When things are quiet

It's almost that time again... staff bonding session time.

Retreats, conferences, weekend getaway, jailtime, whatever you call this annual trek to somewhere supposedly nice and spend some supposedly good, relaxing time with your co-workers is meant to be just that. Although a Peppers retreat at Grandchester was pretty cool, with optional 1 hour massage session :D

In the past it's been a fairly mixed bag- skills training, motivational speaker (complete with 10-15 min hypnosis session......two years in a row...*good grief*), boules on the grass, Thai-cooking classes, yoga sessions and playing pool in a farm shed.

The dreaded things that always seem to crop up though which are never fully resolved, include time management skills, team-building exercises and handling stress in the workplace. Although people winge and whine about such topics, they aren't actually really interested in making the effort to overcome these issues.

The team behind this year's retreat have sent around an email asking us for ideas. That is, ideas on speakers, games, activities etc. Apparently the feedback from last year's retreat was so bad, the partners decided to get the staff themselves to form a committee to handle it :D

Somehow, when the topic of games is mentioned, I don't think some staff would appreciate being tied up hand and foot, dumped into a small plastic wash tub filled with soapy water and then have green porridge poured over their head.

Boating and waterskiing may be good.



Or maybe some dancing lessons.



NOTE: PEOPLE IN THESE PICTURES CAN REMAIN ANONYMOUS..UNLESS YOU CAN SOMEHOW DECIPHER WHO THEY ARE.

Yassou!

For the last 5 years, I have been meaning to attend Paniyiri, the local Greek Festival held every year in May.

Why Greek? Apart from sharing my cubicle wall with a Greek and the fantastic time had at a hens night a little while ago (hehe), I have been told of the various delicacies that has to be tried on such an occasion....."honey puffs".



Out of a small plate costing $3, I could really only handle 2 puffs, but since the price was paid, we had to force ourselves to scoff down the rest. They were quite oily and didn't have that much 'sweetness' from the honey. I was actually a bit disappointed by them.

Moving on to the lamb souvlaki, the service attendant managed to bypass the freshly made ones and give us the 2 driest skewers in the pavilion.

The food item that deserves special mention was the stuffed eggplant. (little shoes as the sign said) Basically you take one eggplant, slice it in half, scoop out the flesh, cook it with some mince, rice and other herbs, before stuffing it back into the shells, sprinkled with cheese and grilled. MMMMMMMMM

Another thing that I hadn't expected at the festival was a mini sideshow alley and amusement rides such as the Kamikaze, Alpine Express, Ferris Wheel, Giant Worms and something called Extreme Speed. Basically four people sit on either end of a long revolving pole (like the Kamikaze), and it swings you up, around, upside down in a circle as you experience some level of G-Force.

Whilst I would have liked to stick around to see Effie do her thing, alas FIGS ministry beckons.

OOOMPA!!!

Perusal Time

I hate exams. All the efforts leading up to 3 hours and 15 mins of immense concentration.

I must admit though that the location of this latest exam sitting was in an unusual place- a function room in a motel up at Boondall. Surely the professional association has enough funds to find a more central location. I'm paying $XXXXX in membership fees and course fees to them for crying out loud!

Whatever happened to the Exhibition Centre? ( have recently been informed that there is gardening expo there this week.....even better!! Why not sit your exam in a comfortable outdoor chair and patio table (large enough for all your books, folders, notes etc to be spread out) with the smell of blood and bone wafting through the room?

hmmm...I guess not.

Anyway, I walked into the room with 70 other people and noticed that only 55 tables were labelled there. What happened to seat no 68? (Yes, I'm an W now, not an M, which made it interesting when I was finding my name on the seating chart..........4th last on the sheet!) I then had to ask where my seat was, just to make sure it wasn't accidentally placed in the lush garden path of the motel complex. I was kindly told that I was in the "other" room. Fine then, so I wandered across the courtyard to the "other" room and was met with 2 very cheerful exam supervisors. The leftovers (surnames from W to Y) were all here, about 12 people. Great.

One thing that lightened up the first 5 minutes before the exam, was the supervisor drolling on about what we cannot do during perusal time. I had this argument earlier in the week with someone who insisted that you can use your fingernails to mark/imprint the exam paper during perusal. I disagreed with him, but was unsure if that was ever the case back at uni.

Lesson learnt for the day- even fingernail markings are not allowed in perusal time, according to this professional association.

Long Island Trip

Here are some piccies from our recent wandering in the Whitsundays.



This is overlooking Happy Bay, which is what the resort was known as back in 1934. Of course it's since been updated with a nightclub, restaurant, cafe, swim-up pool bar, beauty centre and other facilities typical of a beach resort.



We had to go to extremes to get some really good shots.



Such as this one. (I think this is Dent Island which is one of the many islands which is still uninhabited and undeveloped)



The resort pool by night.



Lazing in a hammock, listening to some very bad karaoke singing one night, by a bunch of drunken partygoers who were there for a beach wedding that afternoon.

Such is life.