Kookaburra

You hear it, but where is it?

TT#4: Idiosyncracies

Thirteen Things about myidiosyncracies 1. The only soft drink I really like is no sugar cola. It may be called 'diet', 'max' or 'sugarfree' and it can be any brand (low price determines the cola of choice when shopping). My very favourite though is Diet Coke with Lime, from the nestor of cola. 2. If there is a mirror, or a window for that matter, I have to look in it. My left side is slimmer than my right side. Isn't that weird? 3. I have to put on my seatbelt before driving away. Without it I feel naked. 4. I cannot get used to bike helmets. I find them silly, sweaty and totally nonsens if you're over, say, 10 years old. They mess up your hair too. As soon as I say this, people start with the stories when a bike helmet saved their life, but I have done without one for 35 years (and fallen numerous times and never hurt my head) and I'm not convinced. The only reason I wear one is because if caught without, you loose points on your drivers license. (How stupid is that? I always were my seat belt and never drive drunk or speed!) 5. I have to check my email everyday. I'm quite dissappointed if there is none. 6. As soon as I hear the unmistakable sound of the postie (government motorbike), I have to walk to the mailbox and check. I hate it when the only thing put in is some stupid commercial stuff. 7. If I start reading a book, I have to finish it. In proper order, no peaking on the last page. Even if I don't like it. 8. I don't like to eat with my hands. I prefer cutlery, even for a sandwich, or chopsticks if must be, but no grabbing with bare hands. Even as a kid, I never wanted to hold a cookie, especially not chocolat ones: my mother had to keep it and I would have bites from it. I have adjusted in the sense that I do eat with my hands when appropriate (prawns, fries, when in Africa), but I still don't enjoy it. 9. If I think someone has a nice shirt on or something like that, I'll alway tell them. I love paying compliments, but only when sincere. No lies, unless asked for (you're not putting down irreversable breast implants or face lifts of course). 10. When I'm nervous, I talk. A lot. 11. I will never let myself be beaten by a machine. I'll use the manual, call the helpdesk, ask a friend: whatever it takes to conquer the thing. Be it a computer, a phone, a DVD recorder, a new weblog program or an oven. 12. I love wind, breeze, storm, only not too much when riding my bike in opposite direction. Walking is fine though. 13. I'm totally smitten with kangaroos. Everytime I see one,and that is quite often, I love them. They are just too cute! At night you have to be very careful, so you won't kill one on the road. On the other hand, roo mince meat is nice. Forget about the sausages though! Links to other Thursday Thirteens! 1. Stacey 2. Mar 3. Caylynn 4. Tinkerbell 5. Ktcat 6.Aquariandragon 7. Tug 8. Danno (leave your link in comments, I’ll add you here!)

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The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

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TT#3 Australia

Thirteen Things I love about Australia 1. The light here is always very very bright, summer and winter, so even if the days are not that long, it is easy to get your required dose of light. No more winter depressions! 2. Nature is awesome. Although the Netherlands has deer, wild hogs, seals, rabbits, all kinds of rodents, fish and birds, it is not quite the same. For instance, you can spot kangaroos here daily, whereas it might take you years to find a wild deer. The hundreds of different birds, the roos, the iguana's, the camels, the echidna's, the koala's, the wombats, the crocodiles, the whales, etc, etc. I must admit the spiders are either too big or too deadly. So are the snakes. We're trying to avoid them. 3. There is just so much space here! You must come from a really crowded country, as I did, to fully appreciate this vast emptiness. The endless rainforests, the endless coastal line with empty beaches, the immense desert. As I said: nature is awesome. 4. Fruit is so much better than in cold Europe. The farmers market on Saturday provides you with fresh seasonal produce for a few dollars and it tastes all great. Since the cyclone earlier this year, the banana's have been 13 dollars a kilo, so we're missing out on those, but everything else: fantastic! 5. Veggies are rather interesting. Even if they have the same name, like spinach, it is a totally different species than what we were used too. Makes you creative while cooking. 6. There are a lot more Asians here and so there are lots of good Asian supermarkets and Asian restaurants. Thai, Indian, Malay, Singaporean, Korean, (vegetarian) Vietnamese, Chinese ... you name it, it is there. And not for posh expensive prices as in Europe. Am I to focused on food here??? 7. If a public holiday falls in a weekend, you get the next Monday off .... 8. We learned how to grow veggies here, because our cousin has an organic veggie plot. So, now I know what rocket salad looks like while still growing and I can tie up broadbeans and harvest cherry tomatoes. Weeding is a bit tricky, because some veggies I might classify as weeds. But I'll learn. 9. Every park here has free BBQ's and there are clean public toilets everywhere. Very relaxed when you want to spend a day outdoors, but don't want to rough it. Or if you're with people who need to pee often, e.g. while being pregnant. 10. People are actually quite relaxed in sharing things as public BBQ's. You get into friendly conversation instead of having to fight for you half hour. If lucky, you get advice on how to cook your sausages too. 11. I like the houses here, because they are mostly groundlevel and surrounded by gardens. The fact that most Aussies have no clue on interior decorating, or gardening for that matter, doesn't matter. We made our own house quite cosy. Had to make a trip to Ikea though, which is 4 hours away. 12. A lot of our aunts, uncles and cousins live here and it is great to get to know them better. 13. I always wanted to experience living abroad and hey, I'm doing it! Links to other Thursday Thirteens! 1. sharala 2. susan (leave your link in comments, I’ll add you here!)

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!


The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

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13 things about marking papers

Thirteen Things about marking papers by Taconcubano My number 2 is about a down side of my work. Maybe I should have stuck with my 'I never want to be a teacher' idea? ;-) 1. Marking papers takes up lots of time, especially time that was supposed to be free time, as in 'weekends' and 'evenings'. 2. I actually don't like it to award Fails. 3. Unfortunately I have to, too often. 4. Which makes you wonder: why not just give everybody a Pass? Or higher? Well, if that was possible, there wouldn't be much point in marking the papers in the first place. Which would be fine with me: let's change the rules. 5. This would not go well within our society though, which is very much focused on performance and proving to be the best, be it in school, sports, art, dance (tap dance competitions?????) or at bullying other countries about their idiosyncracies. 6. Hey, we have spelling contests for primary school children, for goodness sake! And aren't there the diploma's in kindergarten for being able to tie your shoelaces? 7. See, that's where it all starts, the obsession with grades and marks. Maybe even sooner, when parents are bragging about their children who 'already' can roll over, crawl or smile. (Meaning: my kid is better than yours, that still cannot perform these things.) 8. I think it is silly my uni only gives out grades, not marks, because students tend to give you a whole lot of hassle over 0.1 more if you do give them the marks. But we give them the marks anyway, we just don't tell them which ones. (I must admit this does save time arguing about them, but still.) 9. Students only complain about unfairness if they find your judgement to severe. If you give them a good grade for slack work, nobody complains (like: this is not fair to my classmates, please mark me down). 10. Marking is not too bad if students would write interesting papers, but those are a minority. Lots of people study efficiently, another Western based value: get the best result with the least effort. 11. You maybe wonder by now why I want to be a teacher? Well, I like the students and I like to work with them. Do it over being stuck in an office for 8.5 hours a day anytime. I just don't like marking papers. Or reports for that matter. 12. The reason I'm procrastinating here, from marking papers that is, is that is seems to be a real Sisyphus job (the ancient king who had to roll a big rock up a hill, only to have it roll down the other end, after which he had to start over): as soon as the pile is gone, there is a new pile turning up. 13. So I guess I have to put up with this part of the job. But only while protesting! Links to other Thursday Thirteens! 1. caylynn 2. dragon heart 3. chaotic mom 4. chickadee

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!


The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

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Thursday 13: Sint!

Thirteen Things about Sinterklaas 13 things you need to know about Saint Nicolas, who's birthday is celebrated on the 5th of December each year. 1. Saint Nicolas (or Sinterklaas as we call him) is a nice friendly guy, but not stupidly silly as Santa Claus (hohoho ....). 2. He is not as fat either. 3. He has this really cool white horse, called Schimmel (which would translate as 'mould', because that is what we call white horses with little grey spots on them) who can do rooftops. 4. As soon as he arrives in the country, you got to put your shoe at the fireplace/window/balcony and he'll stuff it with lollies. Smart children use a very big shoe, preferably a boot. 5. His Pieten (the black helpers) ARE funny and silly and they do good acrobatics. 6. Sinterklaas lollies are the best: chocolate letters, spicy sweets, chocolate mice, marzipan sausages. 7. You get to make a 'surprise' (pronounce 'surprease') for someone, which gives you the opportunity to set them straight on their errors from the past year. Only in a nice teasing way though, nothing nasty or mean. 8. Sinterklaas has his own news on tv, so you get important updates on his works and whereabouts each day. 9. He also owns a website, where you can get help with the rhymes that go with the surprise. 10. Sinterklaas' birthday is actually on the 6th, so in Belgium that is the day they celebrate. In the Netherlands it is on the evening of the 5th. 11. Some parents tell their children when they are about 7 years old that Sinterklaas doesn't actually exist. Of course they are very wrong! 12. Sinterklaas was a real bishop, some 800 years ago, in Turkey. I'm not sure they still remember him there though. 13. I just love Sint and I think it is a sin that shopkeepers try to copy the US and UK and start putting up Xmas trees before the 5th of December. There should be a law against that! Links to other Thursday Thirteens! 1. (leave your link in comments, I’ll add you here!)

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!


The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

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Fence

A nice look on the fence, since the house itself is invisible from the road.


And a peak behind the fence: left door = kitchen, right door = front door. And there is Nick of course, sitting pretty.....

Lost in space

One of the reasons I sometimes feel very lost here is that the sun moves differently. The moon looks funny and the stars are all in the wrong places. I actually need a compass here to find North, which used to be very easy. Also estimating time looking at where the sun is, is tricky. And the weirdest thing? The sun comes out of the sea in stead of sinking in it ....

Toilets at work

Ever wondered why toilets at the workplace are always very tiny with three quarter walls and only half a door? And why the door opens standard on the wrong side, so you have to squeeze yourself in while holding your bag above your head and trying not to dislocate the toilet paper dispenser? And how comes there is always, always, someone entering the restroom at exactly the moment you thought you could relieve yourself in peace and quiet of some embarrasing bowel stuff? All this talk about privacy and the most intimate part of your workplace does not give you any privacy at all. Maybe we should not name it 'restroom', just so we don't get the wrong idea about it.

Ouch!

Never try this at home: scoop up a pasta shell with a wooden spoon from a boiling pan and pop it in your mouth in order to find out if it is 'al dente'. The water that remains in the shell is actually 95 degrees. Celsius.

Okay, that was a really dumm thing to do. I admit it.

Back again

Never ever break your wrist, especially not the one on your 'good' hand. You have no idea for which stupid things you need it, before you cannot use it anymore. That goes from wiping your bum to scratching your back, putting in your contacts to brushing your teeth. And those are just the everyday little things. Anyway, after 8 weeks in a cast and so far another 4 doing physiotherapy twice a week, it is sort of back to normal. Still hurts a bit now and then and I cannot lean on it while putting any weight on it, but .... typing is okay. So, I'm back.

Broke my wrist

Tuesday I tripped and broke my right wrist. Unfortu nately I'm very right handed. So it takes me forever to write something, which is very frustrating. Better just look at my photoblog http://26photo.blogspot.com.

Immobiliser

Unbelievable but true: our car was found on the weekend! Some people just did not want to walk 5 streets in the rain and took our car instead. They even parked it neatly in front of the apartment building where they live. Very considerate, ahum. But we were of course very happy that it was found and that only the passenger door lock was ruined. No clue on how they started it, but they managed to do it without fucking up the ignition. Hurray! Needless to say we have taken some measure to prevent this from happening again, even if it does not rain that often in Canberra. An nice little electrical device, called an immobiliser, will protect our good old Camry when we are not there. So it will be waiting for us in the spot where we left it. As it should.

Very very unfair

Yesterday evening I was literally dancing through life, enjoying a class in Scandinavian folk dancing, when some idiot stole our car. $%&*@%^~@$#!!@# Canberra is not a big place and by car most places are to be reached in 20 minutes. The pivotal words here being BY CAR! All of a sudden we found ourselves more than 10 km from home, in the dark. And, believe it or not, it was cold and it was raining too. Let's say it really was not our night.

It feels very very unfair that we worked our butts off, just to see the possibility of buying a ticket to see our families vanished in the blink of an eye. Just now we thought life would, financially, become a little easier. I'm really really mad. And demotivated. And not up to all the hassle of not having a car, having to find another one, dealing with the consequences of someone elses stupidity and meanness.

Quest almost over

Two very good chances of getting an interesting job were both smashed into pieces last week. For 2 days I sank in this pool of self pity, thinking unhelpful thoughts as 'I'll never find a job' and 'nobody is ever going to hire me' and 'I'm a big failure and should have stayed in the Netherlands'. After that this determination came over me and I decided I was not defeated yet!

So I started searching all over again and send in my resume to various agencies, which got me a number of invitations to come around and introduce myself. Don't know why it worked this time, but never question a good thing, right? And now it seems the quest is almost over: next week I have to discuss the details (minor things like salary and all that), but it sure looks like I've found a job for 3 days a week until July! Hurray!

Holiday is over

It was very nice lazing around for a week, hiking through the Snowy Mountains (38 degrees!), fighting of the varocious flies, listening to the abundance of kookaburra's and eating cold baked beans, because of the total fire ban. Now, however, a new year has started and the goal is to find a job. Preferably one not to boring and paying not to badly, but for now any job will do. Good thing is I got another job interview on Monday. Less good is that I have to do another presentation, 10 minutes for an audience of 6 and 7 year olds, on any subject regarding 'historical site interpretation'. Right. So far, I had 50 ideas, none of them useful. Well, still 3 days to go. Hope they call to offer me the teaching job beforehand though. Big sigh ........