--------------------

Freaking hilarious, particularly the third link down. Thanks for the laugh, Kathryn.

And, according to Wiki - there are indigenous ants are on every landmass except Antarctica, Greenland, and Hawaii.

The chemical trail...

It's like I'm in a basic biology class again... ants DO use a chemical/pheremone trail to communicate and until I break that trail I can just keep vacuuming them up to my heart's content.

Before I went to bed last night, I realized this so I doused my door frame and the floor with my floor cleaner which is like 90% eucalyptus oil. It seems to have done the trick as I was ant free this morning.

And Fred suggested baby powder, which I will use tonight to complete the job. Whew.

For cripe's sake!

In the 5 minutes that have passed from the last post, 20 more ants came in.

It's like they know they other ones are missing and they've sent out a search party. Which I guess means I should just let them alone to find out there's nothing to eat anymore and they can go back and say, "Hey, let's go to some other house." But I have no faith. I want them gone now.

I have this image of me, sitting by my kitchen door all night with the vacuum at the ready, just waiting for the damn ants to crawl in. I have to vacuum them. They walk through Windex like its air. Now I've cleaned the whole area where the sugar was (this is three times now) and this time I left the soap all over the counter and the doorstop and along the trail they were using. That should deter them, right?

I will not let the ants take over my life.

Maybe I'll just turn the light in the kitchen off now and deal with this in the morning.

Death to all ants! At least the ones I can see.

I've become homicidal.

ANTS. SHOULD. ALL . DIE.

or at least get the flip out of my house!!!!

When I got back from Christmas break there were ants, the little sugar ants, all over my pantry. I found the culprit - an open bag of rock sugar. I cleaned it all up and mentioned to my roommate that we needed to keep things in Ziplocs.

Since then, it's been somewhat under control. No large infestations, just the few ants every morning. Fine. We live on the ground floor. And from what I can discern, ants and Canberra living aren't really strangers.

So, I came back from camping this weekend and there were definitely more ants. As I was cleaning up (an open box of crackers) I discovered some larger version of ant had decided to join the sugar ants. I DON'T like it when I can see all the body parts of an ant from the standing position. I don't like it when I can determine the color of these different body parts from standing. YUCK.

So I cleaned everything last night, mopped the floor twice and went to bed. They were back this morning - in a box of Jen's cereal. Fine. I cleaned that up.

Then tonight, I'm cleaning them up after dinner and I discover hoards of the large ones. They are headed straight for Jen's sugar bowl she uses for her tea. Come on now. How much more is there out? I swear I had it all!!! Anyway, I threw all that away and sat down to watch telly. An hour later they are all still here.

Now I'm pissed. I just vacuumed them all up and before they can crawl out again I'm going to toss the dust bag. Any ants that come back after tonight may have to deal with chemical warfare.

I've been nice. Now I've had it.

Black Books

My friend JD introduced me to this new series, called Black Books. It's about a drunk, irascible bookstore owner named Bernard, his assistant Manny, and his best friend Fran, who owns the store next door. I love it.

Hilarious, scathing, irreverant humor. Or should I say humour?

Sidenote: I'm resisting the spellchecker at work - I spell all the following words incorrectly (and proudly so): hospitaliZed, realiZe, centER, theatER, favOrite, diarrhea (not diarrhoea). I guess if I publish somehting over here I'll have to succumb. But not a minute sooner!!

Steve Irwin

WIN television (one of the 5 free TV channels in Oz) showed Steve Irwin's
last documentary, "Ocean's Deadliest" tonight. It aired in the US late
last week and tonight was the airing down here. I watched it,
fascinated. Sure, I was curious about how they'd handle the whole "Oy.
Steve just died" moment, but after the first minute I was hooked for
its own merit. Steve Irwin did some amazing work. Watching him on tape
interact with these animals was mesmerizing. In many of the specials
I've seen or interviews I've read, people always mention Steve's
rapport with the animals. And you can see it through the camera. It's
amazing.

I can't even listen to him talk without choking up
and getting tears in my eyes. And I'm a johnny-come-lately to the ranks
of Steve fans. Terri Irwin is on TV every now and then and she too
brings tears to my eyes. She's so strong, she's so genuine and so
grateful and full of love. It's truly a warmth you can feel through the
TV. What a love they must have shared.



The documentary doesn't mention Steve's death,
except at the end, when the credits are rolling, and they have a
picture of him and it says "To the memory of Steve Irwin".

In the brief glimpses of Steve I've seen on TV I've been struck by his genuine-ness.
He unabashedly loved his job and had such a passion and excitement
about the work he did. I would have loved to have seen a show of his
live. As it is, the Australia Zoo is near the top of my list of places
to see while I'm down here. His enthusiasm for everything is something
to emulate.

WIN television is airing a special tonight, "Crikey! What an adventure!". I'm watching it with my box of tissue handy.

Find out more about the Australia Zoo's conservation society, The Wildlife Warriors here.

More camping...

This weekend I went camping on Hobart Beach, which is part of Bournda (Born-da) National Park, on the south coast of New South Wales, about 3 hours from Canberra. Anytime you leave Canberra, which is the only city in the ACT (Australian Capital Territory), you are in New South Wales; the ACT is completely surrounded by NSW.

I went camping with a group of new friends that I met through my friend C, who lives in Sydney. He used to live in Canberra and has a great set of friends that I met a couple of weeks ago when he was in town. It was a great weekend, and a really good group of people - I'm looking forward to hanging out with them more.

Like last weekend, this campsite also had a resident monitor. I guess I'm getting used to them? They are better than bears I guess.



When you are camping in Australia, you don't have to worry about bears. Which means that you can store your food in your tent! To a girl raised on camping in California, it feels very weird to keep food in the tent. Sort of like drinking a beer in the back seat of the car. While it's under way. Anyway... each night we put our green bags (ubiquitous in Oz, used for getting groceries home, taking your lunch to work, carrying your bathers/togs/cozzie and towel to the beach) in the tent.
Last night, though, I accidentally left out a package of Anzac biscuits (sort of like oatmeal cookies) and they were promptly and loudly eaten by a possie (a brush-tailed possum - actually really cute, not like the possums at home). I'd have taken a picture of him, but my camera battery died on Saturday afternoon. This possie showed up both Friday and Saturday night, just as the sun went down. He hung out in the trees around our site and was actually pretty bold. He also made noises like a child snoring, I'm told it was him being territorial. On Friday night he set up camp outside my tent and declared to all the sleeping world that I had set up my tent in his territory. Last night he was much quieter, and it must be because I'd left out that pack of Anzac biscuits. Maybe I did it sub-consciously, as a peace offering.

On Saturday afternoon I went for a long walk, around Wollogoot Lake, down Hobart Beach to Bournda Island, and then around Bournda Lagoon on my way back to camp. It was a good 2.5 hour trek. I have to be honest, my butt was a little sore today! Here are some pictures from the walk, taken before my camera battery died.

Wollogoot Lake:


Hobart Beach:


Bournda Island:


I have to say, I really like camping in Oz. I spend most of my time in the ocean, riding the waves (the water is so amazingly clear) and get to have a meat pie on the car ride home. Not a bad way to spend a weekend! (Although, apparently I'm not eating my pies correctly since I'm not covering them in dead horse (tomato sauce, aka ketchup) yet. Look up rhyming slang - it's the most common Aussie language quirk.)

Other Aussie things I had this weekend - since it was the Australia Day long weekend - January 26 celebrates the landing of the First Fleet, the first ship to bring the English over here to settle. Or to populate the prison. Depends on which story you listen to. Anyway - the other Aussie things I had this weekend included kanga bangas (kangaroo sausages) from the barbie, pav (short for pavlova) my new favorite dessert - a meringue covered in custard and fresh fruit, and of course the ever-present Tim Tams.

Wildlife tracker - alive: wallaby, monitor, possum, kookaburra, kangaroo... dead: wombat.

a new day

I ended up riding my bike home last night. I swear it took me almost and hour, when normally it takes me 35 minutes.

I got home a 6, took a shower and crawled into bed. I slept until 9, got up for 40 mins, and went back to sleep until 7 this morning.

I'd like to say that I feel refreshed this morning after more than 12 hours in bed. I'm not sure I do.

I'm going to leave work early today - get some shopping done for my camping trip this weekend, take a nap, and go to the Australia Day Live concert that is on tonight, just up the street from me. http://www.australiadaylive.gov.au/

I'm pretty excited for the concert and doing some good people watching of Aussies celebrating their version of 4th of July, sort of. Australia Day celebrates the landing of the First Fleet, the first ship that brought Englishmen to Oz. There is political-ness associated with Australia Day, from the indigenous peoples, since the landing of the First Fleet marks an irrevocable change for them. Interesting that indigenous people the world over have the same reaction to 'white' settlers. Universally not good. Anyway - that's a topic for another post.

I feel blue

I can't decide what I need to perk me up this morning.

A shot of caffeine? A nap? A day in bed? A good cry? I can't figure out what's going on, so I thought I'd list my current frustrations...

1. How come some days my bike ride feels super easy and sometimes I feel like I'm weighed down with lead weights?

2. Why doesn't my $10 backpack fit better? (ha!)

3. Why do my bike shorts sit at my natural waist and not my hips? It's SOOO annoying!

4. In fact, why do most skirts I own sit at my natural waist and not my hips? I can't stand having things at my waist - having them sit on my hips feels much better to me. (Obviously I need to remember this when I'm buying clothing!)

5. Why did I completely miss the rain last night?

6. I hate that I can't sleep with my bedroom screen door open because the sound of traffic is uber annoying! I get no fresh air during the night and I end up waking up at 2am to eek open the screen door a little to revive myself and get some air flow.

7. I have a fan in my room that runs all night, but sometime I'm just annoyed by its noise and it really is just pushing stagnant air around.

8. I HATE ants! It rained last night, like I said, and there is just a huge line of them marching across the house - from the kitchen door to the porch door. No me gusta!

9. Why does everything take effort? It's exhausting, really, to have to take time to do anything. It reminds me of when I was rowing at San Diego. I hated that I had to eat, like every 30 minutes. I seriously wanted there to be a pill or something I could just take in the morning and be done with my "feedings" for the day.

10. I'm going to be in CA in 18 days. I"m looking forward to the trip, especially since I get to see my dad and my brother for my sister's engagement party, I get to be in one of my best friend's wedding, I get to catch up with one of my oldest friends from pre-school, and I get to see some of my ya-yas again. So why am I dreading the trip? Not really dreading, per se, but maybe I'm apprehensive? I just keep thinking of things I want to take home (a slideshow of pictures, aussie candy, cool souvenirs) and trying to come up with a list of things I want to bring back (unscented deodorant, cliff bars, bubble gum, some of the shoes I left in CA, my real backpack that's in CA) and I guess I'm just annoyed with it all. And, I know that in no time at all, the trip will be over and I'll be back here. Far away, where everything takes effort.

ARRRRGGHHHH. There. I've vented.

I think that's the key for today - anything that takes any effort (ie, all of life) is just ANNOYING me today. My threshold for coping is obviously pretty low and I just need to recharge.

I'm going to lay low at work today, maybe treat myself to a movie tonight, and go to sleep early. I may even take the bus home because the thought of getting on the bike again is too much damn effort!

Thank God You're Here...

This is an amazing improv show.

http://www.tgyh.com.au/

It's just been sold to the US.

I hope that doesn't mean it'll be stripped of all its humor and commerciallized!

http://www.smh.com.au/news/tv--radio/aussie-comedy-sold-to-us/2007/01/18/1168709878128.html

A couple more pictures

Here's Jen and me on the beach at dusk, enjoying the sunset.



Here's the beach and roos at sunset.

Monitors, Roos, and a comet... oh my!

This weekend I went camping with my roommate Jen and 2 of her friends from Sydney, M and R. We met up at the North Head campsite at South Durras Beach, which is north of Bateman's Bay. It's about 2.5 hours from Canberra. Jen and I left around 9:30 on Saturday morning, and were soon in a line of traffic - everyone was leaving Canberra, headed for the coast. It seems to be the thing to do in Canberra. Especially in the summer.

Jen and I got to the campsite before the guys (it's a 4 hour drive from Sydney) and attempted to put up the tent we borrowed from her brother. It was a 4 person tent - 2 domes with a vestibule - definitely a car-camping and family tent...and neither of us had seen it put together before. Right as the guys pulled up, we figured it out and proceeded to construct the tent as the guys looked a bit helpless. Jen and I had already decided that collectively, we had the advantage when it came to camping. Although - most of my camping is car based camping, which somehow seems to be inferior to back-country, hike-in camping. I realize it's 2 different sets of skills, equipment and mentality, but hey - I think sleeping in a tent is sleeping in a tent, no matter what it took to get you there that night.



On our drive up, Jen had warned me about the 2 large monitors (goanas, lizards) that resided in the campsite. It's a good thing she had warned me, because within minutes of our arrival this monster ambled through our campsite. Yikes. And these suckers can move! If you reacted at all to their arrival they were apt to chase after you. Good times. Apparently if you stood still they would climb up you like a tree. I didnt stay still long enough to find that out.



We spent most of our time on this beach, and we were pretty much alone. It was a small campsite - 6 free spots, so not that many people were even there. It was retty freaking cool. Within hours I felt like I'd been on vacation for at least 4 days. Nice!







On Saturday night we had a bonfire on the beach (despite the total fire ban - we decided that since it was R that really wanted the fire, and R is a policeman in Sydney, we'd let him take the blame if the ranger showed up). When we went down to the beach to collect the wood for the fire, there were 2 kangaroos on the the beach, just hanging out. I will never tire of seeing roos in real life - they are awesome! I don't have pics of the roos, M was taking those pictures.



There was a comet in the sky Saturday night, Comet McNaught - it's apparently in the visible in the western sky for a month. Being as far out as we were, there was no ambient light (this was before the fire was lit) and it was amazing. I saw the southern cross for the first time, and Orion (called Swordsman down here) is upside down! The comet though, was awesome. I wish I could have taken a picture to share with you, it was the coolest thing I've ever seen in the sky. According to this articel, it has a head bigger than Mount Everest and a tail that is 30 million km long. Crazy!
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,21098724-30417,00.html

All in all, it was a great weekend... even though Jen's car was a little worse for wear on the way out - we ran over a rock that we shouldn't have on the dirt road out and punctured the oil pan (oil sump over here) and lost all the oil in the car. We had to leave the car about an hour out of Canberra while Jen's dad came and picked us up to take us back to Canberra. The car has been towed to Canberra and will be just fine in a couple of weeks... a hazard of taking an Audi off the road...but what are you going to do? As Jen said, she's not going to have a car that 'won't' go off road. Gotta love that attitude!

Atlanta's sister city... Canberra. Really!

I was browsing the Free Encyclopedia, by Wikipedia: http://encyclopedia.tfd.com/ today.. I mean, I was busy working.

I decided to look up Canberra to see what it had to say about my new home-town. And I discovered that Canberra and Atlanta are sister cities!

How did I not know this before?

What does this mean exactly?

Do I get some special benefit for living in the sister city of my former home?

And how does Atlanta have NINETEEN sister cities? Doesn't that seem a bit excessive? How can it mean anything anymore if everyone is your sister city?




"Atlanta has nineteen sister cities, as designated by Sister Cities International, Inc. (SCI): Brussels, Belgium Bucharest, Romania , Canberra, Australia , Cotonou, Benin Daegu, South Korea , Fukuoka, Japan Lagos, Nigeria , Montego Bay, Jamaica Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom , Nuremberg, Germany , Ancient Olympia, Greece , Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago , Ra'anana, Israel , Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Salcedo, Dominican Republic , Salzburg, Austria , Taipei, Taiwan Tbilisi, Georgia , Toulouse, France

"Canberra has a number of sister cities, including Atlanta in the United States, Beijing in China, Dili in East Timor, Nara in Japan, and Versailles in France. Cultural exchange happens to some extent with each city."

'Cultural exchange'. Like my moving over here for 2 years. I should have told Shirley I was coming over here – maybe I would have gotten something for it.

Not that I’m doing this to get something.

But seriously. Maybe there should be some sort of travel incentive to go between 2 sister cities. A free flag? I’d like to go to some of Atlanta’s other sister cities. And some of Canberra’s sister cities.

I also discovered this neat little tidbit about Canberra: "Only 4.6% of the population use the bus system. Another 5.5% walk or cycle to work, a higher proportion than in any other Australian capital city." I fit both of these categories... I always knew I was in a class all my own!



I also found out that there is a hotel in Singapore called The Fullerton Hotel. Maybe I get a discount if I stay there.


Not that I looked up my own last name in the Free Encyclopedia. I mean who would do that? It's like Google-ing yourself. Such a faux-pas.

Do you believe in life after love?

Why yes, Cher, I do.

On the bus this morning this song came up in my iPOD. Okay, that's not exactly true. I was listening to Snow Patrol and decided I needed something a little more upbeat to start my Friday with. So I chose Cher, the album Believe, from 1999.

"Believe" is one of those songs that immediately takes me back. I remember the first time I heard it. I was in La Jolla, driving around with A and J in A's Land Cruiser. This was a big deal because we were a year out of college and no one else I knew had a Land Cruiser. And this was a sweet ride man. We took it camping once and J tried it off road, we almost got in over our heads. A and S and I had to get out of the car to watch J maneuver it out of the spot he'd gotten it stuck in. But I digress... when I first heard this song I was in the back seat of the Land Cruiser, coming home from shopping, probably at UTC, but more likely that fancier mall out on 8, I can't remember. This song came on and I just remember being flabbergasted that it was Cher and thinking that the effects they had engineered on her voice were really strange. I had the same thought as I did when wedge shoes came back in style earlier this year, "Yuck. That is a trend I will never get on board with." Well, I've stayed away from the wedge shoes, but it's harder to stay away from the engineered voice thing in pop music.

The other people this song makes me think of are M and J, neither of whom I talk to anymore. J (not the J from the Land Cruiser) was my boyfriend after college, and I met him through M, a girlfriend that I had rowed with and with whom I'd been pretty close up until the last couple of years. When this song came out J and I had just met and were starting to date. He was a vet, in a fellowship doing emergency medicine at the hospital where M was a technician. So they worked crazy hours. I remember once the 3 of us went to brunch down in PB and J was so tired that he put salt in his coffee instead of sugar. I remember thinking how cute that was. Yeah, I don't know why. I also remember M telling me about the late nights that they had at the hospital and that when "Believe" would come on the radio, J would dance around singing it. At the time I loved that about him. Shortly after this song came out, J and I both moved back up to the Bay Area, followed shortly thereafter by M, who, as far as I know, still works with J. I haven't talked to J since our last fight, on the steps of his cousin's house in Putney, a suburb of London, on an ill-advised (when will I start to listen to the people around me?) trip to see his family (after we were already broken up) before I moved to Atlanta. Good times. I think he's married now. I wonder if when he hears this song, it makes him think of his fellowship in San Diego?

Thinking of all these people, of this time in my life, and where I am now - the song fills me with optimism. There IS life after love, no matter how heartbreaking a break-up is, or how immediately a friendship can just seem to be over. Life goes on and gets filled with new love.

Wow. All that from a Cher song? Thank god it's Friday, my brain is obviously in need of a break.

Staying connected

From Daily Om (http://www.dailyom.com/) More often than not this daily post fits exactly with my mood of the day. Or is it my mood that fits with the post? In any event - there is something connecting each of us, and being on the other side of the world, I can still feel each of you.

------------------------------------------------------------
January 17, 2007
Creating Connections While Apart

Life’s journeys may sometimes take us away from our families and friends, but there are many ways to stay connected. Aside from making use of the technology available—speaking on the phone or seeing each other from across cyberspace—we can create simple ceremonies using nature and our own thoughts to connect our hearts across the miles.

The first step in creating your ceremony is to look to nature for similarities in the different surroundings. The second step is agreeing upon something that is meaningful to all involved. If your mother loves birds, then perhaps each time you hear a bird chirp, you can think of her and mentally send love. You may choose the sight of a butterfly, the feel of a breeze or raindrops, or the scent of flowers to remind you of a special someone. The pink glow of sunset might be your favorite time to send a thought, or perhaps the warming oranges of sunrise. We can all see the sun, the moon, and an array of twinkling stars when we look to the skies. The monthly full moon may be your time to connect with your loved ones, or the first star you see each night, knowing that they, too, are gazing into the night sky and sending love. You could choose a day that you would usually celebrate together, such as a holiday or a solstice. If you once shared Sunday brunches in the garden, you can! each seek out a garden on Sundays. Or you can choose a specific time and account for the time difference in order to connect by heart and mind at exactly the same moment.

With practice, we may learn to recognize the feeling that comes when a loved one sends energy our way, and the feeling of soul-to-soul communication. In this case, distance may indeed make our connections stronger. There is certainly much to make us think of our close friends and loved ones often, but when we decide upon a reminder together, we create a simple ceremony of connection that defies any distance.

------------------------------------------------------------
I think of each of you every day. Sometimes multiple times throughout the day. Thinking of you all makes me feel grounded.

Need to laugh?

I mean more than you did at the pictures below?

Then check out this page: www.gofugyourself.com

FREAKING HILARIOUS.

I was going to list all my favorite snarky remarks from the January posts, but I'm too lazy. Read and laugh your head off. Or read and wonder why Katie thinks these girls are so funny.

It certainly wouldn't be the first time someone didn't understand what makes me laugh.

If you can't beat 'em, join 'em

So - the Redhead recently posted 2 pics of me eating with, shall we say, gusto.

http://ontherockswithsalt.blogspot.com/2007/01/im-sorry-katie.html

and the follow-up

http://ontherockswithsalt.blogspot.com/2007/01/ok-im-not-that-sorry.html

I feebly tried to fight back, but sort of failed.

Then, over the last couple of days, as I've been organizing my entire photo collection on my new Mac, and learning iPhoto, I have come across some troubling photos. Eating with "gusto" is not a new thing for me.

So, to complete what the Redhead started, here are 2 more pics for the collection...

This is from Thanksgiving 2003, at my friend Allie's house in Atlanta.



And this is from an all-you-can-eat Salmon Bake in Fairbanks Alaska, taken in June 2006 when I was visiting my brother and his girlfriend.



What can I say?

Actually, I can't talk right now, I'm in the middle of eating...

I think I see the problem...

It's okay to be in a place like Canberra - a place that gives you all the time and space you want to hang out with friends and people you really like, and not really much else - when you actually have friends to hang out with.

Doh.

I'm all for a quiet life, but I do feel like I need to interact with people on a daily basis to feel okay. Thank god for my roommate... it is helpful to have her there.

But I miss laughing and being with people who know me. And not feeling like I have to constantly make the effort to connect to other people here.

Aussie voices

At work, we have an open cubicle arrangement. When I first got here I was a bit put off by it, it's so open and you can hear everyone. How do you get any work done? Unlike the cubicle farm at CDC, the walls here are see through and half-height, so there's really no privacy. But, it actually works quite well, better than I anticipated. It's nice to be close to everyone else and there's an underlying politeness and respect by all because it's more open.

One advantage is hearing other people talk amongst themselves. I love the accents! The accents don't sound as weird to me as they did when I first got here, and I quite like listening to them.

Over the wall behind me is a guy with a deep voice, very sonorous, and I really like his phraseology... "watch your phraseology, young man"....anyone? Music Man....anyone???... moving on...

Anyway, I like listening to the Aussies talk. That's the point of this post.

It'll be interesting to see how weird people at home sound when I go home in February. Or how weird I sound to people. The minute I open my mouth here, people ask where I"m from in North America. It's hilarious actually, no one asks if I'm American - they obviously don't want to offend any Canadians. So I'm asked if I'm a Canadian, or if I'm North American. Yep. I never thought of myself that way before, but I guess technically that's what I am.

As much as I like the Aussie accent and all its variants, I feel like I can't hear the North American accents anymore. There is a woman from Canada here in the office and she just sounds like everyone else to me. It's all very 'fine-line' type of stuff.

Ants, HEAT, and publications

I'm now living on the ground floor. I think that's code for "easy access for ants". The last few mornings Jen and I have woken up to ants roaming around the kitchen. This is despite efforts to clean up all dishes every night, seal away all sweet stuff (sugar, candy, honey). They are even in the fridge! Where, of course, they die relatively quickly, but come on! Ridiculous. And not what I like to deal with first thing in the morning. I think we are resorting to a chemical defense system this weekend - it's just not worth it.

It is HOT in Canberra. Hot and still. When I ride into work part of the ride is by the lake, and usually there's some wind, but this morning the lake was like glass. Perfectly still. Made me want to get in a shell and take advantage of it! I do see rowers on the lake each morning - and it always makes me think, "I gotta get on that", but then I don't. Ah well, eventually I'll get on the water again.

But anyway - the heat... it's a dry heat, and there truly is a difference between 38 degrees without humidity and 38 degrees with humidity. But, I gotta say, the sun is so damn intense down here, that, when you are in the sun, it doesn't really make a difference if there's humidity or not, because it's suffocating hot. Especially when there is no wind. Last night, Jen and I were lolling around the living room - and we were literally lolling - it was so still and heavy. We thought about turning the AC on, but we decided to just deal. We watched "Sweet Home Alabama" for distraction. Mission accomplished. BTW, I LOVE Reese's hair in that movie!

But, yeah, the sun is crazy intense. So it helps to stay in the shade, obviously, but, sometimes it can't be avoided. I need to buy a hat, even it is daggy.*

In other news, my first first-author publication came out last week! It's work I did at CDC, on infants and Campylobacter infections. It's quite satisfying to see the work in its published format.

It's Friday here, and I am definitely looking forward to the weekend. Not really sure what I'll get up to, but it'll be good to sleep in for a couple of days!

*daggy - nerdy

I'm stronger than yesterday

I'm having a hard time falling asleep tonight. Probably becuse it's like 25 degrees outside and it's almost 1am. It was 38 degrees today, and I had a hard time cooling down after my ride home. But I think riding my bike in 38 degrees is preferable to riding home on a crowded, un-airconditioned bus. At least on my bike I can breathe fresh air and feel the world moving more quickly.

So, I just don't want to go to sleep tonight. It's like I don't want tomorrow to come, which is pretty silly when it's written down in black and white. Technically, tomorrow is already here, since it's after midnight. I started to think about what I didn't want to lose by falling asleep tonight. Because each time I go to sleep I'm farther away from Atlanta. And farther away from who I was in Atlanta. Or even who I was in California.

Earlier this evening I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. I was drying off my face after washing it, and in that brief moment when I looked up from the towel, I didn't know where I was. It felt weird - like I was outside myself and the question, "This is where I am?" popped into my head, like a marquee sign. Then, quick as the moment came, it disapeared. But now it seems to be swirling in my head....

I've been thinking a lot about the guys I know at home. With each of them I have a story - a brief moment when it was just us, that got swept up in the reality of each other's lives and the pull back into our separate selves. Brief connections over the last 5 years. Yet, some of these guys are still around. I keep in touch with them. I like to, because it means I don't have to say goodbye. But it does mean that when contact is made again, I'm pulled back to where I was with that person, who I was.

I spent New Year's Day on Bondi Beach talking to my college boyfriend, Sam, for a couple of hours. He was travelling in Oz with his classmates from business school and it worked out that we were able to catch up for a little bit. We hadn't seen each other in probably about 6 years, and our year and a half together was almost 10 years ago. That's weird to think about. Anyway, we spent a couple hours catching up and it was surreal to realize that it didn't feel any different. He looks the same, he talks the same, he sounds the same. But who am I? I don't think that I'm the same as I was 10 years ago - I can't even remember me 10 years ago. But he said I looked the same, and I probably sounded the same to him the way he did to me. But the difference was that there no longer had to be an US for the two of us to be together. We could be ourselves and be with each other.

The people you keep in touch with, the people whose roles change throughout your life. I talked to Sam briefly tonight before he leaves the country tomorrow. As we said goodbye we made noise about when we'd see each other next. The truth is, who knows? I told him that I knew we'd keep in touch, since we'd made it this long. I'm not worried about losing touch with him. And I'm not worried about losing touch with the other guys in my life. There are reasons for each of them in my life and there is a reason they are all around. And each of them represents a part of me - a part of me that will still be here when tomorrow comes.

So what am I scared of losing by going to sleep?

I think it's more than my relationships with guys in my past... because there is more to me than my relationships with guys. But it's those specific relationships that have been the center of so much for me. And that's something I've realized only by being so far away.

My family and my girlfriends are constant. The last 4 months has really crystallized their importance to me. Even girlfriends I haven't touched base with in years - there is a different type of connection there... I know I'll see them again and that we'll be able to just pick it up again. But it's my relationships with guys that are the fulcrum for change over here. That's what is going to be lost as each tomorrow comes. My need to be subsumed.

Because I stand up very well on my own. And it's so much more rewarding to be part of a relationship where there are 2 independent people coming together, not 2 becoming 1.

Each morning I wake up over here I feel more like me. I guess tonight I'm just more aware of the changes and want to hold onto them - make them tangible somehow - so I don't want to go to sleep. And that's why I've shared them with you. It makes it all more tangible.

1, 2, 3, 4... I declare blogger war

Okay. The Redhead and I are officially at war with each other.

Ammunition of choice: photos.

As soon as I find some....

Peachtree 10K photo

I just came across an old email from a friend with a link to this picture of me running the 2006 Peachtree Road Race this past July. I forgot how short my hair was!

Oh to be able to run again.

My knee is getting slowly better - I'm sure if I wanted to pay the physio a lot more money it would be getting better a lot faster, but I'm just not at that point yet.

I haven't tried running in a couple of months - I was told I couldn't run until I could jump without pain. Almost there, but not quite.

So, since I'm not running anymore (or playing soccer) I've been riding. I ride my bike to work every day, about 40 mins each way, and this weekend I rode around the far end of Lake Burley Griffin, it took me just about 2 hours. I also want to start swimming, but I can't seem to get myself down to the pool near work to check it out. Maybe it's because I haven't swam laps since 1992 for the Hornets. I think I'm a bit intimidated to try lap swimming again. But, hey, everything else I'm doing over here is out of the norm for me, different, weird, a little intimidating... why should this be a stumbling block?

Shanks Redhead!

I'd like to thank the Redhead for posting this lovely picture of me:

http://ontherockswithsalt.blogspot.com/2007/01/im-sorry-katie.html

It's the post called, "I'm sorry, Katie."

A note in my defense... This picture was taken at about 3pm on the day before New Year's, at a cafe in Paramatta. I was just coming out from the fog of my hangover from the night before and hadn't eaten anything all day. We'd been traveling from Newcastle to Paramatta from 8:30 am to 2:30 pm and this lamb shank was damn tasty.

And who am I to pass up a good meat lollipop? :)

Movies outside - it must be summer!

I went to the movies again tonight. Only tonight it was the outdoor cinemas, or the 'Cinematheque Outdoors', as they call it, at the National Film and Sound Archive. In the summer they run a movie series in their outdoors courtyard - think Screen on the Green, but posher. The tickets are $8, but you get to sit in fancy laid-back Adirondack-like chairs, all nicely set up and waiting for you. And they were stripey! I wouldn't mind one for my courtyard area.

Tonight they screened 'The Apartment', with Jack Lemmon, Shirley MacLaine and Fred MacMurray. They have 2 old projectors, and show the movies in their original 35mm format. It was fun to hear the clunking of the projectors behind us as we watched the movie.

It was a great movie, and Jack Lemmon is actually pretty cute! Fred MacMurray plays the 'bad' guy, which is weird, but he does it pretty well. The guy from Damn Yankees is also in it, as a supporting character. Shirley MacLaine is great too... I love movies that actually have dialogue and presume some intelligence in the audience.


As we waited for the sun to set, they were playing some benign lounge-type music that sounded like Sinatra or Tony Bennett. It didn't really register with me until I heard the words of one of the songs. "I wish I was special. So very special. But I'm a creep." Wait just a moment. Did Radiohead cover a Sinatra song that I'd never heard of? Weird. I was all ready to dash off to goggle to see what was going on and then the next song sounded familiar too. "I like the way you make me feel, you really turn me on, you knock me off of my feet, my lonely days are gone." Isn't that Michael Jackson? But it sounded like Sinatra. So, I went and asked what the heck was being played. Because it couldn't be who I thought it was.

Turns out they were playing a guy named Frank Bennett from Melbourne, who was really big in the early 1990s here in Australia. I checked out his website www.frankbennett.com and it appears that his albums are no longer available, except at a price. Which is too bad, because I'd love a copy! I think 'Creep' is my favorite one, but 'With or Without You' was pretty good too. It was fun to try to figure out who the original artists were when the tune was completely different.

Late night musings

I took myself to a movie tonight. I put on my new white sundress (I ADORE white sundresses and am totally stoked that I've found, at least for now, the perfect one) and walked to the theater in Manuka, about a 20 minute walk away. I saw The Holiday, which was a pretty good flick. I like Cameron Diaz a lot and saw a lot of myself in her in this movie. And isn't that what the movies are all about? A chance to see the best (okay - and the worst) parts of yourself on screen, living a life that isn't ours?

My favorite quote from the movie this evening came from the old Hollywood screenwiter character, played by Eli Wallach, but delivered by Kate Winslet. "Shouldn't every one be the leading lady of their own life?" Too true.

As I walked home, alone, past the bars in Manuka and Kingston, I could hear all the people partying, see all the crowds. And there was only the smallest part of me that wanted to participate. I was quite happy to be enjoying my walk home... my SAFE walk home... at midnight, on a beautiful summer evening, with a clear sky (and a whole new set of stars that I don't know. Not that I know the stars at home, but you get my drift. I've been told it's a whole different set down here. I'll take their word for it.) But I digress...

On the walk home I thought a lot about the search for HIM. You know HIM. That guy that I seem to be thinking off - a perfect combination of all the right pieces of all the right people (and I'm sure I'm not alone in this... anyone who's single has thought about this person). He pops up every now and then, but is very elusive. In the movies, you can move to another country and find them right away. Of course, in a movie, you're working on a 2 hour time frame, so things happen a little more quickly. But the point is, even though I mused about HIM tonight, I also realized that it's all pointless if I'm not doing things that make me happy.

I thought of going into one of the clubs and getting a drink. In fact, that had been my original plan this evening, but as I walked by all the crowds, I realized that I really just wanted to go home. There was no need to think that HE is in one of those clubs right now. HE's not even aware that he is HIM. I don't even know that he's HIM. (are you confused yet?) So who knows where he is? As long as I do the things that make my life complete, I have no need to worry about HIM, when HE'll come along, if I've met HIM already... any of that malarkey is just a distraction from my being the leading lady in my own life. And, as dull as it may sound, the screenplay of my life had me watching a movie and enjoying the walk home and going to sleep, content with my life as it is. Knowing that I don't have to wait for one day when HE'll come along to complete it, because it's pretty darn good right now.

If he's out there, he'll fit into my life. Somehow. Somewhere.

Another one bites the dust...so here's some eye candy

Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Esposito Marry
http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20006812,00.html

Not that I have any chance of meeting Bradley Cooper... but it's always sad when one of your top 5 Hollywood crushes gets married.

I wish them all the luck in the world. Glad they found each other. Seriously. And not that I think marriage is equal to 'biting the dust', but... well... whatever.

Katie's crush list (once I decided to write them down I couldn't limit it to 5, so I'm going with top 10)

1. Lance Armstrong















2. Jake Gyllenhaal

















3. Bradley Cooper




















4. Ashton Kutcher















5. Michael Vartan

















6. Anderson Cooper






















7. Jon Stewart






















8. George Clooney





















9. Toby Keith


















Yep. That's me and Toby. Me - speechless.




10. Bill Cowher


I know. You're wondering about Bill Cowher? What can I say? He's on the list. Go Steelers.

Does Canberra have a soul?

This evening, as I enjoyed dinner in my new outside courtyard, I read an article in the Capital Express, a free monthly magazine about Canberra. I've excerpted my favorite bits below...

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Does Canberra have a soul?
By Sarah Hart

"I can't believe you are still living there", says the bloke, whom I will, for the purposes of this column only, call my friend. "I mean, Canberra, like, totally lacks soul, man." I briefly consider punching him in the face, but discard the idea, since he is letting me stay in his house, and one must not bite the hand that gives one free accommodation in Sydney for a night.

I'm pretty sure everyone who's lived in Canberra...will have heard something along these lines...."Canberra? Full of politicians, boring, no spark, no atmosphere, why don't you move to Sydney or Melbourne, somewhere with a soul..." Well, I don't know about you, but the longer I live here, the stronger the urge becomes to shake these ignorant fools until their smug little eyes fall out.

But I don't. ... What gets me is that the definition of soul for so many people seems to include large amounts of dirt, loonies, traffic, and inconvenience. Which Canberra has, by the way...but clearly not in quantities large enough to satisfy people...

I've decided it's just that these Canberra-loathing emo types are too busy being cool and disillusioned to adapt to a different vibe. A vibe that doesn't require a pollution report in the daily news, that has slightly more money and education than the rest of the country...

For me a place has soul if you can live there, be happy, create, grow, fall in love and change. You take soul with you. It doesn't necessarily gather in certain geographical locations, like bauxite, so that one has to go there and wander around until one runs into a lump of it.

Canberra-bashing is a lazy hobby, people. It's too easy to blow in on a visit and whine about the lack of boutiques... or the calibre of coffee... or the cold. Stick around, be quiet and get over yourselves. These are factors to which one adapts, not hard evidence of a 'lack of soul'. If you can't find any soul in Canberra, it might be time for you to sit down with your inner emo and figure out what it is that really makes you happy.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ms. Hart verbalizes some of my thoughts exactly. I have lived here for 4 months and have had to 'defend' my new home on almost every trip I've taken. In fact, every time I tell people where I'm living, I get a look. But to me, I make where I live. I have space to breathe, space to think, space to be. And in this space I can be me. Canberra fits me.

Vacation Moment #1

Traveling and laughing with good friends

It is priceless to travel with people who get you. The 6 of us literally spent almost all of our 14 days, together. All 6 of us, doing the same thing, sharing space, hanging out. Even if we were doing our own thing, we weren't far away from each other. It was so great.

Who else would understand how excited I was to watch The Guardian on the first day of my vacation? BTW, The Guardian may have surpassed Top Gun as my favorite movie of all time. I said "may have". If not, it's a damn close second.



I definitely feel the absence of good friends now that I'm back in Canberra. I can't tell you how much time we spent laughing. And the good laughing - the "Oh good, now I don't have to do my ab work-out today" kind of laughing. All it took sometimes was a look and we were goners. Okay - that was usually the Redhead and me - our sense of humor (or sense of the insane) was sometimes a mystery to everyone else.

Vacation Moment #2

New Year's Eve at the Sydney Opera House



Yep. We ushered in 2007 drinking champagne on the balcony of the Opera House, with unobstructed views of the fireworks off the Harbour Bridge and the skyscrapers of downtown Sydney. You read that correctly - fireworks off the skyscrapers - it was freaking awesome!

After 3 days in Newcastle to unwind after our week in Cairns (vacationing is tough work... one needs to regularly unwind!) we took the train into Sydney for the finale of our trip and 2006. We were staying in Paramatta, a suburb of Sydney - as close as we could get to Sydney when we finally decided on what we were doing for the big night.

We arrived in Paramatta around 1pm on Sunday, found a cafe for lunch (I was nursing a large wine hangover from the previous night...40 Year-Old Virgin and Dodgeball are DAMN funny with that much wine...someone forgot to tell me that the drinking is supposed to happen on the 31st, not the 30th...) and then went to the hotel and crashed... although not for long - we had to get up at 4 to start getting ready for our evening. As we were leaving the hotel at 5 to take the train into Sydney, we wondered what Paris was up to at that moment. It undoubtedly did NOT involve public transit, but that's okay. http://www.people.com/people/gallery/0,,20005382_2,00.html

When we got to Circular Quay, it was a madhouse. So many people!! I've only done NYE in San Francisco once before, and Union Square didn't seem nearly as packed as Sydney Harbour. It was crazy - but surprisingly well organized. There was only one exit out of the train station and there was only one entrance into the part of the harbour where the opera house is. As we made our way (in dangerously, and, in some cases, painfully, high heels) through the throngs of people camped out on blankets, newspapers, eating snags from the vendors and standing in line for port-a-loos, we became increasingly grateful that we held in our hands tickets to a seat with our name on it, real food, real champagne, and, most importantly, real toilets. When we walked into the Opera House and stood inline to get our surprisingly reasonably priced buffet dinner, the Redhead and I decided that we can't ever go back. It's the high life from her on out.

The Gala NYE concert started at 8pm and it was 'Opera at the Movies', opera pieces used in various films. Some I recognized, some I didn't. Despite that, the concert was stupendous. I was in 7th heaven. Everyone was dressed nicely, the orchestra sounded soooo good in the opera theater (which makes sense, given the acoustics in that place...) and it was just so nice. The concert had an intermission at 9 so we could watch the family fireworks (Sydney does 2 sets, one at 9 and one at 12). After those fireworks we had another 90 minutes of opera. Even though we were in the cheap seats (we basically had a view of the conductor and the back of the symphony and the performers) it was great. At the end there were standing ovations, multiple encores, and streamers, confetti, and balloons filled the place. Even though it was only 11pm, it was a great celebration.

After the concert we headed to the party to watch the fireworks. However, our tickets weren't enough to get us into the party (see addendum below) so we bought some champagne and nibblys and hung out in the Opera House. It was sort of like a grad night feel - we could go anywhere and just hang out. For the actual fireworks we made our way out to the balcony, carrying our champagne. I can't tell you how oddly satisfying it is to carry a full bottle of champagne around when you are all dressed up. Quite fun!

The fireworks were amazing! Off the bridge, off the skyscrapers, there were SOOO many of them. We toasted our good fortune, good friends, and a great 2007. We hung out for a while afterwards and hen made our way home on the train. It was the best NYE I've had at an event. Usually the build-up is so big and the actual event doesn't have a chance of living up to the expectations. That's probably why the last 4 or 5 years NYE have been super low-key, with friends just hanging out.

Addendum: When we checked the next day, our tickets were actually for that party. We missed out on the free drinks and nibblies and the band. BUT - we are going to get reimbursed for the party part of the ticket, so all is not lost. And we had such an amazing time anyway, its no big deal. But it would have been nice to have been in the party where we were meant to be!

I'll add pictures when they are shared... I didn't take my camera that night.

Vacation Moment #4

Holding a koala

On our 4th day in Cairns, we took a dayrip to Kuranda, a small town in the tropical rainforest outside of Cairns. We took a skyrail over the rainforest to Kurunda, and a train back down to Cairns after our day. It was really neat to be in a rainforest after having spent the last 2 days on the ocean. Given that this whole area of North Queensland is a World Heritage Area, it's not surprising that everything was amazing. But it all was! The rainforest was really cool.



In Kurunda we'd been given advice, through Hoov, to visit the Kurunda Koala ardens, where you can hold a koala and see lots of other Aussie animals. For $15 I got to hold Hogan (love that Aussie sene of humor!) for about 5 minutes.

He weighed about what Spencer weighed the last time I held him, had very dense fur that was coarser than I thought, and smelled of eucalyptus. Phat Pantz held Hogan after I did and said that Hogan farted in her hands. It smelled like eucalyptus. He he. A koala fart. That makes me laugh.



Outside the area where we held the koalas were a whole bunch of others - this one was my favorite... "I'm so tired, I'm just going to sleep here. In the fork of the tree. Don't bother me. It's exhausting eating leaves all day."

Vacation moment #3

Spending the night on the Great Barrier Reef

When we first got to Cairns, we went to a dive shop to set up our dive trip. We were able to get the last 6 spaces on a live-aboard boat, the OceanQuest, through a group called the Deep Sea Divers Den. Highly recommended, if you are ever in the area. http://www.diversden.com.au/

We were picked up at 8 am on Tuesday and 2 hours later we were under-way, away from Cairns harbor and on our way out to the reef. It took about an hour to get to the reef, ad it was a cool ride. I just love being on the water.

I had signed up for snorkeling - my first time ever. I have to be honest - I was a bit nevous. Deep water is one of my fears, and since I don't spend that much time in the ocean, it was a bit intimidating. The others were all open to the idea of diving, in fact, we had 3 certified divers (well, Jey was sick, so she couldn't dive, but Daddy and Phat Pantz dove to their hearts' content) with us, but I was content to snorkel. It was a big enough deal for me to actually get off the back of the boat into water that deep. I didn't really share my fear of deep water and open ocean with anyone that day, and I didn't want to be too much of a wuss, so I just went for it. It freaked me out for the first couple of minutes though. But, after stopping myself from hyperventilating, I definitely enjoyed it.

The reef was pretty amazing, lots and lots of fishes - I even saw a couple of sharks. (Hard to maintain my breathing when I saw them, but I just swam the opposite direction...) Now that I know I can snorkel and not die of fright, I'm excited to try it again. I'll be in Hawaii in February as I transit to CA for 2 weeks, I'm definitely getting in the water there!

When you are on a live-aboard boat, your schedule is alternating blocks of 1; preparing to dive/snorkel, 2: diving/snorkeling, 3: debriefing from diving/snorkeling, 4: lounging on board, 5: eating, 6: repeat. About 4 times a day. It was great! On our second morning on the boat, the Hoov did an introductory dive with one of the dive instructors, who lives in Cairns and our last day on the boat happened to be the end of his work week... (See vacation moment #3a).

Spending that much time on a boat (and we were only on for one night) - when we were back on land, we could all still feel the swaying of the boat. One of my favorite parts of being on the boat was that we had to be barefoot the whole time. What a way to live! If only my view every morning was of endless ocean, and my only plan for the day was to decide whether to get in the water or lounge on the boat. I love vacation!




Vacation Moment #3a: The holiday hook-up. Umm... no need to go into detail here... :) It wasn't on the boat though.

Back to life... Back to reality...

What a trip! I had SUCH a great time, I'm not sure how I'm going to tell you all about it.

I think I'll try the top 5 approach and see how it goes.

Vacation Moment #5: Surviving 2 hours stranded on the roadside in Daintree National Park, 30K from Cape Tribulation on Christmas Eve

Vacation moment #4: Holding a koala.

Vacation Moment #3: Spending the night on the Great Barrier Reef.

Vacation Moment #2: New Year's Eve at the Sydney Opera House

Vacation Moment #1: Spending 2 weeks with close friends.

These won't be posted in order... so you'll just have to deal. And, I know, it would probably make sense to write the posts in the order that I've ranked them, but I didn't.