7:45 am - Tuesday 30th May 2000

Oh dear, another wet morning barely breaks upon the horizon of a soggy city.

I need to shine up on my alliteration I think. *g* Anyway, a quick catch-up. Yesterday was my supervisor's little party for his 40th birthday, and after his wife has been away all morning, it didn't kick off until 2:30 pm. I really only need one meal during the day (at about ~11:00 am) and so after a while, all the sugar was giving me a headache. I took some photo's (hence why I am never in any myself), we lounged around until about 4:30 pm, and then got back to work. It was Ok, but whether it would have happened without the new honours student injecting some life into the place is unknown.
I rang Toad to get my move pushed back until the end of June, I've already paid John's off for this last month of cheap accommodation, and then I'll be out of here. I got the details about the Katoomba Ball from Sharon, and now I just need to get some money to her. Yesterday morning whilst I was getting ready for work, I had a nice long chat with Illara (www.i.am/Illara) and that was really nice.
In a rather contradictory state of affairs, I drove to the gym last night. The basic reason was that it was cold and raining, and if I hadn't driven, I never would have gotten there, and if I hadn't gotten there, I never would have done any exercise. In what may be either a good or bad thing, I seem to be getting my muscles back reasonably fast, however that's not what I really want. I just want to be fit for jogging so as to be able to do Ok in the City-to-Surf which is coming up on July 16th. Of course it would be nice to be toned and so on, but I don't want a set of beefy arms, I want to be slim dammit! Anyway, I guess I'll just practice on the jogging machine in future instead of the rowing machine.
Ok, that fluff to one side, is there anything worthwhile happening in my life at the moment? No, not really. I'll be interested to hear from a friend who has an appointment with a urologist tomorrow (for reasons which I'll go into at a later date), my work is slowly progressing, and oh yeah! Can't believe I forgot! I got a phone call from Marilyn on Sunday. Oops, guess I forgot to update about Sunday afternoon.
Ok, I was going to go over to Kingston Markets on the other side of the lake to have a look, when Marilyn (Mrs Doak, Jules's Mum) called. I didn't know who it was at first, but after I clicked, we had a great old chat. It was really nice for her to call, and she told me she had got the long overdue photo's, so I was relieved that they had finally made their way successfully across the Tasman.
After that, I still decided to head over to the markets, but I couldn't get the car to start (I think I flooded it), so I decided to wait a while, so I had a lie down just for a moment… and two hours later I woke up! So now that I had wasted so much of the day, I decided to try again, and armed with gloves, scarf, umbrella and so forth against the chill weather, the car started and I got over to the markets. But, the excitement wasn't to end there, after being at the markets (mostly tacky knick-knacks) for a while, I looked outside, and it was SNOWING!?!?! It hadn't snowed in Canberra since like 1987 or something obscure, but there it was fluttering and swirling down out of the cloud-bound sky. :) Suffice to say, cold and wet as it was, I was happy to walk around and enjoy this quite unexpected phenomenon with a happy grin.
It stopped after about 2 hours, but wow, how nice was that, I haven't ever seen a snow fall for years, except when I've actually been at a designated snow field, so it was a real buzz.
The rest of the day was mostly uneventful, a phone call home, and then one from Susan asking if I wanted to do dinner Wednesday night when her Mum came up, I said yes (of course) and that was about it.
I also got a card from Mum, she usually sends me little cards and things at random times, and which I always really enjoy getting. This one was an enormously rotund bee in sparkly yellow and black with "Bee Happy" on the inside. I've always had an innate love of bee's generally, so it was funny and nice. :)

Ok, it's now ~8:30 am, I'd better get to work. Just been reading some old diary entries, Oh dear I make me laugh at times. *g*

10:15 pm - My, what a busy and full day. Into the lab, lots of running about with new compounds and discussions with supervisor. Then more again of the same in the afternoon, coffee with Red between 2:00 pm and 2:45 pm, then back to work and finally escaping at 5:30 pm or so.
I came back home, because Bob had offered to install some new RAM into my computer as well as upgrading it to Win 98. I needed new RAM, and I was hoping that an upgrade would stop my machine crashing all the time, and make it compatible with the machines at work hence enabling me to more easily transfer files, especially when I eventually get a Zip drive. So, whilst we kicked around drinking some KGB's (alcoholic soda's) and waiting for the thing to reboot and input the right instructions. All seems well so far. So, I gave Bob a lift into town because of the freezing weather, and decided on w him to get a kebab. The woman behind the counter "Ma'amed" me at least twice, and I was relaxed enough not to look too startled when it happened… "Act natural Steph, just act natural". So I drove back to John's with a hot kebab, an apparently fixed computer, and an overflowing ego. *big cheesy grin*
I called Mum to thank for the card of the bee which she sent me, and also just to talk about different stuff. She suggested one day we drive back to Forbes, because recently I've been thinking a lot about my time there (I was about 3 when we moved there, and about 6 when I left) and asking questions, so I think I would really enjoy that. I don't know why I've suddenly given the area greater thought, but I think as my brain becomes "rewired" to some degree, these sort of "flash-backs" or recollections of events from nearly 20 years ago get stirred up. Like, buying my stuffed bee toy, Dad being hurt in an accident, being in a school play as some animal, travelling to school on the bus, the lone tree at the end of the main road, how flat it was out there on the plains, visiting Cowra and my grandparents, telling Mum "The TV's all fuzzy" and hence not long after my first optometrist appointment. Are these memories important? I don't know, but I suppose they were formative, and therefore I guess so.
I think I had better crash, tomorrow I have to shave, demonstrate, do more work and have dinner with Susan and Jules. One last update now…

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