Days 22-23 - Thou shalt sit in the sun and smile

Hello Fabulous Blogger-chums!

It feels like Spring is finally here today - just walking outside to get some lunch, with the sun smiling down on me, makes the world feel like a much cheerier place. And leaving work after 5:30 and it NOT BEING DARK (woohoo!) is amazing. Between seasons it's so easy to forget that it will ever be warm/cold/light/dreary ever again.

All the beautiful flowers that we only get to see once a year are now popping up in the garden again, unfortunately mosquito season has already arrived (and mozzies LOVE me, argh), but the ideas of after-work activities and eating dinner outside seem like real possibilities again! We can even start hanging our washing on the washing line again!! Wow.

Some of my favourite things to do in Spring are:
- swinging on the hammock under our massive jacaranda tree, which has little purple buds appearing. LOVE.
- planting and feeding all my new garden babies, and watching the green appear on my strawberry and raspberry plants, and the tiny ornamental grape bunches on my vines.
- eating stinky cheese and drink wine in the back yard.
- walking!
- starting to look forward to Christmas (I even ordered some tree decorations online yesterday!)
- getting back into cooking and baking, and eating all the amazing fruits that are back in town again now (mangoes, avocadoes, strawberries, mmmmm!)
- having weekend afternoon naps with all the windows open!

Also, now is the time that I start looking forward to my birthday as well, so it's a fun time of year!

Hooray!

Lots of love and sunshine to you all,
Louki xxx

Days 20-21 - Thou shalt be moved to tears by simple things

This weekend has been full of emotional reactions for me, the majority of which have brought me close to tears... mostly in a good way.

Yesterday I took my mum out for her birthday - as a surprise, I had bought tickets for the two of us to see Potted Potter, a hilarious "unauthorised" re-enactment by 2 British gentlemen of all 7 Harry Potter books in 70 minutes. The auditorium was packed, with ages ranging from very young to less young! Mum and I are both devoted Potter fans, but we had no idea at all what to expect. The show was hysterical, with the whole audience in fits of laughter from start to finish. Luckily I had visited the Ladies' Room before the show, otherwise I'm sure I would have wet myself. I'm sure my abs are much stronger, as a result of all the laughter.

Before meeting up with Mum, I had been to an orchestra rehearsal where, realising that our performance was only one week away, everyone proceeded to finely butcher the music and the conductor, very rightly, ripped us to shreds. The music we are playing is some of the most thoroughly magnificent and moving music of all time - it would be such a shame to play it any less than brilliantly. I really must practise this week.


This afternoon, after a beautiful walk for charity around one of the most gorgeous parts of Melbourne, Mum and I decided to visit an inner-city department store, which was recently renovated in opulent fashion, as a last desperate attempt to improve its damaged image and flagging profits. The place is now stunning, but, as it has been for many recent years, its service is still a big steaming pile of shit. Some turds, it seems, cannot be polished. One particularly rude salesperson, today, in the Christmas section of all places, made me more upset than I should have been, by speaking to Mum as though she were a cognitively-impaired child. So strong was my reaction to her that I actually put my hand up between us and asked her to stop yelling at us, and I wanted nothing more than to punch her square in her hateful hairy face. I'm sure she could see the dislike in my face, and my reaction to her was so strong, that I proceeded to dump our purchases-to-be on a nearby shelf and insisted that we leave without dignifying the place with our custom, and I nearly had an irrational cry on the train home.

Having come home and taken my anger out on some bread dough, and cried my way through the final chapters of J.K. Rowling's new book, I find myself listening to a beautiful excerpt of Cavalleria Rusticana on repeat, and using all the tissues in the house. If you don't own a copy, download a copy of the Intermezzo (it's an orchestral bit without singing), light a candle, turn off the lights, and contemplate everything you love, everything you miss, and all the beautiful gifts you have in your life.

I dare you not to weep.

Love to you all,
Louki xxx

Day 19 - Thou shalt "toughen up a bit"

My colleague just emailed me this gorgeous link, of a very wise little girl giving sage big-sister advice to her little brother:

An Older Sister's Advice

Watch, you won't regret it - it made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

It reminded me of being little and confused, and my big sister would look out for me. She would frequently talk me out of doing silly things, she would stick up for me, and she would always have tonnes of fun things planned to keep me entertained when I was sad or when we were going on long drives (mostly to distract me from the inevitable spew-fest that my car travels always became, which can't have been much fun for her either, being trapped in the back seat with me!). There would be bags of games and fun puzzles and always lots of songs to sing.

On one very memorable occasion, she was even entrusted to "fix" my rather strange 3-year-old attempt at cutting my own fringe. She was 7, and, despite having far more advanced scissor skills than me, was (funnily enough) not an expert hairdresser! So hilarity ensued, resulting in tears and me asking my dad if he could just sticky-tape my fringe back on. Dad seemed to fix pretty much everything with stick-tape... and still does! Tee hee.

Up until the age of about 6, I truly believed that I'd end up being a big sister one day - not sure whether I just wanted a little sibling (someone else to be at the bottom of the pecking order, perhaps), or whether I just thought that every little girl got to be a big sister eventually (not sure how I thought my parents might feel about producing infinite amounts of children).

I was so convinced I was going to be big sister some day, but it never happened. And, as it turned out, I always seemed to be the youngest everywhere I went: the youngest niece, the youngest grandchild, the youngest kid in every class, the youngest person at work (not any more!), and in many ways I still feel like "the baby". At least, I still tend to keep things pretty infantile ... tee hee!

My big sister still looks out for me, and we still have lots of fun times together. She's probably the only person who will stick by me when I put ABBA on full-blast and dance around in my pyjamas with a glass of champagne, and who will always encourage (rather than judge) me in the eating of half-a-packet of Tim Tams. Hooray!

So keep your family close, fellow Bloggerifics - they are usually the only ones who will still love you the next day.

Wishing you all a wonderful weekend!

Louki xxx

Day 18 - Thou shalt not be a total obnoxious twat-burger

Riddle me this, fellow Bloggerinos...

WHY oh why do people keep sticking microphones in front of Anthony Mundine and writing down what he says?

and why oh why do I read this crap?

Anthony Mundine talks shit, again.

Makes no sense.

It just makes me sad.

The world has gone whacky.

Seems every lunatic with something stupid to say gets a hearing.

Arghhhhh!!!! Anyway, this lunatic is signing off for today.

Stay sane, my friends,
Louki xx

Days 16-17 - Thou shalt not be self-absorbed and boring

Hmmmm, it appears, not unexpectedly, that I'm terrible at blogging regularly.

Apologies for the inconsistency - I don't really feel like I have anything particularly interesting to say at the moment, and I'm very wary of becoming massively boring and just writing shit about myself for the sake of it.

Also, given that this blog is in the "public domain" and is being read by people I don't know, it's also hard to know how much to say or not say, while still being interesting yet avoid being abused/tracked down or causing offence.

In so many ways, I am glad that there was no facebook, blogging or wide-spread internet use when I was at school. I was bullied a lot during those years, at first for being excessively shy and anti-social (and for being an academic over-achiever), and then for being a socially-awkward "wog" with a big nose. In many ways, the bullying made me stronger, but it also gave me some extremely deep-rooted insecurities about many things, not least of all my appearance (both physically and socially).

Social media just gives stupid bullies another avenue for torture people who do not deserve it.

I read recently about that beautiful girl who was stalked and bullied over social media to the point where she was driven to drinking bleach and, ultimately, to killing herself. I have also read articles about self-confessed "trolls" who think it's ok to bully and torment people who apparently "deserve it for being insecure". Gah.

I also see stories of young people who think that plastic surgery is the sensible way to go, and their parents encourage them to change their appearance instead of telling them how beautiful they are AS THEY ARE. And of course surgeons are more than happy to exploit these poor kids and their stupid parents.

What the hell is wrong with the world? Since when is it ok to treat people however the hell you want? Whatever happened to empathy, to unconditional love, to discipline?

I realise that bullies have their own insecurities/problems which make them behave the way that they do, but it really feels like there's such a sense of entitlement to bad behaviour these days, and it makes me feel sick. If I had turned around and bullied someone in return, I would have totally expected to have had my arse kicked.

Anyway, sorry for being so ranty and pissed-off, but I think I just needed to get all that off my chest. The world just feels like a scary place sometimes.

Yours in solidarity and Bloggerific-ness,
Louki xxx

Days 13-15 - Thou shalt be all kinds of purest awesome

Apologies for the hiatus, my fellow Bloggerissimos! I DO have a good excuse though... I'm a total lazy-arse.

In breaking news, I have accepted my new job with all kinds of mixed feelings. Excited (and terrified) at the upcoming challenges and learning-curves, sad as can be about packing up my ol' kit-bag and saying "toodle-pipski" to my beloved colleagues, and angry as all hell that management have turned our department into such a pig's breakfast that they're losing competent staff who so desperately WANT to stay.

But it turns out that I CAN control my own destiny, even if it doesn't always feel comfortable at the time.

So, another chapter ends, another begins. As for my gorgeous colleagues, it's not really goodbye after all... it's just "meet you at the pub after work". :-)

And check out the beautiful flowers my sister had delivered, which were waiting for me when I got home! Love.

Take care, and stay AWESOME, Bloggeroodlies!

Louki xx

Day 12 - Thou shalt remain hopeful when the world is topsy-turvy

My goodness, fellow Bloggerchums, what a week this has been.

Birthdays, injuries, abusive train-platform drunkards, cat spew, sunshine, storms, fire-drills, new friends, macarons, and now.... a job offer.

After completely talking myself out of getting my hopes up on Wednesday, I received news from my referees yesterday that they had been called for questioning in the morning. That completely knocked me for six - I had, up until that point, been preparing myself for the "rejection and constructive feedback" phone call.

So, there we have it. I now have a decision to make. My almost-new supervisor voluntarily (and very kindly) offered me some time to "have the chats" with my current employer and husband before responding to the offer, which is lovely.

The difficulty is that I love my current job - I am challenged and I learn new things on a weekly basis. I still have so much more room to learn and grow, and so many new skills I was looking forward to developing. But alas, budget-tightening and job insecurity has increasingly dimmed any prospect of ongoing employment in the team - and unfortunately for me, it's the team where I finally re-discovered confidence in myself to learn new things and to present that confidence to the outside world, where I made amazing contacts and developed relationships with a strong foundation of mutual trust and respect, and where, more importantly, I looked forward to going to work each day, even after long weekends and holidays.

I have worked in plenty of toxic environments, where I dreaded going to work, where I felt swamped by emails and phone messages and a million things to do, the majority of which I knew I would never get around to dealing with. Where I had vile colleagues, bullying supervisors, and obnoxious students to deal with, and it always came down to me having to rise above it all and be the "bigger person" (aka Punching Bag). Where I would desperately hope to get hit by a tram on the way to work so I could have a good excuse not to show up. Where I would be practically catatonic with depression on Sundays and at the end of holidays, unable to speak due to the dread of returning to work the next day.

Not that I'm expecting the new position to be anything like that, but it was my current employer who rescued me and to whom I will be eternally grateful. Out of the toxic swamp I was headhunted, I was appreciated, I was empowered, and I was welcomed with open arms. I had never known anything like it before. But, on a fixed-term position, and with permanent-staff departures leaving holes which will now never be filled, it has reached the point where I'm not sure that gratitude is enough to keep me there.

Take care, my Blogosphere Buddies. Until tomorrow...

Louki xxx