Snow!

Is This English?

Here I am! I have made it to Japan. I am still excited. I cant find the apostrophe button on the keyboard though and this is disturbing me slightly. I will get over it, it might just take a little bit of time.

So the flight over went well, there was quite a few seats available on the plane so Tony and I had a whole middle row to ourselves. The plane was quite an old one, so there there was only the one big screen for everybody to watch the movie on. There was two movies, one was a Japanese feel good story, the other was some crazy Manga film with this kid and dragons and a giant frog thing that exploded. I wasn`t really watching that one all that much, I was trying to listen to the classical music channel and then later the 80s pop channel. They were enjoyable.

The food on the flight was okay, but there just wasnt enough. I ended up having to eat about 6 packs of the mixed nuts, and they made me very thirsty, which made me go to the toilet alot. I didnt mind too much because it helped break up the otherwise pretty boring flight. I had forgotten how long 9 hours sitting on a plane can be. I even tried to drink a few beers to help knock myself out but I only ended up going to the toilet even more.

Eventually we got here and it has been a little bit surreal. I woke up this morning and I looked over at Tonys bed and I didnt know who he was, or more worringly where I was. Then I remembered. Then I got excited. I will be up in the mountains by tonight. Its going to be terrific.

For breakfast this morning I had some udon noodles with some prawns and something that I think may have been tripe. It was either tripe, skin or just some chewy fat stuff. I had a few bits of it and then left most of that, the noodles were great though. For dinner last night I had some chilli prawns and a duck salad thing. They were great. It was in this little restaurant thing where there were all these Japanese businessmen in black suits smoking their cigarettes and drinking from these giant bottles of sake that they could leave at the restaurant until they returned again. The seats were very low to the ground, as was the table. Speaking to the waitress was interesting, but with the good old nodding and pointing and her giving us the thumbs up we were able to get our dinner in.

Everybody here has been extremely courteous and helpful. I am trying to bust out a bit of Japanese, but it probably sounds worse than their Engrish though. I will keep on trying. It just seems like there are many different ways to greet people and things like that.

My flight to Sapporo has been delayed by an hour and the airline has given everybody a voucher to buy some food. I am going to go and spend it now, try and find something to take with me on this next leg of my journey.

Tony!

We're at the airport now. I'm super excited. We're sitting on the top deck. How about that storm last night.

Woodgate!

So this is a series of photos taken at Woodgate over Australia Day. It was a lovely day. I had a great time. It was a bit scary leaving in that storm on Thursday though. Passing trucks on the highway is tough enough without torrential downpours. I'm on my way home now. Ria and I are singing along with the radio. She doesn't know many of the words.

Care Failure

Today was another huge day. And, again, it was hot. Really hot. I think today was the stickiest of the lot. We did have a little bit of rain, but it didn't cool anything down. They were big fat drops of warm water. They did have a nice smell about them.

So there were some victories today. I managed to get a fair bit of work done which is always good. And we had some more interviews. Again I was disappointed with most of the interviewees. One stood out though. She was great. A beam of sunshine into an otherwise gloomy lot. So we gave her the job. Her referees spoke about her in glowing terms. One even said that they wished they could say something bad about her so that we wouldn't hire her so that she would be able to continue to do relief work at their centre. I'm glad they didn't.

Unfortunately the girl that we gave the green light to the other day rang back. She is moving to Townsville. Sucks to be her. This is a little bit mean of me, and slightly petty, but I can help but feel the way that I do. She said yes to us, told us she was looking at buying a house in the area, was ready to go. Then she dropped this bomb today. It sucks. So now we have to do the whole painful process all over again. Or to be more truthful, Louise needs to do it all over again, I'm away on holidays. I keep remembering what bad timing I've got for this trip. It's the first week back of school, we're looking for new staff, and it's the first week for a lot of the new parents. It's pretty poor on my part. I guess I'll just have to live with it. It's a bummer though.

Oh, here's some gossip. The girl that's moving to Townsville used to work at another centre with another staff member. Apparently she was quite fond of the hooch, although nothing was ever proved, it was only ever hearsay. But still. She might have changed over the years. IT's something that happens.

I'm off to Gympie tonight, and then on to Woodgate tomorrow. I can't wait to go. It's that hot here at the moment, that being near the water will be great. Sitting on the beach, reading a book, getting in the ocean when it's too hot for me. Plus I'm going to drink a few beers for Australia Day tomorrow. My brother is having a party here at my house, I'm a little bit bummed I won't be here for it, but I'll be okay. I just hope that the house is.

Kiss The Flag!

Panther On A Shirt

I was right when I made my earlier prediction that this was going to be a huge week at work. It has been full on. Lots and lots of stuff happening. The heat hasn't really helped, but I think that generally everyone is still conducting themselves in a professional manner. At least I think that's what's happening. I could be delirious from the heat and have been hallucinating the past few days. It wouldn't surprise me.

I just had a chocolate flavoured peanut paste sandwich. It was pretty good. I didn't like the consistency of the paste though. It was too much like a liquid. It was similar to a runny honey. Not like a proper peanut paste. It isn't really very chocolatey either. It tastes a little bit like Nutella. Or Reese's Pieces. Still, I bought the jar for the craic , so I'm not too disappointed.

So the interviews continued today. I really am appalled at the competency of some of the applicants. It's really disappointing. I don't know if this is just a childcare thing, but just showing up for the interview isn't going to get you the job. One girl came in stinking of cigarettes. Another requested that we repeat and break down each question for her. Two have been almost unintelligible. It sucks. These are all people that have passed their Certificate III in Children's Services as well. It makes me wonder.

On that note I finally completed my first two subjects for that certificate. It's only taken me a year. In the end I was able to have a conversation with somebody over the phone. We spoke for an hour, and at the end of that hour she said that I was competent and that she'd try and organise some Recognition of Prior Learning for me so that I wouldn't be required to do the written assignments. I was very happy with this result. I guess that I have learnt something after working in childcare for the past 2 years. The lady on the phone was very pleasant and I look forward to my future conversations with her. Especially if it means that I will get this course out of the way sooner.

Ha. I think that I'm trying to have my pie and eat it too.

I was thinking of going to Kasabian tonight. I don't think that I'm going to get a chance to though. It's Ria's Dad's birthday, and he's in town. So we're going out for dinner. It should be good. I hope that the storm doesn't hinder our plans though. It could be a doozy. It's certainly been hot enough.

This weekend I'm heading up to Woodgate again. I really like it up there. I'll have to make sure I take a good book. And some beer. It is Australia Day, don't you know?

I've been thinking back to what I did on Australia Day last year. I'm pretty sure that I just went down to the coast for the day. I was spending a lot of time down there at this time last year, and I am really glad that I did. Sure, I was alone for the majority of it, but that time alone really enabled me to work a few things out in my head. I enjoyed my nights sitting on the balcony looking out over the street and the park and the beach. It was very nice. Things certainly aren't very complicated when you can be completely selfish. I prefer it this way though.

It's Great When We're Together

In the end I changed my mind about the Big Day Out quite a few times. I had the discussion with Ria, then I ummmed and aaaahed. I made up my mind, then I changed it again. Then I thought about it some more, and changed my mind again. There was a lot of to-ing and fro-ing. Pros and cons.

It was a fantastic line-up. I could afford it. I did have a big week of work. I am going to Japan next week. There's always next year. There were a lot of bands that I wanted to see. It's always a fun day. It's always a long day. I like drinking beer there. We all know where beer leads me. The weather was perfect. The weather was hot.

I didn't end up going. I did change my mind a lot though. I even rang up Rocking Horse Records on Saturday afternoon at 5 o'clock to see if they had any of their last minute tickets left. They didn't. That sealed it. I wasn't going to drive down there to pick up a scalped ticket. I had a lovely day with Ria instead.

Except it didn't start that great though. Well, that's a lie. It did start well, but what happened next wasn't so good. Ria's house was broken into on Saturday night. Some creep had forced open a window and made off with a laptop and John's wallet. There were 3 of us there, no-one heard anything. They did leave a great big dirty handprint on the window though. It sucks though. I think that it unsettled me throughout the day.

The lovely day that Ria and I had together consisted of going down to the coast and getting some Big Chief's. It was good. Then we drove up to Currumbin and went for a swim at the calm beach. There was a kite-surfing competition happening that was cool. Some of the tricks they were doing were huge! Getting about 4 metres of vertical air, and about 30 metres long. All sorts of spins and tricks. One dude even got inverted! It was pretty awesome.

After that we headed back to Burleigh and read in a park for a while. I'm reading a book by Andrew McGahan called Last Drinks. It's about the Fitzgerald Inquiry. It's pretty interesting so far. It was a bit weird how that stuff was on the front page of today's paper though. Brisbane sounds like a very different town in the early 80's.

Today has been a huge day at work. I think that the entire week is going to be crazy. Getting things ready for the start of the new rooms. Lots of interviews for employees. Lots of paperwork for new parents. Plus there's some stuff happening in the evenings. I'm glad that I didn't go to the Big Day Out yesterday because everything today would have been a lot harder. I have heard that Kasabian played an unbelievably good show though, and I'm tempted to get into the Arena on Wednesday night to see them. I quite like a lot of their stuff, and if they are good live......Well.....

We'll see how we go. I've got to drive Dirty Dave into town so he can go the Lilly Allen concert tonight. Lucky devil.

Me and Felix!

We're at Denim. 11 isn't here though.

Wamp Wamp

Just a quick one. I've got a little bit of a dilemma. I've been offered a ticket to the Big Day Out, and I don't know if I want to go. I know that I do, but I don't know if I should. I've got my holiday in a week, and I don't know if I should be spending the money now. Then again, the line up this year is pretty sick, and there are a heap of acts that I would like to see. Plus for the first time since I've been at the centre the next day isn't the first day of school, meaning I could get extra wasted. Just kidding, but it would be nice knowing that the next day isn't as intense as it normally is.

I don't know. I've spoken to Ria about it a couple of times. I think that I said a couple of times that I didn't really want to go. But now that the opportunity is there I think that I'm being greedy. It would be sweet. And how expensive could it be? Well, not too much, and I can afford it. It's just such a big day. But so much fun. Oh OH OH!

Anyways, I'll let you know.

I packed my snowboard up last night. I'm getting pumped about that trip. So much snow! I hope.

I did an interview today for the first time. It was an interesting experience. It's so much easier and less nerve racking when you are the one asking the questions. The girl today did alright, we're going to see what the other candidates are like before we make a final decision though. This girl didn't really have the killer instinct that you need. The next time I have an interview I'm going to grab my nuts and jump in feet first. Look them in the eye. Take my time with the answers and be confident. That's all it takes. Grab those nuts!

Semantic Tic Tic Boom

Over the last few days at the centre we've had some workmen in who have been replacing the soft fall underneath the playground. The soft fall we'd had up until now was all warped and bubbling because of some tree roots that were surfacing beneath it. We also had some troubles with drainage, so hopefully those problems have now been fixed. In addition to the soft fall we had the men fix up the sandpit as well. The sandpit has had too much sand in it for a while, so it is kind of exploding outwards with sand, very slowly. What the guys have done is reinforced the barriers, so hopefully that problem was solved. Unfortunately they didn't quite do the job properly, so we had one of them come back today to fix it up. He did this by digging away the sand and laying a length of felt down to stop the sand from seeping out. We'll see how it goes.

Up until today I haven't really had too much to do with the guys. I wasn't there when they arrived, and they were going okay without me, so they didn't really require my assistance. I was pretty shocked on Friday though when the guys were having a beer down the side of the centre at 10:30 in the morning. That wasn't really okay, they didn't have any more though, so we let it slide. It was hot, but geez, I don't think that having beers at 10:30 in the morning when at work is ever okay. Anyways, back to today. I got the guy today a jug of cordial and had a bit of a chat to him. He was a pretty interesting guy. He actually looked a bit like Darren from the old Tivoli days. Just more muscular and tanned with some big tatt on his shoulder.

What he was saying today was that there's a worldwide shortage for people who lay synthetic turf. He's spent about half of the past 3 years in the states working there. He loved it. He says that there are many things that we can learn from the Yanks, but admits that they also have their problems. One thing that he highlighted was that they were generally very courteous, to the point that if you are driving and are two lanes away from making a turn-off, all you need to do is put on your indicator and they will make room for you. It certainly doesn't work like that here. You need to fight for every position.

He also said that he has traveled through 3/4 of Australia, and spent about a week in a lot of the smaller towns around the place. He said that his favourite place in Australia is Coffs Harbour. He reckons that it's got a great laid back vibe, you're near the beach, there's some great pubs and lots of pretty young girls walking around. He made it sound pretty good. He was saying how one time he was working down there on a job site when they needed a plumber. The foreman told him that he wouldn't be able to get one. The reason for the lack of plumbers was that the surf was pumping and they would all be down the beach. What he said to do was head down to the beach, find the nearest ute with piping in the back and write a note on the windscreen. He licked a finger and put it up in the air, then said that the wind was about to change, making the surf no good and that a plumber would be there within the hour. The fella who was telling me the story didn't believe that this would happen, but it did. Within an hour the plumber was there and got into the work. He said that was one of the reasons why he loved Coffs. He said that you can make plenty of fat coin down there too.

So yeah, he was an interesting guy. He told me how he likes the opportunities his job affords him. He also told me that working in childcare would be a good job, except you don't make fat coin. He also said that I'd go far because I'm a male working in a female dominated industry, and that when you get all women working somewhere and it's that time of the month then nothing ever gets done. I didn't pass comment as there was nothing I could say.

So that's about it.

I'm starting to get really excited about my trip to Japan. The snowfall hasn't been the greatest yet, but I hope that it will improve. There are some sweet videos on YouTube for Niseko. It's going to be a fat time.

Keeping Up With The Joneses

1. I don't like bananas. I do like those little lolly bananas though. And banana flavoured milk. And banana flavoured ice creams. And things wrapped in banana leaves. I just don't like bananas themselves. It's something to do with the texture I think. They're gross.

2. Although I swear sometimes in conversation and in type, I am always a little bit shocked the first time I read a swear word in a book. I am also a little shocked when girls swear. This may be sexist of me, but it's just the way that it is. Hearing my sister swear freaks me out.

3. I find buying items of clothing fairly stressful. I'm not sure why. I guess it's because I'm going to be stuck with that item for a while, and I already look enough like a goose. It can be tough sometimes. Maybe that's why I going to get my hair cut can be intense as well.

4. My mum once found me passed out next to her car in an underground car park in a shopping centre. I wasn't living at home at the time and she was surprised to say the least.

5. I used to be a pretty reasonable tap dancer. I even enjoyed it, except when I was on stage I'd talk to myself the whole time. It was just nerves.

Eat Raw

After my little whinge I got myself going and showered and did some ironing and then headed out the door. I was on my way to the Bali Grill at Rosalie. I hadn't been there before, but was pleasantly surprised. It was quite busy, in fact the whole precinct was, I had to park all the way up the street and around a corner. It didn't feel too bad walking downhill to get to the restaurant, on the way back up though with a full tummy - well, it certainly felt steeper.

So the food was great and the company was nice. There was a lack of other males, but I don't need them. I'm happy to be just one of the girls. I had a chicken sambal wrapped in a banana leaf. When I ordered it the waitress asked if I knew that it was a spicy dish. I said yeah, that's okay, I can handle it. I was probably a little over-confident. I mean, the last time I tried to eat something hot I couldn't finish it. That was the megadeath burger though, but I was a little worried that it had done some permanent damage to my taste buds.

The meals came out, and mine looked delicious. I had ordered a beer to give myself an emergency escape if it was too hot. It was lucky I did. The chicken sambal was some hot shit. Very nice though, lots of flavour. It wasn't an overwhelming heat, but you certainly knew about it. I wouldn't recommend this dish if you weren't okay with spicy foods. In fact halfway through I wasn't sure if I was okay with spicy foods. But it was delicious. And the beer certainly helped. As I was eating the sambal I was also eating some of the fruits that came with it. They helped cool me down in between the battering mouthfuls of chicken.

Afterwards the restaurant hostess/owner came over and commended me on my efforts. She said that it was a very hot meal. I felt tough.

Sunday morning I managed to waste a whole heap of time before I started my assignment. I went for breakfast with Ria. We went and did some grocery shopping. Then we did some normal shopping. At some point we picked up her bathing costume so we could go for a swim. By the time I finally opened my book it was after 2.

Once the book was open and I was doing the work it wasn't too bad. It was just boring. I was okay so long as I was doing it. I don't like stopping though. I find it hard to get going again. I've still got a bit of it left to do. I'm not dreading it, but it just makes me feel yucky inside.

I might do that 5 things that people might not know about me now.

I Know What This Is!

I'm pretty sure that it is a Christmas beetle. I guess it is a little late. I'll forgive it. I know what it is like to be late.

5:50

I really fucking piss myself off sometimes. This afternoon I have wasted a heap of time doing absolutely nothing worthwhile. Just procrastinating. I'm supposed to be doing an assignment that is already something like 3 months late, that I need to get an extension on. And do you know what I was doing instead? Reading about weird shit on the internet. Like people who get right into self expression with body art. Like reading about some adult entertainment conference in Las Vegas. Just wasting fucking time. Such a waste. And the only person that I have to blame for it is myself. And the worst part is I don't know how to get in there and get it done. It's shit. I'm shit.

So now I'm going out to dinner. Which will be good. But it means that I still won't have touched any of this fucking crap. This stuff I'm supposed to do I don't really have much of an interest in. It's something that I need to do for work though. I've told a lady that I'll get one of the assignments done this weekend, but I don't think that it's going to happen. I know that I've still got all of tomorrow, but I'm pretty sure that I'm going to waste tomorrow and feel bad about wasting that time as well. It sucks. Now I remember why I don't like studying. Because I am up there with the world's best procrastinators. I was even washing today to avoid it. I haven't even had any lunch. I've just been wasting time. It's horrible.

Fuck it.

Snake or Skink!

I found this guy here at the beach. At first I thought he was a worm. Then I thought he was a snake. Then I saw his legs and now I'm not sure. I went to pick it up and he tried to bite me! Plus his tail looks far too long. And his belly has a pink colour to it. He doesn't walk either. He wriggles. Although that could be because of the tiles. Stu thinks that it's a snake with legs. He's a mystery!

I'm Up Early!

This is day break at Tugun. The surf isn't that great. It's pretty flat. I like getting up early at the beach. There's something about the sound of the sea and fresh air.

Come On Knackers

I had a really bad run into New Farm this morning. Every single light that I came to was red. Every single one. It was horrible. I was even caught by a train at Coorparoo. It was horrible. I hate red lights. At least there was a little bit of other traffic around. I get really angry when you're the only car on the roads and you're waiting at a red light. It's really frustrating. It brings out the worst in me. I often swear out loud because of them. Sometimes it's bad enough to make a sailor blush.

I finished Cupcake Brown's story. The last portion of the book was very feel-good. She got there in the end. Good on her. It just goes to show. Actually, one of the ladies at the centre has just been accepted into university. She was 40 last year. Go Gloria! I just hope that she doesn't let all those kids get her down. Maybe I should lend her the book. It could be an inspirational story for her.

I've been doing some interesting reading on this thing they call the internets recently. Yesterday I was reading all about anal piercing. It looks pretty gnarly. Some of the photos of the piercings were quite disturbing. Lots of blood and things. Interesting though. They were all guys that had them, and it was quite weird. I don't think that the asshole is a very attractive part of the human body. If you want to check it out it was somewhere on this website. It's interesting what some people want to do to themselves. I guess curiosity killed the cat.

The other thing that has been brought to my attention is this guy called Buck Angel. He's an interesting guy. He certainly raises some interesting questions.

In more wholesome news I went surfing the other day at Tugun. As in proper stand up on a board surfing. It was great. The sky was a little overcast, but the water was perfect. The surf wasn't huge, but it was pretty clean and well shaped. Not too big, but big enough to give a thrill. I even managed to stand up, before being almost immediately thrown off the board. Alot of fun though. I'm going down again this afternoon so I'll try and hit the beach up again. Definately tomorrow though. If the waves are like they were on Wednesday then it'll be great.

Also on Wednesday Stuart, David, Ria and I went to Pizza Hut for lunch. Note that we didn't just pick up some pizzas from there. No, it was a full dine in experience. I haven't had a meal at a Pizza Hut in a long time. It's still gross. I still blotted my copy book by eating too much. It was fun though. The jelly is still one of my favourites. Mmmm.

Some more wholesome news is that Furano, which is the second stop on my trip to Japan, received something like 140cm of snow in the past two days. That's epic! I can't wait to get there and start carving it up. Hopefully there'll be just as much when I'm there!


That's about it now. I've got to go to work. Good luck!

I came home from work this afternoon and decided to have a nice cup of tea to help relax after a reasonably long day at work. I put the kettle on, then made my way to the fridge. Upon opening the fridge door I noticed an interesting smell coming from inside. I thought to myself, "This deserves closer inspection." So I inspected. Closer. Unfortunately I discovered that the milk I was going to use was out of date. No problem though, there was another bottle. Bummer. It was also out of date. Oh well. Hang on! There was one more bottle hidden on its side down below. Uh oh. You guessed it. It was also past its best before date. I tipped them all down the sink, standing well back as the smell of off milk has been known to make me retch. Once that task was completed I delved into the fridge again to see if I could come up with any milk replacements. There were none. I checked the freezer and came upon some Weiss guava ice cream. I opened the tub and found that there was a thin strip of vanilla ice cream down one side. I decided to change from tea to coffee, but not just regular coffee, an affogato. It was actually pretty good, even if I did get quite a bit of guava ice cream in there too.

On Saturday my family went down to the coast for a holiday. I didn't follow them down on the Saturday. Instead I went and had a haircut. I also went searching for a pair of pants at the sales. The haircut is an okay one, but I won't be going back. The prices are too extortionate. I feel kinda bad about it too, because the girl who cuts my hair is pretty cool and we spoke about spewing up at the Big Day Out and things like that. Apparently one time she hurled in the mosh pit. Anyways, after the haircut I think that I was in a bit of a bad mood. Well, not a bad mood, but not the best frame of mind. This is never a good time to shop. Well, at least for me it's not. I went into David Jones and tried on 3 pairs of pants there. I really liked one of the pairs of pants, but I thought that they were a little expensive, and I thought that I could get a similar pair elsewhere for a better price. So I trooped off to some other stores. 10 stores, 6 try-ons and 5 hours later I went back to David Jones and bought the pair that I first liked. If there's a lesson in this, I hope that you have all learnt it.

There were some good things about the expedition though. I ran into Doug and Marise in the food court at the bottom of Queens Plaza. They were on their way to Nando's. I was on my way to the toilet. Later on in the same location I ran into Richard and Lauren. They were finishing up for the day, I was refuelling so I could go and try on more pairs of pants that I wouldn't like. I had a Japanese laksa. It was good.


I was also looking to buy a pair of shorts. I had seen these shorts on a previous trip into town. The shorts were rude. I really liked them. They were short shorts, about the length of running shorts. They were canary yellow with tiger stripes on them. They were a good price too. Unfortunately alot of other people must have really liked them too, though, as they were sold out when I went back to the store where I had first seen them. I wonder if that's the same lesson there?

Anyways, I ended Saturday by watching Sorority Boys for the first time.

Sunday morning and I woke up and it was a beautiful day outside. I was supposed to be going down the coast in the morning, but to tell you the truth I was apprehensive. I think that it was because this was to be our first proper holiday without Mum and this made me pretty sad. I wasn't sure how it was going to go, and I didn't really want to go. But you can't go around avoiding things all your life, especially the beach, so I packed the car up with Ria and Erin and we headed to the beach. I was pretty quiet on the way down. I wasn't sure what it was going to be like. We were staying at Tugun and everybody was down there. Dad. Stuart. David. Susan. Nanna. Even the dog got to go down.

In the end I needn't have worried. The place was fantastic with a good sized yard for Reg and for frisbee. Everyone else was in a good mood, I was the only one who was acting weird. The surf was up but it was great getting back in there. While I love all beaches, I really love it when there's a bit of surf. I think that it's that whole surrendering thing.

Anyways, I had a really nice time down there and I can't wait to go down again on Tuesday night after my cooking class. It should be fantastic.

Kicking and Screaming

The other day at work I had a very welcome visitor. It was Ashleigh, the former director of the centre. She was the director for the first 6 months of my working there. We got on like a house on fire and it was a sad day when she handed in her resignation. Unfortunately she didn't feel qualified for the position, and the other girls didn't give her the respect she deserved. It was a real shame.

Anyways, Ashleigh moved away from Queensland and down to Melbourne where she is now very happy. She moved down with her boyfriend who became her fiance last year and they're getting married in a couple of months. Since making the move down there she has continued working in the child care industry, but has returned to looking after the children directly in the rooms. This seems to have been a good change for her, and as an added bonus she has been earning a heap more down in Victoria. But as they say, Mo Money, Mo Problems.

Ashleigh was telling me about her new centre. Apparently it is in St Kilda and they have quite a diverse cross section of the community attending. There are children of famous parents and there are children who have been deemed to be at risk. It sounds like it is a very interesting centre to work at.

She says that the centre is bordered by a park on one side, an alleyway on another and fairly major roads on the other two. In the mornings the staff have to go through the playground and look for needles. Apparently the side that borders the park is a real hotspot for them. They used to have a cubby house type thing in the yard, but too often there was homeless guys sleeping in there, so they demolished it.

There is a girl who works the corner opposite their centre. She picks up her tricks there, then heads into the alleyway next to the centre to continue her business. Ashleigh says that quite often they will be eating their lunch when all of a sudden two naked people will appear out of a car parked in the alleyway. The lunch room has a nice outlook into the alley, so to aid the digestion the staff can watch the prostitute turn her tricks and school kids shoot up.

When Ashleigh was telling me this I was astounded, it just sounds so far removed from working in the centre where I am. I can remember being horrified when I found a needle on the street outside of the school next to my centre. I couldn't believe it. I don't really care if people choose to inject their drugs, in fact I'm told that if you want the biggest and best bang for your buck then shooting them is the way to go. I just wish that these people could have a little bit of social responsibility. I mean, how hard is it to put your needle into some sort of container. An empty bottle or something like that? Why on Earth would you leave it lying around in a playground for some kid to pick up, give themselves a needlestick injury with, then have the parents freaking out for three months so the blood tests can come back? It's just a low move.

In all though, Ashleigh said it's a great place to work, some of the staff have been there over 15 years, and that after a while you just take it in your stride and it becomes part of the norm. Isn't that a song title? Nothing is shocking anymore? Something like that?

Anyways, I've got to get ready for work now. I'm reading a book at the moment by a lady called Cupcake Brown. Her mum died when she was 11 when she was sent to a foster home where she was physically, emotionally and sexually abused. She started selling herself when she was that age. It's a real feel good kind of book. I look forward to reading some more at work today.

Piece Of Cake / Trill

I guess this is the first post of the new year and I should write about what 2006 was like and what I'm looking forward to doing in this, the year 2007. I don't really feel like doing that at the moment though, so I won't.

I got back to work on Tuesday and the centre was still standing and all the gardens and lawns looked incredibly green. It was very nice. Unfortunately some of the work from the previous week hadn't been done, as it had been decided that instead of doing it, the staff would leave at 12pm. I don't know if I'm okay with that, I think that it's a little bit annoying. Oh well, life can be like that. A little bit annoying.

It's been a cruisy couple of days though. Not too many children, just hanging out, getting the jobs done.

I went and saw Modest Mouse last night. I enjoyed the show. I haven't actually listened to much of their stuff before, so most of the set was new to me. I really liked a lot of it. I twas interesting, because it felt to me that the band played pretty steady standard indie pop rock, but then the front man would totally rip into his guitar and bring alot of intensity to his singing. It was like he was in the wrong band or something, but I guess it all contributed to the whole because it was sweet. Johnny Marr joined the band this year, and he looked pretty cool up there on stage. He had a certain swagger about him, alot of style. In all, a good show and better live than on the cd. That's just my opinion though.

I'll write a little bit about the weekend. I ended up having a party for New Year's Eve. It was lovely to see a few familiar faces. There was also quite a few unfamiliar faces over the evening. I actually thought in the lead up to the night that there'd only be about 10 - 15 people here. In the end there was 50+.

I managed to behave myself for part of the evening. I ended up giving that up at around 8 I think. I made it to midnight, but by that stage I was being a bit of a nuisance. Well, not a nuisance, but having a bit too much of a good time. Beer, tequila, Maker's Mark, Jagermeister. Good times. Actually that's a lie. Not so much good times, as obliteration.

I woke up New Year's Day and felt pretty bad. My head was pounding, my throat was dry, my tongue was swollen and my hands were shaking. It wasn't a great way to start the year. I made my way downstairs and it was carnage. I haven't seen so many empty bottles before. They were everywhere. Hundreds of them. All shapes and colours. Absolute carnage. I made a quick about-turn and went back to bed.

When I finally managed to work up the nerve to roll over and get out of bed again I was greeted with the welcome sight of David's friends cleaning up all the beer bottles. That was very good of them. Ria and I got stuck into the kitchen and before long there was some semblance of order about the place. The floors were still pretty bad. They're okay now.

I hope that everyone that was here had a good time, and that it was just the start of a wonderful year.