Not much in the way of posting for the last week or so, partly due to my computer being busted (now fixed, thanks to some of my Dad's spare parts and Gam's technological expertise!), partly due to the fact I spent all day Thursday and Friday volunteering at a public health nutrition conference and partly due to the fact I have been absolutely buggered the rest of the time- mid-afternoon naps and all. Must be getting low in iron.
=============================
Gam and I have also been looking after the managerial duties at our unit complex while our unit managers went to Emerald for a few days. There's not a lot of work involved for us- just fielding any emergencies and taking care of their one remaining cat (my buddy Wayne had to be put down due to a host of old age-related conditions... Feifei and I were very sad... Thomasina also seems rather lonely, and 'cries' a lot now). This time we had a nice young couple knock on our door around 10pm on Friday night to tell us they thought they'd been burgled. They thought right- some scumbag had slit their flyscreen and opened their screen door- but they were half-convinced they were imagining things, because the thief had taken $10 from the guy's wallet and a toy helicopter, leaving a GPS and two laptops sitting on the table near the door! When we were broken into a year ago the thief also didn't take anything other than my wallet- but we figured that was because the laptop and computers were all in the study and the thief would have had to walk past our open bedroom door to reach them. In this case the stuff was right on the table- and laptops are huge targets for thieves. Really odd. The managers are now thinking of recommending the landlords install little perspex screens around the lock to prevent thieves slitting the flyscreen, because even if the doors are locked with a key, the thief isn't going to know that until they've vandalised the flyscreen, meaning it needs to be repaired and/or replaced regardless of whether they gain entry.
=============================
Volunteering at the public health nutrition conference on Thursday and Friday was a great opportunity afforded to me by my (wonderful, wonderful) favourite lecturer, Lisa, who gave me first dibs on the chance to volunteer (along with 2 other people who obviously didn't take up the offer). My friend Erica, who's graduating with me this semester, also volunteered, so it was nice to have someone there who I knew- it's sort of daunting to be around so many people I don't know and who are all my superiors in both a professional and academic sense!
Usually the conference would have cost $150 (the student price!) so it was really good to be able to sit in for free and listen to a whole bunch of people at the forefront of public health nutrition research. I was also hoping to pick up some ideas as to what area I might be interested in doing an honours project in next year. I don't know if it helped so much with that- more that it helped confirm that I find it all so interesting I can't narrow it down to one area to concentrate on for a whole year- but I will be talking with Lisa this week and hopefully I can sort something out from there.
Another highlight of the conference was meeting a nutritionist who happens to be a friend of our friend Victor. He gave me her email address a couple of months ago but I never got around to emailing her- I just happened to recognise her name from her name-badge and took a chance that it wasn't a totally different person with the same name. It turned out that she not only did the same applied science- nutrition and food science degree at UQ that Erica and I have just completed, but she spoke very highly of the guidance she'd received from Lisa and another lecturer who I thought was really good (who has since retired and returned to the US) and said how much she loves being a public health nutritionist. It's that same sort of passionate interest in the field that Lisa has that I found so inspiring, and it's always great to hear someone say they love their job, regardless of what it is. Many people aren't so lucky, but I hope I am. Public health nutrition is such a broad and interesting field.
One thing I noted was the general air of optimism among the conference delegates that was due to the very recent election victory of Kevin Rudd. I think there is a real hope that some of the more pressing issues in public health nutrition will receive the notice they are due under the new government... there's no telling how much notice they will receive, of course, but it's almost certain to be more than under John Howard. Even at this conference, a couple of the people presenting papers relied on data from the 1995 national nutrition survey; one glaring area of neglect under Howard was his failure to provide funding for a new national nutrition survey. Forcing researchers to rely on data that is well over a decade old when eating habits have changed so much over the course of the last 12 years paints a picture full of inaccuracies- and this research is what supposedly informs the government policies that relate to public health nutrition! Ah well, the time for fist-waving is hopefully over. The conference finished with a brainstorming of ideas as to how they would go about flagging Kevin Rudd's attention.
=========================
We've got a few more wedding-related things sorted out- Gam and I went to taste some cakes and settle on a design on Sunday. We rode to Milton (we're going as local as we can with everything) and tasted cake in a tiny room across the road from the Suncorp Stadium. The cakes were tasty- we settled on two tiers with two flavours, caramel and marble- but frankly I like my cakes better. Unfortunately I have no decorating skills whatsoever, so we're forking over to have someone with a decade's worth of experience under her belt do the hard work for us. At a price, of course. This lady makes her own cake toppers, so despite my whinging about wedding clichés it looks like we're forking over a bit of extra money so we can have a Sarah-and-Gam cake-topper complete with Queensland Roar jerseys. In real life we have only one Roar jersey, and I keep forgetting to wear it (the shop at the stadium sold us a kid's extra-large thinking it was an adult X-large, so really it's too big for me and too small for Gam, but I've appropriated it because I don't like their new strip as much as the old one).
As for our reception, it's lucky I phoned up today to ask when we should go about choosing a menu, as when I called up the lady informed me that there was no booking for the 19th of January! Eeeep! Luckily they had space for me to make another one that day, and I got Mum to phone them as she'd already paid the deposit... it turned out that the person who Mum had booked with had booked it in for the 15th! I don't know how they could have misheard the 19th as the 15th, but just as well they hadn't already booked someone else for the 19th or I would have had to go all Bridezilla on their arse.
The lady also said that the menu will change in the new year and we should aim to finalise our own menu with them in early January. I don't mind what they do with their mains menu, but by god I hope they keep their desserts... I'm in love with those desserts we tried when we went to Watt for a 'trial run' with Rach back in September.
I had another measurement/fitting for my dress a couple of weeks ago, and tomorrow we're going in to hand over our nice kente cloth to the dressmaker so she can get started on the real thing. I wound up deciding on having it made in 2 parts- a skirt and top. I'm not sure why I decided on 2 parts- probably for practical reasons when it comes to getting in and out of the damn thing. I decided to have a hoop in the skirt for the sole reason that when I tried on one with a hoop vs one without, the hoop one was much cooler- air-conditioning for the legs! I figure that will be a bonus on a hot January day. I cope well with hot weather, but that's because I usually dress appropriate to the temperature, and a long skirt on a hot day isn't what I'd consider ideal dress for the conditions.
We also have to think about what Gam's going to wear. A suit seems horribly oppressive on a hot day, especially considering Gam melts into a puddle of sweat once the temperature hits about 26 degrees, so I'm hoping he'll go with short sleeves. I suggested that maybe we should ask Daddy to buy him a nice shirt in Ghana because I think Daddy has a pretty good record when it comes to buying Gam clothes (some of his nicest clothes were purchased for him by his dad), but Gam reckons there's a whole wardrobe full of clothes back in Botswana that are Daddy-purchases that no-one will wear. I have yet to be convinced. I've already given my own parents instructions that no-one is to feel obliged to wear a suit... I think people can feel they're expected to go a bit overboard in dressing for a wedding, whereas our biggest concern is that everyone is comfortable.
Another thing we've been doing since exams is making wedding invitations! Sure we're running kind of late with them, but we're only inviting around 30 people, most of whom pretty much know when and where everything is happening... Gam and I went to an art and craft store to pick up a couple of things for putting together the invites that my cousin Rach sent up, but we went a bit crazy in the paper section and bought a whole heap of paper... so the invites have had a substantial makeover. They're rather more brash with their colouring, but still made using Rach's beautiful artwork. Haven't taken any photos of them yet, so I'll try and remember to do that tomorrow.
We've also found out that two more of our good friends can't attend our wedding. Like our friend Nic, who'll be back in England by then, Niall and Sophie are pretty much going to be on the other side of the planet (Europe) when it's all happening. I'd be lying if I said we weren't disappointed that we can't have all our favourite people attend, but on the other hand, I think we'd probably miss our own wedding for a trip to Europe... Probably? Make that no contest!
===========================
At my friend Nicole's birthday dinner on Sunday night.
No comments:
Post a Comment