Four Things

I stole this off Corinne from A day in the life. Join in if you would like :)

Four jobs I've had:

Customer Service Representative in a call centre for Pizza Hut
Market Researcher over the phone (yes...calling people up and asking for their opinions)
Cleaner for a shop
Waitress in a German Restaurant (4 shifts)


Four movies I can watch over and over:

Never Been Kissed
Phantom of the Opera
Beauty and the Beast
Howl's Moving Castle

Four places I've lived:

I have always lived in Sydney...

Four TV Shows I love:

Seachange
North and South - it is a telemovie
Yes Minister/Primeminister
Eagle: A crime odyssey

Four places I've been to on holiday:

Northern Australia - The Kimberely's in Western Australia and the top end in the Northern Territory to be more exact
Tasmania
Germany
Czech Republic

Four of my favourite dishes:

Nachos
Mushroom Korma with Rice
My boyfriend's mussel and calamari soup
Calamari and Chips!

Four sites I visit daily:

Sydney Morning Herald
Hotmail
Facebook
Australian Antartic Division

Four places I would rather be right now:

Swimming in Manning Gorge, Western Australia
Reading a book camping at Myall Lakes
Lieing in a bath at home
Driving in a car(being a passenger) through Gregory National Park, Northern Territory

My recent book purchases

As promised..these are the books I purchased on Monday!!!

For Christmas I was given a $100 gift voucher from Angus and Robertson. My purchases were as follows

* THe lovely Bones by Alice Sebold- after so many good comments about this book i thought it was about time I read it :)



* I have a bed made of buttermilk pancakes by Jaclyn Moriarty - I absolutely love this book!! Read it so many times. It has quirky bits, is really easy to read and an interesting fun story.



* Dreaming of Amelia by Jaclyn Moriarty - This is a book aimed at a younger audience than the above. Most of the books Jaclyn Moriarty had written are aimed at the young adult market - the most well known being Feeling Sorry for Celia. And again..has quirky bits to it - accroding to the blurb the story is told through the gothic fiction elective of an HSC english exam (HSC is the set of exams you do in your final year of school in NSW, Australia). Looks like fun :)



* I also bought two Manga comics that I had read when in early high school and enjoyed. I was disappointed thouhg because they had reversed the comics so they read like normal engligh novels instead of the back to front nature of manga comics.

As Angus and Robertson did not have Elegance of the Hedgehog I decided to go find it in Borders which is ten times bigger. They had sold out :( :( :( so instead I bought

* The poisonwood bible by Barbara Kingsolver - I bought this as I had really liked The Lacuna and had heard that this book is pretty good too :)



What does everyone think?

Teaser Tuesday - 300310

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

•Grab your current read
•Open to a random page
•Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
•BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
•Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

Too Much Happiness by Alice Munro

What I Know in Myself is my own Evil. THat is the secret of my comfort.

pg. 23 (Dimensions).



This book is a collection of short stories and the ones I have read so far are quite good. Most of them are easy to read and make you think. The stories are about complex people so that makes them interesting and none of them have the traditional "happy happy" style endings or anything like that. They are actually kind of unsettling in some ways. Definently not a book to read if you need a cheer up.

Off to the bookshop...;

I am off to the bookshop...which always excites me. My grandfather gave me a $100 gift voucher for christmas so I am off to spend that. Have some books already mind including

* Elegance of the hedgehog (or whatever it is called). I wasn't going to buy this book until I read a review and teaser tuesday of it which made it sound pretty good :)

* The lovely bones

* Shades of Grey - read an interesting teaser of it

Does anyone have any suggestions?? Or opinions of the above books (Yay vs nay?)

Tell me fellow bibliophiles!!!!

Lovesong by Alex Miller

I featured Lovesong by Alex Miller on my Teaser Tuesday post this week and i thought I would give a very quick review/opinion of the book.

The book was very easy to read - I finished it in a day - and I just wanted to keep reading it to find out what happened. It is an interesting story which makes you think about the choices we make and how things can go wrong in a relationship. Also about the nature of storytelling. In a way it is quite a concise book - doesn't waffle on for ages - which is good in this age of busyness. I plan on reading more by this author.

Has anyone else read this book? And if so what did you think?

My hands

At the moment it was not that easy to type. You see I have where my skin on my fingers and palms gets covered in tiny little blisters which get bigger and are sooo itchy and then painful and eventually the skin goes scaly and peels off. Very ugly..but at least not contagious.

I visited a doctor a month ago at uni and they gave me some cream...but it got worse so I went back to another doctor at uni and they just said "put more cream on" and I am like wahhh!! Clearly the cream is not working! So eventually last Thursday I went to my family Doctor and she was great. TOld me why she thought i had what I had (diagnosis wise) and wrote out a step by step plan of acton.

The most annoying thing it involves is putting special cream on the affected areas, wrapping them in wet/damp cotton wool and then wrapping them in gladwrap or putting vinyl glovs on top. SOOOOO difficult. And then at night my hands get so itchy and I cannot sleep.

I am seriously sick of this!! It makes it hard to type and the lack of sleep is getting to me! My thesis is due in less than a month so I am getting more stressed..which i think leads to my hands getting worse!!!

Sigh. I just want them to get better :(

Teaser Tuesday - 100323

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

•Grab your current read
•Open to a random page
•Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
•BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
•Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

Lovesong by Alex Miller

Sabiha set the glasses down on the table in front of the couch. "I don't care. I hope he never comes back.;

pg. 56


I have only just started reading this book and so far I am finding it easy to read and fairly enjoyable. Will post an update when I have read more :)

Reflections inspired by "The Lacuna"

Some of you may remember that "The Lacuna" by Barbara Kingsolver featured in my Teaser Tuesday last tuesday. Well on the bus home today I finished reading it. It made me reflect on a number of issues.

Firstly - how unfair the world and the society is sometimes. The end of the book is set in post world war 2 America where the anti-communism view was taking off. It really frustrates me how biasist and cruel people can be and how bad the system can get. I really hate injustice. And how people just twist words - especially the media - just get to the answer they want. It must have been a frightening time to live in.

And following on from this - the media. This book illustrates how bad the media can be in terms of portraying the truth. Here is a quote I liked

" They had no wish to tell what a man has done with his life. That would require honest witness. THe simpler thing is to state what he has been called".

Grrr.

The problem is - how can you know what is true if you havn't experienced it first hand. If you don't rely on the media you could try relying on what aquaintances to tell you - and there problem with that is that either you get very limited information (if you just go by what they have experienced) or the information is even more inaccurate because of the whole chinese whisper affect.

Or you could just rely on nothing at all which is even worse - because I think knowing about the world is important and lack of knowledge breeds ignoranace and prejudice of other people and their situations.

I think sometimes i take what I read too much at face value

How much do you trust what you read/hear? How do you deal with this dilema?

Something which bothers me..

FOr the past four months at least I seem to get the same questions asked of me all the time...

How is Nichol?? (my boyfriend who is in Antartica for 13 months)

How are your finding it without him???

Now though these questions are asked with the best intentions - I find it very hard to answer them.

Firstly - it makes me feel that all I am defined by is my relationship with him - which is defintly not so. And though it might sound all sweet and all to say I think of him all the time - that isn't so. I am my own person and though I miss him terribly, it isn't like I am completely fallen apart (though sometimes I do feel like that).

Secondly, it is hard to explain how I truly feel about him being away. It is very complex and most of the time the context people ask me these questions is not appropriate for anything long.

Thirdly, I am asked both of these questions ALL THE TIME. By the same people.

Oh...and there is also the "so when does he get back?" question. And then I have to say 1st of December and then deal with their reaction to that. Sigh. Sometimes reality is very hard to deal with.

Now don't get me wrong - it is nice to be asked how I am coping...just i guess I want people to realise that it isn't easy for me to answer and it is hard if people are always asking.

I don't know how to tell some people that i would rather them not ask all the time and to explain why.

99 Things

I stole this off Mrs P who stole it off someone else.

The idea is...here is a list of 99 things you could have done. Copy, paste, bold the ones you have done, and post. Ta-da!

1. Started your own blog

2. Slept under the stars

3. Played in a band

4. Visited Hawaii

5. Watched a meteor shower

6. Given more than you can afford to charity

7. Been to DisneyWorld

8. Climbed a mountain - more than one - Cradle Mountain in Tasmania definently a highlight to climb

9. Held a praying mantis

10. Sang a solo

11. Bungee jumped

12. Visited Paris

13. Watched a lightning storm

14. Taught yourself an art from scratch

15. Adopted a child

16. Had food poisoning

17. Walked to the top of the Statue of Liberty

18. Grown your own vegetables

19. Seen the Mona Lisa in France

20. Slept on an overnight train

21. Had a pillow fight

22. Hitch hiked

23. Taken a sick day when you’re not ill

24. Built a snow fort

25. Held a lamb

26. Gone skinny dipping

27. Run a Marathon

28. Ridden in a gondola in Venice

29. Seen a total eclipse

30. Watched a sunrise or sunset

31. Hit a home run

32. Been on a cruise

33. Seen Niagara Falls in person

34. Visited the birthplace of your ancestors

35. Seen an Amish community

36. Taught yourself a new language

37. Had enough money to be truly satisfied

38. Seen the Leaning Tower of Pisa in person

39. Gone rock climbing

40. Seen Michelangelo’s David

41. Sung karaoke

42. Seen Old Faithful geyser erupt

43. Bought a stranger a meal at a restaurant

44. Visited Africa

45. Walked on a beach by moonlight

46. Been transported in an ambulance

47. Had your portrait painted

48. Gone deep sea fishing

50. Been to the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris

51. Gone scuba diving or snorkeling

52. Kissed in the rain

53. Played in the mud

54. Gone to a drive-in theatre

55. Been in a movie

56. Visited the Great Wall of China

57. Started a business

58. Taken a martial arts class

59. Visited Russia

60. Served at a soup kitchen

61. Sold Girl Scout Cookies

62. Gone whale watching

63. Got flowers for no reason

64. Donated blood, platelets or plasma

65. Gone sky diving

66. Visited a Nazi Concentration Camp

67. Bounced a check

68. Flown in a helicopter

69. Saved a favorite childhood toy

70. Visited the Lincoln Memorial

71. Eaten Caviar

72. Pieced a quilt

73. Stood in Times Square

74. Toured the Everglades

75. Been fired from a job

76. Seen the Changing of the Guards in London

77. Broken a bone

78. Been a passenger on a motorcycle

79. Seen the Grand Canyon in person

80. Published a book

81. Visited the Vatican

82. Bought a brand new car

83. Walked in Jerusalem

84. Had your picture in the newspaper

85. Kissed a stranger at midnight on New Year’s Eve

86. Visited the White House

87. Killed and prepared an animal for eating

88. Had chickenpox

89. Saved someone’s life

90. Sat on a jury

91. Met someone famous

92. Joined a book club

93. Got a tattoo

94. Had a baby

95. Seen the Alamo in person

96. Swam in the Great Salt Lake

97. Been involved in a law suit

98. Owned a cell phone

99. Been stung by a bee

WoW. That was fun! YOu should try it :)

I have done 37 of the item on the list :)

Teaser Tuesday 100316

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

•Grab your current read
•Open to a random page
•Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
•BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
•Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver

In the Kitchen the stores burn hotter than the stove. Perpetua says Senora Frida went up to San Miguel Regla yesteday, on the excuse that she needed to give some money to the Landeros family for taking Lev in their house.

pg. 179



I am really enjoying this book. It is set partly in Mexico and partly in the US and follow the life of a boy/man from the 1930s. It is written kind of a like a diary but better (and I love when books are written in a quirky manner). :)

Some advise please...

Next Saturday I have a photoshoot with SF Marler Photography (I won a discount for it :) yay!) and i am wondering how i should dress up for it. I want to do something a bit unusual but I don't know what.

I have had a photoshoot before - my friends gave me one as a present once - so I thought I would do something a bit different. But I don't know!



So I was wondering if anyone had some suggestions?

Teaser Tuesday - 100302

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

•Grab your current read
•Open to a random page
•Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
•BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
•Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

The lost life by Steven Carroll

Instead of just undressing in front of each other, which they have never done, they would be bathing together. Bathing is good like that, gives you a reason, she thinks, as she tamps along just a bit behind.

pg. 4



I just started reading this book today and am just about finished it. It is easy to read and quite interesting. This is one of the books my mum gave me for Christmas and is signed by the author :). It is set in 1934 in England and tells the story of two sets of lovers.