Lentil pot

Last night i discovered that when a recipe calls for a 400g can of brown lentils you cannot use 400g of uncanned brown lentils. I now have the lentilest soup in the world. There are a few vegies in there somewhere I'm sure, but mostly I am looking at a pot of brown stuff. Appetizing much? Smells good though!

Visa Round 2

Played my game of touch in the fog last night. It was pretty damn cold out there. We all had little steam clouds following us around. We did win, but didn't really play tremendously. Bring on summer! At least it gets me out of the house though. Not having a heater is pretty crap when you're just trying to watch TV. I need a few layers of clothing and a blanket - but even that's not enough at a certain point. The best thing is to just keep moving around. So I've been doing quite a bit of cooking lately - it keeps me warm while the oven's on and then cleaning up afterwards keeps me warm too. By then it's bed time and bring on the hot water bottle! Having a shower has become perilous due to my inabiity to leave the warmth once I'm in. It's not always this cold in Adelaide is it?

I posted off my visa application for India again last week. This time we are definitely going! In typical beaurocratic fashion, the instructions for how to apply for a visa are completely contradictory and confusing. MM and I both went to the same webpage and came out with completely different ideas of what we needed to do. I sent one photo and a reply paid evelope, he sent two photos and a $16 fee for courier return. We'll see who is correct! The thing that shits me about it is that they are completely unaccountable for the service they provide. If they change the rules on you you just have to cop it because they are not a shop or a business, you have no recourse with them. The Indian consulate isnt so bad because at least you can call them and speak to a person, but the British consulate is by far the worst. You cannot call them unless you are willing to give them your credit card details and pay $10 plus $2 a minute! You just have to makes guesses at what they really mean on their ludicrously complex application forms and leave yourself 6 months to accommodate the 3 re-applications you will no doubt have to submit because you dared to misunderstand their "clear" instructions. I really wish we could get the ACCC onto those people.

Friday

I'm going to the movies today. It will be the last of my free tickets. I think I will see the new Batman one. It seems to have been well received and I want to see what all the fuss is about. Plus, it's one of those movies you need to see on the big screen with all the surround sound stuff going on. Remember when surround sound came out? Man alive that was exciting. The introduction of surround sound into cinemas was the only reason Twister made any money in Australia.

Tonight I am going out for dinner and drinks with my friend from Norway. We do well together when drunk. I plan on drinking a glass of water between each glass of wine this time. Like I always do. Tomorrow I was planning to ride my bike down to MM's place and assist with fun house stuff. I like painting. But it's going to rain apparently. Why does it have to rain on the weekend? If it rains I will be stuck at my house so will read the rest of my book. I read some Zola before, Therese Raquin, but I am enjoying this one better, even though it is possibly even more pessimistic. La Terre is all about Frenchies in a particular small village. They all live off the land and behave somewhat like monkeys - just running around screaming at each other and taking each other's women. It is refreshing though, to read something written with such honesty from that time - most of the stories I have read until now have been of the romantic variety, i.e. Austen, Bronte, Colette. I like the naturalist view, as depressing as it is, because that's reality really.

In 30 minutes I am going out for a free lunch. Free stuff always tastes better so I am very excited. And hungry :)

New shoes

As the title of this post might suggest, I bought new shoes! I decided to have a look on ebay the other day after hearing about a few great purchases people have made recently. I have coveted a pair of Birkenstocks for a long time but at about $140 I am not about to fork out. I happened across a pair in my size for $80 so put in a bid. Very exciting. The bidding stopped at 3pm on Saturday and I was very excited to see I was the winner! Well, winner is not the best word since you do still actually have to pay for the item. I went round and picked them up yesterday after work and they are a perfect fit! So ebay is my new best friend.

Masters calls

Moohaha, I just received my last assignment grade back from uni and it was EXCELLENT >_<

Very excited, since I also actually really enjoyed that subject too. Hopefully I will receive the actual assignment back with comments too. I think they do these things just to make you want to keep studying when you've finally finished. It does make me think that if I could just find something I wanted to look into as much as my last assignment I could just about pull off the Master thesis. It's only 18,000 words after all, and if you add together all the words I wrote in one semester this year for all the assignments across all subjects it would be... about 20,000! So 18,000 is a piece of piss really...

Can you tell I am in two minds about this?

The negativo side contains;

• Increased HECS debt. Already painfully high. Eek
• Yet another delay on saving money for travelling next year - can't work full-time and write a thesis unless I want to destroy all human relations for 4 months.
• Stress factor

Yes, not quite enough positives there really. It's a lot of time and expense just for what is really simply an exercise in self-aggrandisement.

one green man

On Saturday night I went to a party thrown by a fellow student from my linguistics course. The host was a bloke from Saudi Arabia who I would describe as something of a 'social networker'. He is very eager to make new friends and is always inviting people to have coffee with him. I should have no problem with this, only it serves to highlight my immediate suspicion of and tendancy to automatically repulse those who go to great lengths to establish friendship. Whenever he has asked me for coffee I immediately start making excuses, even though quite often I do have half an hour to spare. I feel bad about it because this is what internationals moan about; that the locals don't want to mix with them. I would want to chat to him, but I don't want to go by myself with him on anything that could be interpreted at later stages as a date. Discussing this issue with my Norwegian friend, who I had no trouble getting to know, we decided the problem was caused by the boy-girl thing. Had a girly Saudi asked me for coffee I would have been much more likely to have said yes.

So is it an indicator of a raging arrogance on my part that has me believe that a boy would only ask me for coffee because he wants to make a move? Or is it a justified reaction given that our behaviour is shaped by experience and clearly there has been a pattern established in the past whereby an invitation to coffee does not simply mean coffee. Perhaps some from each basket? Anyway, after persisting in asking people out for coffee all semester this friend seeking man has decided to invite everyone round for a party. He consulted me in class on the matter of how to throw a party in Australia. Just as well he asked because it seems like parties in Saudi Arabia are quite different. He refused to just sit down and talk to us all night, a symptom of his upbringing where the hosts do not sit down while entertaining. No matter how often we told him we had enough food/drink/music, he was never satisfied that we were enjoying ourselves. The result of all this questioning and concern about our activities and enjoyment level was that our attention was drawn constantly to the function itself rather than just being able to enjoy the siutuation. I actually did rather enjoy myself - there were plenty of boys of middle eastern origin there with stories about their homeland to talk to, there was heaps of chocolate (!), there was wine that H and I brought with us. Aside from being asked if I was really enjoying myself every 15 minutes it was a pleasant evening. The best part was when the neighbour came over. A baby faced Indian man with carefully crafted hair, vast sparkling eyes and fingers full of emerald and gold rings broke onto set and assumed centre stage to announce his presence and introduce himself with much ado. Clearly accustomed to a more refined audience, he was alarmed when his Queen's English was mocked. The words 'natty' and 'dapper' jump into my head when trying to describe this man - I think his immaculate clothing probably cost more than my life is worth. It seems his family is ridiculously wealthy and all have rather important jobs in India, or for India and that leaves him with plenty of leisure time for things like adorning his fingers with sparkles. He really was something to behold - but not for the reasons I think he would appreciate!

Oh so bored

At work we had a party for some international students who have finished their Diplomas and for a couple of recent birthdays. I ate too much fruit and now my tummy hurts. Ohno. The strawberries were really yummy though, what is it strawberry season or something? I took a handful of snacks for later on as well... Sneaky.

It's been pretty slow at work recently. I am supposed to be working on an assessment module for a new course we are offering soon but somehow having heaps of time for it makes me less motivated to do it. Interesting. I've basically been spending my time looking up soup recipes (found some really good ones and made potato and leek soup last week and tomato soup this week) and ways to travel around the world without hoards of cash. I'm the expert on budget travel now.