Leaving On A Jet Plane

Image by RussellReno via Flickr

Yesterday, at 11am my manager informed me that at the end of next week (around 10th July), I will be heading over to Atlanta to work in our US office for the next 2 months before going on my already planned with plane tickets paid for, 3 week vacation in the US.  Thus my life has been completely turned upside down and I now have 6 days to get everything organised for me not to be in Australia for the next 3 months.  To say that I am in a panic and completely stressed would be an understatement.  I have spent the last 24 hours trying to get my plane tickets changed from the 3rd September to the 10th July and have yet to get this actually finalised.  I can see this taking to the last possible moment to get organised, thanks to Delta taking forever to get back to my travel agent.  I also have a To Do list as long as my arm.  Everything I wanted to get done before my trip to the US in September I have to do in the next 6 days and some things I have had to resign myself to the fact that they won’t get done at all, like getting a new pair of contact lenses and a pair of glasses.

I also had the delightful task of telling Lela that we are going to be separated for the next 2 months and am now feeling like the worse girlfriend in the whole world, especially since she only has 6 days to get used to the idea.  Being apart from her for so long is not going to be fun.

On the upside, my holiday to the US in September just got a whole lot cheaper as work is now paying for my airfares to and from NY plus a flight to and from Altanta. Also, I have long wanted to go and work in a foreign country and now I get my chance to do just that.  I just wish I had a bit more notice to get stuff organised and to get used to the fact.  Also, Atlanta probably wouldn’t be in my top 10 places I would have chosen to work, but my co-worker Harvey, who has just returned from a three month stint over there absolutely loved it and wishes he was going back.  In fact, he would have been going back, but because he can’t get his permanent residency visa for Australia done in time, I have to go.

Also, I am not relishing going from winter to the middle of a hot, humid summer.  Currently in Atlanta temps are a minimum of 23C to a maximum of 35C and I do not cope well with humidity.  To make this even more fun, thanks to me dropping 15kg (33lbs) in the past 6 months I have absolutely no summer clothes that even remotely fit me, well okay, that isn’t true, I have a couple of t-shirts.  Therefore, the first thing I am going to be doing when I reach Atlanta is clothes shopping.

Thanks to the wonders of Google Maps, I know where I will be working and the route I need to take to get my apartment, which will be about a 5-10 minute walk from the office.  Also, Harvey has shown me where the nearest supermarket is, shopping mall and the parts of the city where I shouldn’t even think of walking through by myself.  I also have a US sim card for my mobile phone and a train pass so I can get to the supermarket (yes, it requires a train to get to the nearest supermarket).

So, for the next 2 months I am going to be based in Atlanta and whilst my week days will be taken up entirely with work, I am hoping to get some time on the weekends to call my own.  Therefore, I need things to do to stop myself getting homesick.  If you have ever wanted someone to do something typically American and report back on the experience, then let me know.  I am up for all challenges such as going to a basketball game or a baseball game, eating Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream, working out what the all the rules are concerning tipping or trying not to gain weight whilst eating a diet of American food.  Just let me know in the comments what you would like me to experience and blog about and I will endeavour to do it!

Blast From The Past: I Know What My Job Is

Image by [177] via Flickr

Welcome to the first installment of me going through my old blog posts and making fun of them.  When I read this one I knew I had to mock it and then promptly die of embarrassment.  This post was written in August 2004 when I had been working as a vet nurse for almost a year and was still learning the ropes.  The main part of the post was about an emergency surgery we needed to do on a small terrier whose leg was crushed by a falling bed.  How a bed fell on that dog I will never know.  Anyway, obviously I was feeling a little cocky about actually knowing what I was doing, which in those days was a rare thing.  I actually described the event as such, “Fortunately, this was a surgery I knew what the hell I was doing in. Basically keep the dog alive and then before the vets close the wound site up I take x-rays, develop them and let the vets know if they have stuffed up or not.”

That’s right, according to me, my job was to take x-rays and let the vets know if they had screwed up the operation.  Now my description isn’t technically wrong, my job was to keep the dog alive and then at the end of the operation before we closed, I was to take x-rays to make sure the bones and pins were in the right position and everything looked good.   However, I can’t believe I actually described it as “let the vets know if they have stuffed up or not”.  I wish I could explain this away as me just being a kid, but I was 29 at the time.  I have no excuse.  Now I shall promptly go and die of embarrassment of my 29 year old self.  I wonder if in 5 years time, my 39 year old self will be similarly embarrassed at what my 34 year old self has written.  Knowing me, that is almost a certainty.

My Online Life in One Spot

I have imported my old Livejournal that I started in 2004 along with my old WordPress blog into this blog so I have everything in one single place.

Here is my very first blog post that I wrote on the 30th May, 2004 and I was trying so hard to be deep and sound intelligent.  At that time I was working as a vet nurse and most of my LiveJournal entries are about life as a vet nurse.  I was also trying to lose weight.  Sad that 5 years later not much has changed, although these days I am having some success with it. However, other aspects of my life between then and now have changed so much.

I will go through my old posts and pull out the most interesting and of course, the most embarrassing ones and will share them with you so click on the Subscribe button if you want to check them out as I post them.

If you are bored, feel free to check out my old posts.  Quite a few of them don’t have titles which is something I will slowly correct over the coming days/weeks.

A Day in the Life of The Sims

Image via Wikipedia

Since I am not allowed to walk on my foot unless strictly necessary, I have been confined to the couch for the weekend.  By 11am I was bored out of my mind and decided to fire up The Sims in an attempt to keep myself amused for a few hours.  I created a Sim Kylara and moved her into Strangetown and let her meet the neighbours.  She took a real shine to a Sim called Nervous Subject (who I am not responsible for naming) and as time went by they became lovers.  However, Nervous had a terrible habit of running off and throwing up every time things got interesting and in fact turned Kylara down when she asked him to WooHoo.  Poor girl was devastated.

Next day Kylara bring home a friend from work, a lovely girl called Circe.  Well things progressed nicely, Circe didn’t turn her down for WooHoo and so Kylara asked her to move in.  It wasn’t until Circe moved in that we learnt that Circe is actually married to a scientist called Loki.  The next day Loki moves in and on the first night, he has no problems sleeping in a single bed in the same room as his wife and her new lover.  It wasn’t until the next night, when Jenny (another friend from work) decides to drop over that Loki completely loses it when he discovers his wife in bed with Kylara.  There is yelling, screaming and crying and Loki and Circe end their marriage.  Loki storms off to the bathroom and Circe runs off into the night and simply vanishes.  Next day Loki moves out and when Kylara tries to ring Circe, she is no longer in the phone book.  So despite Kylara’s stats saying that her and Circe are still lovers, Circe is nowhere to be seen and is uncontactable and Ky is all alone once more.

It was at this point I decided to shut down The Sims because it had simply gotten too weird.  You can truly screw up your Sim’s life if you chose to and sometimes even if you don’t chose to. Alternatively, you can use The Sims to write a really trashy romance novel. I am sure I have an excellent one in the making here.

Tender Tendon

Yesterday, I was sent off for x-rays and an ultrasound to see what I have done to my right foot.  The x-rays were clear but the ultrasound showed a ganglion cyst between the first and second metatarsal.  Since ganglion cysts usually go away on their own, I thought I had completely dodged the bullet and would hopefully be back at training on Saturday.  However, my appointment with the physio this afternoon revealed that the ganglion cyst was a red herring and I have actually strained the extensor tendon that runs up my second metatarsal or as it is known in medical circles, extensor tendinitis.  I have been told that I have to keep off my foot as much as possible and will not be able to go back to training for at least 2 weeks.   My right foot is now covered in tape to reduce the load on my tendon and give it a chance to heal.

I have no idea what I am going to do with myself for the next two weeks.  I can’t sit on the couch and do nothing – I will go insane.  I am thinking that there has to be some exercises that I can do without using my feet.  Sit-ups and girly push-ups don’t involve the feet and I might be able to do some pull-ups as well.

If you can think of any exercises I can do, that will not aggravate my tendinitis, please let me know.  I’ve gotta find a way to get in some exercise or my stress levels are going to go through the roof.

Exercise is dangerous for you

Image via Wikipedia

As you all know, I have gotten into exercise in a big way over the past 6 months.  I have gradually (or not so gradually) built up from being a couch potato to doing 7 hours of Kung Fu and about 4 hours of dog walking/CrossFit/running etc a week.  I have gone from hating exercising to craving it. We are always told that exercise is a good thing and you should do as much of it as possible.  Well, I am here to tell you that exercise has a dark and dangerous side as I found out this week.  Last Tuesday I went for my brown belt in Kung Fu (and I passed!!), but during the warm up specifically running up and down the hall in bare feet, I felt something not right in my right foot. I ignored it and carried on and whilst the next day my foot was a little sore, it wasn’t enough to worry about.  I then did a training session on Thursday and another one on Saturday.  By the time Saturday afternoon rolled around I was in a fair bit of pain and having trouble walking.

I went to see my podiatrist this afternoon with a swollen foot and in considerable pain and was told that I have either a stress fracture or a tendon/soft tissue injury and am now off to have x-rays and an ultrasound tomorrow morning to find out exactly what I have done.  Currently I am sitting on the couch with an ice pack on my foot and am missing being at my Kung Fu class more than I thought I would. The best case scenario would most likely see me on complete rest for a least a couple of weeks.  Not happy Jan!I want to go punch the crap out of things!

However, something good did happen this afternoon, I was referred to as a “sports person”.  That’s right, old former couch potato me is a sports person according to my podiatrist who told me that as sports person that I should expect these types of injuries from time to time.  Part of me is kinda chuffed to have a bona fide sports injury, the rest of me is pissed off that this sports injury is going to keep me from actually doing any sport.

It is going to be a long recovery period.

The Unblogged Life

Life has been insanely busy over the past month or so. So absolutely, insanely busy, which means that I rarely have time to stop and just sit and blog. I have been hoping it would calm down, but it hasn’t yet.

Work is just crazy.  I have been promoted without really being promoted – I just got a shiny new job title which makes me sound really important, but my day to day job has not changed, I just have more of a workload.  I am enjoying aspects of it, whilst other aspects annoy me.  It is the same with any job really, you take the good with the bad.  However, I don’t think I will ever stop being amazed at the sheer level of stupidity that some people are able to achieve.  There is usually one incident a day that simply blows my mind.  I guess it keeps life interesting.

When I am not at work, I can usually be found at a martial arts class.  It surprises me just how much I am loving doing Kung Fu.  I am now doing about 7 hours a week which the old couch potato me would have keeled over and died at the thought of doing.  7 hours a week of sport!  It would have been inconceivable 4 months ago.  I have my grading for my brown belt (1st belt) tomorrow night which I am getting increasingly nervous about.  If you want to find out exactly what is in my grading, you can read this post.

That is pretty much all I have been doing – work and martial arts.

Autumn in New York

My girlfriend Lela, our friend Susan and I are heading over to the US for a three week holiday in September.  We booked our flight to and from New York a couple of weeks ago, but it was only last night that we sat down to plan out what we are actually going to do and booked flights to and from various destination as well as hotels.  It finally feels real and now I am extremely excited!

Our itinerary is:

3rd September – 10th September – New York

10th September – 13th September – Boston

13th September – 15th September – Niagara Falls

15th September – 19th September – Washington DC

19th September – 22nd September – New Orleans

22nd September – 24th September – NYC

The things I want to do:

New York

• Eat a hot dog and a pretzel brought from a street vendor
• Run in Central Park
• Do a WOD at CrossFit NYC
• See a Broadway show
• Go to the top of the Empire State Building at night
• See a WNBA game
• Go and visit the New York County Supreme Court House (used in Law & Order)

Boston

• Go to Salem
• Visit Harvard University and MIT
• Walk the Freedom Trail
• Bike tour of Boston
• Go and see a Red Sox game (baseball)

Niagara Falls

• Go and see the Falls (of course!)
• Do the Maid of the Mist boat tour (also a given)
• See the Cave of the Winds

Washington DC

• Go to the Smithsonian Museum, especially the Forensic Anthropology Lab (be still my geeky science heart!)
• Go see all the national monuments and see them again at night
• Visit the White House and Capitol Hill
• Visit the Arlington Cemetery
• Visit the International Spy Museum
• Visit Baltimore

New Orleans

• Go to Bourbon Street
• Visit a voodoo museum
• Eat Cajun food
• Visit a cemetery
• Visit the French Quarter

If there is anything that I must do whilst there, please let me know as we are still planning everything we want to do and I don’t want to get back home and find out I have missed doing something awesome.