Crappola jobs

Over at venus in fake fur he discusses some of the crappola jobs in HK-(english version on the bottom half).

I also discovered waiting on hold a blog which focuses on call centres and call centre staff. If you know someone who works in a call centre forward the blog details so they can participate by posting about their jobs.

Horse Racing is not cool

Tomorrow is Melbourne Cup day, a public holiday for horse racing.

Everyone has gone crazy in Melbourne with the spring racing carnival which appears to be an excuse to dress up and get drunk.

Its important to not lose sight though about what the day and the rest of the carnival is centered around: cruel horse racing.

I'm not much of a fan of gambling all together but forcing an animal to run as fast as it can by whipping it continually is really NOT cool.

For more about whats wrong with horse racing check out here and here

My henna hand-studying now!

Apparently Baby cat likes toffuti ice cream too.

World Vegan Day

I went and ate and ate and spend all my money.

There were so many people. We arrived just before 2 and you could barely move in some sections and the line for veggie burgers was always long.

Unfortunately no tofutti ice cream though. They only had their cream cheeses to sample and empty ice cream cartons and tubs to tease us with.

I fell in love with Bombay bliss bags.

I also like the look of the yoga retreats, cooking classes and even their vegan recipe calendars available at mukti in Hepburn Springs. Mmmm i could handle a trip to Hepburn springs.

Plus I discovered another vegan beer range.

Food wise, I managed to fit in a choc jam donut, very filling 'schnitzel' burger, chocolate, wonton(free), five spice tofu(free), satay 'chicken'(free), and a cherry and chocolate muffin.

Its a good thing i skipped breakfast.

I also bought an over the shoulder bombay bliss bag(good for going out), save babe t-shirt, orgran biscuts and some other little things. Plus i got a henna tattoo on my hand.

All in all a good day.

I love the blog world!

Recently there was at least three blogs all attempting to answer the incredibly hard question: why are there so many anti-feminist women or rather the whole 'I'm not a feminist but...'.

Something that i'm always shocked by and a little saddened by. I faced it a lot when I was in HK. Perhaps because Mr T kept announcing that I was a feminist and then asking if they were a feminist (he meant well) they would reply quite defensively 'no i'm not a feminist'. But of course it stills exists here. I remember after a women studies class in my undergrad days one particularly girl who obviously walked in there with a preconception about what the class was, and then after the class spoke about how she hated men-bashing when the lecturer failed to mention men once. I've also had plenty of friends state feminist comments only to later defend by saying 'its not like a feminist or something'.

Anyway its a question for the ages and i wish i had time to post more. Go check out the lengthy posts at all of the blogs.

I first learned about it though sour duck links page which then led me to no pod and that lead me to mind the gap and finally i ended up at Hugos post which seems to be the original.

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Anyway also wanted to announce that I just completed my first semester of lecturing!

I had a senior lecturer call me up yesterday and congratulate me and basically told me about how lecturing when you first start is all about survival. News that would have been helpful at the beginning but still its nice to know that I wasn't alone in wanting to quite on more than once occasion. She then told me what everyone in the faculty says and you taught '..........(insert subject title here)' thats really really brave. Basically without revealing too much i taught a science/maths subject to social science students and they hate it. Everyone hates it and there is more anxiety with this subject than any other in the course because so many fail it.

She then told me that i should feel proud of myself to which i could honestly reply that i am.

Another book to add to the list of must reads once semester is over and I have the privilege of reading for fun.

Female chauvinist pigs: Women and the rise of raunch culture

I Read the review on the age, and have also seen mostly ok-ish reviews on amazon and indie bride.

Reading for fun! I can't wait.

and why am i posting so frequently despite how frantic my workload is?

Its theraupetic and kind of a quick fix (have you seen all the extra typos I have made recently- no time for re-reads or proper typing) particuarly since I can barely start a conversation at the moment with my loved ones which isn't either boring (eg: in response to what did you do today: worked on my assignment/lecture preparation etc) or complaining (in response to how is it going: 'not so good, i have .................... all due in the next week').

I suck as a friend/fiance/family member right now, but i will be back very soon I promise!

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Btw, world vegan day this sunday, those are in melb should check it out at albert park lake. Tofutti (the best vegan ice cream ever) have a stall, now if thats not reason enough than I don't know what is. Just in case, there will also be music, lots and lots of stalls, lots of kids activities and plenty of food!

Plus I'll be there taking a small break from it all.

I watched the ARIA's tonight in between preparing lecture notes and was really suprised by a) how much pop music i like and b) how much australian music i like. So i thought i would make a list of all the popish aussie music i like:

ben lee
architecture in helsinki
john butler trio
missy higgins
sarah blasko
evermore
grinspoon

Ok for most of the above i wouldn't go out and buy their albums or see them live but i like a song or two at least. It certainly seems to be an improvement from previous years anyway.

Now back to work!

My homework level feels about as high as the the buildings.

Will be back in about in about two weeks.

Inroducing.....

weatherpixie -------------->



I love the fact that her outfits/and the background change with the time of the day and the weather.

There are so many types to choose. I love the 20s doll and might change to it once i can be bothered playing around with again.

I added it yesterday when melb weather was beautiful for once.

I was considering adding a second one too maybe an asian guy for HK weather but there are no asian looking men (only asian women) and besides seeing HK weather alongside melb weather would just be depressing.

Sodastsream on sat night and yes the guy on the right is playing a sword.

Thankful

I attended emergency relief training over the last couple of days.

Its been a good experience. An experience which has once again reinforced how bloody lucky i am to have the following:

a place to sleep
family and friends
education
employment
no disabilities
no kids
a loving non- abusive partner
english skills
no major medical costs/debt


Its been great as well to see those who orginally started the training asking questions such as 'how can you tell if they are just trying to scam the system' to realise that the vast majority of clients don't come for help unless they really need it. As the instructor pointed out, they don't think to themselves 'i wouldn't mind some extra kidney beans better go beg for them'.

Others have stopped the victim blaming and started realising that sometimes clients are in a really horrible situation because of bad circumstances rather than bad choices.

And i doubt anyone walked away without being thankful for what little they may have.

Speaking of which, i have something extra to be thankful for:

Mr T handed in the immigration forms today!

Now back to one thing i'm not so thankful for: homework.

Explicit warning!!!! Ugly Hip Hop lyrics ahead.

Hip hop bad

When i was last in HK i had the unfortunate experience of going to a hip hop club.

I noticed instantly that there was two main styles of dancing, one consisted of basically standing on the spot and moving only slightly, the other consisted of moving quite obviously up and down, and some serious butt shaking. Take a wild guess who was doing what(in terms of females or male)?

I wasn't obviously impressed with the song lyrics all evening, but then the following song come on(keeping in mind this was the chorus):

So lick it now, lick it good, suck this dick just like you should
Right now, lick it good, suck my dick just like you should
Thats it, like that, lick my dick and my sack
Don't quit, like that, lick my dick and my sack
Yeah bitch, like that, lick my dick and my sack
Don't trip, like that, lick my dick and my sack

Charming isn't it?

But wait it gets even bettter:

First you gotta take your tongue stick it out up and down, let it run
All around my dick and balls, let the spit drip from your jaws
Get hype wit it, it's your chance, squeeze my dick let it slide in your hands
Don't stop until you make me come, after me give my homeboy some
Bustin' nuts all in your face, open wide, I know you love that taste
The best head comes from real ho's , I get big like a dildo

I stood there on spot at that moment quite annoyed, and thinking surely i'm not the only woman in the room not quite enjoying the lyrics, but apparently I was because most of the women continued to dance as if they were imitating sexual movements right there on spot.

Sadly when I was researching the above lyrics,I actually had trouble finding the song, because there are quite a few songs with similar lyrics.

I was however suprised to discover that part of the lyrics was actually created by a woman-khia in a song called my neck my back, althought it of course referred to licking female body parts and then Too $hort created his ever so 'poetic' version which was just a touch harsher in comparison.

I also found this song which ends with more charming lyrics again:

Hey mothafuck, I want you to suck Dre's dick,
Then I want you to suck Yella dick
You already sucked Ren's dick ..

Apparently hip hops horrible relationship with women still exists.

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Hip hop-good

I'm still not a fan of hip hop but I was recently impressed with Kanye West.

I watched the MTV interview with Kanye West recently where he explained how homosexuality is almost an antonym to hip-hop and that basically it (gay bashing) needs to be stopped.

Mr T (defender of hip hop- the one area of music we disagree on) was then explaining how one of his new songs even talks about problems with the diamond industry. Nows thats impressive!


Now all we need is some mainstream hip hop or just mainstream music in general talking about women's issues. Or simply starting to undo some of the issues created with lyrics in the first half. Perhaps thats what the female singer khia was trying to do in her song 'my neck, my back' in her own crude way.


Yeh i guess I am dreaming there!

Asleep in front of the heater. Licorice the black lab, Paris the white american bulldog, and Dairy the stray cat. 

I payed off my credit card bill!!!!

Goodbye debt, and hello saving.

There is so much to save for too:

Big Day out tickets (go on sale next week) and I'm dying to see sleater-kinney and white stripes and quite a few others. I've never been before so i'm very excited!

Wedding dress and other wedding costs

A new Nookart lunchbox (check them out here under tin products lunch boxes).

Xmas presents.

Car insurance (due very soon) and other bills.

House stuff, bond etc with the plan of moving over the summer holidays (Australia).

Any tips for saving money?

So far all I have is cutting down on processed package foods which has been a struggle.

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The other thing is I'm going to stop procrastinating and actually start my major assignments (including another 5,000 one) which are due in the next month. Which means laying off posting and reading blogs for a while. I wonder how long that will last.

It was on the way to work on sunday that I heard about the bali bombings on the radio.

All I heard though was that one australian teenager was confirmed dead. I waited for more but thats all i got, I didn't know how many bombs went off, how many were injured or anything until I actually arrived at work and checked the newspaper online.

Why is it that when terrorist attacks occur in other western countries the media tends to mention all the details in total, showing stories about the locals injured as well.

But as soon as something happens outside of the western world, the locals tend to be ignored.

Thankfully the age pointed it out:

where yet again most of the dead have been locals and most of the damage has hit local businesses.

Obvious, right? Maybe, but the media still seem to be ignoring it. I now know from the media that two australians are confirmed dead and another two missing and thought to be dead. Yet I have no idea how many locals were killed. I understand pointing out the Australian deaths for a few reasons but we need to remember we are not the only ones killed or injured.

My heart goes out to them all!!!

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Edited to add: I checked the age online again this morning which revealed that

At least 14 Indonesians died in the blasts at Kuta and Jimbaran Beach

Perhaps we are starting to care about the others

My crooked photo wall version 3. The original idea was inspired by a clipping on Erin's inspiration board. At first it was just one line with spaces, then one line with overlapping pictures and then of course I opted for two lines. I love it crookedness and all because its contains a few of my fav things/people/places and its situated on the wall that I face when i turn my head away from the computer (which I live on).

Immigration.

The immigration forms were ALMOST in!

Handing in the forms has been a long long process. I filled out the first set back in march this year. But there has been continual obstacles, money being the biggest. It costs a bloody lot for Mr T to move here without all the immigration costs.

We were so close, MR T had an appointment to hand them in but when the immigration woman was confirming that we had everything she also insisted that I too need a free to marry certificate (its not on the list) to show that I'm not already married. Now i have to wait a week or two for it and send it to Mr T before the forms will be handed in.

Ahhh feels like I have been in a long distance relationship forever (coming up to 16 months in case you were wondering).