Posted on

plaster from toes to mid thigh

Well Mum is not going anywhere fast. She has a leg in plaster and Matthew and I are rapidly adding to the list of reasons why the household needs a laptop. The following is the email that she dictated to Pabbi (hence it does not talk about Matthew and I) that she sent to friends and family. Saves me typing it out.

On Sunday I broke my leg. Paul is typing this for me while I lie in Helen’s bed with my right leg on a pillow. Paul has been fist class at looking after me and helping me etc over this episode

I have plaster from my toes to mid thigh.

I am pain free.

Now for the details:
The following is my own fault, I know I have a tendency to be a bit gung ho and normally I keep that well under control, but on Sunday I didn’t

On Sunday I was leading a small group on a walk from Lemon tree flat to Sentinel point and Mt Huntly (South of Cunningham’s gap) We went up a cliff break on a rope but I decided to come down without the rope. I was almost down when I slipped a bit and where my foot landed gave away, and my foot went in a hole almost to my knee, and I kept going. Before I got myself disentangled from that, I immediately I knew I had done something bad to my knee. I sat still for a while and put some more clothes on, the general consensus was that I had done a ligament bandaged my knee and walked out with the help of two walking poles and someone carried my pack. it was a slow walk. As long as I did not try a twisting movement of my knee and I walked slowly it was quite ok. We had to walk about an hour and a half before we got to the end of the 4 wheel drive road. One of the men had gone ahead and he got back there with his 4wheel drive the same time as we did. Went back to camp and had a sleep while I waited for Kay, my traveling companion to come back from her walk.

Kay packed us up and drove my car to Brisbane. Because I thought I had done a ligament I did not go to the hospital that night but hired crutches on the way home.

On Monday Paul took me to the 24 hour medical centre at Kedron and I had xrays of my knee. The GP there thinks I have fractured the top of my Tibia (shinbone) I was put in plaster (Paul did a great job of assisting the nurse as this sort of plaster is a 2 person job)

I was given a referral to a lower limb specialist but he was not open for business today, I shall call him tomorrow morning.

More news when I know more.

Meanwhile I am drowning in marking and reports. Fortunately a recently retired teacher from my school is taking my classes, by pot luck she also teaches Maths A, B and C

What she doesn’t say is that the GP said that best case scenario she is back at school in a couple of weeks, worst case scenario she may never go back to teaching. It seems that this sort of break can have all sorts of complications. We are all adapting our life to our new found situation. Once she has finished her marking, she plans to break out the embroidery etc that needs to be finished off as unfortunately unless we get a new sewing machine table there is no way she will be quilting.

I had my first exam today which I am pretty sure I did alright in, I knew which questions would be on the exam so I was able to prepare my essays beforehand. I have another exam tomorrow which is for my Ethics and International Relations subject, even more fun.

We have evolved from having a Nintendo 64 which Matthew and I were given for Christmas many moons ago to having a Nintendo GameCube that Matthew bought off eBay for cheap as people sell in preparation for getting a Nintendo Wii. I can’t wait to get Burnout for it as that is one game that I rocked at when I used to play at it my ex-boyfriend’s house. Matthew is planning on attempting to get Mum hooked into playing the games with him; however I do not see that as a likely event.

I picked up this pretty cool book in the 75% bin at Borders today – All My Life For Sale, it is the catalogue of a man selling almost all of his worldly possessions on the internet and the history and future of the items, pretty darn cool 🙂

Posted on

O Fairy, Where Art Thou?

O Fairy, Where Art Thou?
I was not studying the other night and came across this photo as I was sorting through some files and the idea that a fairy should be there came into my mind. Then as I thought more I thought of O Brother, Where Art Thou? I haven’t actually seen the movie but have heard the soundtrack a couple of times. This was taken back in March when we had a couple days of rain, not though it fell where our dams are. The dams that feed the Brisbane area have just fallen to 30% capacity, this means that we move into level 3 water restrictions. Level 3 restrictions means that we have to now use a bucket or watering can for watering or washing of cars. Brisbane is in a serious drought and the rain is rarely falling in the catchment areas for the dams 🙁 Want to read more? Water Forever – SEQ Water Saving Initiative. Back to the layout though, maybe I should have called O Rain, Where Art Thou? instead 🙂
The last couple of days I have:
  • Gone to the Lifeline Bookfest today, picked up two books and three magazines for $2
  • Listened to an interesting talk by Francis Fukuyama of The End of History fame on why he is moving away from the US government and the neo-cons, he drew attention done to some work done in comparing the Christian Reformation with the events in the Islamic world today, all really interesting stuff. The talk was given at the Philadelphia Free Library and you can go here to listen to it – Background Briefing
  • Studied some and then bludged some, need to do more of the study – First exam is on Tuesday
  • I have baked two times in the last three days – more on that to come later
  • Scrapbooked the above layout
  • Worked on Saturday as usual and head off to work at 5am in the morning like usual

This weekend is a long weekend for the Queen’s Birthday so Mum went away walking for the weekend, so we were not expecting a call this evening saying that she would be coming home early. She has had quite a serious accident, she did the proverbial broken leg in a rabbit hole, though she hasn’t broken her leg just stuffed up her knee something horrid and it wasn’t a rabbit hole either, just a hole. On our way back from picking her up from the house of the lady who drove her back to Brisbane we picked up a pair of crutches! No one in our house has ever needed crutches before! She has two weeks left of school left before the winter holidays and she has already called her boss to tell her what has happened. She also won’t be going walking anytime in the next couple of months so luckily we had decided not to the Mackay Highlands Great Walk in the holidays or that she had decided a couple of months ago to postpone her next walking trip to California to do part of the Sierra High Route from this July to next July because there is no way that would be going ahead now.
I just got this quote in my ThinkExist daily email and I quite like it 🙂

“Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending” – Maria Robinson

Posted on

as young as we act

only as young as you actI handed in my last essay yesterday. Now I just have classes today and tomorrow, swotvac (study week) next week and then four exams in the two week exam block that follows.So between catching up on some TV (McLeod’s Daughters, ER and The Glass House) and working on a little surprise I did a page which ended up been so much simpler than I had planned. As you can probably tell it is only 1 photo, 1 piece of “paper”, a font and a little dose of Helen.

These are two of my sweet nieces, like every day I spent in Iceland I can play this day out on the TV in my head but this day something very special happened. Birta, Silja and I were waiting in the car whilst my brother went to get something, which meant we were just going crazy singing along to Icelandic Pop. Then my brother came back and said a few sentences, which left the girls in shock. They had just made the connection between me been their father’s sister and that meaning I was their aunt. It was classic.

We then met up with my sister-in-law and then spent the rest of the day at the Reykjavik Children’s Zoo and Park. This meant that big kids and little kids alike got to have fun watching animals and playing in one big and very cool adventure playground. 🙂

If someone came up to me tomorrow and said “here is a ticket to Iceland”, I would take it and run!

I have four nieces, five nephews, two sisters, four brothers and a scores and scores of aunts, uncles, cousins and the like in Iceland. Who are all in my mind each and every day.

If I was magical I would pick Iceland up and move it to just off the coast from Brisbane and then I would put a magical dome over it so it would retain all its Icelandic weather and stuff. Then Iceland would just be a short trip from Brisbane. How much would that rock?

Posted on

Holy Cripes Batman!

Holy Cripes Batman!

I got 35.5/40 for the essay on Japan and the modern day effects of their past military agressions that I really did not like doing. Can you say Happy! 😀

I was bouncing round the room like crazy.
Then I put the camera on the tripod and proceeded to take 124 photos of myself.

But can you spot my fake tooth? or my ultra cool Mountain Goats t-shirt 🙂

I  have the final exam for this subject today and unless I bomb out on the exam I will be getting a distinction.

Posted on

Big changes ahead in China

Today I have written something like 1300 words or so only about 200 words till I reach my target but I will reach that when I finish my editing and write my conclusion.

The funny thing is that the essay I am doing is one that I have found reasonably hard to write even though it is on a topic that interests me more than any of the other essays I have done in my life. It is on a topic that I know really well and without a doubt will be a topic that I will follow for the rest of my life irrespective of what field I end up in.

I am doing my essay on the implications that the growing disparity in birth sex ratios is starting to cause in China.

You say what? Parts of East and South Asia are seeing a massive shift away from the natural population sex ratio that is roughly 104 males to 100 females. The reasons behind this vary from country to country.

In some provinces in China this ratio is 137 males to 100 females, this was in the 1-4 years age group in the 1995 census.

Think about that in a society where traditionally 99.9999% of the population were married at some stage of their life, even if a son died before he was able to get married, a ghost marriage would occur typically with a girl who had died before marriage so that their souls would have peace. Historically in Western Europe, about 85% of the population or so would marry. In the case mentioned if there was no migration in or out of this province and 2% of the females for some reason did not marry, there could be at least 2 in 5 males who would not have the chance to marry.

In saying that though the average for the lower age groups ie the people who have not yet married is around 116:100 – which would mean that you at looking at what 1 in 6 males not marrying who are going to have to adapt to a life of bachelorhood in a society where it has not been a traditonally accepted lifestyle.

This will increase before it decreases. Big changes ahead in China.

Why are the ratios so large? In China it is due in part to a number of reasons.

  1. Cultural preference for a son, as they carry on the family line.
  2. Declining total fertility rate which was pushed rapidly along with population control introduced in 1979 aka “One Child Policy”
  3. Access to prenatal sex determination technology and abortions.
  4. Neglect or infanticide of girls.
  5. Underreporting of female births (though in the whole this is believed to a lesser problem).


That is just some of the stuff I am writing about and I really enjoy it. So there is a sneak peak into the life of a final year Asian Studies student.

Bit of a change away from what I normally write about but hey it is something that interests me.

Ohh and you may have noticed a few cosmetic changes round the place. I have changed the images in my banner and a few other little things.

Posted on

$11.60

Ever wandered what AU$11.60 looks like in a collection of 50c, 20c, 10c and 5c pieces? Well the photo below shows you.

$11.60

There is in 2x50c, 19x20c, 47x10c and 42x5c for a grand total of 110 coins.

You say, please tell Helen what does $11.60 buy you these days?

I respond by pulling out a 3 zone 10 trip concession bus ticket. The key to traveling across town and back four to five times weekly to go to uni.

For a number of reasons (impulse purchases and to keep my wallet thin), I only like to keep a couple $1, $2 and 50c coins in my wallet and maybe a $5 note. Everything else goes into a jar in my room and when the jar starts to get full I take it down to the bank and they have fun counting it all.

The other day though I needed to get a new bus ticket and you can only really pay cash for the tickets, I decided to see how much money I had in my jar, I had about$12 in coins, Bonza!!! The right amount to get a bus ticket. I bundled it all up in a piece of cloth and made my way to the shop to get a ticket. To put it simply the guy at the shop was not as enthused as I was about my pile of coins 🙂