So, Aaron and I have just put a deposit on our honeymoon itinerary. Excitement++! I can't wait for it all to begin because it's going to be so full of awesome and win, I just won't be able to contain myself.

Anyway.
( Itinerary )

81 day round-the-world trip FTW!

So.  All this wedding stuff is like... GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!  Especially finding a photographer.  They're either a) crap, or b) rediculous expensive because OMG THEY WON AWARDS and that means they can hike their prices up 200%.  Sigh.  Finding someone that's within budget is going to be harrrrrrd.

But I have decided on a few things.  Decorating and stuff.   Also, the ceremony (given that neither of us is religious and we're not getting married in a church) is not going to have an aisle.  Instead, people will stand in a circle, and we'll get married in the center of it.  If that makes sense.  I can't find the link to explain it better... oh wells.  I think it's neat.  Means everyone can actually SEE what's going.  Plus, it'll be an uber-short ceremony, so people won't even be standing for very long.  Yay!

Reminds me to look for an officiant.  Anyhoo, deposit is paid for the ceremony venue - STILL negotiating reception venue.  Blah.  I have a feeling we'll be going over budget, too.  Even with mum hunting down things in China.

Aaron and I went to the Gold Coast over the weekend.  It was my first time travelling to Queensland, and I wasn't really that impressed.  Basically because it rained all bloody weekend.  It was perfectly fine the week leading up to it, but no.  The weather-gods had other plans in mind.  Also, Surfers just was... way too tacky and touristy for my liking.  Maybe I was expecting too much.  I think I'm beginning to become a little bit of a snob haha  Seriously weird.  I wasn't phased in India, but the Gold Coast annoys me.  LAWL.

Anyhoo, we were meant to go to Dreamworld but due to said rain, we milled around the hotel room for a while before I convinced Aaron to come see a movie with me (he hasn't been feeling all that well lately).  The place was PACKED!  Seriously.  School holidays and all that.  But we went to see Get Smart, which I thought was great.  We also did the naughty thing, and snuck into the Kung Fu Panda session as it just started after we got out of the first one.  YAY FREE MOVIES! I loved it. Very, very funny!

Anyhoo, the following morning we were meant to go on a hot air balloon ride, but after we had woken up (at 5am!) and had our showers, we get a call saying it's cancelled due to high winds.  D'oh!  So we climb back into bed, and Aaron does the proper proposal, which was really sweet, and I finally recieved my ring.  So now it's properly official!  And it's beautiful.  I love it!


I've also discovered a kangaroos weakness, as we visited Currumbin Wildlife Park.


We're having the engagement party this weekend at Mars Lounge in the city.  I'm really looking forward to it.  Yen, Claire, Kat and Steph are all coming up from Melbourne on Thurs/Fri, so we're going to have a PACKED house, on top of Neil already staying with us (but he leaves on Friday, so it's all good). 

I've also started Salsa dancing... sort of.  It basically involves turning up to either Cruise Bar or Docks on their salsa nights with Joey, and trying to fake it.  But it's alot of fun.  And once my knee is a bit more stable, I will definitely take classes.  I really want to learn how to dance properly!  We'll be having a bit of a girly night at Cruise Bar this Thursday for that very reason.  YAY!

Gonna be heaps of fun!

This just really annoys me:

Fear Campaign over Cancer Vaccine

FUCK OFF YOU STUPID AMERICAN PURITANS!

I think I've pinched a nerve in my hip.  For the past 3 days, I haven't been able to bend or twist certain ways.  It's also to the point where it would wake me up at night when I shift positions.  I also have to sit down carefully, because if I jar it, it spasms.  But I'm not getting the sciatica like I usually do when it's REALLY bad.  Just annoying pain.

And what's worse is, I think it was as a result of the exercises I have to do as part of my knee surgery rehab.  So it basically puts me in the position where I can't do my exercises because it hurts my back.  But I need to do them in order to strengthen it to begin with. WAAAAH!

Stupid-ass catch 22s.

Today marks 1 year since Aaron and I first started going out.  Actually, we sorta made the date up.  It's roughly around this time, but hey.  Can't complain.  Things still going well.  He's now officially moved in, though my housemate officially moves out this weekend, and we can officially unpack all the boxes and officially call it ours :-)

So, we're going out to dinner tonight to a French restaurant in Randwick.  It looks sweet and has an awesome wine menu.  Nom nom nom.

And I'm now officially admitted (well maybe not, but the paperwork's there) to Castlecrag Hospital - the place where I'll be having my surgery.  Yeah, knee ain't great.  Physio thought it was improving, and so did I to be honest, but I just wanted to confirm everything with the specialist (and basically put my concerns about some of the pain to rest).  Well, turns out I have an osteochondral lesion of the patella, and chances are it has been there for about 10 years when I had my first surgery done.  This explains the pain I get if I apply direct pressure to the kneecap, so I'm glad I'm not going crazy and imagining it.

I'll be having surgery on the 22nd of May, and it'll only be a day surgery - morning even.  I'll be admitted at 6:30am (ugh!) and should be out before lunchtime.  The only problem is the $3k pricetag that comes with it, but thankfully, the parents come to save the day!  Yay!

I want to be able to describe to you the sensation of falling to earth from 4.2km above it, but I just don't think I can find the right words.  There are many of you who have already experienced the same thing, so this may be kinda pointless.  Oh well, I digress.

But, wow.  That one minute has to be the best minute of my life to date. 

It's quite amusing that I was physically shaking as I signed away my life on a waiver, and then once we were in the plane I was as steady as a rock.  My friend Craig looked like he was about to have an anxiety attack, his hands were shaking so bad - and he was going to be one of the last out of the plane!  It is also quite surreal to see your boyfriend fall away from you out of the aircraft, and have that brief flitting thought that he might not be alright at the other end. 

Besides the signing of the forms, the most nervous I got was when we were told 5 minutes before jumping (it took about 20 minutes to get up to the right altitude - we needed to get clearance at one point as there were other aircraft in the area!).  And then I just resigned myself to the fact that I had no control over this situation, and that everything will be okay - I had more chance of being hit by a bus than dying from this.

I was instructed to kneel before the door.  The air was so cold, but no worse than a winter's day in Melbourne, and the wind was crazy.  I remember looking down at the ground (it's so far away!) and just boggling at what I was about to do, then crossed my arms, put my head back and we fell. 

Once we were out of the plane, far out - so, so, SO awesome.  The feeling of the wind rushing up your nose and your mouth, and looking down at the ground... and wow.  I never once felt unsafe, or that something would go wrong.  I didn't want the falling to stop.  I didn't even want to scream, though I had to because I was told if you couldn't breathe that well, to scream.  I was just looking around, looking at the beach and the landscape below.  You do have the concept of speed when you're out there, but like everyone says, you never FEEL like you're falling.  Not until chute is out and everything is much closer than it was, that you realise what just happened.

And then you get to coast to the ground.  I wish I remembered more.  I don't recall much looking around or anything (Craig recalls seeing a mass of fish off the coast, and a shark eating its way through them).  Maybe my brain was still catching up.  I got to direct the chute for a bit.  Turning on those things is trippy.  And then you land, and everything's okay, and the adrenaline's pumping and it's such a wonderful feeling.

I highly recommend it to anyone who can afford it, and won't psych themselves out before they get on the plane :-)  I'll be tripping on this for months, I think.

For a little over 3 weeks now, a huntsman has taken up residence in Aaron's car.  We discovered him one day when he decided to crawl along the driver's side window and promptly scare the shit out of Aaron (he's highly arachnophobic), but he didn't bother us anymore than that, so we let him be.  Though that was more because he was a clever little bastard and would always disappear once the car had stopped, thus we never saw him.

That was, until Easter weekend, when we stopped at a winery and found him cruising along on one of the rear brake light.  Aaron wanted to squish him, but y'know, he's a huntsman - harmless.  That, and I didn't want a spider the size of my palm to go squish on the back of the car.  So, instead of letting me get him off with my shoe and throw him in the grass, Aaron kicked him to the ground.  The little guy ran under the car and I had thought at the time, I hope he didn't have the brains to climb back on it.  But lo and behold, he reappeared a few days after getting back to Sydney.

So, in an epic battle between man and beastie, the spider then lost a leg to a windscreen wiper (also Aaron's idea).  There's now a 7-legged spider running around the outside of the car.  I've taken to calling him Hank.  He's about as close to a pet that I'm gonna get in the near future.

In other spider-related things, this is highly entertaining.

...from Transexual, Transylvaniaaaaaaaa!

No, not really.  But Aaron and I went to see the Rocky Horror Show last night as part of our Valentine's date.  Now, I only saw the entirety of the movie about 3 weeks ago, and I had to say at the time, regardless of Tim Curry winning at life, the movie was... well, it was mostly WTF followed by a bit of meh.  I actually tried explaining the plot (and I use that term very, very loosely) to a couple of friends at work, and I just could not come up with anything substantial.  It basically started with "This recently engaged couple's car breaks down on a stormy night, they go to a castle for some help, and... uh, they interrupt this party, and uh... "  Yeah, how DO you explain the plot.  After they get the castle, alot of pointless, and sometimes amusing, shit just... happens.  Especially the ending... I mean, WTF?

Anyways, I'm side-tracked. 

The performance last night was, in my opinion, carried by the wonderful actor cast as Frankenfurter - he was the epitome of Tim Curry, in looks, presence and voice, and deserved the standing ovation at the end.  The other characters.... ehhhhh.  Riff-Raff was more camp than creepy, and enjoyed shouting alot.  Janet had an annoyingly LOUD and squeaky voice that would've been best suited to Columbia.  Columbia was squeaky, but that's was she's meant to be like, so she was rather good.  So was Brad actually.  Rocky had an ocker Aussie accent - I think it was intended as a audio joke, but it didn't really fly with the audience.  Magenta was... okay.  She needed to stand out more, and to be honest, I didn't really notice her much - even when she was the main talker/singer at the time.

And Star City sucks as a venue.  I mean really, really sucks.  The music got so loud that it drowned out the singers at points.  The 'theatre' was more suited to caberet or stand-up comedy.  The stage was TINY (I've been speaking to a friend at work, who has seen various performances of the musical, and she mentioned that in the productions she's seen, the stage was quite large and complex which gives such a better vibe to the audience).  The foyer was non-existant - how they ever thought a full theatre to fit in there is beyond me.

I'm rambling on about this more than I probably should.  The audience was rather boring.  The whole point of Rocky Horror is to get up and sing and dance and act like an idiot, as well as dress the part in fishnets and heels and whatnot.  Did anyone do this last night?  No.  Only 3 people stood up and danced during the encore in which they reprised Time Warp.

I would love to see this again with a better cast (except Frank, because he was brilliant!  I cannot state this enough times).  Though strangely, even after all these criticisms, I love the musical more now.  It's so fun and naughty, you can't help but like it, even with the average performances.  So much more suited for the stage - I would've loved to have seen Tim Curry do it all those years ago (prior to the movie).

Anyhoo!

That training course I mentioned?  Yeah, not that great.  While it refreshed the brain cells from uni, it didn't really give me anything more than that.  Though I did meet this cool girl, who's originally from Guangzhou, so we were able to bond over all sorts of crazy things China.  We've swapped emails and what not.

And I was going to write more but that shall have to wait for later.  For now, I'm off to the Greenwood to drink free champagne with the girls.  Yay, girls night!

...well, maybe not the last one.  But I did get a haircut today, and it feels like I've lost most of it.  I also now have a fringe for the first time since, like, the 80s when I tried to cut my own hair, and it went horribly, horribly wrong (as one might guess for a 4 year old).  I love the new cut, though.  Nice and short with most of the weight taken out of it.  Curse thick hair!

I also realise that it'll never look as good as it does now, so I will take a photo once I get home.

So, detox ended.  And I did feel somewhat better for it.  That weight loss turned out being less than I originally thought - or rather, I was heavier than I thought to begin with.  I'm toying with the idea of getting a PT to help motivate me more at the gym, and basically plot out a routine for me to do.  I'm fine after that, I just need that routine of exercises.

I'm not quite sure if it's a side-affect of the detox, or the fact that a co-worker came back from break with bronchitis, but I've come down sick with a seal-like cough.  I'm highly susceptible to bronchitis to begin with, but it doesn't feel like it's quite hit my chest, so fingers crossed it's just some weird cold thing. 

Long weekend coming up.  Yay!  Australia Day will be busy, plus another pub crawl around The Rocks on Sunday to farewell Neil before he pisses off to Perth for an indeterminate amount of time.  Just gives me an excuse to visit, really.  I haven't been to Perth in YEARS.  Margaret River here I come!

I've just spent the better part of this morning trying to find a workaround for a bug in Flex 2, only to realise that all I needed to do was put a wrapper component around them.  Grr!  Flex2 - 1, Mish - 0.

I have a craving for cookies.  They live in the kitchen and taunt me everytime I make tea.  Only.  Three.  More.  Days.

On the plus side, I've actually lost  a little weight since starting the detox.   Go me!

And now for a proper update.  Which is really code for "I'm avoiding work".

In a moment of insanity, I've decided to do a 15 day detox program, which clears out liver, stomach and intestines.  I figured I've punished my body enough, and it will hopefully get me on track for some healthier eating this year.  It's day two, and while I'm not feeling that bad energy-wise, I really hate being gassy.  Bleh!

Most foods are banned - dairy, red meat, processed foodstuffs, sugar, etc plus caffinated and alcoholic beverages.  I'm only allowed 6 portions of fish, and pasta (but only wholemeal), throughout the entire ordeal.  I'm only allowed wholemeal bread, and I can't eat any citrus fruits (except for the lemon juice I have in my water in the morning).  Everything else is of the vegetable-y, legume-y, fruity, nutty variety.  On Sunday night, I made my own minestrone soup, of which there are literally litres, and some brown rice risotto with asparagus, peas and mushrooms.  Both dishes had a varying degree of success, but we're still quite tasty in the end.  It's really not that hard to eat healthy.

Moving on, the Christmas break was fantastic.  Melbourne was made of win and awesome, and the following week wasn't too bad either.  I'm desperately craving a Wii now too, no thanks to genkigenki and in a small way, clu_ffvii for bringing Guitar Hero III around.  Aaron met the parents sucessfully - he even got not one, but TWO, hugs from my mum (both hello and goodbye) - which pleases me no end.  A few nifty Christmas presents and some nice hot weather topped it all off.  Yay for having a pool!

It's now back to the doldrums of work, and what not.  The crappy thing is that it's my housemates birthday this weekend, and we're going to the Belgian Beer Cafe and I can't have a single drink!  GAH!  But I will be done with this by Australia Day weekend - perfect time to reverse all the effects of the previous 15 days :-)

1) Comment with three things that you want me to photograph. It can be anything from the contents of my fridge to the view from my window.
2) I will take the photos.
3) I will then upload the photos for you to look at.

The new Australian Government has decided it wants to become a nanny-state by enforcing an "opt-out" filter on the Internet - and they're pushing it onto the ISPs to implement it.

Censoring the Interwebz!

I think my favourite quote from that article would have to be:

Or do we – and here's a novel concept – take some parental and personal responsibility and monitor our children's internet usage or perhaps install filtering software at a user level if we can't keep an eye on them all the time?

And that's the 6 million dollar question. 

Note the date of the article - conveniently swept under the carpet during the New Year celebrations.

http://burninating.myminicity.com

Help my peasants GROW!

I now have Stilnox (yes, that evil sleeping tablet that makes people eat babies in their sleep!) and Temazepam.  I lol at this.  But at least they'll help me get some sleep.  And no, I don't take them at the same time, that would be The Stoopid.  I'm meant to alternate nights so I don't get reliant on just the one, cuz that would be baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad.

1. I am so freaking tired right now that I can barely compute words on a screen, which is kind of ironic really, as I'm writing this post.  Meh.

2. I am a drunkard.  I really neet to stop.  My liver would appreciate it, I'm sure.

3. It's completely baffling me the fact that a plug-in for Flex 2 requires a version of Eclipse that does not support Flex 2.  Yeah, work that one out.  Especially considering item 1.

4. I am supposedly going ice skating tonight. 

My brain is fuzz right now.  Not even good fuzz... the kind of fuzz that has been eaten by a cat, and then thrown up later as a furball.

I've been looking back on my old entries, and I do believe I sound rather emo most of the time - complaining of sickness or injury or some other type problem. Haha.  Cheer up, emo kid!

Yen arrives tomorrow to harrass Sydney for a week and I am excited!  And in a few more weeks, Aaron and I will be making the trip to Melbourne for Christmas, and I am excited by that too!  I get to see my kitty Kat for the first time since, what... May?  Plus, we're all going to see Spamalot, which makes me happy in my pants.  Plus there's tonnes of other stuff to do.

What also makes me happy is that mum called me up whilst she was in Hong Kong last week asking what to get Aaron as a gift - I'm not sure if she just feels compelled to get him something as we'll be staying with them, or because she genuinely wants to be nice, but the fact that she thought about it at all is awesome, and she hasn't even met him yet!  Yes, folks, Aaron's first meeting with my parents will involve staying with them for an entire week.  A brave man, is he.

I've also been way too anti-social and detached and playing GuildWars and Sims way too much.  I've even gotten Aaron hooked on GW, and yes, we are sad enough to be on two different machines in the same room playing together.  I think I go through phases with these games though, and my social life can suffer for it, but hey... everyone goes through phases. :-P

Aaron bought me flowers today.  Just because. 

And not just any flowers - my favourite flowers, Asian lilies and orchids.

It reminds me just how special he is to me.

Awww.  <3