Choose your own adventure

08 February 2008 By callatya

I suppose some people know their calling early on in life. Friends who are now advancing in their careers would tell me of desires to become doctors and lawyers and various breeds of tradesman.

When I was asked, I had no idea.

I still don't.

This past September I made a decision. The time had come for me to put down my mop and bucket and take up my studies once more. I downloaded the application forms, photocopied my previous results sheets and dutifully presented myself at the office of the enrolling campus on the final day of submissions. I handed over the forms to a lady who quite obviously fed up with dealing with pre-student stupidity.

I trundled off home and I waited.

And waited.

After some more waiting I called the campus. An enthusiastic fresh-from-holidays young chap answered the phone and after much prodding and poking on the new and improvedcomputer network, he informed me that I was on standby. Standby. "If the better people say no, we'll call you". More than 2 months of waiting, all the prerequisites and experience you could hope for, a brilliant academic record in the very course I was applying for and I was only second choice.

There are times in life when a second chance offer is good enough, but there are other times where it makes you question everything that was, is, and will be.

Sometimes the things you love are not the things that you are good at, and sometimes the price of failure is just too high.

And so the search began for my new life, my new label. Something I could grab a hold of and run with. Something I could love and call my own. I sifted through career after career until I realised I was skirting around the obvious. I clicked the little blue letters.

I.T.

If you'd asked me 10 years ago about a career in computers I would have thought you were mad. If you'd asked me even 5 years ago I would have had a good giggle. Somehow, as I clicked that link, all my pervious misgivings vanished and it all seemed possible. It seemed...natural.

I pushed my cool and aloof facade aside and donned my inner geek.

Here begins my new path, or perhaps merely an extension of an old one...

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Souped up

29 January 2008 By callatya

Perhaps my plan was a wee bit ambitious. Maybe I should have started a little smaller, concentrated on recipes that were tried and tested, and perhaps done a little more thinking before the actual doing...

I made soup.

Oh, it sounds completely simple and easy, doesn't it? I thought I'd just make a few large batches for those days when I get home and have absolutely no capacity for any thought above basic functions. Open freezer, choose box, microwave, serve. It couldn't be simpler. I was pretty sure that making these non-thinky foods was going to be a walk in the park. You simmer your veggies, you whizz the ones that require whizzing in the blender, you pour the concoction into little tubs and bingo! Done.

Pfft. As if. Nothing is ever that simple.

I chose a recipe from my favourite freezer cookbook that went by the name of Zacatecas. It is essentially sweet corn, capsicum and chilli in a veggie stock base, half whizzed and half chunky. The photograph in the book showed a gorgeous white bowl filled with a glorious rich orange soup, smothered in mozzarella with some crispy tostitas on the side. I was inspired. I set to work warming my stock and slicing the plump little niblets off the corn cob. I merrily diced my red capsicum into 1cm cubes and I picked out 2 nice hot chillies and sliced them into rings.

It was around this time that things started to go a bit pear shaped. The recipe called for half of the soup to be pureed, which is something that many a recipe requires and something I've done many times before. What I haven't done, however, is blend anything in our new "Cafe Series" fancy schmany industrial strength blender, and very rarely do I blend 2L of anything at one time. I popped in half of the soup, put the lid on and held it down. I put on my very best happy housewife smile and looked at the controls. Pulse. Pulse looked like a good option.

The withdrawal of my burning hot wrist was immediate, but it took several seconds for the entirety of what had just happened to sink in. I stared, stunned, as a small glob of steaming yellow and red mush dribbled off my spice rack and landed with an underwhelming plop on top of the coffee machine. The entire corner of the kitchen was covered in what was probably the most vibrant fake vomit ever created.

I examined the emetic appliance carefully while trying to cool down my burning wrist. The mental checklist ran through my head as I searched for the flaw in my method. I drew a blank. This, of course, would not do. The housewife part of me was staring at a steaming goblet of partially pureed soup (whilst conveniently blocking out my newly bespeckled walls) and the scientific part was querying the possible reasons for this seemingly freak occurance.

And so, the lid went on again with my fingers perched high on the top. I cautiously fingered the button and was rewarded with yet another chunky liquid lava explosion, this time raining down over myself and the freshly washed dishes.

It was mid-way through the blast that the little light bulb had tinked on in my head. I reached forward and slid the small measuring cup in the lid a 1/4 turn to the right. It went pfsssh.

Duh.

The soup is boxed and frozen, my walls are washed, the spice jars have all had a bath and it turns out that chilli coffee doesn't taste all that bad. Next time though, I think I'll be sticking with good old chunky beef and vegetable!

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Evercrack

21 January 2008 By callatya 3

"I'm not an addict, baby, that's a lie"

 

Well, it might be more accurate to call it a stretch of the truth. You see, telling people that you've only played for 6 hours straight so far and that you can quit any time you like is far more convincing when you aren't twitching and ticking like a thing possessed.

 

I knew it was bad news. I resisted as long as I possibly could. I have enough bad habits as it is, I didn't want another time-sucking activity to juggle. Alas, I am weak and malleable, a fact my dear friend Faewyn took full advantage of. Now I find myself clinging to the back of a borrowed pony and galloping with my fellow comrades through groves of trees possessed, while being tailed by angry orcs and ticked off arachnids!

 

*twitch*

 

It has been 9 hours since my last fix. The dishes are piled high in the sink, the bed is unmade, and the kitties are mewing for food. This is quite a slippery slope I find myself on.

 

But geez it is a bit of fun!

 

On a rent-a-horse

 

Those bloody whales

17 January 2008 By callatya 4

If I see one more link to that "Save the Whales" petition, I'm going to lose it.

If I get one more invite to "Go Away Japan, Leave our whales alone" I shall spit the dummy.

If just one more bozo says "...and they are killing whales in Australian waters!" they are going to be subject to much ranting and raving.

I've had it up to here with people getting all high and mighty over something that they seem to think is so completely simple. This is anything but simple. This is an incredibly complicated and serious matter, made even more complicated by the overwhelming public outcry and their painfully underwhelming understanding. I'm not saying I'm an expert on the matter by any means, no doubt I'm well off the mark on some points, but I'm getting so fed up with being fed garbage and being shouted at to 'save the whales' and abused when I don't fall all over myself to support the cause as they see it that I thought I'd get on my own little soap box and do some yelling of my own.

All For You

10 January 2008 By callatya 1

It is 3:45 am.

I was just in bed. PSWC was laying next to me breathing quietly and fussing with the doona.

Why is it that the most unsettling thoughts prance across your mind just before you nod off? It is usually something small, like wondering if the front door is unlocked or if you left the chops on the bench. Sometimes it is the big questions about humanity and survival and life and death.

This young morning, my mind bears the footprints of unwanted and unappreciated introspection.

Nobody wants the questions of "what the hell am I doing with my life?" and "is this a dumb choice?" to burst in unannounced when there is no excuse to hand to make them leave. You can't very well tell your mind that you are washing the dishes when it knows full well that you are doing no such thing. I don't want to think those thought at all, let alone at 3-something in the morning.

But I did, and so I find myself here, rattling away on the keyboard in the wee hours in a fairly futile attemt at simultaneously emptying my mind and exhausting myself enough to fall asleep.

I don't know what I'm doing with my life. Worse still, I don't know what I want to do. I know what everyone else thinks I should do, but as it turns out that isn't the same at all thing really. Of course, that is a revelation borne of hindsight. There is something to be said for jumping straight out of school, into university and then into a career. It leaves no time for all this pointless umming and arring, and if for some reason it does, a HECS debt and that corporate ladder will soon set things straight.

I don't want to think about dumb choices. I don't want to count the decisions that I've made that were designed to make others happy, or proud, or just plain aware of my existence. It always feels like the right decision at the time, the right choice to make, but it always ends up the same way. I fret and worry and try to think of ways of extracting myself by causing the least amount of pain to all involved. I never succeed, I end up offending everyone and then bend over backwards trying to make it better again, thus starting the whole pointless merry-go-round ride all over again.

I want to be completely selfish. I want that to be OK. I want people to stop asking me for things and I want to stop offering. I want to shake this force that needs for me to be everything to everyone.

And I can't.

Because once upon a time, someone called me selfish and meant it.

(and yes, I'm fully aware of the whole 'nothing and nobody' flipside and that I am an 'everybody' and that being selfless for less than selfless reasons - assuming such things exist - is merely selfishness in sheeps clothing, but there is being aware and then there is applying such thoughts and reasoning in a way that doesn't cause a fairly major mental implosion. Completely different moo-cows, if you know what I mean.)

<cuefairgroundmusic>

It is now 4:51am, and I still don't know what I'm doing with my life. I'm about to make another dumb decision, I'm almost certain of it.

For now though, the trespasser has moved on, and I can sleep.

Driving Miss Deathtrap

08 January 2008 By callatya 2

A long time ago, for my 18th birthday, and a slightly shorter time ago for my 21st, my parents promised me that they'd go halvies with me in a car. There was talk of fuel economy and the absence of a clutch pedal and all manner of pie in the sky model numbers being thrown around. It was a wondrous time, so full of hope and wonder.

Last week, it finally happened.

I finally have my first car.

Scratch that, let me rephrase. I finally have access to a car that is owned by my mother until the rego runs out. In reality it is probably my second car, but I can't seem to make my mind take that step. A second car should be an accomplishment, the pinnacle of all things automotive in one's life to date. It should be a comfy, reliable replacement for the rattly old bomb of a first car that barely managed the basics of A to B travel.

I seem to be suffering from a severe case of automotive regression.

Deathtrap is the ultimate in P-plating first car comfort. Gone are the days of the shiny black paintjob and sitting unassumingly at a red and leaping off the line like a bat out of hell. The poor old dear is now a rather dreary two tone matte grey and has about as much chance of coming out on top of a drag as she does towing an unladen trailer. The ceiling is starting to get that perished foam sag and before you can even get your backside on the seat, the unmistakable odour of mouldy socks leaps out of the door and assaults your nostrils. All that aside, on mechanics alone, she is more than a bit frightening.

But nobody believed me.

"It's a car. Deal with it."

"You'll get used to it"

"It's a bit different driving a V6 than your little toy car"

Somehow, word has gotten around that I am a bad driver who can't handle her cars. This is, of course, utter nonsense however when someone with such a reputation starts banging on about how utterly scary her new ride is, there is understandably some rather blatant scepticism.

And so I proved it.

Enter Sin. Sin fancies herself quite a good driver and routinely drives an older model car that scares the willies out of me. Sin also has no qualms about telling me that I'm being a total crybaby and so, on a bit of a whim, she found herself with keys in hand.

After the initial surprise and disgust at the powerful odour emanating from the interior, we climbed in and started her up and waited for an empty road.

It was around the time that we were inching along the street with her foot planted on the accelerator that she began to realise that I might not actually be the driving wimp that she suspected me to be.

"Oh. My. God. My foot is on the floor. What are we doing, like 4kph? This is so wrong!"

I think it was close to the time that we hit the 70 zone and fairly vital bits of engine lost contact with other fairly vital bits of engine and just spun merrily by themselves that her faith in being able to show me I was whining about a perfectly good car began to waver.

"Shit, does it always do that? What IS that?"

As I came back from running errands to find her standing near the bonnet, it appeared that she'd figured out that glorious eau de sock fragrance was a bit more than just an inconvenience.

"Dude! I'm allergic to your car! My lips are tingling!"

Thankfully it was well after establishing that she could still do hill starts in a manual that all hope for Deathtrap's redemption was lost and support for my position was gained. I'd guess it was around the time that I pointed out that we'd stalled in an 80 zone.

"But we are still driving, and I don't sta... Oh my god, we've stalled! What is with your car??"

I think stalling two more times before we reached home kind of cemented the thought.

"You are not an ungrateful bitch, this car is bloody scary!"

 

Buuut, as first cars tend to, it is growing on me. Ok, so it is certainly an A to B vehicle, but seeing as I've never had unlimited access to a vehicle of any kind before, this is a fairly big selling point. And sure, first gear is gutless and 2nd gear may once have gripped enough to move engine things, but 3rd is pretty sweet and 5th is just cruisy. And really, if I park on high ground only very tall people can see the peeling paint, and matte black is fairly fashionable.

But I suppose, most importantly of all, I live at point A and need to get to point B.

*sigh* I guess it is time to get that roadside assistance membership.