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.

Geez

I just saw the first half hour of Home Alone 2, and the last scene before going to a commercial break, was of Mr Culkin walking up the street towards the Twin Towers, and then an aerial shot of him standing on top of one them taking pictures on his camera.

My how times have changed since 1994.

First catch

Just recently I have been drawn again to the idea of fishing. Some people find it surprising that I would be interested in such a blokey pastime. I guess that was because I was brought up in Nth Qld, which boasts some of the best reef and estuary fishing in this country. (as well as cyclones)

I like fishing. Even more so if I actually catch anything.

I don't remember the last fish I caught. It must have been a silver bream up at Sweers Island, a small island in the Gulf of Carpentaria which is only accessible by a twin-engine (in our case, a single-engine) plane from Karumba. The route was quite scenic, however the thought of the engine on the little plane carrying 7 people over the big wide open sea suddenly failing kept our minds otherwise preoccupied.

*brain-wave*

Forgetting the last paragraph, I do believe the last fish caught was an undersize sand whiting off Wellington Point a couple of years back. Undersize being the size of a bait fish species. Thinking that I had more chance of getting something with live bait, I threw it back in.....only to promptly lose the bait as it somehow managed to unhook itself and swim away.

Another thing that I was thinking about last night.....if there are any fishing enthusiasts who actually read this blog, are there benefits of using a bait-caster, rather than an Alvey or spin-combo? I've only ever used the last two.

I should do this more often

There's nothing like waking up bright and early in the morning of a working day at 6:30AM to update your blog.

Rather, I had a few things to do which I didn't get a chance to do last night, as with Easter coming up as well as a tropical holiday, my priorities have been to get as much CPA study done as I possibly can.

Anyway, I'll see if this works:



This is taken from the ODI cricket match between Australia and Sri Lanka at the Gabba, back in February on Valentines Day.



We went with sister Leonie and Joshi, a mad sports fanatic who also has a blog. See my links section :)

From the pictures it seems quite obvious that the ratio of male to females in the crowd that day was around 10:3, at best guess.

Must eat brekky now and get to work!!

Stuff CPA, I'm gonna be a.....

Test car driver!!!!

Ok, maybe I should re-word that as the description sounds too blokey, too much like my hubby and other guys I know :)

Hmmmm......maybe it should be more of "a driver who simply has no choice but to drive the car that was been given to them, and have it changed on a weekly basis."

I guess I "could" handle that, especially if it's a nice car like a Mazda 6 or Mini Cooper.

Ever since my car was crashed into from behind, I've had the privilege of driving 3...actually 4 different cars in a three week period.

First car was a Nissan Pulsar. This was just your average rental vehicle, automatic, silver, no electric features, (e.g. no power windows, but it did have remote central locking) However, I finally got aquainted with "cruise control".

Not that I drive that much on the freeway anymore, but it certainly drew the attention and amusement of my hubby nonetheless.

Unfortunately after 10 days I had to give it back :(

I was then given my dad's old 1991 Nissan Patrol 4WD. Being the very first manual car I drove when I got my licence at 17 (*shucks*), I believed I was capable of driving this tank again.

However, it has become quite an antique, in that it only likes my dad driving it, and so when anyone else tries to drive it, it would just *chut* *chut* *chut*, refuse to start and also annoy the neighbours in the complex.

As a result, I was then given my mum's new Toyota RAV4, which was alot nicer and disciplined. Too bad I couldn't utilise the Handicap sign stuck to the front windscreen to my benefit, unless I had grandma in tow.

And finally, today is the 4th car, a Toyota Avalon sedan from a close family friend.

Does anyone else see a vehicle trend here?

Understanding but hard to accept

Have recently attempted to write an explanation of the oh-so-controversial topic of predestination to a group of young, adolescent Christians. Whilst the ending result was 3x A4 pages, the real challenge is trying to compress that into a suitable 2 minute explanation without leaving out the important stuff.

I guess I cheated a bit, by asking the recently-appointed Associate Pastor (Moore College trained, thank you very much) what his thoughts were.

This was probably the first time I remember hearing this topic explained so matter-oh-factly, without any hesitation and such confidence.

I've probably been trying to avoid the idea of explaining or addressing such a topic, but the truth of the matter is.....this question is what these young, adolescent Christians want answered. Some may understand it, but find it hard to accept. Others may not understand it at all so need the understanding, and others simply like to throw such challenges to the leaders and sit back and watch them either float, swim or drown.

It all comes back to the acceptance of God being God. That is, letting God be God. He is perfect in all ways, always just, always faithful to those who love Him. We are but mere, ordinary, selfish "mushrooms" that God has extended the invitation of eternal life with Him in heaven to. The choice is ours, and the choice we make, God will act accordingly.

As for trying to accept the ways and things that God does, which we may find to be unjust......who are the "mushrooms" to question God and what He does?

Simplicity

I like the simple things in life.

Unfortunately life is never simple. There is still work to be done, study to do, house to clean, clothes to wash, meals to be made, clients to call, hens night to plan, and of course, updating your blog :D

My favourite animal has always been a sea otter. I'm fascinated by how carefree and playful they are by themselves and each other. They move so gracefully and swiftly through the water hunting down their oysters, and floating on the water's surface, with a certain degree of contentment.




However, one should always be prepared to keep a lookout for what's behind them, otherwise they will be caught out! Just like this!

Raggle-tailed Guttersnipe!

Reminiscing on quotes from the movie classic "My Fair Lady": (a movie about a chauvanistic English professor who accepts a dare that he can pass off a Cockney flowergirl as a duchess at the grand Embassy Ball)

Professor Higgins: She's an owl, sickened by a few days of *my* sunshine.

Colonel Pickering: Have you NO morals, man?
Alfred P. Doolittle: Nah. Can't afford none. Neither could you, if you were as poor as me.

Professor Higgins: Women are irrational, that's all there is to that! Their heads are full of cotton, hay and rags. They're nothing but exasperating, irritating, vacillating, calculating, agitating, maddening and infuriating hags!

Eliza Doolittle: You ought a be stuffed with nails, you ought!

Professor Higgins: I've learned a great deal from your idiotic notions, I admit it humbly and gratefully.

Professor Higgins: The French don't care what they do actually, as long as they pronounce it properly.

Professor Higgins: There are even places where English completely disappears. In America they haven't used it for years.

Are bosses good managers?

That's the question being posed at work recently. All staff have been divided into project teams to help out the partners on this major management restructure project.

Scary topics such as firm vision, culture, values, internal processes are being pulled apart to reveal the inefficiencies that are in existence. Do they really exist? What are our inefficiencies? Why are people dissatisfied and leaving on mass?

I did some reflection late last year, and counted that it's been one person per month since I've been here, that has left the firm. (Who knows, maybe in yet another 3 years I'll be the longest serving staff member...AGAIN) So that makes it 12 people.
But namely those that have left are younger graduates or undergrads still at uni.
Apparently this is the norm, especially in our country with a shortage of bean counters, therefore we're in hot demand!!

But honestly, the poor grads and undergrads get given the brainless tasks of letters, simple tax returns, and if jobs are running extremely low, even filing and photocopying. That is considering we already have admin staff with a shortage of work, plus a full-time filing clerk.

I have noticed though, that within the accounting profession, especially public practice, that there are ten million ways in doing the same task to reach the same outcome. Why can't there be uniformity here???? However, the following joke does touch on a smidgen on uniformity:

Why did the accountants cross the road?
Because they looked in the file and that was what they did last year.

Until next time

Okay, feeling a bit bleary-eyed this morning but with good measure- We won the 2006 ODI series!

I was thinking my observations of this game would be similar to my January experience. Despite there being 10,000 less people there last night compared to January's game, did not mean a thing.

The smaller the crowd, the more rowdy they are. (unless it's really that the hard-core fans are the rowdy ones with no full-time jobs, or chucking a sickie from work. EDIT: I was good and went AFTER work)

Anyway, to the game....

1) It was made known that the the mexican wave is not permitted at the ground, and anyone caught instigating it would be immediately evicted. To say the least, some evictions took place and the rest of the crowd decided to keep it going and going, so it wouldn't stop. Hence no need to instigate it!

2) Being Valentines Day, a few banners were strategically placed around the ground by:

Males ditching their female counterparts for the game:
Sorry hon, we'll do dinner next year.

Ribbing the Sri Lankan team's defeat in the last game:
Roses are Red, Violets are Blue
Look out Murali, Roy's after you.

Hey Murali, reckon u can make a ton. How about it? 0 for 100.

And those with no relevance to the game whatsoever:
Hi Tokyo, Wombat Cricket Club.

3) A partially-clad man then raced onto the field and was crash-tackled by a security guard in spectacular fashion, and then cheered as he was taken away to a nice prison cell.

4) The game was halted for a few moments due to the mexican wave starting again, and rubbish being pelted onto the playing field. Whilst ground staff dealt with this, the Sri Lankan physio decided to play impromptu sprinter/cricket clown by racing out onto the field, giving a player a rub-down and then racing back and doing a well-executed leap over the fence into the player's area.

5) Murali being chanted at by the crowd to come back to the out-field to be abused for no-balls and general lack of bowling skill. (come back Murali, come back!)

And special mention must be made to our Andy 'Roy' Symonds for winning Player of the Series.

Yay! Yay! Yay!

Have just purchased tickets for the 3rd and deciding ODI final for this summer between Australia and Sri Lanka!!!!!!

Will post my observations of this game a little later.

Go Roy!

The Beach

It's been at least 4 years since I've swam at a beach. (Trying to paddle a canoe at Tangalooma or the occasional toe-dipping does not count)

What better way to celebrate Australia Day than going down to the beach of choice: Southport.

The waves were quite rough and strong for someone like me, although I was coaxed out into the deeper section of the waves so as to avoid the impact of the breaking waves on the shoreline. That did make a lot of sense.

However, that only lasted about 5 minutes, as I've forgotten how salty sea-water was, and whilst also feeling "bobbing water fatigue" starting to set in, I then allowed myself to be thrusted back to the seashore in a tumbling heap, to watch little kids on their boogie-boards riding the mini-waves.

Now you simply cannot go the beach without having a serving of freshly-made fish & chips.

We were bitterly disappointed however, to find out that Southport had nothing of the sort, apart from the Surf Club (which welcomed visitors, but not those in thongs or shorts), so therefore we had to be content with chicken & chips and sandwiches instead at a highly-inflated upmarket-ish convenience store.

Essence of Summer

Have just witnessed a rather profound event.
ODI Cricket Fever!

To truly embrace this, one has to understand that:

You must have patience (not only for the game, but also for those ppl constantly wanting to get past you, causing you to get up out of your seat, going for alcohol and overpriced meals every 15 minutes.)

Don't be alarmed when various chants arise, mostly in the form of obscene language abuse at the security guards on field and opposition team players.

Seeing people with various colourful headwear. (Most notably a bunch of guys wearing cut-out watermelons on their heads)

To pass time when the game is slow, to identify the many areas where beach balls, kangaroos, blow-up dolls, dolphins and Boonies are being thrown in the air, and subsequently going over the railing into the field and being confiscated by the security guards. (hence the abuse)

Being amused by a lone South African supporter in the stands being pelted with rubbish after a boundary is scored by the team.

Being even more amused when one spectator jumps the railing and sneaks into the area where the confiscated balls are placed, and throwing them back into the crowd, before sneaking back in and being booted out by the police.

Picking out the boys in blue who suss out one patron for throwing tennis balls all over the crowd, and seeing these donging onto people's heads.

Seeing those people in the licenced areas, trying to make a huge leaning tower made out of empty plastic beer cups.

And last of all...

Doing the mexican wave over and over again, with chips, and full cups of beer falling gracefully out of the sky and raining down on all unfortunate patrons below.

Luckily we were right up the top in the very back row in an UNLICENCED AREA, so we came out unscathed.

Happy 20,006 AD

I'm not sure if it was a typo, or there is some underlying meaning that I'm not aware of, but the first Unichurch bulletin on January 1 of said new year was dated:

1 January 20,006 AD.

Any valid explanation would be appreciated :D If it is simple, then yes, I would be a mushroom.

All these late nights I think are taking its toll, and rightly so when I go back to work today. Hmmph!

January every year has always had the reputation of being as busy as December. Namely due to camps. Whilst we only did a day visit to Tweed River Mission in late December, its either beach mission, CMS Summer School (yay!), QYC, KYLC, KYC. (yes, I know the last two mentioned are actually being held over the border with the Mexicans...*wink! but to prove my point.....they are camps!)

And January is also the time of..... ODI CRICKET!!!! January 15th should be fantastic, and hopefully we'll get a decent ODI match this time around at the Gabba.

*No Subject*

Some thoughts:
Christmas Day lunch at the bayside was not what was expected. It was by the coast, but had little or no sea-breeze, alresco dining in 38 degree heat, other patrons were sweating as much as the poor fellow in charge of the roast meat section, carving and slicing his way through many legs :D

Did not get many presents but that didn't matter to us. We felt spending Christmas with family is priceless.

Now it's off again today (Boxing Day) to the in-laws out at the farm this afternoon/evening for yet another Christmas feast!! Hopefully we can palm off some of the miscellenous "goodies" we received in our work Christmas hampers here as well.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!!

You know it's that time of year

....when a rather large tree is placed in reception and an email is sent around with the subject line "Secret Santa".

Also, contributions are called for the Christmas hampers available to be won in this month's raffle. The catch was, to get a raffle ticket you had to contribute an item to the hamper with a value between $5-$10. Easy solution.....Gloria Jeans coffee beans.

The raffle was drawn today at the morning tea.
Correction, I should have said "raffles", as there were 5 hampers up for grabs. It went down to the last hamper draw and who would have guessed that my name was pulled from the hat. No-one did, it was pure fluke.

Anyway, another event that happened recently was the work Christmas function last weekend. This was held at a place called the Brazilian Touch, which sounds like a strip joint. (it was located at Bowen Hills though so location-wise would make it valid)
As one work colleague described it, it was an UPMARKET strip joint.

But really, it was a cabaret restaurant with buffet dinner and a Brazilian dance show. I'm sure you can use your imagination from this point. Most work colleagues weren't that impressed with the place.

And to put more salt into the wound, one of the partners came around the office on Monday and asked how we thought the night went. One boldly responded "I hated the place".

Ssssssmokin!

Summer is definitely here.

But it's

NOT DUE TO THE FOLLOWING:
The fact that our house temp is a constant 35 degrees
The fact that "Rocky the Bulldog" (who lives in my car) has taken another step towards dying from skin cancer
That I'm planning to stay inside the office this week rather than going across the road, so as to avoid the stinking hot weather
The summer storms we've been having recently
I'm wearing summer PJs to bed
Using Fans and A/C
Dad has bought himself a big carton of beer
Pool Party and BBQ invitations

The ONLY proof I have that summer is here:

Is that I got that same stupid shoulder tan I got two years ago, which I only got rid off just before September this year!