LJ informs me that it was 35 weeks since my last entry. Oops.

It is now 1 January 2009 in New Zealand so I can officially say HAPPY NEW YEAR to everyone and make a fervent wish for all of us that it's a better one!

Actually 2008 didn't start out too badly, there were some definite good parts - like the overseas trips to Australia and USA, getting the time off to be with my dad to celebrate his 65th birthday, and making some new friends at home and online.

However, my health wasn't the greatest, especially in April, and then I buggered up my shoulder just by sneezing. I slipped on the weight loss and therefore am going back on a programme in January to kick start things again.

Also work was just sheer hell from September onwards. I swear, never ever again will I be working in a government department when there is a change of government. Or if I am then I shall be taking a very long vacation until the worst is over. Essentially, the last few months have been a stressful blur and killed my enthusiasm for my job, which is really sad. At least it has crystalised some decisions about what I want to be doing with my life and once I have cleared debt and saved, I'm planning to make a move on those decisions.

I hate April. Health wise it's been the worst month for me and May better be an improvement.

Have spent the last 4 and a half days battling a sore throat (oh and the week before? Food poisoning. What a thrill). It was so sore that on Saturday I was really starting to get concerned because my throat was definitely red and swollen and just icky all round. Since I didn't have any cold symptoms or anything else, I thought it might be prudent to get it checked out by the doctor, just in case it was strep or something equally ugly and infectious.

So, I book an appointment today (it being Monday in NZ) and get a slot in the afternoon. My throat is better than it was, not swollen anymore, but still irritated and scratchy sore. Plus my taste buds have been affected so practically everything I eat tastes disgusting. Now... I don't have medical insurance (for those of you in the US, medical insurance doesn't tend to come with a job contract here in NZ, you usually have to get it separately), so I only go to a doctor when I really REALLY have concerns and that should be fairly obvious from the fact I haven't been for over 3 years.

Get to the doctors, explain what my concern is. She does a quick check and then says 'You're fine' and basically implies I shouldn't have bothered coming in... I was panicking over nothing. Ok, so maybe it is nothing (which is a relief), but surely some acknowledgment that it's justified to be concerned after 4+ days of continual pain wouldn't have hurt! I just felt dismissed... and honestly, now I'd have to be really, REALLY ill to even think about going to a doctor, which is probably not the best way to think but I do not appreciate the attitude I got today!

My manager still ended up sending me home because she didn't think I looked well anyway.

Roll on May!

It's been a while since I've been so sick that I've been off work for three whole days (would have probably been four if the day I started getting sick wasn't Sunday). I'm not sure what the bug was since my symptoms have ranged from fever to a truly horrible sore throat for a whole day and night (felt like I was swallowing razor blades) and then bad body aches that even medicine didn't abate. The only thing I didn't get was a stuffy head or a cough!

Still, I seem to be on the road to recovery now so it'll be back to work tomorrow.

Unfortunately (or not, depending on point of view), being sick and therefore bored silly has only fed my new obsession for Japanese dramas. I've never been a soapie addict, but these Jdramas are like chocolates I can't stop eating! It started with live action 'Hana Yori Dango' and just went down hill from there. Sigh. Over the past three days I've been watching random Jdramas such as 'Gokusen' and a movie 'Kisaragi'. Both of which have Shun Oguri in them and I admit that's one of the reasons I was drawn to both. He did a brilliant job as Shinichi Kudo in the live action Detective Conan movies and was a great Rui Hanazawa in 'Hana Yori Dango'. I'm still reeling from finding out he's 6 foot! Which is unusually tall for a Japanese guy (the average height there being somewhere around 5'6" or 5'7"). No wonder he could pull of the 'Shinichi slouch' so well.

I've developed Plantar Fasciitis on my right heel and am rather peeved about it since now I can't walk home and do high impact gym classes until it heals. I suspect that all the walking and standing about in Melbourne along with all the walking I was doing prior to the trip had something to do with it. Am currently considering whether to put my gym membership on hold and just start going swimming 4 times a week instead since swimming won't put any pressure on my heel and there is a pool very close to home. Or I can get a re-assessment at the gym, tell them the issue and see if they can recommend some good exercises. Some of the machines, like the bike, don't seem to put too much pressure on my heel but perhaps I'm doing damage I don't know about. Decisions, decisions...

Apart from the above result of lots of walking, my trip to Melbourne was fabulous. I highly recommend staying in an apartment hotel if there is a group of three or more. We got a large apartment with three beds, a fully equipped kitchen, a living room with TV and DVD player AND a little laundry, all for AU$80 a night, which is a really good deal especially when the hotel was really central.

I stuffed myself with food there, it's all so good! There's a great place known as Hardware Lane which has a ton of bistros down it where you can sit outside and eat, while listening to live music (the amusing thing was the musician was actually a New Zealander!). I also discovered the wonders of Lipton Iced Peach Tea - which luckily I've managed to find in Wellington - and gorged on gelato as well as other gastronomical delights (Eggs Florintine for breakfast!). However, I didn't blow up like a balloon and still managed to purchase clothes a size lower than last year, scoring some great bargains like a AU$170 skirt for AU$25. Naturally there was also tea buying involved from Tea Party, who do delicious teas like chocolate truffle, and T2 who are more conventional but still do interesting black teas like chilli kiss. And although I don't NEED any more body butters, I did indulge in a small pot of madagascan vanilla from Sohum Cosmetics because it smelt too divine to pass up. ^_^;

lyraethe and I also fell for the madness that is Japanese drama by picking up a series each. I got 'Mop Girl' which I saw half an episode of when I was in Japan last year and she got 'Hana Yori Dango' (better known as the manga/anime 'Boys Over Flowers' in English). It's SO addictive! We've already watched all of the first season of HYD and are well into the second! Then sakurazuka_jae gave me the first live action Detective Conan tele-movie and I was even more lost. Just what I need, hm? Another obsession!

It didn't rain on Sunday so the 7km walk was not depressing and we managed to shave 18 minutes off last year's time to walk it in an hour and 14 minutes, which was good. Of course, it puts more pressure on for next year. Hmmm... 56 minutes possibly?!

Work is still exhausting and I'm still looking forward to the end of the month - and my trip to Melbourne. Hopefully I won't just get to the hotel and collapse in a heap because there are quite a few things that I'd like to do which I didn't managed to get done last time. Amongst these things to do is ice skating, which lyraethe and our other friend have adamantly refused to go. It perplexes me that I like all these winter sports (ice skating, skiing) that practically NONE of my friends enjoy. This means the amount of time I spend doing these things is practically nil - have only gone skiing once and ice skating twice - because, you know, it's more fun to do both with friends. *pouts* Ah well... I suppose this means I'm not spending a fortune on ski equipment and trips!

( Meme )

I'm not dead, it's just been a long two weeks, even with a public holiday on 6 Feb. My co-worker went on long service leave (that's a full month of leave) at the beginning of the month so I've been juggling the equivalent of two workloads. And that's not even mentioning the various complicated issues popping up. So I've spent practically everyday running about madly and then coming home to just melt down and try to forget. I like being busy, but I don't like the tension of having to WAIT on other people to get their arse into gear so I can complete something.

Although what's concerning me the most right now is whether the weather will clear up tomorrow. Am doing the 7km 'Round the Bays' event and would rather NOT walk in the rain.

Nicked from faeriedeath, the iTunes meme because I didn't have anything better to do (actually I do but I'm being lazy). I had to cut out a lot of non-English songs because, well... it's a bit difficult to guess when you have no idea what's being said. However, there are a couple of obscure songs in there as well as some Australia and New Zealand bands. I have weird taste...

Step 1: Put your Media player on random.
Step 2: Post your favourite lines of the first 20 songs that play, no matter how embarrassing the song.
Step 3: Post and let everyone you know guess what song and artist the lines come from.
Step 4: Strike out the songs when someone guesses correctly. Guess as many as you can!

( 20 lines from 20 songs )

Halfway through January and this is the first entry for 2008... heh. It's not that I haven't thought about posting, it's just that I keep getting distracted and by the time I sit down at the computer to write, whatever it was that seemed so interesting at the time or was rousing my emotions just doesn't seem to matter anymore. For example, a few days ago I was in a foul mood concerning the current summer tops available...

Actually I still am rather peeved about this so I might as well rant about it now, there just won't be so much bad language!

Ok, so I'm a busty girl, in fact I'd almost suspect I'd rival someone like Pamela Anderson but without being plastic. I never understood WHY some girls want to be that big because when it comes to finding tops that look good with this sort of rack it's damn hard! Unless you live on a beach, never have to work in an office or only ever have to wear bikini tops (and even then there's NOT MUCH SUPPORT!) then you have to find clothing that is flattering, right? Anyway, I had been given some money for Christmas and my birthday so I decided to buy a couple of summer tops to plump up my wardrobe, plus with the weight I've lost so far I wanted to get some more fitted things. I just wanted something simple either in black or white, a top or two that would go with some nifty colourful skirts I bought a couple of months back. Could I find anything simple that wasn't completely appalling on anyone above a B-cup (or maaaaaybe low C, maybe)? NO! And I looked in 7 stores! It's just ridiculous because there are a lot of Polynesian women in NZ and they aren't flat chested! And I don't know about anyone else, but I hate seeing people in clothing that obviously doesn't suit them because that's all they seem to be able to get. Is it so impossible for stores to stock one or two simple tops? I guess so.

However, apart from this niggle, 2008 isn't going so badly and there are good things coming up. I did some major rearranging and clearing out before starting work again, which was very therapeutic, and I'm going to Christchurch at the end of this month on a training trip which is the first out of town training I've had in the two years I've been in my job - plus the last time I was in Christchurch I was two so it's going to be new and interesting. In March there's Melbourne and a visit from my parents to look forward to (and since I enjoy my parents company this is a good thing). So as long as I can stick to my savings plan, pay off my credit card (*gulp*) and stick to the weight loss programme I'm doing then I think it'll be good.

Contrary to popular belief, I'm not dead. I survived my trip to Japan with sakurazuka_jae and lyraethe, or more likely they survived ME. I did get a bit stressed and snarly at the end of some days, the unfortunate consequence of my shoes not supporting me as well as I would have liked and I'm really not a pleasant person when my feet are aching and I'm tired.

But I did enjoy the trip all in all and bought lots of fun things including a lovely little bento box which I've already used. :)

Currently am feeling cut off from my usual role playing stress relief since Greatest Journal is in spasms. Feh. I got a Insane Journal account (http://ladyorla.insanejournal.com/) and plan to use that for uploading icons and things.

Oh, and I also changed my user pics. Yay!

Oddly enough, I think I've spent more money preparing for my holiday in Japan with sakurazuka_jae and lyraethe than the actual cost of the ticket...


( Book meme )

( TV meme )