working 9-5

meet
jorge lorenzo villalobos
we named him after meet the fockers
(i didn't realise jorge lorenzo is an actual cyclist)

Hello lovebugs,

I'm sorry things have been a bit quiet around here and I'm sorry I didn't let you know I was going to be away.

CNN and I both had a difficult week at work last week. For me, part of it was the insecurity that everyone has (I think) when starting a new job and the other part of it was just something I had to manage and move on from. Poor CNN's is more complicated but I'll leave it up to him to write about when he gets his own blog.

It's funny how the activity we call 'work' - not LIFE - can dominate so much of your time and energy, even when you're not physically there. Although having said that, we do spend a third of our waking hours at work (assuming you work roughly 40 hours a week and sleep eight hours a night) so perhaps it is inevitable to have it on your mind.

I don't like the concept of 'work to live' or 'live to work' - I don't think I ever have. Given that we do spend so much time at work, it seems natural to me to spend that time doing something I care about (I am aware that this is the view of someone blessed with the qualifications and the luck to have found work in my desired field).

******

Wishing you all peace in your work whatever it is - paid, unpaid, self-employed, at home, in an office or outside underneath the neverending sky.

me, myself and i - day 5

mixing it up
architecturally
(a poor attempt to provide
continuity with yesterday's post)

Remember when I said I wasn't eating rubbish?  I spoke too soon because I had Fruit Loops for dinner tonight (if CNN was here, he'd point out that at least I got in one of my five servings of fruit and vegetables).  I had it all planned out - baked sweet potatoes for dinner and Japanese pumpkin for tomorrow's dinner (I must be craving carotene) - but when I got to the supermarket, I completely forgot to buy sweet potatoes.  I blame working 9.5 hours today even though that was my fault too (the whole not understanding flexi-time thing).  I also have to admit that I did have soup in the freezer... so maybe the contents of my dinner was more down to choice rather than necessity.

The best I can do today - a joke, from one of the young people I work with:

Everyone knows Gandhi was spiritual but did you know he had really bad calluses and really bad breath?  That's why they called him super-callused-fragile-mystic-extra-halitosis.

 Boom, boom!  Like I said to the kid, it's so bad, it's good.

me, myself and i - day 4

picture taken by my daddy
the home of the
tiger balm mogul
(well, his hong kong home)

Hello internet.  I must apologise sincerely to you for the cancellation of this week's 'what we ate.'  Everything I ate was rubbish.  Okay, so it wasn't rubbish.  It was good, healthy, yummy food but it was all easy peasy stufff - stir fries, noodles in soups, scrambled eggs, pasta (oh and I had take-away sushi when I went to the cinema last night).  I also had a mini-failure trying to make muesli bars.  CNN's camp is 'nut-free' (crazy, right?) so I decided I would make my own muesli bars, substituting dark chocolate for the nuts.  I forgot to let the mixture cool before stirring the chocolate drops so they all melted.  Ooops.  The muesli bars are still perfectly tasty but it just wasn't what I had in mind.

Trying really hard not to sound like a whiny mcwhinerson, I am now working flexi-time.  It's great to be able to fit my job around my life but I think my inclination to have more life than job means I'll be doing a long day tomorrow to catch up.  It's also hard getting into the habit of keeping track of the hours.  When I was a teacher, I just worked until all the lessons were planned and the books were marked.  The next job I had was pretty similar.  Working hours were 9-6:30 but more often than not, we would work longer than that without financial compensation.  No one minded because we were working for a cause we believed in and because it was such a human, caring, genuine place to work.  It's not that my new job isn't these things, it's just that I need to adapt to the way in which the financial side of it works and the implications that has on how I approach work.

In other news, I have now completed 60% of my nights away from my buddy.  He called yesterday.  Such happiness in speaking to him even though I did feel a little blue afterwards.  Two more sleeps until CNN is home!

my very best 'editorial' face
for those of you who have never watched
America's Next Top Model
it just means grumpy

I am very sad that I never bought any Matryoshka dolls when I was in Russia.  We saw some in a souvenir shop in Moscow but I was holding out to buy a set from a local craftsperson.  Needless to say, said meeting did not occur.

biggest burgers ever
and the coolest names too
mine was cat stevens
CNN's was aussie crawl

It was a perfect storm - a pub with acoustics so bad you had to screech to be heard, a very early phonecall on Saturday morning that we couldn't get back to sleep after, and lingering germs from CNN's cold all combined on the weekend to ensure I developed a cold on Sunday, making it nice and ripe for my interview on Monday.  Yes, that's right.  My one and only Australian interview thus far and I had to be incubating germs.  Lovely.

Never fear, I didn't let those pesky viruses and bacteria get the better of me!  I am the preferred candidate pending references!  All I need is for my old bosses to say nice things about me... I'm pretty sure they will; wouldn't you?

a second beginning

A rainy Sydney Saturday - English teacher detritus, steaming Chinese tea and gerberas from my husband

You've Got Mail was on TV this evening.  Now, either CNN loves me very much or he is developing a taste for romcoms because he prioritised watching it over watching the Indigenous All Stars vs. NRL All Stars rugby league game.  I'm hoping for both although there were some disparaging comments when we reached the grand finale of the film.

I'm sorry I haven't been the best of bloggers.  The job interview I was meant to go to last Tuesday was cancelled.  Not only was it cancelled, it was cancelled the day before the interview via email.  Isn't that rude?  I'm over it now, but I have to admit I did spend most of last week in my bednest, reading.  I highly, highly recommend The Thousand of Autumns of Jacob de Zoet.  No mindfucks but a writer at the peak of his powers (I'm sorry I just used such a clichéd term, but it's true).  We also ate an abundance of Chinese food because it was Chinese New Year (Happy Year of the Rabbit, everyone!), but also because I thought New Year's fell on the Wednesday when it was actually on Thursday.  So we celebrated twice - no harm in that, right?  (Please can those of you who are super au fait with Chinese traditions hold your tongues if it is really unlucky to celebrate twice?)

On the weekend, our house was filled with boys.  CNN is part of a sports tipping competition called the ASS which stands for the Armchair Sportsman's Shield (there is an actual shield).  They held the 2010 presentation last weekend and I really enjoyed spending time with the opposite gender.  I haven't had many friends who are boys thus far in my life but I am open to this changing.  In fact, I am generally open to making friends in Sydney so if you see me, wave and smile and I promise to do the same back.  The other good thing that happened last weekend is that I decided on a church.  There were two that I really liked but I came to a decision after talking it over with CNN (which seems like an odd thing to do because he's agnostic but is one of the reasons why I love my husband).

This week I have been a busy bee, applying for jobs, looking after my buddy as the combination of new school and big weekend has lumbered him with a cold, and cleaning up the house after the ASS weekend.  As CNN is now the primary breadwinner, we are currently operating a 1950s marriage (although CNN is still responsible for cleaning the bathrooms and windows in a chore trade-off made whilst we were still in London).

In weather news, which I feel I must mention (is this a hangover from having lived in England for so long?) this week has been cool and grey - a big contrast from the superhot weather we had last week.

And finally, something exciting from two weekends ago...

We have furniture!  Unpacking our books made our little flat feel even more like home.  CNN and I spent a very enjoyable and very geeky afternoon figuring out how we were going to catergorise and store our books - our English and teaching degrees had a field day!

I'm sorry I've been a bad blogger.  Pinky promise I'll be better if you promise to continue reading?

strange things happen

I am a little excited and a little breathless.  I have just received an email informing me that a job I applied for 'is now available'.  I'm hoping that this means I get to go to a interview - please keep your fingers crossed for me.

In other job news, I was offered two jobs overnight last week.  On Wednesday night, a customer at work offered me a job at his cafe.  Now, either the world has become really cut-throat or there is a shortage of good waitresses in Australia.  The second happened whilst I was at the GP's on Thursday .  After my consultation, the doctor offered me a receptionist's job at the surgery.  I'm hoping that this is a run of good luck or divine intervention rather than coincidence - especially since that email arrived today....

The yummy things in the picture are pastizzi.  They are, according to Wikipedia, 'the most popular and best known culinary export of Malta' (surely that is opinion rather than fact?  Unless there has been a study regarding the fame and popularity of Maltese food around the world, I guess).  They come in savory and sweet versions and are very satisfying after a lazy Sunday spent browsing for furniture.  I highly, highly recommend them for being tasty and cheap (but not the kind of cheap where the price makes you think they're more delicious than they really are - I'd still recommend them even if they cost more).