A collection of disjointed thoughts

It's funny, quite often you hear summer before you feel summer, with the cicadas announcing the impending heat.

House parties are awesome. You get to choose the people, the venue, the food, the drink, the music and the air-conditioning temperature. And it doesn't matter what you wear or how drunk you get or how much you dance on the furniture, because you are surrounded by your favourite people. Cleaning up the next day is a bitch though. (Big shout out to the gang for doing most of the work on Saturday night!)

I started going to the gym and it has strengthened my arguement that exercise makes you fat as I have since put on weight. Stupid fitness. I am looking forward to long days of laziness down the coast at Christmas to lose it again.

Today I am wearing a new pair of shoes that are a pale silvery colour, which is strange as I normally wear black shoes to work. So strange that I keep looking at my feet when I walk. It's very distracting.

The city is absolute madness at the moment. Christmas carols pumping out in Queen Street Mall, half naked teenagers loitering everywhere, workers rushing around doing Christmas shopping in their short lunch breaks, and then moi waltzing around with my new Puma sneakers in an oversized bag hitting everyone on the way back to the office!

Update 2

While I have actually been getting out and doing stuff, there has been a lapse in blogging again. So I shall summarise the goings on of my life in bullet points, because I like bullet points and this is my blog and I can use them.

• I ventured back to the Walkabout at Temple to watch the first State of Origin game the other week, after managing to avoid any updates on the score throughout the day by getting a colleague to screen all of my text messages. Honestly though, you need to be drunk to be able to handle that place and as it was a Wednesday night I was not in a position to have a great time. Amber and Nicole did though!
  
  
• Jodie has returned from Australia but is yet to find employment, which leaves her free to hunt around on the internet for cheap theatre tickets – yay! We went to La Clique the other week and it was fantastic! The venue was really cosy and set up sort of like a circus, with strings of lights, and the stage in the middle. And the acts were great – a man who squeezed his body through a tennis racquet and made me laugh so hard I cried, a couple that did amazing spinning tricks on roller skates, a massive black man dressed in drag singing, a little guy dressed as Freddie Mercury that did juggling tricks and jokes, and crazy acts.
  
  
• This week we got £10 dress circle tickets to La Cage Aux Folles (aka the Birdcage) which was pretty good. The highlight were the five extremely fit, male chorus dancers, who were extremely entertaining from the stalls, but I don’t think I would have liked it as much if I was in the front row tables!
  
  
• Last weekend we did a day trip to Brighton which was really fun. The weather was unexpectedly gorgeous, and we all ended up getting a little sunburnt. We went down to the water, played games on the pier, went on our favourite ride – the Crazy Mouse, had fish for lunch (actually I had salad), did some shopping in the Lanes, and then whiled away the afternoon at the beachfront bar, le sigh…
  
  
• PowerPlate is either going to be my body-firming saviour, or the death of me. I’ve started doing PowerPlate classes at the gym, as I got a few sessions free with my membership. The idea is that you do exercises on a platform that vibrates, so a 30 minute session is equal to a 90 minute session on standard equipment. And at the end of it you feel like you’ve done a 90 minute session. The good thing is that the last couple of minutes you lie on the ground with your legs on the machine and get a muscle-stretching and cellulite-busting massage.
  
  
• I have been invited to the wedding of a colleague friend of mine in September, which is very exciting. When I asked what the dress code she was rather vague, though stipulated that most women would be wearing hats or headpieces. Crap. So the search starts now in the hope that I will find something appropriate in the next two and a half months.
  
  
• Just to fuel the fire that Jackie started at Christmas lunch, I bought a pair of Birkenstocks on the weekend. I had quite the internal fight prior to the purchase – extreme comfort and purple patent leather vs blatantly looking like a lesbian. Comfort won out. Though I won’t be wearing them with my new green skirt from Joy, as I saw an actual real life lesbian wearing the same skirt a few months ago.

PS. Mum, I am not a lesbian.

Make sure you are sitting down

Because I have got some shocking news....

I actually went to the gym and did a work out!

Man, I can barely believe it myself.

I've been talking about it for months, to the point where I bought flashy exercise pants (but then stuffed them at the back of the cupboard). And it was lucky I have started my fitness regime now, before I couldn't fit in those pants any more.

Ch-ch-ch-changes

I need to warn family and friends before I come home for Christmas – I have changed. Yes, I am not the same girl that left Brisbane back in April.

I have really long hair. Mum, you won’t believe it, but I wear my hair loose now – you would love it. My hair is the longest it has ever been, and I really need a haircut but am hanging out until I get home. I’m not a huge fan of "pretty" long hair on me, but it keeps my head warm!

I catch public transport now. Back in Brisbane, I drove my lazy-ass everywhere. I mean, I could have walked to work, but instead drove the five minutes there every day. In London, I spend up to an hour walking and catching the train to work.

I am fat. Despite prior warnings of the Heathrow Injection, and a personal commitment to not letting it happen to me, I got fat. Dad confirmed this with his taunts when he and mum came to visit. I’m just giving my friends a heads up, so it’s not such a shock when I get there.

I’m joining the gym. Refer to the above paragraph about me being a Fatty McLardbum. I’m going to the gym near work tonight and I am joining. Even though I’ve been saying this for five months now, this time I really mean it.

I am career focused. Back in Brisbane, I cruised through my job and made good money. My first job in London paid alright – £175 a day as an Events Manager. And it was boring. Then an Events & Marketing Manager role came up at The Government Agency which I accepted, even though it was only £160 a day, as I knew it would be a good move for my career. And it turns out it was! There is no way I would have gotten the job as Internal & Stakeholder Communications Manager (and the delightful pay rise) if I hadn’t already had my foot in the door.

I wear flat shoes all the time. I used to love wearing my cute little heels to work or going out. I think I’ve worn heels twice since I’ve been in London . High heels just aren’t appropriate given the cobblestone streets and the amount of walking I do each day.

I tell my mother and father so much more. With semi-regular blog entries and even more regular emails, my parents know so much more about what I get up to. I don't think this is a good thing. Hi mum, love you!