Going crazy?

I just experienced something out of a movie... 

I am currently visiting my mum at her home in Tasmania, where she has two cats: a black cat, Milo, and a white and ginger cat, Honey.  Honey loves people, but hates other cats (she is the runaway you may have read about on mum's facebook).  Milo usually sleeps on the end of mum's bed, and is very skittish around new people (which includes me, since it's been almost 5 years since I was living at home).

Today I just went downstairs to look at the little room there, when I saw a black cat.  The cat was immediately skittish and ran away a little upon my entry, but stopped to look at me. Mum has mentioned Milo has a look-alike in the neighbourhood called "Yugi" who sometimes ventures into the house, so I wasn't entirely sure if it was Milo or not (especially since she already looks like a strange giant mutant compared to my Melbourne housemate, Tinkerbell the little cat).

I call out to the cat, but it starts to run away.  Well, Milo's been running away from me already, so that's no clue.  I notice it is wearing a collar, which is a good sign, but I'm sure not sure if it's Milo...her face looks just a little different...  After pausing a few more times along the way the cat finally runs out the door into the garage.  I decide to follow and step through the doorway into the garage when, to my surprise, I'm suddenly looking at TWO black cats of equal size, both looking guiltily over their shoulders as they decide whether or not to run away.  "Ooooh," I say, "I see how it is!! A secret romantic rendezvous?"  I shake my head.

I look over to the garage door, and noticing that it is closed I realise that one of these cats is not ours and is therefore locked in.  I go and open the door a little off the ground.  "Okay, well...whichever one of you doesn't belong, out you go!" A few moments later the cat wearing the collar emerges from behind the car, heading for the gap under the roller-door.  "So you're not Milo?" I ask.  But then emerges the other black cat, not with a collar, which meows and doesn't sound like Milo.  "Wait, you're the one who's not Milo!" Well they both head out the door, so I figure either way they can both go outside, and shut the garage door behind them.

I had just headed back upstairs moments later, when in the hallway black cat emerges from mum's room.  This must be the real Milo!  "Waaaaait a minute....if you're in here, then...."  I run to the front window to look out and sure enough, there are two black cats leisurely lying on the driveway.  "That means....three? There are three identical black cats in this neighbourhood?"

This is usually the part in the movie where the person tears their hair out, laugh giddily, then run off to the funny farm.

I opted to shut the back door to stop Milo from running out and joining them, before I got too confused again!

By the way, I'm famous.

I've been a little busy with uni as of late *cough*understatement*cough*, but I've been meaning to update you on the NAB Letter Saga.

Well, turns out a journalist came across my blog and contacted me (in about 5 different ways, might I add!) and asked if they could interview me for a story on this letter campaign.  

So after some consideration (I've never been contacted by a journalist before!) I agreed and explained my motivations further and answered a couple of questions.

You can find the result published at the Daily Mail Australia here:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2712766/NAB-marketing-campaign-slammed-social-media.html

A great thing about corresponding through email is that they spelt my name right!  One of the many virtues of copy-and-paste.

They quote several people in the article, but it appears to me that I was the primary informant!  *Buffs nails*

So there you have it.  Some say posting your opinion on your blog will have no effect whatsoever, and a lot of the time that may be true.  But you never know - you may just make the national news.

I did!


(A few snippets shown below)

The Response

The response from my readers on here and on Facebook of my last post was an overwhelming 'yes' and so, I have written and sealed up that sucker ready to be posted.  

Do I expect a response?  Not at all.  Except perhaps a few giggles from the mail-workers.  I might even make their Wall of Fame, if I'm lucky.  But I doubt if my letter will even make it to management.

Did it feel good to write and send that?  Oh, yes.  I know such advertising is that pest that will never go away, and yet I do believe in consumer voice - and that it only takes a few voices for the big guys to make some changes.  I hope they will think twice before pulling that one again.  Especially since they're clearly a bunch of money-hungry vultures, to suggest that getting a credit card is a feasible way to keep impulsive spending under control - someone needs to put them in their place.  Yes, some people do feel a credit card is necessary, but they could at least market it with realistic reasons.

But at the end of the day, even if no one of import ever reads my reply, I still believe it's important to take a stand sometimes. 

We are entitled to an opinion, and we do not have to be silent.

You're messing with the wrong woman...

Today I received this letter in the mail, along with an unsolicited credit card application from NAB.  This is how it read.

A note from the desk of 

Mari-Anna's Sensible Side

Hello again,

I know I've been nagging over the years about ways to manage your spending.  But as your sensible side, I just need to tell you about a letter that recently caught my attention.  And I think you'll enjoy the benefits.

I've already given it a once-over and in short, this new NAB credit card offer will provide some welcome breathing space.  All things considered, it's just what we need to get your finances, and impulsive side, under control.

The sensible thing to do now is to give me the role of Chief Financial Officer and ask your impulsive side to step aside.

Best regards,

Your Sensible Side.

P.S.  With me in charge you don't have to completely ignore your impulsive side - you can still have fun.


And so, I thought I should give them the courtesy of a reply, to be posted back in the reply paid envelope included.  This is what it says:

Dear NAB,

I received this piece of mail from you today, and frankly, I found it rather insulting!  I am sure you were trying to be humorous, but I am afraid you missed the mark.  Firstly, to imply that I do not know how to manage my own finances responsibly, and even worse, to suggest that I would consider getting a credit card to be sensible!  How little intelligence do you think I have?  Do you know how many Australians are currently weighed down with credit card debts that they are unsure of ever being able to repay?  But of course you do, and that is why you are trying to milk me for all the interest you can.  Unfortunately for you, I already have enough savings to warrant never getting a credit card, and all the breathing space I need, because I know how to be sensible with my finances.  So I am afraid you and your Greedy Side have lucked out on this one. 

I would appreciate it if you would refrain from attaching my name to such nonsense in the future. 

Sincerely,

Mari-Anna and her Sensible Side.

P.S. My Impulsive Side suggested I write this letter - see, we already have plenty of fun.


Now the question is...shall I send it?

The Waiting Game...and Random Dreams!

It's amazing what happens to the brain when we are facing a suspenseful moment.  Today the long-awaited (4 months of waiting to be exact...4 months!!) first round offers from VTAC (Victoria Tertiary Admissions Centre) were available online from 7am my time.  Sure, I was dying to know if I got an offer and to which university so I could start planning the next phase of my life, but so far I had been surprisingly calm.  No point getting worked up as it wouldn't make me know any faster!

Calm, that is, until about 6:30am this morning.  Or perhaps a little before.  Because long after 6:30am, I woke up and checked my clock to see how much time had passed.  It was 6:30am.  D'oh!  I'd only dreamt I'd checked the clock before.  Okay, 30 mins to go... I close my eyes....

Next thing I know, I've got a letter in my hands.  I eagerly open it.  It looks like a uni offer!!  I begin reading... "We are pleased to offer a place to study at our university to..."  Wait...that's not my name!  That's someone else's name!  They've put someone else's offer letter in my envelope!  Oh man... does that mean I got an offer then or not?!

At this point I find myself at the house of some friends.  Well, actually, I've never met these people...but they are a couple whose blog I have been reading recently, so I guess I feel like I kind of know them.  And they were hilarious!  They knew I was stressing in trying to find out, so they came up with so many random funny things to keep the mood light and make me laugh.   For example, they were doing the tango around their living room, with very "serious" faces, whilst continuing to converse with me on the subject.  They let me use their computer to try to log onto the website to see if there's any offers there (which is the actual way of checking offers today), but there were more hold-ups - website down...wrong password...logged in, but can't find anything etc.  I remember their teenage daughter comes in and they're like "Not now, Mari-Anna's trying to find out if she got accepted at uni - quick, say something encouraging!"

Throughout this I wake up several times - each time surprised that the above-mentioned events hadn't actually happened, and that it still wasn't even almost 7!  Man, this 30 minutes is taking forEVER!

Enter Matt Damon.  You know, an old friend of mine.  (I think my brain was running out of ideas to stall me.)  "Mari-Anna!  We're working on this new movie!  You've totally gotta be in it."  Um, I dunno Matt, I mean I kinda got some other plans for this year... "Oh come on!  It's gonna be great, how can you turn it down?  Look at this script!"  Well...um...

With all these distractions compounded, things were getting pretty crazy.  I think my brother even came along, and I'm like "Hey...you know Matt...we were just discussing a new movie."  Grin :D

Well, I don't remember much detail after that, but FINALLY it was past 7am - for real - and...I was too nervous to check after all that drama!  What if there's not an offer for me?  What if something went wrong with the application?  What if I get accepted, but not by the university I wanted?  Do I accept their offer, or wait for round 2 (or 3 or 4)?  What if I was offered a different course?

Finally I mustered up the courage to have a look.  I enter my VTAC ID and PIN.  "Your user ID is incorrect."  D'oh!  Try again, this time without the accidental space in the front, which had eliminated the last number.  Success!  I'm in.  Now what?  Um....oh, messages!  Right.  One new message!  Hold breath.  Click.

"Congratulations! The University of Melbourne is pleased to offer you a place in 2014. An email will be sent to you with information about how to enrol." 

I can't believe it!  I got into my preferred university for the exact course I wanted!

Return to calm, feeling as though a huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders.

Life is good :)

Snake Dreams

Okay, here's something really weird...

Last night I dreamt about snakes.  Lots and lots of snakes.  They were kind of ever-present no matter what was happening in the dream - or in other words, no matter where I went, or what other themes took over for a while, it would always end up back at the grassy beach with the snakes.

Upon waking, I thought it would be fun to look up what dream analysts have to say about snakes, even though I'm not usually very convinced by their theories.

It was after this that two weird things happened.

First, I opened up Google and started typing "dreaming..." I hadn't even finished when the autocomplete suggestions popped up, and the very first one said "dreaming of snakes".  Um...yes! Do people not dream about anything else?  Freaky!  

So I click on that and open the first page that grabs my eye.  And then one of the first things I read says: "Snakes or serpents indicate you’re in a period of transition."

Um...yes!  If you consider "transition" to include preparing to move countries, then immediately move to a new, big city to study at University again 9 years after graduating and 7 years in the workforce, that is.

Freeeeaky.  

There are many more interpretations available, but that was one of the first that I read.  Two strange coincidences.

Not that I'm particularly adverse to snakes (as my brother can attest, with a rather amusing story from our school days).  In the dream I wasn't seized with fear, or screaming or running away.  I was cautious, but still went about my business.  Actually near the start, when I first saw all the snakes, someone was helping me try to get rid of them and showed me that when she put a box down a snake crawled up into it and then coiled up and bound itself into a neat little bundle.  So I tried it, and sure enough, another snake did the same thing.  Perhaps that means some things in my transition will just "fall into place"?  I think it was after seeing the snakes cooperate that I stopped worrying so much about there being snakes everywhere, and just decided to leave them as is.   

Anyway, there you have it.  That should fill your weirdness quota for today!

Me and my olive python friend in Darwin

Wear Me Out

So, just how many ways are there of saying "wear" in Japanese?  Well, allow me to illustrate, with a little help from "cool guy"*.  

*Please note that I cannot draw shoes.  And notice the legacy badge and odd socks, showing this guy is totally into supporting his community.  He is also wearing blush, for the sake of illustration.  What a trooper.

Okay, here we go:

So what's the answer then?  Nine.  There are at least 9 words in Japanese for the English verb "to wear".  Is there any wonder why I'm having trouble keeping up?

Standby Me

First, here's some theme music to listen to whilst you read this post:

This morning I had yet another morning standby stint for work.  

Last time, through a bit of positive (and realistic) thinking, I made a small break-through in coping with this experience, basically lessening the anxiety aspect.  My goals this time were:
*  No complaining;  and
*  Just accept and prepare for the fact I will be sent out.

I'm happy to say I achieved my goal!  I had told myself I would be sent out, in fact I would be sent out first (as usual), and it would be an elementary school with 5-6 classes.  With this in mind, I had reviewed and studied elementary school lesson plans and consolidation activities, as I still run out of ideas quickly when put on the spot.  And I thus told myself it would be okay.

But actually.......*drumroll please*.........







I got sent out THIRD!  AND I lasted in the office until 8am!  That's the longest I've survived the sudden-death game that is Morning Standby.   I couldn't believe it.  Seems my luck may finally be changing!

The second bit of good news is I got sent to a Junior High School!  Yay!  I think the morning standby staff are trying to be a little merciful to me in the fact that if they know they have a JHS assignment they'll give it to me first, as that's my area of expertise (technically I was sent out third, but it seems they received all 3 assignments at the same time).  I was pretty happy with that!

So I was given all the lesson plan papers, and the maps and the train directions (4 trains to get to my assignment).  I was told the first period lesson would have to cut as I wouldn't be able to be there in time, and that the teacher at the school was apparently a bit upset or angry about that.  (Apparently no one had informed them the teleportation machine has not  yet been invented.)

When I got to the school though, I found no angry people, which was great.  I taught 3 lessons during the day, and with a combination of Interac's lesson plans, preparation time during the remainder of 1st period, and collaboration with the Japanese teachers, they all went pretty smoothly.  The two teachers I worked with were very nice and helpful.  The class sizes were quite small (especially compared to the usual classes of 38ish students at my schools).  And the students were, as usual, funny and easy to work with.  Japanese teenagers?  I got it down.  Like a boss.  Many were excited to talk to me, even outside of class (including a couple of girls very excited to hear I knew of Justin Bieber). 

The students had fun asking me questions after my self-introductions, including one 9th grade boy who asked (with the help of the teacher, funnily) "Can I be your boyfriend?"  I told him sorry, I'm 29 and I need an older guy!  He was a little disappointed.  "Just one day?"  Nope, I don't do 'one day' - sorry!  "One minute?" Nope!  It was funny.

Overall it was a relatively stress-free and pleasant experience.  The only unpleasant part, really, was when I got a toe-cramp mid lesson!  Ouchies!  Luckily I was facing the blackboard at the time, but my poor train drawing that was  in progress was consequently ruined due to my being in such pain!  Realising I had to hand out the worksheets next I tried not to show it in my face as I hobbled around, and thankfully it was short-lived!

And so, I have thus survived once again, and even progressed in my quest to overcome the bane of my existence as an ALT in Japan.  

Avast, mateys! It be Talk Like A Pirate Day, savvy!

Ahoy, ye landlubbers!  Today be September 19th and it be International Talk Like A Pirate Day.  I not be kiddin' yar.  If ye have not yet heard of ITLAPD, check out this link on t' Wikipedia.  As we all be knowin', if it be on Wikipedia, it be legit.  There also be an official ITLAPD website, for all yer piratey needs.

So, why should ye be talkin' like a pirate?  'Cause it be fun!!! I ain't be much good at it, arr, but I enjoy it nevertheless.

On this culturally enrichin' day, thar be a perrrfect way for ye to join in.  It be changin' yer Facebook language to "English (Pirate)".  If ye be a firrrst-timer, I'll show yar how!

First, ye be clickin' on the cog in the top right corner tharr, and click on "Account Settings".

Next, ye be clickin' on "Edit" next to "Language", and choose from th' drop-down box "English (Pirate)".  It be amazin' the many options there arr for English!

Arrrfter ye click "Save Changes", ye should be seein' results immediately:

Then ye just need ter do some explorin' and enjoy th' fine linguistic changes, which break th' monotony of th' averrrrage day!  This is what me personal page now be lookin' like:

Ye should be seein' gems, such as "Amend yer particulars" (update info), "Log o' adventures" (activity log), "Scour fer scallywags, islands or general thingies" (Search for people, places or things), "Arr!" (like), "Weigh in" (comment), "Blabber t' yer mates" (share), and "Me Hearties" (friends).

Even yer little pop-up boxes and notifications be much more interestin'!

Even th' simple things such as likin' a post be more excitin'!

If ye be worried about findin' yer way home after yer grand pirate adventure, fear not!  I be givin' ye th' treasure map now.  Click on that wee cog in th' top right corner again, and choose "Ye Ship's Rigging".

Then ye be clickin' "Mend th' sails", next to "Tongue", and choose ye yer preferrrred language, and seal th' deal with "Stow Changes".  

So, what say ye, yer scallywags!!  Will ye give it a real pirrrrate go?  Well, if ye don't at least give it a hearty try, I and th' crew be sending ye down to Davy Jones' locker!!  Arrrr!!!

If ye need some help shoutin' like a scurvy pirate, I also found 'tis great scurvy pirate translator! 

May yer day be entir'ly unmonotonous, and randomly entertainin'!  Well enough talkin' from me.....swab the deck, yar scallywags!!

My Life In Memes

 Here's a few memes created recently from events in my life.  Because it's just fun to express things this way.

 I had this problem recently when I was applying for university and realised I had to make that choice here and now!  I do really like chemistry,but...truth be told, it wasn't my best subject.  But science just seemed so....general.  I wasn't all that thrilled with science in grade 7 when we were just learning general stuff.  Well, I ended up choosing chemistry because I'd studied that for 2 years at university (well, technically 3 if you count the year I repeated it...:S), and was told by someone in the know that I could still teach science anyhow with that qualification if I chose.  But it was quite a dilemma at the time!

It hasn't happened for a few weeks, but when I hear strange and faint screaming noises from outside I'm often faced with this question.  Are there children screaming? (Admittedly I'm sure they're playing, not being tortured).  Or is that actually just the sound of a cat fight?

This has happened to me a lot lately.  I live in Tokyo and I don't have a car.  Which means a lot of walking to and from the train stations, and just around in general.  Fashion is rather a big thing here, and you often see women wearing the most uncomfortable shoes!  I'm not so into fashion that I'm willing to sacrifice all comfort.  So lately I've been looking for shoes that are a little more fashionable, but still comfortable.  And I thought I found them!  They felt so comfortable when I tried them on at the shoe shop.  But alas, once put to the real test, I have often discovered they are still uncomfortable.  Needless to say I have a lot of blisters right now.  I'm hoping things will improve once they are "broken in" a little more.

The Haircut Update

As you may remember, I recently publicly declared that I would be taking the plunge and getting my hair cut soon here in Japan, for the first time.  The main reason for the haircut was because my fringe done in Australia this year had already grown out and I felt my hair looked a bit drab with these random outgrown layers.  I thought it could do with a healthy trim too.

My first attempt at this was unsuccessful due to the chosen hairdresser being closed when I showed up (oops).  I was planning to reattempt soon.  However, just a few days later a huge heat wave struck (aka the true summer).  At 35 degrees with high humidity, I suddenly remembered just how much one sweats during the Tokyo summer.  Many Japanese people actually carry around towels, for the express purpose of wiping the sweat off their face and body.  I soon realised that even if I did get a lovely fringe cut, it would just end up stuck to my forehead in random sweat-induced patterns, resulting in me looking like some kind of drowned rat (The Japanese don't seem to have this problem, due to their robust, thick hair holding it's shape much better in these conditions.  I have very thin hair and am not so lucky).

As I have since realised that for the next couple of months I am better off sporting a variety of up-dos to keep the hair off my face and neck (much easier to do without a fringe or layers), the haircut has been postponed until AFTER summer.   

And so instead I am having fun researching new hair ideas (for example, see below) and the sweat is annoying me much less than it did last summer.  Of course, the beautiful cooler weather we've had lately has certainly helped that too! :)

So, ladies and gentlemen, that is The Update.

When you're bored late at night...

...you learn fascinating things about the science and history of...GLITTER!  One of my favouritest things.

Taken from Wikepedia (the source of all knowledge):

Glitter describes an assortment of very small, flat, and reflective particles. When these particles are applied to surfaces, they each reflect light in different angles causing the surface to sparkle or glitter. Glitter is similar to, but smaller than, confetti or sequins. Glitter has been produced and used decoratively since prehistoric times from many different materials including mica, insects, glass, and now plastic.

Today over 20,000 varieties of glitter are manufactured in a vast number of different colors, sizes, and materials. Commercial glitter ranges in size from 0.002"² (50 microns) to 0.25"² (6250 microns). First, flat multi-layered sheets are produced combining plastic, coloring, and reflective material such as aluminium, titanium dioxide, iron oxide, and bismuth oxychloride. These sheets are then cut into tiny particles of many shapes including squares, rectangles, and hexagons.

The first production of modern glitter has been sometimes been credited to American cattle farmer and machinist, Henry Ruschmann, shortly after the start of WWII. With German glass glitter unavailable due to the war, Ruschmann found a market for scrap material ground into glitter made of plastics. He founded Meadowbrook Inventions, Inc. in Bernardsville New Jersey, and the company is still a major producer of industrial glitter today.

Isn't it fascinating what we can learn?

If I only had an oven...

They say you don't know what you've got until it's gone.  Well, they are absolutely right.  

Last year I had an oven in my apartment (and also the last 10 years or so at home).  I can probably count the number of times I used it that year on one hand.  Maybe two.  And yet, here in Tokyo I find myself in a teeny-tiny apartment with a "kitchenette" and no oven. 

Oh, the things I could do if I had an oven!  I could make a pavlova, or ANZAC biscuits.  I could cook roast potatoes and pumpkin with gravy.  I could try that recipe I found on Pinterest for homemade muesli bars.  I could bake cakes, muffins or banana bread.  I could make apple crumble!  Oh the humanity!

I'm not pretending that I used to do all those things when I actually had an oven.  

But let's just say I'm looking forward to the day when I, once again, have an oven in my life.  Because I now know what life is like without one.  

Cue the violins.

Why, Oh Why?

Hello my dearest readers.  Today I am featured as a guest blogger on Random Japan, a blog by my lovely and humorous Irish friend, Ciara!  She invited me to write about the reasons why I came to Japan.  So if you'd like to have a read of this amazingly profound post, head on over by clicking the photo below.

Gone Viral

Several months ago, back when I was living in Tasmania and we were having a long, hot summer (hard for you all to imagine now, I'm sure), I wrote a post which featured a poem entitled "Hare In Summer".  Instead of the hare photo you see there now, I had opted for a photo of the blue sky, with a hint of clouds and a bright, glaring sun in the corner.  Well... what I didn't know at the time was that this post would soon go viral.  

It took a bit of time, actually, and was definitely not an instantaneous result, but after some weeks had passed, I noticed its popularity dramatically increase.  I knew this through the statistics feature on blogspot, where you can see how many views each of your post have had over various periods of time.  But I knew somehow that it wasn't my amazingly interesting and witty post that attracted such attention, but alas, it was this rather plain, yet rather sought after image of the sun (I won't post the photo here or we'll have the same problem over again!).  With the stats feature also showing the source of each view, it was clear that google searches such as "sky with sun", "sun sky", "hot sun sky" and "sky images with sun" where indeed the culprit, and that most of the views would not have yielding in anyone actually reading the amazingly brilliant blog post text.

I'm not sure what it was exactly that made this photo so popular.   Perhaps the recent solar eclipse.  Perhaps the northern hemisphere summer.  Perhaps global warming (we can blame that for everything, right?).  But once the stats went up, they did not come back down.  

To give you a little taste of what I have been seeing:

Today - 13 views;

The last week - 208 views;

The last month - 887 views;

All time (since 29th Jan 2012) - 2,606 views.

My total blog views, including this figure, is 5,005.   So in other words, this post got more views that my other 45 posts combined.

So anyway, recently I decided it was time to do something, and today I finally took that photo off my blog. Goodbye popularity.  Goodbye fame.  Goodbye false sense of achievement.

Hello again, my 13 dedicated followers ;)

Practise makes perfect...or does it?

It seems I have this strange ability to get better at my talents by not practising for a long time!  Take piano for example.  I would practise and practise and make only minimal progress and improvement, but after a few months of not playing a song I would sit down at the piano and suddenly play it better than ever!  So it also seems with juggling.  It was many months ago that I started teaching myself to juggle, close to a year ago even.  It took a lot of practise to get anywhere, but slowly, slowly the number of consecutive catches increased.  I think my absolute highest record may have been 18.  Well here I am a long time later without even touching the juggling balls.  I get back from the beach one afternoon, and with three tennis balls in my hands I think to myself "I wonder..."  And voila!  I can suddenly juggle!  I didn't count how many I caught as I wasn't expecting such success, I couldn't believe that I just kept going!  But my rough estimate is about 30.  Just like that!  Weird.

From the Mouth of a Donkey

Had a little scare yesterday when I looked at my blog and it appeared that 2 followers had abandoned me overnight! That was 30% of my total followers, gone at the same time!  Turned out to be a false alarm, but it inspired me to post this little clip...

If you would like to cheer me up, please become a follower by hitting the "Join this site" button on the right hand side of the page ---------->

And a big thank you to my 6 lovely dedicated followers :)

Introducing Will: The Local Lindisfarne Goat

Once upon a time (a few weeks ago) in a land far away (my neighbourhood of Lindisfarne), I was out taking a walk.  I walked a different way to what I usually did, just for a change.  As I was walking along the street I noticed a sign which started with "My name is Will, I like eating."  As I kept walking I thought, what a weird sign!! As I looked over my shoulder I also thought wait, was that a tennis court?? Out of curiosity I turned back to have a look, and noticed something white and fluffy moving hear the fence.  I was wondering if this was some kind of vicious scary dog or something, but as I got closer I realised - it was a goat!  His enclosure looks like it once was a small tennis court, but is now overgrown with grass. So just like the sign said, I got some green leafy branches from outside of the fence and fed it to the Will, which he chomped right up with a happy grin.  I couldn't believe it, a goat in Lindisfarne!! How random.  I was pretty delighted with my new friend.  I have been back a few times to visit, including the time I took a bag of grassy weeds from mum's garden which he ate right up by the hand-full (as pictured below), and seemed quite disappointed to learn there wasn't any more.  Whenever I leave he always says goodbye - or maybe it's "Where are you going? Come baaaaaack!"

It burrrrrrrns....

Today at work I was unfairly attacked by an evil cup of noodles.  I had taken off the lid, put in the flavour sachets and filled the cup with hot filtered water, just like I have done on many previous occasions, and was carrying it over to the table, when suddenly my hand was wet and it burrrrrrned!! Ow!! I managed to make it to the table to put them down, but decided I had better minimise the damage A-SAP and so I put it under running cold water for a while.  The following picture shows what my hand looked like after this:

Can you see the spill mark?? Ouch! I made sure I kept my hand cold through the afternoon by applying a bit more cold water when needed.  By some miracle (and prayer) the redness had cleared up in a few hours time when I left work this afternoon, and you can now barely notice it at all.  In fact, aside from the initial burn I felt very little pain. Very different from my last experience of hot water burn...yes, there's been more than one (a few years back now).  Last time the burn area was much smaller, but it hurt so much it was nearly unbearable!  So in the end I was pretty blessed this time to escape a similar fate.  In revenge, I ate the evil noodles.

So the moral of this story is: don't overfill your noodle cup!

The burgers probably ARE better at Hungry Jacks...

So I was running a little late the other week, and decided to grab dinner from Macca's.  So I ordered a quarter pounder through the drive through and when I took it out of the box to eat, it looked like this.  Someone didn't slap that thing together properly!