I was bored today, there was some good light, and I was feeling arty. So here are a few of my favourite things. No kittens unfortunately. More here but this is a little taste. Read on for my thrilling story of rage and despair in the pool last week. It'll have you on the edge of your seat.

My Vietnamese teapot, broken spout and all. Bought many years ago in Melbourne.

Kyoko Hashimoto acrylic earrings. A birthday present from Jennifer.

My charm bracelets, 18 years worth of memories and still counting.

And some newer memories: my silver bangle, engraved earlier this year with the places I have been.

Oh, and a side story about an incident of pool rage I witnessed when I was swimming last week. There was this man, let's call him Mr Flopper, because I find that amusing. Mr Flopper was swimming in the medium lane and the pool was fairly busy, but unfortunately, Mr Flopper was not entirely up to speed, shall we say, with the medium lane. He was fine when he was doing freestyle or breaststroke and could..you know..see where he was going. But when he started to do backstroke, let's just say things got ugly. Might I add at this point that I was in the slow lane, where I rightly belong, so I watched this whole thing unfold...

As soon as I saw this girl get in the pool I knew there'd be problems. Firstly, she was very muscular and thin, in that way that can only mean she does a lot a working out and actually enjoys it. Probably plays team sport too. Secondly, she was wearing racer back technical looking swimmers. It's always a dead give-away that someone takes life too seriously when they wear those swimmers, because unless you're actually a swimmer (in which case you would most likely not be in the medium lane) I don't see the point. Thirdly, and most importantly, she was wearing a big chunky water-proof watch...as in...one with serious function that isn't only for accessorisation...

Anyway, so there's Mr Flopper, happily swimming laps, while this lady powered up and down the pool. Even underwater (I was watching under the lane rope) she looked scarily agressive. Then poor Mr Flopper decided to do some backstroke...and his direction was a little off...and he drifted....and... she was Not Happy. Instead of laughing it off like I, and the lifeguard, were doing, she chose to be a bitch. There she stood, hands on hips, sporadically jabbing her fingers in the air, giving Mr Flopper a lesson in pool etiquette.

And I was left thinking, wouldn't it just have been easier to swim around him?

I've spent the last few days in a money burning state of retail therapy. It takes my mind off poorly written essays that weigh heavily, and off the 350 test papers I'm slowly marking my way through. I slept in today for the first time in many weeks without feeling guilty, and then took myself off to uni to swim some laps before meeting Helen and Louise at the Lindt Cafe to gorge on chocolate cheesecake.

The best thing about the Lindt cafe, is that it's right in the city making it very close to Pitt Street Mall...And so today I am the proud owner of two new skirts, a pair of jeans, a shirt, a jacket, and some fairly filmy Elle MacPherson underwear. Now it just remains to find someone who appreciates such frilly meshy things...

Memoirs in six words.


I have nothing to say. You?

I'm always very interested in the search terms that lead people to my blog. I've said it before, but you'd be amazed just how much traffic those posts about chlamydia (it was not that kind of chlamydia!) and the puffiness of the eye get. But listen, all you internet--hypochondriac-diagnosers out there (no judgement, I am one myself), I have to tell you something important:

If it's oozing, you need to see a doctor. Like, now.

I love to read the Swedish newspaper. Remember the story about the policeman who demanded a twelve-person smörgåstårta in return for the timely recovery of a stolen trombone? So much about that story is perfect; the cake bribery, the fact that the instrument stolen was a trombone (I just picture him balancing it as he rides his bicycle through the streets of Lund). The fact that he did buy the smörgastårta but only for eight people because he didn't think it would take that many police to relocate his trombone!

I've said it before, but it's just so true...Only...In...SWEDEN!

And I discover today that the archives are even better!

Drunk Elks Attack Police

Munching Swedish Beaver Causes Blackout

Fjuckby Residents Demand New Name

I love these people. So very very much.

I have to write 5000 words of essay by Monday, but something deep inside my brain appears to be broken, and instead of focusing on the actual work I'm spending equal amounts of time freaking out about how much work I have to do by Monday, mixed with daydreams about how much I want an iPhone. So shiny, so pretty, so should be thinking about Latour and Woolgar on credibility conversion as a form of scientific authority.

Although to be fair, I did knock out 1000 words last night and stayed in the library until 9pm, until hunger finally drove me out and I emerged once more, shiny-faced and ratty-haired, into the world of normal people.

I need to take a break (well, I'm at work at the moment with very little to do while I wait for the autoclave to finish working its steamy magic) to allow my aching brain to heal. I thought I'd share a little story. It's called "One Day in Japan When I Ate the Best Beef of My Short Life."




The End.

And that's a big call for me to make.
Apart from that goofy looking guy in the foreground, but I choose to just sort of, blur him out.




As always, there are more photos from my travels here.

OK look, when you autoclave mouse feed it gets all hot and steamy. And then when you open the bag all the steam comes out really fast, and if you stand over it instead of to the side, all the steam goes on you. And believe me, that shit smells nasty.

Many many months ago now, we decided to go to Paris for New Years Eve. How Romantic. The plan came about partly because we'd talked about going somewhere for my birthday but it had never happened because of clashes with work, and uni, and life in general. So Paris it was.

We had a look at flights and found some pretty cheap ones that only required us to leave the house at 4am (no joke there, but it's not too bad for budget airlines), and organised from there. This was a trip destined to be bittersweet, even more so in retrospect, because it was taking place just two days before I would leave Sweden, the World, the Universe, for good and fly back to Australia to resume my other life. The life that time forgot. But let's not talk about bittersweet now, unless it's about dark and expensive chocolate, because it makes me sad and I'm sure you can fill in the gaps. I just thought it might flesh out the story to preface it as such.

Day 1. We hit the ground early and set out to find out hotel, which happened to be just a 10 minute walk from the Eiffel Tower in a nice neighbourhood filled with food.

We set out to find the tower, and ended up going on a bit of a round-a-bout wander through the backstreets. Eventually we ended up at the Trocadero, and (don't tell anyone) I was initially a bit underwhelmed by the Tower... I think perhaps because these days we see everything on TV first, and we'd been poring over the guidebooks, so when we finally got there I was sort of like, OK, photo *click*, let's move on!

But everytime I saw it after that it became gradually more impressive, I promise!



From there we headed to Pierre Lachaise Cemetery to visit Jim Morrison, and I didn't complain once. It was actually a pretty amazing place, full of dead famous people like Edith Piaff and Oscar Wilde, and Claude Bernard. But he's only famous if you're a nerd. Anyway. There's over a million graves, and that place is huge.







And we finished up the afternoon at Montmartre and Sacré-Cœur. Damn, that was a big hill to walk up full of nutella crepes. But, the view of the city was pretty impressive, as were some of the things in the sex-shop windows..not that we like...went in to any of them.





I'm actually digressing something extraordinary here, because there was only one thing this post was going to be about: how we missed the New Year's Eve fireworks in Paris.

Day 3
Here's the thing, you think Paris, fireworks...you think Eiffel Tower. WRONG.

Picture the scene if you will; we set of to explore the Champs Elysee before having dinner (more on that kettle of fish in a moment), and it was beautiful. The atmosphere, the lights, the people, the niggling feeling my camera and wallet were going to be stolen. There were many many police and the stores were boarding up their windows, so we start to wonder if perhaps the fireworks are actually up here. Off we go to find someone who will know, a policeman. The first one we find speaks no English, but the second, with our very animated hand-illustrations of fireworks and sound effects, apparently understands and tells us that yes, the fireworks will be at the Eiffel Tower. With that query sorted, off we go, rushing a little, to the dinner that we've booked. But when we get there, two things are off.


1) The restaurant is dark and the staff are still eating their dinners.
2) The menu in the window is a set one for NYE, and it's 100 euros per person. That's you know, about 350 AUD.

Solutions:
1) Turns out I can't actually read the time on my absurdly fashionable watch, and it is, in fact, only 8 o'clock. Not 9 o'clock, ergo, we are an hour early.
2) There we are shitting ourselves because we do not have 200 euros, and I had already had a nervous breakdown earlier that day about how much money we'd already spent. What to do, what to do?! Is it possible that we can also order off the menu? So we decide to call and find out, but we had already called to make the booking, so Robert called and put on a funny voice. The conversation went like this: "Oh yes, hello. Do you have a table available for tonight? ...Oh good. Is it a set menu, or can we order off the menu?... Right. And how much is that set menu?...Right, 100 euros per person. I'll...ah...call you back." And then we ran away.

Anyway, with that behind us, we found a nice pub and ate some steak, drank some wine etc, and at about 10pm began our meander down the hill to stake out a prime viewing position at the tower. There were thousands of people there, the mood was buzzing. We bought some illegal beer from a corner store. The night was set as we snuggled into the prime viewing position we'd somehow scored.

At 10, then 11, the lights on the tower light up and you could feel the anticipation building. Then at 12, people began counting down, champagne corks popped all over the hill, it was electric. But nothing happened. There were no fireworks. Just the lights on the tower.
And then we went home. Anticlimactic, wasn't it.

Today I've been at home in bed with a particularly nasty case of tonsillitis, nasty as in, can't swallow or move my head from side to side because my throat is so swollen. Yuck. Reminds me of the time I had chlam....anyway.

Since things have been a bit quiet on my end of the stick I thought I'd post a collection of photos I've been meaning to put up for a while. I'm working on this cake for my Grandmother, she's unable to do any cake decoration since she gave me her tools, and I wanted to prove to you all that I really am multi-talented! So here you have it, the step-by-step guide:

Step 1. The marzipan. While I don't especially like the taste of marzipan, it's often used as the first layer to hide the taste of the fondant on top. It also helps to seal the cake to stop it going bad while you work on it.

Step 2. Crumbing. Use the marzipan to plug up any holes in the cake which might prevent a smooth surface on the fondant layer.

Step 3. Covering. Some books recommend you lift the marzipan/fondant on the cake with the help of your rolling pin but I find it just as easy to quickly lift it on. It's very important to paint the cake itself in sugar syrup first so that the marzipan is anchored to the cake.

Step 4. Trimming. I find that this is a good time to level up the bottom of the cake by sticking a little of the excess marzipan underneath.

Step 5. The fondant. You absolutely have to make sure that the fondant is well kneaded before you start to work with it. Also, it has to be quite thick, about the width of a pencil. For this cake I probably used about 700g.


Step 6. Covering, smoothing and trimming. Do this just as with the marzipan. You also need to paint the marzipan with sugar syrup before putting on the fondant but you need to be careful not to get any on the outside surface. When you smooth the fondant you should try only to use the palms of your hands, avoid touching it with your fingers.



Step 7. Ready to decorate! Actually, it's probably best to leave it for 24hr to let the fondant harden up first.


And that's how it's done! I need to finish the decorating soon and send it back to Grafton, so I'll post pics of the finished product soon.

It used to be that at the start of a new semester I would promise myself that this time it would be different: I would stay on top of all my readings, come to class prepared, start assignments in advance, and just in general be incredibly organised.

I've come to a point however, where I don't even make that promise to myself anymore because I've finally accepted that I'm a dyed-in-the-wool procrastinator and there's nothing I can do to change it. I have spent the last four Saturdays doing nothing except think about the essay I have due on Monday and how I really should be starting it, and I have spent the last four Sundays wishing I had forced myself to start writing yesterday. And yet, nothing changes.

So again, I find myself with a 1500 word essay due in 24hours, and I'm currently sitting on 400 words exactly. What better time to take a break? The problem you see, with this particular essay, is that even though it's only short I have no idea what it's about. To be honest, I ceased to even know what the course was about 5 weeks ago. It's like pulling out my own teeth one at a time: I sit for what seems like hours, desperately trying to pull something coherent out of my mind-fog, only to check the word count (again...) and see that I've only written 16 words.

What to do, what to do? I went to yum cha yesterday with JM and Mike in the city. I won't even let myself feel guilty about it because it's not like I would have actually done anything had I stayed at home (and when I did get home, I just watched youtube, I love you Björn Gustafsson). That's my story and I'm sticking to it.