Life goes on as normal
Work, home, friends, family. The routine of everyday life.
Well, what a boring life - not much has changed since my last blog entry. My sciatic nerve problem is still causing me a lot of frustration, although I'm beginning to get used to the pain, and manage it reasonably well.
Today I finished reading a children's book called "Paddington Der kleine Bär hilft, wo er kann" (Paddington The Little Bear Helps, where he can). It's a german children's book, and a good start for me to get into reading the language. I've been given a suggested book on amazon.de that I might buy...I'll have a look.
And my garden is not developing too quickly either - but hopefully some more will be done this weekend.
Till next time...ciao.
Well, for those still checking my blog - I'm sorry I haven't updated it in a while.
I don't really have an excuse - just lazy. I've also had this really annoying back problem which has made me very lazy in a lot of things. It's also prevented my from doing work in the garden which I had planned to do over the last month!!
The problem with my back is basically relating to my sciatic nerve. A disk in my spine is became inflamed about 6 weeks ago (probably from a variety of things - bad posture, straining while doing turns in swimming etc) causing irritation of my sciatic nerve. This is called sciatica and gives pain down my right leg. I'm seeing a physiotherapist and getting good treatment with that....so very slowly things are getting better - slowly but surely :-)
At one stage I was quite bad actually where I had real trouble walking, sitting, sleeping and in pain nearly all the time especially when I moved. Now I can walk reasonably well (but can't run) and I'm swimming again which I'm enjoying.
Well, otherwise not much is happening in my life. And I will try really hard to update this blog more often in future!
On 30 September 2006 Mum, Dad, Oma Z. and I went to the William Rickett's Sanctuary to remember my Oma K. who recently passed away. It was a place that is special because she introduced it to my parent's on one of her visits to Australia. It was a very fitting thing to do - and very peaceful and beautiful.
Later in the day Mum and I played Rummy, which Oma always loved to play. I won both games :-)
For dinner, Mum and I had sausages, mash potato (from a packet) and salad - like Oma used to make whenever I was there to visit. The packet mash isn't as good as the real thing - but that's how Oma made it, and it wasn't too bad. The sausages were about the only meat Oma ate occasionally too.
Later that night, I made pancakes. Oma always liked it when Dad would make pancakes in the evening. Yum yum!
The day was a fitting tribute to Oma, and co-incided with a family lunch being held in Germany on the same day.
OMG, I was on train this morning and a little tubby man sat near me (on opposite side of carriage) and he was disgustingly chowing on a hot dog....YUK! Then he opened a can of Coke, and ate an Apricot Bar. I thought that was plenty, but then he scoffed down a mars bar making all these chewing and slobbering sounds.
Sooooo grosse!
This evening I cracked the 2.5km swimming goal!! WooHoo!! Arno, wie geht's bei dir mit schwimmen?
It was such a good exercise session, but I'm a bit sore now. Not to worry, because I will now be having a few days rest from exercise.
After eating some yummy Laksa (made by Kai Ma) with toasted Turkish bread, my stomach was sore. It's good again now after a bit of a rest.
TUESDAY 12 SEPTEMBER 2006
I swam 2.2kms tonight! What a great feeling...although I shouldn't eat chocolate so much afterwards. Tomorrow I will aim for 2.5kms....one day I'll do 3kms. But let's not get ahead of ourselves :-)
On Friday 8 September 2006, my Oma passed away. She had a tumor that got the better of this very strong woman. She taught me many things, and I will always have fond memories of the times I spent with her. I am thankful to have had the opportunity to get to know my Oma even though she lived on the other side of the planet to me.
I hope my family in Germany also have many great memories of her.
Find out a little about the place she lived - a beautiful region which Oma loved very much. She showed me many of the places she enjoyed visiting.
Check out what happens to the web when a good, fun loving Aussie dies. See web link below.
The Age newspaper article
Rest in peace.
This morning I went to work as usual on the train. When the train arrived at one of the stops the driver announced that the train was delayed because of an "incident" at the station, and would be going shortly. Well, shortly can mean anything from a minute to an hour! So many passengers got off the train and boarded the one on the platform opposite which was also going into the city. Of course as soon as everyone made the train swap, the first train moved on, while our new train stayed still. Great! Now we are in a train behind the first one......but wait.....
....then I realised that this new train was going to go express part of the way, so would overtake the first train, which it did. Then it didn't go through the city loop like normal, it went straight to Flinders Street which worked out better for me anyway. I was having breakfast with a friend, AY, which was only a couple of blocks from there.
Then on the way home on the train I had an annoying young bloke singing out loud (well to himself, but loud enough for me to hear even though I had my headphones on!) next to me. Then he decided to lean against the seat I was in (he was standing) and basically also leaning on me!! Why me!!??!! I had to ask myself. He didn't seem to care even though I looked at him a couple of times to hint he should move a bit away. Didn't work, but I made it home.
Tonight we went out for dinner at Limor's Restaurant for my Kai Ma's birthday (Kai Ma means Godmother in Malaysian) - she's 50!! Happy birthday Kai Ma!! It was a big meal with great friends, and my parents were there too. It was a great night with plenty of food and laughs.
Well, the last two days were strange - Tuesday was actually a good day, while Wednesday was a pretty bad day.
Work was pretty ordinary - nothing special to report there. But in the evening RL and I began a regular swim program. We've decided that it would be a good idea to swim on twice a week, during the week instead of on the weekend. This way we save our weekends for sleeping in or doing other things. Anyway, we went for a swim and ended up doing 2km in the pool. This was a very satisfying feeling - exercise, and pushing the limits a bit. I felt healthy and good about myself.
Then came Wednesday. Again work was same old, same old. On the way home from work I was beginning to think that I was too tired and couldn't be bothered going for a swim. I rocked up in my driveway and got out of my car to open the garage. Next thing I know my neighbour is coming out of his unit yelling at me that I should tell my housemate, NL, to make sure his girlfriend doesn't park in the parking spot next to his unit. I tried to explain that that is a visitor's parking spot and not for his ex
clusive use. He then threatened to damage her car if she parks there again, which I told him wasn't a good idea. Then he said he wasn't going to pay body corporate fees (which he's obliged to-actually his wife is obliged to coz it's her unit) if he doesn't get anything for it. I explained he gets his building insurance paid for through those fees. In any case he just kept ranting and raving about the spot being his and that was the agreement between him and the previous owner and the owner of the unit on the other side of that visitor's parking spot. I again explained those "gentlemen's agreements" don't mean anything coz those parking spots are visitor's spots and for all unit occupants to use if they're free. And he went on and on yelling at me. So I decided he wasn't even listening to me so I said I didn't like the way he was speaking to me and walked away.
That gave me the impetus I needed to go and let my frustration out in the swimming pool. So RL came to pick me up and we went for a great swim. My arms ached at the 1km mark, but by 1.5kms I was going strong - spurred on by my anger with my neighbour. We ended up swimming 2.1kms and I was ready to keep going, but it was time to go home.
Tonight though, was also good (like Tuesday) because I cooked fish, with rice and vegies for me and NL. The fish was baked just right (garlic and fresh parsley added) and the vegies were also tasty (even though they were bought from Coles). I had a Drumstick icecream for dessert - yum!
And now it's late, AGAIN, so I'm off to bed. Hope to see you here again very soon! :-)
Two weeks ago I began a new job as an Analyst with the Department of Treasury and Finance in Melbourne. It's basically doing similar work to what I did about two years ago when I last worked there. Mostly it's policy/report/document writing work (a little bit of project management skills being used) but I should be doing some financial analysis work soon too. I'm glad I was able to get the work because it means earning twice as much as I was in the previous job.
Before this new job I was working at a milk factory. The best things there were that it was very close to home, I had no stress at all, and there was free milk everyday! Woohoo! On the downside the money wasn't that great, the work was monotonous, and the coolroom was soooo cold....brrrr. They were nice people there tho, especially on nightshift.
With my new job I now have a routine where I cook meals every week and freeze portions - so that makes lunches easy to take to work. On the train ride I spend the morning trip doing written exercises in German and then in the evening listen to german radio podcasts. It actually makes the train trips quite interesting because I'm learning something new everyday.
Sometimes I will probably even post a blog or two in German, for those friends who can read German :-) It'll be good practice for me too.
Well, till the next update keep smiling! :-D
Hi there! This is my very first blog. I will try to update it regularly, and perhaps you can post a comment as well :-)
