the things i do for me

In the two+ months since I last updated (since Sydney) I:
– Interviewed and was selected for an amazing job
– Travelled to Hong Kong with said job
– Came back to Melbourne to cram for my next uni subject
– Travelled to the far-north-eastern-most point of Arnhem Land and spent a week in an Aboriginal arts centre
– Came back to Melbourne and did a course in conservation of plastics at Melbourne Museum
– Decorated my house in an attempt at procrastinating from uni assignments
– Thrashed out my assignments on Aboriginal art and finished uni for 2015 (much more to come in 2016 though)
– Started my new job in earnest.

But whilst all of the above would make fascinating blog posts, complete with interesting and/or beautiful photos and maybe even some meaningful reflections on art and culture…

…I’m posting now because I am needing to do the whole “today I did this for me” thing again to help me stay positive as I adapt to working very-much-full-time again and try not to lapse back into fatigue. Not very interesting for other people but very much a coping strategy for me!

SO this weekend:
– I got up early on Saturday and cleaned and tidied my house, ran down to Coles to pick up the groceries I pre-ordered online to avoid buying anything that wasn’t FODMAP-friendly (this strategy works wonders for me)
– Met with my new Chinese friend Rinny to smash out 6 (yes SIX) hours of Chinese conversation practice (the new job requires me to be able to talk about archaeology and Chinese history and UNESCO with fluency — isn’t that marvellous?)
– Watched 10 Things I Hate About You
– Read The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman (a wonderful hommage to The Jungle Book!)
– Failed to get to Bikram on Sunday morning, due to staying up late reading the above (I have lapsed in my Bikram practice and been maybe twice in three weeks, due to intermittent fatigue + working again being a bit much to combine, but I’m confident I’ll be back soon).
– Met my friend Kerry to see Trainwreck at the cinema (loved it)
– Came home and napped (I’ve been told to schedule naps in the day and not feel bad about it, and you know what, it’s so liberating!)
– Cooked low-FODMAPs coq au vin and ragu for the week’s lunches (plus a ton of white rice and hard-boiled eggs) (and can I just say that coq au vin is out of this world delicious for a low-FODMAPs recipe A+++).

Now it’s 9:30pm and time to wind things up for bed. Goals for the week:

– No panicking
– Practice Chinese every night (and not lazy writing or reading, proper speaking and listening!)
– Whether you think you can, or you think can’t, you’re right… so Rosie, know that you can.
– Maybe squeeze in a Bikram class.

week 4 down, how many left to go?

This past week I did some good things — catching up with the lovely Fiona on Tuesday, and attending the Confined 6 exhibition opening night with Kerry on Wednesday. This was my favourite painting:

It’s called Echidna Dreaming After The Rain by Dennis Thorpe (2014).

This is a story about my family and me going camping for the weekend. It was a sunny day until the afternoon when the clouds came and it started to rain. So we cooked the fish we had caught and waited until the rain stopped. The next morning the sky was nice and clear and my mother said “We are going to find some echidnas because after the rain you can see the new dirt and follow their tracks”.

I did lots of yoga, as my hip injuries have slowly improved, and I can return to more and more postures, with only standing-head-to-knee pose and toe stand being off limits for now. I realised that because of the injuries I’ve learned to pay more attention in each pose, every movement I make. It’s probably, in a hippy kind of way, made me better at Bikram. Also I started doing my physio! Incroyable, non? I realised I should do the exercises in the yoga studio whilst I’m waiting for class to begin. So far, so good.

Every time I think about going to yoga without Polly, my eyes well up and my throat feels constricted. Today she left — following a lovely breakfast with Graham and Skye, who then drove us to the airport — and I feel so horribly empty without her here. I managed to lock myself out of my flat on my way out to yoga; of course, my spare keys were still inside the flat because Polly had only just given them back to me. Fortunately my landlord was in town and she came over after my Bikram class to let me back in. All of these statements are a bit of a mishmash; I’ll blame it on missing Polly.

That, and I’m kind of not great overall. Despite all the yoga, I had a meltdown at work on Thursday and told my bosses I can’t do it anymore. We’re moving to new offices tomorrow so everything is very hectic at the moment, and they have asked me to reconsider what it would take for me to stay, but it’s going to require so many changes that I don’t see how I could last much longer there. In any case, I have to stay for another couple of months as I am managing a software development project that would take just as long to train up someone else to take over, as it would to see through to completion, and once it’s done, it will be much quicker and easier to train my replacement. It feels good to have put my unhappiness on the table and have some open discussions about how I don’t want to be there anymore, so overall, I suppose my hatred of work is somewhat diminished, but I don’t know for how long. I am at least looking forward to going into work tomorrow to see my new workspace; I’ll try to remember to take pictures!

teachers

After Bikram today I was chatting with the teacher, and he asked me if I had thought of doing Bikram teacher training. This question surprised me very much as I am definitely not a teacher — from teaching English as a foreign language, to training new staff, I detest teaching other people, I think because my success is dependent on their success, and if they are failing, then it’s my fault. I’m impatient and rude and a perfectionist and I have a long way to go before I could conceive being zen enough to become a yoga teacher!

Anyway, whilst I adore my Bikram teachers, and obviously worship Bikram yoga, the idea of being trained (along with 350-450 others) by Bikram Chaudry himself does not appeal. Besides anything else, my mat and towel are both green, a colour which is banned from his training course. I am so grateful to all the people who went and did the training so I don’t have to!

However when I replied “Oh no, not at all, definitely not” he seemed quite surprised. I guess I have the kind of smitten fervour and passion (bordering on being a raging bore who has to restrain herself from talking about Bikram all day, to everyone she meets) that drives many to become teachers themselves. I am always emailing poor Polly links to Bikram/yoga-related articles and blog posts, and appraising her postures, and passing on tips accumulated from Ashtanga and Bikram teachers over the years. I feel like Polly would be a great yoga teacher, I think she should definitely save up and go off to Thailand for the 9-week training.

Speaking of Polly I can’t believe she is leaving in a week. I am scared I will miss her so much that I will also start missing James, and missing James is just not an acceptable thing to do.

hanging in there – week 2 summary

Last check-in I had a list of things I wanted to do. I’ve achieved mostly just the Bikram (injuring my hip in the process but that’s ok, I can still go, I just spend a lot of time standing/laying down instead of doing the poses).

The highlight of the week was extending Polly’s stay here for another 2 weeks, which makes me so happy. It’s the kind of thing you agonise over for hours and the moment you decide “to hell with the expense!” you realise it was absolutely the right decision!

I did get my hair cut, and I even have a delightful picture of my sister and me (and the haircut, which looks identical from this angle but is in fact very different I promise), from a 70s-themed party we went to. Polly is Hunter S. Thompson. She is fantastic.

We were planning to visit the ACCA Menagerie exhibition today but Polly was quite hungover and I had to work this morning… next weekend is the long Australia Day weekend so I’m sure we will make it somehow!

In terms of how much I currently hate my job, well. Let’s instigate a scale which goes from 1 – “I quite enjoy this really”, to 10, “Will someone please firebomb this place already”… two weeks ago I was at a solid 11, which was downgraded over the course of the week to a 6, and then fluctuated between 7 and 8 over the course of last week, depending on how long since I’d been to yoga. Unfortunately by Friday I was well up to 9 1/2 and having to work on a Sunday morning did not help.

Here’s hoping for a week that tops out at 8. Hoping, but not daring to believe. I don’t believe in a higher power, so… Oh Bikram, give me strength!

a trip to Wangaratta

I haven’t spent much time in regional Victoria, so it was lovely to escape to Wang (as it is affectionately known) to see my dear friend Bonnie for a couple of days. At Bonnie’s we made friends with a foal at the end of the garden:


“Excuse me, I’ll take care of that”

We also befriended two darling little dogs, Neddy (seen here in Polly’s lap) and Puppy.

Sorry for the badly exposed picture, however it captures Neddy and Puppy’s personalities so well!

Bonnie had to work, but kindly dropped us at the Milawa (which I kept accidentally calling Malawi, not quite the same thing) Cheese Company, where Polly and I devoured this platter of local produce and some Cabernet Sauvigon.

Then we walked back to Milawa, enjoying the Australian landscape and bright skies. I was wearing SPF30 as always, but unfortunately I was a bad sister and didn’t check if Polly put sunscreen on… so here she is, pre-sunburn.




We stopped to walk around the cemetery, which drew us in with its cheerful signage.

Can you spot the mini-ponies?

I was fascinated by these “tennis-ball trees” — the fruit are the exact same size and colour as tennis balls. I looked them up — they are Osage oranges, apparently.

By this time Polly was really burnt — I feel terrible for her!

We had a couple of drinks whilst waiting for Bonnie to come back from work…

…and then another drink at a different pub, with Bonnie. Because that’s what one does in Australia!

The pub Bonnie took us to had a little museum in its cellars.

There’s a tunnel which Ned Kelly allegedly used:

And a useful illustrated tale of Ned Kelly (yes, Wang is Ned Kelly Country!)

This picture was my favourite: The North Wangaratta Picnic Committee, c.1910. A highly important organisation, I’m sure.

I’m so grateful to Bonnie and her mum for having us stay — it was well worth the 3.5-hour train journey; it’s so weird to reflect on how vast Australia is, as 3.5 hours by train could take you to another country in Europe, and we didn’t even leave Victoria.

Polly in Aus

As I mentioned in the previous post my sister Polly came to stay with me for two months. We were both a little apprehensive about such a long stay but in fact I loved having her here with me — loved it even more than when she came to visit in Sri Lanka in 2012. I miss her and I am quietly hoping she will come back soon. I went through some pictures of us and the various fun things we got up to and decided I wanted to pop these on here for my family to see and so I can come back and reminisce whenever I want! Some of these are just random and some have proper activities attached…

When James was here for his surprise visit, he kindly drove us out to Healesville Sanctuary so Polly could get up close with native animals.


Polly and James watching koalas

One of our favourite sights: Kangaroos chillin’ like a villain


James and Polly make such a great comedy duo


Polly and I paid extra for a Magical Moment where you can pet a Real Australian Animal (originally with a tree kangaroo but it wouldn’t come down to play, so we got an echidna instead)




I always seem to be trying to escape in pictures of me + animals… don’t know why?

Wombats are my favourite animal and I thought these big sleeping fatties in glass boxes might be my only sighting of them…


but luckily later in the day we stumbled across the same zookeeper who was carrying a teenage wombat around for petting! Yes, she looks deranged in this picture. I chose it cos I am jealous of her job.

So much cute!

This is a not terribly interesting picture of a goanna. The reason why I include it is so I can share this fact: Early colonists of Australia named it “a goanna” as a contraction of “iguana” (totally unrelated species of course). Aaah Aussies.

Actually James took a much better one of me and Polly getting friendly with a goanna.

This is not really Polly-related, but that evening I went down to the beach with James. Couple selfie! You know I can’t resist ’em!

Continuing the trend, we follow with some more completely unrelated pictures (except they do feature Polly:

Swimming sisters!

Visiting the Immigration Museum

Pictures of Polly drinking a beverage with a straw!

I miss going for walks together. Along the river in Collingwood…

…and of course along the beach at St Kilda

We went to Melbourne Museum a couple of times — once for a night-time event at the Smartbar (which I have attended previously and LOVED) and once just for casual funtimes because I wanted to show Polly the Melbourne Story exhibits.

This particular Smartbar event wasn’t quite as thrilling in terms of lectures — the interesting ones had mostly been cancelled sadly — but we still drank lots of wine and had fun being in the museum at night with no children around: my personal idea of heaven. Random snaps from the night:
Polly being hypnotised by some creepy stick insects

Rosie smirking with a lion (and purple wine-stained teeth)

We watched this fantastic 3D 360o screen thing about the formation of rocks. Very stylish 3D glasses.

We gawked at all the incredible minerals and Polly found this finger-shaped one that made us giggle like drunken idiots

When we went back in the cold light of day we also made the acquaintance of some cute frogs — you would be forgiven for thinking that Melbourne Museum is a zoo.

More silly posing in front of Australiana:

Close-up of that tapestry

Polly is very moved

We went to Bikram yoga a few times and Polly rocked it there. One Friday night however we dragged ourselves out to class and it was canceled, so we went for Ethiopian food. When I suggested Ethiopian (I’d been craving injera), Polly made a face and said she didn’t fancy being bright purple all night. I was confused, wondering if she was referring to food stains… then realised that in France, Ethiopian food is made by and for Ethiopians and is super spicy. I quickly reassured her that in Whitesville, Whiteland Australia, Ethiopian food is prepared according to whimpy white people tastes. We stuffed ourselves accordingly (and the photos are terrible but the anecdote makes me smile so I keep them anyway!).

One of the things I did whilst Polly was here was get some second-hand frames and put up some art on my walls. She was very helpful and I need her to come back and help me pick out the right ones!

Embroidery by me + an old Christmas card from Graham

I love the lime green frame with this pointillist painting which has plenty of chartreuse and magenta to match.

We must save Taiwan! Thanks China! I got these in Beijing a few years ago.

Speaking of art, I also unearthed this majestic pictures from when I was posing for some artists in Taiwan, back in the day… (the day being 2006!)

Graham took Polly and me to Lysterfield Lake for a hike as I really wanted Poll to see some kangaroos in the wild — it’s such a special experience (for me anyway!) We didn’t see any for ages, and I was starting to worry we wouldn’t, but then one popped up from the undergrowth and we saw heaps of them after that.
Kangaroo numero uno

Polly gets in close! You can’t see them but they ARE in the picture.


Rambling hikers

JUST DON’T THROW THEM OK?

We came home that night to yet another fantastic Melbourne sunset. I love Melbourne skies.

I had been taunting Polly with mysterious mentions of how we must go see the Polly Woodside, without ever letting her know what it was. Eventually we made it there…

It’s a ship! (in case the writing above wasn’t clue enough)

Polly posed with the ship and then swiftly redirected us to the nearby bar, to pose with cocktails.

I think she looks so much like Mummy here! (don’t look at me, I look creepy as usual)

It was a really gorgeous way to spend the end of the afternoon.

But we couldn’t linger too long as we had places to be:

Alan Davies!

Too soon the two months came to an end… My boss took us out for a farewell dinner, where the food was unremarkable but Polly was introduced to the pleasures of the Fishbowl Margarita. She managed to drink most of it by herself, despite the waitress’ suggestion that I share with her (no thanks! I want my own drink!)

Polly and I had our own last supper together — I took my baby girl out for Japanese and it was very very delicious. The dessert was so good – green tea ice cream and sesame ice cream.

As we were walking home for her to pack, I said to Polly, “Do you want to get a bottle of —“ and hadn’t finished my sentence before she made a sharp turn into the bottle shop, immediately saying “Yes!” We chose it based on my time-honoured method of selecting one with a good label.

And so it all ended. Polly! do you miss Melbourne yet? Come back!!

st kilda saturday

Actually it started out a Fitzroy Saturday. Actually, it started out an Olympic Park Saturday, as I had both physio and podiatrist appointments in the morning, during which my lower limbs were poked and prodded at. My physio tried her best to make me cry with some deep tissue massage but also explained how my oh-so-painful IT band got so messed up, which then resulted in my kneecaps tracking all wrong, and my shins, and my feet, and my everything. I have hope of running one day yet.

Back to the fun parts though. I had to go drop some library books off at uni, then cycled over to Brunswick St for a Veggie Bar lunch, before meeting up with beloved Nom. We had liquid nitrogen ice cream at N2 Extreme Gelato, which I had previously dismissed as “yet another faddy ice cream place” but was AMAAAAA-ZING. Mine was black lava salted caramel. I want more. Nom looks blasée as she was posing as her alter ego Cassie. We also tried the beer ice cream which tasted exactly like beer.

I then procured my first pair of earrings in years, from Rose St Artist’s market, as did Nom. They are magical and change colours constantly like opals, but they are in fact made of glass and metal glazes.

Nom tried to drag me to the Spanish Festival on Johnston St but I was having nothing of it, and instead I raced her back to St Kilda on my bike (results: Rosie on Gary: 35 minutes. Nom on the tram: 1.5 hours). We regrouped on my balcony for Pimm’s.

And chocolate royale cake I had purchased on a whim earlier from Veggie Bar.

We admired our earrings some more, and then decided to head down to the beach to watch the sunset.

I would love to comment on each and every photo that follows, but there are too many and I basically loved every second of it. My love for Australia’s skies is no secret. Last night was specially beautiful as it was dark and stormy over the bay whilst being brilliant blue over land.

To the right of the pier:

To the left of the pier (that’s the Spirit of Tasmania on the horizon):

The moon was very big and round in the sky but when we tried to pose with it, it disappeared.

At the end of the pier we found a huge gathering of people, all staring expectantly at the water, as a Penguin Team Member scuttled up and down the beach. We watched for a while but it was too cold so we headed back to shore.

Bathroom break: trying once more to get a good picture of my pretty new earrings.

One more of the sunset and the Spirit of Tasmania…

We wanted a picture with the sun but that was no easier than with the moon. So Nom used special effects to replicate the sun.

Back on firm land, Luna Park was lighting up for the night. Nom has never been to Luna Park; I’ve been once, with James, the evening we first kissed as the sun set on St Kilda Beach (which was so cheesy we had to go to Luna Park just to make it extra cheesy). Nom made hopeful noises like we might go, but I am mean and so she was only allowed to pose out the front:

After this we had a romantic Mexican dinner together and then I took her back to my place to try out my new Hoover. The poor girl was exhausted but I wouldn’t let her go home until she’d test-driven my vacuum cleaner. She’s either a very good actress, or she was as amazed and excited by it as I was… yes it’s that good.

august

A conspicuous absence of updates in the past few months. I am not a fan of winter and even less so in the Southern Hemisphere, because July and August should be full of long, glorious sunny warm days, and instead here in Melbourne it has been ridiculously cold.

This doesn’t mean I have not done anything, fortunately!

I’ve made this a photo-based update rather than the other way around. This tends to work better for summarising an entire month. But this makes it very photo-heavy, so brace yourselves. What am I saying! I am showing my age… Back in the day it was common courtesy to warn before dumping pictures but now… who’d even notice?

Sooo backing up a bit to July:

I went to see the last performance of Mikelangelo and the Tin Stars, aka the only band I’ve ever truly enjoyed watching live.

I got a haircut, hoping my curls could be coaxed back, but they seem to have been the exclusive domaine of my twenties and I am resigning myself to not having curly hair anymore.

I bought some expensive cycling shorts and before I’d even worn them once, managed to cut a hole in them whilst removing annoying tags:

My cold morning runs were dark dark dark but I kept running until the sun came up:

I invested in a lot of merino from Icebreaker — it keeps me warm as toast, and it’s like having a hug from James as he is the one who got me into Icebreaker in the first place.

More love from James came in the form of 3 kilos of birthday Kitkats, delivered anonymously to my desk at work.

I had a lovely night out catching up with my friends Magnus, Thomas and Alastair. This sculpture hangs in the kitchen of Tom’s warehouse.

More pics taken when out running — I do so love living so close to Merri Creek. It may be less dark…

…palm trees may sway against a backdrop of brilliant blue skies…

…but trust me it’s just as cold as the pre-dawn runs.

Preparing vast amounts of caramelised onion for my birthday high tea. In the end I made around 4 times too much and I’ve still got about a kilo of it in the fridge.

I also roast my first chicken for said tea party (to make adorable mini-sandwiches). Fiona came home in time to egg me into eating roast chicken skin for the first and last time in years — I don’t think I’ve eaten it since I was a child! It tasted simultaneously delicious, decadent, and nauseatingly rich. No regrets.

Making Pimm’s cake from Siobhan’s recipe!

Here I am in my party frock, with friends in the background hard at work.

The dress is a gorgeous brocade shot through with gold thread – hard to photograph, so you will have to trust me!

My 30th birthday high tea was lovely, but I failed to take any proper pictures. Here are a few I salvaged off other people!

Rebecca made these fabulous mini-pavlovas

My actual 30th birthday was a Monday and the first day of school. I ate a delicious leftover cupcake for breakfast (actually I ate mostly cake for the entire week, as there were a lot of cupcakes and cake leftover).

There were relatively few events during school that I could photograph, as it was Preventive Conservation (which I think is going to Be My Thing, career-wise) and so the exciting stuff was mostly confidential site visits. I took a lot of pictures anyway, and am sharing just a couple of tantalising shots below, but I can’t tell you where they are of course…

We did a few interested lab sessions, one about salvaging paper after floods:

Another was on cleaning mould:

We had a go at preparing Oddy tests too (which were difficult to photograph as we were in a hurry, hence the blurriness and someone’s fluffy sleeve:

Some fun times outside of school: finding the cat in my backpack…

And being greeted with this fantastic scene on a morning run (it’s the Orthodox Greek Cathedral, which I often run past, but which really glows when the sun hits it right!):

Running has unsurprisingly resulted in shin splints again, so I am taking a break and giving kinesiotherapy tape a go. I do feel like it works pretty well in relieving the pain, if not in solving the problem.

I got an amazing book of bike rides around Melbourne from my beloved Rebecca as a birthday gift. I decided to go check out Port Phillip Bay.

Brace yourselves for many pictures of the sea!

This bit of road was flooding, which made riding through it extra fun!

Picnic on the pier!

On my way home I passed these lovely Scottish deerhounds which mummy will appreciate:

Ok that’s all the photos I have! I have not been photodocumenting things much in the past week — I was too wrapped up in my work situation. But now we have waded through all of this: I have accepted a new job with a cultural study tour company, and will start in October. I will be researching and designing cultural tours all around the world, and I’m really excited and glad that I’ve made the leap. It was a big decision to quit my current job but now it’s finalised I realise it’s the best choice I could have made!

foamy

I have a list, a couple of pages long, of the things I need to get done on my days off. This is because my days are either as described in the previous post, or spent in bed with my laptop, watching films and TV shows or wasting time online (does anyone still say “surfing the web”? it seems so dated now! no longer a cool pass-time, but instead a frivolous, time-wasting exercise…).

Faced with the choice between doing too much and nothing at all, I tried to get a grip and write a sort of bucket list for weekends. Three weeks in and lot of the tasks have been crossed off, including sending James a care package, researching health insurance, and going to see the Afghanistan exhibition at Melbourne Museum. Some of them are quite mundane yet still haven’t been done, such as painting my toe-nails (I have my face on them every other day in Bikram and they really could do with some nail varnish). Yesterday, I achieved one that I’ve been putting off for over a month: physio exercises.

I actually need to go and see the physiotherapist, but due to time constraints have not got round to it yet. For some reason I keep putting it off. But in the interim, I am supposed to be doing some exciting exercises — wall-bangers and step-downs — and rolling out my IT band. I watched some exercises for patellar mal-tracking on YouTube as per my doctor’s instructions, and purchased a foam roller and a couple of small balls to do the exercises at home.

The wall-bangers and the wall squats were ok — they are no harder than awkward pose in Bikram.

Anyone who has ever used a foam roller will know what the foam roller felt like (for those who haven’t — it’s painful to say the least). I discovered a couple of really knotted, tight spots in my calves, which I still haven’t worked out of there, but overall my entire lower body got the roller treatment and even though it wasn’t exactly pleasant, I did feel like it was doing something.

I had to rush out the door to go see my beloved Katie who is in town at the moment (yes… wearing the same top I was rollin’ in).

Maybe it was Katie’s high energy, but I woke up this morning feeling like I’d been on a brisk 15k run the day before. Not in the usual bad way — screaming shins, creaky knees or tight hamstrings — but in a good way, with my muscles feeling nicely tired. I slept a solid 10 hours, went to Bikram with Katie, had a late (and much-needed) lunch at 3pm and then went home and slept some more. I am still so sleepy, and my legs are still singing this strange “yes, we worked out a lot, and now we must rest” song. Not DOMS, just kind of tingling. I will try and keep up this foam rolling business! I really, really want to start running and cycling again. That and to be able to sit in a chair comfortably without my knees freaking out.

one of those days i did for me

I always love reading “a day in the life” blog posts, clichéed and cheesy though they are. My mother regularly does them on her blog and it makes me really happy to see snapshots of her life, as we are so rarely together! And I dream of the day I can convince James to share his crazy Afghanistan life in that format. Given how mundane my life is at the moment, it seems like the best way to write about it is to… photodocument it. It is however bordering on impossible to remember to take pictures all day, so these have been compiled over the last month or so and then reassembled into a single day’s worth.

So we start.
My alarm goes off at 6:45am, but often I cannot drag myself out of bed until the last minute. If I showered at Bikram last night, then I’m going to spend bathroom time… reading stupid things on the internet instead. I do *NOT* like getting out of bed.

Breakfast time. Our toaster’s spring catch thinger has mysteriously died and we still haven’t got round to buying a new machine… so rubber bands and a keen sense of smell do the job. I generally have peanut butter and banana on toast.

Quick hello to the three-legged ginger cat who squats our porch in the mornings.

It’s cold walking to work and I obviously look as sleepy as I feel.

I’ll confess to my wake-up method. I’m ashamed but I’m not, I just can’t help dancing around listening to Kelly! Otherwise it’s my other favourite playlist at the moment, compiled by The Moldy Virgins, aka Sana and Cici my Hong Kong grrls.

Trams, trams, trams. My commute is 45 minutes, which flies by thanks to my iPhone. Often I listen to favourite podcasts The Infinite Monkey Cage or Answer Me This to block out anyone who thinks talking on the tram is a Good Idea.

Work. So patriotic, yet so grim.

I have a window desk. In winter this allows me precious sunshine, and year-round, extra storage space for my crap, including my 10-ton backpack and my handbag. BAG LADY ROSIE.

I can’t show my desk when it has work on it, because everything is super-confidential. So here it is at the start of the day. Ignore my coffee habit, it has since been reduced to once every 10 days (so I can FLIP OUT whenever I do have a sip).

I will relent and show you my other workspace: the floor. I am a really visual person, and whilst workmates and bosses tend to arch an eyebrow when they walk past, sometimes the only way I can re-write a long document is to print it out and get out my scissors. On this occasion every person in the office came over to ask what I was doing so I set up a little sign informing them.

One of my favourite things about my job is that my work-mate G and I spend our day winding up the third person in our office pod: A. Or is he the one who winds us up? Anyway, most of the day is spent teasing each other. Here is A after I told him to google blue waffles (in case the expression on his face isn’t enough of a warning… don’t do it. Really. Don’t.).

The day drags by till 5pm, at which point I take off my joyful office hat and put on my merry study hat. I set up my laptop in front of my PC, and scroll through around 40 pages of reading for school whilst taking notes. The readings are all online as scanned PDFs, and whilst it is harder to read, I don’t feel right printing off an average of 500 pages per course, which are then going to gather dust in my already messy bedroom. I don’t have a picture of this but it’s nothing very exciting. I am substituting with a picture of my studying at Babka’s yesterday instead.

Around 7pm I make the choice to either keep studying and stay till late — if I choose to stay, I go to the office kitchen and microwave myself some dinner, then settle in for the night. I’ll catch a tram home around 10:30pm, and stumble into bed around midnight. IF however, I’m feeling frisky, then it’s off to Bikram I go. Either way, I leave the office looking like a bag lady, because I always carry school stuff + Bikram stuff with me everywhere I go.

Bikram always greets me with a warm gust of sweaty studio smell and The Quintessential Bikram Quote:

No Bikram pictures, because it would be weird to take photos at any stage within the studio. Then I take the tram home, getting home marginally earlier at the fun time of 10:30pm, which leaves me time to watch some TV shows, waste time online, and snuggle with Coco the cat before bedtime.