Blog Writing 101

So it seems that lately I have had a bit of writers block. Obviously I have not made enough bad decisions to have some thing interesting to write about.  Seems out of character.

So I wondered what Google had to say about interesting blogging material. I found a blog topic generator for those of you who cannot work out what to write about yourselves! This is the wonderful site if you need some inspiration. 

I found these gems...

1. Write a short post (50 words or less).
Why couldn't I think of this myself?! Oh wait. Get screwed website.  This isn't a suggestion for a topic to write about this is what you should do once you get your shit sorted and know what you want to write about already.  I hope your other suggestions are better than this one...

2. What's in your bellybutton right now? 
A carrot. I am kidding. Probably. The truth is that 99.9% of people will have nothing in their bellybutton unless there is something like this blog generator to prompt them to put something into it. And that 0.1% of people left over? Well they don't know they have to clean their bellybutton in the shower and have grit and/or fluff in it.  Gripping topic for a blog post.

3. Discuss a recurring dream.
This is the best idea!  Every morning I tell my boyfriend all about my amazing dreams and he is soooo into it he immediately falls asleep so he can experience them himself! My dreams are so interesting to everyone else!

4. Write a letter from your future self. 
Let me see if I got this right. I should write a letter to my future self, who will by then be my past self and WHAT. This makes zero sense.  Besides it would be boring anyway because if I had done it I would have already read it.  And I bet it sucked.

5. Explain why your mother should have apologized to you.
Coming soon! How the internet is the perfect counselor!  And why it is better to blog about your family problems than actually talking to people :D Next week, why my boyfriend should pack up his shit and move out!

6. Live blog an event.
Ok, let's give this one a go. I am sitting on my couch blogging.  My boob is itchy.  Ummm. Now I am drinking water.  I am thinking of killing myself from the boredom of blogging about nothing. Next week, where will I blog from next?? Will I even care!

7. 'Speculate what your life would have been if you were born in Algeria', and this gem 'What would it be like if you were a handicapped person'.
Just. No.

8. Top 10 products you use.
To be honest I don't use an awful lot of products, or any notable ones anyway.  I use a really interesting brand of dishwashing tablet and also this great brand of sanitary pads... not what they meant? Should have been more clear about it.

9. Write about your most boring evening ever. 
Actually I think I may already be onto this one already...

10. Write a blog about writing blogs.
Shit. Touche blog generator. Touche.

FINALLY: Write a poem. 
Write a blog they said
Yeah, it will be fun they said
I reply: fuck off.



Mission accomplished?

'Tis the Season to be Zombie...

So another year of zombie antics has passed.  I kind of feel like this time of year takes forever to arrive but once it is here it is over so quickly.  I always say that Zombie Walk is more important than my birthday and I have never meant it more than this year.  There is nothing like spending a hot summers' day covered in fake blood and make up with those you love and care about.  I was lucky enough to have my boyfriend team up with my best friend (SimplyPeanut) to be our photographers for the day.  I decided to thank them by posting some of my favourites as a thank-you for all they did for us that day...

Taken by my lovely Boyfriend

This one by SimplyPeanut

 

And another one by the fine lady SimplyPeanut :D

So what I would really love is any photos of my blog readers of you being a zombie, be it this year or any years past. I would love to see you all!!

Substitute Carrot TV - Jump the Beach

Hope you guys think this one was worth the wait... If you like this one be sure to check out the links at the end of the video :D

Things Not To Do On Holiday

Hello everyone! Since I have arrived back from my travels in one piece (only just) and I bring wonderful stories and advice about holidaying! During my trip I learnt some very valuable life lessons that I would like to pass on to you all you lucky readers! So, I present to you...

THINGS NOT TO DO ON HOLIDAY!!!!!

1. Don't pack your bag too early.
I packed my bags days in advance and it all ended up in tears.  Put in the good shoes, take out the good shoes.  Put in shorts, take out shorts.  Fill suitcase with underwear, cull the amount of bras.  By the end of it I was down to 2 wearable pairs of shoes, long pants and stinky bras in Morocco.  The amount of times I second guessed myself... I could have been lounging in comfortable clothes but instead I ended up wearing the same 3 things the whole damn time.

2. When staying in a Hostel do not leave your bag open or your things anywhere they may be pissed on.
Apparently I missed the memo about this one.  There is nothing worse than waking up to the sound of someone emptying their bladder onto your freshly washed belongings.  And as I have found out, I am not alone.  Luckily I had put the lid of my suitcase over my freshly washed clothes so mostly it was just my bag that was pissed on.  Also lucky for the guy who did it.  He was closed to being smacked in the face, just imagine if I had to wash all those goddamn clothes again!

3.  Do not stay in a hostel.
In all honesty this probably should have come before number 2, or even instead of number two.  Since my trip was organised through Top Deck I had pretty much no control over where we stayed.  I had never stayed in a hostel before and am I glad I can tick that little number off my list!  It ranged from near hotel accommodation to a box with a fan in ridiculous heat.  Some of the people did not even have a window.  The hell?

4.  Don't have a food allergy.
Seriously.  The combination of having a food allergy, being in a foreign country, having a tour guide who speaks no Spanish, Portuguese or Arabic means that you will probably die.  And I heard that is a downer.

5. Don't go to the seafood section of the markets before you order your fish dinner.
I have never had monk fish before.  I am so grateful that I decided to eat it before I saw what it looked like.  I have never seen something so ugly.  So I guess this bit of advice is that sometimes it is better not to see the thing you are about to eat before it has been chopped up and fried.  I mean really.  It's like that fish was born at the top of the ugly tree and then got struck by lightening... Ew.

The Triumphant Return of the Carrot! Or the Carrot Returns... You decide.

As some of you may have noticed I have been suspiciously absent from my beloved Carrot blog.  This is due to a number of things.  I could lie and say that I have been out winning shooting medals, racing go-karts and zombie-ing up my neighbourhood, but who would believe me? Instead I will just put it down to pure laziness.  To appease both of you I have decided to make my post a weekly affair, with posts published on a Friday.  Crazy! You might say.  Impossible! I think I hear.  Cactus! From some weirdo at the back.  Despite all this I will give it my best shot.  Soooo....


Taking all bets! Do I hear a week?

Coming Soon...

I am currently on a trip through Spain, Portugal and Morocco so there won´t be any new Carrot for probably the next 3 weeks or so.  When I am done I am planning on making a post on What Not To Do when travelling.  I already have a few on the list... In the mean time, why don´t you check out these lovely blogs on the side bar for some interesting reads!

Hambo
xx

Books are the new books.

There is something wonderful about old books.  I love the smell and the way they feel.  I love the worn cover and yellow pages.  My most favourite type of old books has to be science fiction books.  I love the ones written in the fifties, sixties and seventies the very most.

The most wonderful thing about them is that anything was still possible.  They talk of simulacra, poop sheets and scutters.  Stories of lush jungles on Venus and ebbing oceans on Mars.  There are people who risk everything and people who are sacrificed.  There is a bit of sexism too, and who doesn't like a bit of that? (Ok, that bit isn't so great...)

The stories are about people with the technology and the location being incidental.  Whole lives can be lived in a day and worlds destroyed in an instant.  One can live vicariously through a runner on last day as he strives for sanctuary.  You can feel the importance of Mercerism in a world so devoid of hope and empathy.  You can feel for the robots as they find loopholes in the three laws and even become human.  You can enjoy your meals knowing it isn't soylent green... And thank god for that!

I wish we could write like they did.  I know it sounds rather old of me but they really don't make them like this any more.  I love the way they incorporate now obsolete technology in their future visions, they didn't need to describe or create an iPad to make a great story or invent a type of nuclear fusion engine to travel across the universe.  They had poop sheets.  They didn't need to invent the engine, it was just there and it simply worked. 

I don't have to be my boring self. I can be an astronaut, a bounty hunter, a nexus 6: ANYTHING.  The future is here and it came from 1966 or maybe 1974.


Some books you need to read right now in case you wake up dead in the morning...*:
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? - Philip K Dick
A Maze of Death - Philip K Dick
Make Room! Make Room! - Harry Harrison
Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
Welcome to Infinity - Grant Naylor
The Midwich Cukoos - John Wyndam
Buy Jupiter - Issac Asimov

*Just to name a few.  Maybe you have read none of them or you have read them all, either way you should go and buy them all now and read them because they kick the asses of sparkly vampires and what ever other crap kids these days are reading...

Some of my newest babies!

Slaughter at Animal Farm - The fall of Democracy and Human Rights

It may be that I have just finished reading George Orwell's well known novel, Animal Farm, or it may be that I have just had it with the Australian political parties.  Probably a healthy dose of both the former and the latter.  In recent weeks I have been keenly watching the debates and politics on a very important topic. Gay marriage.  Although the effect all these decisions has on me personally is probably about zero I cannot help but feel that a gross miscarriage of justice is occurring.  **This is not the best structured thing I have ever written, so excuse the layout etc. **



The Anti-Discrimination Age... Or is it?
I live in a world where I am protected from all kinds of discrimination.  Although I am not quite 5' 2" I am now able to join the police force without fear of being rejected for not meeting the height restriction.  When I line up at the polls, go for a job interview or even wear pants there is no one there to tell me that I cannot do that because I am a woman (I am kidding, why would I wear pants? Pants are overrated...).  When I go to work no-one is there to tell me I must wear make up or that I cannot wear it. I cannot be fired from my job for being too old.  If I were an Indigenous Australian I am not able to be stopped from marrying anyone from another race, I have the right to all those any white Australian has (and damn right they should have).

If I were a Gay/Lesbian or Bisexual Australian I am told I cannot get married. I am also told I am no longer allowed to have a civil union and can only "register" my relationship, which smacks of condescension as a comparison to registering one's dog or cat.  I am also to be told that I cannot seek a surrogate to have my children.  As a single parent I can adopt a child but I cannot adopt one into my loving family if I am in a homosexual relationship.

Once it was illegal for women to vote.  It was illegal for Indigenous Australians to have interracial relationships and their children were taken away to 'a better life'.  Once being too short would have you excluded from any number of jobs, not just entering the Police force.  Yet I am free to do what ever any Australian male or female can do... except if I was a lesbian. 

Although I am not in a same sex relationship I am still very much outraged at how the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgendered people are treated in this country and are treated in many other countries.  When I have children they may fall into the above categories and I will be damned if I were to sit by and watch my country discriminate against them in such a blatant and flippant manner.  'We gave you civil unions! Shut up your whinge holes!' is a translation of what I hear a vast majority of bigoted politicians saying.  Well, now even that is gone. 


Discrimination Defined
As far as I can tell, discrimination is where something:

Breaches of human rights by any Commonwealth body or agency and discrimination in employment on the basis of race, colour, sex, religion, political opinion, national extraction, social origin, age, medical record, criminal record, marital status, impairment, disability, nationality, sexual preference, trade union activity. (Australian Human Rights Commission, 2007, www.hreoc.gov.au/)

Seems straight forward, right? Hahahaha! You are so naive!  The law for discrimination regarding sexual preference and gender discrimination vary from state to state and they even have their own lists of what is protected by these laws.  For instance in Queensland  gender identity is covered but in the Northern Territory it is not.  You are covered for discrimination regarding breastfeeding but in New South Wales it is not noted... The above extract is actually the Federal Law, but you will need to go through your State system before you get to the Federal Court.

So although in theory Australia does not tolerate discrimination, the Laws in reality are not quite so equal.  States are free to choose their inclusions for discrimination, but I cannot see Australia standing for reintroduction of the White Australia Policy or revoking women's voting rights so why allow gay/lesbian/bi/trangender driscrimination??

The Religion Factor
So why do we allow discrimination based on something that happens in a persons private relationship? Many people will argue that marriage is a religious construct and that religions should not be forced to perform marriages where they do not recognise it morally. 

My boyfriend and I can be married by the state without any involvement from any church. Hell, I can fly off to Vegas tomorrow and have myself a shotgun Elvis wedding and have it recognised.  No church there! I think that the religions should make their own stand on marriage in their churches, that is their place of jurisdiction. Go nuts.  This should not mean, however that the Government has the right to deny a marriage based on the same grounds. THEY ARE NOT A RELIGION THEY ARE THE EFFING GOVERNMENT.

Having said that, there are even some Church communities that support Gay marriage.  They should have the right to do what they see is fit.  Just because some churches will not allow it does not mean that the others should be told what they want to do is illegal...


 Happy Days on the Animal Farm
Now the remaining point I wish to address in today's post is this... Why is Democracy dead?  Although it may have happened a great deal of time before this event, for me it was the day that Julia Gillard stood up as Prime Minister.  Kevin Rudd may not have been the most awesome Prime Minister (I kind of liked him though) but he was the head of our Government, elected BY THE PEOPLE.  I know that in Australia we are not really voting for one person, we are in actuality voting for a party of people, but I never voted for Julia Gillard to be the face of our Government. No one did. 

Just in Animal Farm, when the animals had decided the pigs were to be in charge of the farm, they were taken over by a pig they did not elect themselves.  Then came the decisions which were only decided upon by the pigs.  Why do the politicians get a 'conscience vote' and Australia gets no vote at all? When did democracy become a just word instead of an actually practice?

Perhaps Kevin Rudd would have pushed for Gay Marriage, maybe not.  However, having the face of Australia who is not willing to consider Gay Marriage because she doesn't want to get married is a crock of shit.  It is almost like saying 'I don't want to have children, so why would you want to?' or 'I am happy being in an abusive relationship, so I do not see the need to make beating on you wife illegal'.

Come on Julia, give Australia the chance to decide on Gay Marriage.  We are not children who need to be told what is good for us, we have the right to vote for what our fellow human beings deserve.  Equality.  Or are you afraid that you will be shown to be wrong and that Australia in fact welcomes Gay Marriage and that it does shit all to the 'institution of family' because they are all just people like you and me? Because love is not about marriage,  but marriage should only be about love? Love that you and the other politicians have no right to judge and deem worthy or unworthy of marriage.

Give us the chance to vote for real tangible things, like the rights of Gays/Lesbians/Transgendered.  Give them the right to vote for what they want.  As it stands we vote in a party and then they do whatever the hell they like.  Democracy? Only for some.

To All The Asshole Gamers...

It may come as a surprise to some of you that some online CoD players are assholes.  Try not to be too surprised, I know it is quite a shock.  If they are not too busy trying to make you want to kill yourself (and not just in the game) then they seem to have a morbid fascination with putting inanimate objects into certain women's orifices.  It doesn't sound like teenage boys/adolecent boys at all!  As much as I don't really care what people say about me it is kind of hard to play strategically when you have to put up with people being so ungentlemanly.  For those of you lucky enough not to know what I am raving and ranting about, see my collated data below.

As you can see, being a female in the online gamers world can be fraught with hazards.  That is why I have provided four hypothetical comebacks you can use should the need arise.  These are some I have used and I find them quite disparging to the over enthusiastic 'gentleman'.


#1.  Get back in the kitchen!
This is on of my favourites.  I love this one.  I think they forget they are talking to a woman, the world's champion multi-tasker.  I once made a stirfry while playing CoD and managed to keep positive ratios.  Making the bread and butter pudding whilst playing was extra tricky because it resulted in butter ending up all over the controller...

Puh-lease, making sandwhiches are for noobs. Come back to me when you have made a fucking croque en bouche...

# 2.  You are hot, want to have sex?
If they have not determined you are fat and ugly it is most likely they will want to copulate with you.  This is an amusing prospect as most of these players cannot spell vagina, let alone know what to do with one. I find the best approach is to then sound androgenous and switch between pretending to be male and actually being female.  I find this calls their sexuality into question enough for them to decide it isn't worth the risk...

# 3 . You are big and fat and your vagina smells like fish.
I find the best response is a golden oldie... 'That's not what your mum said last night.'

# 4.You are gay!
I find this one quite entertaining.  Not only does one sexuality have nothing to do with how well you play video games, it doesn't make the fact that I kicked your ass any less humilating.  You could also use #3 response but change it slightly... 'That's exactly what your mum said last night. Then we had sex.'


So this has been helpfull advice from your local gaming Hambo. I am interested, what kind of insults have you come across? (male and female) How did you deal with them? Need some advice? Just ask Ham!

Read it again if you do not understand...

I spent my day off sick making this totally awesome and very usefull meme.  I just want the world to know that when it is famous, I made it first.  At least, I am pretty sure I did...

The Least Likely Day...

Some times crazy things, UNBELIEVABLE things happen.  Things that are so crazy that it seems it couldn't be true.  Like people having psychic experiences or coincidences that seem to good to be true.  The following story comes into this category of story.  I am having trouble believing it myself!  I promise it is all pure truth!

The story starts with the end of another story.  I had just been to visit my friend who lives a couple of hours away for a day of cheese, shopping and awesome chilling out. The day was over and I was on my way home.  I was getting tired, so being the responsible adult I am, I decided to have a break.  At a McDonalds.  I took my time and stuffed my face.  Feeling much revived, I went back to my car to continue the journey.  It was getting dark and the moon was looking amazing on the horizon so I decided to take a picture.  I was getting out my phone when a guy appeared out of the shadows.  

I very nearly crapped myself.  Before I had a chance to escape the man was talking to me.

Man  'Hi, are you going to Brisbane by any chance?  :

Me: Ummm. Yeah I am. (thinking: PLEASE DON'T RAPE ME!!!!)

Man: I was wondering if I could ask you a huge favour. I have a flat and have no spare, can we use yours and give it back at Brisbane?

I must admit I have an issue saying no to people in need, so I said, sure.   The man just happened to have a Ford Festiva just a couple of years older than mine, with four studs, just like mine.   So we are in my boot, it's dark, trying to get my tyre out.  I tried to make excuses like it could be flat. No cigar.  Are you sure your car is a four bolt? Yes. Damnit.  Then, a stroke of good luck.   We don't have anything that fits the bolt, his tools are obviously rubbish and it's so dark I can't even find mine. Nothing is working, and the bolt won't come out.  Thank the lord!

So they guys girlfriend (who is dressed in a dressing gown) comes over to help.  She strips off the dressing gown and is wearing, what I can only assume, are denim nickers and some kind of skimpy tank top.  Did I mention she had a shaved head but still had a fringe and a dozen VISIBLE piercings.

It gets better.  I am starting to get worried that this is some kind of set up.  We eventually find my tools and something that fits the bolt, but still, it doesn't budge.  We can't get the tyre out, so the boyfriend goes to get help. The girl friend yells out to him to get some big strong guy to help, but with more 'fucks' in that sentence.  You will never believe who he brings back.  

 A midget. 

A fucking midget. 

So then there is this guy, a near naked Tank Girl look-a-like, a midget and me trying to get this tyre out.  This has to be a set up.  You could not make this shit up.

So in the end it turns out, we were screwing it the wrong way.  Who knew some bolts are screwed to the right and not the left? I thought I was going to get out of this increasingly bazaar situation.  At this point I am wondering that if they don't stop to give me back my tyre later it may not be the worst thing in the world, who knows how much more crazy this thing could get?  So we finally get the tyre out and take it over to the mans car.  It doesn't even fucking fit.

We put it back in my car, I don't even bother screwing the fucking thing in and I drive into the sunset.... AS FAST AS I CAN.

The end.

Believe it or not, this is a true story.


If you don't know what Tank Girl is check out this pic: http://chod.deviantart.com/art/Tank-Girl-Baseball-Bat-11892605 .  It is a perfect representation of the girl I saw today. You can see why I was worried...

The Birds

For some reason in Australia one of the most ever hated birds is the crow.  Growing up as a child I watched my family curse these jet black creatures and all the while I just couldn't summon up that kind of blind hatred for any living thing.  For a while I would caw out the back of our house, just to let them know they weren't really hated... just misunderstood.

Move forward a few years to when I lived with my dad on a small (very small) property out of town.  It was much easier to find hate for those birds when they would sit outside your window cawing as soon as the sun looked to be coming up.  As a teenager I loathed them because they robbed me of my most important thing. Sleep.  Before I even moved in with my dad and step-mum they had already taught Cody the poodle to chase those damn crows.  He was effective at scattering them, but they always came back.  

One day we were in the yard having a BBQ with some friends, probably whingeing about the crows, when we spot a couple behaving rather oddly down the back of the paddock.  One was flying overhead and the other was hopping along the ground, kind of like the bird version of a kangaroo.  It looked ridiculous.  That was, until we noticed what it was hopping at.  It was actively chasing a western brown snake out of our yard. It was really hard to stop Cody from trying to murder the crows. Pun intended.

Jump forward another few years to this morning.  On the way to work I always see crows, they seem to love hanging around my route to work.  I usually give them a mental salute.  Today was no exception.  A couple of crows were cawing out of a mango tree. 'Hey there crows', I would think.  I walked around the corner of the street and startled a crow eating something unidentifiable out of an old Chinese food container. To be honest, it kind of scared me too, he was kind of creepy... weird.  Then I hear it.  So many voices cawing out.  Oh, god. I see it...

At least thirty crows going nuts.  I suddenly feel like it is a scene from The Birds and do what any normal person would do. Film it.  Turns out there is a lady walking down the road supplementing their diet with old bread.  Thank christ. I thought they were there for my soul...

Translations!

Sometimes it is really hard to think of something interesting to post, which is probably why I post so little.  Other times things just fall right into my lap... This is one of those times.  I was shopping for a good moustache for a fancy dress party (as I have a lot of trouble growing one) and got slightly distracted by the amazingness of badly translated trick toy packaging.  I hardly even need to commentate on it, it's that good.

Who can resist something so well marketed.  It did look like something that had just fallen out of a monkeys butt... Aptly named...

Looks pretty straight forward.

Seriously? What? 'If some one takes it for use???'

These look like fun

Seems legit.

A classic for any pranking pro.

But I will be stuffed if I can figure out how the hell you are meant to use it...

Well, that concludes this weeks crazy Asian translations.  I can't believe how entertained I am by such simple things...

What Happens In Vegas...

I know how much you all enjoyed my Wild Cam Vid, so here is another clip brought to you by Carrot TV.

Enjoy!

Just Shoot Me...

So it turns out I haven't finished embarrassing myself just yet.  My brain and body tend to work in a tag team sort of fashion but this time it was aaaaaaall body.

This story starts off with a little bit of history about my hip.  When I was born I had congenital hip displasia, which means that a newborn with this condition either has a dislocated hip or is more prone to dislocation.  There are several treatment options including splints, surgery or, in my case, the double nappy which makes the wearer seem as if they have constantly just left a fresh parcel for mum or dad... 

It wasn't overly hi-tech, but it seemed to do the trick.  Now fast-foward twenty five years.  For the past few years I have noticed a slight ache in my left leg.  Like a responsible adult I have ignored the crap out of it until it started impacting my life.  When it is at it's peak I get such a pain that I have trouble walking.  That seems to be the threshhold for getting something done and no longer ignoring it.  I have had a bunch of doctors visits and seen an orthopaedic surgeon or two and it turns out that I have trochanteric tendanopathy and bursitis... = Lots of stupid pain + lots of money spent.

Anyway, I am in the process of getting it all sorted with lots of needles and physio.  In the mean time I need to earn a wage to pay for all the crap it needs.  Unfortunately it turns out a leg is pretty important when it comes to working so I have had to have some days off.  Yesterday I was determined to make it to work and get me some dough.

It was a lovely shift, I was chatting with patients and their families.  It was about three hours in and I had just helped my patient into the toilet and was giving her some privacy.  I shut the door, turned around and took about two steps.  Fuck, I thought, I can't walk.  The pain was shooting in my hip joint so I stood there, on one leg looking about for someone to rescue me!

One of my nursey friends walks down the hall and stops and just looks at me.  I can see his head turning to the side like a puppy who doesn't understand why eating dirt is bad.  Once I tell him what is going on all hell breaks loose!  There are nurses coming at me from all directions!  A couple run out the back and get an office chair so they can get me out the back and out of the hall, running into a couple of bookshelves on my way in!  One of my nursey friends is hugging me, giving me tissues (I wasn't crying!), offering me tea and coffee and crouching down in front of me.... I was waiting for her to throw herself at me in a hug again!

I can feel everyone staring at me, doctors included... Soon I am given a hot pack and I am getting a cab called.  One of the nurses scampers in and hands me hot packs and pain killers like a convert special ops and pretty soon they are organising a wheel chair for me.

Can I point out that at this time EVERYONE KNOWS what is going on.  I am told jokingly that there are two options, they can send me home in a cab or they can put me in a bed but that means that some one has to do swabs... And one of them goes up your nose, just imagine where the other one goes... Not to mention the jokes about if I were a horse and all...

Eventually they get a wheelchair (The first one was stolen! Who steals a wheelchair, really?) and I am wheeled though the hospital where nurses I don't even know are asking me what happened! One of them says to me 'You know the place is in trouble when the nursing staff are in the wheelchairs!'

All in all it was waaaay more excitement than I had planned for the day.  The worst part will be going back to work on Sunday...

Patient Zero

As you may or may not know by now, I am a nurse.  It wasn't a life long ambition or a secret dream.  In fact, it kind of came at me out of the blue.


After doing time at McDonald's I had landed a job with Council Laboratory where I was able to fulfill the dream of being a Lab Assistant.  I loved the hell out that job, but unfortunately it was only a one year contract with no promises of renewal. So, when my contract had done its time and no position had become available, I applied for a job as a Lab Assistant with a pathology company.

It was a job any old monkey could do and with the bullying from a coworker I pretty much hated everything to do with it.  So boy and I quit our jobs and tried to make it in Tasmania.  While it was pretty there, jobs were few and far between.. Three months of me staying at home playing video games came and went so we decided to pack it all back up and move back to Queensland.

I managed to get a job doing the exact thing I hated except it was now in Brisbane.  The people were much nicer and, although I was much happier in this new position, I could still feel I was missing something.

All day every day I scanned barcodes, typed codes and processed samples.  The tedium was almost too much to bare.  The job was so monotonous that the only thing that kept me going was thinking about the people whose blood I was processing.  The lab was a part of a hospital with a large oncology ward so we quickly became familiar with the regulars details.  I never saw any patients, just names, dates of birth, addresses and tests.

Sometimes my colleagues and I would imagine actually meeting the patients.  We would talk about them as if we knew them closely, even though we had never even laid eyes on them.  People with interesting names of dates of birth were the favourite.  'Hello John Smith, sixth of the sixth sixty-six' we would say as we processed the specimens.  I can still remember a few of them.

But there was one.  I don't know why, but I always remembered him.  I often wondered how he was going and how his day was.  I would wonder if I had ever met him in the hall and smiled hello only to never know it was him. This went on for weeks - months.

Then one day I came into work.  There was paperwork sitting on the sorting bench.  As I picked it up I realised they were blood test results.  All over the page there were numbers highlighted in bold.  It was his test results.  I was no expert, but I knew enough to know what had happened.  There was no way he made it another day after that night.

After work I went home and cried for the man I had never met and now would never meet.  Not because I thought I could have saved him or anything like that.  Not because I thought I was better than any of the nurses caring for him already... but because... I don't even know.  Because I could have given him a smile or a kind word.  Perhaps I could have done something meaningful instead of punching numbers.

I know now that day was the day I decided to be a nurse.  On a day like today, where a patient thanks me so much for just calling their loved one to say they are out of theatre... or smiles at me because I smiled at them, I think of Patient Zero.  A man who died so I could finally understand I needed to be a nurse.

Valentine's Day

My boyfriend and I have never been big fans of Valentine's day.  Our feeling has always been that if you love some one then you shouldn't need an excuse like Valentine's Day to show it: it should be a year round thing.  That and the fact that people waste sooooo much money on commercial things - flowers, chocolates and poorly constructed plush animals from sweat shops in China - when they miss the whole point of a day like that. 

I have always felt that Valentine's Day was a kind of cop out, a commercial sell out and have never had any part of it (not the giving part anyway), so I was glad to find that my boyfriend felt the same way.  I am also sick of all the *I love you forever, honeybun! xoxo* rubbish you see on FB - I feel like I am in that diner in Pulp Fiction - except without Samuel L. Jackson to sort those annoying lovebirds out...

Well, that was until I walked in the door tonight.  This morning I got a kiss and a cuddle (with my eyes still firmly clamped together) before boyfriend went off to work.  I had a good day at work, followed by a late night gym session.  Exhausted, I dragged myself in my front door.  On the steps sat a flower. The most wonderful flower I have ever seen in my life.  Eat your heart out flower shops!!!!

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It is a paper daffodil (my most favourite ever flower in the whole world!) made by the sweetest and most loving boy I have ever known.  So, even though I normally do not partake in such a public show of lovey dovieness, I dedicate this Substitute Carrot post to my wonderful boyfriend because I love him more than anything! And also because I do not have the patience to spend 2hrs working out how to make a daffodil out of cardboard like him.


xoxo
Hambo :)

Welcome to 2012 - Year of the Zombie

Merry Christmas, happy new year and what ever else I have missed out on since my vacay from the Carrot.  I must admit that I had grand intentions of posting Christmas and New Year stories but turns out that Tasmania is quite behind the times when it comes to internet access so here I am blogging back on the mainland.

So 2012 is the year of the Zombie apparently.  Last year I was involved with filming for a project called The Public Zombie Announcements.  Check it out! Below are a few set pictures as well as the two episodes that have been released so far. Enjoy!

So click on these links to see the episodes and please share them with your friends, on your blogs WITH THE WORLD!

Episode 1: Unlife After Death

Episode 2: How Not To Kill Yo' Zombie Self