Temple of the Archangle Pythagoras

11:36 am.

determined.

Triple J.

I was dreading returning to work and it seems my dread was justified. By all account last week was a total mess, with one colleague deciding at the last minute to extend her holiday by a week with only an email sent to the manager, who was also on leave. So last week the office was on half staff, and down to only two one day when another girl was sick. As a result there's shitloads to get done and I just don't have the energy. I'm sick of this.

I was feeling pretty crappy all weekend, thinking about work. I'm heartily sick of not being able to stop thinking about work on weekends. Even a good weekend of football couldn't stop it! The youth team won 0-3 in Gosford, the senior team had a 3-4 win also in Gosford, and bloody hell, what a game that was to watch, even just on TV. Any game where seven goals are scored is a good one, as long as the team I'm supporting scores more than half of them. Well, actually Central Coast scored four of the seven, but since one of them went into their own net I won't complain. And then of course the women's team won their semifinal at Ballymore on penalties, with Casey Dumont saving two. I would have preferred that one to be over at the end of regular time because holy crap, Ballymore Stadium is a flaming piece of shit and I was sick to death of sitting in it. My arse was going numb down one side and the stadium was full of kids. The problem there is that with kids come parents, and parents (my friends who have kids excepted of course :-P) have to be among the most boring people in the world. I'm sure they're behind the Fun Police at most sporting venues.

Anyway, back to the original topic, which was hating work. I've been sitting at home for the last week thinking about my life and the parts of it that suck, and as a result I've come up with a list of things I'm going to do this year to try to make stuff better. Not New Year's Resolutions, because that makes them seem grander than they really are, and with that inflated importance comes inflated expectations, and that means I'm more likely to fail. I'm also not going to put in anything which is dependent on others, such as 'find a new job' or anything too nebulous such as 'find direction in life'. So here are some things I'm going to do this year.

Stuff To Make My Life Suck Less
- Play less netball this year, and take a total break from coaching, no matter how desperate for coaches my club and association are.
- Take language classes through IML at UQ - German or Greek or both.
- Find something, anything, to do to lose weight that is fun. Suggestions welcomed. I hate gyms. This is a problem.
- Save more, spend less. Goals are Iceland-Estonia-Finland-Italy 2010, and Brazil 2014 for the World Cup.
- Get a passport. It will make foreign travel just that little bit closer.

Will add more things as I think of them.

1 companion | keep me company

11:54 pm.

lethargic.

Portishead - Anthony's playing it in the bedroom.

OMG you guys all write too much. It took me AGES to catch up on a week or so of entries! I'm not sure what to write about since most of the last week and a bit has been spent with other people, who have already LJed about it, but to recap...

Flew to Melbourne with Anthony on NYE. The first thing he did upon checking into the hotel was go to the gym. *eyeroll* I settled into the hotel room (read: scattered the contents of my luggage all over the room in a search for a change of clothes I didn't hate) and enjoyed the free broadband while waiting for his lordship to return. We wandered around a bit before meeting up with

augustuscaesar, who took us for Nepalese food and then to

charliequinn's house, where the meeting of new people happened without the world exploding (with Anthony involved, IT COULD HAPPEN). The presence of cats probably helped. :-D

NYD was spent walking around doing not a lot, before meeting Jamie and Jen on Lygon St for dinner. That was quite an experience. We ate first at a restaurant that ran out of bread, WTF, but which also gave us two free bottles of wine, so we called that one a win overall. Then we decided to go elsewhere in pursuit of dessert, and this one was a definite loss. The staff inside hadn't heard of the dessert the man out the front promised, they ran out of ice-cream and the wrong orders were brought. The only thing that restaurant did right was the port, and that's because it's pretty hard to stuff up pouring your basic Penfolds Tawny into some glasses.

On Friday I ditched Anthony (who went to the gym, surprise surprise) for Jamie and Jen again and the three of us went to see the Old Melbourne Gaol, which was a definite highlight of the trip. Not as creepy or solemn as parts of Port Arthur, but utterly fascinating, very well put together and researched and home of one of the best tacky souvenir shops I have ever encountered. I bought: one bright orange souvenir mug, a Ned Kelly fridge magnet, a little plush Ned Kelly on a keyring, a pair of thumb cuffs for Ben, a pair of Ned Kelly earrings for Mum, four postcards and a set of Melbourne Gaol playing cards. I LOVE STUPID SOUVENIRS OMG.

After the Gaol Anthony and I went to the pub across the road from our hotel and engaged in some drinking with the few Roar fans in town for the match and approximately 822165987524 Victory fans. Most of the Melbourne fans were pretty cool, which I say based entirely on the fact that one of them was wearing a silly hat. The match itself sucked - the away supporters' section at Telstra Dome has probably the worst view in the world and we lost, so really nothing good there. Then back to the pub for more drinking with the opposition fans. To their credit, they hardly gloated at all, presumably because rubbishing Sydney together is much more fun. Top bunch of guys and I will welcome them warmly should they make it up here for a match.

I think I am a jinx on the Roar at away games. Every time I've been to an away game we've lost. I single-handedly ruined our hitherto undefeated away record for this season. D-:

Saturday was probably my favourite day of the trip. Met up with

kitsunegari for brunch then met up with Tara again to try for the Wicked lottery, but didn't have any luck. Doesn't matter, I'll see it in June when I'm down for the WC qualifier against Japan! Anthony went to the gym again, so the three of us went for lunch. We found the most awesome restaurant in Little Bourke St, complete with big fuckoff picture of Mao with "Serve the People" written across it. We actually only went in there because it was painted bright red and it had Mao in the name - how can you pass up something that tacky? Turned out to be an excellent choice. Food was cheap, plentiful and delicious, service was very attentive and wine list markup wasn't too horrendous. While we were sitting there a Falun Gong protest march went by outside - it took a good ten minutes to go by, which is way more impressive than what the Brisbane Falun Gong people can manage. They do three little old ladies sitting in Post Office Square with some signs. Melbourne put on a parade with floats and bands and costumes and very well translated signs - no Engrish at all!

Sunday was spent shopping in the CBD with Anthony, who spent about five hours trying to decide whether to buy a bag or not. Flew home. Collapsed.

Great five days, all in all. We stayed at the Alto Hotel on Bourke St and would recommend it to anyone. We booked on wotif.com and our package included free cooked breakfast each morning, free wireless broadband access and free access to the local Fitness First gyms (which Anthony loved). The staff were really helpful and the room was nice enough. Will definitely stay there again.

I'm really glad I took this week off work. Best thing about it was watching the cricket today! I can't believe Graeme Smith went out to bat with a buggered elbow on one arm and a fractured hand on the other. The South Africans have earned an awful lot of respect this tour, and most of it has been earned single-handedly by this man. I almost wanted them to hold on for the draw, but really I'm pleased that Johnson got him out! Losing the series 2-1 is not quite as bad as losing 2-0.

On the topic of cricket, Mum bought me the Men of Cricket calendar. It has Mitchell Johnson on the front cover and as Mr November. I think it will be November all year in my house.

I'm beginning to dread going back to work and I'm seriously thinking about calling up on Monday morning and just telling them I'm not coming back. I really want to study full time again but it's a bit hard to make it work when I have rent to pay.

Also, someone got raped at my uni the other day so I'm a little hesitant to spend too much time there. Griffith Uni Nathan campus is largely covered with bushland and this is far from the first rape to happen there. Yet another reason to transfer to UQ as soon as possible.

2 companions | keep me company

2:57 pm.

relieved.

triple j.

Forcing myself to write something, because I need to get back into the habit. Christmas was the same as usual - it's not the big thing for my family that it is for some. Due to family Secret Santas my loot list is short but good quality: $75 Borders voucher, new Queensland Roar jersey, an Irvine Welsh book I didn't have yet, a cute little bead rabbit thing from my 12-year-old cousin and a bag of random stuff (wine, new wallet, perfume, book, etc) from Dad.

Most of the Christmas celebrations came in the form of food. Picked Ben up and did the trek to Doolanbloodydella to see Dad on Christmas Eve. Dad had a spread of cold meats and salads, but since my father is who he is, those salads were somewhat odd. In addition to the standard garden salad, we had capsicum/cucumber/cream salad and quite a strange salad of red cabbage and banana. I was dubious, but it actually worked quite well.

Christmas Day saw lunch at Anthony's eldest sister's place - salads again and the BBQ was fired up. I also put together the World's Ugliest Cake Ever - I bought a coffee sponge from the Italian grocer, coated it with whipped cream and grated chocolate on top. Sounds good in theory, which is what I thought, but the cake got squashed and was all lopsided, and getting the cream to go where I wanted it was HARD. We surrounded the bottom of the cake with profiteroles filled with chocolate custard. I think Anthony had as much trouble filling the profiteroles as I had creaming the cake. The kitchen floor was a mess of smashed profiterole cases, which the cat quite enjoyed. Anyway, it tasted bloody nice but oh god, it was monstrously ugly. I believe some photos were taken. I might try to dig some up.

Christmas dinner was at my uncle's house, and again we had cold meats and salad - Craig did a roast chicken and Mum bought some really nice leg ham. Again with the strange salads though. Grandma got her hands on a recipe book, god help us. The mustard potato salad was awesome, as were the watermelon/onion salad, the wombok/noodle salad and the Waldorf salad.

Boxing Day saw yet MORE eating at Anthony's other sister's house. BBQ and salads again. Sane, sensible salads this time, and some awesome German sausages. I spent all afternoon watching the cricket while Anthony beat his sisters at Monopoly. I was very glad to go home to sleep off all the food. I'm still not entirely convinced I need to eat again for at least a month, but I say that every year. When your boyfriend comes from a Greek family, Christmas is a gastronomic adventure of Herculean proportions.

Anyway, it's 3pm and I'm leaving work because I have to pack/iron/wash/worry/leave instructions for care of cat/confirm lift to airport/do last minute shopping in preparation for being in Melbourne tomorrow! Drop me a message on Facebook if you will be in Melbourne over the next five days and want to meet up - schedule isn't totally filled yet!

keep me company

1:08 pm.

flat.

Token update just to prove I still exist, in case anyone was wondering.

augustuscaesar, I got your card last weekend, THANKYOU! It was a lovely surprise in my PO box. I have just been too forgetful to thank you sooner!

Also, everyone, I'm sorry for being a crap LJ friend. I rarely comment (mostly because I'm shy and think everyone has forgotten me and doesn't want to hear from me, with one or two exceptions) and my entries are boring and sporadic and I'm generally just sorry. I could whinge about work on this thing until the cows come home but I've been told by a number of people IRL that it's tiresome and unpleasant so I won't burden anyone else with it. Last entry aside. I needed to vent, sorry.

So, what's everyone doing for Christmas? Seeing the family, avoiding the family, getting drunk, remembering last year and carefully not getting drunk, anything, everything? Share! I'm bored at work and want distractions. :-)

For the record, I'm seeing my dad and stepfamily probably on Christmas Eve, spending Christmas lunch with Anthony's family, Christmas dinner with Mum's side of the family, then Boxing Day watching the cricket and swimming at Anthony's sister's place. Then driving to Maryborough to eat at la Casa Tina on the 27th, home for the football on the 28th, working Monday & Tuesday, then buggering off to Melbourne for five days. :-D

I'm looking forward to Tina's in Maryborough the most of the Christmas gatherings. Tina is Mum's best friend of 30+ years and my godmother, and she's probably the world's best cook. It'll be laid back, no expectations, no awkwardness, there's a pool and a short road trip there and back - what's not to love? :-D

1 companion | keep me company

11:12 am.

despairing.

I'm sick of everyone putting off answering the phone in the hope that someone else will get it. I'm sick of Blonde Colleague doing nothing but chatting on the phone with her friends at work, and nattering on pointlessly at the rest of us in between phone calls. I'm sick of having the fucking radio on at work when there are already phones ringing and up to five other people all talking on the phone in really quite a small room. I'm sick of errors and inaccuracies that I have to fix. I'm sick of mindless chirpy fucking optimism. I'm sick of computer systems that don't do what they're supposed to do. I'm sick of double standards and pointless edicts. I'm sick of having to remember each tiny little change in rules and procedures. I'm sick of my coworkers' sense of entitlement. I'm sick of my life being fucked around by this job. I'm sick of my coworkers all pretending that we're a happy little girlie family and all the ridiculous talk of skim milk and shoes and makeup and boys that comes with it. I'm sick of unprofessionalism and blurring of work/life boundaries. I'm sick of being made to feel pointless and obsolete. I'm sick of promised improvements being deferred or forgotten. I'm sick of being made to feel that my grievances are trivial and that I'm a petty, small-minded person for having them.

Why can't I find another job? I've been looking for SIX MONTHS. Surely the fact that I want one half-day per week off for study isn't that big a dealbreaker for prospective employers. I feel totally useless, like there must be something wrong with me. Is it that my skills look good on paper but I'm too ugly or have a personality problem or don't wear makeup or smell funny?

17 companions | keep me company

10:27 am.

bored.

So, I'm pretty crap at this whole remembering to update business, huh? As usual it's because I have very little to say. The only interesting things that have happened lately were that THE ROAR ACTUALLY MANAGED A HOME WIN OMG, with Charlie Miller scoring AGAIN because he's just amazing. By A-League standards, anyway. He may have eaten all the pies but as long as he keeps scoring goals semi-regularly he can stroll onto the pitch with a string of sausage rolls around his neck for all I care.

Also, I am in awe of Craig Moore even more - for him to be diagnosed with testicular cancer and then front up and play only eleven days after having an operation is pretty impressive.

The other thing occupying my mind quite a bit at the moment is the fact that I played two games of netball in a row last night without being allowed to slack off at GS, and as a result today I am having trouble moving. I also have two massive blisters on my feet so I showed up at work today carrying my shoes. I figured that carrying my shoes into the office was slightly more dignified than the stiff-legged shuffle punctuated with swearing that is the only walk I can manage with my shoes on.

I'm really hoping netball doesn't get cancelled tonight, because if I don't do some exercise today to recover from last night I'm going to be totally paralysed tomorrow. Getting into my netball shoes with these blisters will be interesting, but I'm sure if I use a thousand band-aids I'll be just fine.

This weekend I plan to do absolutely nothing except sit around playing Sims and watching the cricket. It will be an excellent opportunity to ~~ogle Mitchell Johnson~~ relax. I was considering actually going to the Sheffield Shield match but ~~Mitchell Johnson won't be playing because he's with the national team in Adelaide~~ I really can't be bothered and the international match on telly will be more interesting.

The only thing that could make my life more mundane and depressingly average is joining a Thursday night bowls club trivia team. Uh, which I kind of already do. I AM SO BORING IT HURTS. D-:

keep me company

3:50 pm.

indifferent.

We're still seeing holes where Limpy used to be. Prime example is feline mealtimes. The cats hardly ever finish all their food. Limpy and Star used to eat half of their own, then investigate each other's and Tiger's bowls to see if there was something more interesting there, then Cana would come and finish anything the cats didn't eat. Now Cana will clean out Tiger's bowl first, then go to Star's bowl, and she still goes to where Limpy's bowl used to be and looks slightly bewildered when there's nothing there.

Anyway, this plan to resurrect the ol' LJ hasn't been going too well, has it? I'm still faced with the eternal problem of having nothing terribly interesting to write about. Everyday life is repetitive, stressful and depressing, and it's been ages since I've had anything to really look forward to.

I do finally have one thing though: I'm hanging out for my trip to Melbourne at New Year! I'm booking flights this week, we've got accommodation sorted, and I'll be landing on New Year's Eve, about 9.30 in the morning if I get the flight I want. My diary is totally open except for the Victory vs. Roar match on January 2nd, and we leave again on either the 3rd or the 4th, haven't decided yet. We'll probably have a hire car, so between that and public transport mobility shouldn't be a problem. Anyone want to meet up? :-D Suggestions for interesting things to do in Melbourne, particularly on NYE, would be welcome too!

17 companions | keep me company

11:25 am.

grumpy.

Thank you to everyone who offered condolences for Limpy. We're missing him sorely but your kind thoughts helped, so thank you everyone!

Yesterday was the day of running into people at random. Went to uni yesterday at stupid o'clock in the morning as usual. I'm out of touch with the youth of today and didn't know that Big Day Out tickets went on sale yesterday, so I was suprised to see a queue all the way down the mall. I was even more surprised to see my brother there, up and about and away from home before midday. I accosted him and found out what all the fuss was about. Then

goblinqueen2 turned up too on her way to work - didn't bloody recognise me, but said hello to my brother! So I poked her in the arm and we had coffee. Good way to start the day.

Had to give a stupid presentation at uni, but I think it went fairly well so hopefully I'll get a good mark for that. I don't want my GPA to slip!

Amazing how I care about that now but couldn't give a shit when I went to QUT years ago.

Then on the way back to work I saw a girl in the mall whose fake tan not only made her skin look orange and ridiculous, but also her fake bottle blonde hair where it fell against her back. She was walking along like she thought she looked amazing, but I just thought she looked funny. I love it when people don't realise they look retarded.

Like the guy at Chermside shopping centre last night wearing a bright blue suit and sunglasses (Inside! At night!) and swanning about. It's really the only word for it. He was talking to himself under his breath and looked so, so silly, but again he thought he was the bomb.

Then

kitsunegari turned up while Mum and I were having a cuppa and laughing at poorly dressed idiots, to round off the day.

And now I'm at work and grumpy because my colleagues are pissing me off. I have sent an email to everyone saying "Don't do the data entry this way, do it this way, because otherwise it doesn't work properly." And what do they do? Keep on doing it the retarded way. It's not that difficult to fill out all client fields rather than just one, and it's also not difficult to remember that Physiotherapy and Occupational Therapy and other such things generally go under Allied Health. It seems like a little thing but it's just ongoing and nothing ever changes, and on top of all the other little niggly things, I'm just over it. All of it.

And there has been a woman in my office with a screaming baby. GAAAAH. I am so not breeding. >:-(

2 companions | keep me company

3:46 pm.

bored.

Some good things happened this weekend - first was Friday night, when Anthony and I went to eat at Mu'ooz Eritrean Restaurant. This restaurant is a fantastic idea - it was founded by a group of Eritrean refugee women who weren't happy to live off government payments, but wanted to work to earn their own money. The problem was that very few of them had any employable skills or English proficiency. So they decided to make a business based on doing what they did best, which was cooking. The ones that could speak English arranged English lessons and hospitality training for the others, and after four years of preparation and training, Mu'ooz opened in January this year. So these refugee women have jobs and skills, and the restaurant's profits are funnelled back into the African community. I heard about the place through one of the interpreters at work, who was heavily involved in setting the place up, and I've been meaning to go for months. I'm also doing a case study on the place for uni, for my social enterprise subject (which is compulsory but wanky and a bit dull).

Anyway, the food was awesome and I can't recommend it enough to any Brisvegans who like trying new things. There are vegetarian, vegan and halal options, and all of them taste great. The lady who served us was very helpful and told us how to pronounce the names of all the dishes we ordered and the name of the restaurant, all of which are in Tigrinya. She effortlessly pronounced all these words, and shyly added, "But I'm from Liberia," so initially they were probably as foreign to her as to me - just a matter of practice!

The other good thing was that the Roar won at last. It's the same as last season - crappy first few games, then an away trip to a similarly struggling Perth, where we smashed them, thank god. And Charlie Miller kept up his goal-a-game streak, which is awesome. He's my new favourite player because I am 1. fickle and 2. easily impressed by goals and Scottish accents. :-D

Mum and I watched the game at our local, the Edinburgh Castle Hotel. It's just a crappy suburban pub but the food is cheap, plentiful and very, very decent and the staff are happy to let us change the channel off the boring rugby league to watch the A-League. It's pretty rare that we go there to watch the game and don't get some yob commenting on something about it - last night a random drunk guy wandered over, crouched down next to Mum and tried to start a conversation, but he obviously had no idea what was going on. Mostly it's rugby fans being retarded, as rugby fans do. Occasionally we get someone saying nice things about football...but Queensland is rugby league heartland, and the Edinburgh Castle is a bit bogan, so most people are idiots about it.

I personally see rugby league as merely something that happens at Suncorp Stadium during the off season, to keep the staff employed and the ground in use while the Roar aren't playing, but this is a minority opinion and I have received some abuse for holding it. Oh well, I'm not the first person who has suffered to keep the faith!

I need a new Roar icon. Spase Dilevski left aaaaaages ago for Romanian obscurity and that's the old strip they're wearing. Project for tonight, I suppose.

Looking at the icon made me realise something - I have noticed that Matty McKay (the guy on the right) is always the first one to offer hugs to his teammate after a goal is scored. Perhaps he likes being in all the photos. Or perhaps he just likes hugging sweaty men. There is a slim chance that it's because he is usually nearby and runs fast and it's just coincidence, but who would believe a crazy theory like that?

keep me company

3:45 pm.

cynical.

Oh god, what a horrible day. I wish the phone would just explode or something. Even if it's in my face and I incur nasty burn injuries, at least I won't have to answer the fucking thing anymore.

I am having doubts about my employability. I've had lots of calls and quite a few interviews but I just can't get a new job and I'm at the end of my tether here. Yesterday I found myself looking at my payslip, calculating how long my accrued leave would last if I just resigned today. I'm sure this job has been bad for me in every way - my stress levels are crazy, I feel useless and unemployable and when I'm not here feeling angry and despairing, I'm elsewhere feeling flat and listless and unhappy. All the things that used to make me happy don't really work anymore.

And of course while I'm stagnating here, I can't get my degree going properly, so my long term prospects are being slowly eroded at the same time as my immediate future. At the same time Anthony is getting better and better jobs on higher pay and I'm so frustrated because I can't keep up.

Hurrah! A whiny post! I get to dust off the Vegeta icon! It's great, isn't it, I come back to LJ after a year and I'm already being depressing at you all!

7 companions | keep me company

1:52 pm.

meh.

What does one say in one's first journal entry in almost a year? Buggered if I know. Too much has happened in the last year to detail everything; most of it is deadly boring anyway.

I seem to remember liking lists when I used to use this thing. Old habits die hard.

Things That Have Happened Since I Last Used My Livejournal
- Moved house. I am free from the tyrant and have a sane housemate who is a vegan musician photographer who likes my cat. And Anthony, of course, he hasn't gone anywhere.
- No new netball developments, except that I am sick of coaching, didn't enjoy it at all this year and am more convinced than ever that everything that is wrong with junior sport is a direct result of parents being allowed to come along.
- Hate my job, but that tends to happen within about six months of me starting any new job, so that's hardly a surprise. If anyone knows of a decent job going, let me know.
- Went to Newcastle for the Roar's preliminary final at the end of last season. 24 hours on a bus is not nice and I don't think anyone should do it, ever. That said, even though we lost and the travelling was miserable, I wouldn't have missed it for the world and I would do it again if I had to.
- Not that the Roar are going to make any finals this season, based on last night's bullshit performance. >:-(
- I've gone back to uni, studying part time at Griffith. No idea where it's going to take me but it beats stagnating in a stupid dead end job. Since I only have time to do one subject per semester I don't know if I'll ever finish it. I desperately want to go back to full time study but can't see how it's financially viable. Any suggestions?

OK, so, I'm going to try to get back into posting in this thing semi-regularly again. I doubt that it will any more interesting than it was before, but you never know.

Another habit I can't seem to break: I would like to share with the world the nicest photo of my cat ever taken. My housemate the vegan musician photographer took it and it's on his Flickr.

Look at that! I can even remember all my HTML tags!

P.S. Come find me on facebook! You can find me by typing in my full name and then filtering by network - use "Griffith". Oh, and if you've changed your journal name please let me know what your username used to be, because I see a bunch of new names and I've no idea who they are!

13 companions | keep me company

7:38 pm.

calm.

Days since I last made a Livejournal post: 10
Number of those days worth writing something about: 3
Percentage of the excitement on these three days that was football related: 98%
Percentage of the excitement on these three days that was banjo related: 1%
Percentage of the excitement on these three days that was free Pocky related: 1%

Exciting Day No. 1: Last Wednesday - Queensland Roar 5-0 Brisbane Strikers

Training/trial match out at Richlands, the one we'd all been waiting for. There's a bit of a grudge here - Strikers were the other mob competing for the A-League franchise in Brisbane and obviously they lost out. Drew a pretty good crowd for a training friendly worth nothing - even the core of the Strikers' fan club came out. All three of them. We had a mini-Den happening - stood behind the goal in a shed in the wind and rubbished the other team all game. It was great. A new fan favourite was created - young bloke called Victor who usually plays in the Brisbane Premier League had a run with the Roar. He's only 16 and probably barely five feet tall but bloody hell, he's not afraid to get stuck in. Look forward to seeing him with the Roar proper in a few years' time!

Exciting Day No. 2: Last Friday - Queensland Roar PR appearance and incidentals

New job is with an interpreting agency, not sure if I mentioned that. Anyway, on Friday one of the Mandarin interpreters came in to visit and she brought Pocky for everyone in the office. This is considerably more free Pocky than I have received from any other job, therefore it's probably the best job I've had so far. Not that the competition is putting up much of a fight.

Had heard that the Roar were doing a PR gig in the Queen St Mall at lunchtime so that's how I spent my lunch break. It's a twenty minute walk either way from where I walk, so I spent two thirds of my lunch break walking at stupid speeds, at one point going so fast that I tripped over my own feet so hard that I bumped my knee on the ground and made a lady ask if I was OK. I win at physical co-ordination, clearly. Anyway, my route into the city and back took me past a lot of the best busking spots, which is where the banjos come in. Banjos are quite frankly not the first instruments that spring to mind when I think "good busking apparatus" but apparently I am alone in this thought. Out of the five or six buskers I walked past, three of them were playing banjos.

Banjo players are strange people. They seem to feel that they have to wear straw hats, bow ties and vests. They all have painstakingly crafted signs with smiley faces saying, "Smile! Have a nice day!!!" and other such witticisms. There's also the fact that banjos are stupid instruments, strung and tuned very illogically and requiring quite a lot of maintenance. All I can say is that all the effort they go to with their maintenance, dress and props should really be spent learning songs other than Duelling Banjos and the Beverley Hillbillies theme.

Back on topic, I'm not terribly sure that the twenty minutes of inept PR I saw was worth the forty minutes of walking I did to get there and back. The African drummers were pretty cool, and my friend John and I quite enjoyed when they introduced the team from South Africa that we played, as quite a few of them were rather attractive. Other than that it was pretty dull really. The expressions on the players' faces were quite entertaining - half of them looked bored, some of them looked downright grumpy. Reinaldo and Marcinho kept to themselves, chatting in Portuguese. Matty McKay is a champ though; he seemed to be genuinely interested in talking to everyone. And of course my beloved Marcus Wedau did all the right things - smiling and talking with people and signing autographs and being friendly ~~and standing in a position where I could stare at him easily~~.

Exciting Day No. 3: Sunday - Queensland Roar 4-1 Supersport United (South Africa PSL)

The day we'd all been waiting for. All the banners and flags we made during the long, bleak off-season were ready for testing and we were all really looking forward to seeing how the new lineup would go against proper opposition, instead of semi-professional local league teams. Quite well, it turned out. We deserved the win, but I have to concede that Supersport's goal celebration shat all over any of ours, and we have a Brazilian who does backflips when he scores. When they scored about five of them ran over to the corner and played leapfrog. It was way cooler than it sounds, trust me.

We also now have an official game day pub, which is going to be awesome. They've gone out of their way to make us feel welcome, which no pub has done before. I wonder why, because it's a great way to build up a loyal clientele. Sure, the Caxton puts up some orange and blue balloons on game day, but it's not the same as Kitty O'Shea's letting us drape the whole beer garden with flags and banners, sing and chant before and after the match, etc.

No more football now until our single 'home' pre-season game against Sydney in Maroochydore on the 14th. Off-season sucks.

I have just realised that I sound like I used to when I was totally obsessed with Star Trek or LOTR...only now it's with football. No wonder I have no friends. :-P

6 companions | keep me company

11:09 pm.

sleepy.

Suppose it's about time I made another post! I get the impression that the internet policy at Shiny New Work is fairly relaxed (thank fuck for that), but I haven't been there long enough to spend all day on LJ and get away with it. YET.

Not a lot has happened, really. Nothing unusual about that. New job is OK but it's a lot more phone work than I expected, which has been difficult. I think I'll be fine with it eventually but it's still a bit overwhelming. I think my coworkers are slightly nonplussed by the enthusiasm with which I attack putting new bookings into the system. I reckon the more of that I do, the less I have to use the phone.

Netball news, which I know is everyone's least favourite part of my LJ, is that we lost the Beenleigh grand final by one. Instead of trophies they gave us a glass. Mine is in the bathroom with our toothbrushes in. After the presentation the association provided quiche, lamingtons and scones with jam and cream. I think this is possibly the number one reason why I'm going to keep playing there.

Now there's no netball for two or three weeks, thanks to stupid school holidays. I'll go mad. Or I would if there weren't FINALLY some football games coming up. On Wednesday night we're going to see the Roar play a training friendly against Brisbane Strikers, which should be great. I've made an unbelievably ridiculous hat in Roar colours (which are somewhat ridiculous in themselves) and it's going to have its official debut at that game. I promise photos. The hat I'm going to make my mother wear is almost as ridiculous as my own. I believe she is scared of what it's going to look like. She doesn't get to see it until she has to wear it. :-P

Have been doing some good stuff with the official supporters' club too - some of the new banners you'll see in the Den at Roar home games, and possibly even in the away supporters' end at some away games, are going to look fucking brilliant. I can point out to everyone which bits of them I painted. STUFF I HELPED MAKE WILL BE ON TELLY. This...really shouldn't be as exciting as it is. :-P Says a lot about the usual excitement I get out of life....

The only other thing that has happened this week worth mentioning is that I've been finally able to see two of Anthony's football matches. The matches themselves aren't terribly exciting (although the 9-0 win today was nice), but we carpool with a Brazilian and a Scot. MY CAR IS FULL OF FOREIGN ACCENTS OMG. *loves*

Other than these exciting events, I have spent a ridiculous amount of time playing Hanafuda on Nintendo DS. My life is super interesting!

3 companions | keep me company