Yes, i am posting again for the moment.

Work related stress mainly, I don’t enjoy blogging when I am stressed.  Dad emailed this to me.

BBQ Protocol

We Aussies are about to enter the summer and BBQ season. Therefore it is important to refresh your memory on the protocol of this sublime outdoor cooking activity, as it’s the only type of cooking a ‘real’ man will do, probably because there is an element of danger involved.
When a man volunteers to do the BBQ, the following chain of events are put into motion:

Routine…

The woman buys the food.
The woman makes the salad, prepares the vegetables, and makes dessert.
The woman prepares the meat for cooking, places it on a tray along with the necessary cooking utensils and sauces, and takes it to the man who is lounging beside  the grill-beer in hand.

Here comes the important part:
THE MAN PLACES THE MEAT ON THE GRILL.

More routine….

The woman goes inside to organize the plates and cutlery.
The woman comes out to tell the man that the meat is burning. He thanks her,and asks if she will bring another beer while he deals with the situation.

Important again:

THE MAN TAKES THE MEAT OFF THE GRILL AND HANDS IT TO THE WOMAN.

More routine….

The woman prepares the plates, salad, bread, utensils, napkins, sauces, and brings them to the table.
After eating, the woman clears the table and does the dishes.

  And most important of all:

Everyone PRAISES  and THANKS HIM for his cooking efforts.
The man asks the woman how she enjoyed “her night off.” And, upon seeing her annoyed reaction, concludes that there’s just no pleasing some women….

It’s very difficult to understand for those people who haven’t been in one the personal pain that couples go through, when they are in a long distance relationship. The greater the distance, the harder it is to maintain due to cost. Can anyone afford a minimum of $5000 per visit to see their beloved? Up until a few weeks ago, I couldn’t afford that either. Living at my parent’s home has enabled me to pay off my credit card debt incurred after my overseas trip, and then having MM come over a few months later. It has taken 9 months. I haven’t seen MM since October 27, 2006.

What do we do then, to maintain some kind of relationship? Well thank goodness broadband was invented. He and I have been able to watch movies, documentaries, play games and talk to eachother nearly every night since he left. It doesn’t replace the warmth of a hug, the feel of his arms around my back as he pulls me into him for one of his awesome hugs. His smell as we snuggle, his laughter as we watched “thank god you’re here” on his last night in Australia.

Long distance relationships are the hardest to maintain. The level of trust required, the ability to deal with the raging emotions of anger, jealousy, disappointment and frustration as you know they are living their life, just as you are living yours. Going out with friends, and them looking at you with strange glances as you explain your complex situation and then think, ah fuck it -you wouldn’t understand. However, the one thing that he has said to me, through years of friendship stands out the most. That we would adapt, improvise and overcome (think Clint Eastwood, Heartbreak Ridge). I hold onto that as I struggle with my feelings of insecurity and uncertainty about what will happen.

In a month or so, we move to daylight savings, and my ability to communicate with him becomes much harder. The six hour time gap will become 8 hours, as they leave daylight savings, and we go into ours. I have modified some of my behaviours this week after months of workplace stress. I have previously written a post about the kind of calls that I get, that my consultants get and how it’s getting harder and harder to deal with. I started feeling that my misery and stress with work was affecting the most precious relationship that I have had with anyone.

Now I send email to him from work, I write about how I feel about work, and how it’s affected me, and he replies. He says all the things I can’t. This has helped reduce the stress quite a bit. We’ve started having fun again, we’re laughing again, and I have felt more relaxed and at ease. He’s thinking about coming to AU in December, but if that doesn’t happen, I will go over there. No matter what happens, it is clear that both he and I want the same thing, to be together. We shall work to make it so.

After reading an article today about Angry monks, I began to wonder. What are the Top 10 things to do when approaching a bunch of angry burmese monks?

10. Wear some warm colours, like orange and yellow, avoid white, and fabrics like velour.

9.  turn up on bicycles, they are harder to burn, and doesn’t pollute their harmony by making noise

8. Wear cotton, not leather.

7. Offer them your Coles or Woolworths petrol vouchers so they can get cheaper fuel.

6. Bribery - bags of rice will do.

5. Shave your heads before showing up, if you can’t beat them, join them.

4. BYO incense sticks

3. Offer them bottles of Sake, they like drinking - leave quickly soon afterwards.

2. Do NOT tell them that ninja’s are better fighters, instead, give them a ninja to beat up.

1. If you can’t find a ninja, dress someone up. Preferably, George Bush or John Howard.

Inspiration for this particular post can be found here… I

Twenty Burmese security officials who were taken captive for several hours by Buddhist monks have been released.

The officials arrived at the monastery in the town of Pakokku to apologise for injuries caused during a protest on Wednesday about fuel price rises.

But angry monks set fire to their vehicles and refused to let them leave in one of the most heated of a series of protests over the price increases.

The officials were freed after a senior abbot intervened.

 I think we can all agree, that monks are better than ninjas.

Its official.  [edited @ 3.30pm today for clarity and detail]

It’s my birthday. My activities over the weekend have been many. Went out to a party on friday, got drunk, ate chinese food. Went back to someone’s house, played spics and specks on their DVD, and then passed out at 2am on Sat morning.

Of course, whilst we (j & I) were waiting for the taxi, we opened up a bottle of wine and drank it on the kerb like a couple of derros. By the time we got to the restaurant I was half cut. We drank the rest of the wine in between courses, and I had this chilli squid dish that was so hot, that my mouth went numb. I couldn’t taste the wine or the food anymore after that.

Saturday was recovery day. Sunday I went out with the parentals and my sister to the WA Maritime Museum. Never been before and my suggestion if you are in Perth, and plan on going, put aside more than 2 hours. The museum is so huge we haven’t finished going through it. So we’re going to book outselves a session at the museum again so we can finish looking at everything, and go on the submarine tour!

It was a little like going to see the Norwegian Maritime Museum in Norway for some bits (boring stuff). Lots of different kinds of boats, bits of fishing material - this interactive stuff like dummies wearing bed sheets talking to you. Great for kids, when you are an adult, it’s a little cliched. There is an exhibition at the moment about the discovery of WA, from the Dutch, to the French, to the English. Of course, we didn’t see the real Vlamingh plate, or Hartog plate, but we saw replicas and that was OK i suppose.

Today, going to the Perth Mint, never been there before, all part of my educational birthday theme this year. Hopefully I will learn something on this visit aswell. Dad then told me last nigh that he installed some kind of exhaust pipe for something in their basement. Interesting

I am home at 3.30pm and now have a fully charged ipod. it’s no different to any other mp3 player, cept the cool thing is i can play videos on it, store all my photos on it (all 4.5gig of em) and play games on it. Bizarre! I purchased some car chargey goodness for the ipod. I can’t stand the idea of leaving my laptop on all day to charge the thing.

OK: The Perth mint tour was .. interesting. It was short, there wasn’t too much to see in reality, because lets face it, it has gold bullion stored somewhere in it, and you can’t take photos. We got to strike a coin. Well J did, we put it in the machine, it rumbled, and spat out a copper coin, with some stuff about the mint on it.

The highlight for me .. watching the gold bar get poured and created, hearing about the amount of gold they retrieved from cleaning the smelting room, lifting the gold bar (it was only 12.5 kilos heavy) and checking out the awesome display of gold ingots.

Another thing on my to do list is struck off, and that’s to eat some gold. I saw when I was a kid, this cake layered in gold, and I thought that would be awesome to do. So I purchased some gold brushed chocolate. Ok it’s creme de menthe, but who cares! I will be eating gold! woohoo!

I miss MM i hope we can talk tonight.