This year is a little different in that we’ve had the rains around for a few weeks with only the odd day of sunshine in between. The outcome is that everyone seems to be pretty miserable – particularly if they are of the opinion that water does not have the same physical properties as the rest of us know it does (but that is another story for another day). There are no Christmas carols playing on the radio, the stores don’t have their usual festive appeal and most people I have encountered have been pretty bah humbug. That in itself is awesome, it would have been perfectly acceptable to wear my Bah Humbug tee to work today because I was the ONLY person in the whole department wearing a Christmas shirt! Ordinarily I’d be the only one in business wear.

The big man is on his way tonight and so that means a day of celebrating with family tomorrow. I’m extra lucky this year with two family Christmas celebrations a day apart. So if I don’t eat myself into a small bowel obstruction tomorrow, I can always have another crack at it on Boxing Day.

"I'm dreaming of a turkey dinner...just like the humans have each year"

At first, you might not think that Tetris is the be all and end all. Certainly it can get to be a very frustrating and time consuming experience if your reaction times are slack and you have  little to no spatial awareness. Late last year, Leigh posted about how packing a moving truck isn’t that dissimilar to a game of Tetris. I remember her writing those words but can’t find the original post so you will just have to take my word for it that my memory is correct.

I’m finding that packing moving boxes is a similar experience. Good Tetris skills are essential otherwise you end up with all these gaps which are big enough to put something in but not the something that belongs in the box. I’m no Martha but I get extremely irritated if like cannot be packed with like. CDs MUST go with CDs or at the outset, DVDs. Books are not to be packed with CDs or DVDs because they are not electronic media. Kitchen goods under NO circumstances are to be packed with anything from any other room. So you can understand how packing all our stuff up to shift to our new house could get a little frustrating for me. I know I probably could be a bit more leniant on the packing rules but of course, then it makes the unpacking process at the other end that much more difficult.

Dammit! I knew I really did need that Game Boy when I was a kid.

]]> http://www.eucalyptuscountry.com.au/practical-applications-of-excessive-tetris-play/feed/ 0 http://www.eucalyptuscountry.com.au/being-a-banana-bender-has-some-benefits/ http://www.eucalyptuscountry.com.au/being-a-banana-bender-has-some-benefits/#comments Sun, 02 Aug 2009 07:47:16 +0000 admin http://moggie-madness.com/?p=512 Continue reading →]]> I imagine most people south of the border are accustomed to days starting pretty much like this – overcast, bleak, foggy and miserable. I love being a Queenslander, purely for the fact that although some winter days start out like that, the sun soon rises and brings with it a gorgeous day.

Seriously, what’s not to love about most winter days up here? Once you make it through some of the rainy days in June, for the most part is is brilliant blue skies, dazzling sunshine which warms the bones without burning the skin – unlike most other days of the year. People are out running, walking, riding bikes, playing with their dogs.

We headed down to the Gold Coast today and did the unthinkable thing for winter – we sat by the beach and ate a picnic lunch of fish and chips, polished off with a Ginger Beer and a chunky Kit Kat Cookies and Cream – have you tried them? Delicious!

All around us were people in boardshorts and tee shirts – even girls in bikinis and shorty shorts. If not for the occasional person in jeans, jacket and a scarf, I could have been fooled for thinking it was the middle of summer while we were cruising through Burleigh Heads on the way to the beachfront. On days like today, there’s nowhere else I’d rather be.

This perplexes me a little because these toilets are mainly in clinical areas. When I worked on the floor, I don’t think I went to the bathroom at all during the day because there was always that extra thing that needed to be done. And if I did get to go, it was generally a very very brief pitstop. Definitely not long enough to read the multitude of inspirational messages plastered all over the place. I suppose they are there for the benefit of people who have the luxury of spending just a wee bit longer in the loo to read them all….but who are those people??

One in particular seemed to stick out – “your attitude is a reaction to what life hands you, only you can choose that reaction”. I think I almost had a zen like moment reading that in the toilet. Something so common sense yet something I’d never taken the time to think about. It certainly makes more sense that in a workplace where every day can be a constant struggle, the workers tend to go about their day with a smile on their face and take the bad stuff on the chin and just get on with it.

I guess it’s just the new age version of the old adage “when life gives you lemons, make lemonade!”

What astounded me the most wasn’t its appearance on a menu board, but the price!  For the amount they are charging for a single vegemite or PB sandwich, I could buy an entire loaf of bread and a small jar of the stuff. Then it hit me….I could make 20 sandwiches, flog them off at a little stall down the way for $1 and still make a profit. Seriously, you could get the egg or cheese sandwich and pay the same price. Are they trying to tell me that eggs and cheese cost the same amount to purchase wholesale as a jar of Vegemite or peanut butter? The mind indeed does boggle. o.O

Nov. 2008 - Lake Pedder, South West Tasmania

I remember the first time I visited Tasmania. It was an exciting time, my first “big” trip away as a family interstate. We had a wonderful time travelling across the island over a few weeks, making the most of the time we had despite the sometimes inclement weather. The Tasmanian wilderness really struck a chord with me. So much so, that I’ve now been back another two times and would consider it my favourite place in Australia to visit.

My most recent visit was in November last year and I was eager to re-visit the places I held most dear to me from that first visit more than 15yrs ago. One of the places on my list was Lake Pedder, which although it had been dammed long before my visit the first time, still seemed very beautiful to me. I was shocked to say the least with what I saw last year. The water level has fallen remarkably, one of

the few clues that Tasmania was actually experiencing a drought. Also unlike my last visit, the lake was eerily quiet with very few tourists around.

I wouldn’t say it was a disappointment – the trip out to Lake Pedder was highly amusing for us given our GPS was happy to navigate us there but completely lost the plot on the return trip. But the difference that I observed was astounding. On the way back to “civilisation”, I noticed a sign strung between two trees….it reminded me that the battle might have been won all those years ago to save the south-west wilderness, but the war is still going on.

My latest annoyance comes in the form of glitter….particularly the variety that comes online in the form of custom signatures. I’m sure there are plenty of people who think they are really pretty and consequently try to make them as big as they possibly can. But glitter signatures to me are like a red flag to a bull. I don’t know why but they really grate on my nerves. I used plenty of glitter in school on posters and the like and that is where it belongs for me, along with countless mouldy sandwiches and uneaten rotten apples.

So I am declaring my war on glitter signatures to be officially open. I hate them and I wish that they had never been invented. So please if you must use these gawd awful things, can you make them a little smaller so as not to attract my attention? WordArt would be a good alternative….hey I’ll even design you a non-glittery one in minutes if you like. I will keep harping on about it if I have to….I have a track record to maintain.

But I digress. Among the travel literature books available, I found the title Air Disasters: Dramatic Black Box Flight Recordings by Malcolm MacPherson. Either someone has a sense of ironic humour or it’s part of a standard shipment to all newsagencies but I was amused by the presence of that title in particular in an airport. Surely, that’s the kind of stuff you really don’t want to be reading when you’re 30 000 feet above sea level and flying in something that looks by outward appearances as though it has no business being in the air at all. I’m not remotely afraid of flying, I quite enjoy it actually. I even watch the TV shows with explicit details on how different flight disasters have occurred with no real fear that it would happen to a flight that I was on.

Having said that, could I sit happily reading about dramatic flight recordings at 30 000 feet?? No….I think I’ll pass and stick to the Cosmo.

I wonder how many people actually buy this. It was the only copy left!

No matter how I look at it, it’s a long period of time to stay in one place. Most of my friends I went to uni or school with are on their second or third careers and some in their 5th or 6th company and have held some 20 odd different positions. As for me, I’ve stayed with just the one job, with the same department across only two hospitals. Albeit, I stayed begrudgingly at times and if there had not been bills to pay, there were many times I would have walked.

Yesterday, I said goodbye to the workplace which has been my home for the past seven and a bit years. When I first started there, I was a rookie with only a bit under two years of clinical experience under my belt. It’s astonishing how much changes in that period of time….some of them have started families, others moved into management or inter-state. And gradually that pesky itch kept growing – the need to do something new and find another challenge to cut my teeth on.

It’s been a long time coming but now it’s my turn to head off to the big bad beyond again and try something new. But doing that involves saying goodbye to people who have become good friends. I will miss them very much in this next chapter of my life but I know they won’t be very far away at all.

The message on the front of the card they gave me yesterday reads “Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined. – Henry David Thoreau“. They are words to live by and I hope I can do exactly that.

It's never been this clean...may it serve the next owner well.

So imagine my surprise when Australia Post rocks up on my door this morning with two packages I did not order. I still don’t have my keyboard but my rage has become slightly diminished when I opened them to find two surprise birthday presents.

Linda has given me some lovely pot pourri, part of which I have put in the ceramic holder my aunty gave me a few years ago. My bathroom and dresser drawers are smelling sweet now! I think Di must have been on the same train of thought because I found another drawstring bag of pot pourri in the second package as well as a photograph box to put on my desk.

So a big thank you from me girls….it was most unexpected but very much appreciated and lifted my sense of the doldrums completely. xxoo

Proof there is a cupcake card.....plus I wanted to share the kitty cuteness!