Valentine’s Day

So it was V-Day yesterday.  The day of lurrrrve.

We had a pretty quiet one.  It’s a bit sad, we’ve been together for 3 years and 9 months and when it comes to these events we’re already getting to the stage where the conversation goes something like this: “So, what d’ya want for Valentine’s Day?” “Dunno, what d’you want?” “Dunno”.  And its not just V-Day which gets this treatment.  Anniversaries and Christmas are already fast going this way.

I bought Mr Vexation a frame and printed a photo of the two of us, because he was complaining he doesn’t have any pics of us up in his house.  He bought me X-Lotto tickets and booked a hot air balloon ride for the weekend after my graduation (I paid for it last year, as a voucher for our anniversary).  We still have to book accommodation for the night before because we have to be at the launch site for the balloon an hour before sunrise.  Which is some obscene time like 5:30am.  Given the time it takes to get from home to the launch site, I calculate that to get there on time, I would have to roll out of bed at about 3:30am – and in that case, why even bother going to bed at all!?

We took a trip down to Semaphore and went for a swim.  Well, kinda.  It was more splashing and kidding around in water that barely got above our waists, thanks to low tide.  You know, and taking advantage of the buoyancy (is that spelled anywhere near right?) to pretend that he was ‘rescuing’ me <Insert joke about my weight here – lol> and other silly behaviour.  Then we drove down to Largs Bay and had fish and chips for dinner.  After that, we made our way back home and watched last week’s Desperate Housewives that we hadn’t watched yet, and the final two episodes of Rome.

We didn’t win X-Lotto; the machine that printed the tickets was obviously malfunctioning.  Perhaps we should try and get a refund?

I hope everybody had a great V-Day, whether in a relationship and celebrating, out of a relationship and having anti-V-Day gatherings with other singletons, or even if you treat it as just another day.

I also thought it was timely for another La Spaghetti update:

La Spag, 12-Feb-09

Not a lot has changed.  We have the semblance of a mouth and chin, and beginning to work up to the other eye (which is on the other page of the pattern, so you can’t see it – do not adjust your monitor)

Plodding Along in the New Year

So far this new year, I have been to the gym twice.  I’ve been working on the ‘Couch to 5K’ program, and last night I got hold of the podcast which can help keep track of when to jog and when to run rather than just staring at the counter on the treadmill (and would be even more useful if I wasn’t too self conscious to run out in the real world).  I’m in the third week of the program at the moment, which is a five minute warm up walk, followed by 2 repetitions of a 90 second jog, 90 second walk, a 3 minute jog and a 3 minute walk, then a cool down.  Well I slot in another 2 minute jog to take me to 25 minutes total before the cool down.  Then I do another 5 minutes of cross training.

 

My goal is to go 4 times a week like I was before I had my first of three bouts of the flu last year, but I already know I’m not going to make it this week given that I’m going to be out every night for the rest of this working week.  Ugh.  Oh well, I’ll be back in there on Saturday and three times a week is what’s recommended anyway.  Or if I were completely insane, I could get up mega early, go to the gym, come home, have a shower, and then go to work, but I can’t see myself doing that.

 

I’ve also been very well behaved in matters of food.  No chocolate!  And strangely, I’m not missing the chocolate so much as I thought I would.  When I see it sitting on a desk, I will confess that I look oh so longingly at it, and I’m sure I hear a little voice screaming “eat me, eat me!” but I’m reasonably sure I can put that down to general weirdness on my part.  Or the damn pixies have followed me to work again.  I’m very proud of the not eating chocolate, as my hormones would normally about this time be screaming for a little bit of chocolate.

 

For food, I have been following the CSIRO Total Wellbeing Diet.  Kind of.  Living at home, I don’t control what’s for dinner; the parents do.  But even just with following the breakfasts and lunches I’m feeling less hungry and less likely to need snacks.  If I do need snacks I have a stash of 30g packets of sultanas or mixed nuts which work wonders for killing off those cravings.

 

La Spaghetti is coming along nicely, although I haven’t had a chance to do any since the new year.  Here’s the side-by-side with the pattern for how it is now:

You can see the eye and nose taking shape now, well once you know what to look for.  I’m liking the way it’s looking so far.

La Spaghetti – A Beginning

Here we go… the first few stitches of La Spaghetti.

And side by side with the pattern:

The bit I’m working on is near the eye

VICTORY!

I found fabric big enough for La Spaghetti!  It’s about 1cm shorter than required but I have hopes it will be ok.

I’m housesitting at the moment, so I don’t have any of my other stuff to start working on it, but I’ll be home before Xmas and will be able to get started probably on Boxing Day. Woo!

So this is what I will be working on soon:

Where have I been?

Gosh.  I finish uni and suddenly I seem to have even less time for blogging than before.  Oh didn’t I mention that?  I have finished university!  And there was much rejoicing.

 

I will graduate on April 1, 2009 with a Bachelor of Business (International Business).  Yes, April Fool’s Day.  I’m sure there will be much hilarity over that little date for a long time.  “Got a Bachelor in Funny Business, do you?” is what my dear old mum had to say about my graduation date.

 

So what does this mean I am qualified for?  Well, here’s the thing.  It qualifies you for everything and nothing all at the same time.  It sure sounds impressive – wow, International Business– but at the same time it’s a very generic degree, so its not really clear what job you can go into.  Say like a Bachelor in Accountancy is pretty clear; you go into an accounting job.  But International Business is pretty vague.  The main thrust of the degree has been about Economics, with a couple of Finance courses thrown in for fun.  I also did a few electives in International Studies, which has been something I’ve been interested in for a long time.  So if anybody is looking for someone with a degree in Economics with a fancy title, I’m over here!

 

The economics stuff was definitely interesting, although you wouldn’t think I found it so given that my grades for those courses were almost all lower than those I got for my electives.  However, this can be easily explained by the fact that most of my electives did not have exams, and the majors did.  Before exams, I would be sitting on grades equal to or even higher than my elective courses.  I take this as evidence that exams drag my grade down.

 

(On a side note, one of my friends who was studying education, and has also now finished, took a course where the main topic was all about how exams don’t help you learn.  There were studies and all sorts of fun stuff about it.  How was it assessed?  An exam.)

 

The finance stuff was not fun though, mainly because for both of the Finance courses we had a lecturer who was from India, and whose accent made understanding more than one word in three almost impossible.  The poor guy knew that people had trouble understanding him – heck it would have to have been obvious when people started walking out of lectures after only 10 minutes, and then not coming back at all through the semester, and he did try to slow down and make himself clearer.  Unfortunately he would get caught up in the moment and in the topic and before you knew it, we’d be right back at square one.

 

So… what else has been happening?  Ah, yes, my birthday.  Yup, that happened.  I ate and drank far too much, but over all it didn’t get me down as much as I was expecting it to.  We went out for dinner and drinks the night before at a Greek café/restaurant, and on my actual birthday we (well, ok, my dad) cooked up a lamb on the spit for family and family friends.  But I got up at the crack of dawn to help!  Surely that counts for something when I’d been out the night before!

 

We’ve (Mr Vexation and I) have also been trying to work out where we’re going and what we’re doing when it comes to his sister’s wedding next year.  Its on Hamilton Island and we don’t think it worthwhile to just go up one day, the wedding the next and come home the third day.  But then it comes down to do we go up earlier, do we stay later, it’s expensive to stay at Hamilton do we go back to the mainland, do we go on a little cruise type thing?  So many questions, and only a matter of months to get it all worked out and booked.

 

The gym adventure is continuing, although there’s almost an element of why am I bothering this close to Christmas?  I sometimes feel like I may as well wait until the New Year to get back into it properly, as there’s just food and drinks and gatherings and catch ups everywhere and every-when.

 

And I still haven’t gotten back into my cross-stitching.  I have two projects that I would love to start, but there’s a little problem in that I can’t seem to find the right fabric for either of them.  One project is of a tiger, the other a version of Da Vinci’s La Scapigliata (or La Spaghetti as I keep calling it because I can’t pronounce the real name).  The tiger project I want to put on black (61x56cm 28HPI evenweave or 14HPI aida), the Da Vinci on white or off-white (46x46cm 28HPI evenweave or 14HPI aida), but I can’t find any that’s big enough!  Pre-cut fabric seems to stop at 40x40cm, and I’m not patient enough to track down a customer service person to cut it for me, even in the event I have actually been able to find the right colour/fabric type/HPI (which I think has only happened once).  I’ve had a look around at some online stores but still can’t seem to find a way to order the larger one.  I also should probably stop trying the big generalised craft shops like Lincraft and Spotlight and try to track down smaller stores.  Trouble there is that I don’t really know where to look!  Gah!

 

So much going on, so little time.  If I fail to get back on here before Christmas, have a wonderful Christmas and New Year with your families.