B-log

Well, it finally happened although I didn’t actually think it would happen quite so soon. After I dropped her at the gym some months ago she started behaving a little bit flaky, skipping, and downright refusing to regale me with particular songs…
She had been with me for over a year…almost two years, actually…my constant companion on the bus, while walking, my story-teller and, entertainer.
She always had a song to make me happy when I was sad, and a song to make my good days better.
…she just stopped.

My iPod, fondly called ‘BeePod’ is dead.

Music is such a big part of my life…some people say that smell is the strongest invoker of memory…for me its music. Many of my most incredible memories have a backing track, a soundtrack if you will. There are some songs I cannot listen to because they are too painful, such as “Circle Game” by Joni Mitchell which is the song I sang at my grandfathers funeral…on the other hand there are some songs that take me away to a very very special warm and fuzzy place. **sigh**
I used to listen to music quietly at bedime…it was set to sleep after an hour or so (the man doesn’t like listening to music to sleep so I have stopped doing this) and up till we had different waking hours I used to set the BeePod to sing happy songs to wake us up in the mornings.

I listen to music on my commute to well…anywhere really, I listen to podcasts when the odd ‘i’m-sick-of-my-music’ mood comes along…and more recently I’ve taken to listen to audiobooks. I’m on chapter 3 of Anansi Boys now, and I must say that the narrator is incredibly amusing. Before she fizzled out of use, I used to use the BeePod at work, with a set of speakers that my best friend Michelle kindly gave me for Christmas.

These past two days without it have been ear opening to say the least (har, har). It amazes (and scares me a little) how dependent I’ve gotten on this little tiny white ‘escape-from-the-noise-of-the-outside-world’ device. I’m one of those people who out of the blue and all of a sudden gets a sudden impulse to hear a particular song, at that particular moment…and if I do get to hear it, the whole world becomes a better place….and the BeePod helped it happen. There is so much noise in the world, at least with visual noise we can shut our eyes to it. We can’t shut our ears and block sound out, but the BeePod helped me cover up the unwanted noise with beautiful, sweet, music. Don’t get me wrong, there are beautiful sounds around us as well…sounds of kids laughing, the sound of rain on a balmy day…the sound of the red ‘do-not-walk’ sign turning green…but for the most part these sounds are rare. All I get on a regular day is the sound of the bus groaning…and annoying schoolkids who speak solely for the purpose of being heard by other people…and honestly, I don’t want to hear about how cute (insert name of teenage boy here) is, or how wild the party was on Saturday, and how drunk (insert name of someone waay too young to be drinking) was. Its very annoying…and I mean INCREDIBLY so.

I used to whistle along to songs…and occasionally have been known to belt out a few lines while walking…I don’t care if people look at me funny (in this case maybe I’m being annoying to them—but I don’t really care). I sing along because the music makes me joyous, and I want to share my joy. I don’t think I sound that bad anyway. Some people have smiled when they see me sing, or whistle. And I smile back…I’m always smiling when I sing anyway.

The BeePod kept me motivated at the gym (so sad that that’s where I so carelessly dropped her) with rock music, and steady pumping beats to keep my feet in rhythm while I (on the odd occasion) jogged on the treadmill. At the gym she kept me focused on me and kindly helped me block out the sounds of the disgustingly vain grunting and groaning of the “testosto-boys” as I like to refer to them. (Gimme one more, c’mon, you can do it, lift that stack of weight, yeah! Push it!) –Shut up already, and just let him lift the gaddam weight!
I’m a little bit more irritable now that I don’t have music in my pocket. (add that to the fact I have my period—UGH) where is Corinne bailey Rae’s soothing voice for me now? Where is Aretha’s gospel joy?

I just found a forum that suggests giving the iPod a whack on the back and on the side to get the hard drive spinning properly…
Anxiously I look at the clock, its not long till quitting time, not long till I can rush home try this one last ditch effort at performing CPR if you will…
(and all along the music in my head is the Five Fairsteps singing “ooh child, things are gonna get easier…ooh child things’ll get brighter)

Well, my first dive in Australia…no it wasn’t in the Great Barrier reef (yet).

Two hours south of Sydney is Jervis Bay, a quaint little holiday town. Our home for the weekend was a patch of grass in the campground, where we pitched our very roomy 5 man ten (the more space as you can have in a small space, the better) and laid out our gas bottle and grill. A note on the differences of camping in the Philippines and camping here in Australia…first of all, in the Philippines, we hike long distances up mountains, through rainforests, creeks and plains, carrying large and often times not too efficiently packed backpacks, all the food and water for personal consumption (and then some, because we like to share), and a tent (if you are the lucky one to draw the tent straw), and all your personal items (sleeping bag toilet paper, etc)…oh and if you are carrying the tent, you are probably not carrying the cooking gear (lucky you!) BUT it needs to be brought anyway.

Well here in Australia, camping generally means, loading up the car with the necessities, the tent, the swags (a roll up canvas bed…its like an all in one roll…and its supposed to be weather proof too), the eski (this is what they call a cooler) full off food—which consists of meat, chicken, and some more meat…oh and a couple of tomatoes thrown in for roughage. Bread too. Other things that go in the car are your bag of clothes (it doesn’t have to be a backpack, cos it stays in the car) toiletries (sans the toilet paper—and I’ll come to why in a second), large containers of water, the grill to cook food on (heavy duty iron), the gas bottle (they are small, but still heavy), a skillet (cast iron, and heavy too) and a billy, which is a really cool aluminium pot with a spout…it can be used to boil water for tea or to cook soup and other liquids in. After packing up the car, you then proceed to drive to the campsite of your choice, pitch the tent set up your grill, and away you go. The campsites are sectioned off into powered and non powered sections (big caravans need power), and most campsites have an amenities block which has his and hers toilets (with a seemingly unending supply of toilet paper) and showers with hot and cold running water, laundry rooms, and a common bbq area. Talk about camping with style. What we call camping or mountainclimbing is what they call bushwalking. Talk about spoiled…the only thing I really had to carry was the food…from the eski to the grill…or the dirty plates to the washing area and back…

Ok now the difference in diving and dive operations…first of all the gear…I bought my very first wetsuit, it is 5mm thick and has little mountains where my boobs go (the first time I ever saw a wetsuit like this, its moulded to a womans shape!!! Cool) anyway, other people here wear hoods and vests, and two piece suits, and even dry suits to dive. The water temperature there was 22 degrees, which was actually warmer than being above the water, which brings me to the next difference…getting to the dive site. What I’m used to: sitting on a bangka, and puttering on calm water, the warm sun on my back…what the diving weekend was like for me here…sitting on a powered boat, with my wetsuit fully done up because of the whipping chilly wind, occasionally getting splashed by the water (ok, to be honest on the second day we got wet even before we hit the water!) upon arriving to the dive site, the dive masters sort out the buddies, give a very short brief on the site. An aside here…dive masters who are diving for a living, and obviously bored doing so are not really very comforting people to dive with…our dive master was this way…we organised to go down with him but we had to abort our first dive because for one, my buddy couldn’t equalize, and by the time we resurfaced the dive master and the rest of the group were all long gone…they left us!! Even after we told him we wanted to dive with him. So both of us called that dive a bust…back on the boat I was nearly seasick from the rocking of the water…the surge there is pretty nasty. I was miserable and was hoping that the second dive would be better. The next difference is the surface interval meal. What I’m used to: a full sit down meal on the bangka, with (eat all you can, or eat till its gone) rice, meat, and vegetables, (or if diving close to the resort, a buffet meal waiting for you at the resort). What we had (on a rocky boat): a choice of either one cup of chicken soup, one cup of hot chocolate (how they prepare this is amazingly simple, but not so simple on the rocking horse action of the boat), or one cup of tea, crackers and cheese, and bread, and something sweet—on the first diving day it was fruitcake (not good for someone who is about to hurl), and chocolate easter eggs on the second day (it was easter Sunday, after all!). When they give you the dive brief they pretty much leave you to dive your own plan, on your own (with your buddy)…which is pretty daunting for one who’s underwater sense of direction is just as bad as it is above water, and who’s dive buddy’s is pretty much the same…when you come up they ask for max depth and time under and then they tell you how long they think you should be for the next dive. They still change the tanks for you, and help you out with gearing up, and weight issues, but they generally don’t look after you in the water as well as the wonderful dive masters in the Philippines. (hint hint, nudge, nudge)

Underwater life…now here is where I don’t’ mind the differences too much. I have two words that make diving here worth all the numbing cold and sea-sickness…WEEDY SEADRAGONS. These are the most bizarre underwater creatures I have seen yet. Bizarre and pretty all at the same time.

(picture not mine)

Although I’m used to the tropical aquarium diving that is the Philippines, its still a nice difference to see big fish. We saw a couple of big pretty purple groupers, and a few other fish I have yet to learn the names of.
All in all despite the difference, its well worth it. Its not something we can afford to do every weekend, but its still worth it.
We are saving up for the great barrier reef…its going to take some time, but we’ll be there.

noo-ney-noo ne-noo….does anyone remember the typewriter in sesame street?
the days of good children’s television are gone i think.

i miss the sesame street, the muppet show, fraggle rock, and am i the only one who remembers the electric company?

i would love to see that show again, just to see if what i remember is what it was…

sigh. saturday morning cartoons are not what they used to be…i loved the smurfs as twisted as that sounds…i loved good ole scooby doo, and captain caveman. i loved the jetsons too. of course i miss the old looney tunes…with pepe le pieu, and speedy gonzales with his cuz, slowpoke rodriguez.

my dream dvd collection would have all of these….

maybe one day.

It was my last day of work today. Today is halloween…for those of you who don’t already know, halloween isn’t celebrated much here in australia…nobody goes trick or treating…no one dresses up, there are hardly any costume parties, which sucks because halloween is one of my MOST favourite if not my MOST favourite holiday. but anyway, i just started this and already i digress.

I had bought some lollies to hand out at work…i made two makeshift candy jars out of paper and had trick written on one and treat on the other…i had gummy snakes in the trick, and minties in the treat. People looked at me funny all day long when i offered them the jars and said, “wanna trick or treat?” sheesh. oh well. so anyway, i was telling some of the residents that i had gotten to know pretty well that it was my last day there and it was a good feeling for me to hear them saying what a joy i was to have in the building…one girl even said i was the only ray of sunshine in the building. that was really nice. i even got a call by one of the residents whose daughter i had just spoken to not ten minutes earlier, who told me that she would be happy to have a coffee with me when i got back…and that was so sweet because this woman was very sweet, and very cool for her age. the woman who owns the cleaning company that cleans a few of the apartments in the building gave me a piece of chocolate cake…i feel so good…

which brings me to the point that you indeed get what you give. i loved that job, not only because it allowed me lots of time (heaps of it) to read and do uni work, but it allowed me to do what i like to do…interact with people…and in this job i met all sorts…this job taught me what a smile can do to other people. i like to smile, i think life is waay to short to be frowning and miserable–and even when people would be rude to me, and some of them were, after i was done ranting about them, i returned to being my happy self. this job was such that it is easy to remain detatched…i know some collegues who still don’t know some of the residents names…but it is just as easy to become friends to the residents. you get what you give. i got many good wishes today, and gave many back in return. i got people telling me to come back to the building, i got people telling me that i would be missed, i got people offering me jobs for when i got back. i think being nice to people has its rewards. i think smiling has its rewards too. its nice to feel appreciated for work you have done for people. the great thing is that the boss tells me i may have the job back when i return to sydney!

i’m on holiday mode now…only two more weeks till i head to the phils for an extended holiday…i can’t wait. already i am losing sleep over it…

i can’t wait… : )

a near heart attack.

This made the planning for his birthday all worth it. See, i threw him a surprise party. Now, i’ve never thrown a surprise party before…from the very inception of the idea my heart started beating in triple time wondering if i could pull it off…challenged by the thought….

I went for it. I went about the task of informing people…first and foremost his dad…and then the rest was e-mailing his friends asking them to e-mail other friends, more friends. Its fantastic how people pull together…i was worried about food and asked them to bring food for the barbeque…we ended up with so much food we probably don’t have to shop for meat for another two weeks…

But anyway thats another story alltogether…this is what made it all worthwhile…my heart was racing on our way home from the gym…i was worried that he knew…which i was to find out he didn’t…as we pulled into our parking spot i started talking incessantly…and LOUD. i continued talking loud throughout the stairwell, and into our front door…and through the hallway…i was trying to talk loud but all i could hear was my heartbeating…and boy was it beating fast…walking down the hallway he was focused on an almost empty glass of coke standing on the counter and was probably thinking….”this isn’t mine!”…and all the while he didn’t notice the 20 or so odd people standing in his living room….that is, until they yelled “SURPRISE!” And he promptly jumped out of his skin and yelled “FUCKING HELL!”, and a flash went off and the corresponding picture tells the whole story.

what’d i give my boyfriend for his birthday?

a near heart attack.

he didn’t talk to me for about an hour after that just because he was dirty that i had got him so good! but ah was it worth it.

there’s no topping this one.

people are funny. when they see a reflective surface, they automatically check their appearance…hows the hair, do i have stuff between my teeth…a loose hanging booger perhaps?

well, where i work (consierge work at an apartment building) there is a big glass window. this window is clear glass…clear and therefore not so reflective…this glass window is right in front of my desk. i work alone….and sit behind this desk for 8, sometimes 9 hours at a time, and i have noticed that people check themselves out ALL the time. its funny, really. they see a semi reflective surface, and check themselves out…some girls even check out their own asses….seriously. and then while amidst tucking that stray hair behind the ear….looking through the glass…they see me….and my very amused smirk…and walk away quickly.

i love this job by the way…. where else will you get paid for being nice to people, asking them about their days, and handing them the occasional set of spare keys…where else will you have almost all of 8 hours to read a book, finish an essay for uni, or surf the internet (this one has to be done on the sly).

people are funny. i wonder if i’m as much a curiosity as they are to me…

There is something very funny happening to me…

As you faithful followers of this blog (yes, both of you) know, I have just moved in with my partner. (I love that word…but I’ll expound more on that another time)

I spent last weekend frantically packing up boxes of my things (JUNK—but enjoyable junk) realising what a packrat I am…how I like to keep silly things…the ticket for example to a concert watched years ago…the boarding passes to our flight to the Northern Territory, the little piece of paper with the name of the person who crocheted the beanie I bought at a beanie festival…junk I tells ya…anyway I digress. I packed up the last of my belonging and thought to myself that this is really it, I had found a way out of my lease with my now ex-flatmate and was going to be a full time live in partner…I paid my last rent for the other place yesterday…the last rent payment I will make for a while! How cool is that?!

I put out my wrist playing tennis some weeks ago and I cannot carry very heavy things with my right arm so my man insisted that he do most of the carrying, much to my machista dislike…
But no. sometimes I must admit it is nice to be a taken care of this way.

So anyway, we dumped all the boxes into our spare room which became a room of boxes of MY things…we put out of sight and out of mind as we had the rest of the weekend to worry about. Lucky for me (!) I had a mid-semester break from University and thus had free time to unpack the boxes. Mind you, this was NOT my idea of fun. Sometimes I think I really have lots of junk, because while things were in their boxes I never really needed them, or thought about them. I started yesterday afternoon, and magically today, I am finished. I just just finished now actually and thought I would HAVE to put down my thoughts right now (before they escape me…)

Well, the very funny thing that is happening to me (and feminists please don’t hate me–) is that I am suddenly feeling like a hen…as I was puttering around the house, I realised that I wanted to make things nice, and pretty and clean and tidy not just for my sake, but more for my partners…I realised that I am more clean now than I have ever been (this may be just a fluke for the day tho because looking at my wardrobe my clothes are still a tumbled mess)…but the kitchen is spotless, and I am just about to attack the floor with the vacuum after this. I feel like a hen wanting to roost. I have a nest, and I want it to be pretty, and I want it to smell nice. I also want my rooster to have good food, and it feels nice when my rooster tells me “you did well”, or “what yummy worms, oops…I mean food”, because this equates to, “I’m glad I have you as my hen.”
This is probably the womans urge to mother and nurture coming out….and I’m laughing myself as I write this…not because its anything to laugh about, but its just something that I never really felt this strongly before…what with my own nest and all.

Maybe the rooster is a bad analogy. Roosters as we all know are not monogamous and are happy to spread their seed to as many hens as possible. But you get the picture. This is a one hen coop, and the rooster is happy.

When you think of moving in with someone you think..”BIG STEP”. in my humble and honest opinion, its only as big as you make it, i mean sure moving in with someone you love is indeed an important and well thought out conscious decision (or so we hope) but it doesn’t have to feel like a big step. where i am right now, (i mean in my shoes) my moving in with my partner is just the most natural, most logical, most easy transition ever. ok sure the adjustment period is a bit sketchy but then again, isn’t any adjustment period?
on our first night we slept on a matress in the living room floor, with old blankets acting as curtains, we beat eggs in a mug for omelettes that we ate for dinner.
i now have the ability to come home to a warm home at the end of the day, i now have the privilege to wake up next to someone i love.
when you move and you have to pack your belongings you also never realize how much junk you have…this can be thought of as both physically and spiritually mentally as well…we do keep more than we should…i do at least…both inside me and out. true its hard to fit one life into a suitcase and a few boxes…but the way i see it (in the spiritual light at least…) the more frequently you empty the suitcases and boxes (whether it be giving stuff away, read as giving of bits of yourself away) the more space you have for people to give back. i don’t know if i make sense. i do to me at least…haha.
but anyway, i moved. i made the conscious decision to pull my weight along in a loving committed relationship…i moved and i feel a little more grown up for it.
….and i feel great.

that i get these magical flashes of really good ideas to write about throughout the day…and then when i finally get infront of a computer i find myself staring at it blankly thinking “what was that thought again?” its the same with groceries…i find myself making mental lists throughout the day, and i tell myself that i won’t forget, and then faced with the groceries i forget what it was i needed in the first place and find myself with a trolley full of stuff i didn’t really need….sigh…and its not that i don’t have a pen with me to write down things either
if its true that if you don’t remember, it mustn’t have been important than i have so many unimportant things that i think about…
and i’ll bet i’ll remember as soon as i post this…

*it mustn’t have been important*

all along i thought i had posted my travelogue with photos of my recent adventure in the northern territory…silly me.

here is the URL
http://www.geocities.com/bjmapua210/index.html

its rather crude as i put it together as quickly as i could and didn’t want to hassle with it…

hope you all enjoy it.