Sunday was quite a good day. Woke up early and went to church, where PJ spoke about becoming a somebody from a nobody. He was quite amusing, he peppered his sermon with loads of lame jokes and stories, even more so than usual. Then again, maybe that was cause most of the couples in church went down for the couple’s retreat over the long weekend and he was speaking to mostly the J-Life crowd. I had to give a little blurb (that’s a short speech, for all you who don’t know) about Found, the Women’s Ministry running in church.
Gen had asked me to speak when I swung over to her place on Friday night after cell. So then I gave it a bit of thought and then I SMSed her the next day saying that I won’t do it, just cause I didn’t know what to say. So Amanda SMSed me back encouraging me to do it. So by then I remembered that Amanda was with Gen cause they had worship practice that morning. Then Amanda rang me up and encouraged me to do it, saying that I could send her a draft and she’d review it that night. In the end, I wrote up what I was going to say and sent it off.
I can say honestly that I was not nervous about speaking in front of church. I was excited maybe, but wasn’t scared. Because it was a J-Life led service Joe was the MC and when he introduced me to come about and speak he was so amusing! Part of his intro was,
I really like this particular group but unfortunately I can’t be part of it. As much as I want to, I just can’t but I do support this group the fullest
By this time, the congregation must have been wondering what group he is talking about that he cannot be a a part of. So he introduced me and I spoke about Found. What I said:
When Found was started about 5-6 months ago, it was envisioned to be a place where the young women of J-Life could come and gather to discuss issues that are pertinent to our walk with God as women. I look back during the past 6 months and I asked myself, what have I learnt by attending Found?
I sat and I gave it quite a bit of thought. See, I’m not a person who does things for no reason so if I go every fortnight to Found, there must be reasons why I go. I look back and see Found as a place where I have found rest, acceptance and love the person I am. Once I realised God loves me unconditionally as His daughter, only then did things begin to click.
Found is a place where it empowered me to grow as a woman of God, to find my purpose as His daughter. The culture we are trying to cultivate is one which celebrates each other as God’s daughters. There was a time where Gen shared about the women that God used and honoured. There were many women of all sorts of characters, but God used them all the same. That brought home a powerful lesson for me: Never underestimate what God can do in your life.
It is these life’s truths that keep me coming back to Found. Each time I attend, there are new lessons to be learned. So I encourage all the young women of J-Life to come along to this week’s meeting. We will be talking about Queen Esther and who knows, you might learn something about yourself that you have never known! Found is on this Wednesday at 7.30pm at Pastor Jason’s house in Monash Avenue. Hope to see you there!
Towards the last part my cheeks were heating up but I was happy with what I had said. What I had written came from the heart and I think that nothing can beat what comes from the heart.
It was PJ’s birthday last Tuesday and Evan’s birthday yesterday. Some smart person decided bring cream and smear it all over them. That was probably the worst creaming I’ve ever seen, was such a crack on Sunday.
PJ looking to get Evan right after someone creamed him
Evan sneaks a chance to cream PJ
Proper picture of the birthday boys 
We went out for lunch at Penang after that and Amanda drove us up to Orchard Glory to say hello to the kids who were at the couples’ retreat with their parents. It was quite a bit of fun. We got there in time to help transform the hall into a restaurant, set with a centrepiece on each table as well as arranging the cutlery to restaurant standards, with 2 sets of cutlery. They even had the kids waitressing for them, cause they were having a dance session during dinner. Unfortunately we didn’t get a peek into the session cause we went over to see how the kids were doing. Glorz and Cel had to leave cause they had uni the next day so Amanda and I went to lend a helping hand to Kristin to take care of the kids.
Now I would say that I am patient and am not too bad with kids, but I think after my encounter with a whole bunch of girls under the age of 7, I’m scared. We managed to leave at 8pm after getting the kids to play games civilly, between the boys and girls. I never went through the stage where I thought boys had cooties so I definitely did not experience wanting to lock the boys out from the room. I was thoroughly amused by all the girls’ antics in regards to the boys invading the chalet. Let’s put it this way: I won’t have more than 2 kids. And Nic, if you are reading this, your sister thinks I’m a jelly bean. And she is parsley. Very long story :P). Had some really good chats with Amanda during the trip, managed to dig up our childhood meanderings. I remembered that I used to write so much when I was younger, though most of the time the stories I wrote about were fan fiction about *N Sync, there is my embarrassing fact for the day. Though I did and still do plan on writing lots of stuff when I get time, I think that will be my next project: To write short stories or at least chronicle my life in a bit more detail. It was great having time to spend with her, its not often we get to spend something like 3 hours in the car together, just talking about things and thinking about lots of stuff.
Got home at 10pm and promptly showered and climbed into bed and crashed. It was a really great day but I had lots of things planned for Monday. I had finished summarising my bank statements for my tax, just waiting for my PAYG so I can finally submit my tax and get it over and done with. Its really frustrating to not be able to claim my money back and the deadline is creeping up day by day. It is October tomorrow, which means I have 30 days to do my tax. Instead of having 4 months, my tax window has been narrowed down to roughly 3 weeks. It’s terribly annoying and I think that is partly why I’m so short tempered these days. I don’t like feeling out of control like this.
Yesterday was a public holiday in Perth, Queen’s Birthday so I had the day off prac/work. So I put it to good use by cleaning up my room. It was in a very errr…interesting state prior to this, but suffice to say that it is looking the best it has ever been Having the spare mattress out of my room made the whole space look bigger. It feels rather weird having so much space now 
Anyway, room cleaning aside, it was Evan’s birthday yesterday so there was a party over at Gen’s place. Oh boy was it an interesting party. We had a smorgasbord of food that was lovingly cooked by the various talented chefs. I am not included in the list of course
Unfortunately I didn’t get as many pictures as I would have liked but I was too busy being involved in “Operation Evan”. The mission was to throw Evan into the pool. Joe came up with the idea and ran it past Gen, who gave the green light and then proceeded to get his mobile off him. So Cheryl, Cel, Michelle and I manhandled Evan to the outside area where the pool was and it took the rest of the party to lock the door and took what seemed like eternity to drag him outside. He managed to give us the slip a few times but we promptly jumped and got him to hand over his wallet, watch and mobile. I was prepared to go into the water just in case so I got my mobile out as well. I was quite close to actually falling into the water by mistake but managed to dodge it. Since Joe was the instigator of this, he had to lend a helping hand to throw Evan into the pool. Then everything went a bit off plan.
Evan grabbed Joe around the waist and tried to pull him into the pool while 4 of us girls tried to push him in. Somehow or rather, Evan grabbed Joe’s jacket and Joe tried to wriggle out of it and next thing we know Joe was shirtless and Evan had Joe’s shirt AND jacket. Poor Joe had to get his shirt back while us girls tried to chuck Evan in the pool. After that, I think he gave up and just dived into the pool himself. I doubt Joe would have thought that he’d be stripped of his clothes while trying to get Evan into the pool. Pictures:
Michelle and John. Michelle, you’re hiding the brownie there!
Michelle and I. Oh goodness me, I can see the brownie remnants in the corners of your mouth…haha
Renee and I. I look way too happy there
I’m looking at that and just wondering if that was from the epic battle. It was quite a fight to get Evan into the pool. But it was worth it
The bow from my shoe, victim of the epic battle.
It was a great long weekend. I really needed that day off to straighten things out before diving into my busy days again. I must say, the party was a great way to start the week.
Went to prac/work today and while driving on Mounts Bay I had a feeling that there would be a camera and lo and behold there was one. I was really grateful that I slowed down just prior to that cause I was doing 70 km/h just before that bend and that would have been a fine and demerit points. So far my driving track record has been great, so I didn’t want to mar it. It alternated between warm and sunny, and cold and windy today. It was such strange weather, was really nice and warm when I got out of the house this morning and then next thing I know I was driving through the rain.
It was a day full of dramas, being already short staffed at work, there were only 4 of us in today, including the manager. Then the manager had a presentation, which left 3. Then my supervisor had a dizzy spell and fell so we had to send her home, which left 2 of us still standing. While we dropped her off home, there was literally nobody in our department. We had to forward the phone to the mobile and take that along with us. Definitely not a day to be going out.
I think I’ve written a whole heap of stuff today, finding it a bit hard to get back into the swing of things after a holiday I’ve gotta read the book of Esther and get ready for the meetings and trips tomorrow and I’ve got to get a bit more sleep so I can function well tomorrow. That’s all from me tonight! Feel free to comment!
I have been out of the house since 7.45am this morning and got back at 7.45pm today. I woke up to a very rainy and grey day. I’ve gone and delivered a mattress to my aunty’s house, along with a suitcase and some angku kuih. I must admit, I think carrying a mattress like that in my car (front passenger seat folded down and back seats folded down as well) wasn’t the safest thing to do, since the mattress blocked the view of my left blind spot. Luckily the route to her place does not involve looking much into that blind spot.
Next I rushed off to work, since I had spent quite a bit of time playing with the baby over at my aunty’s place (he is sooooo adorable!!!) and inevidently forgot all about the time. Did that and had a go at finishing my strategy sheet for the clients I’m going to see tomorrow as well as fixing the resource sheets I’m doing up for all the resources at work. so far it looks spiffy and I’m beginning to see the results of my labour
Went off to lunch after that and off to my Design for Dementia course. So far I’ve only gotten placements in aged care but I think this is probably the area that I want to work in. I guess you could say that I’m knowledgeable in this area or feel for the people in nursing homes or hostels that are left to their own devices most of the day cause there just aren’t enough staff to give them optimal care unless they pay exorbitant prices for care. We all deserve a reasonable amount of care and meaningful activity in our daily lives and sometimes it takes someone to tell care staff to do things a bit differently to enable a person to take part in a meaningful activity or just to provide the person an interaction and thus decrease all the behaviours such as wandering, agitation and anxiety. Sometimes it takes maybe a little extra in terms or time and effort to save a lot more in the long run.
We just did an education session with a facility about sensory based activity and the need for the person to engage in meaningful activity that is sensory based as the dementia progresses. The disease robs the person of the ability to plan, to sequence and to make sense of their environment. Often, the person uses their basic senses such as touch, smell and sight to make sense of what is going on around them. I guess I could go on and on about how what is meaningful to us can be torture to another person. A good example of this was to give a person a fidget item like a Tangle or a Flexiball. For me, I could spend hours and hours just going about it, fiddling with it and just sitting there, left to my own devices with these things. On the other end of the spectrum, it can drive someone up the wall just cause of its endless possibilities. I don’t have much time tonight to write about the sensory needs of a person with dementia tonight but after today’s course I’m riled up to write something from what I’ve gained from this placement.
If you had asked me 6 months earlier, I would have said I was not a people person. I would have preferred an office environment, set me up in front of the computer with statistics and Excel worksheets to write and I’d occupy myself for hours. After 2 weeks at this placement, I realised I really crave the human contact and the need to interact with people, to feel like I’m making myself useful to them. I feel like when I do assessments with them I’m making an impact on their lives, an impact that I can see with my own eyes and feels ‘real’ in a sense. I’m not saying what I’m doing at this placement is useless, but I don’t really feel comfortable with providing strategies to people and expecting them to carry it out. Sometimes it doesn’t happen due to many barriers such as funding or lack of staff. Sometimes I just want to take all these people from the nursing homes and start up my own nursing home to provide the optimal care that they need. I sure as hell don’t want to be put in some of the facilities I visit, when I grow older and am unable to care for myself. Most places I see have not many staff and leave most of the residents that are not independent in mobility, to watch TV for hours on end. I would definitely not want that. Heck, I think if you did that to me, I’d go crazy after a while.
Like I once told my supervisor, to drive me mad all you need to do is put me in a barren room, take away my sunshine, take away activity and I’d be crawling mad. I need to be occupied with things, same with any other person. Speaking of which, after that course I spent some time over at aunty’s place again, just playing with the baby and attempting to feed him. I tell you, it ain’t easy but we now know that I can feed a baby even if I can’t cook to save my life Dinner was vege pie, meatballs and roasted veges. Was superb food! I was craving meatballs for a while and those were the best chicken meatballs I’ve ever tasted! *drools*
Anyhow, I think I’ve ranted enough for tonight. My bed is a-calling since I have a long day again tomorrow.
This is the fullest I’ve ever seen my diary and when I was writing down the things I needed to do for these 2 days, I thought that maybe I’ve been writing down too many appointments or things to do. But it turns out that I just have a lot to do and that I’m really lacking sleep nowadays trying to get all these things done.
I think that this is a part of growing up. I’ve got to deal with my taxes, insurance, superannuation, jobs, and migration papers. I half expect myself to explode with the sheer amount of things that I have to do, but I’m still here, sitting in front of the computer typing up this post. I’ve just had my mid way evaluation for my prac and I passed it, no problems. I managed to squeeze in some grocery shopping after going to the nursing home today, and next on my list is to finish coming up with questions for cell, apply for Christmas jobs, update my CV and intro letter to e-mail to my next placement. On top of that I’ve got to fill out my migration forms as well as try to fill out my tax return with whatever information I have on hand. And its already 9pm.
Sometimes I wonder, how long can I keep this up? But then again, if you take away all my busyness, I would probably die out of boredom. Either that or exhibit some very agitated behaviours.
Yesterday night I was partially incapacitated due to the fact that I was working on 3 hours of sleep. I had went to bed at 2am and woke up at 5am to finish my assignment which was due yesterday. And I didn’t sleep till 12am this morning. So that would mean that I was for 18 hours, part of which I drove to uni, drove from uni to work, drove from work to home, drove from home to my other work place, drove home from that, drove to IGA from home and then off to Amanda’s house for cell. I can tell you I nearly had a few accidents between all those drives, the most serious one was where I nearly hit a car trying to reverse park. Ironically I find reverse parking much more easier than forward parking but I misjudged the distance due to my sleep induced haziness.
I came home after cell and promptly fell asleep from 1200 hours to 1030 hours today. That was the best 10.5 hours sleep I’ve had in a while. I’ve been working on lack of sleep for the best month or so and its the accumulation of this sleep debt really is bad. I had a course that I had to attend yesterday from 9.30am till 4pm and I had 2 coffees by 11am and I was feeling horribly sick. Just so you know, I’m generally a coffee person, but downing so much caffeine in such a sort period of time really got me really nauseous and I don’t think I’ll be doing that anytime soon. Drinking bottles of cold water and eating some food and having the air conditioning turned right up helped with the sleepiness. Never again shall I binge on caffeine.
Speaking of working, I’m off to get to work now to earn my keep!
It’s amazing how Perth is so different from Melbourne yet so the same. On the way to work, it was such beautiful weather, with the sun peeking from behind the clouds, its first rays beginning to warm the skin.
10 minutes after I get to the office, it starts pouring buckets. Then the wind starts blooming blowing and howling through the office. After pouring down a good heap of rain, then it decides to go cloudy. Took a walk down to the Herdsman, neglecting to bring sunnies cause it was cloudy only to find that after buying lunch, that it was bright and sunny again.
And then the whole rain, wind, cloudy, sunny cycle repeated itself a few times.
Thankfully it didn’t pour while I went to Spotlight in Innaloo on a shopping mission. Yes, I was sent to Spotlight to get stuff for work How cool is that? I managed to spend an hour and a half there and was under budget 
Though I still have to get more stuff for the boxes….Oh well, they can sit nicely in the car and wait till I being them to work tomorrow. The best part about being sent on a shopping trip is that I got off work early. Left work at 2 and got home by 4.45pm. Earliest I’ve ever finished here Craft shopping aside, I still have my 8 page assignment to do. I’ve sort of done my research and I’ve changed the person I’m doing it on yet again. This time I think I’ll find it a lot more easier to do…Hahaha.
Here’s to me actually finishing it in time to get some sleep tonight and stay same for all tomorrow’s happenings.
Irony is when you know how to code HTML, XHTML and CSS but don’t even know how to work the phone in the office.
My assignment has run into more hiccups along the way. I’m so unmotivated to do it now. I’ve written about half a page worth of stuff, here’s to writing 6 and a half more pages by Friday morning.
Then there is the problem of actually handing it in. I am not able to take time off work so I’ll just e-mail it to someone to hand in for me. I seriously hope it works.
This was due to the Imagine Christmas photos and comments. Only 12 hours or so since I last checked it and that’s what I came back to. I’ve gotten about 100 e-mails in the last day alone. Haha….I feel special
On Wednesday I finally was stuck in my first traffic jam in Perth. Or rather I would say, got caught driving in a traffic jam. It took me 20 minutes to clear I think a few hundred metres on Shepperton Road. Given that it was peak hour, it took me 1 hour to get to work that morning, for what usually takes me 30-40 minutes driving I was really peeved that morning. But the thing that really topped everything off that morning was not that I had to endure sickeningly long queues first thing in the morning but rather that there was this driver that was behind my car all the way from Shepperton Road to Mounts Bay Road that kept stopping way too close to my car. I know that my car is a hatch back but this lady was coming really really close to my car.
I got quite agitated by her driving. I tried altering my driving just so I gave her time to brake before but nope, she was so keen on driving right up to the back of my car. I remembered that I had brought a camera in my bag (in my resolution to blog with pictures each day) and duely snapped pictures of her.
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She’s lucky I didn’t get a picture of her face….Grrrr
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I was nice enough to block out her car registration number….But I was so stressed driving to work that morning.
Suffice to say, I wasn’t having a very good day at work. I usually sit at my desk and amuse myself for hours, writing up resource sheets or doing reserach about dementia and related conditions, symptoms and the list goes on and on. I even went as far as looking up Alois Alzheimer on wikipedia. Wikipedia is not my new best friend in the office to look up random facts. And Google Maps are also another one of my favourite sites to look at to amuse myself at the images and how to get to places.
For cell on Friday, we had steamboat and teppanyaki at Joe’s place. We ended up cooking up a storm and had lots left over.
I apologise for cutting off some people from the photo :S
Warning: Photo heavy beyond this point
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It’s been a rather full on week. We had a full dress rehearsal on Monday for Imagine Christmas. I tell you I have never worn so much make up in my entire life. We practiced on the actual stage, with lights and music and everything and there is definitely room for improvement but it is looking much better.
Due to so many things happening this weekend, this week’s cell has turned into a social and we’re having steamboat at Joe’s place and watching a movie and having bubble tea during the movie. Well, that is turning into quite an activity tiself, trying to organise food, movies and people RSVPing.
And to top everything off, I managed to reinjure my back. On Saturday I woke up with a slightly strained back muscle and worked through the pain. Rested on Sunday but strained it again slightly. Rested and was fine on Monday till Tuesday. Today, in the car, I was twisting and reaching behind to get a cushion to prevent me from having more pain (ironically) and I really did my back in. I didn’t hear any crack but the pain is now in the middle and its bad when I’m sitting but better when I’m standing. I have a really bad feeling I did something to my discs in my lower back. I cannot afford to have an injury now, with the dance only 3 days away.
Oh and FYI, taking Panadol with coke does not get you high. I assure you I did not conduct this experiment knowingly. I had Panadol on the way to work cause I was in way too much pain and I thought I’d better stretch my legs at Maccas on the way to work and to get a bite to eat. I craved coke cause I was just so tired and I ended up getting coke just casue I wanted a cold drink that came with the meals and not the coffee. I only realised my mistake a bit later on at work. That was when I promptly texted Chester to ask if the myth was true. His reply:
You will explode. It’s true…..Hahaha….Kidding….You’ll probably just burp a lot
At that point I was on the phone to someone at work and I had only read the 1st part and my eyes were bulging open. I think I must have froze for a while and then realised that only happen to seagulls when you fed them Panadol. I bet the lady on the phone was wondering why I sounded like an idiot.
As a result of being in constant pain over the day I had: 1 medium coke from Maccas, 1 cappuccino from a cafe in South Perth (cause we were meeting a client there) and 1 double shot coffee at work. Plus 3 Panadols to make it through the whole day. I seriously hope with sleep tonight it’ll be less painful. Already by walking to my car it was less painful. I think the problem is compounded by me sitting in the chair for a few hours a day.
As you can tell, my diary is full and it’s getting harder and harder to squeeze things into my day. I’m literally booked out from morning till night. I just want to sleep. I want Kristine Time.
