Saturday, November 10, 2007
One of those meme things.
Rootie is throwing meme-themed gauntlets around (Rootie, do I link to you or not?!!)... she seems to have put my name on one in a roundabout way, and given she's pretty persuasive, and still carrying a cane since her hip operation, I guess I better make this one of the ones I do.
"List me 8 of your finest accomplishments. Don’t be shy, or modest, You know you’ve done some cool things in your life, now list them."
OK, so this sort of thing is hard for me, because I tend to qualify things as not being as good as they could be, or as good as someone else does them.
1. My HSC (Higher School Certificate -ie. secondary school leaving certificate) score was 432/500. In that era with the way they marked the HSC, anything over 400 was considered a damn good mark. I think it put me in the top 10% in the state.. and top 10 in my school year. The marks were scaled, and I got 100/100 for French Z (two years of French - a new unit introduced that year), which meant I must have got top in the State. Voilà. C'est bon, non?
2. I was a Rotary Youth Exchange Student the year after I left school. I spent 11 months in Central Java, Indonesia. Having done Indonesian for 5 years at high school I had a bit of a head start with the language, but conversational Indonesian was very different to classroom Indo. Still, when I visited other students in Jakarta, an Indonesian there told me I spoke Indonesian with a Javanese accent. I took that as a big compliment. When having a go at Javanese, the regional language that everyone spoke around me, my school friends and their mother once laughed. I wondered what I'd done wrong. "No, no", they assured me.. "It was perfect. It just sounds so incongruous coming from a white person."
3. I've done numerous canyons (what we call 'canyoning'), abseiling down waterfalls and slippery cliffs; wading, swimming or liloing through deep pools. Some of that involves a bit of adrenalin.
4. I've rafted the Franklin River - on a 10 day private rafting trip with Marc and friends. (Couple of photos). ie. no tour guide.. just us. Fantastic experience. (I couldn't find a link that really encapsulates the significance of being able to raft this river - this summarises it a bit...)
5. I've paddled a few canoe marathons - The (404 km Murray Marathon four times, and the Hawkesbury Canoe Classic (111km) four times. Both in a double kayak, mostly with Marc, but once (the Hawkesbury) with another girl. I wouldn't mind doing them again some day.
6. We owner-built a house, from the ground up ; yep, the whole blood, sweat and tears thing. OK, so Marc was the boss, but I was his sidekick - mortar mixer, circular saw operator, 'gofer', holder of gyprock, lifter of heavy things, painter/stainer... and for a year before we moved in, new mum to baby #1.
7. Mother of three very attractive, sporty and smart girls who are a credit to us when they are out.
8. OK, so yes, recently we've ridden a few biggish bike rides on tandems with the kids. Two eight-day rides of around 500km, plus various smaller ones. Marc and I have also ridden 100 MILES in one day on our tandem.
OK.. so consider the gauntlet thrown down, and double-dared, etc etc...
"List me 8 of your finest accomplishments. Don’t be shy, or modest, You know you’ve done some cool things in your life, now list them."
OK, so this sort of thing is hard for me, because I tend to qualify things as not being as good as they could be, or as good as someone else does them.
1. My HSC (Higher School Certificate -ie. secondary school leaving certificate) score was 432/500. In that era with the way they marked the HSC, anything over 400 was considered a damn good mark. I think it put me in the top 10% in the state.. and top 10 in my school year. The marks were scaled, and I got 100/100 for French Z (two years of French - a new unit introduced that year), which meant I must have got top in the State. Voilà. C'est bon, non?
2. I was a Rotary Youth Exchange Student the year after I left school. I spent 11 months in Central Java, Indonesia. Having done Indonesian for 5 years at high school I had a bit of a head start with the language, but conversational Indonesian was very different to classroom Indo. Still, when I visited other students in Jakarta, an Indonesian there told me I spoke Indonesian with a Javanese accent. I took that as a big compliment. When having a go at Javanese, the regional language that everyone spoke around me, my school friends and their mother once laughed. I wondered what I'd done wrong. "No, no", they assured me.. "It was perfect. It just sounds so incongruous coming from a white person."
3. I've done numerous canyons (what we call 'canyoning'), abseiling down waterfalls and slippery cliffs; wading, swimming or liloing through deep pools. Some of that involves a bit of adrenalin.
4. I've rafted the Franklin River - on a 10 day private rafting trip with Marc and friends. (Couple of photos). ie. no tour guide.. just us. Fantastic experience. (I couldn't find a link that really encapsulates the significance of being able to raft this river - this summarises it a bit...)
5. I've paddled a few canoe marathons - The (404 km Murray Marathon four times, and the Hawkesbury Canoe Classic (111km) four times. Both in a double kayak, mostly with Marc, but once (the Hawkesbury) with another girl. I wouldn't mind doing them again some day.
6. We owner-built a house, from the ground up ; yep, the whole blood, sweat and tears thing. OK, so Marc was the boss, but I was his sidekick - mortar mixer, circular saw operator, 'gofer', holder of gyprock, lifter of heavy things, painter/stainer... and for a year before we moved in, new mum to baby #1.
7. Mother of three very attractive, sporty and smart girls who are a credit to us when they are out.
8. OK, so yes, recently we've ridden a few biggish bike rides on tandems with the kids. Two eight-day rides of around 500km, plus various smaller ones. Marc and I have also ridden 100 MILES in one day on our tandem.
OK.. so consider the gauntlet thrown down, and double-dared, etc etc...
Labels: meme
Friday, June 08, 2007
Only because...
Northern Girl tagged me for a meme...So only because it's an easy one. And only because being tagged makes me feel so Special.
“Recycle a post that helps to sum up you and your history for a first-time reader.”
I link to this post on my sidebar - 'The Full Catastrophe.'
I've edited it once since I first posted it, and it summarises a bit about me.
This one sums me up more specifically... and that's probably all you'd ever care to know about me.. This year there have been some developments...improvements even. A bit of a marriage "crisis" led to my husband not working away so much. A silver lining.. a blessing in disguise.. if you wish. And I have made progress in the fitness area. Shows that change is possible. I've still to work on the domesticity and job issues, but I suppose that goes to show that anything is possible.
Oh yeah.. you're supposed to tag people with memes, but being a bit of a rebel, I won't. As usual... if you want to do this, consider yourself tagged.
“Recycle a post that helps to sum up you and your history for a first-time reader.”
I link to this post on my sidebar - 'The Full Catastrophe.'
I've edited it once since I first posted it, and it summarises a bit about me.
This one sums me up more specifically... and that's probably all you'd ever care to know about me.. This year there have been some developments...improvements even. A bit of a marriage "crisis" led to my husband not working away so much. A silver lining.. a blessing in disguise.. if you wish. And I have made progress in the fitness area. Shows that change is possible. I've still to work on the domesticity and job issues, but I suppose that goes to show that anything is possible.
Oh yeah.. you're supposed to tag people with memes, but being a bit of a rebel, I won't. As usual... if you want to do this, consider yourself tagged.
Labels: introspection, meme
Saturday, May 19, 2007
I could never run very fast.
This is the first time I've been actually tagged for one of those bloggy meme type things. Trudi's fault. Damn. I'm usually pretty good at avoiding all that sort of stuff, being the rebellious type that I am when it comes to conforming with expected social situations. *sighs*... However, so as not to be rude, I will try.. though heaven knows they aren't questions I find very easy to answer.
Don't expect me to conform. I don't tend to talk in superlatives or absolutes. I'm an 'it depends' kind of girl. ie. if I am asked 'what's your favourite colour?', I will respond with 'what, to wear, or paint my wall?'
(I also don't like rating things. Just ask my husband (who, being a technician, is moreso inclined) - when I was in labour with baby #1 he was diligently recording the time between contractions, and then asking me to rate the contractions for intensity. I soon got very irate - I mean, how the bloody hell did I know what a 10 might be likely to be if I'd never experienced full-on labour before. Nor did I really care to concentrate and make a decision.- Needless to say he never attempted to ask me to do that on the subsequent labours!)
So, anyhoo, I am supposed to write about: 1. Four of my favourite jobs. 2. Four of my favourite local places. 3. Four of my favourite foods. 4. Four of my favourite international places, and name four people I am tagging. What's with the number 4 anyway? Someone's favourite number, obviously.
Jobs: Probably just easier to name four jobs I have done - don't think I could call any job I had 'favourite'.
OK. ... Um.. Well, I suppose vacation camp instructor was the best casual work I have ever done. Throughout my tertiary education I worked on the NSW (state govt) Sport & Rec camps. I have my involvement in them (specifically the training camp weekends) to thank for meeting my husband.
The job I have worked in the longest was with Red Cross in their youth department. It was pretty pathetic work really.... it wasn't doing anything very deep and meaningful, though for some reason part of my job description was doing a Migrant Youth Orientation programme in conjunction with an Intensive Language Centre near the city. It was a recreation programme, designed to take the Yr 11 students out of the classroom, and to teach them how to get out and about Sydney, and teaching them fun things to do so under their own steam. I had some fun with the students, doing everything from going iceskating, walking across the Harbour Bridge, to going on a couple of camps with them. I learnt a lot about the reasons families might migrate to Australia - of the issues the kids have learning to live in a new country.. and the reasons why some needed to escape from their countries. I remember going to see The Killing Fields with a group, including a couple of Cambodian kids. I came out shellshocked, and they told me that the movie barely scratched the surface.
In between a few 'youth development' jobs, I worked as a doctor's surgery receptionist, a receptionist in a radio station (which was diabolical; I left after 5 weeks)... and selling wall and floor tiles. Of those three, I'd nominate the tile shop as 'favourite', partly because in the other two, women on power trips made my life a misery, but also because my time there coincided with us owner building our house, and I got tiles and adhesives at cost!! Very handy.
I am still waiting on my next 'favourite' job. One day something will *click* and I will come across something that is right for me.
Local Places: Four?... sheesh.. Define "local".
Hmmm, well the beach is a given. Only a few hundred metres away, hardly any people, no tourists.
As for another three? Nothing particularly special in our local area comes to mind, not somewhere I make a point of going to because it is 'favourite'. OK.. let's try.
At the moment, I suppose the meeting point in the city centre for the Community Ride is a favourite - it must be because I drag my sorry backside out of bed at 5am to be there to start riding at 6.30am with a diverse bunch of other cyclists. I do it for the coffee and the chat in the open air cafe 90 minutes later!
There is one part of the usual ride route we take where you ride on a new bike path around a headland that overlooks the harbour. You emerge from the trees out into bright morning sunshine, and it feels pretty good to live and be able to ride locally somewhere like this.
I suppose I might have to sort of copy Trudi and include a swimming pool. "Mine" is the small private swimming centre where the kids have been having lessons for the past 8 or 9 years. I started doing my adult fitness squads there about four years ago in the 2 lane, 25m heated pool 'out the back', and seeing I am still going, I must like it! It has helped my aerobic fitness heaps. Plus it has been a bit of a social place, where I have met a lot of other parents from around the area.
Food: Chocolate. Chocolate... and...
No.. only kidding..
Just about anything my husband cooks on the BBQ - partly because he is good at it, and partly because it is one less part of the meal I have to cook.
Salad the way we like it in our family... Tossed (I mean, really tossed.. not like many Australians have it), with the lettuce leaves torn into bite size pieces. With dressing. Iceberg lettuce is what the kids prefer, and I am happy with that. Tomatoes are the only other definite ingredient, and I might add anything else from celery, capsicum, avocado (love it with avocado), rocket, and strips of carrot.
Mangoes!
My spaghetti bol. Sorry, most others don't measure up to the way I have come to make it over the years!
International Places: Are you kidding? Well I haven't travelled overseas much, except for a year in Indonesia as an exchange student when I was 17/18, and a motorhome holiday to New Zealand. (Hmm, and a week in KL while Marc was working there.) Nothing favourite about Indo or Malaysia. Lots I loved about NZ. I would like to go there again and do some walks - or tramping as they call it there. Around the volcanoes on the North Island. I'd love to do a longer glacier walk. And one of the South Island walks, like the Milford Track.
I would like to go to Hawaii - to the Big Island - to see some American friends I met when I was living in Indonesia. I'd like to go to Canada to meet E... and check out Canada.
I'd like to see Antarctica. I'd like to go to any country on a tandem tour.
Tag 4 others: Don't do that. Feel free.
Don't expect me to conform. I don't tend to talk in superlatives or absolutes. I'm an 'it depends' kind of girl. ie. if I am asked 'what's your favourite colour?', I will respond with 'what, to wear, or paint my wall?'
(I also don't like rating things. Just ask my husband (who, being a technician, is moreso inclined) - when I was in labour with baby #1 he was diligently recording the time between contractions, and then asking me to rate the contractions for intensity. I soon got very irate - I mean, how the bloody hell did I know what a 10 might be likely to be if I'd never experienced full-on labour before. Nor did I really care to concentrate and make a decision.- Needless to say he never attempted to ask me to do that on the subsequent labours!)
So, anyhoo, I am supposed to write about: 1. Four of my favourite jobs. 2. Four of my favourite local places. 3. Four of my favourite foods. 4. Four of my favourite international places, and name four people I am tagging. What's with the number 4 anyway? Someone's favourite number, obviously.
Jobs: Probably just easier to name four jobs I have done - don't think I could call any job I had 'favourite'.
OK. ... Um.. Well, I suppose vacation camp instructor was the best casual work I have ever done. Throughout my tertiary education I worked on the NSW (state govt) Sport & Rec camps. I have my involvement in them (specifically the training camp weekends) to thank for meeting my husband.
The job I have worked in the longest was with Red Cross in their youth department. It was pretty pathetic work really.... it wasn't doing anything very deep and meaningful, though for some reason part of my job description was doing a Migrant Youth Orientation programme in conjunction with an Intensive Language Centre near the city. It was a recreation programme, designed to take the Yr 11 students out of the classroom, and to teach them how to get out and about Sydney, and teaching them fun things to do so under their own steam. I had some fun with the students, doing everything from going iceskating, walking across the Harbour Bridge, to going on a couple of camps with them. I learnt a lot about the reasons families might migrate to Australia - of the issues the kids have learning to live in a new country.. and the reasons why some needed to escape from their countries. I remember going to see The Killing Fields with a group, including a couple of Cambodian kids. I came out shellshocked, and they told me that the movie barely scratched the surface.
In between a few 'youth development' jobs, I worked as a doctor's surgery receptionist, a receptionist in a radio station (which was diabolical; I left after 5 weeks)... and selling wall and floor tiles. Of those three, I'd nominate the tile shop as 'favourite', partly because in the other two, women on power trips made my life a misery, but also because my time there coincided with us owner building our house, and I got tiles and adhesives at cost!! Very handy.
I am still waiting on my next 'favourite' job. One day something will *click* and I will come across something that is right for me.
Local Places: Four?... sheesh.. Define "local".
Hmmm, well the beach is a given. Only a few hundred metres away, hardly any people, no tourists.
As for another three? Nothing particularly special in our local area comes to mind, not somewhere I make a point of going to because it is 'favourite'. OK.. let's try.
At the moment, I suppose the meeting point in the city centre for the Community Ride is a favourite - it must be because I drag my sorry backside out of bed at 5am to be there to start riding at 6.30am with a diverse bunch of other cyclists. I do it for the coffee and the chat in the open air cafe 90 minutes later!
There is one part of the usual ride route we take where you ride on a new bike path around a headland that overlooks the harbour. You emerge from the trees out into bright morning sunshine, and it feels pretty good to live and be able to ride locally somewhere like this.
I suppose I might have to sort of copy Trudi and include a swimming pool. "Mine" is the small private swimming centre where the kids have been having lessons for the past 8 or 9 years. I started doing my adult fitness squads there about four years ago in the 2 lane, 25m heated pool 'out the back', and seeing I am still going, I must like it! It has helped my aerobic fitness heaps. Plus it has been a bit of a social place, where I have met a lot of other parents from around the area.
Food: Chocolate. Chocolate... and...
No.. only kidding..
Just about anything my husband cooks on the BBQ - partly because he is good at it, and partly because it is one less part of the meal I have to cook.
Salad the way we like it in our family... Tossed (I mean, really tossed.. not like many Australians have it), with the lettuce leaves torn into bite size pieces. With dressing. Iceberg lettuce is what the kids prefer, and I am happy with that. Tomatoes are the only other definite ingredient, and I might add anything else from celery, capsicum, avocado (love it with avocado), rocket, and strips of carrot.
Mangoes!
My spaghetti bol. Sorry, most others don't measure up to the way I have come to make it over the years!
International Places: Are you kidding? Well I haven't travelled overseas much, except for a year in Indonesia as an exchange student when I was 17/18, and a motorhome holiday to New Zealand. (Hmm, and a week in KL while Marc was working there.) Nothing favourite about Indo or Malaysia. Lots I loved about NZ. I would like to go there again and do some walks - or tramping as they call it there. Around the volcanoes on the North Island. I'd love to do a longer glacier walk. And one of the South Island walks, like the Milford Track.
I would like to go to Hawaii - to the Big Island - to see some American friends I met when I was living in Indonesia. I'd like to go to Canada to meet E... and check out Canada.
I'd like to see Antarctica. I'd like to go to any country on a tandem tour.
Tag 4 others: Don't do that. Feel free.
Labels: meme
