Comment of the Day

from a critical year 8 student: 

"You're a really good teacher, Ms Unger, and sometimes you're really funny. It's just you're not using your best material today."


Fair enough. Apparently my schtick is rather flat these days. Taking that on board. Will attempt to step it up and rework "my material".

Zen Bath

Water helps me think. It renews and refreshes me. The ocean and salt water encourage  me to play and they buoy my spirits. It's a bit of a distance to some clean sea water from the inner suburbs of Melbourne, so I sought out an alternative.
Tonight I went to the Japanese Bath House in Collingwood. It was beautifully relaxing. You leave your shoes at the door,  and you leave your clothes in a locker, and then, completely naked, you quietly and thoughtfully wash yourself  alongside a bunch of other  quiet, naked people (same sex, mind you). Your body squeaky clean, you sink into a clean, warm communal bath, and then sit and sweat in a hot sauna, scrub yourself again in a cool shower and repeat and repeat and repeat the sequence in any order you wish until it becomes a physical mantra of self care and nurturing. And you find stillness.

Blogging is weird

I love this picture. The Lorne pier looks like it's in a snow field!

I started blogging because it seemed a good way to stay in contact with friends and family back in Canada when I travelled overseas to Australia. I was looking for a fun alternative to those mass emails addressed to everyone in your contact list. I have a difficult time with sending and reading those missives.

Blogging appealed to me because I could be creative about what I shared with people. They could see what I saw in my pictures, and in my writing I could evoke the new and different smells, tastes and sounds of my life away from them. I could share my opinions and views about my experiences in that new world, and (sometimes honestly and other times cryptically) reveal to them what I was feeling.

Blogging is a public activity, and while I confide and share my feelings with a small group of people whom I love and who I know love and care for me, I really feel that the big 'ol blog-o-sphere doesn't deserve to know all of me.

And yet, I want people to know what's happening in my life. I want to connect with those who are far away from me; those people I can't hug in person or share a chat over a cup of tea.

Here goes the crypticism: (is that even a word?! it sounds and looks like mysticism...)

Suffice it to say that I am in a place in my life where there is both darkness and light. It's a place of potential; of choice. I'll be okay when I come through it.... it's just tricky when I'm in it.

Beach Glass Poetry

Sharp edges made soft and rounded by rolling and brushing against sand in the tides.

Ocean jewels.

Wet lollies. Sugar candy.

Beach Glass Reality

The most common colour of glass found on Victorian beaches is amber brown, the colour of discarded bottles of Carlton Draught and Victoria Bitters (also known as VB).

Where did February go?

Where did this month go? I think this may be the first time in 3 years when there's been less than 5 posts in a month. Well, it's been busy. Life takes over, and making clever observations of local flora and fauna or the best local place to get coffee and pastries is sometimes doesn't feel like a priority.

Having said that, Andrew and I have begun to explore our neighborhood. We have now collected take-away menus from all of the restaurants in Fairfield Village. We quite like the local Thai, and we learned the hard way that we can save $7 per main and $5 per starter at the local Indian by ordering take-away instead of eating in!

The Fairfield Train Station is guarded by The Dog Statue. I quite like him!

Apropos of dogs, I was born in a year of the dog. February was my month to learn (inadvertently) a bit about my Chinese Zodiac sign and some of the personality traits of people who are born in "dog years".

For those of you who know me well and love me, check this out. Certainly as I've reflected on the month just past, it's a bit interesting. Chinese Zodiac: the Dog

Look, I can't believe in it all, because to subscribe to it completely would be to deny the ways in which I am unique as an individual, and the ways in which my behavior has shifted, grown (or eek! not developed at all!) given my life experiences so far. (blah blah blah)
But seriously, come on! It's just interesting, is all.

Hey, how closely do you resemble your Chinese Zodiac Sign?

Cue the song I kind of wish wasn't in the Soundtrack of my Life, but it seems kinda appropriate lately.

Play me now!